If you’re stumped for ideas, this second edition of SEO Copywriting Step-by-Step is for you. These ideas are only a few of the many ideas that our SEO copywriters use to highlight our client’s business. Get your team together and brainstorm how you can use each of these ideas on your own page. Within a single brainstorming session, you can jot down a month’s worth of posts to keep you engaged with your customers.

Tips and Information

One of the biggest reasons people will like your page is to learn about your business and how it can benefit them. Topics for these company-related posts could be:

• Link to a new blog post, press release, video or article that you’ve produced — or one from a non-competing business. (Whenever you post a link to an article or other resource, be sure to intro the link with a bit of commentary sharing how and why it is relevant to your audience!)
• Industry specific news or events (Subscribe to Google Alerts to be automatically emailed when new news is published around keywords of your choice).
• A useful tip that others can use to save time, money, or improve the quality of their lives Keep it within your niche. For example, if you sell real estate, share a real estate buying tip. If you sell Indian spices, share a recipe.
• Q & A with your most commonly asked questions — You’ve probably already got this written! Look through your email to find a question you were asked and post it and your response.

Getting Personal About Your Business

Customers love to work with people! Instead of staying nameless on your Facebook page, make it personal. Let your customers know there’s a real person behind each and every post and you’ll see that customers are more likely to interact on your page. If you’re not sure what to include, here are just a few ideas:

• Photos from company events — trade shows, retreats, team building exercises, open houses, etc.
• Employee milestones and celebrations — if Joe in marketing just earned is Distinguished Toastmasters status, share his success!
• Introduce new hires with a photo and a little background info.
• Give some backstory behind how some of your products or services were thought-up or created.
• Get excited about awards your company has won or mentions in the media or on other websites and blogs.
• Share info about any non-profits, charities, or community events your company supports or volunteers for.

Highlight Your Customers Or Fans

Just like they love to learn personal details about businesses, customers love to talk about themselves! Asking questions can be a great way to encourage participation, but it’s not the only way.

• Post a customer success story — and even though they had success with your product or service, make your customer the hero!
• Pick a “Fan of the Month” and shine the spotlight on them with a bio that showcases him or her.
• Share an excerpt from a customer email that made you smile (keep details confidential).

Contests Or Giveaways

Everyone loves a contest and there’s no better way to get fans to flock to your Facebook page. Contests don’t have to run you a lot of money though. You can do a quick one-day contest that rewards a winner with a free or discounted product or service. Some ideas for contests include:

• Share a link to a product page and ask people to comment with their favorite feature.
• Post a brainteaser or riddle and ask people to email with the answer and comment with how long it took them to figure it out.
• Post a link to a new blog post/video/article and ask people to comment with one thing they learned.

Get Interactive!

It’s human nature that people like to hear what others think. Use the following tactics to get the conversation flowing on your wall:

• Create a multiple-choice survey — ask something casual like “How are you doing at sticking to your New Year’s goals?” or more personal about your specific products and services “What’s your favorite feature of our new widget?” We suggest leaving the ” Allow anyone to add options” choice checked so that people can respond with their own answers instead of only selecting from the ones you created.
• Ask a fill in the blank question — it could be something conversation such as “It drives me crazy when my kids _____.” Or it could be business related such as “One feature that I wish xyz widget had is _____.”
• Ask fans to share their Twitter handle so that other like-minded fans in the community can follow them.
• Do a “Let’s get to know each other” post where you ask fans to share a link to their website and write a 1-sentence pitch for their business.
• Ask people to share their favorite thing about your service or products.
• Invite customers to post their QR codes.
• Ask fans to share a favorite quote or song lyric that represents what they stand for.
• Invite fans to share their favorite photos of them interacting with your business.
• Play a trivia game where fans answer and then post their own question for another person to answer. Here’s a fun example of a Facebook trivia game we created that people seemed to really enjoy.

General Tips for More Effective Facebooking

(That’s right… we just made Facebook a verb…)

• Respond to customers if they ask questions, whether in the comments or in a new post
• Visit and comment on posts on other pages, not just your own
• When you mention people or Pages in your posts, start typing their name with the “@” sign in order to turn the name into a linked mention. The post then appears on their page or profile as well depending on how they have their settings configured. (Note: In order for a page to link to a page, your page needs to have “liked” that page. In order for you to link to a person, that person has to have already “liked” your page.
• For more ideas, visit “Business Pages How To” on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/fbpages.

Your Turn!

What are some of the Facebook marketing strategies that you’ve tried with success? What types of posts do your favorite companies employ successfully? If you have ideas for the next SEO Copywriting Step-by-Step mini-class, we’d love to hear them!

One of the best ways to do this is with a regular newsletter, but coming up with topics can be difficult! In this first SEO Copywriting Step-by-Step mini-class, we’ll show you how to think up newsletter topics that will keep your customers interested and engaged.

Newsletter Topic #1: Solve A Common Problem 

Your customers are probably facing the same types of problems. If you’re not sure what these problems are, ask your customers to identify common issues they face on a day-to-day basis. Then spend some time brainstorming and come up with ways to help. It’s okay if each solution doesn’t have anything to do with your company or your services and actually, it’s better! Your newsletter should help customers first, not just be an advertising venue for your company.

Newsletter Topic #2: Tell A Horror Story

Customers don’t want to do business with a company, they want to do business with a person. There’s no better way to personalize your business than by telling a disaster story. Write about a problem your company faced and then tell how you bounced back and fixed it! Customers will be happy to learn about your resourcefulness and they’ll get to see how you can remain cool under pressure. Invite customers to write back and share their own horror stories too and feature these in an upcoming newsletter.

Newsletter Topic #3: Q And A

If you frequently receive questions from customers, use one of your newsletters to address these questions. Choose the most commonly asked questions and provide an answer for each. You might be surprised at how well received this kind of newsletter can be.

Newsletter Topic #4: Toot Your Own Horn

Many companies shy away from blatantly promoting their business in their newsletter. While it’s true that it can be a turn off if you’re constantly using your newsletter to tout how great you are, the newsletter is also the perfect place to announce if your company has won an award or received some other type of accolade.

Newsletter Topic #5: React To Industry News

Whenever there are changes and updates throughout your industry, don’t ignore them – react to them. Use your newsletter to explain what these changes mean and how they affect each company throughout your industry. Your clients will appreciate that you’ve taken the time to explain these changes.

Tip: Hire An SEO Copywriting Firm If You’re Short On Time

Busy companies can definitely benefit from hiring an SEO copywriting firm to handle their newsletters. Hiring SEO copywriters instead of handling this in house means that companies can be sure the project is getting done and an experienced SEO company can even help you come up with topics if you’re stuck.

If you’re concerned about handing the responsibility over to an outsourced SEO copywriting company, don’t be! SEO copywriters are trained in crafting content that’s meant to help convert potential customers into actual customers, as long as you choose the right SEO copywriting company. SEO Content Solutions is an SEO copywriting firm that welcomes your input and guarantees you’ll be pleased with the results.

Your Turn!

What are some newsletter topics that you’ve found to be successful? What are some of your favorite newsletters to receive and why? If you have an idea for the next SEO Copywriting Step-by-Step mini-class, we’d love to hear from you!

Consider using these ‘Top 10 Online Marketing Resolutions’ to boost your online presence throughout 2012:

1. Evaluate or Re-evaluate Your Keywords

Knowing your target keywords is the cornerstone of an online marketing campaign. If you have never done keyword research, stop the presses and do this first! If the last time you’ve done keyword research was over a year ago, it is probably time to dig in again and see if there are new opportunities that you are ignoring. Producing loads of online content geared towards the wrong keywords is a mistake you can avoid by doing your research upfront. Start the New Year fresh by re-examining your target keywords to ensure your audience is still searching for the key phrases you’re using in your online marketing initiatives. Get a baseline as to where you’re ranking now and set goals for where you’d like to be.

2. Build a List

Successful marketers will tell you that you list is your most important asset. Building a list is easier than it may seem. There are several ways to do this. With a mailing list service like Aweber, you can integrate an email parser into your checkout or registration process that will automatically send a confirmation email to get people to sign up for your list. This may require a bit of programming, but is so worth it and can be a way to quickly build your list. Another way is to offer a free download such as an ebook or a white paper on your site or on your Facebook page. In order for people to download the content, they need to enter their name and email and subscribe to your list. Our sister company Online PR Media has built a list of more than 16,000 subscribers in 8 months by implementing these two ideas.

3. Start or Step Up Your Blog

If you haven’t set up a business blog, now is the time to do so! Blogs are a great for both SEO and connecting with your customers. It’s a way to get your “voice” heard and a way to establish more of a brand for your business. More importantly, you need to consistently post timely information to engage readers. Having a ‘dead’ blog is sometimes worse than having no blog at all.

4. Regularly Publish SEO Press Releases

SEO press releases do triple duty when it comes to online marketing. One: They allow you a place to promote all of the new things happening within your company, such as new products, services, digital media, contributions, contests, and any other exciting things you are launching and implementing. Two: you can incorporate keyword anchor text links into your press releases that help boost the visibility of your site for your keywords. Three: Press releases serve as a fantastic reputation management tool. When a potential client does their due diligence on your company, they’ll find all kinds of positive information and realize that your company is an active industry leader.

5. Position Yourself as an Industry Thought Leader

Rather than following others’ blogs, and reading articles quoted by other ‘experts’ in your field, why not build your own following? Create content that positions you as a thought leader. Think of ways that you can contribute to established blogs, magazines and trade journals and launch some online publicity campaigns to them know you’re available for guest writing or interviewing. Set a goal to secure a speaking engagement in 2012 — whether at a local Chamber event or a national conference. Collect all of the valuable information you have contributed and create an online press kit that will position you as the ‘go to’ expert for media.

6. Provide ‘Shareable’ Content

Take advantage of the reach of online marketing by producing content that people want to share. Whether it’s a humorous and informative blog post, an infographic, a cartoon, or a valuable e-book with your secrets to success, strive to offer content that is not only going to be read by your followers, but will be passed along to their friends and family as well.

7. Refresh Website Content

The New Year is an excellent time to revamp your website content. Lose all of the stale, boring copy you’ve had for ages and refresh your site with engaging, informative and keyword-optimized content to ensure readers will come back for more (plus the added benefit that your fresh, new pages will likely be indexed higher in search results!).

8. Create Buzz with Contest Marketing

Kick start the year with a fun online contest that will get people talking about you and your company. Whether you’re giving away a free product or service you provide, the newest iPhone or other hot gadget, contests are a great way to stay visible and create buzz in your online community.

9. Step Up Your Social Media

Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media outlets have more power and reach than you can ever imagine. If you haven’t already, setup your business Facebook and Twitter account and start networking your way to higher exposure with your key prospects and clients. These platforms are only becoming more integral in online business — they are very influential when it comes to search, reach and visibility.

10. Become an Active Partner with Your Online Marketing Firm

The most successful businesses take an active role with their online marketing initiatives. Rather than handing the reigns 100% over to your online marketing team, consider working WITH them to develop strong content ideas that will get noticed. Remember that you know more about your own business than anyone else — and your team is only as powerful as the information you provide. By working with your marketing team regularly, you can ensure they have the latest information and tools relevant to your industry to maximize the online promotion of your firm.

Your Turn!

What are your business resolutions for 2012 — we’d love to hear them! Have questions about how to incorporate any or all of these 10 new year’s resolutions into a manageable marketing plan? We’re here to help!

Starting an article marketing campaign does not guarantee links. In fact, it is entirely possible to achieve absolutely no linking benefit to your website — and it is amazing how many people are doing just that. Here are some tips to optimize an article with “article marketing” as the topic for maximum SEO benefit:

Choose Keywords Wisely

Keywords are the search terms that your readers or customers use to find your website. Knowing which keywords you wish to target is one of the single most important components to your Internet marketing campaign. When done correctly, keyword research will be able to pinpoint which keywords your competitors are targeting and which keywords are more easily mastered than others.

Choose one primary keyword to target in your article, as well as 2-4 related keywords to sprinkle throughout. Using these related keywords helps the search engines get an even clearer idea about the topic of your article. Believe it or not, search engines can tell the difference between a keyword that appears on a page of many unrelated terms and one that appears with terms related to its topic.

Using Keywords In Your Title And Summary

Placing the keyword in the title of the article whenever possible is a great strategic tactic — trying to position the keyword toward the first part of the title. For example, a title that reads:

Article Marketing: 3 Things Strategies for Achieving More Visibility

Vs.

3 Things Strategies for Achieving More Visibility with Article Marketing

In the first instance, the phrase “article marketing” has a much stronger placement with regards to SEO. Using keywords in the title is important because the title often becomes the title tag and/or the URL of the web page. The title tag and URL are two of the most important pieces of a webpage that help search engines identify the topic of the content on that page. Not only does the title tag give the search engines a critical tip as to your topic, but the title tag usually becomes the dark blue title that appears in the search engines results page. This is why it is essential to create article titles that not only include keywords, but that also captivate readers! A good, solid, intriguing title can make the difference between your article being seen and being overlooked.

The summary of your article often becomes the Meta description for the page on which it’s published. The Meta description is usually the short summary that appears in the search engine results page beneath the title. The same logic that applies to writing captivating, keyword-rich titles also applies to writing summaries.

Using Keywords In The Body And Author Bio

When writing articles for article marketing, a good target keyword density is between 1.0% and 1.3%. Trying to “over optimize” by using keywords at a higher percent density can cause the article to be rejected by many publishers.

It is also very important to use your main keywords as anchor text whenever the online article distribution site will allow. Google uses anchor text as one way to determine page ranking. When you use your keyword as an anchor text, you are essentially telling Google (and the reader) what your website is all about.

Many article submission sites allow for anchor text in the ‘about the author’ bio – and taking this opportunity critical. When creating a bio with anchor text, it is beneficial to include two links: one to the homepage in a main keyword, and one to an internal page using the keyword the internal page is targeting.

We see many businesses make the mistake of only building links to their homepages. This is a missed opportunity! It’s important to build links to a site’s internal pages too — in fact we recommend that an article be written and distributed linking to any new pages created. The backlinks generated by that article will help establish the new page with the search engines.

By choosing to target the right keywords, using your main keyword in the titles and subheads of an article and of course linking to your website with anchor text keywords, you will effectively be using article marketing to build a backlink campaign for your website.

Your Turn!

How do you use article marketing to boost your online visibility? Any tips you’ve found to be helpful? We’d love to hear your experiences in our comments section!

The fact of the matter is that quality content actually thrived after the much-maligned Panda update. It actually fuels social media — what would we all have to “share” if not for quality content? Writing and publishing solid online pieces of content helps define your brand and position yourself as an authority in your industry.

The best part? Quality content converts — even when it isn’t trying to be “salesy” in tone. People are searching online for resources they can trust. Journalists are looking to quote thought leaders. Capitalists are looking to invest in businesses that are making a mark.

How are you using online content to your best advantage? What’s next on your publishing schedule?

Like this infographic? Get it here!

Because we feel that your voice is important and that you have something to share that nobody else can bring to Twitter or Facebook.

Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook are relationship builders. We feel like you'd be missing out on essential information needed to grow your business that comes straight your customers, peers, and other influential people in your industry.

We feel that it is vitally important, at least in the beginning, that YOU are the one doing the connecting and building.

No matter how many hours we put into learning about your industry, products and abilities, there is no way that we can replace the passion and knowledge that YOU possess — and no way that we can absorb and translate the insights that you will gain from the process.

What we WILL do:

Just because we draw the line at ghost tweeting doesn't mean we don't help our clients to grow their businesses through social media. Most of our content marketing planning focuses on creating quality content that is worthy of sharing on various networks. If you're not sharing your own content, people start to look to your social media feeds as more of an 'aggregator' service than looking to you as a thought leader.

We work closely with our clients to mine topics within their industry that will really bring value to readers and answer questions that they might have. We'll also happily write multiple tweets or Facebook updates promoting the content that we've created together! In essence, we'll:

• Work with you to identify socially valuable content topics
• Write quality content that is worthy of tweeting or sharing.  
• Write tweets or FB updates to correspond with sharing each piece of content

What we WONT do:

• Interact on Twitter or Facebook on behalf of a company
• Be the 'voice' of another company on social networks

Why do we draw the line? Because we know that consumers are smart. They can tell when someone is knowledgeable and real — even on the other end of a Twitter stream. It isn't worth damaging your reputation or brand simply in an effort to cut corners or save a bit of time.

The worst possible outcome in handing your social media voice over to a third party isn't that they say something wrong. The worst possible outcome is exactly the opposite — that they build relationships and friendships with customers and others in your industry. But those friendships are based on a farce. And when the truth comes out, your well-built network crumbles.

How to Make it Work

The best way to tackle social media is with a plan. We recommend setting goals for how often you want your company to tweet or update Facebook each day — and then setting aside time each morning to get it scheduled. Using a program like Hootsuite to schedule your updates makes it very easy to coordinate!

The strongest social media streams often showcase a combination of different updates:

• Sharing what others have posted (retweeting)
• Posting links to original content (articles, blogs, etc…)
• Responding to what others have posted (answering questions, joking, congratulating)
• Posting a motivational quote, statistic, etc…
• Posting an industry tip

There are other ways to participate in social media, with hashtags and scheduled chats, but for the most part having regular updates in your stream and interacting with people will immediately help you establish a following.

Thank you 'Invisible Hour' for the fantastic photo — and for making your photo free to share and promote!

Your Turn!

Have you started using Facebook or Twitter for your company? What tips would you share with someone who was just starting out?

Create a Video Reel

Television and radio media reps want to know that you’ll look and sound great on the air – and that you know your industry. To showcase these, online reputation management specialist Kent Campbell created a video reel and published it on YouTube. The guy is well spoken, funny, sharp and has a great voice. But who would know if they only “read” his content online? Kent set up an interview where he answered some of the most commonly asked questions about online reputation management. The result – an offer to appear on television from a major network.

If video is your bag, you’ll want to learn all you can about video marketing from Gary Vaynerchuk – this guy’s a rockstar!

Show (Not Just Tell) Your Expertise Online

Chris Hanisco, founder of The Dippy Chick, has been approached by several media networks. How did they find her? Through her active participation in the Start Up Nation online forum. Chris wasn’t trying to bait the media – she was just doing what she loves to do – helping other entrepreneurs solve their problems. However, when a major network browsed around Start Up Nation in searh of mom entrepreneurs, Chris’s name, face, and obvious level of experitise was prevalent throughout the community. 

An About Page with a Human Interest Angle

Interviewers are always interested in tying in a personal interest story to their pieces – that’s what makes a story interesting! When the media scouts followed the links from Start Up Nation back to Chris’s ‘About’ page, they learned about the fascinating story behind her business. People want to interview people – not companies. Yet it’s amazing how many company’s ‘About’ pages don’t even include the names of the people behind the business, let alone photos or compelling stories. Your ‘About’ page isn’t just for the media – in my opinion, a compelling ‘About’ page can be one of your most persuasive sales pages.

Publish an Online Press Room

A journalist often knows what type of industry expert they need to interview to enhance a particular story. They will often search the ‘About’ pages of various websites in search of an expert to interivew. Why not take things a step further by creating an online press room with everything that a journalist would need? Your online newsroom might include things such as:

• Executive bios
• Headshots of key people
• A history of the company
• Quotes from the company founders
• News story angles
• Frequently asked questions (from the POV of the media)
• Your most recent press releases

For a daily dose of smart publicity ideas, check out Annie Jenkins. Her regular emails always get my brain turning with new publicity ideas.

Starting an article marketing campaign does not guarantee links. In fact, it is entirely possible to achieve absolutely no linking benefit to your website — and it is amazing how many people are doing just that. Here are some tips to optimize a distribution article for maximum SEO benefit:

Choose Keywords Wisely

Keywords are the search terms that your readers or customers use to find your website. Knowing which keywords you wish to target is one of the single most important components to your Internet marketing campaign. When done correctly, keyword research will be able to pinpoint which keywords your competitors are targeting and which keywords are more easily mastered than others.

Choose one primary keyword to target in your article, as well as 2-4 related keywords to sprinkle throughout. Using these related keywords helps the search engines get an even clearer idea about the topic of your article. Believe it or not, search engines can tell the difference between a keyword that appears on a page of many unrelated terms and one that appears with terms related to its topic.

Using Keywords In Your Title And Summary

You should use the keyword in the title of the article whenever possible — trying to position the keyword toward the first part of the title. For example, a title that reads:

Article Marketing: 3 Things Strategies for Achieving More Visibility

Vs.

3 Things Strategies for Achieving More Visibility with Article Marketing

Using keywords in the title is important because the title often becomes the title tag and sometimes the URL of the web page. The title tag and URL are two of the most important pieces of a webpage that help search engines identify the topic of the content. Not only does the title tag give the search engines a critical tip as to your topic, but the title tag usually becomes the dark blue title that appears in the search engines results page. This is why it is essential to create article titles that not only include keywords, but that also captivate readers. A good, solid, intriguing title can make the difference between your article being seen and being overlooked.

The summary of your article often becomes the Meta description for the page on which it’s published. The Meta description is usually the short summary that appears in the search engine results page beneath the title. The same logic that applies to writing captivating, keyword-rich titles also applies to writing summaries.

Using Keywords In The Body And Author Bio

When writing articles for article marketing, a good target keyword density is between 1.0% and 1.3%. Trying to “over optimize” by using keywords at a higher percent density can cause the article to be rejected by many publishers.

It is also very important that you use your main keywords as anchor text whenever the online article distribution site will allow. Google uses anchor text to determine page ranking. When you use your keyword as an anchor text, you are essentially telling Google (and the reader) what your website is all about.

The author bio is the most important place to use keywords. Many article submission sites allow for anchor text in the ‘about the author’ bio – and taking this opportunity critical. When creating a bio with anchor text, it is beneficial to include two links: one link to the homepage in a main keyword, and a link to an internal page using the keyword the internal page is targeting.

We see many businesses make the mistake of only building links to their homepages. This is a missed opportunity! It is very important to build links to a site’s internal pages — in fact we recommend that an article be written and distributed linking to any new pages created. The backlinks generated by that article will help establish the new page with the search engines.

By choosing to target the right keywords, using your main keyword in the titles and subheads of an article and of course linking to your website with anchor text keywords, you will effectively be using article marketing to build a backlink campaign for your website.

Many clients want to know why article marketing is helpful if it doesn’t promote their particular products or services. It may seem counterproductive to create articles that don’t specifically reference your company, but in fact, article marketing promotes your company by being highly useful to readers.

Benefits of Objective Articles

Even when an article doesn’t directly reference your company in the text, it will discuss some aspect of your products or services. Efficient article marketing may mean a “how-to” or “benefits of” article that leads the reader to desire what you provide. Regardless of the topic or content, all articles directly benefit you by:

• Providing backlinks to your site in the “about the author” portion of the article
• Establishing you – and your company – as an authority on the topic
• “Selling” the reader on need for the product. Once a need for your product has been established, your link is right in the footer and able to supply.

Using Keywords to Inspire Interesting Topics

One of the most commonly made mistakes in article marketing is choosing a bad topic. Many writers have difficulty looking beyond the marketing aspect of the article to the objectivity, and end up with articles that are too self-promoting or simply not interesting. When writing an article, creating interesting content is absolutely vital.

When search engines consider articles, they always look for how useful a particular article is to a user. The most self-promotional articles are usually the worst ranked: search engines know the difference, and act accordingly. In this age where search engines are smarter, the old rules of marketing no longer apply.

The goal of your article should always be to provide useful information to searchers – don’t worry about promoting your company in the article. Leave that for the author bio.

Some good article topics include:

• How To…
• 3 Ways To…
• Comparisons of 3 or more different products/solutions
• 3 Things to Consider Before…
• 4 Reasons Why…
• A Unique Solution for…
• A Guide to…
• X vs. Y: Which is Right for You?

Even if a topic isn’t obviously promotional, it should always be slanted toward the product your company offers. If it’s comparing two items, simply have the article conclude that your company’s item is superior. Build up the need for a given product or service through your topic and body text, and you will effectively increase demand and traffic on your company’s website without mentioning them once in the text.

Just the other day, I read a very effective article that focused on how to create an effective display at a trade show. As I was reading through, the article made me realize that I didn’t have the necessary skills or experience to make a professional looking trade display. So I promptly followed the link in the author bio at the bottom of the article and looked at a website that could create one for me.

For this reason, how to articles are particularly useful for service industries, or companies offering products that are hard to make or inefficient to produce anywhere else. Many people think they can do something themselves fairly easily. But if they discover how truly complex a process is, or how potentially substandard their results could be, they may very well decide to hire a professional. And to reach a professional, they have to look no further than the bio of that very same article for a convenient link.

The Importance of the Title in Article Marketing

Once you have an interesting and informative topic, you need a title to match. Make sure that your title contains the keywords for your article: these titles often become part of the URL or title tags for the article’s webpage, making them a powerful indicator to search engines. Many search engine web crawlers use title tags to get an idea of the topic of the article. Search engine spiders need to recognize that your article has relevant, interesting content for their searchers. More importantly, your headline should appeal to humans. Brian Clark has a fantastic post on Writing Killer Headlines that is definitely worth reading.

The title tag is also commonly used as the linked title of the page itself. It needs to be compelling, because it is often this title that searchers use to decide whether or not to visit a page. If you write an interesting and relevant title, searchers are much more likely to click through and read your text.

When you unite a compelling title with interesting and objective text, you will produce an article that is accepted by distribution sites and attractive to readers. With the right touches, article marketing is a crucial component of any SEO strategy.

There are options in Word which look great on a computer screen, but become jumbled and confused when translated into web programming language. Before you start writing, it is best to begin by making a few small but vital changes to the setup of MS Word.

Apostrophes, Dashes, and So-Called “Smart Quotes”

Have you ever noticed how apostrophes and quotation marks become bent so that they frame a quote, rather than simple and straight as they appear on the keyboard? This is the work of MS Word’s “Smart Quotes” system. This system is beneficial to your document’s appearance in the text, but causes problems when you try to transfer that text to the web.

In the same way, whenever you type one or two dashes, MS Word will automatically turn those dashes into one elongated dash. This is useful when you’re only worried about how your content will look in MS Word or as a printed document. But when you are writing as part of an SEO strategy, it can be problematic.

Whenever your document includes Smart Quotes or elongated dashes, weird text will show up when it is transferred to your website. If you have ever seen a site with “??” in the middle of a word, or “//” where quotes should be, then you know what I am talking about! That is the result of improperly formatted MS Word text. More often than not, the company doesn’t even know the embarrassing problem exists.

Luckily, we can completely avoid this problem by changing a few simple settings:

1. Go the “Tools” menu and select “Auto Correct”
2. Select the “Format as You Type” Tab.
3. Under the “Replace As You Type” heading uncheck: “Straight Quotes” with “Smart Quotes” and “Symbol Characters (–) with symbols”

With a few clicks, your SEO strategy will be protected with proper formatting of every future document you create.

Proper Web Style Formatting in Word

Your writing style may be excellent, but if you don’t have the style formatting toolbar in web set up properly, you’ll be causing hours of work for the other members of your SEO strategy team. Whenever you are doing SEO writing, resist the temptation to touch that style formatting bar.

Always set your formatting style to NORMAL when you use Word.

All too often, SEO copywriters use tricks that look nice in Word – things like putting double spaces after single returns, or adding additional spaces after lines. This looks nice in the typed text, but none of it transfers into the HTML editor.

Whoever is tasked with implementing the web development part of the SEO strategy will have to completely reformat the text, a time consuming process that can be easily avoided. Simply use the settings recommended before, and then highlight your text after it is written to check for any irregularities. If you see extra spaces around the line breaks, something has gone wrong with your settings.

To ensure that your document does not have any extra Word Doc formatting:

1. Select “Format” and “Paragraph” from your toolbar
2. The “Indents and Spacing” tab should be set to single spacing with 0 spacing before and after lines.
3. The “Line and Page Breaks” tab should have nothing checked other than “window/orphan control”

From MS Word to the World Wide Web

Once you have set up word properly for your SEO strategy and written the content, the last step is actually transferring your text onto the internet. When you work with a site such as WordPress or Joomla, you will be working with a type of text editor known as WYSIWYG. WYSIWYG means What You See Is What You Get – but to an SEO copywriter, it means make sure that you put your content in the HTML tab, NOT the visual editor. If you paste your text directly into the visual editor, Microsoft Word will automatically add a lot of confusing and undesirable HTML code without your knowledge.

When you paste directly into the HTML tab instead, you avoid all of this useless and confusing extra content. If you don’t use the HTML tab, the extra code will make it more difficult for search engine web crawlers to access your site, making your entire SEO strategy less effective. The extra code effectively becomes a roadblock, masking your true keyword density. If the web crawlers can’t determine keyword density, then they won’t read your content as it was written.

A Few Small Steps Make One Big Difference

When you make these few changes to your MS Word formatting and internet upload practices, you will save your programmers hours of work in the long run. Your content will be readable by the search engines, allowing for proper ranking and effective SEO strategy.