Dynamic Copywriting

Finding and using the right keywords is an absolute essential to succes on the internet. In fact, I am hard pressed to think of any other aspect of web marketing that is more important.

Which brings me to the purpose of this article. In one respect, I am slightly hesitant to post it because it chronicles my own mistakes when I began writing this blog several years ago. So in that sense, this article is a bit of a cautionary tale.

On the other hand, it is also instructional because it gives me a chance to explain what I learned from my mistakes and the things I know now about using keywords in web marketing.

When I started this blog back in 2006, I began with the primary goal of attracting more copywriting clients. I considered myself a generalist and was willing to take on any and all copywriting assignments.

In my naivity I thought I knew all I need to know about using keywords. My one and only keyword at the time was "Freelance Copywriter." Every post I wrote for this blog began with the title "Freelance Copywriter Secrets ___" and I also sought ways to insert the phrase several times in each article.

So as a result, I was tremendously excited when a few months later I found myself on the third page of Google when one did a search for "freelance copywriter."

I assumed that I was well on the way to conquering the search engine mountain and I just knew that it was only a matter of time before I was at the very top of Big G.

Well some of you can no doubt guess the rest. I never did make it to the front page of Google for my one and only keyword because there is so much competition for that phrase.

I knew nothing (at the time) about long tail keywords. I didn't know why all websites should target several related keywords instead of just one.

But I have learned. I learned that long tail keywords (ie search terms that are four or more words long) are easier to conquer than short, highly competitive keywords.

I have learned that the person who does a search for a phrase like "business case study writer in Texas" is much more focused than the person who types in one or two words. I have also learned that such a person who makes that highly focused a search is probably hundreds of times more likely to do business with the companies he or she finds than the person searching with a vague, general keyword.

Moreover, Google is more likely to start moving your site up the rankings on your primary keyword when it sees that your site is optimized for other, but related, keywords.

And then there was my external linking strategy. I worked hard to write articles and comments on other blogs that linked backed to my site. But I made the following two mistakes with my inbound links:

1. I created links that either targeted my name or the name of this website ("dynamic copywriting"), and
   
2. I seldom linked to any place on this site except the home page.

(By the way, I am a little shocked that I am really admitting all this. lol I hope I don't lose future business by explaining what a dolt I was. But then, explaining how not to do something is often far more instructional than just telling how.)

Both of those are really bad linking stratagies. First, I would have had much more success embedding my keywords into these links, so that a person would see, for example, a clickable blue link that said "website copywriting" that would have brought him or her to this site.

That would have told Google that my site had something to do with "website copywriting." Over time, if I had furthered this technique using other longer tail keywords related to website copywriting, I would have alerted Google that this site was relevant to many different keywords.

Google is after all a computer program that searches all over the web to find sites that pertain to various topics. But links that merely target a person's name or the title of the website tell Google very little of what the site is about. Only keywords will do this job.

Secondly, Google quickly dismisses inbound links that are only pointed to the main page of a website. These links should point to specific articles within the site that are related to the inbound keyword. And those articles should likewise be optimized for that same keyword by including the keyword in the title and in several places throughout the text.

This tells Google that the site has depth and covers a variety of related topics in detail. That demonstrates to Google that such a site is an "authority site" on its subject matter.

All this is to say that I had to learn search engine optimization in part by trial and error. And I am still learning.

Of course I have been working hard to get this site better optimized, but it takes a lot to turn the Titanic around. The task has been complicated by the fact that I am no longer a generalist, but am more focused on writing web content and search engine optimization.

The lesson here for other website owners is to pay careful attention to the keywords that relate to your business. Both internal and external keyword strategies are essential to getting high rankings by Google.

I hope you find this helpful as you build and develop your own sites. I suspect I am not the only website owner that has had to learn from mistakes, but I would be interested to hear comments on what lessons you have learned about search engine optimization.

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COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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Ask most business people if they would like for their web sites to achieve number one Google rankings on all the important keywords related to their business, and you will get two reactions:

THE FIRST GROUP will jump up and down excitedly and assure you that of course they want to improve their search engine rankings.

THE SECOND GROUP will give you a blank stare and ask what a Google ranking is, what a keyword is and (in some dire cases) say they are just waiting to see if this "Internet Thing" is a passing fad before they get involved.... (sigh)

Ok, so let's just focus on the first group, shall we?

A keyword, as I've said before, is something of a misnomer. The phrase leads one to think it is a single word. Actually it is the equivalent to a "Search Query" someone types on Google, Yahoo, MSN or some other search engine when they want to look something up.

Someday, if the person types in "Texas Web Copywriter," "Texas Search Engine Expert," Texas SEO Expert," "Texas SEO Writer" or "Texas Case Study Writer," hopefully they will find this site or some other article I've written online. In other words, these keywords are terms I have made an effort to link to my name.

Also notice that none of these keywords are single words. They are actually three or four words long. Longer search phrases or keywords are called "Long Tail Keywords" and "Long Tail Keywords" is one of the golden concepts in improving search engine optimization.

Why is that?

Well I'm glad you asked. The longer the phrase, the more specific it is. For the person typing this phrase into Google, it means she knows exactly what she wans to find. She didn't just type "copywriter," she knew she wanted someone located in Texas and she also wanted someone who could write web content.

If your site is selling merchandise, people who type in long, very specific keywords are more likely to buy from you if you offer what they are looking for. In fact thse people probably already have their credit cards out of their pockets before they get online.

on the other hand, the people who are just looking for a copywriter, and not an "SEO expert who writes web content" may or may not want to do business with me.

That is the searcher's side of long tail keywords. Now let's look at the web site owner's side of this.

The sites these people who look for very specific, long tail keywords will find are going to be those that have those exact long tail keywords mentioned in the site several times.

This is what I meant when I titled this article "Improving Search Engine Optimization." There are two ways to improve search engine rankings. The first way is to buy "pay per click" ads from Google or Yahoo. The second way is "organic search optimization." The "organic" part of this term refers to the fact the Google itself finds these sites based upon what it determines the site to be about.

But how does Google determine what a site is about? First it will look at the domain name of the site itself. Had I been smart(er) when I started this blog, I might have titled the domain "Texaswebcopywriter.com," "Texassearchengineexpert.com," Texasseoexpert.com," "Texasseowriter.com" or "Texascasestudywriter.com," or something else along those lines.

The next thing Google does is look at the titles of the the individual articles. Since this article is titled "Organic Search Engine Optimization," it will very likely get indexed as being about, you guessed it, "search engine optimization."

Now if you have been reading this site for a while, you know that this site covers a lot more ground than just SEO topics. Each article about each different topic will tell Google a little more about the theme of this site.

But this one article will also tell Google that search engine optimization is one of the topics it does cover.

To make a complex topic simple, let me sum up with this: the way to get higher rankings from Google is to identify the best keywords to concentrate on. Find out what search queries your ideal customers type into search engines in order to find what it is that you offer.

Then armed with these keywords, use them often (but be careful here because Google will penalize you if your over do this) throughout your site. Notice that I repeatedly used the keyword, "improving search engine optimization" throughout this article. I did so deliberately to illustrate the point.

But as I said before, don't go overboard. Use your keyword about 4 times out of every 100 words (or about a 4% keyword density).

Can you do this? I bet you can.

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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What is Pico Marketing?

I'm writing this in response to a very interesting article Peter Jakob wrote called Are You Pico Marketer?, on his blog, B2B Marketing - Open For Business, which was itself a response to an article he read from Velocity.

To use a baseball analogy (Peter Jakob and the folks over at Velocity are British, so baseball analogies probably aren't the first things that come to mind for them), Pico Marketing means concentrating on hitting a lot of singles and doubles rather than always trying to hit a home run at every at bat. A team that gets more men on base with small hits generally wins more often than a team that lives or dies by the long ball.

Another analogy used by Velocity, and quoted by Mr. Jakob, is the Monopoly metaphor. The player who owns Boardwalk and Park Place will probably not do nearly as well as the player who owns a lot of little properties all over the board.

So back to Pico Marketing. Since I finished writing my ebook, The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers, I have been trying to promote it by contacting bloggers I respect, emailing various individuals who I regard as thought leaders, and issuing online press releases.

I've also mentioned it on my Linkedin profile, written one article so far on ezinearticles.com, commented on blogs, and set up a Squidoo lens called Case Study Writer, and on and on.

In other words, I am taking a lot of little actions to get the word out about The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers (I'm buying up the little properties on the Monopoly board and hitting singles). I am finding that promoting the ebook is as much work as writing it was (sigh).

I really can't afford to conduct an expensive paid advertising campaign for an ebook I am giving away to promote my case study writing services (in other words, I can't buy Boardwalk and Park Place).

But this is what it takes these days. I am already at the top of Google for the keyword, "marketing with case studies," (don't be too impressed, it is not a phrase that gets a lot of hits). But "marketing with case studies" is one of the long tail search terms I'm going after.

Having said that, search engine rankings come as a result of a lot of little things done all over the internet. From Facebook to MySpace to YouTube to Digg, little mentions from a lot of places get Google's love.

So will all this effort succeed? I sure hope so!

I guess you could say I am conducting my own case study on Pico Marketing. I'll keep you informed of my progress. Watch this blog to see how I do.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

A Review of Chirstine O'Kelly's ebook, "How to Write Optimized Press Releases"

I've been an SEO writer for three years now and I am still learning new search engine optimization tips. My latest learning experience came from reading Christine O'Kelly's ebook, How to Write Search Engine Optimized Press Releases, which she offers at her website, www.selfmadechick.com (the ebook is free, all she asks is that you subscribe to her RSS feed in exchange for the download).

The first point O'Kelly makes is that with so many online press release submission sites, it makes sense to send out releases not only to get favorable mention in the media, but also for the inbound links from the submission sites themselves.

In this regard, an SEO writer would not only be writing for a human audience, but for search engine robots as well – similar to submitting online articles to sites like www.ezinearticles.com.

Each submission site enables other online and offline media to pull the press releases for publication on their own sites, providing the opportunity for an SEO writer to create viral distribution of each release.

But even if a press release is not picked up by any other source, the submission site itself will often have a high page ranking and will point back to your site.

The second point O'Kelly makes is something of a surprise, but I think she is on to something here.

SEO writers are often faced with a conflict between writing keyword-dense headlines and writing headlines that humans find irresistible to click.

She says that given a choice between writing headlines that will persuade human readers to click your link, or to fill the headline with keywords to attract a search engine, the SEO writer should choose the keywords first. In her own words, "if you have to choose, pick keyword over clickable."

She supports her keyword-first approach by pointing out that the human reader will not see the link if it does not get a good ranking.

Fortunately, she then solves the need to get humans to click on the links by suggesting that a subtitle be added to the press release that is designed to get clicks. A neat solution to a consistent problem.

Her third point is to write an SEO, keyword-rich summary for each press release. This summary is often reprinted in the search results for the human reader to see, with the keywords in bold text. And of course it is also another opportunity for the search engines to pick up the theme of your release and rank it accordingly.

The final point (note: O'Kelly doesn't say this explicitly, but this is a point I took away from her book) regards an old habit I may now have to break.

I've always held to the notion that press releases should really hit the "newsworthiness" button hard. In other words, in the offline world, you don't want to get the reputation of wasting an editor's time with trivial press releases.

But with online press releases submitted to submission sites, this is not quite as demanding a standard.

This is not to say it is okay to submit a lot of junk, self-serving press releases that have no hope of ever being picked up by other media sources. But it does broaden the scope of what is, and what is not, newsworthy.

A new product or service, a new published report or ebook, a newly hired executive or partnership, might all become good topics for press releases.

As I read Christine O'Kelly's ebook, I was more than a little surprised that she is giving it away free of charge. I highly recommend it to any SEO writer or webmaster who is looking for more ways to get targeted traffic to their websites. Check it out at How I Ranked in 5 of the Top 10 Search Results in Google.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Hopefully your website is doing just fine and you are getting search engine traffic because you have followed the rules for SEO copywriting, and your website content is written to sell. But if both of these conditions are not true, read on.

I recently posted a test ad on Craigslist.org with the same headline as this article, "Why Isn't Your Website Making Money?" and was flooded with calls.

Obviously I hit a nerve here because a lot of companies, both large and small, are just not getting the revenue from their sites that they want, expect and need.

When I look at these sites, I see two distinct problems:

1. First, the sites are simply not written to attract search engine traffic. There is either no concerted effort to target specific keywords over and over again so that search engines will determine a specific "theme" to your site and send relevant traffic your way.
   
   Or, the keywords targeted are too competitive and you will never rise to the first pages of Google or Yahoo's search results.
   
   Let's say, for example, you have a travel site. If you are simply targeting the keywords, "travel," or "vacations," your chances of rising to the top of the search engines are somewhere between slim and none.
   
   But if you target keywords like, "honeymoon adventure travel," or "family adventure vacations," your competition is much less and you will find your rise up the search engines will be much faster.
   
   But how do you use these keywords in your website's content? The rule of thumb is to use them enough but not too much. You definitely want to use your main keywords in your website's title and in the URL (for example, if your site's name is "Honeymoon Adventure Travel Ideas," the URL should be http://honeymoonadventuretravel.com).
   
   The next point of SEO writing is to sprinkle the main keywords throughout your text. As I mentioned in a recent article called, Dynamic Copywriting: Writing for Search Engine Traffic, the ideal is to write your keywords about 4 to 6 times per 100 words. Less than this and you won't get noticed, more and Google at least may regard your site as a spam site.
   
   
2. You must write website content that sells. I recently wrote another article called, Dynamic Copywriting: My Formula For Writing Money-Making Website Content, in which I gave a list of ideas for making websites more profitable.
   
   But they key for a profitable website is to write content that is informative and valuable to the visitor. Literally you want to make your site a resource for people who are potential buyers of what you sell.
   
   The mistake many website owners make is to write content that is little different from their company brochures or Yellow Page ads. The web is simply a different medium altogether.
   
   The second reason people use the internet (after pornography) is to find information. But most websites fail to deliver written content that meets this purpose. And a site that fails on this level will not be bookmarked and not be returned to. And more importantly, it will not collect leads or make sales.
   
   If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this: "Writing website content that delivers problem-solving information will make sales for your company."

Of course there is a balance between SEO writing and writing website content that makes money. Basically it requires writing for two different audiences, machines and humans.

The search engines want writing that can help them identify what your site is all about and whether your keywords are relevant to its theme.

On the other hand, humans will be quickly distracted by writing that seems to plug in keywords randomly or in a way that makes the content seem disjointed.

The point is that SEO writing gets visitors to your site, but good website content writing gets those visitors to take action.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Combining the skills of a website content writer and an SEO writer

Almost all websites need search engine traffic, but few web content copywriters know how to combine SEO ("Search Engine Optimization") techniques with writing persuasively for humans. In other words, there is a special skill for writing for search engine traffic.

First think about what is at stake. Your site can be full of really useful and well-written content, but if people cannot find your site, they will never buy what you are selling.

The key is you have to write for both humans and search engines like Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Ask.com or any of the other billion or so search engines out there.

I know this sounds like a difficult balancing act, but it can be done. Here's how:

• Know the keywords you want to target. A "keyword" is something of a misnomer because they are often more than a single word. A helpful way to think about keywords is to equate them with "search phrases" that a person might ype into Google in order to find the kind of information you have on your site.
  
  I'll give you an example. The other day I did a Google search for, "how to get coffee stains out of carpet" (big stain - white carpet - I'll spare you the details). As a result of this search, I found several sites but the results on the first page all had content that used the phrase, "how to get coffee stains out of carpet" verbatum.
  
  So just remember, if you can identify the exact or closely related terms a searcher will type into a search engine to find information about your topic, put those terms in your site's content.
  
  
• Longer search phrases, if they contain over four words other than null words like "and, the, or," etc. are called "long tail keywords."
  
  Long tail keywords are your SEO bread and butter, because these searchers are looking for highly targeted information AND these searchers have been shown to be more highly motivated to buy now.
  
  
• Put your best keywords in your site's title and url if you are targeting this narrow niche and just building the site now. If it is an existing site or if this keyword only pertains to a subtopic, use the keywords on the title to this section.
  
  
• Use your keywords throughout your text. Optimally, use them 4 to 5 times per 100 words. Don't go overboard because search engines (especially Google) will penalize you and demote your ranking. The reason is because to a search engine robot, too many keywords looks like a spam site.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Hopefully you have a system in place to capture data on how visitors arrived at your website. This is very important information, because it tells you if you are doing the right things to get more visitors and if you are satisfying the problems and questions that brought these people to your doorstep.


For example, if you are using a tool like Google Analytics, you can track all the search terms (or "keywords") people typed into the various search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc that led them to your site.


What does this information tell you? Well what if the search engines are sending people who want something altogether different from what you offer? This happens all the time when the content on the site uses key terms that different meanings in different contexts.


If this happens, don't regard it as a total loss. Often the problem can be fixed by a small tweak. For example if your company sells Red Delicious Apples, and search engines are sending people who want Apple Computers, just go back through your content and add "Red Delicious" to the word "Apple" where ever it is found on your site.


But this data may also give you the opportunity to write more content on those same keywords (search terms) if they ARE in line with what business you are in. This would enable you to get MORE of this kind of traffic, but instead of getting it by dumb luck, you would be getting it by design.


When you decide on a list of keywords / search terms you want to target, you can have all your content written to emphasize these terms so that the search engines will give you higher rankings. After all, you won't get too much traffic if you are on the 85th page of a term's search results on Google.


But if over time you write more and more content that diligently features these keywords, you will find your site moving up in those search engine rankings.


Not only that, but the people who find your site in this way will be targeted potential customers, because those search terms they typed represent problems they want solved, or questions they want answers to. If you are in the business of solving those problems or answering those questions, these visitors are gifts.


So make sure your web content is written to emphasize specific keywords or search terms that pertain to the business you are in. Use analytic tools to make sure your keywords are working and to find new search terms that are getting people to your site. And finally, write more content emphasizing these search terms so that your site will get more of these specific kinds of visitors.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown