Web Site Design Specialists

by Brian Clark

We’ve seen that the real secret to SEO Copywriting 2.0 is creating compelling content that naturally attracts links, rather than begging for links to our keyword-stuffed web page. In other words, SEO copywriting is now all about response-oriented copy concepts and words that ultimately result in a favorable action from the reader.

Since the popularity of our content depends on the reaction to it off-page, it makes sense that we might also need to step outside the confines of the page itself to get the word out. Luckily, the same copywriting skills you use to conceive and create your content apply to promoting it as well.

The way to create compelling content is to focus on “what’s” in it for the reader. Likewise, no one is going to link to you unless doing so gives them a benefit as well.

The key is the same as to understand who you’re talking to and then figure out what will catch their attention and convince them to take action. Here are 5 ways to go about it.

1. Social Media Sites

The quickest way for an exceptional piece of content to get a lot of attention that results in secondary links is to make the home page of Digg or Delicious Popular. There are scores of similar sites that can drive quality traffic as well, such as Reddit, TechMeme, and Magnolia. For more offbeat content, Fark will shake your server. Plus there are dozens of aggregator sites such as PopURLS that also drive traffic based on your inclusion at the primary site.

If you’ve done a great job with your headline, it should magnetically draw people in. However, you need to understand the audience of each social media site. What works as a headline for Digg often won’t work for Reddit. Tweak accordingly, but try to retain your keywords in the title if at all possible, because most of the resulting links will simply regurgitate that title.

Another key element for success on Digg is the summary description, because many people will vote for content based soley on the headline and the brief copy that describes it. Sometimes this may simply be your existing opening paragraph, but you might craft a specialized description that best appeals to the culture of the site.

Submitting your own content to social media sites is looked down upon (at least with your real name), so it makes sense to have a friend submit for you. When specifically targeting a social news site, you want to control the headline and summary copy, because the exact same content submitted with poor headline and description copy may go absolutely nowhere.

2. Linking Out

Linking out to attract links? Yep.

Engaging in dialogue with the relevant blogs in your niche is a great way to get noticed, and it can lead to links back. Bloggers definitely watch who is linking to them thanks to Technorati, and you can take the initiative by linking out first before looking for one in return.

Simply linking out for the sake of linking won’t accomplish much, especially with bloggers who gets lots of links. The key is to be strategic about how you link and what your say.

It’s just like any other conversation. Join in and add your two cents, but make sure you’ve got something substantive to say that will reflect well on you. Use a great headline to make sure you are noticed, and then deliver the goods. And since your cornerstone content is the foundation of what the conversation is likely about, finding a way to mention it in the context of the dialogue will naturally bring it to the attention of influencers in your field.

3. Networking Emails

The days of flat out link begging are fading, but you can still reach out to other bloggers as a way to raise your own profile. Again, can you figure out what’s in it for them?

More than one-off link requests, networking via email and instant messaging is about establishing and growing relationships with others in the social media space. These are the linkeratis prominent bloggers in your niche, top Digg users, web journalists, and prominent web forum contributors.

Write your introductory emails from a copywriting perspective. Catch attention, gain interest, and create a desire to help you in the future by offering something that benefits them first.

4. Guest Appearances

Another benefit of networking within your niche is that it creates opportunities to make a guest writing appearance. You can contribute content that not only allows you to raise your profile, but allows for links back to your own site. Once again, creating killer original content will open doors for you, especially when it’s created for the benefit of someone else. And you can use that killer cornerstone content you’ve already produced as an example of the quality you can deliver.

Depending on your relationship with the site owner, you may be able to link to your cornerstone content from within the body of the content itself, but only if the citation is extremely relevant to the content and beneficial to the reader. Otherwise, your link will need to appear in your byline.

Most people tend to link to their site or blog URL in the byline of contributed content. Turn it around by focusing the byline on the reader instead of yourself, and feature your cornerstone content instead of your home page.

For example, if I were to guest blog somewhere about strategies for attracting links, which byline is more attractive to the reader when finishing my article?

NO: Brian Clark writes about online copywriting at Copyblogger.

YES: Check out Brian Clark’s free SEO Copywriting 2.0 tutorial, which is all about the new style of online writing that helps your web site rank well in search engines.

5. Article Directories

At one point in time, submitting about 20 articles to a directory like Ezine Articles with the right anchor text would get you a really good ranking for some search terms, at least in Yahoo and MSN. However, because the engines discount duplicate content, having dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of sites republish your article (and linked byline) no longer does the trick by itself.

However, a site like Ezine Articles is still excellent for creating exposure to your cornerstone content. Having a link to your multi-part tutorial displayed on hundreds of web pages drives direct traffic, and can lead to your content being referenced in other posts and articles that do pass on link authority.

The strategy is much the same as with guest posting on a blog. Write original content that does not appear on your site, and submit to one or more reputable directories. Repeat until you get results.

Conclusion

The words you put on a web page have no life of their own until they get read. And those same words will not gain prominence in search engines until the words are linked to by relevant, authoritative sources.

Search engines can still be gamed, just like offline real-world systems can be exploited. However, the goals of the search engines are similar to society at large, and they are getting very good at finding rule breakers and dispensing punishment. Creating compelling content and beneficial relationships are strategies that won’t get you banned or penalized, and add value to your overall goal of converting site visits into revenue.

By Sage Lewis, Search Engine Watch

Each month, we give away a $25 Amazon gift certificate to the SageRocker (as we are affectionately called) who gets the most traffic to their blog post in a single day. April’s winner was Brian Augsburger.

This interests me a great deal because Brian isn’t in our production team. While he knows a lot about Web marketing, many others know it in more depth than he does. His understanding of it is more big picture. Brian is our business development guy.

In April, he blew everyone else out of the water. On April 10 he got 419 views for his article: “Increase Web Traffic: Part 1 of 4.” No one was even close… me included.

The reason he did so well is because he has a passion… he has a true love. Brian loves design.

Brian is a fanatic when it comes to all things design. He loves Web design, car design, home design. If it has the word “design” in it, I’m pretty sure Brian is all about it.

So, naturally, Brian is an avid reader and participant on design blogs. He particularly likes Creattica.

So, after Brian wrote his article, he sent an e-mail to an editor at Creattica asking if they might like to link to his article. He explained that it was original, unique content. He also pointed out that, because he’s an avid Creattica participant, he believed their Web design audience would find the information particularly interesting.

He also knew that they would probably like the SageRock blog because it’s designed quite well.

Brian was right. He got the link here. That one link from a major blog made all the difference.

On top of this, Brian also had an underlying strategy. He wanted the article to do well for the phrase: “increase Web traffic.” If you notice, all four parts of his four-part series are titled with the phrase “Increase Web Traffic.” And the Creattica page that links to his article is titled “Increase Web Traffic.”

As of the writing of this column, Brian’s article was result 31 in Google for the phrase “increase Web traffic.” There are 249,000 other pages in Google that have that exact phrase somewhere on the page. That’s a pretty impressive showing for such a competitive phrase.

Brian’s link building strategy was flawless.

The optimization of the page for the phrase “increase Web traffic” came from his knowledge of SEO principles. But the way he went about getting his link was genius because he truly understood his target and cared about them.

So, I happen to be a fanatic of digital photography. What if I wrote an article about how to market your photography business through SEO? Don’t you think I would have a relatively easy time asking to get a link to the article on a photography blog? Wouldn’t I have an easier time if I had already participated in the blog by commenting and so forth?

Think about what you love and then see how you might be able to create some content that would be of interest to the people in that community.

Love is the secret ingredient to link building.

By Jennifer Kyrnin

One of the most common complaints that new writers have about weblogs or blogs is that they are too personal or informal. But it is very possible to have a business and still use a weblog to get more promotion, more pageviews, and more customers.

Why Blog for Promotion?
Blogging is very popular right now. And having a business weblog that provides good information for your customers while being timely and fun can add a new dimension to your Web site.

Blogs are a powerful tool for marketing and promotion. Because the entries are short, and often full of links, they are more keyword heavy than standard articles often are. Plus, being short, they are easy for your customers to read (and you to write), so they are more likely to come back daily to see what you might have to say on that day.

If your company is very formal, a blog is a place to show your customers that it is made up of people just like them. You can do this without becoming too personal or diary-like.

Using a Blog for Business
There are lots of ways you could use a blog in a business:

• Frequently Asked Questions
  If you get a lot of mail to your webmaster account, you can post the common questions up on a blog. This will provide your customers a place to go to see questions and answers, and as new questions come in, you can post them to help more people.
• Promotions
  If you do promotions every week or few days, you can use a blog to highlight them.
• Contests
  Daily contests and games are a great promo in a blog. They are fun, and bring your customers back.
• What’s New Pages
  If you add lots of new articles, information, or products regularly, sometimes it can be difficult for your customers to find out what’s new. A quick blog entry can show them what’s updated on your site.
• What’s Coming
  You can use a blog to peak interest in future products or projects. It’s also a great way to keep notes about what you’re planning for your customers, the entries are archived so nothing is lost either for you or your customers. Plus, if your blog tool has a comments feature, you can use that to judge interest before it goes live.
• Photo Blog
  Rather than writing, you could put up a daily photo for your customers. A photo and a short description can be very compelling.
• Developer Notes
  If you’re a software company, this can often be fascinating for your customers, to see what the software developers are doing and how new projects might be moving forward.
• News
  The most common use for business blogs is news, usually about the specific topic relevant to the company.

Although blogging has been around for years, it’s only in the last year or so that it’s really become big, especially in business. Some of the top corporations now have blogs, and you can read about these corporations, as well as get news.

The main reason blogs are so popular is because they’re personal. It gives the author an opportunity to inject his/her personality into his/her writing.

How does this apply to your business? There are many ways, but here are six:

1. You can brand your business.
Branding isn’t just for big business. You can brand yourself too. By creating your own niche and writing about it, you can create your brand. By branding yourself, others will associate your product with you.

It’s not enough to get traffic to your site. You need targeted traffic, and the more targeted your traffic is, and the more traffic you get, the more opportunities you have to make sales.

Blogging is not just an effective branding tool. It’s also an effective public relations tool, allowing you to further build your image and brand.

2. You can become an expert.
When you share what you know on a topic, it gives you the opportunity to be perceived as an expert. You are providing additional value to your product.

When you are perceived as an expert, people are more likely to listen to what you have to say.

By establishing yourself as an expert on a topic, you are offering value to potential customers that your competition isn’t. Not only that, you can drastically cut your marketing expenses because your potential customers are coming to you.

This is called pull marketing. Pull marketing is much more effective than push marketing because you are drawing customers to you, and they already want what you have to sell.

3. You can establish credibility.
Credibility is a difficult thing to establish on the internet. You need to gain your potential customer’s trust before he/she will buy from you.

Although there are certain things you can do that can help with trust and credibility, like adding your phone number to your site, a blog is more effective. It will help you get your potential customer to see you as a real person, not just someone behind a computer.

4. You can create a new marketing channel. 
Email marketing isn’t as effective as it used to be. Too many problems exist now with spam and filters. It can be nearly impossible for you to get your marketing message through.

With blogs, you can use RSS, as well as other forms of communication, like podcasting, to get your marketing message through.

Blogging opens up technology for you in a way that email doesn’t. It gives you a variety of ways to distribute your marketing message and increases your chances of your marketing message being effective.

5. Creates a communications channel with your potential customers.
Blogs are interactive. You can allow your potential customer to leave messages for you in your comments. He/she can ask you questions, and you can respond more quickly.

This will also save you time in the future because others may have the same questions. You’ll already have the answer easily available.

Blogs are also more responsive in that you can write about the latest trends in your topic and give your potential customers the latest information.

6. Solves your search engine optimization problems.
Blogs are search engine friendly, and you can get your blog spidered faster and easier than you can a traditional site.

This can help you get traffic from the search engines quicker and easier, and the beauty of it is that it’s targeted traffic.

Although blogs may have started out as personal journals, their business application is far more reaching. Blogs can help you explode your business marketing efforts in a way that no other internet marketing method can. Blogging, although not required, is something you should consider if you want to increase your business and increase your profits.