Words for Hire: An Intro to Web Copywriting

Many people have a hard time writing about themselves. But as small business owners, we're also "do-it-yourself" types. So there is an inherent conflict when it comes to writing content for our own small business websites, blogs, and social media platforms.

Your website, blog, and social media presence are often the first thing your potential customers will see, and you only get a few seconds to make that crucial first impression. If your website, blog, and other copy hasn't been updated in a few months, chances are it needs to be. And if you let your website, blog, and social media copy grow inaccurate and obsolete, those potential new customers may pass you by.

"Your website, blog, and social media presence are often the first thing your potential customers will see, and you only get a few seconds to make that crucial first impression."

Far too often, small business owners write their own material, then forget about it. We've all come across a company website that was out of date and/or innaccurate, and chances are we went somewhere else rather than spend time trying to find the right information.

You already knew that, right? But who has the time to keep all of this stuff accurate and current?

Did you know there are people who will do this for you? Michelle Salater, owner of Written by Sumer, is one of those people, and I jumped at the chance to interview her about this incredibly useful service. Below is a transcript of our interview:

1. My readers and I are small business owners and "do it yourself" types. Most of us have never given much thought to hiring someone to write for us. Why should we?

Any business, no matter the size, should care about their marketing message because it is their unique, compelling message that attracts prospects and gets them to convert into paying customers. First impressions are everything, especially on the web. You have seconds to clearly convey what you do, whom you serve, and what benefit you provide to your customers. Too many small business owners think they are clearly communicating through their copy, but they aren't. Businesses evolve. Services change. And so does the market.

Often, what happens is companies add information to their websites over a period of time. The result is a smorgasbord of information that can easily confuse prospects. It’s often difficult to look at our own marketing message and see what’s really being communicated. When you’re too close to a project, it’s easy to get caught up in what you think needs to be said, rather than what prospects want to hear.

Clear copy equals more sales. When you can grab a prospect's attention and hold it, when you can get prospects to see that your services or products are the solution for them, when your copy helps prospects pre-qualify themselves, you will see an increase in sales.

In addition, we've found that when we write copy for clients, our questions and our copy help the business gain clarity about their target market and about why they do what they do. The more clear a business is on whom they serve, why they exist, and the true benefits of their services / products, the quicker they attract their ideal clients and increase revenue.

2. So do you write content for web pages, blog posts, advertisements?

We write content for websites, landing page copy, blog posts, press releases, brochures, and postcards. Most of the content we write is online and all of our copy is optimized. We do not write ad copy. We've learned to stick with what we are passionate about, what we're really good at. Advertisement copy and scripts are not our area of expertise. When businesses approach us about writing ad copy or scripts for video, we refer them to copywriters who specialize in these areas.

3. How do you write content without really knowing the business?

We are asked this question a lot. 80% of what a copywriter does is research. When we work with a client, we get to know their business inside and out. Before we write a word of content, we need to know about the client's vision, their mission, and what their goals are. We ask questions until we fully understand the client's target market; What really makes them tick? What keeps them up at night? Where do they shop? What do they do for a living? That sort of thing.

We also look at the competition and we study the client's services and products. We ask a lot of questions. Once we feel we have enough information, we do keyword research. After that, we begin writing the copy. Our discovery process helps to not only write compelling content that encourages prospects to take action, but also to minimize the amount of time spent revising the copy.

4. Do you write your copy for SEO purposes, for increased sales/conversions, or both?

Both. No matter what we are writing, we write with conversion and search engines in mind.

5. What does your "typical" copywriting project look like, and how long does it take?

Our specialty is web copywriting and for an average site (under 12 pages) our turnaround time is 3-4 weeks. It doesn't take that long to write a site, but we are often booked weeks in advance. For brochures or press releases--smaller projects--turnaround can be anywhere from a week to 2 weeks. The duration depends on the client's response time and our schedule.

6. Are your projects typically one time "makeovers", or long term relationships? Which do you prefer?

We strive to build long term relationships with our clients. Occasionally we have a one-time project, but this is rare.

7. Okay, let's say I'm sold on this copyrighting thing and I want to get started. How does the process work for a small business owner?

The first step is to find a copywriter or a copywriting company you think is a good fit for your needs and your personality. Ideally, you want a copywriter that will listen to your needs, has a solid understanding of your brand, services, products, and company culture, writes compelling marketing copy, delivers on time, and is professional from beginning to end. Take a look at previous work, check them out on social media and see what people are saying, read testimonials. Do your research before contacting a copywriter or a copywriting firm. I actually wrote a blog post about this titled 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Copywriter.

8. Are there some things I can do as a small business owner to improve my own copy writing skills and/or make it easier for a professional to come in and help me later on?

Yes. You can start by going over all of your marketing copy and circling the amount of times you use the words we, our, I, my, our team, etc. Overuse of the first person is a clear indicator that your content is too company centric. Prospects don't care that you've won 18 awards for being great nor do they care about your process. They care about what's in it for them, how their lives will be better because they purchase from you. So, take out a red pen and go over your copy. Then rewrite the areas that are company centric. Focus instead on the benefits people receive.

There are many blogs that provide excellent, free advice. Those who subscribe to my blog, Copy Doodle, can learn from our info-packed posts on writing content for websites, press releases, blogs, etc. Copy Blogger and The Bloggers' Bulletin are also excellent sources for information.

I also have a product I created for those who don't have the budget to hire a professional copywriter. My web copy critique (affiliate link) is perfect for the DIY entrepreneur or a small company that doesn't have the budget.

9. I've actually had clients tell me that they don't want their website copy or pictures to look "too professional", because it won't look like they wrote it and they want to "keep it real". Personally, I don't think it's possible to look too professional, but how would you respond such a naysayer?

This is a great question. I think the type of person you described above doesn't understand what a copywriter does. I would ask them why they assume a copywriter would write something that is too professional. Professional copywriters write all sorts of creative copy, and and write differently for each company.

We don't write for our clients. We write for our clients' customers. Whether your copy is professional in tone or more conversational depends on your target market. We look for the best way to communicate with your prospects and then craft the tone of the copy accordingly.

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Michell Salater,
Founder of Sumer, LLC

Michelle Salater is the founder and president of Sūmèr, LLC, a company specializing in web copy writing, SEO copywriting, and the promotion and marketing of websites after they launch. As an avid business blogger, Michelle has grown her small business marketing blog, Copy Doodle, to be a powerful lead generation and client education tool. Recently, Copy Doodle was listed #17 out of Technorati’s 100 Best Small Business Blogs. Michelle also speaks and coaches entrepreneurs, both privately and in online classes and workshops, on how to grow their businesses online and maximize their online marketing efforts. In 2009, Michelle won the Charleston Business Journal's Forty under 40 award for her business and community leadership. Pay her a visit at: www.writtenbysumer.com!

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 7: Link Building Strategies

10 Sure-Fire Ways to Build Quality Links to Your Website or Blog

In my last two posts in this series, we talked about the critical imortance of both links and keywords.

But once you're aware of the importance of those two things, the next question is always, So where am I supposed to get all these links from? The purpose of this post is to give you some ideas in that regard!

"Where am I supposed to get all these links from?"

Getting a link to your website can be as simple as finding a cool website or blog related to yours, emailing the owner, blogger, or webmaster, and asking "Hey, would you consider linking to my site?". Obviously, when you're just starting out with your off-page SEO and link building efforts, this can be a daunting task. And the fact is, link building is a tedious, time-consuming pain-in-the neck . But it is absolutely essential to success!

"Link building is a tedious, time-consuming pain-in-the neck . But it is absolutely essential to success!"

So where should you start? Below, I've outlined some sources of links that you may or may not be aware of, roughly in order from lower quality but easier to get to hard to get, but very high quality (I'll be talking more about link quality in an upcoming post on Page Rank):

1. Friends and contacts in your field - If you have a business with a website, chances are you have a few friends, relatives, or business associates who also have websites or blogs. Drop them a line (or better yet, call them) and ask nicely for a link! A few potential sources of quality websites in this category that come to mind are:

• Suppliers - If you sell widgets, and you buy all of your widget parts from Widget Warehouse, why not ask them for a link? After all, the more widgets you sell, the more widget parts you'll buy from them!
• Customers - Do you have a few regular customers who want to see you continue to succeed so you can continue to serve their needs? Do they have a website? There you go.
• Partners - If you install drywall, but your buddy Joe always does the framing first, and your pal Steve usually does the painting afterwards - why aren't your websites all linked up so you can share the love?

2. Online forums and communities - Are you active in any online message boards or forums in your industry? Many of these will allow you to put a link in your signature. These are not high quality links, but they couldn't be easier to get. (Note: Please do not join a forum just for the sake of link building - this is called spam and everyone hates it. Rather, join, engage, and be an active participant in these communities. You might actually learn something or make a connection that pays huge dividends. That is the point - the links are secondary.)

3. Competitors in another market - One of the Catch-22's of link-building is you need links from sites that are related to yours, but if the site is related to yours, that often means they are a competitor and aren't likely to want to help you with SEO! Ahh, but what about the competitor in another market? If you sell used cars in Tampa, why not get links from used car dealers in California and Nebraska and Massachussetts...you get the idea!

4. People who linked to your competitors - Now we're getting down to the nitty gritty. Did you know that with just a little effort, you can get a list of all the web pages that have linked to a particular website? One of my favorite tools for this is Wordtracker's Link Builder software (affiliate link - note that they have a 7-day free trial!). You just put in the URL of a website, and bam - you've got a list of all the sites that linked to them. Chances are if they were willing to link to your competition, they can be convinced to link to you as well!

5. Directories - There are millions of directories on the internet. From huge, multi-disciplinary directories such as internet yellow pages to narrow theme-specific directories such as this directory of dog poop scoopers (trust me, if there is a directory for pooper scoopers, there is probably a directory related to your industry as well!).

Directories range from free sites where you just submit your site and it shows up in a day or two, to paid services with different levels of service and exposure based on your membership level. These can be excellent places to get links.

No mention of directories would be complete without a mention of the big three. DMOZ, The Yahoo Directory, and Best of the Web (BOTW) are all large, widely respected directories that search engines have traditionally given lots of weight to*. [I also like NoMoz.org, but opionions vary on how much respect it gets from the major search engines]. These range from free but nearly impossible to get listed in (DMOZ) to very expensive but quick and easy to get listed in (Yahoo).

*Search engines have traditionally given substantial weight to links from established directories for the simple reason that search engines are robots. Conversely, well-run directories are edited by human beings, who at a minimum should ensure that your website is 1) legitimate and 2) listed in the appopriate catagory in their directory. So if the Yahoo Directory lists your site under the category Small Businesses > US > Florida > Tampa Bay > Pinellas County > Home Repair > Plumbing, Google and Bing safely assume that your website is in fact about a Plumber in Pinellas county, Florida. The concept is the same for smaller directories.

6. Chambers of Commerce - Many small business owners are members of their local Chamber of Commerce. But many of these business owners fail to take the logical next step of ensuring their business information and website are listed in the Chamber's online membership directory. Much like internet directories, Google and Bing give a lot of weight to links from Chambers of Commerce. It is almost always worth the extra time and/or additional cost to ensure a link to your website is included with your chamber listing.

7. Press Releases - Assuming you have something of interest to say about your business (a new product or service launch, a new location opening, an award you recently won, an upcoming event you are hosting or sponsoring, etc.), press releases can be an incredibly effective way to get links to your site as well as traffic. A well-written and properly distributed press release can get you mentioned in places such as Yahoo News, Google News, and industry-specific blogs and websites, and can even result in coverage of your news or event by local meda outlets. Check out my press release page for more inofrmation.

8. Blogs and Websites in Your Field - Well, duh! This kind of goes without saying at this point, but you might be surprised at how many bloggers and webmasters maintain a "Blog Roll" and/or a "Links Section" and will happily link to websites or blogs that they feel are of interest to their readers - don't be afraid to ask!

10. Guest Posting - As a small business owner, you have expert advice and experience in your industry that has value. Often, the best way to share that advice is by blogging. If you don't already have a blog of your own, start one.  And once you do, and have spent some time and energy building up the content and readership of your own blog, the next step is to look for opportunities to guest post on other blogs.

"Guest Posting is the holy grail of link-building."

Guest Posting is the holy grail of link-building. By writing a post for a respected blog in your industry, you not only get the customary link back to your own website or blog, but you also get traffic (via said link) to your site from a respected blog in your industry. And the owner of the blog gets free content that keeps readers engaged and interested in their own blog. It truly is a win-win if done correctly. One of the best resources I can offer on how to do it correctly is this e-book on Guest Blogging.

This concludes my rundown of the top ten places to get links to your website. Do you have an 11th? Or a question about how to go about asking for a link? Feel free to leave a comment below!

And stay tuned for my next post about the Top 10 Places Not to Get Links From!

By the way, have you joined The Nifty 150 yet?

An Englishman's Guide to SEO

1. Do you have a website?

2. Do you want it to rank well in Google?

3. Do you have 18 spare minutes?

4. Do you like British accents?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, then boy do I have a treat for you! Make yourself a cup of tea, press play, and enjoy the video below. It was put together by Mike Mendel of Wordtracker.com, and is a perfect complement to my What the Heck is SEO? Series!

(If you have trouble loading the video, you can watch the original here.)

Click here for more information about the cool SEO tools available from Wordtracker!

Disclaimer: Tampa Bay Search is an official Wordtracker Affiliate.

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 5: The Power of Links

You've probably received an email recently with the title "Link Exchange Request". Or one from a company in India offering "Link Building Services". You probably deleted them, right?

The fact is, the world wide web was designed to be hyperlinked. Links are the power behind the web. So you should incorporate a systematic and regular linking strategy into your website (and you probably should look at some of those link exchange requests). Why?

If you've had your website up for a while, you know how difficult it is to get visitors or "traffic" to your site. You either have to advertise, or you have to have really good placement in the major search engines. In other words, when people go to Google or Bing and type in "Florida beach vacation rental" or whatever, you want them to find your page listed in the search results, right? Of course you do because this is the best way to get free visitors to your website.

So how does Google know that your site is about "Florida beach vacation rentals (or whatever)?" It knows by what you do both "on page" and "off page." The earlier posts in this series covered 'On-Page' SEO in great detail. But that was kid stuff.

Today, you're graduating to 'Off-Page' Search Engine Optimization!

The problem with 'On-Page' search engine optimization is it's relatively easy. Anyone can do it. And even if you've already done it, there's nothing to stop some snazzy upstart competitor from coming along and doing the same thing. That's why when you get serious about SEO, you have to start talking about 'Off-Page' factors such as links.

"The problem with 'On-Page' search engine optimization is it's relatively easy. When you get serious about SEO, you have to start talking about 'Off-Page' factors such as links."

Google and Bing consider other web pages powerful indicators of the content of your website. For instance, if I have a link on my site pointing to yours, and my linked text says Clearwater Beach Weddings, then I'm providing third-party verification that your site is indeed about Clearwater Beach Weddings.

Imagine the power of 50 sites pointing to yours with the same or similar linked text! No, don't imagine it. I'll show you the power. Right now!

You are familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader, right? It's the free software that allows you to read pdf files. What would you search for to find the Adobe Acrobat site to download their software? Being a relatively normal human, you'd probably go to Google and type in "Adobe Acrobat Reader" or something like that right? And the site would be either number one in the search results or very close to it.

Proof of the Power of Links to Your Site:

Now try this: Go to Google or Bing and in the search box, type in "click here", and search for that keyword phrase. What website was number one for the search term "click here"? I hope you try this because this is very powerful. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Surprise! The Adobe Acrobat Reader download page is the number one search result for the term "click here"! Now go back and look at the page - notice that nowhere on the Adobe page will you find the words "click here". In fact, the page has absolutely nothing to do with the words "click here"!

So why is it number one in the search results, you ask?

On nearly every page on the internet that has a pdf file to be downloaded, you will find the following instructions: "To download your copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here." The text "click here" is hyperlinked directly to Adobe Acrobat Reader download page on literally millions of web pages. Because the external links say the page is about "click here," that's what Google and Bing assume it's about!

"Google and Bing consider other web pages powerful indicators of the content of your website!"

Imagine the power of 50 or 100 (or 1,000) links from other web pages with your website's keywords all pointing to your site!

I just wanted to show you how powerful linking is so you will be eager to link and be linked to. As you can see, "off-page" links can actually be more powerful than "on-page" strategies. So when another webmaster sends you a link request, consider it carefully. It may be a great opportunity to improve your rankings in the search engines.

But don’t go out and start building links just yet – there are several pitfalls and best practices you should be aware of before implementing your own link-building strategy, which is why you need to subscribe to my blog and make sure you don't miss my next few posts about keyword research and link building!

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Special thanks to David McRee for his assistance with this post. David wrote the original version of this article for his own website several years ago, and was one of my first mentors in the often baffling field of SEO. David was into SEO long before SEO was cool, and is known throughout Florida as The Beach Hunter. He blogs about beaches in the Florida Keys and throughout the state at www.beachhunter.net!

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 4: Content and Headers

In our last post in this series, we talked about the importance of meta tags when it comes to SEO. In today's post, we're going to get to the heart of the matter - content.

So back to our story in the airport bookstore...

You've got two books in your hand. The titles caught your eye, and the descriptions look equally appealing. How do you decide? Most people at this point will open up the books and scan the content - maybe look at the headings and a paragraph here and there to see if the content of the book catches their attention. Google and Bing do the same thing, except they read and save (index) every word of text on your site!

You may have heard the phrase, "Content is King", but what does that mean? It means that the actual text content of your website is given by far the most weight out of all the factors Google and Bing consider when deciding where to rank your page in their search results!

"The actual text content of your website is given by far the most weight out of all the factors Google and Bing consider when deciding where to rank your page in their search results!"

So what are the secrets to writing good content? They're actually much simpler than you might think:

• Your content needs to contain your keywords. If you want your website to rank on the first page of Google and Bing for the phrase "Dallas wedding photographer", and the text on your page does not contain the words "Dallas wedding photographer", it's probably not going to happen!
• Your content needs to be well written. You can't just repeat your keywords over and over. They need to be sprinkled throughout your content in a natural way. 

Note: There is a metric called keyword density, which measures the number of times a given keyword or phrase appears as a percentage of all other words on a page. Don't worry about it - it's an obsolete metric, and there has never been a set standard for it anyway. If you give a draft of your content to your grandmother or a 10 year-old and they can read it and then tell you what the page was about, I assure you Google and Bing can do the same!

• You need to use variations of your keywords throughout your content. If you're trying to rank for "Dallas wedding photographer", then sprinkle in words like photography and Texas and bridal, where appropriate.

Note: For those of you who just have to know the nitty gritty details, this stems from a search algorithm called 'latent semantic analysis', in which search engines look for semantically related words in addition to your keywords as a signal that strengthens their confidence in your content.

"The secrets to writing good content are much simpler than you might think!" 

Header Tags

Your keywords should also be used in your header tags. Remember in high school when you had to write that dreaded "research paper"? Before you even started writing the paper, you had to turn in an "outline" of your paper to your teacher, right? 

Header tags are very similar to an outline. They are designated by HTML markup and ranked according to importance, as in H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, etc. Accordingly, header tags should be used to break up your content into meaningful sections. It only makes sense that if your page is about Dallas wedding photography, then the sections of the page should be broken down into concepts or ideas that are related to the theme of the page, right? For example:

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Dallas Wedding Photography (this is an H1 tag)

Susie Smith is an award winning wedding photographer in Dallas, Texas...

Engagement Portraits (this is an H2 tag)

Susie offers engagement portraits throughout the Dallas area as part of all of her packages...

Actual Engagement Photo Sessions  (this is an H3 tag)

Click on the links below to see some of Susie's recent engagement portraits...

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So it stands to reason that Google and Bing will look closely at your header tags when trying to determine what your page is about. Thus, you should use them appropriately (and sparingly). Generally, I recommend having only one H1 tag per page, leaving no doubt in Google and Bing's "eyes" as to what each page is about.

If you've read the other posts in this series, by now you're probably starting to see a pattern and realize that consistency is one of the keys to search engine optimization. Your keywords need to be sprinkled consistently throughout your title tag, meta tags, content, and headers.

"Consistency is one of the keys to search engine optimization." 

But there is one other place where your keywords play a crucial role in what Google and Bing think of your website. Stay tuned for the next few posts in this series (or better yet, subscribe to my blog and get them delivered to your inbox), which focus on one of the most misunderstood and misapplied principles of SEO - link-building!

How to Install Google Analytics

Google Analytics is widely regarded as the industry standard for tracking website traffic. This powerful free tool will tell you things like:

• How many people visited your website in a given time period
• Where these visitors came from (i.e. search engines or other websites)
• Which keywords these visitors searched for when they found your website (if they found it via a search engine)
• Where these visitors were located, geographically speaking (as in country, state, city)
• What web browser your visitors were using when they viewed your site
• How long they spent on your website
• Which pages of your site they visited and for how long
• Which pages they entered and exited your site from
• How many visitors completed a "conversion" (as in did something like buy your product or fill out a form or visit a contact page - this is defined by you)

Given that Google Analytics does all this and more, and for free. I find it surprising that only 26% of the websites out there actually use Google Analytics. I figure at least some of the other 74% are small business owners who maintain their own websites and never knew they needed Google Analytics or were intimidated by the process of setting up a Google Analytics account and installing the Google Analaytics tracking script on their website.

Installing Google Analytics is actually a fairly simple process, and I dug up a couple of easy to use resources with step by step instructions:

• For those who need something you can print out and read, try the Google Analytics Installation Guide.
• For those of you who like to be shown how to do it, try this video:

 

Stay tuned or subscribe to my blog for my next post in this series , where I'll talk more about how to actually use Google Analytics!

If you need help figuring out how or where to install your tracking code, feel free to leave a comment below.

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 3: Meta Tags

In my last post in this series, we talked about the importance of title tags. Now we're going to continue our story in the airport bookstore...

So you've narrowed it down to two books based on their titles. What is your next step in deciding which one to buy and which one to put back on the shelf before you head to your boarding gate? I don't know about you, but I read the inside flap which provides a description of the contents of the book.

So do Google and Bing! The description of each page of your website is contained in the description meta tag, which is a snippet of HTML code that looks like this:

<meta content="description of this web page" name="description">

There is some disagreement over exactly how Google and Bing index and serve your description meta tag, and how much weight it is given. But published guidelines suggest that Bing gives at least some weight to the description meta tag, and we know for a fact that Google at least reads it, indexes it, and serves it in its search results.

"Your description meta tag is often the first 'ad copy' search engine users see."

The real importance of the description meta tag comes into play in search engine results pages (SERPs), because more often than not, your description meta tag is served as the description of your web page in the search engine results (below the hyperlinked title tag):

Thus, your description meta tag is often the first "ad copy" search engine users see. It needs to be compelling, engaging, and to the point, and it should paint a clear picture of what your business does and why someone should click through to your website! Published guidelines suggest your description meta tag should be less than 150 characters in length (anything longer is snipped anyway, as in the City Search example above that ends with an ellipse).

One final note on the description meta tag - if it is left blank, the search engines will just grab a snippet of text from somewhere on the page and show this in the search results. Sometimes they do this anyway if their algorithm suggests some other content on the page is more relevant, but having a well written description meta tag is the only way to exert some control over what search engines display in their results.

"Having a well written description meta tag is the only way to exert some control over what search engines display in their results."

Do It Yourself Tip: Many small business owners use a template based website or an online web editor, and it's not always obvious which field in your web editor fills the description meta tag. So here's a handy Meta Tag Analyzer to check yours right now!

Another meta tag you may hear of is the keyword meta tag. Your keyword meta tag is a snippet of HTML code in each page of your website that looks like this:

<meta content="keywords associated with this web page, separated by commas" name="keywords">

Now you may be thinking, "that sounds too easy!". It is, and the keyword meta tag is disregarded by Google and given little weight by Bing and other search engines. Adding a few keywords to your keyword meta tag won't hurt anything, but it probably won't help either.

"The keyword meta tag is disregarded by Google and given little weight by Bing and other search engines. Adding a few keywords to your keyword meta tag won't hurt anything, but it probably won't help either."

There are several other meta tags that can be used on each page of your website, but none of them has much of an impact on SEO, so I won't get into the weeds here.

Instead, let's back to the bookstore! So you've read the descriptions, but they both sound good and you still can't decide which book to buy. What would you do next? How about open the book and flip through the content to see if it looks interesting?

BING-O (no pun intended!). Stay tuned for my next post on Content and Headers! Better yet, subscribe to my blog to get an email when it gets posted!

If I Only Had $30 to Spend on SEO...

Well that changes things entirely. In that case I'd borrow $10 and spend it all on Ninja SEO School!

(seriously)

What would you spend it on?


Jeff

If I Only Had $15 to Spend on SEO...

I'd borrow $5 and spend the entire $20 on SEO for Dummies by Peter Kent!
(Actual advice I shared with a potential client via email today)

What would you spend it on?

Jeff

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 2: Title Tags

Welcome to the second post in my What the Heck is SEO? series on Search Engine Optimization for small businesses. You’ve probably never asked anyone “How’s your meta data?”, but I assure you that you will after reading these next few posts!

In my kick-off post titled “What the Heck is SEO?”, we talked about the definition of Search Engine Optimization, search engine market share, the difference between Push and Pull Marketing, and the critical importance of ranking well in the search results on Google and Bing.

This week, we’re going to roll up our sleeves, pop the hood, and start tuning up your website!

Search engines like Google and Bing work by “crawling” the internet with programs called bots or spiders that read the content of a website, taking a snapshot of each page of the site (called indexing or caching), and saving it in an index (a giant database of websites) each time the site changes. Then when you search for something, the search engine compares your search term to the sites in its index, decides which web pages are the best match, and ranks them in its search results.

The actual algorithms used by search engines to make these decisions are closely guarded trade secrets. But search engines publish their standards and guidelines, and search engine optimization professionals are able to make judgments and infer certain factors using these guidelines and good old-fashioned trial and error.

The purpose of this series isn’t to get into the nuts and bolts of how search engines work; it’s to help you improve your website using language and concepts that are easy to understand. So, close your eyes and imagine for a second that you’re going on a business trip...

You’re in the airport waiting to board your flight, and you just realized you didn’t bring anything to read! You wander into the airport bookstore and start browsing for a book to read. You find the section you want, cock your head to the side, and do what?

You read the titles, of course!

Guess what? Google and Bing do the exact same thing! The first place Google and Bing look when trying to determine what a page on your website is about is the Title Tag! The title tag is a snippet of HTML code in each page of your website that looks like this: <title>Title of This Web Page</title>

The title tag is only visible in the header of your browser when you are viewing a particular page, so it is often overlooked by small business owners and web developers when designing their site.

"The first place Google and Bing look when trying to determine what a page on your website is about is the Title Tag!"

The other place your title tag is visible is in search engine results - it becomes the blue hyperlinked text for each search result listed.

So now that you understand the importance of your title tags, what do yours say? If you have never given them any thought or you use a template based website, chances are they say “Home” or “Welcome”, or some other generic term. Obviously, your website has absolutely nothing to do with “Home” or “Welcome”, yet this is the number one mistake that small business owners make when designing their own websites! These generic title tags are just wasted space.

"Generic title tags are the number one mistake small business owners make when designing their own websites!"

Good title tags should reflect two things: 1) What your business does, and 2) Where you are located. They should be concise (no more than 60 characters) and get straight to the point. Here are a few good examples:

• Tampa Wedding Photography by Suzy Brown
• Wedding Cakes in St Petersburg, Florida
• Joe's Plumbing in Clearwater, FL

And keep in mind that each page of your site has its own title tag, so if you have one page about wedding cakes, and another page on your website about cake toppers, make sure the titles reflect this!

"Remember each page of your site has its own title tag!"

So, now that you’re armed with this knowledge of the force, get to work on those title tags (and keep in mind it can take Google and Bing anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to update your site in their index).

Now back to our story in the airport bookstore. You’ve narrowed it down to two books that look promising based on their titles. How do you decide which one to buy and which one goes back on the shelf?

Find out in my next post in this series post on Description Meta Tags, and subscribe to my blog to make sure you don't miss any of the awesomeness!

What the Heck is SEO?

Welcome to my first post in a series on Search Engine Optimization for small business owners.

There is a lot of confusion over Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and there are a lot of shady characters, spammers, and telemarketers in the SEO business. Unfortunately, this has resulted in many small business owners being skeptical and tuning out as soon as they hear the term “SEO”. This is a shame, and a crucial mistake from a business and marketing standpoint.

Think about it – Who are today’s consumers? Baby Boomers have completely embraced the internet and email, and are heavy users of search engines, and many younger consumers have never walked across the living room to turn the “knob” on a television set, have had a computer with internet access in their household for as long and they can remember, and have never touched the Yellow Pages. Thus, the first place today’s (and increasingly, tomorrow’s) consumers go when shopping around for a small business is an internet search engine.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of planning (for a new website) or revising (for an existing website), a website’s structure and content so that it adheres to the guidelines expected of the major search engines and ranks well in their search results for a particular set of search queries or “keyword phrases”. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now that we’ve clarified that, it bears mentioning just who the major search engines are. In a word, Google! Google currently enjoys about a 70% market share of online searches in the United States. Google’s only real competition is Microsoft, who recently acquired the Yahoo! search engine and is in the process of merging Yahoo! with its own search engine, known as Bing (formerly MSN Live Search). Bing (when combined with Yahoo!) now boasts a 25% market share. All other search portals (AOL, Lycos, Ask.com, etc.) have a market share in the single digits, and many serve search results that are actually from Google or Bing. Thus they really aren’t a factor when it comes to SEO.

“You really only have to worry about Google and Bing!”

So the good news is you really only have to worry about Google and Bing! Furthermore, Google and Bing tend to serve fairly similar search results, so if your site is well optimized for Google, chances are it will also rank well in Bing, and vice versa.

Being ranked highly in the search results on Google and/or Bing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to today’s small business owners. And here’s why: Almost every other form of advertising in the world is based on what I call “Push Marketing”. In other words, you “push” your message in front of a potential customer’s eyes. Whether it’s an ad in a magazine or newspaper, a brochure or business card, or a billboard or sign, the effect is the same; The customer is usually not seeking your product or services at that
particular moment, so they are much less receptive to your message and subconsciously resent having it “pushed” on them.

"Being ranked highly in the search results on Google or Bing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to today’s small business owners."

Search engines turn this process around 180 degrees, and use what I call “Pull Marketing” – the customer is actively searching for your product or service and is trying to “pull” your message in front of their eyes. And once they find what they’re looking for, they usually stop searching and contact the business that seems like the best fit. At that point, all of the more traditional marketing techniques apply. You have to answer the phone when it rings and be responsive and professional in e-mail messages, and you have to have a high quality product or service in order to complete the sale. But the search engine did its job and delivered the customer to your door, telephone, or inbox!

But how do you make sure your message is the one that the customer pulls?

Most people are surprised when I explain to them that Google and Bing want your site to be on the first page of their search results. Why is that? Because Google and Bing must return relevant search results in order to keep users coming back to their search engines.

"Google and Bing want your site to be on the first page of their search results!"

Let’s say your website is about Tampa Wedding Photography (and you are in fact a wedding photographer in Tampa). If I go to Google or Bing and search for “Tampa Wedding Photographer” and your site is not there, then Google and Bing have failed!

However, if I search for “Tampa Wedding Photographer” and your site is one of the top results, and I click through to your site and find exactly what I was looking for, we all win! I’m happy because I found what I needed, you’re happy because a potential new customer found your website, and Google and Bing are happy because next time I need to search for something online, I’m more likely to return to their search engine. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

But how do you let Google and Bing know that your site is about Wedding Photography in Tampa or Plumbers in Clearwater? That is exactly what this series of blog posts will teach you!

The remainder of this series will focus on teaching you what the search engines are looking for and how to optimize your website to rank on the first page of Google and Bing. Subscribe to my blog to make sure you don’t miss my next post about Title Tags!

The Russia Effect

This post is intended for people in the Tampa Bay area. So if you live in Albuquerque, it may not be as relevant (to my knowledge, there is no Albuquerque in Russia), sorry!

But for you Floridians out there, I have an interesting experiement for you to try. Go to Google and search for st petersburg restaurants or st petersburg hotels. Go ahead - I'll wait...

Chances are, the map listings that come up in your search results looked something like this: Keen observers will note that every single listing is for St Petersburg, Russia! The organic listings seem to be a mix of Russia and Florida results. Muy interesante, no?

This is an interesting Google quirk, but perfectly understandable when you consider that St Petersburg, Florida has around 250,000 residents, and St Petersburg, Russia has almost 5 million, or about 20 times the population of our beloved little Sunshine City!

Taking this one step further, I've found that this "Russia Effect" has caused an interesting impact on search behavior. Even though the cities of Tampa and St Petersburg are roughly the same size, and have similar infrastructures and economies, users of Google and other search engines use "Tampa" as a geographic modifier far (like 10 times!) more often that "St Petersburg". Here are a couple of examples:


Term (#Monthly Phrase-Matched Searches on Google)

insurance tampa (18,000)
insurance st petersburg (1,600)
photography tampa (6,600)
photography st petersburg (720)

(Note: I suspect another contributing factor to this phenomenon is tourism - people from other areas of the country have been conditioned to think of this entire area as "Tampa" or "Tampa Bay" - but that's another blog post!)

Alas, we come to my point...What does this all mean for you as a local small business owner and internet marketer? A few thoughts come to mind:

1. If your business targets the entire Tampa Bay area, be sure your are using "Tampa" or "Tampa Bay" in your web content, title and meta tags, and other ad copy. You need not exclude other local references like St Petersburg, Clearwater, etc. - just don't make them your primary focus.

2. If your business markets specifically and only to St Petersburg, Florida, be sure to append "FL" or "Florida" to St Petersburg throughout your content, so that search engines and human visitors alike know which city you're in. Otherwise they may assume you're wearing one of those fuzzy hats and drinking vodka for breakfast!
3. If you have the opportunity to do so legitimately (i.e. you have an address and/or phone number in Tampa that can be tied to your business), consider setting up a seperate Google Places (Maps) listing with a Tampa address and phone number - you might be surprised how much more business it generates than a St Petersburg listing.

Until next time, Do svidaniya my friends!