Join the Free Copywriting Bonanza!

Are you absolutely sure you want a free copywriter with all that it entails?

To start there’s the karma.

Realize, that you may find yourself being asked to work for free too. What? You wouldn’t dream of it? That’s odd, considering you are expecting a copywriter to work for free!

Remember too, that you get what you pay for. Even a good copywriter is not going to give you his best if he’s not getting paid. That’s just plain human nature.

What Free Copywriting Will Do for You!

And if you’re a copywriter about to give away your work for free, remember that you’re setting a precedent. You could be making sure that you never get paid again. After all, if you did it for free once, a potential client has every right to expect you to do that again. And here’s the thing: you’re not only devaluing yourself, you’re devaluing the entire writing industry. So don’t be surprised when other writers avoid you and even distance themselves from you.

As Harlan quite rightly says in his video: would you expect to drive into a gas station and get free gas? Would you go shopping and expect to walk out without paying for the goods (yes, try that by all means: it’ll end well for you!). What is it about writing that makes people think it’s not valuable?

As a matter of fact, writing is the one, single factor that can make a serious difference to your bottom line. A good writer can increase your perceived value. Great writing can set the stage for a relationship of trust between you and your potential customers. Heck, it can even persuade people to buy. Glenn Murray of Divine Write just posted an article on the same subject, as it happens, and he has a lot more to say about the value a good writer can bring to your project. Be sure to click through to the examples of ‘cheap’ writers’ work he refers to: it’s worth a good laugh if nothing else.

Even if you pay out a modest couple of grand for a writing project, you can reasonably expect to see an increase in sales. Most of the time your investment pays off within weeks, if not days. The better the writer, the more likely it is that you’ll see a real return on your investment.

So I’m not kidding when I tell you that hiring a cheap or free writer can actually hurt your bottom line. Think about that for a moment. Deciding to invest in a good writer will change the way you feel about your business, and that will be communicated to your potential clients. A well-paid writer will give you his very best copy, every time. He will put his soul into that work and it will make all the difference, I promise you!

I hate to admit this but…

This is going to have to be one of my occasional posts about me. If you’re not new here, you may have noticed I haven’t posted for a while.

I’ll be painfully honest with you: I’ve been thinking seriously about what it’s all about online, with social media and everything.

You know how sometimes you get all introspective and start comparing yourself negatively with everyone? That’s where I’ve been this past week.

You see, from my perspective, and despite the fact that I know as much as any social media expert, everyone seems to be having a far better time on social media than I am. Social media has become a chore, notwithstanding my truly outstanding connections. Here are a few of the reasons why.

I may have mentioned this before, but FaceBook is driving me nuts with all those phony-feeling applications. And I’m totally not surprised about the recent revelations that FaceBook quizzes can be dangerous, by exposing too much about you to those with criminal intent.

FaceBook? Yep. I feel so bad. I want to go down that list of stuff waiting for my attention and click ‘ignore, ignore, ignore….’

It all feels so fake. Same with my Twitter account. I loved it to start with, and I am reluctant to part company with my precious Twitter account. But now I get this awful hollow feeling from reading tweets that don’t interest me from people I don’t even like in some cases. And yes, I do unfollow. It feels as if we’ve all missed the point of social networking.

Digg–so many people never even bother to try and network: all they want is my Digg. Same with Mixx, although it’s still more friendly over there.

Experts have been telling us from the beginning (well the genuine ones anyway) that we need to make our social media connections count. It’s all about being mutually relevant and having a good feeling about those you interact with.

Applications like TwitterGrader, while they certainly have a place in social networking, have also contributed to the negative feelings that many of us are experiencing. Far too many Twitter and FaceBook users, along with users of most of the other social media sites out there, are wildly connecting all over the place, sometimes with people they’ll never even interact with once, in order to get a better grade. Where’s the logic in that?

I despise the fact that some people are proud of having connections with 30,000 people. What for? To me it’s missing the point altogether.

If you think I’ve lost it, look here: Seth Godin is saying the same thing here:

I’m going to take a deep breath and ignore all the social media grading applications out there from now on. I want to get back the sincerity of my social media networking: networking because you like the people, because you can be of sincere help to each other, and because overall you’re contributing to making the Net a better place.

Going through all my social media accounts and pruning them will return me to sanity. It will cut hours off the time I need to spend servicing those accounts at present. It will make those moments of true networking, the ones that carry you through a bad week, inspire you to move upwards and onward, and generally make you feel it’s all worth it after all, far more likely to happen. and that, after all, is why we’re here. Isn’t it?

I hope that you’ll agree with me and decide to at least take a step toward doing the same thing. Let’s make social media meaningful once more before it’s too late.

Earlier today the first phase of Search Engine Journal’s long-awaited total overhaul, a result of Search Engine Journal Inc.’s merger with Search & Social, went live.

I must say that so far I’m very impressed. I was discussing the new look with ArabCrunch and I mentioned that the new Search Engine Journal layout has elements that convey the same sort of atmosphere as the hugely successful SEOmoz. Seconds later someone else online was expressing the same opinion–so I guess it must be true.

This is good because as Loren says, they are planning to expand user-participation and the social aspects of the site. The right look and feel will go a long way to facilitating Loren Baker’s goals for SEJ I feel.

Loren tells his own story about his reasons for the new color scheme and other aspects of the new design.

I particularly like the new SEJ blogroll arrangement. Loren said this about the change:

I also found the blogroll to be restrictive, limiting the roll to only a handful of the hundreds of magnificent search blogs out there, personally I felt as the smaller blogroll was doing an injustice to the “search-o-sphere”.

With the new arrangement five blogs will be displayed at any one time in rotation.

I look forward to seeing what else Loren has in store: he assures us this is just the beginning!

Who? Me?

Most of us observe the news items on the latest hacker activity or cyber crime with detachment, because, after all, we’re not in any way connected with this activity are we? But a recent hacking event involving Twitter (the victim) and TechCrunch (the recipient), and an unknown hacker who calls himself Croll, got me thinking about how many of us online may be feeding the cycle of hacking and cyber crime unknowingly, or certainly unintentionally.

What I’m about to say may be considered by some as unnecessarily harsh: Life is tough let’s face it, and this is one of those things that, if you’ve never been hacked will seem not-all-that-important. But if you have ever been hacked, or worse, if a hacker has taken over your website or one of your social media identities, you will feel this acutely and may even feel as strongly as I do.

TechCrunch’s Role

In the case of TechCrunch’s role in even considering publishing data sent to them by Hacker Croll, I have to make a highly critical observation. This pains me somewhat because up until now I have admired Michael Arrington for his astuteness and business acumen. But maybe I was being gullible.

My observation is this: For a high-profile website like TechCrunch to openly cooperate with a hacker–and let’s face it when you accept the goods and make use of them you are cooperating, in the same way that fences cooperate with thieves–is a ludicrous abdication of their responsibility to set the tone for the Internet. Any website with the readership that TechCrunch has must shoulder the responsibility it has earned as an industry-leader to set and maintain ethical standards.

For TechCrunch to publish any of the data passed on by that hacker is tantamount to leading us all lemming-like over the cliff, because it will surely be seen as a huge, red-carpeted encouragement to hackers everywhere.

I acknowledge that many experts, Mashable is just one, put the blame pretty much on Twitter, and anyone else in their shoes, for allowing such glaring security flaws to continue unchecked. But to me, that attitude is like saying that if you accidentally forget to lock your back door, a thief has every right to come in and ransack your house.

It was a bit of a disappointment that out of all the experts I called on for input, only Lee Odden of Top Rank Marketing was prepared to make a statement about how he feels:

Regarding TechCrunch publishing allegedly “hacked and stolen” private documents, there’s a clear ethical issue. They’ve disclosed that only some of the documents will be published but there’s still a choice to be made.  News sites and blogs can decide in situations like this whether the newsworthiness of publishing someone else’s private information is worth more than their own integrity and ethical standards.  TechCrunch and its advertisers stand to gain from a criminal act perpetuated against Twitter. From an ethical standpoint, how is that different than Murdoch Media benefiting from hacking the cell phones of Politicians and celebrities?

I wholeheartedly agree with Lee. Where is TechCrunch’s trustworthiness score now huh?

The ‘Other’ Scenario

On the other hand, if TechCrunch was to openly condemn the hacker to the greatest extent possible, turn him over to law enforcement (digitally-speaking of course), and then refuse to publish even one word of what was passed to them, they would be setting themselves on a pedestal and would become the focus of just as much publicity I’d say. Then, if some two-bit blogger were to publish any of that data at a later date, he would be seen as just that: A two-bit blogger trying lamely to make a name for himself.

Come on now, stand up and be counted. If you agree with me, just leave me a short comment below to say so. If you don’t agree, let’s hear that too: have the courage of your convictions and tell me why in a comment.

SEO for Competitive Analysis

Ever heard that you need a plan to get ahead? It’s sometimes exceedingly tricky to formulate a plan though isn’t it? Luckily, in online business it’s really easy to formulate a plan to get ahead in your niche–whatever that is.

Finding Your Niche Competition

First you need to identify those websites that are ahead of you in the search results for your chosen keywords. You can do this by doing a search on Google, Yahoo and Bing (and whatever other search engine you’re interested in) for the words and phrases you want to be searched for. Take a look at the top 10 results for each one. Check what other keywords/phrases these sites are using because you can often come up with some interesting new search terms you hadn’t thought of by doing this.

Comparative Analysis

Then you do a comparative analysis on each of the top three, and you’re away. You will have an itemized roadmap that will take you exactly where you want to go, and you will be able to implement it at your leisure-whenever you have a few minutes to spare.

Let’s take a closer look at the criteria:

1. Search terms (we’ve already covered that)
2. Title tags (what you see in the top, left-hand corner of your screen for each page). This is arguably the most important item of optimization. It dictates a large part of how the search engines see you. If you have fabulous content, but your title tags say ‘welcome to (your name)’ you will be sunk. Don’t miss the opportunity to put to or three of your major keywords in here, starting with the most important.
3. Your article/post title should also include at least one of your major keywords.
4. Look at the images your competition is using. Learn from this, and try to get bigger, more interesting images onto your pages, not forgetting that there is a balance: make the images too big and you’ll make your pages slow to load. Oh, and don’t forget the alt-text because this does matter for a number of reasons.
5. Make sure that your web content is far and away more readable, and more informative than that of the competition.

It will help if you arrange your results in a table for at-a-glance assessment.

Avoid putting all your eggs in one basket…

Don’t rely too heavily on a competitive analysis though. Nowadays off-page activity can have a major impact on your ultimate traffic and visibility results. Social media is a must. Don’t overlook Twitter, in particular, as a tool for networking, getting the word out, and even getting valuable links for your website.

I am dismayed at the number of Twitter users who are openly using my favorite networking implement as a spamming platform. They are seemingly unrepentant and unapologetic. They can’t possibly be profiting from it: I know I’m not alone that I will NEVER retweet a spam tweet. I will NEVER follow an obvious spammer.

There have been many blog posts recently about the events over at Twitter: How #FollowFriday has degenerated into a spam exercise.

I have noticed a steep decline in the general quality of new users following me, with tweets like:

Hello Please Check by Free Earnings report ! Make money online with me

and

Get start in online business – sell more products and get rich . Check my free raport about it

The problem is, these people are misguidedly under the impression that they are engaged in Social Media Marketing. They are nothing but spammers, pure and simple.

Social media marketing is all about building relationships and trust. It’s all about providing useful information and assistance to your network: in short it’s about making the Internet a better place to be–not creating a cyber-hell on earth.

For Heaven’s sake: Next time you go to tweet something that most of us will regard as spam, stop and think. Would you want to receive 100 tweets just like it? If not you probably need to stop tweeting, stop blogging and read. Read the blogs and tweets of people like Lee Odden, Darren Rowse, Andy Beal, and David Risley, to grab just a handful of good Twitter people off my timeline.

What can we all do to keep Twitter and the Internet spam-free? Don’t encourage spammers. Don’t follow them, don’t engage with them, and if they bother you, block them and tell your timelines why you’re blocking them. Be loud about it.

CPA Marketing for Social Media-Savvy CPAs

Accountants can make great use of social media for business networking. In particular, Twitter will get your brand just where you need it–right in front of the kind of small business owners and freelancers who are most likely to be in need of an accountant.

How do people locate accountants?

Most of us don’t make finding an accountant a priority, unless we’re looking for a forensic accountant for example, or unless it’s tax time and we’re way behind. The rest of the time, we do know we need a CPA–but never get past the thought. But if we were to run into one on our social media travels, we’d be more than likely to say ‘hi, I was thinking I needed an accountant….’ or ‘hey I’ve been looking for a CPA…’

How CPAs can locate clients at no cost…

Social marketing in general is perfect for all kinds of CPA marketing. But Twitter is great for this kind of informal encounter because there’s no crushing obligation on either side. The meeting is purely non-committal and that’s exactly why potential clients are more than willing to make the first move. Twitter users can even seek out contacts based on keywords such as certified accountant, or CPA, using one of several Twitter tools such as TweetScan.

In fact there are already several CPA networks in existence on Twitter, such as #AAMAustin: it’s no secret that professionals of all stripes are discovering the amazing potential of Twitter for professional networking and client outreach. As an experienced Twitter user, and one who has seen Twitter evolve into the friendly marketing machine it has become, I see it as the perfect medium for all kinds of CPA marketing and business opportunities for CPAs.

Reputable professional organizations like the Association of Accounting Marketing are starting to use social media to network among each other and be more accessible to customers. You can use the hashtag #aam to see what some trail blazing CPAs are talking about on Twitter right now. And if you check out the AAM Summit 2009 bundle, you’ll see that they’re advocating the use of social media such as Twitter too.

Are you in the market for a CPA marketing package?

I feel there’s a need for a specially targeted CPA info package explaining exactly how to use social media, and specifically Twitter, for CPA marketing. If you’re in the market for such an information product, please use my contact form to let me know specifically what information would be useful to you if the poll below doesn’t quite cut it for you!

[poll id="2"]

]]> http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/why-twitter-is-a-great-cpa-marketing-tool/feed/ 5 http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/matt-cutts-is-a-really-nice-guy-but/ http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/matt-cutts-is-a-really-nice-guy-but/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:08:07 +0000 Patricia Skinner http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/?p=638

…must we all keep hanging on his every word? He is, for sure, a very helpful, and very friendly guy. But just look at what he does for a living will you?

Now before I go on, let me stress that this is not a personal attack against Matt: He’s a nice guy with an exquisitely difficult job. But the facts remain.

I got thinking about this subject after a reader commented on my recent post on duplicate content issues over at Search Engine Journal, It seems that Matt said something to the effect that we don’t need to worry about duplicate content issues at SMX Advanced. I personally didn’t see footage of that, but I can tell you that I, and many of my SEO colleagues see evidence that we do need to worry about duplicate content every day.

Simply put, Matt Cutts is Google’s front man.

Many times, Matt has given us hints that he can’t tell us all we want to know, in this statement he made on AimClear Blog:

It’s sort of like the credit card companies, you can’t really tell all the penalties you really have without giving it away for the spammers

Now why would anyone think that Matt would be prepared to give away all Google’s secrets? He’d be fired straight away if he did.

Take an objective look at this excellent You&A with Matt Cutts. See? It’s more-or-less common knowledge that Matt Cutts can’t just come right out with it. We know it and he knows it.

Now if you’re rather follow what Matt says to the letter, that fine. But we have years of collective experience and we think we’re entitled to differ with what Matt says when it’s necessary for the sake of our commitment to great SEO.

Track Your Business to the Top

An important aspect of getting your website optimization right is tracking results and monitoring visitors and how they move about on your site, to make sure you’re getting targeted traffic (relevant for your product) and that your visitors ‘convert’ when they get there: that’s tech-speak for they do whatever it is you want them to do!

To make sure you get the mix right, a vital component of your website equipment is efficient tracking tools. The more accurately you can monitor who visits your website, why, and how satisfied they were, the more successful you’ll be online. Simple equation. You will be able to spot trends, and identify problems or areas where your system is coming up short with ease if you get your tracking right. This will make it so much easier to make changes that bring real results.

It’s sometimes difficult to gauge which tools you should be using though. There are so many web tracking applications out there and they all differ wildly, terms of complexity and price.

It occurred to me (OK, I was having a flash of inspiration! Are you done laughing? Then I’ll continue….) that the best way to pick the best tracking applications would be to monitor what other successful websites are using in the way of tracking devices.

So that’s what I did.

Google Analytics–Leader of the Pack

No surprises that Google Analytics came out on top: it’s free, it’s accurate, easy to install and what’s more, it tells you most of what you need to know. The trouble is, as far as I’m concerned, is that when you have Google Analytics installed, the largest search engine on the planet also has access to all your traffic information. Think about that. Obviously the same drawbacks exist for newly-launched Yahoo Analytics.

In the table below you’ll see tracking companies used by several top SEO firms as well as a number of the most successful websites. This is relevant, although the websites are nowhere near as big as CNN, for example, the keyword ‘SEO’ has to be one of the most competitive keywords ever, so I make no apology for including those first. After all, we should watch what the professionals use no? I’ve also included the most successful blogs ever, headed up by the Huffington Post because, let’s face it they’re doing something right with millions of visitors every day.

Like me, you’ll probably notice an interesting two or three applications that come up again and again. And, not all these applications are strictly tracking applications: it’s interesting to see how many different companies/techniques successful websites are using to improve their traffic and bottom line.

Here’s the list in no particular order, and I’ll just mention that I threw in a couple of web analysis companies that I know are used a great deal by online businesses, and therefore shouldn’t be discounted. I daresay I’ve missed a few, but this should be great food-for-thought for anyone considering how best to monitor what goes on with their online business. I’m kicking off with Google Analytics because of it’s overwhelming popularity:

• Google Analytics
• Index Tools (recently acquired by Yahoo Analytics)
• Mint
• Enquisite
• Quantcast
• Doubleclick
• Omniture
• Web Trends
• Awstats
• Technorati
• Lotame
• Tribal Fusion
• SiteMeter
• Google Custom Search
• YahooBuzz
• Revenue Science
• GoingUp
• Crazy Egg

Tracking is important, but only insofar as it can help you to increase conversions. Don’t get obsessed with it: just observe and do what you can to get your website running as smoothly and effectively as possible.

Nope, not a cliffhanger!

Some of you may have wondered if I’ve slipped over the edge of a cliff somewhere. It’s been so long since I posted.  Or perhaps you were wondering if I’d given it all up and gone to live in Katmandu?

Let me reassure you that I’m still here, and still battling. Ever felt out of control and overwhelmed? Well that has been me for the past month. I have been indulging in a little introspection as to why recent events reduced me to a pile of rubble. Before I go on let me bore you with the main points of our family news for April and May:

• 3 semi-serious car accidents–thank God only whiplash, bruising and scrapes sustained by a deployed airbag were the result, but much mangled metal.
• 1 broken ankle (me–I fell again).
• 1 serious concussion (my son when he slipped on the University steps banking his head).
• A run-in with a failing antivirus application necessitating yet another laptop reconfig. (AV is one of the big-boys but I’m not mentioning it here lest I end up with a lawsuit on my hands (if you really want to know ask me on Twitter (skinner).

OK I know all this, while inconvenient, is not really enough to send me into a tailspin. So why have I dropped all my balls (metaphorically speaking) in the past few weeks?

Because I’m a raving control freak that’s why. I hate it when stuff happens unexpectedly to mess up my schedule. And while we’re on the subject of me, I’m a chocoholic as well as a crank you wouldn’t want to run into in the wee hours of the morning.

There. My secrets are all out. Now you know exactly who you’re dealing with. I hope you’ll continue to read my blog though, or I might stalk you.

Seriously, I realize this is why I’m drawn to SEO; it’s all quite predictable once you master the basics. In reality there are no big surprises unless there are huge gaps in your knowledge on search engine optimization.

Oh, and if you’re interested I have migrated to Kaspersky for antivirus protection.

PS: I’m working on setting up this WordPress blog on wallpaper. Whaddya think?

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…