Archive for the ‘Article Marketing’ Category

Choosing a Domain Name – Part 1

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 by mikeq

One of the first and most aggravating problems of developing a web site is choosing the right domain name. This is a tricky subject because there are many schools of thought with a lot of good points. Even choosing something as simple as whether or not your web site will end in .com, .net, .org, or anything else can be a difficult decision. Most people might say that if you can get the .com, take it. However, some schools of thought will say that this is not always true. I will go through some of the general considerations for choosing a domain name and from there, you should have a basic understanding.

Insert Company Name Here

Although not as important as it once was, it is still a good idea to choose a domain name based on your company name rather than your product. For example, if you are called “Mike’s Footwear” and you sell shoes, you might be tempted to snatch up “shoes.com”. However, your content will do the job of ranking you for shoes. It will be far more important that you can simply tell people that you meet to visit www.mikesfootwear.com than to try to associate www.shoes.com with your company name.

.Com, .Net, .Org – The Three Kings

Of course, most people are more familiar with .com than they are with .net or .org. However, there is generally no difference between the three. I once was told by an editor than you should always do research at sites that end in .org because they are the most reputable. As I began to study more marketing and web site development, I found that this was not only untrue, but actually very stupid. Anyone can get a .org web site. While the average net searcher might make the same mistake and think that a .org must be a reputable organization, it really does not matter.

Hyphens and Plurals and Items, Oh My!

Long story short, avoid them all. The shorter your domain name, the better. You also don’t want to lose customers to web sites whose only domain difference from yours is the letter “s”. Looking at our above example, what if you wanted www.shoe.com but had to settle with www.shoes.com. There will probably be a great deal of people that full intended to order their footwear from your web site but instead went to the singular version, none the wiser. The same thing goes for articles like “the”, “my”, and “our”. Some web site visitors will forget to place the article at the beginning of the address and will be taken somewhere completely different. Imagine how confusing it would be if there were three major retailers called “Wal-Mart” “Walmart” and “Walmarts”. You wouldn’t want such minor differences in your offline store, why make the same mistake when choosing a domain name?

Posted in Article Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Web Site Partnerships – Content Creation

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 by mikeq

As an experienced content writer and editor, I often get offers from web developers to enter partnerships in building and promoting web sites. There are many skilled web designers that often struggle with content and find this to be one of the most expensive parts of building a web site. I, on the other hand, have never pretended to be anywhere near an expert in designing and promoting web sites. Therefore, a web site partnership between a content writer and a web designer/marketer can be a match made in heaven.

In essence, the designer agrees to build and promote the web site while the content writer agrees to write and manage all of the content from the home page to the contact us section. Except for the costs associated with domain purchase and hosting, this partnership can result in a cheap or free web site with an investment of only time. Although I usually limit my partnerships to the owner of Content Customs or members of the web development team, I always take partnership offers very seriously because they can be an excellent way to build a web site quickly and easily; and so should you.

Making the Time for Partnerships

Of course, having a full time job and writing or designing in your free time can be quite a task. However, there are always a million excuses for not doing something. It can be tough to spend your week days doing the same thing that you do in your free time during the weekends. However, partnerships are low risk endeavors that you cannot afford to pass up, especially if you are a content writer. We keep our prices low because we like to work with both large clients that have a strong, established business and enjoy quality content at low prices and start up web sites that may not have any more of a budget than a few pay checks. Content, no matter how you spin it, is expensive.

Saving That Content

At this point, I have sold almost every college paper I wrote during by Bachelor’s and Master’s program to web site owners because I was fortunate enough to have kept everything I ever wrote. This taught me one thing, content, no matter the variety or application, is a very valuable thing on the Internet. If you work as a freelancer or have papers from high school or college, throw them up and see who is buying or keep them around for possible use on your own web sites in the future. You never know when that paper you wrote about Robert Frost might be needed by a person looking to sell his literature. In the event of a partnership, you might find that you have enough content to simply release your old work and make little or no additional investment.

Posted in Article Marketing, Content Creation, Freelance Writing, SEO Copywriting | No Comments »

Search Engine Optimization: Keyword Placement

Monday, January 25th, 2010 by mikeq

One of the mistakes that beginning SEO content writers often make is misinterpreting keyword placement and how they function in the entire piece of content. Indeed, permutations of a keyword phrase can be very valuable in increasing an article’s search engine value. However, to get the most value out of each SEO article, you must consider how each keyword is placed in an article and how it contributes to the whole piece.

What Not to Do

While many writers consider only keyword saturation as being important to SEO, there is a great deal more to take into account. After all, based on only this consideration, keyword stuffing would be the best SEO technique. But keyword stuffing is actually one of the worst things that you can do when writing content. If you are unfamiliar with keyword stuffing, think of an article that includes the keywords and only the keywords. Of course, this is an extreme example. Much more common would be an example like the following:

“There are many birds in North America refrigerator. While these birds can vary in both size refrigerator and color refrigerator, much of their anatomy refrigerator is often similar.”

You might assume that this piece of content would rank well for “refrigerator” and “birds”, it would not rank well for long or be of any value to visitors looking for solid information on birds or refrigerators.

Placing SEO Keywords Effectively

There are several rules that you can follow to make sure that your keywords are effective and properly placed. Test your article against the following guidelines:

  1. Do the keywords exactly match the keyword phrases (birds of North America vs. North American birds)?
  2. Do your subtitles contain the keywords of the title?
  3. Does the first sentence of your article include the primary keyword or keyword phrase?
  4. Are there no descriptive words like “the” or “it” that can be replaced with keywords like “birds” or “North America”?

If you were able to answer “Yes” to all of these questions, your article is in very good shape. Although SEO optimization is a great deal more complicated than following the above 4 rules, you can quickly begin generating good content that has the potential to rank well on search engines.

Remember that the highest ranked content depends on a variety of factors that determine how search engines determine its value. In many cases, first page ranked content has more links pointing back to it than lower ranking content on the same subject, a richer (yet proper) saturation of keywords and a web site that justifies the content with related material. While you might need to do much more work with a good piece of SEO content to achieve high rankings, you must start with properly placed keywords before moving on to any more complicated or labor intensive SEO techniques.

Posted in Article Marketing, Content Creation, SEO Copywriting | No Comments »

Generating Good Article Topics

Thursday, January 21st, 2010 by mikeq

One of the most frustrating aspects of developing a web site is generating good article topics. This often requires a great deal of research and thought. One of the temptations that I often struggle with is getting away from the topics that I know I have experience in and thinking as if I was the reader of the web site. Beyond considering which keywords will function most effectively on a web site, think of which topics would be most valuable to the visitors of the web site.

For example, consider a web site focused on playing the guitar as a beginner. Some of the things that beginning guitar players might want to know right off the bat include:

  • How to Choose a Good Guitar
  • Finding Beginning Guitar Method Books
  • Replacing a Broken Guitar String
  • The Process of Tuning a Guitar
  • Finding the Best Guitar Sheet Music

You might not be very familiar with beginning guitar method books. However, many visitors to your web site will be very interested in choosing such books. In addition, such a topic also gives you the opportunity to take advantage of some affiliate programs that will give you a percentage every time a visitor to your web site buys one of their method books using your links.

Researching Article Topics

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when researching which article topics you want is relying on one or two other web sites to determine which ones will be of the most value. Instead, one of your first stops should be the forums. What are people talking about now? There may be posts on a web site that are years old and no longer of interest to many people. However, forum posts are dated. You might find out about recent news in your web site’s subject matter that you previously did not know about.

Another way that you can get some free information about good article topics is by literally asking professionals in that field about what things they consider when practicing their craft. By simply sending an email to some selected professionals, you might be surprised at how much good, free advice you can get. Educators in particular will be very familiar with the questions that beginners tend to ask and typically enjoy giving advice to people that need it.

Finally, consider investing the time in taking part in the activity that your web site centers around. By doing so, you can be your own contributor. For example, if you decide to start a sewing web site but do not have a great deal of experience with sewing, try it out for a while. Ask yourself the following questions:

  1. What materials do I need to begin?
  2. How can I find the best sewing patterns?
  3. How long does it take to sew?
  4. What are some of the issues that I have been having as a beginner in sewing?
  5. Where do I prefer to sew?
  6. Are there any resources that I have found useful in learning to sew?

You don’t have to become a master at the craft but by taking the time to try it out for a while, you will have much more insight into exactly what your visitors will want to know.

Posted in Article Marketing, Content Creation, Freelance Writing | No Comments »

Your Web Site – The First Step in Any Solid Business Plan

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 by mikeq

I was discussing some options for web site development with the owner of Content Customs today, Corry Cummings, and he made a very thoughtful remark that I thought I would share with you today. Every page of content on your web site is another door that your visitors can go through to find you. At first, this seemed like a fairly basic concept. Then, I started to think about how often I talk to site owners that do not keep this concept in mind.

Any online business plan must begin with web site development. It is simply not enough to launch a marketing campaign and hope that the visitors will buy your product or service without a solid base of operations. If you really think about it, your web site is the image that your company shows the world. If it is poorly or under-developed, it has the potential to turn visitors off once they follow the link in your advertising campaign (whether it is through mass emails, forum posts or press releases).

Using Your Web Site as your Marketing Campaign

Many web developers will argue that your web site is really your marketing campaign. This is absolutely true. By developing a large web site with good SEO content, you can minimize or even eliminate the need for other marketing techniques like emails and press releases. In fact, keep these rules in mind when deciding which content is best for your business plan:

  1. Build from your home page. Your site map is one of the most important aspects of site traffic. Make every portion of your web site only a click or two away.
  2. Use press releases and sales letters as supplements, not means. These are both tools to bring attention to your web site, not replace it.
  3. Generate as many keywords as possible. Never hope that potential customers will search for your company’s name rather than the product you offer. If they’re doing that, they are already aware of your services.
  4. Never, ever stop. Some of the top ranking web sites have thousands and thousands of pages of content. Others might have as little as 50. If you are not seeing significant increases in site traffic, this does not mean that you have failed. It simply means that you have more room for growth.

Always investigate opportunities for improving your web site. You may find ways to add content without even having to change your web site map. For example, adding content to existing articles to add keywords can be very effective. As long as you continue to develop and evolve your web site content, your business plan is marked for success.

Posted in Article Marketing, Content Creation | No Comments »