SEO Carbo-Loading
SEO is a whining, needy and bloody annoying child. To get – and keep – good Google rankings requires your near constant attention. I thought it was time for some chocolate-laden reward.
With a nod to the success of any good 12-step programme, read on for my official SEO Carbo-Loading programme. I welcome new recruits.
1. Choose a cake
Find a recipe that will really work. Need fudge? What about height? Is frosting real estate important to you? Where butter and sugar collide, why look elsewhere than nigella.com?
2. Make a cake
From scratch. It’s not hard. Betty Crocker’s gross and we’re all about learning new things here. Make a cake. Cool the cake. Circle it, examining its chocolatey perfection.
3. Get with the programme
Here’s the weird part you didn’t see coming: freeze it. We’re training now and you’ve got to earn that sucker. Why a cake you’ve made from scratch locked in the freezer?
- It’s immune to any cheating snack binges (girls?) because it’s frozen.
- You didn’t make it and then lose the chance to ever have it.
4. Sucky boring-ness
Compile a list of all your website’s current keywords. (Ya, ya it’s boring. Do it. Cake!)
Where do they currently rank? You can take a lazy estimate or an anal, scientific approach. We’re just lighting fires here.
5. Game on
Check in with Google Analytics for your keyword search results. Could they be better? Probably? Want some cake?
Scrutinise your results. Have a dig through Google and look at what’s in the way of your site now and where you want it to be. Narrow your eyes to slits. The enemy is at hand. In road race terms, what training have you neglected? What’s the hard, boring stuff, the lap repeats in the freezing rain, that you’ve been avoiding? Do you need new equipment? To cross train a bit?
Whatever it is, stare it down and ruin it.
6. Target practice
On a Post-it note, write down your targets.
- General traffic level?
- Bigger and better online presence?
- Fattened content section that does the work for you?
- Healthier rate of internet inquiry?
The note goes on top of the cake. Put it in the freezer and say goodbye.
7. Call in this guy
Pull out every SEO stop you can. Make sacrifices: give up some YouTube or Facebook time. Get up ten minutes earlier. All that crazy hardcore stuff that Olympian athletes brag about doing. It sucks, but do you have any idea how much cake Michael Phelps would eat?
8. Breakfast of champions
These 3 sites are a good start to a healthy regime:
SEO for people who love cake
9. No excuses
Do it. All of it! Like a maniac! Every day, uphill, through 5 miles of snow in the pouring rain (or whatever your parents used to say).
10. Are you winning?
Check on your results. Your eyes will either narrow in hatred to the damned man who has not yet relinquished your spot (OR) glaze over in greed: things are about to get chocolatey.
11. Victory?
12. You betcha
SEO techniques are tedious and gnaw-your-arm-off boring. It has to be a ridiculous game or you’ll go crazy.
Welcome to the club. Send photos.
90s week: What the 90s taught us about copywriting | Day 5
Day 5! We’re almost finished!
“Happy happy joy joy!”
Feeling better about things? Ready to get jiggy with your web copy? Did you inhale?
Yeaaa, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and give me need a call to action.
Smash Mouth – Walking On the Sun
So don’t delay act now supplies are running out
Allow if you’re still alive six to eight years to arrive
And if you follow there may be a tomorrow
But if the offer is shun you might as well be walkin’ on the sun
Act now!
Tell me what to do next.
Pick your top objectives – for your website, for each web page….for your entire marketing campaign.
When beginning a new project for a client, they’ll often tell me their goal is “to get more traffic.”
Well, why? What do you want to do with that traffic?
- Get more blog subscribers?
- Sell more ebooks?
- Receive more inquiries?
- Take more bookings?
- Build a mighty empire?
To get from here to there, you need to tell your readers what action to take next.
Use words that leave the control in their hands – and emphasise those precious benefits over & above the distasteful task of spending money. Create a believable sense of urgency, based on the reader’s need to solve his/her problem starting now.
Basic rule?
If you’ve seen it or heard it in an infomercial: leave it the hell alone.
As for you, my homeys, I’d like to help you put into action anything discussed this week.
Only one thing left to say:
(oh, you knew it was coming)
SHOW ME THE MONEY!!
90s week: What the 90s taught us about copywriting | Day 4
Day 4 – Writing for the web
Wannabe – Spice Girls
If you wanna get with me, better make it fast
Now, don’t go wasting my precious time
Get your act together, we could be just fine
To review our lessons so far:
Day 1 – Give it away
Give content and useful knowledge away for free, interested paying parties will follow quality
Day 2 – Don’t be a dinosaur
Boring product? Make it interesting and project your personality
Day 3 – Use description well
Help me to imagine it, throw in some benefits
Today:
Got something to say? Make it snappy.
Get on with it. You’ve got 7 seconds to pull off all of the above.
An average visitor will hit up your site and decide whether or not to peace out in 7 seconds or less.
Busy readers. Don’t read books.
Check your website’s bounce rate.
“Must go faster! Must go faster!”
- Write for scanning
- Cut adjectives
- Bullets are good
- Bold words – in moderation – are best
Your readers are busy
Long, flowery copy in dense paragraphs? As if.
How YOU doin’? See you back here tomorrow – same time, same place. Go feed your Tamagotchi.
90s week: What the 90s taught us about copywriting | Day 3
Day 3 – Use description well
Barenaked Ladies – One Week
Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin
Watchin X-Files with no lights on,
We’re dans la maison
I hope the Smoking Mans in this one
Like Harrison Ford Im getting Frantic
Like Sting Im Tantric
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy
Whether or not I need your product or service – or you just hope that I do – I probably have no imagination and care to try very little. You (website) are here to help me (reader). Want me to see what you see? Put the words in my mouth and the picture in my head.
Use a story!
“…and this one time, at band camp…”
Use a metaphor (your own)
“Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
Use catchy, memorable description
“Buns of steel” vs. “a firm behind”….
Use benefits!
“The very best thing of all! There’s a counter on the ball! So try to beat your very best score! See if you can jump a whole lot more!”
Describe the feature, then list the benefits in ways a reader can visualise.
Feature:
“Our spa has 10 pedicure stations.”
Feature + benefit:
“Our spa has 10 pedicure stations, so you can enjoy a bottle of wine and a girly movie with your closest friends while your toes get hot to trot.”
A straight features list is, like, so what-ev-er!
- Make it memorable
- Love your audience and describe what they love best.
Hey…hey, guess what?
Your mom! Tomorrow’s post is smarter than Steve Urkel – except not annoying.
Don’t go postal, man – here’s some more:
Textbook stuff! “Features vs. benefits”
90s week: What the 90s taught us about copywriting | Day 2
Day 2 - Put the ‘grrrrrrrr’ in ’swinger,’ baby, yeah!
The Offspring – Pretty Fly For a White Guy
You know it’s kind of hard
Just to get along today
Our subject isn’t cool
But he fakes it anyway
He may not have a clue
And he may not have style
But everything he lacks
Well he makes up in denial
If you’re lucky, your product or service has a little sparkle about it. If you’re most people, you lose your audience in seconds. What you do, sell or offer – quite frankly – bores other people. Blah freakin’ blah!
Take Ross, above. A PhD in paleontology. His friends just know “dinosaurs”. To them, dinosaurs are boring – he never put a twist on it. No sex, no drama, no hook – nothing.
Age-old adage, take 1: “It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it.”
Start with the headline – and make it snappy. Raise da roof!
These are posts currently waiting in my Google Reader:
- How to Become a Copywriter
- What You Need to Know About Online Copywriting
- Words to Avoid in Web Copywriting
- Five Good Tips for Successful Copywriting
You did not have me at hello – they all sound really, really boring.
They might have useful info, but it’s just not worth finding out.
So is your subject cool? Make it cool.
Are you pretty fly? Show us. Da bomb? Prove it.
A bit of humour, personality, humanity – we’re dying for it!
Everyone else is writing it straight and playing it safe.
A blog’s a great way to let your hair down and have fun – nowhere better demonstrated than on Twisted Oak Winery’s blog. Make sure to ogle their rubber chickens.
They’re a small winery in California. Whether or not you’ve heard of them, after a quick read of their blog you won’t just add it to your RSS feed, you’ll send it to your mom for a laugh and, next time you pick up a bottle, you’ll look for their label.
“Wine, wine, other wine, expensive wine….funny rubber chicken wine!”
Never underestimate the power of personality. It’s not that Twisted Oak invented anything new – people being stupid with rubber chickens has been a sport since Ross’ dinosaurs roamed – it’s that they’re doing it and you’re missing out on the fun.
There’s a time and a place, yep, and if you’re in a serious field – come through for your readers in a blog. I’ll even hold your hand and write it for you.
You love what you do – make us love it, too. Could I BE any more clear?
Allllrighty then! Tomorrow? More wholesome than a Danny Tanner bedside chat. Hurry back.
Related – and equally FLY – posts:
90s week: What the 90s taught us about copywriting | Day 1
Some days, it all gets a bit overwhelming. The world won’t stop tweeting.
I can’t sum it up better than Drew Barrymore in a recent movie monologue:
“She calls at home but he doesn’t pick up. She calls on his cell, and he e-mails her. She texts him. He Twitters back and leaves coded hints on MySpace. She tries snail mail. He apparently never learned how to open one. She yearns for the days when people had one telephone and one answering machine, and a guy had either definitely called you, or he had not.”
Likewise the copywriter’s headache.
- Did you write for people?
- Did you write for a novice reader, unfamiliar with the subject?
- Does it equally interest an expert?
- Did you write for Google robots?
- Can it easily be scanned and digested?
- Is it properly broken into sections with applicable sub-headings?
- Did you make it interesting?
- Did you make it believable?
- Did you build trust and confidence in the brand?
- Is it search engine optimised?
- Do the internal and external links use the best keywords in their anchor text?
- Did you use long and short form keywords for best effect?
- Did you use a good mix of competitive keywords for ideal results?
- Did you include a call to action?
- Is the grammar perfect?
- Are there any typos?
- Does it seep character, wit, delirious charm?
- Have you dropped as many classic 90s movie quotes as possible?
Houston, we have a problem. With those voices in my head, I don’t need real friends. The many demands on a web copywriter and the flawless copy she must produce can leave her yearning for a simpler time. The 90s.
Stunned to realise that we’re hurtling towards the teens, there’s never been a better time to reflect – Matchbox 20 playing in the background – on what the 90s taught us about great copywriting and online marketing.
1 crucial lesson coming every day this week – add this to your feed or check back daily.
It’s totally gonna suck. NOT!
Day 1 – Give it away
Give it Away – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Give it away, give it away, give it away, now.
Give it away, give it away, give it away, now.
Give it away, give it away, give it away, now.
Give it away, give it away, give it away, now.
Content marketing 101.
WAAZZZAAAAAAAAAAP. If you write it, they will come. Who will come? First Google, then visitors, then their friends, then the random people who find you through links….
Got pages of dope content? They show you believe in what you’re offering. SEOMoz is a great example. The site’s got an amazing blog, heaps of leading SEO industry info and lots of brilliant tools.
They make the bulk of their money through paid, professional subscriptions to SEO tools – and they’re not cheap. You wouldn’t just show up and fork over $80, so how to convince the buyer? Give [lots of other things] away. Once you’ve tried all their free tools and realise you can’t live without them….then you’re a willing buyer.
Likewise your content. Write it – or hire me to do so. Someone in your industry is going come through with the goods – why not mop up the ‘best in class’?
Deliver more than you need to, every day. Just leave it out, on a plate. “Help yourself.” If you deliver it, they will trust you, like you, buy from you.
***
Tomorrow’s 90s week post will be more fun than Kelly Kapowski at a pep rally – see you then!
Goooooo Bayside! Word to your mother.
Day 2 - Put the ‘grrrrrrrr’ in ’swinger,’ baby, yeah!
The rock star elevator pitch that proved me wrong
Like 9,099 other happy souls, I’ve gamely taken on Darren’s 31-day Better Blog Challenge. I suspect he’s easing us into things, baby steps, but – just like at a pub quiz – I’ll take the easy points where I find them
“Your blog’s elevator pitch?” He asked yesterday, day 1.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have bothered. Yet I’ve got such a smacking “I-told-you-so” story, pinned to the importance of having a speech down bloody pat.
A friend of mine is a little marketing ace – built for a high-flying corporate life. We met early in our careers, both fresh out of university. We had a hard-working streak in common and easily carved up our work between us. I took the words and she made them look pretty and brand appropriate. She was all over her textbook maxims:
“Always, always be ready with your elevator pitch. You just never know when your big break will come.”
She was obsessed. She was driven – and it was hilarious. “What’s your elevator pitch, Miss Copywriter,” she’d tease, knowing full well I thought it was a load of crap. A string of words learned by rote would sound forced and unnatural, rendering them useless.
Here’s the inevitable “I-told-you-so”. Away together on a business trip, she happened across a man she knew to be the VP Marketing of a major (major!) corporation. (I can only assume she’d memorised their pictures, as teenage girls do pop stars). It wasn’t an elevator, but she had mere seconds to nail her now-or-never, do-or-die opportunity.
That rabbit’s foot of an elevator pitch, memorised inside and out, allowed her to start speaking before she could back out. It meant she looked poised and articulate, able to hide the shaking knees trying to betray her.
Despite the huge opportunity and its tiny timeframe, she knew exactly what to say and ask and delivered it with utter finesse. 10/10. The man was so impressed with her confidence, he became her mentor. He was more than happy to help a young person with the balls to approach him – in person – and start talking. Guess how far she’s gone since then? Leaps, bounds and miles beyond.
It was with this in mind that I sat down for a good long while and stared at a blank notebook. Turns out, if good old Darren had asked me outright “what’s your blog about,” my response would have started with “uhh…”, before probably shouting “copywriting! It’s about copywriting!”. No takers for that boring slog, right?
Yet what if I promised to explain why copywriting matters. Of the difference it can make to any sized business, whether done well or beyond horribly. How good content shows whether a company cares (and if no content might suggest it doesn’t). Why the answer to standing shoulders above the competition might be found in words. A back-to-basics approach saluting integrity, damning jargon and suffering conniptions at apostrophe crimes. Like anything worthwhile, it’s about sharing the love. Why? Because I’m a copywriter – I sell benefits, not features.
Help for the computer averse – how to get your Google on
As with a lot of expats, dinner conversation with family friends often turns to their villa or rental properties spread around the globe. Over a few bottles of wine the truth is guaranteed to come out.
“That $@*#$&% house!” A recent comment floored me.
The friend continued, “we picked the worst possible name for our bloody house. The worst! No one types it into Google – it’s a made up word! We’re screwed.”
This from the galavanting dynamo who’d practically built the property herself. She didn’t “do” computers. Somehow, she’d missed the internet’s biggest secret: the addiction of SEO.
I often tease my mum as she types with two fingers. She’s brilliant – a research scientist and general genius – computers aren’t her thing, either.
I wonder how many similar, computer-averse types have given up on their abysmal Google results, certain that’s their lot. They’d stick to paper and pen if we let them.
Is this you?
“Search engine optimisation” is the term you need to Google now. Run, don’t walk.
What is it? A slow and steady application of a few basic principles – not an exact science. Make it a game and it can be fun.
For a lot of people (who love, love, love computers), SEO is their very reason for being. From them, we can learn a lot. Some of my favourite, friendliest sites for learning the basics are:
-
- About.com’s introduction to SEO page
- Site-Reference.com
- SEOmoz.org
- Winning the web
- And, of course, there’s a Search Engine Optimisation for Dummies
Is this your friend or family member?
Mention “keyword meta tags” and the blank stare you get in return will tell you all you need to know. I’m going to be asking my people, those I suspect might be missing out on their Googley goldmine. Do the same and help a friend out!
Home Alone: 12 steps to a better website, screams and all (Part III)
My last installment of Home Alone’s twelve-step programme for your better website.
9. You know where you’re meant to be – so get going
“I don’t care if I have to get out on your runway and hitchhike.”
It takes time to reach your Google targets and to enjoy self-sustaining traffic. Keep trying. Every day. Go out of your depth. Remain open to a new route. Vicious dedication will cut it where your competitors fail. You’ll get there before you know it.
10. Jump on the bed
Set goals and celebrate them. Keep a list tacked somewhere obvious. Following Macauley’s example, for so many hits in one month you get ice cream in bed. For so many newsletter subscribers you get a large cheese pizza. Make a list of where you will be, number by number, on Google’s results for your keywords each month. Big prizes await.
“You guys give up yet? Or are you thirsty for more?”
11. You can do a lot in a week – surprise yourself
“I don’t know how to pack a suit case. I’ve never done this once in my whole life.”
After a week alone, brave Macauley surprised everyone. He’d developed skills nobody thought possible. What extraordinary things could you accomplish in the next week? Consider your “I’ll do it sooner or later” site update list. Ponder your competition’s greatest edge. Go on a rampage of skill acquisition.
12. In 7 days’ time, shout the following from a rooftop:
“Hey, I’m not afraid any more! I said I’m not afraid any more! Do you hear me? I’m not afraid any more!”
Previous posts: Part 1 and Part 2
Home Alone: 12 steps to a better website, screams and all (Part II)
Want to improve your website? Make it a better website for customer service? Read on for Part II of my Home Alone redux – as the film applies to a website owner.
5. Checking things twice
“Five boys, six girls, four parents, two drivers, and a partridge in a pear tree.”
A simple counting exercise gone so horribly wrong. Home Alone teaches that the biggest mistakes will be the most obvious things. The things that didn’t need checking.
Read any and all new content from multiple angles: once or twice for grammar, once for punctuation, once to delete clichés (yuck!) and awkward phrases. Then read it yet again for clarity, making sure time-starved visitors can easily scan it. Finally, flag any dates or seasonal information so you’ll know to update it later. Think you’re finished? Negative. Hand it to a friend or family member for a final check.
6. Try new things
“I took a shower washing every body part with actual soap; including all my major crevices…”
When your site is your sustenance, its constant growth is vital – not simply what you do with any luxury “spare time”. You must try new things. Which of the Internet’s many crevices have you been meaning to explore? Could some basic CSS skills add new life? Have you planned a vast resource section that hasn’t yet made its online debut? It might sting at first (witness Macauley’s scream), but you’ll look so dapper.
7. Who’s tip-toeing past your door?
No, not burglars. Just casual people doing some research. They’re not potential customers yet, but they might be. Ensure that A) you entice them back and B) you build enough trust that they’ll ring the doorbell and identify themselves on their next visit. Some people prize their anonymity online: your tone throughout must be one of reaching out in friendship and genuine helpfulness, not towards their money. A helpful blog feed or e-newsletter are good baby steps.
8. Use the scary things to your advantage
“The 3rd floor? It’s scary up there.”
Through a harrowing week, our little Macauley faced down a tarantula, a talking furnace, old man Harvey…and the third floor. Tackling one at a time, each was used to great success against the baddies.
What ‘scary’ technology are you avoiding because it’s hard to learn or will be a total headache? Could your blog be prettier? Is it time for a merchant account? What about CAPTCHA or SSL certificates? Spend some time learning. You’ll soon have another weapon in your baddie-fighting arsenal.
Related posts: Part 1 & Part 3