Google’s latest keyword tool leaves a little to be desired.  Is it just me or does it feel like the data is inaccurate, incomplete, or even completely wrong at times?   Maybe I have relied to heavily on it in the past and am now forced into spending a considerable amount of money to purchase a service that promises a lot of bells and whistles I have no use for.  Time and time again I find myself back to the keyword tool hoping I missed something, a box unchecked or perhaps just haven’t thought of the winning keyword that pulls up hundreds of results like it used to back in the day.

In search for answers, I have, on two occassions followed my browser as it somehow found it’s way to Google adwords.  Coincidence?  Doubtful.  Especially since Google’s announcement of  the retraction of keyword data on analytics reports.  The only way to get keyword traffic data is to in fact open an Adwords account and set up a campaign.

Maybe they saw an opportunity in the market since there are virtually no keyword tools on the market currently that are free.  One must invest in either a monthly based fee subscription, or a yearly subscription of which both are sure to continually get more expensive as time passes, simply to get very basic yet important data about their marketing.

So if you have the money to spend on Adwords, you could probably also afford to buy a keyword tool – but you don’t need to.  Google gives you that information in surplus and without restriction.  For those who cannot afford an adwords campaign, like many small start up’s – it just got that much harder to market yourself effectively online.

Writing tends to be a daunting task for many but doesn’t have to be.  If you want  to give your message a powerful edge, capable of stirring up action in your market then keep reading.

Despite popular belief, crafting content on the web isn’t really about how good of a wordsmith you are or even how good of a speller you are. The most important feature of your message is how effective it is at finding the right audience.

Anyone can create powerful messages with ease by first considering a few important details. So set your pen down, take your fingers off the keyboard and ask yourself the following questions: (and in this order):

1. Who is my audience? (Need a better answer than “your market” be specific)
2. What is my message?

If you’re not sure what to write about – if you first consider WHO your  audience is, the topics will come much easier to you.  Then like magic…aaaahh…your message begins to form itself. Please don’t attempt to write an article that pleases every individual in your market – it’s not possible. That would resemble banging your head against a wall repeatedly. Okay well not exactly like that but close. It’s important to segment your market and focus on smaller groups within it.

Example #1

Let’s say you sell lawnmowers.  You may be wondering how to entertain anyone talking about lawnmowers but  believe it or not there are a thousand and 1 ways to deliver messages on any topic that are interesting and powerful to the reader. The key is delivering it to the right ears. Applying what we learned above we ask ourselves:

1. Who is my audience? Thinking of potential markets within the larger market of people who buy lawn mowers, we choose recent lawnmower buyers as our target audience.
2. What is my message? Now what do you suppose recent lawnmower buyers would want to know? Recent buyers of anything over $100.00 usually want to know if they got the best deal.  Congratulations! The hardest part of crafting your message is over.  After discovering these two very important details about your message you’ll find writing it to be much easier.

Crafting the Message and the Catchy Headline

Armed with some helpful considerations you are now ready to create a powerful message. Let’s pretend that you you personally sell the Cadillac of mowers, John Deere. With this in mind, you know just the right spin for your article starting with the headline which might be,  “Lawnmowers: Did You Get The Best Deal?” I think I would probably want to read that if I had just purchased a lawnmower, wouldn’t you?  Let’s look at another example.

Example #2

Audience:
Target: Individuals who have owned the same lawnmower forever and desperately need a new one.

Message:
(hint)People who need new lawnmowers or really anything are generally motivated by special deals. They may even be in the comparisons shopping phase of the buying cycle at which point you will now conveniently place yourself in the right place at the right time. However since John Deere is at the high end of all lawnmower pricing, you have to sell on quality – no problem! How about an excellent feature benefit article comparing all the bells and whistles of the John Deere vs. other comparable brands.

Possible Headlines:
“Choosing a Quality Lawnmower at the Right Price” or “Why Putting off Buying a New Lawnmower is Actually Costing You Money” “Cut the Grass and Your Costs This Summer” “What You Should Know Before Purchasing that New Lawnmower”

Both audiences mentioned are part of the larger market of all people who buy lawnmowers.  If we narrow our scope with our content, (imagine a dartboard) we increase our chances of hitting that bullseye.  A bullseye in this case is what we call a conversion. A conversion could be any type of action taken by the reader as a result of our message and is not necessarily considered a purchase.  Most often we have to win them over first, which is our goal when we write targeted content.

Now the reality is did we hit that bulls eye simply by breaking up our market?  No not really. We hit that bullseye because our message had more impact. Why did our message have more impact? It wasn’t because of our masterful skill of putting sentences together.  It had impact because it hit home. Our audience ate it up, every last word of it, because it was all about them.  When we try to speak to our market as a whole unit, our message is diluted and while may have some highlights for certain groups within that market, we failed to make an impression that was strong enough to resonate and initiate action from them.

In short, for all of you out there that struggle with putting words together – this is your key because the reality is, it isn’t so much about your skill of writing. As long as your message is well targeted, it will resonate with the intended market.

In summary targeted messages take a lot of the pain out of writing.  Having a clear direction of topic and audience will dramatically help the words flow much easier than trying to speak to masses.  In addition your message will have much more effect by it’s striking similarity to the audience for whom it was intended.  This similarity is the key to provoking them to take action.

This digital age has given new meaning to the word brevity.  With information that is able to reach masses with a single click, one needs to consider how the audience is receiving it before they hit the “publish” button.

As mentioned time and time again, blog posts that are short get the most face time.  Keeping your posts short will  have a tremendous effect on how many actually read them.  When faced with copy that overflows a page, how often do you choose to read it?  More often than not, the shorter article wins out. Long posts often get passesd up for something more visually palatable.  Seeing an article that one is certain they can finish from beginning to end without too much effort is the likely choice for readers in this era and on this landscape.  It  becomes even more true when we consider how our audience may be viewing our content.

People seeking information on the fly, want to be able to read it on the fly. Reading articles on a mobile device is a common activity these days.  Consider how long, even the shortest article will look on a mobile device.  9 times out of 10, readers on a mobile device are passing time while waiting to board a plane, are on a plane or waiting to be called for their scheduled appointment.  They desire to learn something new, or be entertained- briefly.

Yep, that’s right, less is best, for web copy, despite what you have probably been taught your entire life, with every other form of content you’ve written or been required to write. This is why being brief with our blog posts, isn’t as easy as it sounds…..try it, I dare you.

[text-box]*According to Squeeze, an online news source, a study published by Pew Research on March 15th found that 60 percent of Americans get their news from an online source.[/text-box]

If you’re one of the millions out there who decided to create a blog, then you know the amount of time and effort that goes into maintaining it.  With all the time  spent on writing content and the various other technical tasks associated with having a website you’ve probably put the one HUGE problem with it on the back burner which is…NOBODY READS IT BUT YOU.

I feel it is important to clarify that building a popular blog is a two part process that first involves its visibility and being found on the internet using more technical strategies like SEO and even social media.  The second part of the process and the one chosen for the topic of this post is about building authority or readership with your blog and/or creating an environment  that keeps your traffic coming back for more.

TAKE IT PERSONAL

Remembering what a blog really is, becomes a key factor in making it good.  Blogs are designed for engaging with people. It is a place where content and conversations, even debates happen.  They are designed as a place to share information, ideas, ask questions, get advice, and most importantly, get a closer look into you and your products and services if this is what you are promoting.

GETTING THE BASICS DOWN

Does your site promote the sharing ideas? Can visitors leave comments? Do you have contact forms? Have you asked your audience for feedback?  Does your site reflect your personality? Have you included a picture and short bio of yourself so that your readers feel like they are in touch with some form of human life? Are you filling your blog up with promotional and non engaging content?

There are many more areas to cover but want to keep the content short- ensuring people will actually read it!  Stay tuned for part 2 of  “Setting the Tone to a Popular Blog”

GET IDEAS ON HOW TO STIR UP ACTION AND BUILD AUTHORITY

1. MAKE AN EFFORT TO URGE SUBSCRIPTION TO YOUR BLOG

RSS Feed Subscriptions remind subscribers each time you create a new post which keeps them coming back to your site and keeps you/your brand – fresh in their minds.

2.  JOIN EXPERT SITES LIKE FOCUS.COM

You can answer questions related to your industry that demonstrate your expertise and build authority.

3.  ADDRESS COMMENTERS BY THEIR NAME

Give your presence a personal feel by addressing your audience individually by their neme. This has an amazing ability to create a sense of belonging and loyalty on your website.

4.  BE COURTEOUS AND TIMELY WITH YOUR REPLIES TO COMMENTS

Comments should be considered gold. They initiate conversation which leads to buying and are a nice gesture that deserves your recognition. Treat your current subscribers well by giving them special access to tools or content on your site reserved only for members. Make sure to advertise this in visible areas on your site. This is a great way to urge others to subscribe.

6.  CREATE INTERACTIVE CONTENT

Create copy that is developed using input from your audience. This could be in the form of polls, or questions you ask your readers to answer. Offer them real estate on your blog as an incentive by posting those responses afterwards. HINT: In order to take part in your poll, they have to first subscribe.

7.  DON’T MAKE A PAINFUL SUBSCRIPTION PROCESS

This will deter getting any. Usually name and email are enough and is the only information many are willing to give up. Try not to be your own worst enemy.

8.  SIMPLY ASK

Often overlooked in our desperate attempts for someone to talk to us is to just simply ask them to. You can include a short request at the end of a post saying something like – “What do you think?” or “Let me know…” or “Let’s hear…”

9.  CREATE CONTENT THAT HAS PART 1 AND PART 2

First, start by only publishing part 1. At the end of part 1′s post leave a subscription link and ask your readers to subscribe to be be notified when you publish the second part.

10.  PROVIDE STEADY CONTENT THAT GOES DOWN EASILY

If you’ve chosen a somewhat complicated industry to make your fortune in, make it not so on your blog. Using diagrams or other visuals help convey complicated topics. Most importantly keep your content flow steady, but don’t feel like you have to write everyday, or that your posts have to be a certain length. Post a just a question that provokes thought in your audience..Later if you feel like writing more on it then do so but you don’t have to.

Have fun with it and your readers! Don’t get caught up in the grammatical or “proper” details of the english language. Your readers didn’t just win the nobel peace prize for being scholars.

If you missed the first part of this post be sure to Read Part 1 which covers 1-5.

6.  LEAD CAPTURE – DOESN’T EXIST, LACKS APPEAL, OR ASKS TOO MUCH

Think like a searcher.  When you are browsing the net and come across an interesting offer, how much are you willing to do to get it.  Personally if the form asks for my address, they don’t get my info at all.

  It’s just too much work, plus I fear they are going to spam my email to death.  They’re is usually no need to collect addresses from your market unless you plan on showing up for dinner one night.  Email and name most often are all you need satisfy future marketing efforts.  Read more about lead capture here

7.  LURED BY FLASH – YOUR SITE LOOKS COOL BUT WHO IS GOING TO FIND YOU?

The only language guaranteed to be search engine friendly is HTML /CSS.  Flash programming which typically is what moving objects are written in, is virtually invisible to search engines and will render your efforts to earn a top spot in search results, futile.  If you must have moving graphics, keep them in the header of your site, sparing the other areas especially the navigation.  Search engines crawl your site much like humans, but if they cant read your navigation – guess what? They can’t get to other areas of your site.  You’ve basically blocked access for them and success for you.

8.   FAILURE TO THINK LIKE A USER IN BUILDING/DEVELOPING NAVIGATIONAL ASPECTS OF WEBSITE.

These types of things are always better left to professionals.  Sure you may think your site is easy to navigate because you know it well. Have a couple people who don’t know it well take it for a test drive.  Things you think are obvious are not for fresh visitors, seeing your site for the first time.

You’ll be amazed by the feedback.  Make sure this person is also not familiar with your business model.

It’s just like writing.  We may proofread our own work thousands of times and are absolutely 100% certain there are no errors.  Then we give it to someone else who sends it back to us showing several errors.  I don’t know about you, but I am certain they added those errors to sabotage me, because those were not there before. Truth is, they were there, we just didn’t notice them because of our familiarity with what we wanted or meant to say, each time rehearsing it with the correct usage of words. This is an almost identical scenario.  Think simple, and dumb it waaaaay down.

9.  UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE INTERNET

I will guarantee you that success will not find you on the internet.  Despite many misconceptions that the internet is magic, it is in contrast, very deliberate.  It provides access to a virtual roadway and that is it. We are responsible for navigating our destiny and thus our success.  Doing nothing will continue to push your site and presence farther down until it’s “virtually” invisible. Without hard work and dedication on an ongoing basis,  success will run away from you along with your market and search engines.

10.  SKIPPING OVER  SEO OR USING A DIY METHOD TO SAVE MONEY.

I have referred to SEO on many occassions as “the core of all marketing strategies” Similar to the foundation of a house, if your SEO is weak, the rest of your marketing strategies will suffer.

Hear what the web marketing expert says about attracting your audience with words. Learn the tricks and tips for putting movement into your copy. Ignite conversations and reel in your readers by joining us for this special event hosted by MSPtv.net.

Please visit: Jennifer Wing of Web Marketing Partners discusses the art of writing internet copy

Don’t Miss it!

1. DOMAIN NAME SELECTION – (LACKS KEYWORD)

Exact match keyword domains are worth their weight in gold.  It’s the sure thing to acquiring a top spot.  The second best is getting one that has the keyword somewhere in it.  I don’t recommend buying a domain name that doesn’t have your keyword in it.  You will be making things a lot harder on your self.  Many people think they have to buy the domain name of their company?  Why, so people who have never heard of your company can find you? That was a joke.  Unless your company name is Coca Cola or unless your company name already contains your keyword sure buy the domain but also buy a keyword domain related to your business.  This will be the domain your site is hosted upon and you will direct the other domain that is your company name to the keyword domain.  So when all your fans and customers type your business name into the browser “yourcompanyname.com” they will be taken to your site at  “yourkeyworddomain.com”  So those who aren’t familiar with your site/business  ie, YOUR MARKET, can find you easier when they search using keywords related to your industry.

2. SITE IS NOT BLOCKED DURING THE DEVELOPMENT STAGE

I learned this the hard way.  When you are in the developmental stages of your website design it is very important to block all search engine access to it using either a robots.txt file or if using wordpress you can do it from the backend under “privacy.” Failure to do so could negatively affect your performance  long term in the SERPS.  It will make an already difficult project even harder.

3. TARGETING GENERAL  KEYWORDS WITH  MASS SEARCH VOLUME

This is fairly self explanatory and very popular mistake.  Here is an example.  Someone searching for “shoes” probably doesn’t know what they want, or have any intentions of buying, they are “browsers” also known as “tire kickers”, “time wasters” or in this landscape “bandwidth wasters” Sure you may drive more traffic to your site targeting general keywords, but it’s useless traffic and will probably cost you more in the long run, since their presence on your site is not completely cost free.  These tend to be the ones that like to call and ask you thousands of silly questions.  They start eating into your soft costs after a while, and your nerves.  Someone searching for “high heels” is a much more targeted market and maybe still a bit on the general side.  You get the idea.

4. POORLY WRITTEN OR NON EXISTANT META TAGS

I cannot stress enough how important Meta tags are for many different reasons. How they are written can also heavily influence your ranking.  Don’t attempt to do these yourself, and don’t look to the internet for information on how to write them.  It’s an unsolved mystery as to why there is so much inaccurate info on Metas or why no one has stepped up and announced the correct way except for me and maybe one or two others.  Understanding the dual purpose of Meta tags ie what they are used for, will help you to better understand how to write them.

5. FAIL TO DO COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

Chances are your competitors know something you don’t if they have been online for more than a season.  Use that to your advantage.  Mostly, just learn how to do it better.

Yep I know, there is supposed to be 10 critical mistakes….and there is! Stay tuned for Part 2.  Want a reminder sent when the next post is published?  Subscribe to my feed.

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The answer is YES!

Think of  SEO as the foundation of internet marketing.  It is where everything is drawn from and where everything comes together.  It is the core of ALL your strategies.  Why?  Because it is the home of your keyword.   Keywords are a universal point of reference on the net and in other marketing strategies such as pay per click.   A website, is where we tie all of our efforts in other places on the internet together.  Through the continued use of our keywords with our brand, helps search engines to also make that connection.

This is why it is important to continue the use of  keywords within social groups  or any other places you peruse on the internet.  For example, when you sign up for Twitter they ask you to write a short bio or description.  This is an excellent place to include your main keyword(s).

Also known as “offsite SEO” these strategies seek to strengthen on site marketing but are performed in other areas of the web.

Later when search engines crawl the various social sites like twitter, your keywords and brand are also crawled (again).  This helps search engines  to start bridging the gap and confirm that connection of your keyword with your brand.  I created a very short animation to help you visualize this process, it’s literally not over a minute, check it out!

From an SEO standpoint this is your main goal.  You want your keyword to be synanamous with your brand because until that happens you are just a spec of sand on a very large beach.  You will know when search engines have made this connection because you will rise to number 1 in search results.

While this is a fairly strong argument indicating the importance of SEO, it isn’t the only one.