Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimisation’

  The days on the Yellow Pages and Business Pages are fast diminishing. More people today turn to the search engines to find local service providers and products. Therefore getting to grips with local search has never been so important. How geared up it your website and online marketing activities up for local searches? The best way to make the most of your local search potential is to own as much of the web as possible.   Boosting your online presence One of the best ways to boost your profile online is to increase the number of web pages you have. That doesn’t mean to say you ...

  Search engine optimisation – love it or hate it, it’s here to stay so you’d better get to grips with it. Before you ask, no I wouldn’t call myself an SEO expert. So why am I writing this post about it? Well, I am a pretty good SEO Copywriter – what makes me so sure? Well my own site is on the front page of Google for the term copywriter which is very competitive (getting on for 7 million search results) as well as several of my other keywords. Plus a number of my clients are also enjoying front page rankings. If you think writing SEO content is ...

  As an SEO copywriter I hate word count. It’s counterproductive and here’s why. Over the years I have worked on many SEO copywriting projects – some direct with businesses others for SEO web designers and companies. Most clients realise I know quite a lot about SEO copywriting and in particular how it works. Many of the sites I write for rank on the front page of Google for their chosen keywords – not least my own website which is on the front page of Google for ‘copywriter’ (out of about 6 million results). So as SEO copywriters go, I’m pretty good – even if I do say so ...

  If you are a business owner looking to get into online marketing and, in particular, search engine optimisation, don’t forget to think local. More and more people are searching for local companies through the search engines so it’s never been more important to ensure you have a strong local SEO presence on the web. Many companies concentrate their SEO efforts on fairly generic terms that relate to their products and services but forget about their geographical details. With the advent of increased and improved mobile search, it is vital you stand out in your local area. And the best way to do that is by utilising ...

  Remember Wimbledon last year and that epic match between Mahut and Isner? It lasted an incredible 11 hours and 5 minutes in total with Isner eventually winning 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68! You’re probably wondering what Wimbledon, and that match in particular, has to do with SEO copywriting. Well hang in there and I’ll tell you. Just like Isner, if you want to win with your SEO strategy you have to be in it for the long haul. Many people still view their ‘SEO strategy’ as: Find a few keywords Get someone to build a website ...

Online marketers are obsessed about search engine optimisation. There’s nothing wrong with that, after all they wouldn’t get anywhere without keywords, backlinks and a decent website structure. But by spending every waking hour worrying about them you could be missing the bigger picture. Google analytics is vital if you want to know what’s going on on your website – where your traffic comes from and the behaviour of your visitors. One of its key stats – even more important than where your visitors come from – is how effective your website is, i.e. its bounce rate. What is bounce rate? The bounce rate shows the percentage of visitors to your website that leave within the first 10 seconds. And that’s not good. If visitors are ...

  Every business that uses the internet wants to get found. So how do you do it? Search engine optimisation is obviously a big part of online visibility one aspect of which is building back links.   What’s a back link? The best way to get people to find your website is to have loads of arrows point to it – back links are arrows. Look at the third sentence in this blog post. You can see there’s a link – search engine optimisation – which points you to a blog post on my other blog (www.freelancecopywritersblog.com) . If I were to write about being ...

  As an online marketer, it is vital you get your head around the various concepts of search engine optimisation. This is the most effective, long term solution to achieving great Google rankings. It’s also probably one of the most cost effective. But many companies are still opting for PPC campaigns instead. Although they can generate fast results, they are usually very expensive and not a great long term option. If you rely totally on PPC, what happens when your budget runs dry? Your website will disappear from the search results and your traffic will dry up. And if there’s no traffic there won’t be any sales. ...

  On the one hand you have your reader, on the other the search engine spiders. So who do you concentrate on? All too often, the copy on most websites seems to place the importance on the spiders—big mistake. Their copy is crammed with their keywords because the businesses are fixated on getting to the front page of Google. Will this tactic get you great rankings? Possibly. Will it get you lots and lots of visitors? Maybe. Will it convert all those visitors into sales? Definitely not. Higher rankings, more traffic and greater sales These three things are at the top of most ...

  How’s your website doing? Are you getting loads of traffic or is it floundering? If people aren’t finding your website it might as well not exist. Of course the best way to get found is through the search engines. But even if your site has been structured well and it contains good SEO copywriting, you still need another element to keep that traffic coming – back links. A link to your website is like a thumbs up; it shows Google that your site has authority. So the more back links you have the better. One very effective way of generating a consistent stream of back links ...

Most businesses realise that the internet is the place to be these days. It is a vast market place scoured by millions of internet users every day. But that doesn’t mean you should dash out and throw any old website together. If you want a website it should for one reason only – to sell. If it doesn’t do that, it becomes a very expensive brochure. As a copywriter I have used this blog as a way of informing and educating people in how to get the most out of their website. But there are still a large number out there who don’t seem to get it. What’s the point in having a website if… Your website is your online shop window. As ...

  Search engine optimisation is helping businesses, of all sizes, reach a wider online audience. If it is done well they can slash their marketing budgets because the need for ‘paid’ advertising can be greatly reduced. But because SEO takes time, many are still inclined to try to cut corners. Be warned, SEO shortcuts can, and most probably will, incur the wrath of Google and you really don’t want to do that. So don’t be lazy. Work at your SEO strategy. Building links Every link you get to your website is seen by Google as a ‘thumbs up’ for your site. The more you have the ...

  Every marketer’s dream is to come up with a piece of collateral that markets their business forever. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Well, not only is it an amazing thought, it is also possible to achieve. Don’t believe me? Read on. Eternal online marketing In years gone by most of your marketing would have been done off line – so we’re looking at things like leaflets, brochures, magazine adverts…that sort of thing. The main problem with these are they only reach a limited audience and they are soon forgotten about. Once your brochure is binned or the magazine recycled, your content is lost forever. ...

  Many people would have you believe that SEO copywriting is a mystical art that you can only do after many years of training high on a remote Tibetan mountain top. It’s not—but that’s not to say it is easy. It does take time to get to grips with because you have to learn how the search engine spiders read a web page before you can learn how to write one. A favourite phrase for many writers who claim to understand search engine optimisation is keyword density. Here’s a tip for you—if anyone throws that one at you run for the hills. In the ...

  When creating your website you have to consider several things – your design, its functionality, your message etc. Your unique selling point and the products and services you offer are going to be very individual. But one thing that is fairly standard is the important basic range of website pages. Every page will have a Home Page, About Us, Products/Services and FAQs. They may appear under different names, but each must be optimised for your main keywords. Each page should be optimised for a different primary keyword to maximise your website’s chances of ranking highly. In this post I will take a look ...

Before we get going I just want to make one thing clear – the term ‘keyword density’ should be confined to the rubbish bin. There, I’ve said it. It is often used by ‘SEO experts’ who claim to understand the ins and outs of Google’s algorithms – well if that were true, they’d know that ‘keyword density’ was a nonsense. So where did it come from in the first place? Well the basic thinking went along these lines: “If I use my keyword more often, its density will be higher; if it’s higher Google will regard my copy as more relevant than anyone else’s. So, the more keywords I cram in the better.” Oh boy, how wrong can you be? Working along these lines, you completely disregard any competition from other websites for ...

The chances are, if you’re reading this you have a website and do a fair amount of online marketing – or at least you’re beginning to. Local search is becoming a very important tool for many businesses. Twenty or Thirty years ago, if someone wanted to find a local service provider, they’d look in the Yellow Pages or local press. Today more and more people are turning to Google and the other search engines to find local businesses. Which basically means, you need to make sure your website and online marketing activities are geared up to make the most of these local searches which means owning more of the web. Boost your share of the web There are many facets to search engine optimisation – website structure and ...

  SEO copywriting is a copywriting niche that continues to grow in importance. As the number of internet users continues to grow and with the recent increase in local search, more and more companies are relying on it for a higher percentage of sales.  Why? The number of searches done on the Internet is in the hundreds of billions annually. Most internet users will use one of the various search engines to find service providers. Therefore organic search is hot news and, unless your website has been optimised for your keywords, it is increasingly difficult for you to get found.  Websites have become the new black – ...