Content Commentary and SEO Jive

Content Writers and Pay: How do you know if you need a pro?

2008-05-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

The trend seems to be that more and more companies understand that they need quality content on their sites, they want blogs, they want ads and they want articles.....but, they do not want to pay.

Of course that is incorrect, how much writers are paid is based on what the market supports. For example, you are not going to pay $5 for a donut when the bakery across the street sells the same type of donut for 50 cents. That is just simple mathematics.

But when it comes to writers, it may not be that simple, because all writers are different. Some writers are working for as little as $3 per blog post or less, 15 cents per forum post and (at least in Utah) for as little as $10/hr for full-time web site content writing. The other thing to consider is that most writers have been trained through universities, who do little content development education. Graduates have been taught to write essays and prose, and if you are lucky they have have been taught to write magazine articles. Even those who graduate in journalism are not taught SEO extensively. Whereas, trained SEO writers and content development professionals make 35K to about 65K per year, so in summary, you get what you pay for.

So how do you know if you need a pro SEO writer?
If you have or want to have a profitable and busy online business, then you should consult a pro. However, the pro may not be doing all of your writing, it may make more sense to hire less expensive writers to write things like product descriptions, Google ads and so on, under the direction of the pro content development or SEO guru. You may be tempted to skimp on your blog writer, but according to the latest studies, blogs are read, subscribed to and shared, when they are well written, above all other criterion, so you may want to invest in a good writer. In addition, in my recent experiences, I have a client who receives more traffic to their corporate site from their blog than from any other source...so put some thought and some cash into your blog.

What is the difference between a writer and an SEO specialist?
Writers, to put it simply are trained to write interesting and compelling copy. Nowadays, they may also know a little about keyword selection, keyword density and keyword rich titles.

SEO specialists, are often also writers (or started out as writers), but they know more about the technical and marketing side of producing content for the web, for example they understand search engine friendly code, keyword campaigns (Google, Yahoo and so on), article promotion techniques, network marketing, traffic analytics, pay-per-click campaigns, link sharing, link promotion and much, much more.

So when is it not worth the money to hire an SEO specialist?
If your site is just going up because you think you should have a web site, but you don't expect to get business from it, for example a tire shop in a small town really only needs to be able to be found if someone wants to know where the shop is, what their business hours are and other simple details, but it is not a web business. In a case like that, it should cost very little and the site should require few changes once it is live.

However, if you want to have an internet based business and expect to receive all or most of your business from the web, you should hire an SEO consultant. In addition, if you are launching a high profile site, such as a university site or a hospital or other large organization, you will need a content specialist as well as a team of great web programmers and writers. Another reason to hire an SEO pro or at least a really good writer is when you want unique content that reflects your personality or the personality of your company. This type of writing is more complex than simply writing a product description for a ream of paper.

Ok, so in summary...hire a pro for web content development, for leading a team of writers and for high profile or internet based businesses. Hire a writer for simple writing, product descriptions and the like, hire a really good writer for blogs, articles and high profile pages.

If you are confused, not quite sure what kind of writer you need or need helping hiring a writer, email SEOjive for a consultation, seojive@comcast.net.

Corporate Blogs: To blog or not to blog

2008-02-11T22:10:00.001-08:00

To blog or not to blog, that is the question curious SEOers and marketers are asking. Blogging can be quite effective. But before you invest a lot of time into blogging consider the following:

Do you have anything to say? Now really, not too many people are interested in just reading more of what you have on your corporate site. So you will want to think about what you can offer to the blogosphere.
How much time do you want to invest? The best blogs add new content often (more than SEO Jive does, for example...)
Can you compete? There are likely millions of blogs out there, can you compete, can you find a niche?
Will it help? If you already have a high ranking site and you do not need the blog for links back or help with your ranking, then do you need it?

Ok, if you have decided that you really can benefit from a blog, then what next. There are several ways of starting a blog, for example:

Online Blog Service: Such as blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal and so on. These services offer the benefit of a link back from a higher ranking site, but they do not offer the benefit of the content on your site. However, they are extremely easy to use and you can launch your blog immediately. I really enjoy using Blogger and have experienced success using it, but I also really like WordPress products (WordPress.com or WordPress.org). These types are also the easiest to update, since you don't have to deal with your service or FTP and so on.

Blog Software: Blog software can be used to develop a blog to be self hosted or published on your own site. Self hosting gives you the benefit of the content, but not the benefit of a high ranking link back.

HTML, XHTML. etc: You can write you own in DreamWeaver or whatever product you use and publish your own unique blog. You can publish these blogs yourself using your web host and benefit from the content, you could even host it with a unique url and link back to your corporate site if that helps.

So should you blog? Simply put, yes if you have something to say and you think it will help your ranking or company marketing.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Fonts: The Most Popular Fonts of 2007

2008-01-25T15:39:00.000-08:00

According to Fonts.com their hottest selling fonts are as follows:

10. Papyrus
9. Gill Stans
8. Monotype Corsiva
7. Interstate
6. Helvetica
5. Futura
4. Citadel Script
3. Frutiger
2. Optima
1. Phenix America

Most people do not put much thought into fonts beyond readability, but for some fonts is everything, what they live and breath. There is even a movie about Helvetica, called Helvetica which is about typography, graphic design and global visual culture.

If you are interested in the basics about choosing fonts, see my article 10 Font and Text Tips.

If you are interested in purchasing a font, please use on of my affiliate links, please...

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Gaming Laptop for Web Page Building?

2008-01-07T19:07:00.001-08:00

Why not? Often the specs needed for gaming are similar to what you would need for building web pages and running Adobe products. I just found one of my first CES favorites for the year that satisfies these spec demands.

Introducing the Gateway P-171XL FX, yes Gateway.

Specs:
17 in screen
2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme CPU
3 GB of RAM (sweet)
Dual 200GB hard drives
512 MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS graphics card (I am drooling at this point)
9.3 lbs (a bit heavy)
About $3000 (ouch)

Well, I am not in love with the price, but I think I am in laptop lust anyway.

Check out a few pics here:
Pic 1
Pic 2

Here is what other bloggers are reporting:

Wired Blog Network

Laptop-Computers

Gizmodo

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Computer, Software and Service Requirements for Building Webpages

2008-01-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

Computer requirements for building your website can range from a pretty basic set up if you are using a web based web page builder like those offered by Yahoo Business or more demanding, like if you are using Dreamweaver.

Let's start with the advanced set up:
Intel Pentium 4 or Better
1024x768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card
DVD-ROM drive
Internet or phone connection for activation and site loading
2GB of RAM or more recommended
Enough hard drive space for software and site folders

Software:
CS3 Professional or Dreamweaver and PhotoShop

Services:
Web page host (See Lunar Pages, in right nav ads)
Domain name registration (Go Daddy or other, web host may also provide)
FTP program (may be offered through web host)
Template or build your own (See Template Monster)
Web Stat Tracker, such as Statcounter.com or Google Analytics
Training if needed: Lynda.com
Stock Photography if needed: See Jupiter or Getty sites

Over 2 GB of RAM is definitely recommended for multi-tasker types, because when I tried to use Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop and a security program on top of the operating system my system was not happy even with 2GB of RAM, not to mention that I also usually add in Word, an email program and Pandora for music.

Really basic (and limited) set up:
If you use something like Yahoo's SiteWizard or Microsoft's FrontPage you only need something like this -
A 133MHz processor
32MB memory
28.8KB modem

Though I have a friend that could not get the SiteWizard to work on a Mac so you may want to research that if you own a Mac. But basically, any newer laptop should be able to publish these type of pages.

Software:
Microsoft's Front Page if desired

Services:
Yahoo Site Builder or similar service
An Internet connection

Software:
Photo editor for resizing and cropping of images

Of course once you get the computer, the software and set up the services you face the hardest part, building your site.

Another Site Launch: Blueprint Bluepers Constuction Humor Site

2007-12-30T14:44:00.000-08:00

Last night a site I have been working on for the last week was launched. The site is Blueprint Bluepers and is site dedicated to construction humor, published by the Nigro Firm, Inc.

This site was tons of fun and interesting from a writers perspective in two ways. First, how I first imagined the site changed as we went along dramatically, it evolved. Compared to most construction humor sites, this one is much different, it has all original content including the cartoons and is quite intelligent. Secondly, they allowed me to have a page on this site and I learned that writing about yourself is much different than writing about someone else, I will have to run that page through my editor so he can make it represent me and my work better. As mentioned in previous posts, every writer needs an editor.

Anyway, please go visit this site, even if you do not work in the construction industry you will enjoy the quality construction cartoons by artist Chaise Payan.

Blueprint Bluepers

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Another Site Launch

2007-12-17T12:37:00.000-08:00

I just finished the content for another site this weekend, we basically built this one and completed it in less than three days. It is a clean, simple yet amusing site that is lots of fun.

If you are a dog lover you will love this site. It is a site created for a newsletter published by The Nigro Firm, Inc, but it lacks the staunchness of most corporate related sites, we wanted it to be fun and a refreshing break from the norm.

Beagle Review

Bad Old School SEO Tricks

2007-12-13T22:35:00.000-08:00

If you have been in the SEO business a while you have likely seen many search engine tricks come and go. Maybe you are even employing a few still or you have old sites that still have old stuff on them.

Overall, the search engines want to rank high- good sites. Sites that people like, sites with unique content and sites that have good basic coding construction.

Bad Old School SEO Tricks

Invisible keywords: You have likely seen this from time to time by highlighting a blank looking section or a section of background to make dumped keywords appear. Naughty, naughty and Google doesn't like it.
Link Spamming or Link Dumping: Go to any popular blog site or abandoned forum and you will find this, literally tons of keywords with links back on unrelated sites. This was used to obtain high ranking site link backs. It is likely the links will not even be followed back unless you do it yourself. Good sites do not have to pay for links back nor do link spamming, good sites are linked back organically by customers or visitors who want to share your site or by legitimate associates or partnerships.
Redirects: This was popular till it was frowned on by search engines, it involves a company creating numerous fake or keyword laden sites with redirects to a single site that they are trying to push. The idea was to spread out your web presence with multiple sites instead of just one, this is still popular with and without redirects. Sometimes this happens for legitimate reasons, like a company name change, which can be done with care, but shouldn't be tried unless it is necessary.
Keyword Dumping: Often webmasters will dump tons of keywords into the code that may or may not be in the content or directly related. This was done to try to capture visitors who are searching secondary terms. It is better to list keywords that are specific and in your content and keep in mind that many searchers nowadays are entering up to three terms at once, such as "Seo, Tips, Blog."

I am sure you can think of many more, but this is my list of bad SEO tricks that must go.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

See my Newest Site

2007-12-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

This site was launched last week for the Nigro Firm, Inc. It is for a small Utah company that has an interesting, hard to market construction service. I did all of the content development and writing. We are still working out the kinks and will clean up the code soon. But over all it looks good, considering a content person and a graphic designer did most of the work. Though, like many sites it looks better in IE than FireFox.

The site includes all original content, graphics and images. The website launch will be followed by a direct marketing campaign, since the product is relatively unknown. The site, though SEO friendly, is more for information than internet marketing. Some services, like this one, are rarely searched for online and more general search terms are highly competitive, making it a challenging project that must include direct marketing and word of mouth to succeed.

Nigro Firm, Inc.

Last Minute Things to do Before Launching a New Site

2007-12-10T18:11:00.001-08:00

If you are like me, you are a content development person or a writer, and not a coder, but there are things you can do to make sure your site looks good and is functional before launch.

Cover the basics. Make sure your page titles and descriptions are good. I have seen many sites with a page title of “home page” or “about us.” About who? Try to get your company name in there, for example ABC Technologies: About Us.
Make sure your images are labeled. Often images are left with an empty “alt” tag, so when someone mouses over the image or the image does not display alternative text is not displayed.
Check all links. Check links in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox and other browsers if your visitors commonly use them. Also check email links and verify they work, send a sample email to yourself to test.
Ask for a third party grammar, spelling and content edit. Often we fail to see our own errors or we think we have conveyed information well, but we have not. Always ask for a third party opinion.
Look at every page. Check for good spacing, image placement and so on. Is it easy to read? Can the user learn about your product in the less than three seconds they may visit your page? What stands out?
Check dates. Do you need to update any dates or other dated information that you may have written a long time before launch? Are your copyrights current?

After all of these checks and your third party review, you will still find errors, so keep tweaking your site, good luck with your launch.

How to Keep your Writing Team Motivated

2007-09-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Keeping (or even getting) your writing team motivated can be difficult. Writing is not like many other types of tasks, it does not involve simply moving box A to shelf A and calling it a day.

Writing often involves taking chaos ( chaos in the form of massive volumes of information and bosses who are not quite sure what they want) and turning that chaos into something that makes sense and makes everyone happy. So frustration is common, which can result in what appears to be lack of motivation and direction. So how do you steer the boat into smoother, faster moving waters?

In my experience, the number one reason writers get frustrated involves dealing with clients or marketing directors who simply do not really know what they want.

So how do you fix that?

Client:
It is true, you probably do not really know what you want, you have a basic idea, but have not really nailed it down yet. So what do you do?

When you communicate with your writing team try to convey your ideas to the best of your abilities, including the desired outcome of the product, the style or toned desired and your imagined audience. Make sure to stress the major points that must be included and give clear deadlines. If you can give them an idea about the space the content will be posted or published in and how many words that may help. Do you want article style or bullet points? This may seem like a lot of things to think about, but how is the writer going to "guess" what you are thinking? They cannot, they need as much information as you can give them and even then there will be a bit of guess work involved. Sometimes it is helpful if you can give them some sample pieces that you think are similar to what you are imagining.

Writer:
Working with clients or employers who do not know what they want, but want you to render it perfectly for them, is going to happen. So part of your job is it help them figure out what they want.

When approached with a new project ask as many questions as possible, try to get them to solidify their ideas better and make them commit to them. Unless you are a mind reader and a damn good psychiatrist you cannot guess what they are thinking and even then how can you turn that into a product that directly mirrors their ideas?

Make them become involved in the direction of the content. Make them make choices, give them rough outlines to review so you don't waste your time creating content or marketing material they do not like. Make sure you clearly understand the major points they want to address and their most important objective.

You have to be a bit of a crack psychiatrist as well, listen to the language they use, how they present themselves, note how they feel about their product, take into account their business background and so on, use this information to try to get an idea of how they want the content presented, what kind of language will make them comfortable. And of course, ask, ask, ask....as many questions as they will answer.

If all else fails, write several versions of the introductory lines or paragraphs and let them pick which one they feel best applies. Or have several writers on your team write a few samples and let them pick from those. Yeah it sucks, yeah it takes time, but remember they usually do not quite know what they want, so you need to help them figure that out.

Other things to help keep your team motivated and on task:

Break large projects into manageable sections.
Promote group thinking, many brains on a task can see more than just one.
Set firm deadlines and intermediary deadlines.
Follow through, don't drop the ball and run, follow through with your agreements.
Foster a solid writing team, writers who understand each others talents and abilities and can trust each other to meet their team deadlines.
Be flexible, it may take some writers 6 hours to do what you want and others 10, build a pay schedule that allows this kind of flexibility in a fair manner.
Pay your writers what they are worth. Underpaid writers will under produce. Of course do not over pay bad writers, they will just keep being bad writers, weed them out, find good writers and pay them well.
Let them know when they do something that you like, so they know for future projects what works.
Communicate, communicate, communicate.....
Let your writers, who know the subject or product well, help you figure things out, their hours and hours of research should be put to good use.
Good writers should also be good researchers, ask them to explore some ideas or strategies before your assign them a task you are not sure about.
Let the team work how they work best, which means that some writers may work well in marketing while others prefer technical writing, use the talents of the team. Don't assign a marketing email blast to your tech writer or the privacy policy to your creative, marketing writer.
Keep in mind that figuring out what you want is hard work, let your writers get away from the keyboard every now and then, let them go for walks or to the gym. Since they are likely sitting at their desk spacing out anyway, you would be better off letting them go for walk to clear their minds.
Writers have a tendency to over analyze. Make your intentions clear and to what level you want them to dive into a project, if you just want them to jump in and out, tell them that, because they may analyze it to death, wasting time and money.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

New Site? Writing Content for New Sites

2007-08-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

If you are working on a new site, the scope of your work will likely fit into two possible scenarios. Either you are developing the entire content, including what pages will be on the site, the keyword strategy and the marketing writing. Or someone else has decided what is going to be included on the site and you are assigned pages or articles to write and are usually given a keyword list.

If you are developing the entire content for a site, there is a lot involved. But here are some questions you can ask your client to get you started.

Questions to Ask a New Client

1. What is the purpose of your site? Believe it or not, many people don't know. Is the site just for information, is it an eCommerce site?

2. What is the level of quality you desire? Some people are only interested in creating a temporary, junk seo site, others want a site with high quality, researched articles.

3. What style do you desire? Ask them how they want the information presented do they want it upbeat, serious, casual, quirky, scholarly?

4. What is your time frame? When do you expect the site to be ready to launch?

5. How much maintenance is expected? Does your content need to be updated often? Do you want new content to be added often? Or will the site stay about the same once it is live.

Questions to Ask Yourself

After this first interview, you likely will have a good idea if the clients expectations are reasonable. You should also know whether you want to pursue the project at all. For example, I do not do junk, SEO writing, while other writers enjoy writing repetitive product descriptions and are fast at it. It is also important that the time frame and pay matches what you feel good about. Good clients pay not just for the completed product, but also for the research and development time. If you are doing junk SEO writing you will likely get paid much less, but they usually do the research and development for you.

So how much do you charge your client?

This depends on the area you live in, where I live, Utah, the wages are quite low compared to SF or New York. But I charge out at about $17 to $25 an hour, I pay my editor $40/hr. If I am doing the site development it is easy to get $20 an hour or more, but I can find writers here to do the low exposure page content for around $12-14/hour. For marketing writing I charge more, for example logo writing, high exposure pages, grant writing and other demanding, creative work could creep up to $40/hr, but it is more likely to be charged by the piece. If you live in a higher wage area, you will want to increase over my rates. Keep in mind, these are experienced writing rates (with a degree) in Utah. If you do not have experience, you may be expected to build up your portfolio before you demand a nice salary. Also, full time employee rates are usually lower, but the trade off is steady work and benefits.

Should you Hire an Editor?
Yes, everyone should have an editor. It does not matter what kind of work you do, a second opinion is always a good idea. If you cannot afford an editor, you might be able to find another writer who you can trade edits with. Although editors cost a bit, they should be able to get through your work fast and provide good feedback. For example, my editor can edit about five to seven web pages in less than an hour. Hand in your work polished, so your editor can get through your work fast and in a cost effective manner. If you are a self employed writer, you can write off your editor as a business expense.

Once you get through all of this and start your new project, your next obstacles will be staying on task and figuring out the psychology of how to provide your client a web site that meets their expectations.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Writing About Us Pages

2007-08-10T15:49:00.000-07:00

The "About Us" page is your place to show off your company, your location, your history and your people. It is not however, where you go through and list all of your services again or regurgitate what you have already published. There is no point in having your about us page compete with your home page.

Keep your keywords concentrated on your company name instead of general keywords and make sure to include ways that your visitors can easily get to the pages you want them to go to like your sales pages or your sign up page.

You can link to multiple pages from your about us page that are "about us" related. Such as links to your corporate history, corporate environment, contact us, management pages, team member pages and so on.

Most about us pages are brief, see PC World, though usually long winded is brief here and CNN just has a short intro with links to other areas.

The about us page is not usually a high traffic page or one that people land on through a search engine, it is more about having it because people expect it to be there and may be interested once they are already on your site.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Writing Page Titles

2007-08-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

If you have an unknown company or product, you may want to include more than just the name of your site or company in the page title. If your page title or company name does not relate what services or products you offer you should add a brief description. For example, here are some good page titles:

Woot.com
Woot: One Day, One Deal (SM)

Craiglist.com
craigslist: san francisco bay area classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

Wikipedia.com
Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Good and Simple SEO Ideas

2007-07-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

Interesting article and an easy read:

Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO

By Mark Jackson

How to Hire a Content Writer

2007-07-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

Hiring a content writer is challenging. Generally universities do not teach Internet writing and English, journalism and technical writing courses often actually teach writing styles opposite of what is required for Internet writing. So just because someone has a degree and knows how to write, does not mean that they know how to write for the Internet.

Define What Kind of Writer You Need
First task is to define what you need in a writer. Do you need someone to write "junk SEO" pages that will never be seen? Do you need a writer that can write high exposure landing pages, White Papers, product brochures and other marketing materials? Do you need a technical writer to write product manuals and help pages? Or do you need someone to write quality, researched articles?

Require A Timed Writing Sample
When looking for a content writer the number one thing you should require of applicants is a timed writing test. Most writers have a portfolio of their work, but what is not included in the portfolio is how long it took for them to write the samples or how many edits they went through to get the finished product.

The writing test should be typical of what would be required of them on the job and should include style guidelines and keyword requirements. Have your current writing staff look over the writing samples (without names of course) or have at least several people look at the writing samples. Evaluate whether they followed the style guide and perform a keyword analysis. Also look for subtle clues, like word usage, opinion and logic to determine how the writer thinks. For example, in one company I worked with we could tell a writer would not work out for us because the writers idea of who their audience was was too restricted, this was picked up by how he presented the topic and the logic of his "argument".

Look for someone that is not just a writer but a thinker. If you have a demanding writing position to fill you need someone that can think. I always tell those looking for me to train a writer that "I can teach someone how to write, but I cannot teach them how to think."

How Much Do You Have to Pay a Content Writer?
What you pay a content writer depends on what you need. Some people are willing to do freelance content writing for basically nothing. But remember that you get what you pay for. If you need an experienced content writer with a broad scope of abilities from marketing writing to press releases to technical writing, you will have to pay more. Salary varies by industry and state, but you will have more success if you can come to a salary arrangement that the writer can happily agree to.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

How to Market a Product that No One is Looking For

2007-07-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

It is nice to not have competition, but what if no one is looking for your product?

Sometimes a great product exists that performs a needed and desired function but no one knows how or where to look for it, or may not even know it exists.

So, how do you market a product that no one is looking for?

First off, traditional keyword strategies will not work, because no one is looking. You have to utilize related terms and when a person lands on your site by those terms, answer their questions and gently lead them to your product.
Build up your site. Before beginning a marketing campaign that pushes people to your site, make your site good, so you have something for them when they land on your site.
Start an Internet "word of mouth" campaign. Research sources where you can publish articles, commentary and so on. Look for print resources as well as online publications. Since your potential customers do not know about your product, customer education falls into your hands.
Consider some good ol' old fashioned advertising. Sometimes a few well placed ads can get a buzz started.
Network. Sometimes others in your industry can help you get the word out. Seek mutually beneficial partnerships with other companies.
Press releases. Though press releases do not get picked up as often as you would like, they do add another bit of web exposure for your product.
Train everyone in your company to market. Sometimes a simple conversation between an employee and one of their friends can lead to a sale. Teach your employees how to talk about your company and your product.
Make some noise. Get in the news with a charity project, local chamber activities, an industry award, your company softball team, whatever, just get out there.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

Five Bad SEO Practices in this Blog

2007-06-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

Confession, sometimes I do not take my own SEO advice. Because, flat out ---my advice takes work, work I can not justify, if my work is not making money. Which is something else to consider, if your site is not making money or satisfying it's purpose than what is the point?

Here are five naughty SEO habits that I have lazily adopted (that you should not):

1. Fail to do keyword research. How people will find you is based on what people look for. If you have not done your keyword and marketing research you are just writing and banking on random luck.

2. Random ads. I put ads in my blog for companies that I like or have had first hand experience with. But they are hardly on topic and are not audience specific.

3. Have not networked. As of yet, since this blog is still in its infancy, I have not networked. But if you are serious about your site, links in and market buzz is crucial.

4. Bad url name. It is helpful if your url uses relevant and search able words. My blog comes up number one if you type "seo jive" into Google, but since nobody knows what seo jive is, it is entirely useless.

5. Not enough time investment. The best bloggers I know spend quite a bit of time on their blog. Not just writing, but also researching and networking.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

10 Things that can Make your Visitors Not Trust You

2007-06-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

In the Internet business you only have about three seconds to get and keep someone's attention and there is always another thousand sites just a short search away. So what are some things that may scare away your guests or make them doubt your customer service, your product or your motives?

1. You say "we are the best XXXX in the world." Everybody says that so it logically it cannot be true. Be more specific and honest, something like "we have more low-cost royalty free images than any other stock photography site," but write it only if is true and can be verified.

2. Your links do not work. One bad link and you will likely lose your visitor.

3. Your pages looks like a 90's flashback. If you site looks out dated visitors will think that it is not well maintained and that perhaps nobody will answer their emails or telephone calls after purchase.

4. Bad grammar, syntax and word usage. Poor content makes people think that either your quality is bad or that your product is from outside the US and than they worry about what kind of customer support they can get.

5. No telephone number is posted. Although email is an excellent communication technology, many would like to feel that they can call you up and talk to a real person.

6. Information is outdated. I have seen sites where the copyright at the bottom of the page has not been updated in years or the text says something like "now supports Windows XP."

7. You require a credit card for people to see the product. Many people do not like giving out their credit card number and if they cannot see the product before purchase they wonder if they are being duped. A good demo or trial version can make or break a sale.

8. You require a social security number. Though some industries can benefit from having a potential clients social security number, many are leery of giving out that kind of information online. If you need a SSN provide excellent security and offer visitors an alternative to entering in their SSN online, such as by phone.

9. You say your product is free but it is clearly not. This makes people feel tricked.

10. You have too many pop up ads. People really do not like pop up ads, they may be lucrative but they are never fun for the visitor and they distract the customer from your product.

Gaining visitor trust can be difficult. But if you keep your site up-to-date, high quality and free of malware, spyware, pop up ads and so on your visitors may think that you are upfront and attentive to your site.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

What is the Best Keyword Density? The Keyword Tree

2007-06-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

It seems that the percent of suggested keywords for a body of text is always changing. Is it 5%, 6%, 7%...?

Too many keywords makes your text look contrived and the search engines may think you are just keyword dumping if your use too many. So what is the ideal keyword usage percent?

To help writers manage their keyword content I use a metaphor. Once your keyword research is done you should have one or two main phrases that support your main topic, a few related terms and maybe some more outlying related terms. These keyword groups will form your keyword tree.

In the keyword tree the main keyword phrases form the trunk or base of the tree and comprise about 3-4% of the text. The related terms form the branches or less than 1% of the total text and your outlying related terms form the leaves and are likely only used once. The reason I keep the main phrases at less than 3 or 4% is because the tags, descriptions and other text on the page may push it up a bit and you do not want to be over 5%, so 3% should keep you in a safe range.

In the research I have done I have discovered that keyword saturation is not necessary. I have seen many high ranking pages that stay under 3%. You should check your competitors pages and try to be comparable to them and maybe beat them on some phrases they missed.

There are many keyword analysis tools that can take the guess work out of keyword density.

Here are a few for pages that are already launched and are checked by URL:
Webmaster Toolkit
VIP Search Engine Marketing
SEO Tools - Keyword Density

I use SEO Tools, but most of them work about the same and many will allow you to compare two URLs. This can be used to compare your page to your competitors.

If you are still in the process of writing your text you can use proof reading software like Editor, which also checks grammar and usage. Or you can paste your text into an online analyzer like Textalyser.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

PC World Announces Top 25 Sites to Watch, Are you on the List?

2007-06-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

If this list is an accurate mirror of the future we can conclude that wiki, user generated content and interactive web sites are by no means going away.

People are no longer content with a good looking, informative site...they want to be able to interact with a site, add content and customize their experience.

And as you can tell from this list, people want to have a little fun with their practicality.

Promises, Promises...what can an SEO Consultant Offer?

2007-06-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, Snake Oil is pushing it. SEO consultants can be quite helpful. But beware of those that make you promises or guarantee results. Unless they can personally go in and manipulate search engine algorithms and manually point search engines and visitors to your site, they can not guarantee anything.

They can certainly help you by tying up your loose ends but they cannot promise you anything. Some SEO consultants may also offer services like link buying and so on to try to improve your sites ranking. I have seen these "'links" dumped into dummy blogs, lame directory sites and unused forums, see Pharmacy Online as an example. This practice (may help you in the short term) but make you look stupid and slimy in the long run. I wouldn't be surprised if some do this and charge you a whole bunch of money for it, when you could have just written your own blog yourself. Try Blogger, it is free.

Good SEO consultants will not make you promises but will help you improve your site and create a positive visitor experience for your guests when they come, so they will want to return and want to link to your site voluntarily.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens, SEO Jive

So what is Google's Time Frame Anyway?

2007-06-13T17:31:00.002-07:00

Many wonder how long it takes for Google to notice new content. Of course the time varies, but in our experiences, Google can access new content almost immediately, though it may take up to a week to become indexed and perhaps up to a month to be ranked.

The SEO game in general is a game of patience. Though I do know some teenagers that published a new blog and counted over 30,000 hits it the first week. Wouldn't we all love results like that?

Often buried or hidden pages are not indexed or slow to be indexed. A lot of webmasters add keyword rich pages to boost content but hide them, so the potential effect is lost because Google ranks them low or doesn't really look at them if they are not well linked with the other site pages. If you have sub pages that are not being indexed by Google but you want them to be you can submit a site map, which may or may not help, but certainly will not hurt.

If you do not see the results you were expecting in about a month or month and a half you may want to reconsider your strategy.

How much Duplicate Content is too Much?

2007-06-13T17:31:00.001-07:00

Everybody does it right? Well, likely. But should you?

How much duplicate content is too much?

Really in the ideal world all work would be original and accredited and new ideas would flourish. But that takes so much WORK.

Many sites use content form other sites, some sites do not even really have any original content but are just kind of like indexes to other web page's content. There is a fear that some day you will not be able to find more that a few sources of new information online since most would refer to take the easy road and generate content rather than create.

If you choose to use others content it should be accredited (even linked to) and applicable. If you want to use a chart or other data snippet it can be placed on your web page as an image instead of text so it does not appear as duplicate content. Most search engines will over look short selections. However, you may want to be careful about duplicating your own content too much, such as displaying your mission statement or company philosophy over and over again on your site, that may also be seen as duplicate content. If it is helpful to your site to do this, post it as an image.

As mentioned in a previous post, if you plan on keeping your site around for a while, you may want to do a little extra work now to prevent problems later. And if you think duplicate content may hurt you in the long run, create original content and quote other web site content only when it is necessary and properly credited.

Should you Buy Links?

2007-06-13T17:29:00.001-07:00

It is a common practice to buy links. It is possible to make your site look a bit better to SEs by making it appear that you have quality links in. But is it a good idea?

My philosophy is that if you plan on being in business or having you site for a while it is best to not do something in the short term that may damage you in the long term. Since Google is considering putting a hammer down on link buyers and link spammers, you may want to think twice about purchasing links. See SEO: To Buy Links, or Not to Buy Links?

Matt C ut t even tells you how to report spam or paid links in his blog entry "how to report paid links."

It maybe a better idea to begin a link campaign with your associates, clients, fellow webmasters and so on and get real links in. And links in do matter-----very much so. If you feel like you have been doing everything right, like having good content and you covered the basics and did your keyword research and are still not climbing up the rank ladder it may very well be because you need more quality links in to your site. Last question to ask yourself is if you have done everything but nobody seems to want to link to your site, than maybe your site is not as cool as you thought it was and it is time to revamp.

If you would like to read a bit about the other side of the coin see 7 Reasons Google's Paid Link Snitch Plan Sucks.

Photo "borrowed" from webpronews.com.

Should your Content be PC?

2007-06-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

Your site can be anything your want. Subtle, full of flash, raunchy, funny or serious, it really is your choice. However, before traveling down any extreme route you may want to stop a second and clearly define the purpose of your site. Once your purpose is decided, you have to conclude what type of content will support your sites goal.

PC or Politically Correct is an archaic term, but the idea behind it is still applicable, especially in a global economy. If you have a site that is intended for a broad audience than you may want to not write in ways that offend or isolate your market. Keep in mind, that your market includes areas outside the US, they may not understand your marketing language if your use colloquialisms or common language. Even those in English speaking countries may not understand US common language. Miscommunication is not communication, with poorly chosen words you can create a non-communicative situation that makes it hard to educate potential customers about your product.

In the US we tend to be a bit ethnocentric and forget that people outside the US surf the Internet and buy product online. There may even be people who translate your pages into their native language, which can further increase the communication breakdowns. The same advice also holds true for sites who are not hosted in the US, common language or translated pages may miscommunicate marketing ideas.

In general you will want to write using language that is not sexist, racist, religious or political, unless that is the point of your site. It would be unwise to assume that everyone shares your views and opinions.

There is of course plenty of room on the Internet for market specific sites, sites that appeal to a body of people that share a common background, slang and humor. Some people may even want to launch multiple sites. You can create a site for the US which uses common US phraseology and humor. You could write a second site for the rest of the world that uses plain language and translates well and does not present ethnocentric stock photography or language.

If you are wondering about how to write content that translates well, see How to Write Translation Friendly Text.

I found an article on Gender Neutral Technical Writing, that makes a good point. If your write actively and address your audience, as in "You," it elements the whole he/she problem.

Good FREE Web Traffic Trackers

2007-06-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

Keep in mind that stats, like keyword stats are guidelines and can indicate trends only. You should consult several sources. If you use PPC (pay per click) you should use a third party professional web traffic service so you can compare stats to what Google, Yahoo or other PPC service click reports. Without some kind of record proving click fraud is difficult.

Stat Counter, has a good free, easy to use low volume counter, but other features are fee based.

Free, Google Analytics . Google offers numerous free tools to webmaster. You may also want to see Google Webmaster Central which offers tools for webmasters such as a site status wizard, forums, a submission tool and help.

If you plan on having a blog, WordPress offers free visitor tracking. WordPress can also track RSS stats. If you choose to use Blogger for your blog you can add a third party counter easily.

Popular SEO Blogs

2007-06-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

After reading a few SEO blogs, you will notice that most people are scrambling as much as you are and even they, after years, still do not know all of the answers. But they may have a few good ideas for your site or you may find discussions on situations similar to your site.

If you look to Google you will find that they say, create unique content that people want to read. Ok, but that doesn't sound like a trick or an algorithm. To top it off, it is really difficult to prove what strategy you implement works or why it works. But from what I have found the real deal breaker and where you will rank is a combination of content and links in to your site. The highest ranking sites are the most popular and have what people are looking for, period. They are not always the best looking, the most high tech or the most informative.

Matt Cutts:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

GrayWolf''s Blog
http://www.wolf-howl.com/

Beanstalk
http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/

SEOmoz
http://www.seomoz.org/blog

Bruce Clay Inc
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/

Duh?
http://seojive.blogspot.com/