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With the web already flooded with websites and new ones coming every day it's becoming increasingly difficult to stand out in the crowd. Providing rich, original content builds credibility quickly and effectively. Subsequently, SEO copy, or developing great content, has had to evolve to stay current with the many changes in social media in the past few years.
Your readers' experience is affected more by the words you write than anything else you publish. Flash animation, groovy pics and cool fonts don't hold a candle to the content. Unlike the mantra in other marketing mediums, focus on the steak, not the sizzle.
Achieving credibility in your field is paramount to success. More content = more credibility = more traffic and greater conversion rates if that is your end goal and your content is written to that end.
Writing sales copy? Know your readers hot buttons. Keep your ear to the groud and write to your readers wants and needs, not your own PR.
Write for your readers first and the robots second. Both are necessary, but the humans come first. No use writing perfect SEO copy if no one can stay awake long enough to read it.
A word about the spiders... keep each page on a single topic containing the main keywords. These are words or phrases that your ideal customer would be typing into to a search box to find you.
Building credibility in a sometimes cynical world can be tough. Readers want facts and solid reasons to buy what you're selling, even if all you're selling is a product review or a convincing argument. However, people in general tend to believe what they read, which is a plus, and even more of a reason to be credible, original and unique.
With the World Wide Web already flooded with websites and new websites popping up every day it's
becoming increasingly difficult to stand out in the crowd. Anyone who is involved with an online
business knows the importance of providing rich, original content and building credibility in the web
world. Content or SEO copy writing is not new; it has existed since the birth of the internet, but with the continual changes in technology, content writing has had to evolve to stay current to the many
changes.
Research has proven that the content of your website contributes greatly to the usability and
effectiveness of a site. The overall visitors experience is affected more by the words your write than
anything else you publish; flash animation, groovy pictures and the coolest fonts don't hold a candle to
a well written article, blog post or product description. Achieving credibility in your field, which comes
as a by product of publishing well written original content, is one of the most important factors to
increasing your conversion rates.
True, behind every successful website there is unique, accurate, interesting, and reader-friendly
content. A few great articles can build your web site's credit immediately. Since your entire internet
marketing campaign is directed towards your specific audience, the language and style of the content
should be in accordance with your targeted reader.
For example, if you are writing sales copy then you should have an excellent feel for what your
reader's "hot buttons" are regarding and write to their wants and needs. A successful site grabs the
attention of the visitors within 5 to 10 seconds.
The content should be written keeping in mind the SEO requirements as well as your target audience.
In other words, you write first for the humans, you write second for the robots. Both are necessary.
But your readers come first. No use writing a paragraph of perfect keyword density copy if no one can
stay awake long enough to read it.
To please the robots, or Google spiders, each page should revolve around a single topic containing
the main keywords. Your main keywords are the words or phrases that your perfect customer would
be typing into a search engine to find your web page. The content should be written as an inverse
pyramid, with an introduction that provides the summary of the page. Remember to use of objective
language, it further builds your credibility. You can provide secondary and background information on
separate pages which can be accessible from an internal link. Oh, and a quick tip: readers dislike to
download several pages to cover one topic so put the printable versions on a single page.
Building your credibility in a skeptical world can be a tough task. Users want facts and solid reasons
to buy what you're selling, even if all you're selling is a product review or a convincing argument.
However, people in general tend to believe what they read, that's a plus, but you have to make sure
what you're saying is credible.
A few more credibility building tips:
• Always stand behind the product, service or even the opinion you're selling. Here's how:
• Offer complete money back guarantees. Leave the customer no reason not to buy now.
• Provide testimonials from other customers who have purchased your product or service. You
will never find a more persuasive sales technique than from a person who believes in your
product and has previously purchased from you.
• Give away free samples of your product or offer an initial free service to demonstrate your
quality.
In the last post I talked a bit about what SEO is and why it is so important to today's business. In part two, we're going to discuss how you can make on site changes to make it more "search engine friendly." There are numerous ways to do this and in the future I'll go into much more detail on more advanced strategies. But, for right now, I want to concentrate on the basics and what you can do right now to start optimizing your site for better traffic.
Keywords. Key Words. What Keywords are your customers searching for? Is a Keyword a word, or a phrase. Actually, both are important. On site optimization begins and ends with selecting good keywords for your online business. It is critical for success. Why? Because your keywords are used in so many different places. You need to have them on your web pages, in links back to your site from complementary web sites, in pay per click ads (PPC), and in all of your copy writing.
Proper SEO requires looking at your entire website and how you can best target new customers with keywords that are related to your business, your specific products and what makes your services unique. You need to think like your customers, not like a website owner. If you were looking for your products, what exactly would you type in to search for it? Think about this. A lot. Brainstorm, practice, type in search queries and see what competition comes up. Try different combinations. The more time you spend on this the more profitable you're site will be. SEO is not about branding, it is Direct Response Marketing... it's about selling your wonderful products and services, nothing else.
Each page on your site should be optimized for different keywords depending on what you are selling or what kind of traffic you are trying to attract. Product pages especially should be optimized with more niche, or targeted, keywords.
For example, if one your website sells scanners, on a product page use "Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 Color Image Scanner", not "high speed scanner" to attract better and more qualifed traffic. If it's your home page, use the the keywords that describe your company, products and services.
Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 Color Image Scanner should appear on that particular product page SEVERAL TIMES to draw traffic. It should appear in the Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Meta Title Tags, and so on.
A quick tip on keyword density: 6%. Out of every 100 words on a page, your keywords should appear 6 times. Some experts say 4%, some say 8%, let's go for the middle and play it safe.
There are several good keyword tools to help you find the most relevant search terms for your SEO campaign. The best free tool available is directly from Google at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Brainstorm all the keyword combos you can possibly think of and enter them into this tool to determine which attract the most traffic. The end goal is to find the most relevant keyword combinations with the least competition. The Google Keyword Tool allows you to do this.
I'm sure this post raised more questions than it actually answered as this is a big topic. I will go much deeper on keywords in future posts. There is a difference in choosing keywords for a SEO campaign versus a SEM campaign and I will cover that in future posts.
In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments please let me know and I will get back to you with more specific answers. You can also visit Net Point Marketing to learn more.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year it's no surprise to anyone that the country is in the grips of a stifling recession. The worst since the Great Depression from many have proclaimed. Businesses are cutting back, especially small businesses. With a reduction in people, resources and a much reduced marketing budget business owners are increasingly turning to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies to improve their bottom line.
Search Engine Optimization is affordable and targeted. It's much less expensive than traditional advertising and most importantly...offers a measurable return on investment. Everything a smart business owner is looking for, right? So, what's the problem? Why doesn't everyone get with the new times and start optimizing right now? Well, for most people it's confusing, complex, always changing and hard to keep up with for the normal person who doesn't immerse themselves in it 24/7. Oh, and they have no idea where to start. So, it's kind of a throw your hands up in the air type of thing with lots of mumbles of "just forget it, I don't get it." There is a solution. And, I'll get to that soon.
SEO will improve how your site is ranked with Google, Yahoo, Ask and all the other major search engines. The higher the ranking, the more traffic. The more traffic, the more sales. And of course, more sales equals more money for your business. And you. It's that simple.
With effective SEO strategies, companies of all sizes and from all industries been able to market to such a specifically defined target audience. SEO has leveled the playing field. As many smart entrepreneurs are realizing, when you can spend less money and reach out to a better quality prospect the results can be nothing short of astounding.
So, you ask, what exactly IS Search Engine Optimization? How does it work? And, most importantly... how can it help me and my business?
All good questions. Let's start at the top and work our way down.
There are numerous definitions for Search Engine Optimization and most only define one side of the equation. So, here's my definition: Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a twofold process of first making on site page enhancements and second implementing off site marketing strategies designed to bring more visibility and traffic to your website.
So, let's take that apart a bit. And, don't worry, this is a 3 part post and I promise I'll get to the part about how it helps you improve your sales and take away some of the business pain you are undoubtedly feeling right now.
First... the on site stuff. Stuff? Yeah, stuff. Let's not get too technical here, we'll all enjoy the conversation much more.
Here's the teaser to bring you to part 2 of this post which explains On Site Search Engine Optimization... get ready to learn, in simple terms, about the wild, wonderful world of targeted Keywords, making your site "easy to read," how to think like a prospective customer and even how to think like a search engine. We'll chat about Meta tags and Meta Descriptions and even how to use Search Boxes. I may even teach you how to spy on your competitors... who knows? Plus much, much more. Actually, if I cover all that stuff I just mentioned I'll probably be done at that point. Either way, you'll learn and your business will benefit, I promise you.
Part Three will delve into Off Site strategies, which have become of paramount importance over the past year.
So... what's the difference? Are they the same thing? Which one should I concentrate on the most?
All good questions. Basically, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. SEO is organic in nature, meaning it is a collection of strategies to naturally optimize the pages of your website without spending advertising dollars. SEO includes writing search engine friendly copy text and making sure your keywords are being used just the right amount of times in your content.
Other best practices for SEO include making sure that each page's Meta tags are written properly, your site is submitted to all the proper directories and indexed by the major search engines. Link sharing and generating one way links back to your site are a great way to improve your Page Rank in Google. More on all of these items in future posts... lots of great ways to build traffic without paying a dime!
SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, is advertising plain and simple. Whether you are running a Google AdWords Pay Per Click campaign, using affiliate marketing tactics, buying banner ads or investing in link building services, that is SEM in action. The most important metric to consider with SEM is your return on investment. What is your CTR (click through rate) from your ads? More importantly, what is your conversion rate? Each SEM strategy can be easily implemented to improve your traffic. You don't have to know everything to get started. Soon you will learn the most effective and profitable ways to implement SEM simply and effectively. Stay tuned and let me know if you have any questions. As always, you can visit www.netpointmarketing.com for more information or email me at david@netpointmarketing.com.
This is my first entry to what I sincerely hope becomes a useful, effective and easy to understand source of information on internet marketing. As an ecommerce entrepreneur myself, I have spent literally hundreds of hours researching, learning, and implementing all kinds of internet marketing strategies. I run an ecommerce, web based platform for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and am in the process of launching a consulting company called NetPointMarketing which is focused primarily on helping start ups and small to medium sized businesses improve their web traffic through simple but effective internet marketing techniques.
Over time, the topics I will be covering will be varied but I will always strive to keep things simple and productive. No filler, just good information. A few of the topics that I'll be covering in coming posts will include:
This site will be an excellent source and hopefully will be an enjoyable read. Over time, I will be also sharing my favorite web tools and tricks and add some video as well. Most importantly, my biggest hope is that you will get back to me with responses, what you enjoy and what you'd like to read more about. I think the world of internet marketing in fascinating and is my true passion. I'd love to share what I know and will do the best I can to make your short visits with me meaningful. Thanks for tuning in!
