SEO Experts Tips

How do you know what type of content is really going to attract the right searchers?

In this article I wanted to cover a few very basic tips that you can keep in mind when building high-performance strategies. Remember that good search engine marketing is not about trying to manipulate or “fool the search engines.” Good SEO skills are more about creating genuine relevancy for well-written content that deserves to be found because it is truly the most relevant and useful to your audience of readers.

What students quickly discover in the 5-Day classes is that the optimization skills are not nearly as hard as many people make them out to be (even for the most competitive phrases,) once you’ve been trained and understand the full scope of influences that are at work. The biggest advantage that we have had is all about the “accuracy of information.”

1. Write content that your audience is already looking for within the last 90 days.

True keyword research is not about ‘guessing at keywords‘ but its all about researching actual data. How are your SEO research skills using Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery? At the SEO Workshops we teach much more than the traditional “keyword research” methods. We help students learn “Keyword Forensics” and how to quickly tap into the hidden niche trends that 99% of most Webmasters never even notice.

2. Does your Web copy speak to the reader or does it speak about yourself?

Remember that your Web site should be focused on your audience first and appeal specifically to a niche interest. When writing your Web copy, you need to dialog in an appropriate tone and format for the right audience. Some of the most interesting content will have more appeal if it speaks to your audience in terms of “you.” You can, you might, you will, yours, your and you’re INSTEAD of we, ours, we’re, we will, we can, etc.

3. Focus on writing for the human audience first and search engines second.

While search engine optimization is important to your visibility, try writing your content first. Most people don’t write their best when trying to optimize and create content at the same time. Focus on creating highly useful content that is extremely focused on one topic per page. Once you have completed your writing so that you are pleased with it, then go in to do a mild re-write for the search engines.

4. Tips for triggering idea generation and giving your strategies a unique twist.

While many people seem to spend time exploring their competitor’s Web sites, we encourage you to lead the way with new ideas. Try not to be obsessed with what the competition is doing, but be creative and start your own new trends. Spend just a little more time working on your projects this week than you did last week. Setting yourself apart from the competition is easier than you might think and gives you a huge advantage over others.

5. Creating your content so that it “speaks” to a specific audience of visitors.

Think of how your Web copy reads and ensure the dialog flows smoothly. Read your work out loud and see if you can improve the tone of your message with natural expression. Keep your specific audience in mind. How you write for senior citizen (in tone and in format) may differ considerably from writing for an audience of for example “new parents.” Always ask yourself “what is important to these readers?” Rely on researching accurate data to eliminate guess work.

6. Remember strong calls to action

Without a firm call to action, don’t expect the reader to naturally guess at what you want them to do next. Plain ordinary dialog that asks the reader to take the next action will usually work best. Dialog that is written for voice (similar to the way a broadcaster writes to project their personality.)

7. Build your search engine optimization skills in the beginning with the “stress free” approach.

If you are new to SEO, you may want to focus on the long tailed niche phrases since most searchers are doing fairly descriptive and intelligent searches these days. Ideally you want to attract those who already know what they are looking for and just need to find your pages more easily. With practice and the right training you can go after highly competitive phrases too but you’ll find that the best conversions nearly always come from the niches. Also remember that it is the basic SEO skills that carry you through and must come before any of the advanced strategies. The result will be stable top rankings that stand the test of time with minimal fuss.

8. Give your readers a non-threatening reason to respond right now.

What is the objective for your page and does your Web copy work effectively at fulfilling that objective? It may not always be about trying to sell a product or a service. It should not be about fulfilling your needs first but it should be about meeting the needs of why that searcher first conducted a search. Meet their needs and deliver up something that satisfies their search first and then give the visitor a non-threatening reason why they might respond to you. Do you want their e-mail address? Or do you just want them to pick up the phone and call? Never lose sight of the fact that the Web is a marvelous two way interactive experience, if you want it to be. Make your Web site a vehicle for relationship building and remember that many readers may actually have the desire to interact and participate through Blogs or other “User Generated activity.” Give your visitors something that involves their participation.

9. Remember that your readers always want to feel like they are in control of their Web experience.

People often use the Web for researching topics of interest or doing preliminary price comparisons or for looking up information. While most people explore the Web for their own purposes, the more that you put them in control of their experience the better. If appropriate, you may want to consider adding additional tools or functionality to your Web site in order to enhance its usability for your specific audience.

10. Did you know that if you write your content so that it naturally “reads very well.”

You will naturally gain some bonus for having created content of quality. By this, I mean content…that reads well to a human being. Don’t stuff keywords all over the place. Instead, use moderation in everything you do. One of the things you need to understand is that “theme based” search engines like Google, are actually using a measure of artificial intelligence (AI) to measure how well your article “reads” based on all of the overall context of your body text (other than the keywords) based on data that a search engine has gathered concerning a specific topic. This is great news for writers because if you are making a transition to writing for the web, you’ll find some search engines are literally rewarding pages that are “well written.”
John Alexander

Specifically, linkbait is used to attract visitors to your website whether through interest, anger or knowledge seeking. Linkbait is content that is specially written to either educate, entertain or inflame your readership and prospective readers. These articles create buzz, and the buzz spreads virally from site to site in the form of links and comments that others make about what is written on your site. These inbound or back links are used by search engine algorithms to rank a website. The higher the rank, the higher the listing, the more traffíc that arrives at your website. More visitors create more buzz which in turn creates more visitors. Linkbait creation is a marketing campaign on steroids and falls under the task of link building. Its sole aim is to increase the quantity of high-quality, relevant links to a website.
Search engine optimized on a specific keyword phrase, linkbait comes in two flavors: specific, helpful, useful content written by an authority in a niche market or content that will incite discussion and sometimes argument on a niche subject. Either way, linkbait articles attract visitors to your website.

Here’s the difference. Your content is supposed to generate links from other websites, right?. That is the goal. You want people to like or hate your article/post/rant enough to write about it on their website and post with that follow-up a link back to your site and page of where the content is sitting. This is basic viral marketing in that visitors don’t just read your material, but webmasters who find you are either riled up enough to rant about your post/article on their website or love it enough so that they quote it and refer to it. This becomes a never-ending source of links back to your site.

What happens with backlinks or one-way links from other sites? The search engines keep a count of how many sites link back to your website giving you love and higher listings in their search engines which translates to more traffic for your website. This form of viral marketing is used successfully by many; however, a lot of webmasters are overlooking this very easy method to boost their natural search engine listings. Natural search engine listings are the ones you don’t pay for, that help your website naturally improve and hang around in search engines for long periods of time.

Looking at linkbait, there are essentially a few different types. Let’s go through those, and then look at the best, always guaranteed to attract forms that have been used since the term was invented.
Informational: If you provide information that educates and informs your readership, they will always return and use it as reference. Copyblogger and Problogger often provide these types of articles.

News: Keeping up with the breaking news on the web and around the world is followed by readers who want to know, in capsule form, what’s happening.

Humor: Funny stories, bizarre pictures or videos, cartoons and jokes are always a winner. People love a chuckle and references or collections of these are always a traffic attractor.

Controversy: Rant and rave on something or someone in a negative fashion and people will love to stop by and dispute your view. It will always yield a ton of attention. Writing something unpopular gets and keeps readers who want to air their views on your views. They will also rant about your unpopular views on their sites and link back to yours so that others can follow suit.

Resource: One of the best forms of linkbait is building a resource list. A good list will not only be indexed and listed, but will be passed by word of mouth and links on other sites. It creates a great deal of credibility for you and your website in a particular niche, and will become a reference work. Creating a niche specific líst is an invaluable resource for people in that particular realm, and will make your readership loyal. If you have a great resource page, it is literally gold. You can have hundreds of other pages of content, but what will steadily attract people and cause them to return and refer others is a good resource in their niche.

One of the best examples of the resource type of linkbait is Smashing Magazine, a blog devoted to nothing but lists of resources that draws a continual stream of visitors and is referred to by all who visit. It has everything and is not only an extremely interesting read, but one of the best resource link sites around. As a result, folks quote it, refer to it, use and love it. The resource lists are quality content, and that’s the big difference between success and failure in this form of marketing. If you create a lousy linkbait article, it will fail. Further, your credibility will suffer. First impressions count on the web and with only nine seconds to convince the arriving traffic that you are worthy of them sticking around, you need to deliver quality content, astounding resource lists and consistent high levels of content that is valuable and entertaining.

All in all, you really need only remember one thing when starting this type of marketing campaign: provide quality content that is useful, interesting and entertaining. Deliver it in a professional style and make it as user-friendly as possible. Optimize for search engines, and folks will find you. Allow for comments on your material and traffic will come.

Author/Philip C