1. Pay attention to quality from the beginning. Curdled milk won’t taste sweet no matter how much chocolate syrup you pour into it, and content marketing won’t succeed if your content is nothing more than a couple of mediocre paragraphs stuffed with keywords. You should hire a freelance writer whose copy is polished, professional, and free of spelling and grammatical errors.
2. Quantity and quality go hand in hand. Too little syrup leaves a glass of chocolate milk pale and underwhelming, while too much just makes you sick. The same goes for SEO content. Hire writers who are able to strike the right balance, optimizing your content with a variety of keywords, but avoiding an overdose that would only leave readers distracted and annoyed.
3. Don’t forget to stir. SEO may be about marketing content, but you also want to improve conversion rates, and potential customers appreciate a company website or blog packed with well-crafted, relevant content, not random keywords. When you’re hiring writers,  find someone with a talent for mixing keywords into good content like chocolate syrup in a glass of milk, till the two are blended seamlessly. The final product is guaranteed to be both delicious and nutritious for your customers and your company.

Whimsical metaphors aside, the quality of the writing and the skillful use of keywords on your site or in your blog should be integral factors in your marketing strategy. If you want to achieve the best possible results, hire a content marketing agency with plenty of experience in blending these ingredients just the right way.

Image from http://preparednesspro.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/chocolatemilk.jpg

Emily Robinson is a fiction writer and an editorial intern at ideaLaunch. After her final semester of college, she intends to become a copyeditor and/or a starving novelist.

Remember when you were in elementary school and you had to write an essay or paragraph using specific vocabulary words? You couldn’t always get the words to fit, so you’d add them to the story in awkward ways.
Some people do this with keywords in their SEO content. They stick keywords where they don’t fit naturally in order to reach a particular keyword density. This is different than keyword stuffing, where you use too many keywords for the article length. Awkwardly-placed keywords may not hurt your search engine rankings, but you’ll lose readers. (Or at least lose their respect.)

Avoid Keyword Stuffing, Too
Since we mentioned it, it’s worth a reminder to avoid keyword stuffing. Search engines look for a keyword density of 2 to 3 %. For every 100 words in your SEO content, two or three can be one of your keywords.

Professional Writers Deliver Transparent SEO Content
It’s amazing how much cringeworthy SEO content you’ll find on the Web—content that sounds like it was written by a fifth grader. The average reader shouldn’t be able to recognize carefully placed, relevant keywords within an article.

If you’re looking for SEO content with keywords that sound natural and fit with the flow of an article, hire professional writers. Using keywords in SEO content is an art you don’t notice when it’s done properly.

Dawn Allcot is a full-time freelance writer and blogger. She frequently writes about technology, business, parenting and paintball.

Image from smh.com.au

Choosing keywords should always start with the conversation the client is already having with their customers and prospects. A client with a good handle on their brand who has spent time researching how their customers think of them, and the type of language they use will be your best case scenario. When, as is usually the case, they just give you a list of words they subjectively pulled out of thin air I have found that being able to do a little keyword research can go a long way in providing value to the client. The goal in researching keywords for most writing is simply finding the exact phrases that people are searching for with the lowest level of competition. This is usually how I write headlines. The keywords developed for each article or blog post then should center around one to three general phrases and research the permutations of that keyword.

Once you have the permutations, you may be wondering what level of keyword richness is appropriate. Perhaps more importantly, the real question is how good the writer is at working in all the permutations naturally into the content. This is where a great freelance writer outshines the run of the mill part timer that has a price so low, internet marketers just can’t pass it up. Keyword richness and flow go hand in hand; if it doesn’t flow well, the richness ratio is probably off.

Jennifer Gniadecki loves to write. You can find her on any given day writing lists, blog posts, articles, assignments, outlines or fleshing out story ideas on her laptop.

Image from seo-quotient.com

How internal linking improves a website:

1. Users’ experience on the website is improved by providing them with easy access to detailed information.
2. When the text that is linked is a keyword being targeted for the page, the internal link helps improve search engine rank.
3. When the search engines index the page there is a greater likelihood that the sub-page will also show up under the site’s main entry on the search engine results page, allowing potential visitors to enter the site on the exact page that contains the information or product they are searching for.

Rules of thumb for placing internal links:

1. The link text should flow naturally in the content.
2. The page linked to should relate directly to the term or phrase linked.
3. The page linked to should contain more information related to the term that will improve the user’s understanding of the subject and clarify what the term or phrase refers to.
4. Place as many links as are needed to improve the users’ experience but do not load every page with tons of internal links.
5. Internal linking is just as useful in blog posts as it is in website copy.

A great internal linking strategy has the end user in mind and strives to improve the user’s experience on the website.

Jennifer Gniadecki loves to write. You can find her on any given day writing lists, blog posts, articles, assignments, outlines or fleshing out story ideas on her laptop.

Image from dimox.net

Many SEO specialists have a specific percentage of keyword density they wish to target in a given page’s content. This percentage is determined by factors such as the specificity of the page, the navigation level of the page, the organic competition of the keywords, keyword quality scores in pay-per-click advertising campaigns and the professional opinion of the SEO content manager.

In order to ensure that content that is optimally created is deployed correctly, make sure that headlines use the H1 meta tag and that headings inside the content use the H2 meta tag. Good SEO content writers consider how these tags are weighted by the search engines when they determine how to write the headline or heading. Use of these tags is an industry standard and is considered important by a majority of search engines.

Jennifer Gniadecki loves to write. You can find her on any given day writing lists, blog posts, articles, assignments, outlines or fleshing out story ideas on her laptop.

Image from prospectmx.com

What the Heck Is Meta Data?

For those of us who are fairly new to SEO, let alone writing for SEO, here’s a little glossary (and photos! Click to enlarge.):

1. Title Tag: This appears in the blue bar above your browser, and it’s also the clickable link that shows up on search engine results pages.
   

   Courtesy of tailored.com

2. Meta Description: “A marketing statement that describes what the page is about. No more, no less.”
   

   Courtesy of cafepress.com

3. Meta Keyword Tag: A list of the keywords that search engines see to gauge what your page is all about.
   

   Courtesy of mcbuzz.com

So What?! Or, What To Do with Meta Data

1. Title Tags: These puppies are important. Think about it: you’re looking for something on the Internet. You want to find a place to eat, so you search, “Restaurants Boston.” Below the results for businesses in Boston, there are web sites that are begging you to visit them. Like any hungry person who doesn’t want to spend dinnertime reading every web site Google has found with the relatively vague search terms “restaurants” and “Boston,” you skim the names: “Boston Restaurants—restaurant reviews and dining recommendations” and “Boston, MA Restaurant Reviews and Recommendations by CitySearch.” Go a little farther down and you’ll see this promising title tag: “Boston Restaurants, Dentists, Bars, Beauty Salons, Doctors.” Chances are, you’re not going to click on this one. You’re starving. You don’t want to risk searching through beauty salons and doctors and dentists, oh my! So be direct, and get relevant keywords in there if you can. You only have about 70 characters (with spaces) on this one.
2. Meta Descriptions: This one is the description below the title tag on the search engine results page. You get about 175 characters so you can be a little more creative. Try to include a benefit, one or two keyphrases, your company name and a call to action. Don’t be alarmed, however, if search engines like Google bypass your meta description and displays the portion of text from your site that contains the keyword or phrase being searched. There’s no way to foresee when this will happen, but there are ways to work with this system. Heather has some great tips on ensuring this detour can work for you as well, and shares them throughout the lesson and the course. (Didn’t think I’d give away all her secrets, now did you?)
3. Meta Keyword Tags: This used to be shady-SEO Heaven. People would stuff random, unrelated words that had high search volume just to drive people to their site. Search engines have long since smartened up to this, so only include relevant keywords. Each of these sets of keywords should be unique to each page, so focus on the words and phrases you use on that particular page.

Phew! That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? It really isn’t. It doesn’t mean you have to read code or even look at it, but understanding how all of your fabulous content is being found helps you create better content for the search engines. And that’s really all we want, right? So, get out there; write some kick-butt content then meta describe the heck out of it!

Sadly, we’re nearing the end of our series. Is there anything in particular that stumps you about SEO copywriting? Leave a question in the comments, and I’ll address it next week!

Information Architecture and Usability

The internal linking strategy is optimized for the placement of the links on the page. SEO professionals will track users’ navigation within the website to know what link placements perform the best, provide an improved user experience and which help most with SEO.

Brand Strategists and Online Marketing

Companies are finding that they have to compare online search data to language used in other forms of advertising while unifying the branding, voice, messaging and content across different mediums. Online language use is often less formal than what is required in print advertising like brochures, magazine ads, etc. If a site has been tracking traffic from search engines the best data is the historical data the company has collected.

Content Writers and Quality Assurance

When it all comes down to it, the content writer is the one charged with the task of implementing the keyword strategy and internal linking strategy in a way that makes sense grammatically and contextually. Keywords and links should be placed within text that is the most relevant so that someone reading it will be able to find out more about that topic. Final copy should always be proofed by several layers of editors and if specific technical knowledge is communicated, an appropriate expert should also review the final copy and links in that copy for relevance and accuracy.

Jennifer Gniadecki loves to write. You can find her on any given day writing lists, blog posts, articles, assignments, outlines or fleshing out story ideas on her laptop.

Image from barbaraevans.files.wordpress.com

In the first few lessons, I learned about researching keyphrases instead of keywords. This week, I learned what the heck to do with those keyphrases. The copy writing course covers keyphrases and copy writing for the small business owner. While I don’t own a small business, I am still learning a lot from the perspective of a copy writer. Any copy writer can get a list of keywords or phrases and stick them into a bunch of copy, but truly understanding the purpose of those keyphrases and inbound links ensures better copy. It’s like that whole “Teach a man to fish” thing. You get it. And so,

What the Heck Do I Do with Keyphrases?

1. Develop a Strategy: There’s a myth that you can only use one keyphrase per page and one page per keyphrase. Throw that thinking out! Choose keyphrases that can appear and be relevant on multiple pages. (This is a great opportunity for internal linking as well!)
2. Examine Keyphrases: Are they applicable? Are they grammatically correct? Will you be able to put them in your content in an organic way? (If not, lose them. Readers can see right through awkward phrasing for SEO purposes. Don’t jeopardize your credibility.)
3. Create a List: Organize your keyphrases into type (Brand, Category, Buy Cycle, Subcategory, etc.).
4. Divide and Conquer: Decide which keyphrases to use for specific pages. Map it out in a comprehensible manner for easy reference.
5. This Just In: Update your keyphrase list. Depending on your business, this can happen every month or every quarter or seasonally.

This list is just the bare bones of what the course offers. If you’re new to SEO copy writing, Heather maps out exactly what you should be doing with great examples of ideal home pages. In the key phrase mapping lesson, she provides a template to plug in your specific keyphrases.

Next week’s lesson? WRITING. Stay tuned. Or just hire a writer.

Working with a professional to improve your search engine optimization is a good idea, but there are a lot of free SEO tools available that can help you get started. Here are 3 free SEO tools that can help you come up with a solid keyword list.

3 Free SEO Tools For Keyword Research

SEOTools Keyword Phrase List Generator

This tool isn’t going to give you any input on what keywords or phrases are better, it simply does the legwork of listing all of the possible combinations of specific phrases. You’ll need to take the data from this list and do further research to decide which phrases will work best for you.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool 

One of the first free SEO tools available, Google Adwords’ Keyword Tool is still a great place to start for brainstorming keywords. You’ll put in one keyword, and the free tool will generate a list of other related keywords, and will even using synonyms if you tell it to. For example, entering “women’s shoes” brings up suggestions like “comfortable women’s shoes” and “dress shoes.” This keyword tool will also give you an idea of how many times the phrase is used as a search query on Google.

Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool

Instead of starting with keywords, you’ll actually put in the URL of your website or specific pages on your site. Based on the URL you enter, the Search-based Keyword Tool displays a list of relevant search queries that have been used on Google over the past year. It basically looks at your data and shows you what you should be optimizing for, based on the information you already have and what people are most interested in. This free SEO tool will also give you a broad list of keyword ideas that are relevant, but not necessarily based on your site.

Once you’ve decided which keywords you want to optimize for, you should use a free page grader to test your content’s keyword density.

Britt Reints is a freelance writer living in Orlando, Florida.  Google seems to think she’d get more attention if her name was “britt ekland.”

Image from ideachampions.com

Link building is part art, part science. You want quality, inbound links to your site to give you better Google page rank and get more clout on the search engines. You pay SEO writers and bloggers to create the content you think will attract some of those inbound links. But what has more value, an inbound link to your main page, or a link to a specific page like a blog post or SEO article?

The answer to that question depends a lot on what’s on the page. Some people believe it’s better to get links to the main page of your site as that’s where you want most people to look. But if you’ve got some content of interest that naturally attracts inbound links, you could find a lot of traffic going to just that page of the site, then dropping off again. Sure, you had people looking at some good content, but they go away as soon as they’ve read that article.

That’s bad, right?

There’s a way to turn that traffic around and recover some clicks. You simply have to create your content to encourage click throughs to other parts of your site. Cross linking takes some extra time and effort, but it makes the difference between a “read once and click away” and conversion on your site.

If your SEO writer creates an article about the brand new widget put out by Acme.com, you should cross link to her relevant article posted two weeks ago about how Acme widgets have revolutionized the industry. Or you can cross link to the Acme Widget sales page. Or both. It’s important to avoid flooding your content with cross links, but one or two strategically placed cross links within your own site can give you more attention on that linked content.

Anybody can pay to get good SEO content and blog posts written. But it takes a deeper level of planning to make the most of the material. Cross linking is just one strategy you should be using to get more mileage out of that paid content.

Joe Wallace has been a writer/editor since 1992 and is always open to fun new ways to market online businesses. In addition to running Freelance-Zone.com, he blogs about music at Turntabling.net and runs a small press specializing in snarky t-shirts.

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