SEO Writing 101

By Bhaskar Thakur (c) 2008

Most of the time when we pitch to a new client we are asked for SEO guarantees. “Your competition has guaranteed top results and submission to 100,000 Search Engines and Directories”. We go all out educating clients that Search Engine Optimization is all about smart work and not just adding random keywords and submittíng to every directory possible. I’m writing this article to reach out to the SEO buyers and help them distinguish the crooks from the genuine SEO cos. I’ve compiled my Search marketing experience over the years in this article. I hope this helps you in selecting your Search Marketing initiative.

Commandment 1: There are No Rank Guarantees. (Period)

Search Engines alone control their indexing and ranking algorithm. Do not try to trick Search Engines. The only way to improve your search engine rank is by playing by the rules. And the rule is very simple: make it logical. Web content is primarily for the site visitor and not crawlers.

If your Search Engine Optimizer sold you magic “Top rank on Google in 10 days flat”. Forget it. There are no short cuts. Top ranking in Search Engine Natural Results will take time. Hard work is imperative especially in developing the content on your website and the links to your site.

Commandment 2: Ranking is Not the End, It’s the Means.

Ask yourself what will a top search engine rank get you? Most businesses are interested in increasing sales on a website or at the least driving qualified traffic. Ranking for the right keywords (keywords used by your target audience) is important. There are SEOs who will try to show case results for keywords that occur only on your website. Beware such gimmicks.

Commandment 3: Know Your Competition.

“Rank” is relative position and more so in the Search Engines’ natural results. How well you do in the search engine results is a function of how much hard work you have done in relation to your competition. Analyze your competition’s keywords, links, keyword density and spread, but be sure not to copy your competition.

Commandment 4: Use Search Engine Friendly Design.

A search and visitor friendly design is a must for any successful website. Your website should be compelling enough for repeat visits by search engines and potential customers. Make sure you have search engine friendly URLs and avoid those long URLs with query strings.

Commandment 5: Select Keywords that are Worthy.

You must research your keywords before targeting. There are tools that give you a good idea of a keyword’s search potential for example. It is important to know the number of searches for a keyword in the last month, last 6 months and last year. You should also find out the number of web pages that are targeting the keyword. It is advisable to start a campaign with keywords with moderate competition and a high number of searches.

Commandment 6: Write Great Content.

Even if your website site is technically perfect for search engine robots, it won’t do you any good unless you also fill it with great content. Great means it has contextual and editorial value. Great content brings repeat visits and increases the chance of conversion. Great content is factual and appeals to your target audience. Your web page should have your desired action embedded in the content and you must ensure that the content is fresh. Keep adding and editing content regularly.

Commandment 7: Use Good Hyper Linking Strategy.

Hyperlinks make your content accessible and contextual. You must hyperlink in the right context within the website and to other websites. Good links are appreciated by the Search Engines and by visitors. No one likes to be taken to a mall selling “Macintosh” when shopping for “apples”.

Commandment 8: Write Relevant and Original Meta Content.

Meta content is like a business card. Just as your business card tells who you are and what you do, Meta content tells the search engines the relevance and context of a web page. Resist the temptation to include everything in the Meta content, but make it detailed. Confused? The idea is to include only what is relevant to the page in the Meta Content but to include everything that is relevant.

Commandment 9: Acquire Relevant Links.

The links you acquire are the roads to your web page for search engine bots and visitors. Good links improve your webpage’s equity on the World Wide Web and bad links make a dent in your equity and credibility. Be selective in reciprocal linking. Both reciprocal and one way links work, if you are prudent in selecting the links. Submit your website to the relevant sections in relevant directories.

Commandment 10: Consult Experts, If You Need To.

If you have the competence, there are two ways to learn - learning from your mistakes and learning from others’ experience. You can choose either. If you have the time and can wait for the online dollars, do it yourself. If you want to get started now, it may be useful to consult the experts.

About The Author
The author is an expert in Search Marketing with over 10 years Onlëne Marketing experience. He heads www.rankuno.com, the specialist in online marketíng and Search Engine Optimization. RankUno empowers its clients around the world with high ROI onlíne marketing programs. He may be reached at bhaskar@rankuno.com.

It has been a work in progress but FINALLY we have completed our organic SEO service packages which we will begin offering tomorrow. The packages with pricing can be found on our pricing page at PearlyWrites.com.

Many businesses may not realize, unless it is stated in a contract, that the content being used for their SEO campaign is NOT owned to the client with full rights. This means it can be reused for numerous other online marketing campaigns.

What makes our organic SEO service packages different?

All our SEO service packages include all copywriting rates, the full copyrights, the maintenance of the campaign, and uploading to the CMS.

PearlyWrites has a network of 70+ degreed independent contractors located in the US and Canada who all provide high-quality, unique copy. Many of us have years of experience in the SEO field and have proven case studies proving our clients ROI, ranging from 85% - 500%!

Our SEO service packages include the FULL rights to all the copy with no question to our clients. We will NEVER reuse any of the copy written for your campaign. With our years of experience, we have developed our proven 20 question analysis to get the most concise information relevant to our client’s copy, including accurate information for the type of business and Website address(es).

If you would like to become a partner of PearlyWrites or interested in discussing any of our organic SEO service packages for your business, feel free to contact us.

by Lisa Weinberger

You read right! According to a NYT article posted on April 5, bloggers are dying from the stress and non-movement of today’s newest form of journalism, blogging.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Is it that bloggers have to be so up to date with anything that hits the newswires, be the first to blog about it so their posting or videocast goes Viral they can’t leave their computers?

There are many mobile devices that offer the Web and blogging programs which allow you to blog mobilely (word?)so honestly, if a blogger can learn how to multi-task and can afford a cell phone service which allows for this application, then I highly recommend hopping on the mobile bandwagon. Between the iPhone and Blackberry services, these are just two out of the many offered.

How does going mobile help you?
Well if you have found you are not exercising and sitting for long hours at a time due to the tight deadlines of blogging or becoming an introvert, take your mobile device with you where ever you go and you can continue your “work” no matter if you are hiking a mountain or having a glass of wine with friends.

With technology moving and changing so quickly daily, more and more applications are being created everyday to make mobile blogging and mobile Web applications easier and easier.

What are you waiting for? Have you ever responded to email while taking a morning walk? I am sure you have talked and walked so what is the difference between walking and texting?

Thoughts?

Interesting article to share.

Posted on ZDNet News: Apr 6, 2008 3:46:00 PM

They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece–not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing workforce of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion, and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves–and are being well-compensated for it.

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder, and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he said.

It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands.

The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.

Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.

Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work.

There are growing legions of online chroniclers, reporting on and reflecting about sports, politics, business, celebrities, and every other conceivable niche. Some write for fun, but thousands write for Web publishers–as employees or as contractors–or have started their own online media outlets with profit in mind.

One of the most competitive categories is blogs about technology developments and news. They are in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products, and expose corporate gaffes.

To the victor go the ego points, and, potentially, the advertising. Bloggers for such sites are often paid for each post, though some are paid based on how many people read their material. They build that audience through scoops or volume or both.

Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.

Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month.

Speed can be of the essence. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links, and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

“There’s no time ever–including when you’re sleeping–when you’re not worried about missing a story,” Arrington said.”Wouldn’t it be great if we said no blogger or journalist could write a story between 8 p.m. Pacific time and dawn? Then we could all take a break,” he added. “But that’s never going to happen.”

All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for clicks for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.

He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled–by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.

But make no mistake: Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.

“The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write–that’s kind of cool,” he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, “I just want to lie down.”

Sometimes he does rest, inadvertently, falling asleep at the computer.

“If I don’t hear from him, I’ll think: Matt’s passed out again,” said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo. “It’s happened four or five times.”

Lam, who as a manager has a substantially larger income, works even harder. He is known to pull all-nighters at his own home office in San Francisco–hours spent trying to keep his site organized and competitive. He said he was well equipped for the torture; he used to be a Thai-style boxer.

“I’ve got a background getting punched in the face,” he said. “That’s why I’m good at this job.”

Lam said he has worried his blogging staff might be burning out, and he urges them to take breaks, even vacations. But he said they face tremendous pressure–external, internal, and financial. He said the evolution of the “pay-per-click” economy has put the emphasis on reader traffic and financial return, not journalism.

In the case of Shaw, it is not clear what role stress played in his death. Ellen Green, who had been dating him for 13 months, said the pressure, though self-imposed, was severe. She said she and Shaw had been talking a lot about how he could create a healthier lifestyle, particularly after the death of his friend, Orchant.

“The blogger community is looking at this and saying: ‘Oh no, it happened so fast to two really vital people in the field,’ ” she said. They are wondering, “What does that have to do with me?”

For his part, Shaw did not die at his desk. He died in a hotel in San Jose, Calif., where he had flown to cover a technology conference. He had written a last e-mail dispatch to his editor at ZDNet: “Have come down with something. Resting now posts to resume later today or tomorrow.”

There are a few sites I maintain and one of them is for my parent’s housecleaning service, DayMaid Inc. in Northern NJ. My father has been telling me they have been receiving contacts through the Web and converted a lead into a regular client. Way to go Mom and Dad!

So I have been managing and maintaining their Website at DayMaid Inc. It is not the most professional, static looking site BUT the copy is there, the ranking is there, the information is there AND

THEY ARE RANKING IN THE TOP 5 for a combination of the targeted keywords! AND first page ranking for a few other targeted keywords.

I am also using AWeber to capture leads and provide FREE housecleaning tips and in the past day, we have had two subscribers! I even got one of my sisters involved and made her create a MySpace and Facebook page.

Everything we have done for DayMaid has been all organic; we never paid for AdWords and the traffic started coming in after three (3) months. See how powerful the use of organic online marketing can be?

Make sure everything is related from the copy on the Website, the tags, your articles, link exchanges and the many other organic techniques that need to be completed to continue getting those page 1 rankings.

Go Day Maid!

Some copywriters do not write for the Adult market and others do but may not advertise it. About six months ago I had a second site designed by Josh Gilmore for our Adult copywriting section of our business. It is called PB Vixen.

PB Vixen is a partnership created by Ralph Greco Jr. and myself, Lisa Weinberger. Ralph has over 30 years writing erotica and then there’s me, the editing and online marketing obsessed Vixen, so when we team up we produce some amazing, converting, optimized copy for the Adult market.

I am happy to say we are ranking number one in the search engines for the keywords: Adult copywriting.

We began getting a few calls and some emails and when I asked the clients how they found us, they said they did a Google search. Another case study that in less than six (6) months we have organically ranked at the number one position for one of our targeted key phrases. Pretty amazing considering the Adult market is over flooded with sites.

What does this tell us? That by sticking to the basics of SEO writing and online marketing, ranking number one and maintaining the top position can be achieved.

by Anna Schibrowsky, Wednesday, March 5, 2008 9:00 AM CST

My client’s website ranks in the top ten on relevant keyword searches.
The strong calls-to-action on every page convert traffic to phone calls.
His site gets huge ROI and generates most of his business.
Now what?

I’ve started thinking about the people who are looking for the results he provides, but don’t know the “right” keywords. What are they typing into search engines? I’ve identified three kinds of keywords that I’d like to see reaching the site that fall outside the scope of the service description:
—Problems my client’s service resolves.
—Results the service provides.
—Competitors’ services.

Now how can I get those keywords into my content?

Competitors’ services sound like the hardest to get onto your site, but I’ve found them to be the easiest. In the business’s monthly email newsletter, which I also post to the website’s News section, I’ve expanded the scope to include competing services and service providers. I always put them in a positive light, running top-ten and best-of lists, though I do like to note that my client’s service is local and less expensive.

Problems the service resolves are tougher, just because there are so many of them. I haven’t taken action yet, but my plan is to focus on specific conditions that experience and research have shown the service helps. I’ll need to scatter them throughout the website to keep the keyword density high.

Results will be the most difficult, and it’s a task I’m dreading, because descriptions of results can be even more vague than problem keywords. For this I’m going to make a list of all the outcomes I can think of, and then check AdWords to see which phrases are getting the most traffic.

Wish me luck! Hopefully this gave you some ideas for additional keywords to increase your websites’ search engine traffic.

Learn more about Anna at http://www.banoonoo.com.

by Anna Schibrowsky, Friday, Feb 8, 2008 11:00 AM CST

The conclusion of the 3-part series.

Part 3: Complete Sentences

Your grade school teachers demanded that you always use complete sentences.  No sentence fragments were allowed!

The kids popped open the fruit punch.  They splashed it into their glasses.

Traditional marketing copywriters say go for the attention-getting words.  Leave out the fillers.  Create a sensation and an emotion.

Pop! Splash. Slurp. Mmm. Acme Tutti Frutti Juice Drink. 100% juice. 100% fun.

Complete sentences may pack in more words, but your SEO copy needs to be high conversion copy too.  The headlines that work in print will work on the web.  And people don’t read online copy – they scan it.  Break your copy into bullet points and short sentences.

Tutti Frutti Juice Drink.  Fruit Punch flavor. 100% juice.  8 oz. bottles.  Buy now!

Winner: Traditional marketing copywriters!

That concludes our 3-part series with traditional marketing copywriters winning 2:1.  If you can think of any other teachers vs. writers examples, continue the battle in the Comments section!

by Anna Schibrowsky, Wednesday, Feb 6, 2008 9:00 AM CST

On to Part 2 of our little 3-part series.

Part 2: Pronouns

As a youngster you were taught to use pronouns to avoid repetition and save space for new ideas.  (And your teacher didn’t want you completing half your 500-word essay just by writing the same words over and over.)

The boys drank their fruit punch quickly, and then they put down their glasses.

Hopefully as a marketing writer you were taught to use pronouns less frequently and repeat the product name as often as possible in a radio or TV spot to increase recall.

Acme Juice is delicious.  Acme Juice has nutrients.  Look for Acme Juice today!

In SEO, you want to pack your copy with potential search strings.  Replacing pronouns with synonyms helps you do this and lets you squeeze in more influential adjectives.

Acme Tutti Frutti Juice Drink is 100% juice.  Acme Juice has Fruit Punch flavor.

Winner: Traditional marketing copywriters!

by Anna Schibrowsky, Monday, Feb 4, 2008 7:00 AM CST

Wow! There are some great SEO white paper type articles going up here. (I’m really looking forward to the article Lisa promised on keyword placement.) I hope my little SEO 101 posts are still helpful!

This week I have a fun little 3-part series (with some delightfully cheesy examples) that asks, “Who knows more about SEO writing? Grade school teachers or traditional marketing copywriters?” Check back for the final winner!

Part 1: Variety vs. Consistency

Your grade school teachers advised you to use a variety of words to describe something, to add interest and avoid repetition.

Billy poured a glass of fruit punch. The drink was red. The juice tasted good.

Then you learned to write for marketing, and the rules changed. You were told to be consistent in order to avoid confusing the customer.

Our fruit punch was ranked the best fruit punch, with the most fruit punch flavor.

SEO demands variety so every possible search string is included. But at the same time, you don’t want to confuse consumers. Phrases like “also known as” or “sometimes called” can help you here.

Kids just say “juice,” but our Fruit Punch is now called Tutti Frutti Juice Drink.

Winner: Grade school teachers!