→ 1 CommentCategories: Search engine optimization
Tagged: seo
So as you know, I’m putting my mouth where my foot is and going local in Diamond Bar. As part of that process I updated my meta-title and description. Now in my past experience, before the Caffiene update on Google, it was a crap shoot on how quickly Google would pick up the change and update the SERP, and adjust rankings accordingly.
I actually saw the update last night just 10 minutes after I changed my Title. What really fascinated me though was that I also immediately broke into the top spot for Diamond Bar SEO. Now I know that I’ve built up some authority over the years, this is a blog and not a static website, and that it’s not a competitive term by any means, but I think that SEOers who have been around for a while should re-evaluate their expectations when it comes to timelines and estimating when Google has recognized an update.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Search engine optimization
Tagged: caffiene
[I was talking to]…Jared Spool of User Interface
Engineering, to ask, “Flash intros – good or bad?”Jared said, “When we have clients who are thinking about Flash splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket
and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on sale today.“Then stand back and count how many people watch the mime, how many people get past the mime as quickly as possible, and how many people punch the mime out.
“That should give you a good idea as to how well their splash page will be received. ” {Via}
{via OATMEAL – Who Rocks}
→ Leave a CommentCategories: humor
Tagged: flash intros
No matter how well your website is ranking in the search engines and no matter how much traffic you’re getting, if your copywriting isn’t great, you won’t get sales. Those rankings will be meaningless. And that traffic will be for nothing.
SEO copywriting is the glue that brings all your other online marketing efforts together. Without strong glue, everything unravels, and you get no results.
If you aren’t converting visitors into customers, it could be that you’re making one or more of these 7 SEO copywriting mistakes.
Take a look at your website copy. Are you making any of these mistakes?
About the Guest Author:
Gagandeep Singh works for a conversion rate optimization company Invesp and blogs about landing page templates, conversion rate optimization, SEO and affiliate marketing.
→ 8 CommentsCategories: Guest Blog · Search engine optimization · content writing advice
Guest post by Stacey Cavanagh of Tecmark SEO Liverpool
When it comes to web content, irrespective of whether it’s sales copy, informative writing or random thoughts and musings on a blog, it should be easy reading! Reading online shouldn’t be made a tedious task and for most of us, perusing websites and blogs is a leisurely activity.
Words can be to much of a good thing..
Personally, if an article (no matter how interesting its title) starts like a rocket science manual, I’m out of there! By all means, vary your vocabulary – by the same token I hate to read posts where a blogger evidently doesn’t know another word for ‘good.’ But stretching out a word count by fluffing up the content is annoying. Concise content makes for quick reading, ideal for the busy workaholic society we live in.
Now, I’m exaggerating with the title of this post, in complaining about ten words where one will do. More often than not, my peeve comes where writers use two words in place of one. Of course, sometimes there’s a need for this and child like sentences devoid of adjectives, for example, would make for bland writing. There’s a fine line between ‘concise’ and ‘bland’ content.
So, examples?
"A Sentence with to many adjectives is like Coffee with to much sugar."
There’s a time and a place for adjectives and sometimes they just sound out of place and long winded when read out loud. Take the sentence, “He was an incredibly intelligent fellow, but had an extreme lack of common sense.” When read out loud is lacks punch and crispness. A revision to, “He was an intelligent fellow, though lacked common sense,” is easier reading. That’s a 14 word sentence versus a nine word one.
If you’re writing an article on Barack Obama’s proposed health reforms, you would want to let your readers know what the changes are, how they would be affected by the changes and the obstacles the President faces. While it’s easy to wander off on a tangent at times, writing about Obama’s educational background or going into too much depth over the history of health in the US fluffs the article up and takes away from its point. After writing, read out loud and be critical. Ask yourself what the point of each sentence is and if you can’t find a purpose of a sentence, delete!
Sometimes we repeat ourselves without even realizing we’ve done it. Even if you’ve worded it differently, the same point or fact made twice (even at opposite ends of an article) is just more words than necessary!
Look for opportunities to crush and squeeze your verbiage. - Photo by Tomf
Once you’ve cleared out everything you think you can, read through again (preferably out loud). Look for opportunities to tighten up your sentences in ways not described above. An example could be changing:
“Whenever the Jones family got news pets, the neighbour’s children always tended to take to them quicker than the Jones boys,” to
“The next door neighbour’s children always took to the Jones’ new pets quicker than the Jones boys did.”
I know I’ve barked on about concise content here, but this should never come at the expense of meaning. The idea of concise content is saying what you need to say as tightly as possible – not about cutting points out in order to shorten a piece. Think punchy, crisp and natural sounding content and you’re well on your way to great copy.
→ 4 CommentsCategories: Content · Guest Blog · content writing advice
Tagged: Content, content writing
An Introduction to Psychology of Content
Guest Post by Amy C.
Content creation is one of the most dreaded aspects of existing online for majority of the internet business owners. High quality content plays a crucial role in creating a successful internet business. Poorly written content results in poor readership, and thereby, fewer sales.
Here are 3 wickedly effective techniques to create content in a way that instantly establishes the connection between you and the reader:
Start off with what your readers already knows.
Start with the familiar
Expand from there on to what they don’t know. Milton Erickson, founding president of American society of clinical hypnosis, often lead his patients from what they know to what they didn’t know. This approach of presenting information increases your readers’ receptivity to your information and establishes a sub-conscious rapport between you and your readers.
Draw Out Your Readers
Well written content educates the reader by drawing the information out of readers mind. Education originated from the Latin word “educare”, which means “drawing out from within”. A story or a metaphor is perfect medium to let your readers “draws out” the information from their subconscious mind. When you start telling the story or present a metaphor, the mind lets its defenses down and opens up.
Create “Aha” Moments
Valuable content is the content that creates “aha” moments. It restructures and interconnects the existing beliefs and concepts. When these concepts and beliefs integrate with an experience, it creates understanding. Taking your readers to this point of understanding should be the ultimate goal of content-creation. If you just leave your readers with insightful ideas, but don’t offer them any examples, their “aha!” moments never fully converge into an understanding.
Frame Your Content Effectively
Frame your Content
When content is presented with a well-designed frame, it becomes potent. What the content is framed with decides the “stickiness” of the concepts presented in that content. When you create content based on factors described above, your content draws your readers inside their mind and helps them absorb the information more effectively.
About the Author
Amy C. is a consultant for a Phoenix Internet Marketing firm, Niche Solutions, LLC. She is a full time business student as well as an entrepreneur in the niche of Tabletop fountains. Amy invites you to browse her most recently launched collection of decorative solar fountains
→ 1 CommentCategories: Content · Guest Blog · content writing advice
Tagged: content writing, guest post, psychology
Getting started with your website?
Creating a website may seem simple. But one of the problems sometimes is ending up with the wrong web hosting provider for it. And if you happen to be looking for a free hosting provider, that’s where it even gets challenging. This is because not all web hosts that offer free hosting are reliable enough to keep your website up online. That’s why it’s important that you take time in choosing the right host for your site.
One you might like to try is Doteasy. Doteasy is one of the leading domain name registrars right now that also offer hosting packages from free hosting to unlimited hosting. And for someone who is looking for something with great features but still reliable enough and for free, then you’ll definitely like Doteasy’s free web hosting plan. They guarantee 99.9% uptime and no ads. Another thing that is great with Doteasy is that they also offer a lot of great tools and apps to help you build your website a lot easier. You can use these tools such as website creator, application for forum, blog, webform and other great helpful tools all for free. Even without knowing much of the technical stuff, you’ll be able to learn how to use these. You can even check their easy box demo section to get a better feel of how things really are easy to use. They also offer email virus protection for your emails.
These are just among the other reasons why Doteasy’s free hosting package excels from the rest. And with their big discount offer for registering a domain name now for only $7.95, this is definitely a great deal you shouldn’t miss. Just use the coupon code 1003BPM and register your personalized domain name.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Uncategorized
- Guest post By Erin Rivera
A personal blog is, to me, a misnomer. Other than being in the drivers seat as to its contents, what’s so personal about it? Isn’t the point to reach other readers? Because honestly if I just wanted a personal diary, I’d still keep it between my mattress and box springs. And I’m not gonna lie… even at my age, it would have unicorns or ponies on the cover and a cute little plastic padlock that couldn’t keep a two-year old out. Whether it’s posting personal photos, articles I find interesting, music recommendations or random ramblings, my primary audience is friends and family.
But let’s face it. Branching out from that and reaching strangers who want to read what you have to say has its appeal. And with user friendly operating systems and the plethora of blogging sites out there to get you started, it’s so easy for almost anyone to get into blogging.
If you’re like most people, you want to make your blog special. You want yours to stand out. Or at the very least, as in my case, I want to enjoy looking at it. Because if I enjoy it, then the friends, family and occasional stranger who stumbles across it just might enjoy looking at it as well.
The basic templates available to users are fine for getting started. But who wants a blog that looks like (potentially) thousands of others? So you have to get creative. In the interest of full disclosure, I did cheat a bit. Being barely conversational in html, I usually turn to my lovely sister-in-law for assistance. She’s responsible for my newest blog layout and can read code like she’s reading an elementary schoolbook. But what to do when she’s not available? (The Holy See of search engines, Google, doesn’t even need to be pushed here, right?) So aside from bumbling around with trial and error, has some great advice and straight-forward instruction for html, graphics, and coding of all sorts. I’m even tempted to delve into their Java tutorials next.
Another site I found helpful when first starting out was (http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2009/02/04/starting-a-blog-12-ideas-for-blog-posts/) I find #12 especially amusing given my present task, but I vehemently disagree with #6. That just seems like dirty pool to me.
So go forth and blog. It’s simple enough to do, and hey, it’s the interwebz. That means someone, somewhere, will probably want to read what you have to say. And if you feel so inclined, stop by, say “hi,” and listen to the birds.
→ 1 CommentCategories: Guest Blog · Opinion · Random · social media
Tagged: blogging
