Found by whom? Well, people who can spend money with you, silly.

Most of our clients haven’t worked with an SEO copywriter before, and this means we go through an education phase. Today, you get to see what that looks like! I know, you’re excited (pom poms for everyone). I hope you enjoy the tour and that you see what Redhead Writing thinks it takes to deliver a successful SEO copywriting project.

Step One: Gather Up Yo Schiz (translation: bring something to the table)

Wanting to “spruce-up” your website copy isn’t enough of a reason to talk to an SEO copywriter. Here are the things we need when you come to talk to us about your project:

Site Architecture: This is either a flow chart, spreadsheet or bulletpointed list showing the Parent Pages and Subpages in your website. You can also think of this as your navigation.

Why do SEO copywriters need this? Because we need to understand how many pages we’ll be writing copy for, which pages need to be optimized (as not all do) and…uh…because we can’t really wrap our heads around a project unless we see what it’s going to look like.

Keyword Research & Keyword Matrix: Oy vey and pass the Mylanta. No, this isn’t a movie starring Keanu Reeves and unless you’re an SEO specialist, this really isn’t something you want to jack with running and building yourself.

About Keyword Research: Quite simply, the results that you and I can get from Google’s Keyword Tool are okay. But what they don’t give you is a true picture of competition and popularity for each of the keywords you may consider targeting. A little green bar in the keyword tool shows Competition. Per Google, “The Competition column gives you a sense of how many advertisers are bidding for a particular keyword. This data can help you determine how competitive the ad placement is.” If you’re not going an Adwords campaign, I hope you see how useless that information is for web copy. Let a pro give you a report so you can make better decisions. And if you think it’s not worth the couple hundred bucks, see you on page 8 of the search results.

WTF is a Keyword Matrix? It’s a map of your site made with words. (Fancy!) I’ve included a sample below. These can only be created (wait for it) after you’ve done your keyword research!

Why do SEO copywriters need a keyword matrix? Because we need to know which words to target on each page we’re writing and how the pages of your website need to talk to one another (in words). An internal linking strategy is a factor in search engine rankings for your website, so when we write, good SEO copywriters include a solid internal linking strategy for their clients.

Step One Redux: You’ve come to the table with your site architecture, keyword research and keyword matrix. An SEO copywriter can now get a complete picture of your project. For clients who come to us with only a site architecture, Redhead Writing also provides keyword research and matrix-building services. We added this in June of last year as it was more common than not that clients didn’t have this essential piece of the SEO copywriting puzzle.

Step Two: Gettin’ All Up in Yo Bidness (translation: discovery session)

Any SEO copywriter worth their salt will hold a discovery call with a new client. This is your chance to find out if the SEO copywriter you have in your sights has any bloody idea what they’re talking about.

But let’s go back for a minute: it’s my steadfast opinion that if you’re bidding out an SEO copywriting project and the company in question hasn’t asked you for the things in step one, run screaming. I simply can’t fathom how they can produce effective copy without those three things. Redhead Writing will not take SEO copywriting projects without seeing the research a keyword matrix was built on unless it comes from one of our referring SEO firms. Why? Because we don’t write for giggles. We write to produce results for our clients.

What should you expect from a discovery call? This is your opportunity to tell your SEO copywriter about your business. Your clients. Your industry vernacular. The tone you want to convey throughout your website. We’re geeks of just the right sort that, when you find the good ones in our herd, we’ll make your site visitors fall in love and stay on the page, digging deeper into your website and driving them to the desired action.

What should you be able to give your SEO copywriter on this call? Well, here’s what we ask OUR clients: for each page of your website, what are the THREE most desirable actions you’d like a site visitor to take? Those can be things from calling you, filling out a form, downloading something, making a purchase decision or clicking through to another page. But if you don’t know what you want your site visitors to do when they land, an SEO copywriter isn’t going to be able to create copy to produce the desired results.

Step Two Redux: Your discovery call is your chance to have home court advantage. Download on your SEO copywriter everything they need to have a solid grasp on the look, feel and tone of your project and company. Understand where you want site visitors to go on your site…what you want them to do. Finally, ask about time to first draft and the revisions process, what’s included in the project fee, etc.

***

These are the two most important steps to your SEO copywriting project’s success. Do your home work and help your copywriter understand your company and we’ll take it from there! We find it simple to quote a per-page rate that includes one rough and two rounds of revisions, with a change fee if the keywords change or a page is requested to be modified with more than 30% new content. And please – if you have questions, ask away. We won’t do your project for free, but we’ll help you ask better questions that will make your project, website and company an even greater online success!

Awesome.

But there’s something I’m eating this week that’s harder to swallow: crow.

It’s inevitable that when life shoves your head up your ass, you also end up talking out of it. Grief and anger bring about words and phrases that were never in your vocabulary prior. They make a sharp wit more of a matador’s sword. And all of which place you in the position of eating crow. You might think you didn’t order it (weren’t the plum quail, cornish game hen and crow close to one another on the menu?), but you did.

And I’m not going to say that there are people who weren’t due a little ration of fuck you. But there are a handful of people that just got the brunt of a brain not firing on all cylinders.

So I apologized. Then. There. Not later. Not in a month.

Right there.

Because ordering up a full plate of crow is easier than slow-roasting regret.

Regret is always on the menu, even though we skip over it in favor of anything wrapped in bacon. It never comes out right , always undercooked or burnt beyond recognition. Undercooked is when people think they’re not in the wrong and wait for someone else to make things right. Burnt all to hell is when we sit on it so long and bury it so deep that we’ll never do the one simple thing (like cowboy the fuck up) that will make us seem human: admit we might have been wrong. And you know, we don’t even actually have to BE wrong. Opening the door to the possibility so you can actually have a conversation tastes loads better than slow-roasted regret.

And there’s no perfect side dish for regret, either. Pain with a demi-glacé, broiled jerk and gut-wrenching emptiness (with seasonal vegetables)…none of them fit but the chef jams ‘em all together anywhoo.

So how about the small dish? A little crow…some blue cheese dip. Eat it like hot wings. And take it from a girl who knows: eating the crow now beats a shitty meal you never wanted but they’re never going to comp. If you’re going to pay, you might as well order, right?

So how do you get in front of potential customers? It’s the internet, you betcha. And guess who’s going to find you first? The everyday Joe and Jane.

Guess who’s going to get you seen by Joe and Jane?

Nerds. Nerds like me.

Today’s post is a simple how-to for business owners on things you should have on your to-do list to get seen and the right nerds to get the job done. Everything here is actionable – so enjoy.

Strategy: Local Search

Type of Nerd: SEO Firm, Business Owner

If you’re in Google or Bing and you enter a search, guess what? Big Brother knows where you’re searching from. It’s magic, freakin’ A. If you’re a business looking to tap into your local market and mine new customers in your own backyard, you need to be optimizing your website for local search. But this is more than filling out a Google Places profile – it’s making sure your ducks are all in a row. Here are three things you can do to pimp your local search results today:

• Matchy-matchy: Did you know that it MATTERS how you write your business address? Yessiree. The address in the footer of your website, your contact page and in all of your online location-based profiles (like Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo!, CitySearch, Bing, Ask.com…) need to match. It’s really as picky as things like Street vs. St. If you’ve built any of these online profiles already, do a once-over and make sure they’re all matchy-matchy. If you haven’t built any of then yet…ummmmm…yeah. You might want to do that.
• Get yourself a local SEO audit: I really can’t emphasize enough that people who do SEO for a living (and do it well) are akin to surgeons in my book. It’s specialized labor and you should be throwing that kind of work at just any schmuck who says they “do” SEO. If you’re serious about tapping into the customer base in your own backyard, hire someone to do a local SEO audit.
• A cool guide to local SEO best practices: SEOmoz is the schiz and here’s a link to their Beginner’s Checklist for Small Business SEO (FREE!).

Interesting story: I was recently on the hunt for a cosmetic dentist in the greater Denver area. As no one I knew had one to refer me to, guess where I went? Google. “Cosmetic Dentist Denver.” I scheduled three appointments in one day and have found a dentist who will earn about $7,000 as a result of smart local search engine optimization. Granted, you have to KEEP the new business when you’re given the opportunity to earn it, but smart local SEO can get nerds like me in the door.

Strategy: New local customer acquisition

Type of Nerd: Email Marketing

Whether you’re a local sports pub, dentist, massage therapist, auto repair shop or just some guy hosting an event, you’re missing out if you’re not tapping into email marketing nerds. Sites like Living Social, Groupon, WeeklyPlus, and Voice make it easy for you as a business owner to get your message in front of THOUSANDS of new people in your own backyard. GAP recently did a Groupon campaign (it was so popular, it blew the site up and took hours to access the deal online…whoops!). I’ve found three new businesses here in Denver that I patronize regularly as a result of both WeeklyPlus and Groupon. My hair salon in Denver even found me on Facebook and told me that they had a deal on Living Social one day and I should hop on it (now THAT’S a business who understands online marketing AND customer service!).

Stop screwing around with buying lists and other crap email marketing techniques. When you’re after NEW customers, this special breed of email marketing nerds are a no brainer.

Strategy: Location-Based Apps

Type of Nerd: A savvy marketing consultant

Heard of Gowalla? FourSquare? Facebook Places? If you haven’t you’re under a rock. If you’re a brick and mortar business that wants to attract more foot traffic, you should do yourself a solid and explore these tools. Anyone with a smart phone (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry and more) can use these apps and here’s the jist: people “check in” when they arrive at your location. They share with their network WHERE they’re at and what they’re doing. And tons of businesses are getting on board with offer incentives to check in.

• Eateries can offer things like free french fries or beverages.
• Bars can offer a 2-for-1 drink special or free appetizers.
• Dry cleaners can offer a free shirt dry cleaning.
• Massage therapy shops can offer $5 off your next service.
• Hair salons can offer a free conditioning treatment.
• Car repair shops can give you a free tire rotation.

Find a mobile app-savvy marketing nerd who can help you explore campaigns, promotions and uses for location-based apps. Wouldn’t it be cool to have new foot traffic because your marketing nerds help you find nerds like me with a smart phone? The best part is: I’m a nerd who shares things I love with other nerds. And heck – I even share with non-nerds occasionally, too. A marketing nerd (like me) can get you in front of nerds (like me). There are tons of savvy marketing nerds just waiting to make you look good.

***

Nerd Love – embrace it for your local business. But honestly, you don’t have to listen to me. You can just sit there in your antiquated strip mall shop and hope your customers are sending you referrals. Or, as a dear friend once reminded me: you can hope in one hand and crap in the other…guess which one’s gonna fill up first?

@WebProNews: I can haz fixed UR blog nows

What I’m not a huge fan of is reading a blog title, being enticed to click and then reading an article that gave me jack shit. This happened recently with SitePro News.

I got a snazzy email (which I always open) and saw the OMFG awesome topic: 5 Best Practices of Content Distribution. I clicked on that shit faster than an offer to win an iPad. And I was disappointed. Guest blogger Bradley Haas took 1277 words to give WebPro News readers absolutely ZERO actionable items.

So today, I’m giving one of my favorite blogs a Bitch Slap and finishing their blog post for them as well as dispelling some absolutely crap advice. And hey, WebPro news – I’d be delighted to be a guest blogger sometime. I won’t even drop the f-bomb.

Blogger Connections: Bradley recommends “using services that will connect you with other bloggers. These are great for not only getting your content posted elsewhere but also for getting guest bloggers on your blog.”  What he didn’t share is now to do this. In July, Kikolani published an indispensable list of resources for bloggers, including some useful community-driven tools like Scribnia, Technorati and Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop. I’d also like to add Blog Catalog to that list.

What Bradley also forgot to mention is that becoming an active reader and commenter on your favorite blogs is a great way to build community. If you don’t read, you have no business writing. And if you’re not reading other blogs, why will anyone read yours?

Publishing on Reputable Websites: Next, Bradley shares that there are “numerous well-established article databases and other content-based websites where you can submit your content. “ Alas, no list – but never fear. I’ve made one for you:

Demand Studios: If you’re a beginning writer looking for pocket cash, you can write for Demand Studios on a variety of topics. I’ve personally made thousands with them and while I no longer write for them, they have strict editorial guidelines to ensure your content submitted is top-notch. You can click here to submit your resume – they’re always looking for writers and give every writer a bio (great for bringing traffic back to you). By the way, Demand Studios provides the content for top sites like Overstock.com, Livestrong, eHow and more.

eZineArticles: Admittedly, half the content on this site is total crap, but you can’t ignore their top-notch Google page rank. They do have an editorial review process and WILL reject articles. It’s a great place for you to submit content that’s been previously published on your blog, republish special reports and develop new article marketing pieces that establish your authority on a subject. If you’re a WordPress blogger, there’s an eZineArticles plugin that makes cross-publishing even easier (but I don’t recommend the simultaneous publishing option – always publish to your blog FIRST and then to eZines a week later).

3. Keep Track of Published Content: “When syndicating your blog posts and submitting them for inclusion on several different websites, you will want to make sure that you are keeping track of each place they have been submitted to and published. Part of building your credibility is that the content that you write is applicable to more than just your immediate readers. Make sure that you are keeping track of where your content has been published in order to write more content that appeals to those particular audiences.”

Yes, Bradley. But how do I do that? Well, you can check out applications like Lijit (my favorite) and the Apture toolbar (Shelly Kramer has one installed on her blog and RedheadWriting will have one next week! Just scroll and watch the top of the page). Both of these applications can be fully integrated with self-hosted WordPress installations and email you weekly stats on top content, shares and more. What I love about Lijit? You can see if your fans are searching for something you haven’t written about and voila! – proceed to write about it.

You should also install Google Analytics on your blog along with the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin to track top content. Oh, and bonus: don’t forget to install the XML Sitemap plugin, too. Makes sure that the search engines are notified when you publish new content! (and with that, we’ll move on to #4)

4. Publish Press Releases: “When an article, blog post, or video is being syndicated, it is completely appropriate to submit a press release. This doesn’t need to be an incredibly formal, pricey press release. There are many free press release publication services that will allow you to post as many press releases as you wish. Having your content syndicated is big news, make sure that you are reporting it!”

OMFG – absolutely not. If I catch a single one of you issuing a press release about having published a blog, I’ll kick you in the nuts. “Syndicated” means you established an RSS feed. Christ, any monkey can have an RSS feed. THIS IS NOT NEWS and remains a major issue in the media community. If you issue a press release with absolutely NO NEWS IN IT (“Hi! I just published a new blog! WOO!”), you’re killing your chances to get press when you actually DO have news (“Company XYZ who issued a crap press release three months ago just acquired $12m in venture funding”).

Publish a press release when you have news to share. Don’t be a douchebag and think everything going on over on your blog is newsworthy. Writing is not revolutionary.

Online press release distribution engines have tons of benefits for SEO purposes, however. Here’s a simple primer from WebHostingGeeks.

5. Tweet and Digg About Published Content: Tweets and diggs are like mini, severely informal press releases. If you don’t have the time to sit down and write a press release the moment you find that one of your posts or articles has been published, make sure that you are at least tweeting about it. All of your twitter followers will immediately be aware of your content being published and if they haven’t already had a chance to read it they will be more inclined to do so.

OK, first and foremost, Twitter and Digg are brand names and should always be capitalized. Secondly, no – social media channels are NOT places for “mini press releases.” They’re communities. And again, if you’re writing a press release about having just published a new blog, I will kick you in the nuts. If you’re not going to take the time to build a community, get out of my pool and stop peeing in it.

Using tools like Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages to share links to your content with your community is a killer tactic, but don’t forget about the power of social bookmarking. Sites like StumbleUpon, Mixx, Propeller, Pitch Engine (only for press releases – REAL ONES, dammit!) and Delicious offer multiple opportunities to share published content with audiences looking for the same type of content. They’re also great traffic generation tools (23% of RedheadWriting web traffic comes from StumbleUpon, by the way).

***

So, that’s it. I hope you found the resources useful and an improvement over the original blog over on WebPro News. And if you have any tricks up your sleeve you’d like to share, leave a comment. We all get better through sharing (and bitch slapping).

And by the way, if you enjoyed this post, you might also like Screw the Duplicate Content Penalty: Three Easy Ways to Repurpose Content.

Note: NOT The Redhead, though I do fancy the outfit...

The day someone told me I should watch Eddie Izzard (as I’d “get” him – I believe that was the wording), I took the information and filed it away in “Under Advisement.” Given that someone always has something we should watch/see/read/do/hump/anoint, our daily dance cards are pretty full. Thanks for the add – hugs. Mean it.

Then a roommate gave me “Dressed to Kill” – one of Eddie’s standup shows – for Christmas. Jesus, it was like everyone I knew conspired to have me sit down and watch this dude. One bored night back in 2002, I popped the damn disc into the DVD player.

And proceeded to laugh my ass off. Cried. Tears. My abs hurt.

He describes himself as an Executive Transvestite. Smart humor and witty tangents delivered by a man in women’s getup.

I turn to humor quite a bit for my requisite dose of “smart.” George Carlin, Eddie Izzard, Bill Mahr, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Lewis Black – love them or hate them, you can’t argue with the logic behind their humor. Hey – different channels work for different folk. My poison? Humor. And the smarter, the better.

The past week or so, I’ve received a fair share of unsolicited feedback on why my readers keep coming back – from my readers themselves. They come back because of the smart side of the smack-downs. So, sitting here on my sofa-desk, suckling caffeine as life’s only fuel following a time-well-spent late night filed with smart humor, I think that I’d fancy myself a bit of an Executive Dominatrix – all credit to Eddie Izzard, of course.

I get to whip people into shape. Smartly. Direct, yet with laughter. Hell, if we can’t laugh at ourselves…well, I guess we could laugh at other people. God knows, the human animal is stranger than fiction. And people consistently ask for another. “Yes ma’am!” You ask, I’ll keep up with the whipping, you naughty little monkeys. But laughing at ourselves and using our foibles, blunders and epic fuckups to help others who might be making (or have previously made) the same mistake – smart. It’s the comedic equivalent of reduce/reuse/recycle.

Here are a few shares this week on my smart humor list – I hope you enjoy their content as much as I do:

SEO Bullshit

Justin Kownacki

The Oatmeal

27b/6

Cherry Woodburn

If you have any “smart humor” to add, leave a comment. I’m always looking to expand my reach. Now on your knees and ask for another

Squeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Well, it looks like my readers are going to have to prepare themselves for boudoir pics of me and MY NEW iPAD! Trada announced on Saturday morning that our collective voting efforts worked and that I was the proud owner of a new iPad.

In all seriousness – thank you.

This is what community is about. It’s not about ME winning an iPad – it’s about being ABLE to reach out and garner a response. I’m fortunate that I’ve build a community where people listen when I write. So I owe each and every one of you a HUGE thank you.

For reading, commenting, voting, emailing, tweeting, sharing and coming back post after post. Without you – my readers – I’m just a crazy lady with a keyboard. (Fine – I’m a crazy lady with a keyboard already, but since you listen, it keeps me out of the asylum.)

Now, a bit about Trada – have you ever wondered what it would be like to have HUNDREDS of  PPC experts working on your online marketing campaign (instead of just one or two)? Here are just a few cool tidbits you might like to know about this Boulder-based gem:

• Advertisers reduce their CPA by an average of 10% after joining Trada
• The average campaign has 24 (!!!) PPC experts working on it at one time
• Trada campaigns have an average of 10 times more relevant ads than before joining the market place.

Don’t believe the hype – see how it works. I was turned on to Trada by seOverflow, an incredible Denver-area SEO firm that I’m fortunate enough to work with on a regular basis. I’m looking forward to their full report!

Now – go forth, prosper, do all that Vulcan shit and tell Monday to kiss your ass. And thank you for being part of my community.

I met Brian Clark (finally) back at Blog World in 2009. He knew I was a SEO copywriting geek and he pinged me early this year with a question: he had a cool new WordPress SEO copywriting plugin and would I mind giving it a beta test?

Does a monkey fling poo?

Not a moment later, I found a nifty zip file in my inbox. Enter Scribe.

If you’re using a WordPress-powered content management system or blog, it’s essential. If you’re a copywriter producing article marketing content for distribution around the web, it’s like mother’s milk. Here’s why:

• It Thinks Like a Search Engine: It’s all very well and good to think you’re TELLING the search engines what you want them to see through coding meta data like page title, description and keywords, but what do search engines really see? Scribe tells you and helps you pull your head out of your backside before your content goes live.
• It Acts Like a Coach: When you run the Analysis tool, it not only tells you what it sees, but it tells you how to fix it. Hells yeah.
• No Blog Needed: Maybe you’re a copywriter who churns out article marketing content and you have to be careful about keyword density (I’m talkin’ eZines here, folks…). Scribe had a web-based standalone version accessible from anywhere (one you sign up) that catches any boo boos before the big bad submission engines get ahold of you. I lurvs. A lot. (Not alot.)
• It Ain’t Free (and nor should it be): If you want cool free tools, check out HubSpot’s awesome arsenal. The Scribe tool ranges from $27/month to $97/month. Don’t believe it’s worth the cash – try it 30 days for free and see for yourself. I did.

Here’s a screenshot of the analysis tool once it’s run (these are the results for the post you’re reading right now):

Here are a few things you need to know about WHY I’m pimping this plugin:

• I work in the SEO space and have sent referrals for this tool over to SEO firms with whom I work.
• I’m all about anything that’s going to make my job easier.
• Brian’s group is all about feedback and he PERSONALLY responded to a list of improvement/expansion suggestions I sent over.
• They’ll be releasing versions for additional blogging platforms in coming months.
• It takes writers out of the position of thinking like writers and makes you look at your content in a different way – a way that better serves clients.

Will it make you a SEO copywriting pro overnight? Hell no. But it WILL make your path to understanding how search engines read content less bumpy. Read more about the Scribe SEO Copywriting tool and see why I’m jazzed. Have a delightful Monday.

SEO copywriting for the web is an art. It’s not about slapping any old words on a web page and waiting for the traffic to magically appear. As an SEO copywriter, I work with a team of other professionals to help make a client’s website successful: SEO firms, sponsored search specialists, web designers. The most challenging conversation I ever have with a new client is “words do not traffic make.” But they’re a damn good place to start.

While search engines are pretty doggone smart, they’re also pretty dang dumb. You have to tell them what’s important. You might have the most awesome doggie supply business on the planet Earth but if the search engines (and hence, all your prospective customers) don’t know that, you’re screwed. So what’s the key to breaking it down Barney-style and spoon feeding the search engines?

Keywords, keywords, keywords.

Today’s blog is a few simple steps you can take and tools you can use to start thinking like your customers and spoon feed the search engines exactly what they should know about your website, your business and who they should be sending your way.

• Pretend you’re a customer. Stop being the business owner for a minute and put yourself in your customer’s shoes. When they go to the web, what are they typing into that Google Search box when searching for what you’ve got in spades? Here are some simple steps you can take to find out!
  • The Google Test. Play around in Google and act like a customer. If you sell doggie supplies, key in search terms like dog bowls, online pet supplies, online dog supplies, etc. See what comes up.
  • Snoop Around Your Competitors’ Yards. You know who they are, so why not pay their websites a visit? When you land on their home page, use a right click of your mouse to get a pop-up box that says view page source (Chrome/Firefox) or view source (IE). Click that. It will open up a new window that will show you all of that web site’s meta data (information that the site is giving to search engines). This includes keywords, page description and page title. Sneaky – make notes!
• Dig Deeper: Keyword Research Tools. Using free online resources like Google’s Keyword Tool, you can type in multiple keywords and keyword phrases (a single keyword would be dog, a keyword phrase would be online dog supplies). You can then let Google (master of all that is Search), tell you how popular those keyword combinations are! Why is this useful?
  • Because Google is smart and you are dumb. Google knows data and spends more time that you and I have combined compiling data. It knows who is searching for what and how often. But their hard work can help you choose the best search terms to focus on for your web content.
  • Same but Different. Google will show you synonyms and other related phrases (proof that Google is smarter than you and me). You might type in dog supplies online, but it will also give you the following:

• Be specific. I don’t know about you, but when I look for things online, I’m rarely looking for “dog supplies.” I’m looking for a medium Furminator brush. Being generic in Search Engineville is the kiss of death. The more specific you can be, the better for your web copy and behind-the scenes meta data. Here’s a hierarchy as to what your keyword selection should look like from your home page on down:
  • Home Page: general keywords (online pet supplies).
  • Internal Pages: more specific keywords (online cat supplies/online dog supplies)
  • Sub Pages: even more specific keywords (cat litter boxes/online cat food/cat scratching posts)
  • Category-Specific Pages: very specific (Furminator brushes)
  • Product Specific Pages: freakin’ specific (Furminator dog brush/Furminator cat brush/Furminator Medium)
  • The goal is to drive traffic with your web copy and meta data to the point where a site visitor doesn’t have to dig through your site to get what they want. If you’ve ever left Target because you couldn’t find what you were looking for, Target failed in its marketing. More websites than not do this very (bad) thing.

So, you’re doing keyword research. Awesome. Start a spreadsheet with what you’ve found or just make a list in a document that you can keep handy. This information helps a copywriter (an SEO-savvy copywriter, not one that’s used to working with print medium or is a wiz at editorial work) understand your products and business. Your SEO copywriter (if any good) will then take that list and do a little digging of their own and then be better able to craft web copy that works for both the search engines and your business instead of just giving you what anyone is capable of: word on a web page.

SEO copywriting takeways for today regarding keyword research and selection:

• Think like your customers and figure out what they’re typing into Google.
• Check out your competitors – there’s nothing wrong with finding out what already works (and doesn’t)
• Test your results with free online resources like Google’s Keyword Tool (because it’s smarter than we are)
• Understand where to use general keywords and where to get more specific
• Make a list of your research to help the other key professionals in your web campaign understand your business, your products and you target audience.

Next Monday, tune in for the reason your web copy needs a pool boy and a plumber. It’s called specialization of labor, and SEO copywriting will get your web content tuned-in like a well-staffed corporation!

Did you miss installment one in this series? Read Why Your Web Content Isn’t Working.

Are you subscribed? Don’t miss out on the next installment of the SEO copywriting blog series on RedheadWriting. We publish every Monday/Wednesday/Friday! Get a dose of The Redhead straight to your reader of choice or via email – just go to the top right hand side of this screen and clickity-click!

Website content is the undisputed king – search engines rank you by it, people rate you by it, and most of all, it’s the number one tool (in conjunction with a solid website design) that tells your visitors who you are, what you do and what you can do for them.

But your web copy isn’t working. WTF, over?

Today’s post is the first in a series of five posts that will cover website content. As a reminder, installment two in my WordPress Series will be published this Wednesday (catch installment one Three Reasons Your Website Sucks and One Simple Way to Fix It here), so if you haven’t subscribed, have a lookie-loo at the right hand side of this page and subscribe via RSS feed or email. Let’s face it – you get a lot of crap in your inbox every day…why not get some crap you actually want to read?

Most people think that the mere act of having a website is their ticket to instant traffic and an exponential increase in sales. Yeah – you’re wrong. There are two key components that go into a solid website: content (king) and design/coding (a piss-and-vinegar queen that’s bucking for the throne at all times). A pretty website alone, while nice to look at, isn’t going to result in higher traffic or sales. It needs the compliment of coherent, purpose-driven content. Now, before I get the commenters who think I’m being sexist by putting forth that a website is a patriarchal entity and the matriarchal figure is subservient (blah-blah-blah)…it’s a metaphor. The king and queen compliment one another and work together to create a web-based kingdom that:

• Is sticky (keeps visitors on your site)
• Lets visitors know what you want them to do (click here, buy this, subscribe, submit a form)
• Converts visitors to customers (creates revenue or another desired result)

In the words of Mel Brooks: It’s good to be the king.

Any old words slapped up on a web page simply won’t do. There’s a tried and true method for developing coherent and conversion-oriented web copy that works. The next four parts of this series will cover the following topics:

• Do Your Homework: Audience Identification and Keyword Selection (WTF is a keyword?!?!)
  • Who do you want to visit your site and why? This post will delve into how to think like your target audience and how to do the research for your entire site that will result in web copy that speaks to your audience and more importantly, speaks to the search engines. Search engines are smart, but you’ve gotta tell them what they want to hear.
• Specialization of Labor: Why Each Page of Your Website Should Have a Job
  • Ever worked in a company where everyone was the sales/marketing/administrative staff/lead developer and CEO? Too many cooks in the kitchen! We’ll look into why each page of your website should have a clearly defined purpose and talk about how that helps the search engines and your business simultaneously. Copy rules here, and it takes a polished pen/keyboard to write purpose-driven text that gets you where you need to go.
• Who Loves You, Baby? The Importance of Links and Anchor Text
  • Expanding on the idea of specialization of labor, we’ll discuss why the specialization you committed to will help your website from both the inside AND the outside. There’s a heavy importance that search engines place on links (both internal and inbound from other sites) as well as the way you create those links – anchor text. Stop pasting URLs and hyperlinking the words “click here.” Do it right, reap the rewards.
• It’s Not Over Until It’s Over: Revisiting Your Site, Making Revisions
  • When you’ve finally achieved a site that works and one that’s got a design and the complimentary copy to do what you expected it to do—you can’t just let it be. We’ll go over the importance of analytics, competitive analysis and how to stay one step ahead of your competition through some smart “tweaks” to your web copy and site meta data to ensure that as the months and years roll by, your site isn’t left in the dust with the dinosaurs.

There’s a lot of crap lurking out there on the interwebz, but your website doesn’t have to belong to the Crap Club. Follow this series of blog posts and take your website from crap to content-rich in a few easy weeks of reading. We’ll see you next Monday with Do Your Homework: Audience Identification and Keyword Selection, and don’t forget to catch this Wednesday’s installment in my WordPress series and how it can be used as a tool to help you build a solid website.

Holy hell. Look at your website.

It sucks. No, seriously: it really sucks. The chrome off a Studebaker’s fender type of suckage. The kind that it took someone who knew just enough to be dangerous to achieve.

Houston: we have a crap website. That is confirmed.

The first reason your website sucks? I have no idea what it’s about or what your business does when I get to your homepage. I mean, thank god someone posted a bit.ly link on Twitter or else I never would have come here on my own. All I’m seeing is a boatload of words and a tiny stock image at the top of the screen. I could be reading a pamphlet for interstitial cystitis for all I know. It’s possible you’re in real estate because there’s a little picture of a house and your big, shiny mug all over the screen. Then again, you could be an animal shelter because all I see is pictures of a woman surrounded by dogs. Personally, I’m lost.

The second reason your website sucks? The search engines can’t find you. It’s pretty obvious that when you put your website together you felt that any ol’ words on the page will do. When I pull your site’s source code (go ahead, blink…I know you have no idea what I’m talking about), there’s no meta data, your pages are all named www.mywebsite.com/afbijkaf6^&()^%^#$, or everything on your site is in Flash (which is totally brutal for search engines and site vistiors alike). If Google can’t find you, good luck on generating traffic. Aren’t you glad you paid that cheap (or maybe not-so-cheap) web firm $249 for your site?

The third reason your website sucks? I have no idea what I’m supposed to do when I get to your homepage. Your site’s navigation is so confusing that I would probably be able to come up with a bipartisan-approved solution to the heath care question in this country before I can find your “Contact Us” page. That is, if you even have one. So, I quit. I’m going to work as a lobbyist for the American Medical Association because it’s an easier gig than trying to find anything on this digital abomination you call a website.

But there’s a simple way to fix all that ails you. And it’s called WordPress.

Not WordPress.com…I’m talkin’ WordPress.org. If you’re thinking about redirecting a WordPress.com-hosted blog to your own URL, I’ll issue you a pre-emptive bitch slap now and tell you to read Stop Being a WordPress Whore.

“But that’s for bloooooooooooooooooooooooooogs.”

Really?

RedheadWriting is powered by WordPress. So is RedheadedFury.com.

So are www.copyblogger.com

www.chrisbrogan.com

www.ourayicepark.com

Yup. All powered by WordPress.

The beauty of a self-hosted WordPress-powered website is that everything you need to be successful is available in a simple, easy-to-use, and FREE package! Just think: you can have the website you always dreamed of for your business (or blog, or whatever) and if you have opposable thumbs – YOU can manage your entire website yourself! Soup to nuts.

This blog is the first blog in a series that will cover WordPress as a tool for website development. Here are the topics of the next installments in this series:

• WordPress Themes – Out of the box and onto your site solutions that are more than just pretty pictures. We’ll explore the genius behind DIY Themes’ THESIS theme and those available from Woo Themes and iThemes as well. Themes can single-handedly help you avoid the perils of poor navigation design and are easily tweaked (yes, that IS a technical term) to meet anyone’s aesthetic demands.
• The Power of CSS - What the hell is CSS? My guest blogger, Jason Nelson of Visual Adventures Web Design (and WordPress CSS Style Sheet guru), will tell you in plain English and show you how a friendly web developer can take your WordPress-powered site from blah to BAM!
• Plugins: they’re not just for lamps anymore – WordPress plugins are like Legos for your website. You literally plug them in and watch them go. We’ll cover some of the cool things they can do for your website and how these and wise theme selection will solve that pesky SEO problem once and for all.

Subscribe now via either a reader or email updates (look on the right hand side of this screen) and don’t miss the rest of this awesome series. I hate to see websites that suck and there’s really no reason for them. If you ever wondered about the power of WordPress, here’s your chance to learn the basics…and for FREE.

I never said I was easy, but WordPress is…and my advice is the right price.