Archive for the ‘SEO Copywriting’ Category
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 |
Job Description
A creative and driven Web Marketing / SEO copywriter is wanted to help gain prime search engine placement with compelling content that converts site traffic into sales. The SEO copywriter will be responsible for creating original web copy, editing existing copy and interacting with clients to achieve specific SEO goals, namely increasing the organic search engine traffic of their websites.
Duties Include:
- Developing SEO-friendly web content to include strategic keyphrase placement within compelling marketing copy that maximizes opportunities for indexing, ranking, click-throughs and conversion
- Writing and editing articles
- Writing and editing press releases
- Writing blog posts
- Brainstorming additional content components to enhance the user experience and increase organic search engine traffic to our clients’ websites
- Researching effective SEO copywriting techniques
- Conducting keyword research and competitive research to target popular and highly converting keywords
- Meet with clients monthly to present press release, article and website update ideas
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Proven success in writing professional web and marketing copy
- Understanding of keyphrase research and its application to SEO
- Ability to write compelling copy while maintaining brand messaging, persuasiveness and readability
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office products such as Word and Excel
- Excellent written and oral communication skills.
- 1-3 years experience
We are looking for a quick learner that can multitask. You need to be able to work under little supervision and be a team player. This is a full-time, on-site position so no freelancers please. The anticipated start date is immediately. Salary is dependent on experience. Benefits package also included.
Please take the time to read our site and review our client list before applying.
Three writing samples (i.e., full articles, press releases or web copy in Word and/or URLs featuring your work) are required. To apply, send us an email with your resume, salary requirements and three writing samples using the subject line “Copywriter” to contact@bigoakinc.com.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in Choosing SEO Company, Out on a Limb, SEO Copywriting | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 8th, 2007 |
This is a niche SEO tip, but if you fall into the category of those who resell products and are going against many other competitors selling the same item you will find this extremely valuable. If the manufacturer supplies you with the product description then it is likely that many of your competitors are using that same description which means you may be devaluing your product page because the search engines see your product page as duplicate content. Or your page might not even show up as Google would consider your site duplicated material not relevant enough to make the cut due to lack of popularity when compared against other sites showing the same results.
Here is a perfect example of how duplicate content can hurt your site rankings and your traffic. I picked a random child’s toy: Turbo Twist Math by Leap Frog. I did a search using the manufacturer’s initial text in the product description (”Be a Math Whiz with Turbo Twist Math”) and here are my Google search results. If you visit the link you will see only one result with the following text underneath:
“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.”
Google is telling you that this description is used so often that they are only showing you one result. You must expand the list to see other results which is still only 6 which could mean they are not even including the dozens or hundreds of other similar listings in the results. This is an extreme case since I’ve searched for a specific phrase, but the theory still applies: Duplicate content will hurt your rankings.
You will have a much better chance of showing in the search results if you add your own unique information about the product you are selling or the service you are providing. This is good for SEO but also for better converting potential customers. Feel free to interject your own opinions or thoughts on why the product is useful and include information your visitors might be wary to know. Anything you can write of add to distinguish your product information from other sites will help.
Being different is better.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in 52 SEO Tips, SEO Copywriting, Website Conversion | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 29th, 2007 |
If you have been following this blog or looking into SEO you know how very important building links can be to your site’s success in the search engine rankings. Link building involves two types of links: Links pointing to your site (external linking), and links on your site pointing to other pages of your site (internal linking). While we don’t always have the ability to control external linking, a poorly worded internal link is inexcusable. The single, easiest and least low effort thing to remember is to make your links descriptive. If that is too much to remember, then just remember this, no links should be labeled “click here,” “more information,” “read more” or any other variation of these words.
I realize this might bring disagreement from the user experience community but I think we can all agree that your average user doesn’t need to be told to click a link and if it isn’t obviously a link (underlined) you have bigger problems on your site with usability.
Every time I see a “click here” link I shake my head at the wasted link opportunity that is being lost. You probably know how powerful link text can be in helping your rankings so it shouldn’t be a surprise to find that the site that ranks for the term “click here” doesn’t even have those words within the text of the page that is ranking for “click here”. Care to guess what company’s site is ranking for it?
I’ll give you a hint; you’ve most likely downloaded the application and probably more than once. The site, or page actually, ranked number one for the term “click here”is the Acrobat Reader download page. Make sense? This clue might help: Click here to download Acrobat Reader. This proves the power of the text in your link, so why waste it with a non-descriptive textual link?
I can provide thousands of examples, but let’s look at a few examples where a descriptive text link would be much better.
Early Detection Key to Preventing Vision Loss from Glaucoma More than 2 million Americans over the age of 40 have glaucoma, but many of those living with the disease don’t even know it. - Find out more HERE
Instead, remove the “Find out more HERE” and place the link on the headline text and best of all it doesn’t require any rewriting:
Early Detection Key to Preventing Vision Loss from Glaucoma
More than 2 million Americans over the age of 40 have glaucoma, but many of those living with the disease don’t even know it.
- Apple’s iPhone Page
Being the huge Apple fan that I am it pains me to point to them as a bad example, but the new iPhone page is just that, a bad example. On this page I count five “read more” links and one “learn more”. It can be argued that Apple doesn’t need SEO help for the iPhone, but the principal and lost opportunity still applies.
- Joint Commission Home Page
I count five “read more” links, incredibly listed below descriptive titles without a link. What better way to get listing for their top stories than linking to them with keywords in the story? Placing the link on the headline would solve this, much like we suggested for the Prevent Blindness site.
- Burst Media Contact Page
One of the more ridiculous offenders of the “click here” mistake.
Making simple changes would have helped all of these sites make better use of their internal linking as well as helped with their site’s ranking for the words in the link.
Of course, going beyond the decision to not use useless text links and thinking about the best keywords and phrases to use will help even more. A few seconds, or better yet, a few minutes applied to thinking about your internal, contextual linking can bring in great rewards. Take the time and…Think before you Link!
Popularity: 3% [?]
Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Link Building, SEO Copywriting, SEO Mistakes | 6 Comments »
Friday, June 22nd, 2007 |
Page titles are one of the most important parts of any web page, especially when performing search engine optimization. A page title is located at the very top of your browser’s window. It can bring traffic in abundance or completely isolate your site. Knowing how to properly word a page title is critical to your site’s SEO success. Let’s look at how page titles can be used to increase your site’s traffic.
Snowflakes and Titles
It is said no two snowflakes look exactly the same. Well, the same should be said for page titles on your site.
Every page on your site should have a different focus from the other pages on your site, or you are repeating yourself and duplicating content. So if all your pages are telling a different story, shouldn’t they all have a different title? And that title should effectively reflect the content of the page.
Missing an Opportunity
In my daily web searches, I see many missed opportunities with poorly titled web pages. Pages simply named “Untitled” or “Untitled Document” can be found in the millions (79 million were found in a Google search). Search engines depend on titles to gather information about your web pages. And a page title without a unique description does not help the search engines - in fact, a generic page title makes the page nearly impossible to find…
Putting Your Company Name in the Title Tag
I’m not against putting your company name in your page title - after all, it will help build brand awareness. But, I am against putting only your company name in the title and until you become a household name, I would suggest putting your company name at the end of your title. The focus of your web pages should be on what people would search for to find your company. In other words you want targeted keyword phrases in the title. Let me give an example:
If your company name is “Miller & Sons” and you sell fishing equipment near Whitefish, Montana you should not limit your title to “Miller & Sons”. Instead try “Fishing Rods & Reels in Whitefish, Montana - Miller & Sons“. With this you are netting traffic searching for your product, your location and your company name. Keeping the location in the name is very important if you are serving only a regional or local market.
Let Your Copy Be Your Guide
When deciding on your page titles, read the page first and let that guide your decision. If you can’t confine the theme of your page copy into a concise page title, you may need to break the copy into more than one page.
If you sell toys on your site, your page copy should have the keyword “toys” and so should your page title. Even better it should include what type of toys. Do you sell dog toys? Cat toys? Children’s toys? Your title should convey this. Adding in other possible search terms is also a good idea. An example of a toy site home page title could be “Children’s toys and games - toys for boys and girls of all ages” You have your most important keyword, “toys,” listed twice and have added some other important keywords such as “games,” “boy” and “girl.”
Suppose one of the sub pages of your toy site showcases Leap Frog’s Discovery Ball. What type of toy is this? It’s an educational toy and you should use that in your title along with the actual toy name. This gives you an opportunity to be found in the search results for the toy name, the popular toy company and the heavily searched key phrase “educational toy.” A title catering towards SEO for this example would be: “Leap Frog Discovery Ball - Educational Toys“. Since the more targeted term is the name of the toy you put that first. Educational Toys would be shown first on a category page.
Now that you have integrated your keyword phrases from your page copy into your title, you’ll find that getting found in the search engines is a much easier task.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted in 52 SEO Tips, SEO Copywriting, SEO Mistakes, SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization | 2 Comments »
Friday, April 20th, 2007 |
Submit Press Releases for Link Building
Finding one-way links to your website can be a tough task. Finding quality one-way links to your websites can be even more difficult.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people put links to your site without you even asking them to? Well, submitting a press release can help accomplish this. Similar to my tip on SEO with articles, using a press release to build links and increase search engine rankings can also be effective. What so many people overlook submitting press releases, which are copyright free, is the fact that you can put links to your site within the content of the press release. We used this method of promotion for our online toy store client and you can see one of their press releases.
Not only can you place helpful links to your home page in the body of the press release but you can use deep linking and link to interior pages of your website. Deep linking is often harder to do as most websites would rather link to your home page. We use PRweb.com and the cost is higher to use text links rather than actual URLs.
Press Release Submit Site
As I wrote, PRweb.com does charge a fee for submission, but there are many free press release submission sites as well. Here are some that we also use:
Press release submission is not the magic bullet for SEO success, but it is a valuable tool in the SEO consultant’s toolbox. Whether it is a product release, a major hire, or a strategic acquisition you can make the press release perform double duty as both a internet marketing tool and a link building tool. Big Oak provides press release writing & submission as part of our SEO strategy.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Link Building, SEO Copywriting, SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007 |
Is their an optimal keyword density?Our SEO copywriters have wrestled with this question for years. I believe their used to be an optimal keyword density, but nowadays I don’t think there is. I do believe there is a density level that will get your site penalized, but an optimal density is just a myth. Don’t believe me, then take a look and do a few searches in Google. Let’s try “bonsai trees”.
Here are the top four results and the keyword density for the term “bonsai trees” on each page.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai - 0.17%
- http://www.bonsaiboy.com/ - 5.74%
- http://www.bonsaisite.com/ - 0% (Yes, that is zero percent)
- http://www.helpfulgardener.com/bonsai/ - 1.38%
From these examples you can clearly see that keyword density shouldn’t be a major consideration in your writing efforts.
Instead, focus on the on-page factors that help the search engines determine the ranking of your web page: title tags, link text, navigation, heading tags and quality content.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in Keyword Research, SEO Copywriting, SEO Mistakes, Search Engine Optimization | 5 Comments »
Friday, February 9th, 2007 |
Well, I was going to write a post on linkbaiting and while doing some research I came across a thorough linkbaiting article already. The author, Andy Hagans does a masterful and clever job of outlining the types of linkbait, the methods of linkbaiting and the reasons to use linkbait. He even goes into social media bookmarking for good measure.
He notes that page titling is extremely important, but not just for SEO purposes, but to attract attention. He references Copyblogger’s 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work as a starting point when trying to create linkbait. I like the list so much I am adding it to my blog too. When creating titles for your linkbait here are some title templates to start with or a cheat sheet, if you will.
Copyblogger’s title cheat sheet:
- Who Else Wants [blank]?
- The Secret of [blank]
- Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
- Little Known Ways to [blank]
- Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
- Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
- Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
- [Do something] like [world-class example]
- Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
- What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]
I won’t go into this any further, but visiting Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing would be a worthwhile use of your time.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Posted in SEO Copywriting, SEO Tools, Social Media Optimization | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 29th, 2006 |
Content rich means different things for different individuals, because what one person finds useful, another may not. Content rich is all about providing information that is considered valuable to your target audience. Information that visitors might find useful could consist of product or industry facts, statistics, reviews, tutorials, or educational information related to a specific industry.
When creating a content rich website, do not be afraid to think outside of the box. Unique ideas will generally garner more attention than the mundane and more common content concepts. Over the years the unique content that has garnered the most attention, the Subservient Chicken and JibJab, may not be appropriate for a business website, there are still lots of “out of the box” things that you can do.
Here are some ideas on how you can build content for your website that will attract website visitors.
Calendar of Events
If you website appeals to a specific audience manage and maintain a calendar of events. The events should relate to a specific region or topic.
Ex. Hawaii Local Events - http://calendar.gohawaii.com/ (regional) or ex. Librarian Events - http://www.infotoday.com/calendar.shtml (topic specific events)
Sponsorships and Contests
Conducting a contest is a great way to generate interest and incoming links, everyone wants to win and in order to garner votes many competitors will tell their audience about contests and voting options. (more…)
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted in SEO Copywriting, SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
Thursday, December 28th, 2006 |
Indexing has always been considered a highly targeted science. Enter a search query into Google search and the pages that are displayed are generally optimized towards that exact word or term. However, in their continual battle to server the most relevant but most natural pages with genuinely useful information Google has injected latent semantic indexing (LSI) into its algorithms.
What is LSI?
LSI is a unique indexing method that potentially takes Google search one step closer to becoming human in its way of thinking. If we were to manually search through web pages to find information related to a given search term we would be likely to generate our own results based on the theme of the site, rather than whether a word exists or doesn’t exist on the page.
Why Search Engines Might Adopt Latent Semantic Indexing
The extremely rigid form of “keyword indexing” also meant that black hat SEO techniques were easier to implement. Search engines could be manipulated into ranking a site highly by using set formula. Originally, cramming a page with a particular keyword or set of keywords meant a site would rank highly for that search term. The proceeding set of algorithms ensured that your link profile played more of an important part than your keyword density. Reciprocal linking soon followed once again making it possible to manipulate the search engine spiders by exchanging links with tens, hundreds, or thousands of websites. (more…)
Popularity: 3% [?]
Posted in SEO Copywriting, SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »
Monday, June 12th, 2006 |
SEO Copywriting, or to give it its full name, search engine optimization copywriting or search engine copywriting, is the technique of writing the viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms.
As well as the viewable text, SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text.
The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called “doorway pages”) that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques.
SEO Copywriting, also known as Writing for Search Engines, is a new kind of writing! There is another very similar discipline which is popularly called Writing for the Web. But, SEO copywriting has search engines as the primary target, instead of the actual reader.
It is safe to say that any action you take to enhance your search engine ranking at the detriment of the user is unethical SEO. So, if you write in a way that enhances your appeal to search engines, but makes your content less valuable but this is possible to have both! Good SEo Copywriting and voluble marketing content.
So, what is SEO copywriting again? Well, to begin with, learn that writing for the web is different from writing in print. On the web, you must use short content, bullet points, getting to the main theme right away… Additionally, SEO copywriting brings in the need to target keywords. Depending upon the content generation plans, you could target one or more keywords per page. Things are getting so competitive, that I prefer to target one keyword per page. But, there are many SEOs who are unable to justify the high cost of content generation and will prefer to optimize a page for more than one keyword.
Writing copy optimized for search engines can be tricky so let us do it. You want a website with enough of the right keywords to attract the search engines. But you don’t want copy with so many keywords that it then sounds silly to the people who read it. Effective search engine copywriting is a delicate balance between satisfying your website’s human visitors and the search engine spiders.A
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted in SEO Copywriting, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
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