SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

When it comes down to basics, the goal of search engine optimisation services is to gain more conversions for their sites. They aspire to achieve this by using a diversity of means to pull users in and to persuade them to make a sale. For instance, the typical SEO agency seeks to makes its clients more visible by working to achieve higher rankings. This in turn can lead to higher levels of traffic coming to a site. If adjustments are then made to the site this can lead to higher numbers of individuals lingering and purchasing from the site. However, it can matter a great deal how the agency attempts to perform its task. If it does not recognise the specificities of the site, it is likely that its efforts will prove disappointing. Nevertheless, some tactics can be deployed which, if suitably tailored, work across a whole variety of sites.

At SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we have no truck with ‘one size fits all’ solutions. Despite this, we are wise to the fact that some solutions can be applied in a plethora of diverse circumstances, as long as the details of those circumstances are taken into account. Sites are unique, so no straightforward rolling-out of solutions is feasible.

The use of a blog is a great way to generate interest in a site. It is important to enable and moderate comments. This is not just a technical matter, and the actual content must inspire comments by focusing on the wants and needs of the target audience. For some sites, a blog can be a creative exercise in entertaining users. For others, a commentary on recent industry news may be more appropriate. The key is to generate enthusiasm for a blog by making it informative and interesting. It should not become too controversial just to seek a response, but on the other hand, blandness is tedious. Encouraging guest-blogging is an astute way of generating variety and interest.

Many sites do well if the site owner and their search engine optimisation services focus on making a site into an authority in its field. The way forward is long and difficult, but having a well-defined aim is central to achieving success in the medium term. The road to authority status invariably has many ups and downs, and the right directions to take will vary substantially from site to site. Although these important points are valid, the truth is that the use of industry news is applicable in many diverse contexts. This is because it is usually ideal fodder for the target audience. In addition, seeding it with a few keywords is normally not too tricky.

Industry news though, can carry its own real and present dangers. Recycling of content from other sites can lead to tedium. If any content is simply duplicated it can trigger off a penalty from the search engines. This means that the content must be unique. It is also the case that the news must be up-to-date because otherwise users will turn to other sources.

I love food. You may have learned that from the last Write Club. I wrote about fish and chips, egg sandwiches… looking back I wish I had slipped in a sentence or two about pickled onion Monster Munch.

This is a quick lesson in how you give your writing personality. In two sentences I’ve managed to put a large part of my personality and thoughts across to my audience. Whoever reads it now knows about my passion for food. I’ve also given them a fair idea of the foods I like to eat – utter junk.

I often see the same old barriers stopping people from putting themselves and their thoughts on the page. Most of them surround negativity and perception – most writers starting out lack confidence and expect themselves to crumble on the first negative comment they receive. It’s understandable in a sense, it takes a lot of time to discover and refine your writing voice. But if you cast off the shackles of convention from the start and concentrate on the basics, then personality will follow suit.

And that’s the point of writing. Personality, from my point of view, is one of the most important ingredients possible when constructing copy for an internet audience. Think about it. There’s millions of blogs out there, the majority of them saying exactly the same thing. How do you set yourself apart? By saying exactly the same things and following the crowd? It doesn’t work that way, plain and simple.

Commercial writing is different though, surely? Well, of course you have to come across as more professional if you want to sell your products, but there’s no reason at all why you can’t put a company voice into blog posts and other content. I’m not advising you to talk about the food you like, obviously, but a blog on your site is a great way to focus on specific products and add a bit of excitement to them. To make your staff seem more like people and less like… er… staff.

“We had a large delivery come into the stock room today. We couldn’t wait to open it – it was our new range of lightweight laptops that you can buy from our computer section. We’re putting the pictures live as soon as we stop slavering over how gorgeous they look.”

You probably couldn’t get away with putting that in the product description on the laptop page itself, but it’s the perfect kind of post to put on your blog to give the product a bit of mystery and to get your customers asking some serious questions.

Why couldn’t they wait to open it, does it look better than the other laptops they sell? Lightweight eh, how lightweight is it? Gorgeous? They mentioned pictures, I’ll come back later when they’re up. Would it look good in my room?

Personality in your writing doesn’t mean swearing, firing off extreme opinion or filling sentences with as many big words as possible. It just means being interesting, intriguing and showing a part of yourself off to the world. Remember, you don’t attract people by pushing them away. Be positive and inclusive in your blogs – success is sure to follow.

SEO services can provide content which is of a higher standard than that which can be easily written by the average firm of a site owner. This is because content supply is a specialist business, best conducted by professional copywriters. The copywriters employed by SEO services are used to coping with the difficulties imposed by the constant demand for high grade content. In addition, they are conscious of how to negotiate the problem of ‘writer’s block.’ Hence they are better placed to do the work than stressed and weary employees of a firm who may or may not have a gift for writing accurately.

At SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we are used to providing high grade content to sites on a frequent and regular basis. As well as ensuring that the content is attractive to the target audience, it is central to our way of working that the content passes five specific tests. The tests are as follows:

• The content must be informative. Users of sites rarely want pure entertainment from retail sites, whether or not what is for sale is a good or a service. Users prefer to learn something from what they read and they are more likely to trust sites which demonstrate knowledge in an authoritative manner which does not stray towards the pretentious. Many users appreciate information to be broken down into digestible chunks.

• It is vital that users can understand the content. Too many acronyms must be avoided. Any which are used should be easy to comprehend like SEO. Similarly, an excess of technical terms can be a big mistake. Users want to read the content without being obliged to turn to either a glossary or an online dictionary. If sentences are getting very long, they should be chopped up without breaking the rules of grammar. The content should be accurate enough to avoid any confusion setting in.

• Content has to be supplied which varies slightly from post to post. If the content gets too repetitive, users will have their needs and wants catered for elsewhere. However, the content cannot vary too much because that could disorientate the user. A balance has to be struck if users are to be kept happy. It takes experience to judge where that balance is and skill to maintain it in practice. Brainstorming and other techniques may be of assistance.

• The content must not be employed in a way which makes the screen too congested. Paragraphs should not be too long. After the right word, blank space is one of the copywriter’s best friends. Users have short attention spans these days and the reality of the glare from computer screens means that reading too much at a time is a strain. In short, users tend to skim and hence it is important to prevent them from going further and skipping.

• For SEO purposes, the content has to be sprinkled with keywords to attract the attention of the major search engines effectively. However, keyword stuffing must be avoided to avoid upsetting Google and users. Users only want to read content with a natural pattern to it.

So you’ve learned about SEO and are writing brand-spanking new, fresh content.

All well and good. But never forget that you are writing for the benefit of your readership first and foremost.

My argument has always been that quality content is more important than quantity. I believe that a handful of blogs a month that spark interest will always be more beneficial than a crateful of blogs that have absolutelyno value.

But not everybody is in perfect harmony with their writing voice. If you’re posting your own blogs on your site then you obviously have something you want to get across to your visitors. But you may look back on it a month later when your muse has gone, and wish you had got your point across in a cleaner, clearer fashion.

That’s the curse of commercial writing. A social writer has the luxury of jotting something down, leaving it for a few weeks, returning to it and making amendments. They can carefully dissect it, cutting pieces out that don’t fit. You don’t have that luxury in a commercial setup. You’re writing to deadline – you need to get your point across to people as quickly as possible.

So, how do you become confident enough in your writing to publish it worldwide on an instant basis? I can’t help you in that regard, sorry! What I CAN offer you though is advice to make your writing crisper than a freshly-battered cod. And chips. Lovely chunky ones.

Therefore. Meanwhile. However. Nonetheless. For example. As such. Hence. Thus.

You don’t need to start your sentences with words like these. Take this sentence:

“Craig was making his own egg mayonnaise sandwich. At the same time, he also added salt and pepper for taste.”

There are two different ways to shorten this sentence to make it more interesting and powerful. Both methods involve wielding the knife.

“Craig was making his own egg mayonnaise sandwich, adding salt and pepper for taste.”

“Craig was making his own egg mayonnaise sandwich. He added salt and pepper for taste.”

We see the sentence is shorter and packs a punch. Well, making as much of a punch as a sentence about egg mayonnaise can, I suppose. A key way to toughen up your writing is to extract. Try to keep one ‘thought’ in one sentence. Over-blowing sentences only leads to complications and confusion.

Take a breath. Think of yourself as a newsreader on a mainstream channel. They keep their sentences short and simple when reading the news to the audience. They stop for breath so everybody can digest the information quickly.

Read your writing out loud, it gives a different perspective to what you’ve written. I wrote an SEO video script recently and thought it was fine when I read it over. When it came to filming, however, there was a comma cull of incredible proportions.

Short, simple sentences will help your readers out. As far as I’m concerned that’s what searchers are always looking for. There is an abundance of information all over the internet. By making your content more readable than anyone else’s on a regular basis, people will always flock to it and share it with their friends.

Keep your eyes out on our website for more Write Club.

For anybody new or inexperienced in the world of search engine optimisation, it can seem a daunting and complicated industry. All the talk of coding, tags and various content formats and systems can really be confusing to some of us. Granted, there is a lot to learn in order to become successful in this area, which is why most companies use SEO experts as opposed to doing it themselves. However, what a lot of us do not know is that if you take away all the technical elements you will discover that some of the most effective search marketing techniques are the most simple.

Writing is a major player in web optimisation, and some of the most common strategies which are almost guaranteed to get results revolve around good quality writing. Fresh content is something which works exceptionally well in the world of search marketing and can help increase your page ranking and drive traffic to your site. The main reason for this is that search engines prefer new and original content and when it comes to generating traffic to your website, search engines have a lot of power. Fresh content does not necessarily mean you have to re-write your web copy, simply adapting or updating existing content or even just adding a new paragraph to a page can have outstanding results and is not too time consuming.

Blogs are another area which are a fairly simple idea, yet can work wonders in terms of creating backlinks and generating interest in your web pages. Depending on the nature of the business or topic you are writing on, blogging is not always an easy task for everyone. However, anybody with a good level of grammar and a little bit of creative flair can certainly contribute to a successful blog.

Communication between other online parties should also not be underestimated. At SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we see a lot of bad mouthing and lack of respect for other websites from companies. It sometimes seems as though all form of manners and etiquette go out the window when you are conducting business online. There is theory behind this as we all know how strong an effect our competitor sites can have on our own web pages, however writing the rest of the online world off completely will not do you any favours. A good communicator will recognise that the online world is a network in itself, and building a positive relationship with other sites can actually benefit your site. Recommendations and positive reviews are all excellent ways of getting new traffic to your website, so be an online friend and not a foe.

Lastly, do not underestimate the power of passion. The more enthusiastic someone is about something, the better; and this is definitely applicable in the world of SEO. An SEO professional can learn certain skills and techniques, but if they have that fire in their belly and that passion to make it work then they are much more likely to succeed and make a difference.

Content within web pages has becoming increasingly more sophisticated over the past year. Wherever we look there are videos, images and downloads and everything is concerned with being as forward thinking as possible. At SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we are pleased that the online world is moving forward and also that users are becoming much more demanding in their content needs, as we can assist your business in meeting them. However, it is always important to not forget where you have come from and what made you in the first place, and in the world of SEO, original content is one of those things.

When we think back fondly to the early days of website creation, we remember a time when it was all about writing the right web copy. Companies would dedicate entire teams to the role of content writing and people would spend hours deliberating over the correct way to say something, to ensure it was applicable for their site. The unfortunate thing now, is that we often see good old textual content being put on the back burner, which is not a good thing. So get your writing caps on as it is time to go right to the heart of web optimisation and successful SEO and make written content popular again.

Whilst there are a lot of users and searches who will be enticed by images or videos, there are a lot more who want actual hard facts and true and pure content. This is quite apparent within search engines if it is looked at logically. Google, for example, offers a specific search engine for images, videos and even maps. So if somebody is purely searching for an image then they will click on the image page of Google as opposed to stick with the standard one. When put like this, it makes even more sense to ensure that a large proportion of your website includes some strong and concise content in the form of text.

The most important thing to remember when creating content, is that it needs to be original and relevant. That is not to say that no resources can be found from other website, but everything must be written by your own fair hands and in your own words. There is nothing to be gained by copying content. Granted it saves time initially, but the long term results are that your site will rank low as it will not be unique and if you get found out, which you often will, then your site could be penalised and even banned from some of the most popular search engines.

Keywords are crucial and if you want them to be natural then these also need to be truly relevant and applicable to your website. Content should never be over crowded with keywords however, as the main aim of it is to read as naturally as possible.

There is no denying that video and images have a place – in fact, they have a strong place in the future of online. All we are asking is that we take a little time to remember what made us, and give it the respect it deserves.

With the vast competition between online companies now, it is important that any website does what it can to increase their rankings within search engine results pages. Over the past year we have seen a huge increase in real time reporting, which has been made popular largely due to social networking sites and social media marketing. Real time searches are great when they are concerned with up to date news, which also makes real time searches a great place for higher search rankings. The easiest way to do this is by the use of press releases, and creating successful ones to compete in search engines is not as difficult as you may initially think.

The first rule about writing a press release is to ensure that you do actually have a valid topic to talk about. Writing a press release for the sake of it will not do you any favours as relevant content is what search engines are looking for, along with users. If you do find that you have a topic worth talking about then the first thing you need to do is get in there as soon as possible. If the news is concerning your business then you are more likely to be the first to announce the news. If the press release is concerning industry news then you need to be on the ball, as the chances are there could be other companies releasing statements too.

When writing SEO press releases you obviously need to take other factors into account than you may do with just a standard press release. These basically revolve around tailoring your content so that it appeals to search engines, and other websites, and here at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we are experts at this. Keywords are crucial and prior to even beginning the press release you should consider carefully what keywords you are going to use. Think about the topic in question and what users looking for the information may use as a search phrase.

The content of a press release for search engine purposes should follow the same format of a standard press release; a catchy title, a summary of the subject, details, company information and contact details. It is important that you include the date in tags as this will show the search engines how recent the information is. The title should not only be catchy, it should always include a strong keyword and should be enticing and inviting to searchers.

One of the main benefits a website gets from creating strong press releases is the number of backlinks that can be achieved from other websites. If you have already produced a strong, concise and easy to understand piece of content then it is less likely that other websites will re-write the copy for their own pages. What is more common is for other websites to write a short summary of the news and then post a link within their short article to your website. This is not only great for generating traffic to your news release, it also creates awareness of your website to users and can aid in strengthening your brand image.

If there’s one thing that should be at the heart of your SEO campaign, it’s web content. It’s one of the primary SEO tools at your disposal and is also one of the simplest to achieve in terms of technical ability, but getting it right can still be a huge challenge. Quality should always come first when it comes to web content, and anything less than that simply shouldn’t be allowed.

Quality is so important because it’s the thing that drives potential customers (as well as search engines) to your site. If you don’t provide quality content that’s offering something of value to the reader then they certainly won’t be back, and you’d have instantly lost that client.

That’s one of the most important things to remember – value. You should be providing informative and thought-provoking articles that encourage people to come back for more, ideally by having an SEO blog on your site, but remember to only give them a taste of what you can provide. You want them to pay for your services after all!

You also need to think about keywords and proper placement. You should always be targeting several keywords in each piece of content that you produce, and if you do it properly you’ll be able to enhance your page rank. But, remember not to write content for the purpose of attracting search engines alone – you need to appeal to your customers as well. Keyword stuffing is out of the question (and that can get you banned from search results anyway) so you always want your content to be readable, clear and with just the right level of keywords to keep everyone happy.

Another thing to remember is the importance of getting your spelling and grammar up to scratch. You can have the most in-depth article in the world, but if it’s riddled with errors then it will fail to hit the right note. In fact, poor spelling and grammar is one of the worst things you can do as it instantly puts potential customers off – if they can’t be confident in your spelling ability, how can they be confident in your technical ones?

That’s why it’s often best to invest in professional SEO services.  The SEO experts will have all the skills necessary to craft the perfect pieces of web content for your needs, and everything can be done to your exacting specifications to guarantee your satisfaction. They’ll know the importance of keyword placement and density, and will even be able to take care of the behind-the-scenes details to ensure that your site gets recognised by search engines. They’ll have all the experience necessary so you can be sure of a quality job, and that’s what it’s all about.

As you can see, it really is important to have quality web content (ideally with the help of SEO experts) if you want your endeavours to be a success. You need to appeal to the search engines as well as your clients, and if you really want the best make sure to consult the SEO experts who will be happy to help.

Copywriting can be an effective way to grow a website and to have informative content that readers are going to be interested in. You should consider that copywriting can really help improve how people see the website and keep their interest if the content is well-written. To help make the content and copywriting better for a website, SEO can help. When you use search engine optimization principles in the content and copywriting that you use on the website, search engines can easily understand your site and can rank you accordingly, helping you to get noticed. If you are not sure how to use copywriting, you may want to hire professional SEO services that can help you create the content that you need and that will help you use SEO to reach markets.

Search engine copywriting differs from other copywriting because it is often used for both search engines and web users. While not extremely difficult, SEO copywriting can still be a little complicated. Below are some important tips to remember when doing professional copywriting for SEO.

Keywords

Know your keywords before you begin professional copywriting. If you know which keywords and key phrases you are optimizing for the page, it becomes much simpler for you to deliver SEO copywriting services. As you start writing, include key phrases all the way through your body copy, not just in the first paragraph. If you want to achieve the best results, try to focus your copy on only two or three primary keywords.

Learn the frequency of keyword phrases. How often should you use keyword phrases? There is a general guideline that between 0.5 and 3% of your words should be keywords. However, this is just a guideline. Your copy should be able to sell as well as attract the attention of search engines. Don’t wreck good copy by forcing keywords where they just don’t belong. In summary, take care of the frequency of key words by making sure you use enough but, at the same time, make sure you aren’t going overboard and using too many.

Target Audience

Know what the site is all about. Before starting SEO copywriting, you need to be aware of the target audience for the website. Once you know your target audience along with your keywords, you can put the two together and create compelling, search engine friendly copy. For example, if your website offers web development & designing services, target keywords accordingly. Many people have made the mistake of using keywords and phrases that aren’t relevant to the audience or the content of the website.

Optimize the text on the page. It’s recommended that you have enough text on the home page of your website and on the other pages for effective search engine optimisation copywriting. Search engines prefer to see enough words of text on each page to see the related keywords. The start of the text should contain your best keywords. Some of the search engines don’t read far in each page.  Therefore, it is important that they are able to read your first text with keywords. Try to avoid placing your links in images since search engines aren’t able to read images.

Meta Tags

Know about Meta tags. You can find out how Meta tags are used to communicate the information to search engines that visitors may not be as concerned about. It should be mentioned that using these in HTML are not needed while you are making your web pages. Due to their easy manipulation by webmasters, certain Meta tags (i.e.: keywords, title, and description) do not have as much importance as they did years ago. There are also tools available out there, which automatically generate these Meta tags and save you the trouble of writing them yourself.

SEO Copywriting is a process of taking general content and being able to spin it with the correct use of keywords that are going to be seen by the search engines and be able to get the best rankings. In other terms, keyword based writing has become known in the marketing world and with search engines as SEO copywriting. However, that doesn’t mean that SEO writing is just an attempt to insert several out of place, thesaurus-sounding keywords into the copy just to increase its ranking in search engines. Most of the major search engines such as Yahoo and Google, may often spam a lot of the contents overwhelmed with keywords. Therefore, while planning for search engine copywriting, you need to consider the density of keyword usage in contents.

First of all, you may be wondering what SEO copywriting really is. SEO copywriting and professional copywriting are new forms of writing that are directed to being seen and rated by the search engines. SEO Copywriting is a process of taking general content and being able to spin it with the correct use of keywords that are going to be seen by the search engines and be able to get the best rankings. In other terms, keyword-based writing has become known in the marketing world and with search engines as SEO copywriting. However, that doesn’t mean that SEO writing is just an attempt to insert several out of place, thesaurus-sounding keywords into the copy just to increase its ranking in search engines. Most of the major search engines such as Yahoo! and Google may often see a lot of content overwhelmed with keywords and class it as spam. Therefore, while planning for search engine copywriting, you need to consider the density of keyword usage in content.

Search engine copywriting differs from other copywriting because it is often used for both search engines and web users. While not extremely difficult, SEO copywriting can still be a little complicated. Below are some important tips to remember when doing professional copywriting for SEO.

1.    Know your keywords before you begin professional copywriting. If you know which keywords and key phrases you are optimising for the page, it becomes much simple for you to deliver SEO copywriting services. As you start writing, include key phrases all the way through your body copy, not just in the first paragraph. If you want to achieve the best results, try to focus your copy on only two or three primary keywords.

2.    Learn the frequency of keyword phrases. How often should you use keyword phrases? There is a general guideline that states one per cent of your content should be keywords. However, this is just a guideline. Your copy should be able to sell as well as attract the attention of search engines. Don’t wreck good copy by forcing keywords where they just don’t belong. In summary, take care of the frequency of keywords by making sure you use enough, but at the same time making sure you aren’t going overboard and using too many.

3.    Know what the site is all about. Before starting SEO copywriting, you need to be aware of the target audience for the website. Once you know your target audience, along with your keywords, you can put the two together and create compelling, search-engine-friendly copy. For example, if your website offers web development & designing services, target keywords accordingly. Many people have made the mistake of using keywords and phrases that aren’t relevant to the audience or the content of the website.

4. Optimise the text on the page. It’s recommended that you have enough text on the home page of your website and on the other pages for effective search engine copywriting. Search engines prefer to see enough words of text on each page to see the related keywords. The start of the text should contain your best keywords. Some of the search engines don’t read far in each page, therefore, it is important that they are able to read your first text with keywords. Try to avoid placing your links in images, since search engines aren’t able to read images.

5. Know about meta tags. You can find out how Meta Tags are used to communicate the information search engines that visitors may not be as concerned about. It should be mentioned that using these in HTML are not needed while you are making your web pages. Due to its easy manipulation by webmasters, certain meta tags (ie: keywords, title, and description) do not have as much importance as they did years ago. There are also tools available out there, which automatically generate these meta tags and save you the trouble of writing them yourself.

By following the tips and suggestions listed above, you should have a better idea of what is expected to be effective at copywriting for SEO. You should also have more knowledge of what not to do and be more aware of the mistakes that can be made along the way.