by Stoney deGeyter

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L'Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

Copywriting

No SEO is complete without good content. You can stuff keywords into the text all you want, and that might be okay to get you some decent keyword rankings for a time, but it won't do anything to improve the long-term success of your business.

A website without good copywriting is a sports car with an engine that doesn't run. It doesn't matter how pretty it is, the content is what is needed to provide your visitors the information they need in order for you to make the sale (or conversion, or whatever else you want your visitors to do.)

Understanding Copy

To the search engines the content on the page is just a bunch of words. Without making this too complex, the engines analyze the words in an attempt to determine what each page is about. If the web page covers too many different topics then it makes it difficult for the engines to determine which topic is prominent and deserves ranking. It creates a dilution of focus.

The search engines have analyzed millions of web pages and from that have been able to gather significant knowledge of the human languages. They have an idea of how words and topics work together. It's not really about the number of times a keyword is used but the focus of the content. If you use a word or phrase too much then it'll be seen as manipulation. Too little and it's not enough to be relevant. Write as much or as little text as is needed in order to make the point you need for your visitors.

Draw Them In

SEO copywriting isn't all that different from normal copywriting except that you have to pay particular attention to keywords. Actually, non-seo copywriting would be better if keywords were paid attention to anyway. Not for search engines per se, but in order to use the key phrases that attracts and appeals to the readers. In that light, SEO copywriting and "normal" copywriting would be no different.

There are four basic things that the content of each of your web pages must do, regardless if its the home page, a category page, a product page, an article or a blog post.

Grab Attention

If the reader hits the page and the content is unable to get and keep their attention, then all is lost. They move on to another page or another site and you lost the possibility of a conversion.

Appeal to their Needs

Once you have their attention then you have to make your case. The simplest way to do that is to appeal to them on their terms. You already have what they want, but you have to write your content that shows them you understand their needs.

What motivated them to search for what you offer? By clearly re-iterating the need, you are then in a position to show that you have the solution. Go into great detail on why your solution is the right one and then move on to explain all the benefits of selecting you as that solution.

Ask questions

Questions make people think. Often times asking a question first and then providing an answer is far more effective than just providing an answer. Question make your readers consider what they are reading and then seek an answer to a question that they didn't even know they had.

What kind of questions should you ask? Just go back to the basics. Who? What? When? Why? Where? How? Each of these can provide an avenue for a good amount of additional information that may be important to the reader.

Inform

Finally, your content must inform. The visitor has to walk away having learned something valuable. And not just about you or your product or service, but about them as well. The visitor needs to know that you have exactly what they need and you must provide enough information to justify making a purchase from you both intellectually and emotionally.

Ways to inform are to show how your product or service can make their lives better, give them more time, money or freedom. You can also give them ideas on how to use your product or service which gives them additional incentives to make the purchase.

Five Rules of Copywriting

There are five basic rules to writing good website content that is appealing to both visitors and the search engines.

1. Avoid graphics in text.

Search engines are not so good about reading text in a graphic format. They are getting better at it but I think that it will always be problematic, especially when it comes to busy graphics or non-standard fonts. So for now, and the foreseeable future, it's a good idea to keep your text outside of graphics.

You also have to consider the user. Some users search with images off or the small screens of their mobile phones. Text in those graphics may be difficult or impossible to read. If the content is worth reading then it's worth ensuring that it is in the most readable format.

2. Think users before engines.

Your visitors come first. The search engines don't buy from you, they don't write comments, and they don't retweet your message. People do. The search engines only want what people want so give the people what they want and the search engines will, in most cases, reward you for that.

3. Write enough content.

How much content is enough? Only you know that. You need to write enough content to make the points you need and no more. Each visitor needs a different amount of content to read in order to be convinced. don't leave anybody out.

4. Target phrases not words.

People rarely search for words, they search for phrases. Knowing what those phrases are is essential to writing content that speaks to your visitor's desires. The phrases also put the words into context and give meaning to what the visitor is really searching for.

5. Don't force it.

Writing your content using the rules above should work naturally. Don't force anything if it just doesn't work. If you're trying to work in phrases that are not a fit for the page, then move those phrases to another page. If you're trying to produce content that will speak to different kinds of visitors, don't be afraid to break content off into other sections of the site such as articles or tutorials. This goes back to writing for the visitor. Meet their needs first and foremost and don't try to force anything that doesn't work.

As I said above, SEO copywriting isn't all that much different than standard copywriting. It's all about creating good content that appeals to the visitors and meets certain criteria in terms of keyword usage. In Part 12 I'll go over some key examples of how to write good content that is good for engines and users alike.

by Mike Moran

Social media is free, but what's the catch? Time. We only have so much time to spend putting our message out there, but we don't want to limit how many people can hear what we have to say. This problem comes up in many ways, but the simplest is the dichotomy between Facebook and Twitter. Many folks decide to spend the bulk of their social time on one or the other, with relatively few people using both. If Google Buzz catches fire, this fragmentation might only increase. What's a marketer to do?

Let's face it. There's no real difference between "friends" and "followers," nor between ""status updates" and "tweets." And why would you decide to spend all your precious social media time updating one venue and not the other, if your customers use both of them? But how can you double the amount of time you spend in social media updating both?

You don't have to. I decided that I prefer Twitter to Facebook so I have every tweet I send out mirrored as my Facebook status. And I do the same thing on LinkedIn. I haven't taken the plunge on Google Buzz yet, but I'll probably do the same thing there, also.

If someone wants to see what I am up to, they can use their favorite method to keep up and I only have to update once. I know people using FriendFeed to accomplish the same thing. In each of your social media lives, you can set up these mirrors to make sure that your customers can keep up no matter what network they are in, while you only need to update once.

Now, I find even though I update in only one place, that I still have trouble making time for more than a few tweets a day, but there isn't anything I can do to help with that.

by Sage Lewis

Matt Cutts has recently put out a post calling for us all to turn in link spam. Learn what he and Google are up to. This has interesting implications for you to consider.

by Scott Buresh

Allow me to offer a pre-emptive caveat - I own a successful search engine marketing company. Like most businesses, we are constantly trying to expand our client base - primarily through using the same search engine and internet marketing methods that we deliver to our clients. A quick search on terms such as "search engine optimization company" or "internet marketing company" on Google will demonstrate that we practice what we preach. As I write this, on a "clean machine" (one with all browser settings reset and cookies removed), my search engine marketing company ranks number 1 on Google for both of these phrases and the plural forms of the phrases. Based upon your past search tendencies, your specific location, and whims of the Google Gods, your mileage may vary, but you should find us near the top of the SERPs for those and hundreds of other related terms.

The Value of Integrating Different Internet Marketing Methods

The point here is not to boast - these results are due to the collective efforts of my expert team, not solely my own expertise. The point is to back up my contention that we practice what we preach and that the vast majority of our leads come from the internet marketing methods we apply to our own site. However, there has been much debate over the years in the search engine marketing community about whether it is proper or even hypocritical for a search engine marketing company to use other forms of advertising unrelated to internet marketing. The naysayers generally have a common argument: a quality search engine marketing company "shouldn't need" to engage in any forms of offline marketing. Depending on the goals one has for their search engine marketing company, this may actually be true for some. A smaller boutique firm or an independent consultant may have all the leads they ever want from their internet marketing methods. They may even be turning business away while they make blog posts about how companies such as mine shouldn't need to look offline for additional business opportunities.

However, this again relates directly to goals. If a search engine marketing company has capacity even after they maximize their online leads, and their business plan calls for maximum growth, what is the issue with engaging in other forms of marketing? As long as other marketing channels provide an acceptable ROI, I do not buy the argument that you "shouldn't need it," no matter what your situation.

The metrics are obviously what are important. It has been our experience that our own internet marketing methods provide us with, by far, the highest ROI of any of our other marketing efforts. However, this does not mean that the ROI from our online marketing efforts constitutes the baseline for what is ACCEPTABLE in terms of a return. In fact, we have done the math, and we know that we can afford to pay much more per lead.

Or, to look at this another way, we often work with companies that are embarking upon online marketing for the first time. These companies almost always already have successful offline marketing campaigns in place (after all, they are successful businesses). They are obviously delighted when they discover that their cost per lead or cost per sale with internet marketing is much lower than their other marketing efforts - but does this mean that they decide to shut those other successful channels down? Of course not.

And do we, as a responsible search engine marketing company, advise them that they should shut down those channels and put all of their eggs in the online basket? Of course not. We just enjoy the fact that our internet marketing methods provide the best bang for their buck.

Nobody can deny that the advent of various internet marketing methods has been a game-changer. Some forms of traditional advertising may even be on their last legs. Trade show attendance is down. Magazines and newspapers are in decline. I can't remember the last time a door-to-door salesperson came up to my house* (except those selling a particular religion - but that's a different story).

However, some channels, in our experience, still can provide exceptional returns. Direct mail, done properly, still works for us. Channel partnerships with offline marketing businesses can be profitable. Offline PR, when done properly, provides our search engine marketing company with exceptional exposure and returns. As long as we are achieving acceptable margins on these endeavors, we will continue to use them. And I will continue to stand incredulous when I hear from those who tell me that we shouldn't.

*Unless you count Girl Scouts peddling cookies.