How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and Search

Posted on 11. May, 2012 by in Blog, content marketing, Copywriting, Featured, Radio, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

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Google’s been pissing people off lately. Panda, Penguin, Parakeet (okay, I made that last one up), who knows what’s next …

Then there are the social networking evangelists whose entire fortunes are deep in Zuckerberg’s asset.

And finally, the faithful content producers, who labor slowly and quietly to build their businesses one thousand words at a time.

It can all seem a bit much to keep up with. SEO isn’t bad. Social networking sites aren’t evil. Content marketing isn’t impossible. But it can feel like it sometimes.

To clear up some of this confusion and frustration for us, I’ve asked Lee Odden to jump on the show and tell us how the smart, systematic integration of search, social, and content can attract an audience … and keep businesses — both large and small — sanely profitable.

In this episode we discuss:

  • The 3 phases of a holistic customer attraction plan
  • What the changes in search algorithms really mean for online publishers
  • How to intelligently plan a content strategy that works
  • Why it’s now essential that you become a “holistic” content producer
  • 5 content optimization audits you need to perform
  • 3 steps to implementing your systematic content plan
  • How to scale your content efforts on a limited budget

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

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The Show Notes:

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s Copywriter and Resident Recluse. Get more from Robert on Twitter and Google+.

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So is it SEO copywriting or disruptive innovation?

Posted on 08. May, 2012 by in Blog, SEO Content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques

We are delighted to feature this guest post by Susan O’Neil of Website Publicity, who you may recognize as one of “The women who made SEO great.” Here, Susan briefly  summarizes what she and her Website Publicity business does to help her clients stay one step ahead of the competition, with “disruptive innovation.”

Since a company loses its edge if it doesn’t keep innovating, my team and I are always pondering and preparing for the “next big thing” coming our clients’ way in terms of digital marketing opportunities and challenges. To that end, I recently attended Disruptivate, a conference on Disruptive Innovation.

Listening to stories by diverse “disruptors” like Doug Clark of NEF Manufacturing who is reinventing how shoes are made, and Jeff Carlisle of Our Health Connector who is putting our health records under our own control rather than that of healthcare providers, I considered how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was disruptive back in 1998.

All of a sudden, consumers were able to quickly find whatever they wanted simply by forming a query in their mind and typing it into the blank box at AltaVista or one of the 9 other major search engines.

No one told them how to think about their problem, need or desire. In the privacy of their homes or offices, people searched however they wanted and soon learned how to get the new librarians of the Internet to help them find what they were looking for.

Enter Website Publicity & SEO Put tot host zogere.

That’s when I closed my PR firm and opened @Website Publicity.

By helping to develop and refine SEO, our company was assisting in the disruption of standard advertising for brands pushing their messages out to consumers.

Marketers had to learn how to alter their websites in order to pull in search engine driven traffic by using the new strategies of SEO.  Marketers were forced to think and operate differently, and new businesses offering SEO services were formed and an industry was built.

No, it’s the norm. It’s a basic that should be built into everything we put up online.

Pay-per-Click (PPC) isn’t disruptive, either, at least at first glance.  But when you add in innovators like Pinterest, you can see how Search, Social and Mobile marketing are intersecting in new ways that can and will impact our clients’ success in the marketplace.

Marketing tools may change, strategies may change, and certainly the standard bearers in our industry may change, but one thing won’t:

It is our job as marketers to observe and anticipate disruptors in order to help keep our clients ahead of their competition, and to be disruptive ourselves when it serves a purpose.

 

About the Author – Susan O’Neil

As CEO and Founder of Website Publicity, Susan established a digital marketing agency in 1998, long before the internet marketing explosion. She also co-authored Maximize Website Traffic, one of the first books on SEO ever published. Follow Susan at @suejon.

 

5 Steps to Getting More Targeted Website Traffic with SEO Copywriting

Posted on 23. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, Copywriting, Featured, Keyword Research, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

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Sometimes search engine optimization gets a bad rap because so many people abuse it.

That’s too bad, because SEO copywriting is a great (and smart) way to drive traffic to your site or blog.

It will help you get more visitors through organic search, and when it’s done properly, it can even attract links, since your search-optimized content will be compelling, useful, and authoritative.

I’ve been working in this field for the last ten years — writing copy myself and helping clients tweak theirs — and I want to share with you the five tried-and-true SEO lessons I’ve learned that will drive more traffic to your site.

Of course, there are no tricks or cheats here. Just good common sense, strategically deployed.

Step 1: Create content landing pages that become link magnets

Content marketing strategy involves building a site that has authority in your niche … and you do that by writing valuable content related to the subject matter most important to you and your blog.

This content is called cornerstone content. For example, on my blog my posts on 9 Hard-Hitting Content Strategies for Small Business Blogging and How to Optimize Your Business for Local Search and Social Marketing make up some of the cornerstone content on QuickSprout.

It is what defines my blog … and it’s created around focused keywords like “blogging,” “content marketing,” “SEO,” and “search.”

To take this a step further, build a tutorial of cornerstone content and then create a landing page where you park all of the links and optimize it around a certain keyword.

This is what Brian Clark did with Copywriting, Content Marketing, and other content landing pages here on Copyblogger.

image of copyblogger copywriting 101 page

It’s also what Darren Rowse did with Blogging Resources and Your First Week of Blogging.

image of problogger first week of blogging page

This is a powerful SEO strategy since you’re putting a lot of content on one search engine optimized page, to focus links on a single great page rather than spreading them across many individual pages.

Another advantage includes a much higher likelihood that people will like, tweet, and plus your content landing page.

More important than any other factor, this type of page works because it’s easy and useful for your audience.

On one page your visitors can scan a particular topic. They’re happy to share it, because it’s such a useful resource.

Step 2: Update your content to lower bounce rates and rank higher

As advances in SEO like semantic search continue, search engines are trying to more closely match what people search for and the most relevant resource to satisfy that search.

For example, during research for an article on mobile SEO, I came across scores of pages on the topic.

I thought I’d hit pay dirt.

But what I found as I analyzed all of the data, was that most of it was irrelevant. The landscape is so new and constantly changing — especially in the last year — that articles written even two years ago were obsolete.

image of google search results for mobile seo

These articles were heavily search optimized for “mobile SEO” — and ranking very well — giving the impression that they were highly relevant to what I was searching for.

But the user experience sucked, and I was frustrated. All of the truly relevant articles were buried.

What does this have to do with SEO copywriting? Everything.

The situation above resulted in low-conversion pages (low-conversion because they resulted in higher bounce rates from those search results). High bounce rates will eventually show the search engines that your site quality isn’t good — which is bad news for your rankings.

For the “good stuff” to rank well, the publisher would need to optimize the copy by way of creating updates, or creating new and better pages that the old pages could point to.

If updating old content sounds like a pain … well, it is.

But the rewards — higher rankings because you are adding value to the web — are absolutely worth it. If nothing else, make sure you’re keeping your content landing pages up to date and extremely relevant for your readers.

Step 3: Create highly readable pages for more social shares

One surprising result from optimizing your content for search engines and for people is that it is much easier to read.

A page that is written in a conversational style, with correct grammar, good spelling and a reading level at about fifth-grade will be read by more people — and attract more links — than content that looks as if a lawyer or doctor had written it.

Keep your language simple and your thinking clear. This isn’t about “dumbing down” your content — in fact, highly readable content is often harder to write.

You need to write so that even a fifth grader will understand it. When you do that, you will up the chances that people will understand — and share — it.

Step 4: Use the right keywords in the right place

Keywords are the tools that will unlock the doors to great traffic for you, both in organic search and attracting links.

There’s nothing magical about them — keywords are simply the language your audience and customers use when they’re thinking about your topic.

Unfortunately, too many people still think in old-fashioned terms of “keyword stuffing” and trying to cram as many keywords into an article as possible.

So how often should we be using those keywords? Here’s a graphic from SEOmoz that explains …

image of keyword usage graph

What the graph doesn’t tell you is how often your keywords should appear on the page relative to the entire article. That range should be between 1% and 4%. As you can see from the graph, any lower (or higher) and you’re less likely to get the results you want.

In other words, if you were aiming for 2%, you’d include your keyword phrase twice for every 100 words you write.

Most of my articles are over 1,200 words and I usually aim at a keyword density of 2%, which adds up to 24 times that keyword appears in my article.

A tool like Scribe can be very helpful in quickly determining if you’ve overused (or underused) your desired keywords.

But where you position those keywords matters, too. Stuffing all of your keywords into the first 200 words of your articles will definitely send up red flags, not only from search engines but from people as well.

In fact, that’s the kind of unreadable rubbish that gave SEO a bad name in the first place. It’s not good for readers and it doesn’t work for search engines either.

Instead, follow these rules of thumb:

  • Add keywords in H1 tag: The first place to stick your keyword is in H1. By the way, do not include more than one H1 tag on a page.
  • Use keywords in your title tag: As always with modern SEO copywriting, do this gracefully in a way that works for readers too.
  • Add keywords to H2 and H3 tags: These tags are usually used as sub headlines throughout your content.
  • Mention a keyword in the first paragraph: The next place to position your keyword is in the first paragraph of your article. It’s even better if you can mention it in the first sentence.
  • Add keyword to images: If you use images in your content, which I highly recommend, then include your keywords, assuming they match the image you’re using. For example, if your keyword is “iPhone protective covers,” you might name one of your images iphone-protective-cover.jpg and use that phrase in the alt and title tags. Remember that these tags need to match what the image is actually of.
  • Create anchor text with keywords: Since search engine spiders crawl from website to website and page to page via links, including keywords in your anchor text will help them correctly identify your content. Remember that using a keyword phrase in your title makes it more likely for that phrase to show up in anchor tags when others link to you.

Don’t be afraid to occasionally clump the keywords together when that feels most natural, but for the most part, evenly distribute them throughout the content.

And last but not least …

Step 5: Create compelling content

Attracting links — from real websites with good reputations — is the number one thing you’re going after when it comes to SEO.

This is why you have to create compelling content.

Search engines analyze the links coming into your site, and they look specifically at the pages those links are coming to.

Those links coming into your site become votes for the credibility and authority of your site. One link from CNN will be worth more than one hundred links coming into your site from no-name websites.

Search engines also look at the words people use to link to your site. These anchor texts are one way that search engines decide what a page is all about.

Keep in mind that people link to you because they get something out of it — because your content is useful or practical for their audience, or your content is controversial or funny.

The formula for creating compelling content is simple:

  1. Use simple words
  2. Use the word “you”
  3. Write how-to posts
  4. Write detailed posts
  5. Hook your readers
  6. Create a conversation
  7. Prove your points
  8. Show you are an authority
  9. Care about your readers

These are points that I explain in more detail in my guide to blogging and how to write a blog post articles.

Of course, you can also take a look through the Copyblogger archives, since they’ve been writing about that topic for nearly six years now. :)

No matter what happens with the search engine algorithms, compelling content will continue to drive SEO for a long time.

An SEO copywriting cheat sheet

Let’s finish with a little cheat sheet:

  • Write grammatically correct, compelling content that is at least 300 words long. Make it detailed and support your argument with statistics to add authority.
  • Create content landing pages that centralize multiple links to great resources.
  • Make the content highly readable, aiming for a 5th-grade reading level.
  • Include an appropriate amount of keywords in your content — not too many, not too few — including keywords in your title tags, first paragraph, images if appropriate, and throughout the article.

You don’t need an advanced degree to write SEO copy well. You just need to understand a few basics.

As you practice over time it will become natural to you, driving more and more traffic your way.

What elements of SEO copywriting have you used to help drive more traffic to your site? Let us know in the comments.

About the Author: Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and an SEO consultant. He also blogs at Quick Sprout.

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Jill Whalen on SEO: then & now

Posted on 17. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques

Jill Whalen will always have a special place in my heart. Back in the day, we had a lot of “firsts” together.  We spoke at  Search Engine Strategies for the first time together. We presented at our first international conference together.  And we created RankWrite together, the first newsletter that discussed SEO and copywriting.

Jill was also featured in our “SEO women” series as one of the first-generation woman pioneers who helped build and define the SEO and search industry.

Here,  Jill shares about her path to becoming a leader in the SEO copywriting profession, answers our questions about Google’s latest updates, and discusses her perception of the SEO and search industry as a whole…including why truly good SEO copywriters are a rare breed, indeed.

Enjoy! – Heather

Q:  As one of the first wave of women who pioneered SEO, could you share with us your journey into that wild west world?

That’ll take us waaaaaay back to the early 1990′s when my kids were little and I first got online with a 2400 baud modem!

I got interested in IRC chat and created a parenting chat channel. By 1993 I taught myself HTML and developed a parenting website to go along with the chat room.

I was determined to figure out how to get that site found in the search engines of the day, i.e., Lycos, Excite, Webcrawler, so the same way that I taught myself HTML I analyzed what made certain websites rank for certain keywords and others not.

  • Discovering “SEO” – before it was “SEO”

It was pretty obvious at the time that it was the words on the page that would make the most difference. If you wanted to show up for a keyword phrase such as “parenting chat” then you needed to show that your site was obviously focused on being a place where parents could chat. Pretty obvious, but funny how others just weren’t thinking in those terms.

Eventually I started offering to design websites for some of the parents I had met online in my chatroom, and that gave me the opportunity to play with my new found SEO knowledge (it of course wasn’t called “SEO” yet).

Others had started to figure out the whole words on the page “trick” but instead of just making their pages relevant to what they wanted to rank for, many simply hid the words at the bottom of the page or with a font in the same color as the background of the page.  (I laugh when I still see this going on today, as if these people think they were the first to think of something so “clever”!)

  • The power of great copywriting

I went the opposite route for my clients and hired people far better at copywriting than I was, to describe what my clients offered in a way that would entice people to want to purchase from them. (That’s how Heather and I hooked up back in the late 90′s.)

And suddenly the SEO copywriting industry was born!

I found that the hard part of SEO was finding great writers. But once you found them, it was simple enough for them to understand the whole process of making sure they used keywords within their great writing.

Today I find that while great copywriting is still the number 1 thing you can do for a website, and I still recommend it for most sites, I focus my own energies on diagnosing technical issues that can hurt a website’s ability to gain the search engine traffic they deserve.

  • On search engine friendly website design

Website designs have become so complicated, and surprisingly too many developers still don’t understand how to create a truly search engine friendly site.

In addition, I love using Google Analytics (GA) to figure out why a website has suddenly lost a good portion of their search engine visitors. GA is so powerful these days, and if you know what you’re doing, it’s almost like being able to go back in time to see what was previously happening and then comparing it to what is happening now.

Q:  So what is your take on Google’s data encryption? How do you see it affecting keyword research?

Sadly, Google encrypting the searches of people who are logged into Google products such as Gmail and Google Analytics has meant that website owners have lost a lot of keyword data that we used to have regarding who visited our sites.

It shouldn’t affect keyword research as Google’s keyword research tool still provides the same data, but it will affect being able to effectively measure our success. It’s hard to know if the keywords you optimized for are bringing you traffic if you can’t see exactly what those keywords are in your analytics.

I actually just wrote a post about this subject: Measuring Natural Keyword Traffic in the Age of (NotProvided) Secure Search.

Q:  What are your thoughts about Google Search Plus?

It’s good and bad.

Sometimes I like it when I’m looking for a past article that someone in my online social circle has written. And I also like that it’s helping SEOs to *finally* agree that rankings are no longer possible as a way to accurately measure SEO success since they’re different for everyone. (That’s something I’ve been saying for years, but SPYW has made it all that much clearer.)

To go along with that I like that it should help to get search marketers focused on making their pages better overall, rather than being concerned with just a couple of keyword phrases and where their page shows up.

On the other hand, as a user/searcher it’s often annoying as I don’t always want to see what my friends have recommended! (You can hit the “non-personalized results” button, which does help.)

As to how it will affect SEO overall, it’s much too soon to say. They’re still tweaking it a lot and have already made Google+ results not quite as heavily featured as it was at first.

I’d recommend keeping an eye on it, but don’t make any major changes in the way you do business just because of it. You should probably have a Google+ account and filled out profile, though, if for no other reason than to get Google Author status which is an amazing perk for anyone who puts content online.

Q:  What is your take on Google’s “over optimization” penalty?

Aside from the fact that it’s impossible to “over-optimize” anything (because to optimize is to make perfect and you can’t go beyond perfect!) it’s likely just Google propaganda to scare dumb SEOS and web spammers.

But if it is indeed a real thing (and I hope it is) then it’s all a step in the right direction for Google. I’ve always found it annoying that SEO in all the right places could often beat out sites that were actually much better, but didn’t know anything about SEO. You shouldn’t be able to stick an extra keyword in a Title tag of a crappy site and have it beat out a great site!

So if it’s indeed something Google’s working on or implementing, it will finally make what I have been teaching in SEO for over 10 years to be true! (To be clear, what I’ve been saying and teaching did always work, but it was and is a long-term process which could sometimes get temporarily beat out by silly SEO parlour tricks.)

I’ve always said that the better Google gets as a search engine, the better the sites who’ve used my SEO methods would do. And they are! Hard work and good marketing should pay off even better if Google is serious about their spam fighting.

Q:  What would you say are the most important factors influencing SEO now?

This is a difficult one to answer as it’s different for every site. There’s certainly no magic formula or something that will work for every site.

  • Site architecture

That said, I find that having the right site architecture can make a huge difference for most websites. That is, creating a great hierarchy for your site so that the most important top level category pages are linked to from your global navigation, and then those top level pages each link into their own little subset of pages within their sub-category.

This pushes or funnels your internal link popularity properly throughout your site so that your main pages can be optimized for the more competitive phrases and your deeper pages for more long-tail phrases.

  • Technical, duplicate content issues

Another key factor influencing SEO is fixing any technical duplicate content issues. And by that I don’t mean duplicate content in the sense of someone posting someone else’s article on their site, but more the issues that can be created by some content management systems when they create multiple URLs for the same content.

Cleaning up those issues via rel=canonical or other means can make a huge difference to a site’s ability to get targeted search engine traffic.

  • Content marketing

And because nearly every industry has become so competitive online, it’s critical for people to market their websites via a blog and/or email newsletter or some other outlet that can showcase the company’s areas of expertise on a regular basis.

This will help to bring new people to the website who may still be in the research phase, but who may be ready to buy at some point in the future.

Q:  You’ve been in the SEO industry since the (pre-) beginning. What’s your overall impression of the profession, from where it started to where it’s going?

I have both good and bad impressions of the SEO industry.

I know and have met tons of people who truly get SEO and want to make a difference for the companies they work for. Unfortunately, I believe they are still few and far between.

It’s too easy to talk a good game about SEO without really knowing what you’re doing. And many companies are getting burned by them.

While many scammy SEO companies exist, clients have to take responsibility for doing their due diligence before hiring one. It’s often a case of the quick fix mentality, which clients often have. They want what they want, and they want it yesterday.

While a professional SEO consultant will set realistic expectations, often it’s not what the client wants to hear, so they’ll find an SEO company who will tell them what they do want to hear. In which case, they get what they deserve!

I kind of hate to say this, but with SEO being so hard to pinpoint these days (in terms of how to do it), I think businesses new to website marketing may want to start out with PPC first to see how their site performs overall. That way they can learn what works and what doesn’t.

Once they are making some profit through that marketing channel, then they can start branching out into SEO. It will be much easier at that point, because they’ll have hard data that they can use to optimize for the natural listings.

Overall, I feel that the better Google gets at fighting web spam, the better our industry will be. If spammy stuff simply doesn’t work anymore, those bad companies should eventually die out. And the sooner that happens, the better!

About Jill Whalen

Jill is the CEO of High Rankings and has been in SEO since its pre-beginnings, circa early 1990′s.She is a prolific writer and contributes regularly to Search Engine Land and Talent Zoo. Jill also founded and runs the High Rankings Newsletter, and just recently started an online forum for those interested in Google Analytics, specifically its custom reports, at Custom Report Sharing. You can contact Jill via her High Rankings website, and find her on Twitter at @JillWhalen.

 

Get real! Get your certification in SEO Copywriting and turn your income up to 11! SuccessWorks’ SEO Copywriting Certification training is available at its original price through May 15th – register now and save a chunk of change: $170!

 

photo thanks to aussiegall

 

 

 

How to write for Google’s over-optimization penalty

Posted on 16. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques, Tips by Industry

Greetings and welcome back! Today, Heather addresses a collective, anxious concern about writing SEO copy given Google’s latest Panda slap, the “over-optimization” penalty:  Help! Is my Web content over-optimized?

While it is true that Google has made a lot of changes and is cracking down on content, the upshot is: don’t freak out! It will be okay, if you follow the three basic guidelines laid out for you in today’s SEO copywriting video post.

It’s unfortunate that this latest Panda update has DIY Web writers afraid of the “Big G,” and wary of optimizing their Web content. Either you’re worried about what you may be doing wrong now, or that Google will tweak yet something else and what’s okay today may not be tomorrow, then your current ranking will plummet, etc., ad nauseum. So you freeze and do nothing, which is not helping your conversions.

In an effort to calm your fears and help you relax, Heather brings some perspective to Google’s over-optimization penalty. Tune in as she discusses the three “over-optimization” questions to ask yourself if you’re concerned that you may have crossed the line…

Over-Optimization Question #1:  Have I used “too many” keyphrases?

There are three things to look at when considering this question:

  1. How does the copy sound when you read it out loud?
  2. Did you try to match a (mythical) keyphrase density?
  3. Did you write 1,000 words of content “for Google”?

First, how does the copy sound when you read it out loud? 

As Heather has discussed in previous posts, one of the easiest ways to figure out if you’ve used too many keyphrases in your Web content it to simply print off the page and read it aloud.

If you hear yourself tripping over a keyphrase every third word or so, then yeah – you’ve probably pushed that optimization envelope a little bit too far. Time to scale back your keyphrase use until it sounds easy and natural to the ear.

Second, did you try to match a (mythical) keyphrase density?

Again, as Heather has pointed out before (as well as Google’s spam-master, Matt Cutts) there is no such thing as “the (perfect or magical) keyphrase density for Google.” Period.

If you’ve been trying for such a mythical goal, then you most likely have pushed the optimization envelope too far with overuse of keyphrases in your Web content. Repeat the exercise, above.

Third, did you write 1,000 words of content “for Google”?

If you have a super-long Web page where you wrote on for 1,000 words – and you really didn’t need that many – be honest with yourself: did you extend your copy beyond its usefulness thinking that’s what Google wants in terms of word count or page length? Think again.

The simple solution? Dial it back.

Slicing the word count and tightening your message will not only serve your conversions better, but it will also save you from the Google Panda slap. Get in there and try to figure out if the copy you wrote is targeted to your readers: is it what they would want to know? Or have you added some keyphrase-laden fluff that detracts from the user experience?

Over-Optimization Question #2:  Is my bolding and linking out of control?

This occurs a lot on small business sites, where the DIY site owner thinks: “Okay, so if I bold all of my keyphrases and link to everything I can possibly think of, that will help me with Google.”

And it really doesn’t.

Here are three things to keep in mind when using bold font and links:

  1. Hyperlinking to related pages = good.
  2. Bolding headlines/subheadlines = good.
  3. Linking or bolding every third word = bad.

If your linking or bolding is really overdone – and your reader is confronted with links all over the place and all this copy bolded that really doesn’t need to be – it’s not helping her or your Google ranking.

  • Ask yourself: What makes sense to your reader?

Forget about Google for a minute…strictly from the reader perspective, is copy riddled with bold font and links inserted in every other sentence really going to help her convert?

No. Just like the previous example of having too many keyphrases stuffed in your Web content, you want to focus on what makes for a good reader experience.

  • If you keep your reader’s needs in mind, then the way you bold copy in your text and the way you hyperlink to other pages will be much more natural.

Over-Optimization Question #3:  Are my Titles written for readers? Or Google?

As we know, page Titles are those clickable links on the search engine results page. It follows that your page Title should be written like a compelling headline.

  1. Remember that the search engine results page is your first opportunity for conversion.
  2. Shoving every keyphrase you can think of in the Title tag won’t help you.

A solid, optimized page Title should have keyphrases, of course. But it should not read like a string of keyphrases separated by commas.

Outside of the fact that a page Title of “keyphrase, keyphrase, keyphrase” (or “keyphrase|keyphrase|keyphrase”) is pretty spammy, it is not going to help you with that first, crucial conversion. If someone encounters that listing on the search engine results page, chances are they’re going to click on another Title.

As with the previous two questions to consider when judging if you’ve over-optimized your Web content, if you focus your efforts on the reader – in this instance by asking yourself “what will make the reader click on my listing over the nine others?” – then you will be on the right track with both your readers and Google.

Thanks for joining us for this week’s SEO copywriting video how-to! Do you have an SEO copywriting question or topic suggestion for Heather? Love it! Send it on over to her [at] heather@seocopywriting.com or tweet her [at] @heatherlloyd. See you next Monday!

 

Perk alert! Sign up for either the daily or weekly SEO Copywriting Buzz newsletter and receive a free download of Heather Lloyd-Martin’s white paper, How to write for Google!

And psssst – a head’s up! If you’ve been thinking about becoming certified in SEO Copywriting best practices, you have until May 15th to register for Heather Lloyd-Martin’s SEO Copywriting Certification training at its original price! Sign up now and save $170!

 

photo thanks to me’nthedogs (Mark Robinson)

How can you tell if your SEO campaign is working?

Posted on 10. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, SEO Content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques

Measuring the success of your SEO campaign isn’t always black and white. There are so many factors affecting the impact of your SEO work that it isn’t always possible to pinpoint exactly what is and isn’t working.

You could drive yourself crazy by checking you site’s analytics every hour and panic over small changes, but you really need to look at the big picture when it comes to determining if your SEO campaign is working.

Here are few ways you can tell if your SEO campaign is on the right track.

Increase in non-branded keywords

If you were to take a look at your latest analytics report, you should be able to see which keywords are driving traffic to your website. A good portion of those might be branded keywords (company name, product names, etc), but a sure sign of SEO success is when you notice an increase in non-branded keywords that lead to visitors.

Many of these non-branded keywords will be ones that you are actively targeting on your site, but you should also start to see variations of those keywords driving visitors each month. Even if those long tail keywords are only driving a few visitors each month, it means that your website is showing up in the search results for more and more searches.

Uptick in visitors

The best way to tell if your SEO campaign is working is by checking how many visitors your site is getting each month. While slight dips from month to month are common, you should see a trend (3-6 months of data) of increasing amounts of visitors. This means your site is showing up in the right places for the right type of traffic. There is no “right amount” of visitors to get in a month—it’s all relative to your business—but continual growth is a good sign of a strong SEO campaign.

More qualified leads

The goal of SEO is to not only drive more traffic to your website, but to drive more targeted traffic to your website. In a way, a good SEO campaign can almost act like lead qualification.

If your website is targeting the right keywords, both broad and long tail, the right people should be finding your website when searching. That is why long tail keywords, even though they may have less search volume, can be so valuable.

Someone who conducts a search with long tail keywords knows exactly what they are looking for, making them a better lead for your website. They are typically nearing the end of their buying cycle, which also increases the odds that they will convert.

Traffic coming from more sources

A good SEO strategy should focus on diversifying your traffic sources.

While it may sound strange coming from an SEO professional, you don’t want the overall health and well-being of your website to be placed in the hands of the search engines as it leaves your site vulnerable.

What happens if the search engines decide to penalize your site? If 90% of all traffic comes from the search engines there goes 90% of your business. The more traffic sources your site has the more it can withstand a hit to one of them.

A good SEO campaign is going to help build direct traffic, referrals, organic traffic and more. The more sources of traffic the better your SEO campaign.

Stronger presence in the SERPs

When you search for your company by name, what do you see in the search results? Hopefully your company website comes first, but what about after that?

Are your social profiles appearing in the SERPs? What about your press releases and company blog? Are all your business profiles listed? Or is content that is out of your hands, things like consumer reviews, news articles and forums, filling up the search results?

A strong SEO campaign is going to build your overall online brand presence in the SERPs so that the content you’ve created dominates the search results for your brand name.

These are just a few of the key indicators that your SEO campaign is working. It’s important to remember that SEO is a long term, ongoing process so you shouldn’t expect any huge gains overnight. Slow and steady is what wins the SEO race, so don’t panic over small loses; it comes with the territory. Take a step back and look at the overall SEO picture.

About the Author – Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis is the President of the Boston SEO firm Brick Marketing. With nearly 13 years of B2B SEO experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting to the Brick Marketing blog and the publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis at nick@brickmarketing.com

 

Would you like to learn more about SEO copywriting?  Check into the SuccessWorks’ SEO Copywriting Certification training, taught by the widely-recognized pioneer of SEO copywriting, Heather Lloyd-Martin!

photo thanks to Marco Bellucci

 

The word on SEO copywriting: what, how & why

Posted on 09. Apr, 2012 by in Blog, Freelance SEO copywriting, In-house Content Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques

Greetings dear Web writers! Today we’ve gathered our top 5 down-and-dirty, most elemental SEO copywriting videos for you. Whether you’ve lost your SEO way or have yet to find it, or if you  just need an SEO 101 refresher, these 5 brief videos will help you get your SEO mojo on. Kinda like finding a five-leaf clover, you’re in luck to have these five vid’s at-a-click here!

So tune in as Heather explains just what SEO copywriting is, the three essential skills you need to be an SEO copywriter, how to make money at it, how to tell if your stuff’s any good, and more…

What is SEO copywriting (and why is it important to my site)?

Heather strips SEO copywriting down to its bare essentials: what it is (and is not), how it differs from straight copywriting, and why it is so important for web pages and sites.

 

3 skills every SEO copywriter must have

In Heather’s inaugural YouTube video post, she addresses the three essential skills that you need to be successful (and satisfied) in the SEO copywriting profession. Tune in to find out what this golden triangle is!

 

3 ways to learn the SEO copywriting ropes

In her second YouTube video post, Heather details three specific ways to learn the ropes of the SEO copywriting business, from self-edifying reading in SEO and direct response theory to tapping online communities to finding a mentor…and much more in between. Essential reading/viewing if you are serious about learning SEO copywriting!

Is your SEO copywriting any good? 3 tell-tale tests

Here, Heather shares three solid tests to tell if your SEO copywriting is up to snuff, as well as what you should watch out for: from the actual writing to keyphrase usage to conversion power, learn if your SEO copy cuts it. You may well be surprised!

 

How to make money as an SEO copywriter

No doubt, this question is heavy on the freelance copywriter’s mind: how can I make this SEO copywriting set of skills pay? Heather delves into the guts of the business with how much you can expect to charge for your SEO copywriting, where to find clients, and what kinds of work you can pursue. A must-read for anyone considering entering the SEO copywriting profession!

 

Are you considering a career in SEO? Check into one the several affordable  SEO copywriting training options offered by the original SEO pioneer, Heather Lloyd-Martin. You’re sure to find the right training to suit your needs!

 

photo thanks to cygnus921 (John)

 

 

 

The women who made SEO great

Posted on 27. Mar, 2012 by in Blog, SEO Content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The year was 2000 and I was invited to speak at the Dallas Search Engine Strategies conference. Back then, SES wasn’t the huge, three-day monstrosity it is today. In fact, imagine a really big room with a bunch of roundtables. Yeah, that was the conference.

I was speaking with Jill Whalen on writing for search engines – and boy, was I nervous! I have a clear memory of saying a silent prayer before we started our session. I was that stressed out! :)

Back then, I didn’t know many women in SEO (and the ones I did know about were faithful subscribers/commentators in I-Search, the main discussion list for our industry.) I remember meeting Barbara Coll during SES Dallas. I also met Shari Thurow. But it seemed like the majority of the SEO crowd back then were men.

My, how times have changed.

Today, women rock the SEO world. When I go to conferences, the gender ratio is 50/50 – and many more women are leading companies and hold some pretty nice power positions. It’s a wonderful thing to see.

This post (and there will be a follow-up, too) features the women who made SEO great. These smart females were in the trenches back at the beginning and deserve to be celebrated. They have unselfishly led discussion lists, built resources, and helped set best practices. I am proud to call many of them my close friends.

Get to know these women and definitely follow them on Twitter. They have a lot to share and teach you.

Thank you, ladies. You inspire me every day.

-Heather

Kim Krause Berg- Kim began designing websites in 1995 and within a year launched her own SEO/Usability consulting business, Cre8pc. Her impressive client list includes Geico, USC Information Technology Program, and the Discovery Channel – Travel. Kim is a frequent contributor to Search Engine Land, creating articles from successful marketing and web design to why blending usability and SEO really matters. Follow Kim at @kim_cre8pc.

 

 

Christine Churchill  - Hands down, Christine is one of the nicest folks in SEO. As president of KeyRelevance, Christine has well over a decade of experience in the online marketing world. She has marketed cruise lines and hotels, steel foundries, schools, ecommerce sites – the list goes on!  A well-known industry speaker, Christine has appeared at Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies, High Ranking Seminars, and is a regular contributor to industry publications including SearchDay, Search Engine Guide and more. Follow Christine at @ChrisChurchill.

 

Barbara Coll – An early advocate of web marketing, Barbara started WebMama in 1996 because she “didn’t think people understood the value of search generated visitor traffic.” From there, she quickly became a recognized leading expert in Search Engine Marketing. As the founding President and Chairperson of the Board of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), Barbara has helped to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing worldwide. Follow Barbara at @webmama.

 

Debra Mastaler – With a diverse background – including 15 years’ marketing Anheuser-Busch and operating an organic food and clothing directory – Debra transitioned to being the link goddess we know and love today. As President of Alliance-Link, Debra trains Fortune 500 companies and top SEO firms on link building best practices. Among her many accolades, Debra was featured among Search Marketing Standard Magazine’s 2011 “Women of Internet Marketing” and voted one of Level 343’s Top SEO Women of 2011. Debra is also a featured guest speaker at SES conferences and SMX expo’s. She is a columnist for Search Engine Land and Search Engine Guide, and blogs at her own site, Link Spiel. Follow Debra at @debramastaler.

 

Susan O’Neil – As CEO and Founder of Website Publicity, Susan established a digital marketing agency in 1998, long before the internet marketing explosion. Website Publicity has an impressive list of clients that include Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Lindt Swiss Chocolatiers, USA. She also co-authored Maximize Website Traffic, one of the first books on SEO ever published. Follow Susan at @suejon.

 

Jessie Stricchiola – One of the founding board members of the esteemed Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, SEMPO, Jessie has been “toying around” with search engines since 1997. The Principal at Alchemist Media – which is consistently ranked by B2B Magazine as one of the Top 100 Search Marketing Companies – Jessie pioneered the charge against PPC click fraud and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, and NPR.  She co-authored the book, The Art of SEO, and serves as a litigation consultant on internet related issues. Follow Jessie @ltstricchi (protected account).

 

Laura Thieme – A 15-year veteran of SEO, PPC, and website/keyword conversions, Laura is the CEO of  Bizwatch Search Analytics and owner of Bizresearch, which she started in 1997. She is a frequent speaker at SMX conferences, and has been featured in the New York Times, Internet Retailer, TechNewsWorld and Search Engine Watch. A renowned Google Analytics guru, Laura was called as an expert witness in a case involving trademark and metatags. Follow Laura @bizwatchlaura.

 

Shari Thurow – Shari was the first woman – person – who made people think about “search engine friendly websites,” and has been designing sites since 1995.  Today, she’s a frequent speaker at industry conferences (in fact, I had the pleasure of speaking with her during SMX West in March) and a regular contributor to Search Engine Land. Shari has been featured in many publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, Wired, and PC World. Her search-usability site, Omni Marketing Interactive, offers fantastic resources. Shari is the author of Search Engine Visibility and co-author of Where Search Meets Web Usability. Follow Shari at @sharithurow (protected account).

 

Dana Todd - Known for her creative hair color (currently a brilliant jewel tone purple), Dana has over 17 years experience in digital marketing and is appreciated for her intelligent, no-nonsense speaking style. She’s also a past chairwoman for SEMPO after serving on their board. Today, she’s Senior V.P. of Marketing and New Business and V.P. of Perfomance Innovation at Performics, and a sought-after industry speaker. Dana has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and The Street. Follow Dana at @danatodd.

 

Amanda Watlington -  Amanda is one super-smart woman. Her impressive resume includes working with 3m, Sharp Electronics, Mercedes Benz and Washington Mutual. She’s also a prolific writer, and has authored scads of articles and two books including Business Blogs: A Practical Guide (co-authored with Bill Ives.) Her site, Searching for Profit, says it all – she’s helping companies build long-term profitable relationships with their clients. Follow Amanda at @amandaw.

 

Jill Whalen – Jill and I started our SEO conference journey together and we were business partners for quite a few years (who remembers the RankWrite newsletter?) Today, Jill is the CEO of High Rankings and has been in SEO since 1995. She is a prolific writer and contributes regularly to Search Engine Land and Talent Zoo. She also runs the High Rankings Newsletter, which has about five million followers (OK, not five million – but she has a lot!)  Follow Jill at @jillwhalen.

 

And if you’d indulge me as the blog editor (Laura Crest), I’d like to add a first-generation, original SEO woman who has taught me all I know about SEO, and who has generously – oftentimes patiently – mentored and encouraged me each and every step of the way in my SEO copywriting career…

Heather Lloyd-Martin – Known as “Firecracker” to some of her SEO friends, Heather is a widely-recognized expert, speaker, and SEO authority who has spread the SEO copywriting word around the world. She developed the SEO Copywriting Certification training program, was profiled in the book Online Marketing Heroes, and is the immediate past-chair of the DMA’s Search Engine Marketing Council. Just this year, she was voted as one of Level 343’s Top Women of SEO, 2012. Heather is President and CEO of SuccessWorks, and can be found online here, at SEO Copywriting. Follow Heather at @heatherlloyd.

 

Stay tuned! Next week we’ll expand our list of women who’ve helped shape the SEO industry (and made it great!) with the second wave of SEO Women to honor. (So if it seems that we’ve forgotten someone, it’s very likely that she’ll be featured in Part 2).

In the meantime, our sincere gratitude to these SEO “old guard” (a.k.a., “original gangsta”) women for building the SEO industry, blazing the proverbial trail, and guiding the rest of us! You rock! :)

And a special thanks to our own Heather Georgoudiou for her research and inspiration!

Want to dramatically increase your income as a freelance copywriter? Consider getting your certification in SEO Copywriting, taught by the widely-recognized pioneer of the SEO industry, Heather Lloyd-Martin. Her training is the only online SEO Copywriting Training Program independently endorsed by SEOPros.org. Check into it and make 2012 the year you turn your biz around!

photo thanks to Brett Jordan

 

 

The women who made SEO great

Posted on 27. Mar, 2012 by in Blog, SEO Content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Tips and techniques

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The year was 2000 and I was invited to speak at the Dallas Search Engine Strategies conference. Back then, SES wasn’t the huge, three-day monstrosity it is today. In fact, imagine a really big room with a bunch of roundtables. Yeah, that was the conference.

I was speaking with Jill Whalen on writing for search engines – and boy, was I nervous! I have a clear memory of saying a silent prayer before we started our session.  I was that stressed out! :)

Back then, I didn’t know many women in SEO (and the ones I did know about were faithful subscribers/commentators in I-Search, the main discussion list for our industry.) I remember meeting Barbara Coll during SES Dallas. I also met Shari Thurow. But it seemed like the majority of the SEO crowd back then were men.

My, how times have changed.

Today, women rock the SEO world. When I go to conferences, the gender ratio is 50/50 – and many more women are leading companies and hold some pretty nice power positions. It’s a wonderful thing to see.

This post (and there will be a follow-up, too) features the women who made SEO great. These smart females were in the trenches back at the beginning and deserve to be celebrated. They have unselfishly led discussion lists, built resources, and helped set best practices. I am proud to call many of them my close friends.

Get to know these women and definitely follow them on Twitter. They have a lot to share and teach you.

Thank you, ladies. You inspire me every day.

-Heather

Kim Krause Berg- Kim began designing websites in 1995 and within a year launched her own SEO/Usability consulting business, Cre8pc. Her impressive client list includes Geico, USC Information Technology Program, and the Discovery Channel – Travel. Kim is a frequent contributor to Search Engine Land, creating articles from successful marketing and web design to why blending usability and SEO really matters. Follow Kim at @kim_cre8pc.

Christine Churchill  - Hands down, Christine is one of the nicest folks in SEO. As president of KeyRelevance, Christine has well over a decade of experience in the online marketing world. She has marketed cruise lines and hotels, steel foundries, schools, ecommerce sites – the list goes on!  A well-known industry speaker, Christine has appeared at Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies, High Ranking Seminars, and is a regular contributor to industry publications including SearchDay, Search Engine Guide and more. Follow Christine at @ChrisChurchill.

Barbara Coll – An early advocate of web marketing, Barbara started WebMama in 1996 because she “didn’t think people understood the value of search generated visitor traffic.” From there, she quickly became a recognized leading expert in Search Engine Marketing. As the founding President and Chairperson of the Board of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), Barbara has helped to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing worldwide. Follow Barbara at @webmama.

Debra Mastaler – With a diverse background – including 15 years’ marketing Anheuser-Busch and operating an organic food and clothing directory – Debra transitioned to being the link goddess we know and love today. As President of Alliance-Link, Debra trains Fortune 500 companies and top SEO firms on link building best practices. Among her many accolades, Debra was featured among Search Marketing Standard Magazine’s 2011 “Women of Internet Marketing” and voted one of Level 343’s Top SEO Women of 2011. Debra is also a featured guest speaker at SES conferences and SMX expo’s. She is a columnist for Search Engine Land and Search Engine Guide, and blogs at her own site, Link Spiel. Follow Debra at @debramastaler.

 

 

Susan O’Neil – As CEO and Founder of Website Publicity, Susan established a digital marketing agency in 1998, long before the internet marketing explosion. Website Publicity has an impressive list of clients that include Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Lindt Swiss Chocolatiers, USA. She also co-authored Maximize Website Traffic, one of the first books on SEO ever published. Follow Susan at @suejon.

Jessie Stricchiola – One of the founding board members of the esteemed Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, SEMPO, Jessie has been “toying around” with search engines since 1997. The Principal at Alchemist Media – which is consistently ranked by B2B Magazine as one of the Top 100 Search Marketing Companies – Jessie pioneered the charge against PPC click fraud and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, and NPR.  She co-authored the book, The Art of SEO, and serves as a litigation consultant on internet related issues. Follow Jessie @ltstricchi (protected account).

 

 

Laura Thieme – A 15-year veteran of SEO, PPC, and website/keyword conversions, Laura is the CEO of  Bizwatch Search Analytics and owner of Bizresearch, which she started in 1997. She is a frequent speaker at SMX conferences, and has been featured in the New York Times, Internet Retailer, TechNewsWorld and Search Engine Watch. A renowned Google Analytics guru, Laura was called as an expert witness in a case involving trademark and metatags. Follow Laura @bizwatchlaura.

Shari Thurow – Shari was the first woman – person – who made people think about “search engine friendly websites,” and has been designing sites since 1995.  Today, she’s a frequent speaker at industry conferences (in fact, I had the pleasure of speaking with her during SMX West in March) and a regular contributor to Search Engine Land. Shari has been featured in many publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, Wired, and PC World. Her search-usability site, Omni Marketing Interactive, offers fantastic resources. Shari is the author of Search Engine Visibility and co-author of Where Search Meets Web Usability. Follow Shari at @sharithurow (protected account).

Dana Todd - Known for her creative hair color (currently a brilliant jewel tone purple), Dana has over 17 years experience in digital marketing and is appreciated for her intelligent, no-nonsense speaking style. She’s also a past chairwoman for SEMPO after serving on their board. Today, she’s Senior V.P. of Marketing and New Business and V.P. of Perfomance Innovation at Performics, and a sought-after industry speaker. Dana has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and The Street. Follow Dana at @danatodd.

Amanda Watlington -  Amanda is one super-smart woman. Her impressive resume includes working with 3m, Sharp Electronics, Mercedes Benz and Washington Mutual. She’s also a prolific writer, and has authored scads of articles and two books including Business Blogs: A Practical Guide (co-authored with Bill Ives.) Her site, Searching for Profit, says it all – she’s helping companies build long-term profitable relationships with their clients. Follow Amanda at @amandaw.

Jill Whalen – Jill and I started our SEO conference journey together and we were business partners for quite a few years (who remembers the RankWrite newsletter?) Today, Jill is the CEO of High Rankings and has been in SEO since 1995. She is a prolific writer and contributes regularly to Search Engine Land and Talent Zoo. She also runs the High Rankings Newsletter, which has about five million followers (OK, not five million – but she has a lot!)  Follow Jill at @jillwhalen.

And if you’d indulge me as the blog editor (Laura Crest), I’d like to add a first-generation, original SEO woman who has taught me all I know about SEO, and who has generously – oftentimes patiently – mentored and encouraged me each and every step of the way in my SEO copywriting career…

Heather Lloyd-Martin – Known as “Firecracker” to some of her SEO friends, Heather is a widely-recognized expert, speaker, and SEO authority who has spread the SEO copywriting word around the world. She developed the SEO Copywriting Certification training program, was profiled in the book Online Marketing Heroes, and is the immediate past-chair of the DMA’s Search Engine Marketing Council. Just this year, she was voted as one of Level 343’s Top Women of SEO, 2012. Heather is President and CEO of SuccessWorks, and can be found online here, at SEO Copywriting. Follow Heather at @heatherlloyd.

Stay tuned! Next week we’ll expand on our list of women who’ve helped shape the SEO industry (and made it great!) with the second wave of SEO Women to honor. (So if it seems that we’ve forgotten someone, it’s very likely that she’ll be featured in Part 2).

In the meantime, our sincere gratitude to these SEO “old guard” (a.k.a., “original gangsta”) women for building the SEO industry, blazing the proverbial trail, and guiding the rest of us! You rock! :)

And a special thanks to our own Heather Georgoudiou for her research and inspiration!

Want to dramatically increase your income as a freelance copywriter? Consider getting your certification in SEO Copywriting, taught by the widely-recognized pioneer of the SEO industry, Heather Lloyd-Martin. Her training is the only online SEO Copywriting Training Program independently endorsed by SEOPros.org. Check into it and make 2012 the year you turn your biz around!

photo thanks to Brett Jordan

 

 

How to Create Smarter Content Using Semantic Keyword Research

Posted on 15. Feb, 2012 by in Blog, Featured, Keyword Research, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

image of vintage archive

Ever hear two people arguing and then someone dismisses their differences like this: “Well, that’s just semantics”?

What the person means by that is the difference boils down to “just” a difference in the meaning of the words. In other words, the meaning of a word isn’t all that important.

Really?

For serious SEO professionals (and marketers), the specific shades of meaning of a word can make a world of difference. That’s why modern search engine optimization has gone beyond basic keyword research into synonym creation, semantic search optimization, and further into semantic themes.

It might sound a bit complicated, but it isn’t really. So let’s explore — what does semantic keyword research mean for your online marketing efforts?

Here’s a short guide to help you create content that attracts links, builds page authority, and ultimately rises in the search rankings by using semantic-themed keyword research.

Let’s start at the beginning

What does the word semantics mean?

The dictionary defines semantics as:

Semantics is about how somebody or something interprets a particular word.

From a search perspective, users have a very clear goal in mind when they search using a specific word.

Imagine someone searched using the word “lemon.” Do they mean the fruit? The tree? A car? The color?

We don’t know.

Hopefully, they’ll expand their search query to something like “How to avoid buying a lemon.” Even in that case, it’s not absolutely clear if they mean the fruit, tree or car. We’ve eliminated the color, but that’s it.

This is where semantic search comes in. Search engines have developed complex algorithms that allow them to understand that the best way to interpret this term is “how to avoid buying a lemon car” … in other words, a car that’s defective or of poor quality.

That’s something most 6th graders can understand, which is the highest level of intelligence for search engines, and you should understand it that way, too.

How to create “core” keywords

The work of effective semantic keyword research begins with defining your core term/s.

This is basic SEO stuff, but let’s not breeze over it — we want to build a solid foundation for the following two levels.

Using our example above, “how to avoid buying a lemon,” we would develop a list of core keywords and phrases that were relevant to that search. Just using the Google Keyword tool, I came up with this:

Notice how closely the keyword phrases are tied to our intended meaning? This means that Google recognizes the typical meaning of the phrase. There isn’t much deviation — no one is trying to avoid buying the yellow citrus fruit when they type that phrase in.

So our core keywords could look like this:

  • “avoid buying bad car”
  • “prevent buying bad car”
  • “avoid purchasing defective automobile”

The variation of the core words run between “avoid,” “buying,” “bad,” and “car.” We’ll dump those into what I’ll call our “core basket bucket.”

How to create “supporting” keywords

As you build this semantic theme, your next step is into the circle outside of your core terms. These are your supporting keywords, the ones you sprinkle into your content, meta sets, and headers.

For the phrase “avoid buying a lemon,” the supporting keywords would look like this:

  • “buying from a used dealer”
  • “battery life”
  • “good alternator”
  • “fan belt condition”
  • “dead battery”
  • “alternator died”
  • “broken fan belt”
  • “engine oil leak”
  • “mechanic checkup”

Do you see the feeling you are trying to create with these supporting terms?

You’re developing a piece of content that not only explains what can happen when you buy a car from a used dealer, but also some related topics, like how it feels when the car breaks down, and a list of things to look for when buying.

You are being instructive and practical. And the content naturally addresses the problem in its entirety — you’re not glossing over the topic.

And we’re not finished yet …

How to create “stemming” keywords

Now it’s time to step into the outermost circle of our keyword research, with keyword phrases that emphasize issues not directly related to the search. But because we are trying to predict the search, we need to think about these things.

Don’t forget that the search engine is trying to do the same thing.

For example, why is the user typing in “avoid buying a lemon”? The most obvious answer is they are a buyer and they are thinking about buying from a used car dealer or someone who is selling a car personally.

Of course, you can create two pieces of content that address both of those possibilities. But which one will the search engines deliver to the user on the SERPs (search engine results pages)?

It’s hard to know, but it’s probably going to be the most comprehensive, most authoritative piece … even if your user doesn’t need all the information. That means you need to write comprehensive content … which is where the “stemming” keywords come in.

These keywords are building a larger picture behind “avoid buying a lemon.” They’re getting to the real question the searcher is trying to answer.

Here’s what I mean:

  • “consumer used car rights”
  • “consumer law”
  • “used car buying rights”
  • “used car law”
  • “consumer protection agencies”

At stake here is what the user can expect his or her legal rights are, and actions they can take if they do buy a lemon and it dies.

That’s the underlying theme.

What to do with these keywords

Notice that you haven’t written any content at this point … you’ve just built three buckets of keywords.

From those buckets, you can create a rough outline. In fact, let’s build two:

How to Avoid Buying a Lemon from a Used Car Dealer

  • Definition of a lemon
  • Definition of a used car dealer
  • Things to inspect on a used car
  • When a lemon dies
  • Your legal rights
  • Who to approach and how

How to Avoid Buying a Lemon from a Private Seller

  • Definition of a lemon
  • Definition of a used car dealer
  • Things to inspect on a used car
  • When a lemon dies
  • Your legal rights
  • Who to approach and how

Keep in mind: the content within each section will have to vary to avoid duplicate content issues, and to work well for the human readers who are always your primary focus.

You will receive greater relevance weight and authority when you define terms absolutely, the way a Wikipedia or Dictionary.com does.

In addition, this research will be useful when it comes to building links to the site.

When will the authority and links come?

It is very difficult to predict for certain whether a page will become authoritative on a topic, and attract high-quality links. But, like forecasting weather, you can study the elements behind successful pages. And unlike the weather, you can apply those elements to your own work and improve your chances for a good ranking.

Here’s what we know: great keyword research alone won’t do the trick.

It’s a great start — and can help you build content architecture that leads to authoritative pages — but it’s not a silver bullet.

So here are the things you can control:

  • The core, supporting, and stemming keyword collections
  • The content architecture of the page
  • The comprehensiveness of that content
  • The usefulness and readability of that content
  • The promotion of that content
  • The measurement of users’ reaction to the content
  • The adjustment of the content based on user reactions

Of course what’s out of your control is other people’s reaction. Will they view it as authoritative? Will they find your writing compelling? Will they link to it? You create the best-possible content to try to influence those factors, but ultimately they lie outside your hands.

Follow the advice I’ve laid out here, however, and you will have a better chance of influencing reader reaction in a positive way, ultimately getting search engines to recognize your content as a relevant and significant contribution to the web.

Don’t forget to write for humans first

All of this sounds a bit technical. But after you’ve done your keyword prep, when you finally sit down to write, be sure you’re writing in a natural way that doesn’t smack of spam.

When done properly, SEO copywriting should never sound robotic or stiff.

Write for humans first, then gently tweak for optimization. Get in the habit of reading each article aloud to make sure your keywords are included in a natural, reader-friendly way, and read sites like Copyblogger for pointers on writing voice and other elements of high-quality writing.

Your final step is to read your content to another person and get their reaction. If they think it sounds spammy or awkward, rewrite it. Nothing will flush your work down the drain faster than a spammy article. It pays to get it right.

What do you think of this semantic-based approach to building authoritative web pages? Let us know in the comments …

About the Author: Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and an SEO consultant. He also blogs at Quick Sprout.

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