Remember when you were in school and your teacher told you what to write about? Those were the good old days, weren’t they? Now you have to come up with your own stuff and it isn’t so easy. That is why keyword research is hands down the best combatant of writer’s block. When a writer has keyword research, they have their assignment.

Beginning
Keyword research is the best antidote for writers block because beginning is the hardest part of writing. If you don’t know where to begin, then you have endless possibilities. Endless possibilities lead to never starting anything. In Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau asks his visitor “if he ever wished to write his thoughts.” The gentleman replied, “no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time!”

Sometimes it does feel as if writer’s block will kill us. If you are set to the task of writing about a broad topic, it can be debilitating. I’ve never had so much trouble writing until I began writing about writing. The subject is so vast. But when I am put to the task of writing for clients who have keyword research, everything falls into place so nicely.

Many SEO’s will take keyword research and turn it into a site map for their clients. In these cases, I have the subject for each page I have to write. No anxiety, no lost sleep, no uncertainty – it’s brilliant!

Brainstorming
Keyword research, in all it’s glory doesn’t get you out of brainstorming. Each of the keyword terms recommended by an SEO has many different articles/pages that can potentially be written. Keyword research does give writers a place to begin and a focus. Brainstorming with focus has always brought about executable ideas in less time for me.

Uncertainty
Keyword research also combats the issue of uncertainty. As writers, we are constantly concerned with whether or not our audience will like what we are writing about. This uncertainty causes writers to over think everything and never complete anything. Jane Addams said, “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt.” Keyword research gives writers the confidence of writing what people are searching for.

This makes me want to send thank you letters to all of the SEO’s I’ve worked with that have done keyword research for my clients. You guys are great and make my job easier!

Our world-wide web is one made up of links; without them, no web. Plain and simple. It’s thus that any threat to linking  affects us all.

In China the dominant search engine Baidu was acquitted for linking to illegal music downloads.

The reason, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court said, is that Baidu doesn’t pirate those tracks themselves and therefore have no responsibility in paying any damages.

That reasoning is close to the one followed in the USA where the 2000 Judge Kaplan decision barred sites from linking to (illegal) content if 3 conditions were met: 1. you had to know, when linking, that the illegal stuff was there, 2. know that the illegal content is illegal to offer, 3. make or keep the link in order to spread the illegal content.

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LINK WARS (2)

Closer to home (the invidual site vs. the rest of the world), in the UK a consortium of online newspapers is officially fed up with aggregators stealing or "stealing" their content.

Online news aggregator NewsNow’s bot has been blocked in robots.txt.

The underlying problem is the Newspaper Licensing Agency agreement which basically states that if you make its members’ content available, you have to pay license fees. The problem being that "content" would also refer to circulating links.

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GOOGLE: COUNTRY OR MAFFIA?

Google made industry observers laugh when Eric Schmidt said that Google is no country; they don’t even have their own police, prosecutors, or jails.

Which would make the "if you don’t do this, we”ll do that" simple, menacing threats.

Google does have its own enforcers and while it has no jail its cement ballast dragging a site down to –950, choking the life out of a business is probably just as effective – if not more.

Or, as Steve Jobs put it, "‘Don’t be evil’ is a load of crap"^source

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GOOGLE’S IDEA OF DUPLICATE CONTENT: THEFT

On that "Don’t Be Evil" note: Google’s 2008 "settlement" to scan and republish copyrighted book material continues to encounter the stiff opposition it deserves.

Bird’s eye overview: Google said it was going to scan any book it could get. Not for private use (permitted under fair use) but to republish huge chunks of them.

To try to stay out of trouble they said "OK, we’re going to scan books that are out of print". Here’s the catch though: several of those out of print books are still under full copyright protection.

Google will display substantial parts of these books – and if you want to read the whole thing you can buy the book from Google. 63% will go to the original publisher, the rest to, you guessed it, Google.

That’s so far beyond what copyright laws allow, it’s what we commonly refer to as pure plain and simple theft.

Google was taken to court and 1 out of 4 US American writer associations made a settlement with Google, in effect signing over the digital rights to certain titles to Google.

Another crazy aspect of the settlement is that unless you opted out, you’re automatically opted in.

European countries have already protested and books from France and Germany, among other countries, are already excluded.

Now one of the other writer’s guild is opposing Google’s book scam scan plans as are Amazon and a group of academic writers.

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GOOGLE APOLOGIZES FOR THEFT, PROMISES "SETTLEMENT"

A Chinese association representing 8,000 Chinese writers was pretty upset Google already had gone ahead scanning books that aren’t theirs.

The scanning has been done in recent years.

Google has now apologized and has handed over a list of books it has pirated scanned and has said it will forge an agreement to scan these books.

Why Google has gone ahead digitizing  these titles without such an agreement in place is unclear.

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• By using tags you can provide a more granular way to break down the content on your website.
• This break down can provide alternate navigation paths to your content for both humans and search engines.
• This break down becomes more useful to humans if you link words/tags within the main body of the content.
• This break down is extremely effective for serving very targeted advertising or affiliate links.
• Care should be taken to minimize duplicate content and duplicate/similar tags

How to Use Tags on Your Blog or Website [Graywolf]

In honor of the newly released Sherlock Holmes movie, let’s deduce what Sherlock Holmes would say concerning copywriting. It’s elementary.

Details
Holmes has an absolute obsession for details. Copywriters need the same voracious appetite for them. The details of your product, service, or company are their most interesting aspects. Holmes said, “The little things are infinitely the most important.”¹

The details are what set you apart from your competition. They paint a picture, allowing potential clients to get to know your company. Once copywriters obtain the details, they can deduce the facts.

Facts
Sherlock Holmes exclaims, “Data, data, data. I cannot make bricks without clay.”^{2, 3}

Without the facts, copywriters are ineffective. Your “first point of attack”² as Holmes would say is to ask, “What are the facts?”² Holmes said a great deal about facts. We can thus deduce that he felt very strongly about them, as should all copywriters. He said the following:

“The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.”⁴

This temptation is also the bane of the copywriting profession. Too many copywriters write from their own perspective instead of gathering the facts. Armed with facts, the next step is to recognize which are incidental and which are vital.

“It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.”⁵

Once the incidental facts are removed, you have the vital facts. From the vital facts, you must deduce the most important fact – the lead. Any good sleuth knows not to bury the lead. But how would Sherlock Holmes discover the lead?

Concern
After Holmes collected the facts from the police, he then asked, “What is the major concern?”²

To discover the lead, copywriters need to ask themselves, what is the major concern of my target market? Without a clear understanding of what motivates, copywriters can get off track. Devoting attention and energy to facts that are unimportant to the target market is an easy mistake. The art of copywriting is recognizing what is vital to your target market.

Watson
What would Sherlock do without Watson? The 2009 movie showed us Sherlock’s reluctance to let Watson go. Copywriters should feel the same way about their editors. If you have a good editor, never let them go.

Having another person to bounce ideas off of is indispensable. Sherlock said, “Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.”⁶ Through their years of partnership, Holmes and Watson develop an understanding of one another that allows them to speak candidly. They constantly question and provoke the other to better work. This is the relationship that copywriters should aspire to with their editors. Your editor is the tool that sharpens your writing.

In the words of Sherlock Holmes, “You know my methods. Apply them.”⁷

References:

1. A Case of Identity – http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes
2. 2009 Sherlock Holmes Movie
3. The Adventure of Beryl Coronet – http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes
4. Unknown Source – http://thinkexist.com/quotes/sherlock_holmes/
5. The Reigate Puzzle – http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes
6. Silver Blaze – http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes
7. The Sign of the Four – http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes

These are the top five things I intend on doing in 2010.

1. Update my website.

You’ve heard the story before (or one just like it) about the guy who builds bookcases for a living, but has all their books lying on the floor at home. Or the lawn maintenance person who doesn’t have the energy to mow their own lawn when they get home.

In the web dev industry, our sites get neglected sometimes. Of course I don’t mean everyone, as some people are pretty kickass at keeping things up-to-date. When I am writing guest blog posts and writing reports for clients all day long, the last thing I want to do when I get home is write more. I have a wonderful life outside of work. I think that life needs to have a good balance. This means being a workaholic is out of the question. Unfortunately, it also means my website needs some serious updating.

This tweet from Darren Slatten (aka SEOmofo) beautifully illustrates my point

2. Learn more HTML.

My knowledge of HTML is pretty darn basic, but it gets me by. I do plan on learning more though. Quite often it’s not that convenient to get other people to update simple stuff for me.

It’s not necessary to learn how to create an entire website, but it sure does help to know some basic HTML. Even with Content Management Systems (CMS) it still doesn’t hurt to know how to write a link properly. Oftentimes a CMS will make your formatting look a little wonky, so it’s nice to be able to take a look at the code and figure out what is wrong.

Here are some free courses that I am going to check out:

• W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
• HTML Beginner from HTML Dog

3. Make it to at least one conference.

If I have to pick only one, I choose PubCon in Vegas. Michael Streko of KnowEm swears it is THE conference to go to. I’ve heard this from other reputable internet marketing peeps as well.

Working as a lone SEO can be lonely sometimes. And to be quite frank, it can be uninspiring. Having the opportunity to chat with other people about doing what I love is uplifting and reminds me why I like doing internet marketing so much.

Let's go to Vegas baby!

4. Write more guest blog posts.

I have been invited by other sites to guest post for them and I’ve been putting it off (Hi Ann). Fact of the matter is that guest posting is a great way to build links and improve your personal online branding.

Like anything, once I make something a habit, I can make it stick. If you choose to go this route remember to not spread yourself too thin. Writing a quality blog post can take time!

5. Comment on more blog posts.

I used to comment on SEOmoz on a regular basis. As a result of my comments I’ve received job requests, job interviews and even a request to quote what I said.

Commenting intelligently on blog posts is a great way to connect with other people in your industry. Note how I said intelligently. Generic comments won’t get you noticed. Make sure you take the time to think of something somewhat insightful to say.

Commenting is also a fantastic way to get your name splattered all over the search engine results pages while building links. If you Google Steph Woods SEO you will find comments I’ve left for people on their internet marketing blogs.

What are you waiting for? Start by leaving a comment here today!

What do you plan on doing in 2010? We’d love to hear your plans!

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Stephanie Woods is an internet marketer living in Kelowna, BC. You can find her at her neglected internet marketing blog. She also works part-time at Csek Creative. When she’s not helping clients achieve their online goals, you’ll find her riding her beloved snowboard any time she can.

One of the most refreshing things I do when writing for clients is to talk to their clients. I love doing this and wish I could do it more. People like to talk. It’s amazing. I sometimes forget how easily interviews go and begin nervously over preparing. Then I get on the phone and they talk. I learn so much; it is magical.

The copy that come from talking to people is always the easiest to write and the most rewarding. It speaks to potential clients in a way that I could never do by myself. The personal connection shines through the written words. People desire connection. Potential customers are able to connect by reading about someone’s relationship with your company and products.

Reaching out not only creates new relationships, it strengthens the one you have with the customer you are speaking to. The one lovely human being you talk to knows many, many people. When people are shone the least bit of attention, they shine with excitement. It is so rare that a company will reach out to their clientele that you are certain to be talked of to every person they know. Word-of-mouth marketing is powerful but we seem to have trouble sparking it. Showing attention to customers will spark it.

How can you connect with customers?
1. Understand the power of questions.
2. Understand the power of listening.
3. Make a list of questions that lead to open-ended conversation and use them whenever you get the chance.
4. Have a contest & highlight the winner in a blog post or newsletter article.
5. Randomly call one client a week and ask them your questions.

With the information you glean from customers, write. Write about about the things they tell you.

Multiple Digital Channels & Asset Development

SEO now spans in to the reaches of social media like most would expect – hence the rising interest in SMO (social media optimisation).  This is fascinating from an SEO perspective, as those that work in broad, organic visibility roles are no longer considering organic SERPs from a pure website optimisation / link-building perspective but through a multi-channel optimisation…developing many online assets for multiple listings that capture the breadth of searchers’ intent on generic and niche terms.

Essentially, this might mean that a large corporation or a SME ecommerce site must consider what channels they can look to harness, within their budgets, in order to directly or indirectly drive sales / conversion volumes.  But this complex decision is only getting more complex with more emerging online channels…

Changing competition, economics, marketing channels and an online marketplace

In the olden days, people might have been able to rank for generic terms with just a few minor on-site considerations and a handful of links, but as link-profiles get larger, marketplaces get bigger and alternative online marketing channels emerge, it’s becoming more economical to compete with larger assets and larger ambitions online.  SMO and SEO are seeing integration like never before.

SMO, SEO, ORM and SERM,

Acronyms aside, there has been a stack of news of late that quite literally has the potential to shake the industry up.  The two that have most closely sprung to mind are personalization and real-time.  You might have seen a recent tweet or two about how spammable SERPs are, and for me this is the classic example of how easily SERPs, via social media, can be manipulated with such little effort.  As a result, I think the threats (and opportunities) of such brand mentions can be quite clearly highlighted.

3 Roles of Organic (Earned) Optimisation

If search engines maintain their role as consumer’s ‘go-to’ place for information online, then we are going to have to maintain our role across three areas.  We will be charged with not only protecting the reputation of these brands but also building their awareness, whist also optimising search engine and social media channels to meet and exceed the financial business goals.

Taking the personalisation revelation too, we can also see the ramifications of passing behavioural signals to Google – so the bigger the recognition of the brand, the more likely that the searcher will click-through – creating a self-fulfilling circle of:

• Brand-building (via SEO / SMO)
• Visibility (via SEO / SMO)
• Brand recognition
• Behavioural factors, e.g. click-throughs (via search engines)
• Greater visibility again

Brand development has never been such an integral part of SEO.

Meeting business goals through optimisation, whatever the channel

As Google continues to dominate online share of voice on who makes it big, items such as real-time results and personalisation must force brand owners to consider how they develop web assets as go-to places in their own right, take control of their brand, manage the SERPs and add genuine value to their consumers.

Running for the hills and staying there is not going to avoid bad PR.  Social media engagement and optimisation might indeed be the only way you can protect your brand.

About Ben McKay

Ben McKay is a SEO Manager for Mediaedge:cia, writing about the life of an SEO management over at Just Me and My SEO.  Please say hello to Ben on Twitter!

In all honesty it is only one small part of the search engine ranking equation. Optimizing your website as your sole tactic will not help you to get to the number one spot on Google (for anything competitive at least).

The good news is that it will help. Think of it as a solid foundation to build on. Would you want the foundation of your house to be made of cotton balls or cement?

Here’s your chance to tell search engine spiders what your page is about. Use keyword research and onpage optimization to create a solid foundation and use it alongside excellent (and relevant) content creation.

Ranking Factors

SEOmoz compiled a list of ranking factors that were rated by a panel of 72 SEO experts. According to the survey the top 10 most important onpage (keyword specific) ranking factors are:

• Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
• Keyword Use as the First Word(s) of the Title Tag
• Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name (e.g. keyword.com)
• Keyword Use Anywhere in the H1 Headline Tag
• Keyword Use in Internal Link Anchor Text on the Page
• Keyword Use in External Link Anchor Text on the Page
• Keyword Use as the First Word(s) in the H1 Tag
• Keyword Use in the First 50-100 Words in HTML on the Page
• Keyword Use in the Subdomain Name (e.g. keyword.seomoz.org)
• Keyword Use in the Page Name URL (e.g. seomoz.org/folder/keyword.html)

There are no set rules for achieving high search engine rankings. The search engines keep their algorithms secret in order to avoid manipulation.

One thing is for certain: If you review any site that is performing well in the search engine results pages (i.e. Google), you will notice that they have most likely completed the following bare minimum onpage tactics listed below.

Please note: There are more onpage tactics that can be used if you have the time. I’ve included links at the bottom of this article that reference other sites that go further into detail. Quite often I run into clients who don’t have huge budgets. So doing every single little thing to optimize the site (all at once, at least) is not always the most efficient use of time. I do, however, always recommend at least covering these basics.

Keyword Research

Before the optimization of a site can begin, you need to start with some keyword research. The purpose of doing keyword research is to discover which keywords people are using on the search engines.

In short, you need to attract the right visitors to your website. In order to do so, you need to know what words people are using on Google to find your product or service (for all stages of the buying cycle).

Keyword research can be quite intensive. For some more detailed information on how to do keyword research, here are a few posts to check out:

Hint: If you’re pressed for time and cannot afford to do at least 20 plus hours of proper keyword research, try out Google’s free keyword tool. Using only one keyword source is not the most scientific way to do research, but it’s honestly better than guessing.

Choose Terms & Phrases

When your keyword research is complete, the next step is to choose two or three keyword phrases for each page on your website. This includes related keywords and modifiers (e.g Christmas gifts for men, Christmas gift ideas for men, gifts for men for Christmas, etc).

I recommend using an Excel doc to keep track of what keyword phrases you have selected for each page (in order to avoid duplication). To understand what I mean, check out this article from Search Engine Journal: How to Use Excel to Plan Meta Tags, Titles and URLS for SEO.

For very basic onpage optimization (and arguably all you need), the selected term or phrase (with variations) is then included in the:

• Title tag
• Body content
• URL

Title Tag

This explains what the page is about. When Google displays a page in the search engine rankings, this is the title the searcher will see above the page description (which is the meta description in most cases).

It should be limited to 65 characters or less so it is displayed properly on the search results page. Be sure to include your most important keyword phrase you have selected for that particular page. If possible use it at the beginning of the title.

The following are some results for the Google search “Christmas gifts for men”. Notice how all of the following page one results have “Christmas gifts for men” in their page title. Also, note how Google highlights the keywords I used to search with.

Body Content

Creating a page that is relevant to the searcher’s query (a.k.a. what someone Googles) is important to ranking well in the search engines. After all, the reason search engines exist is so that people can find information. The search engines prefer to do their job well. Make sure your information is worthy of being found and displayed.

I’ve mentioned this before, but there is no magical combination of keywords you can use on a page to make it more findable in the search engine results. If you want to keep it super simple, forget about percentages and formulas and do the following:

• Make sure your content matches the keyword phrase(s) you’re targeting for each page and then write naturally. If you do your keyword research correctly, this shouldn’t be tough to do.
• Use a variation of your chosen keyword phrase(s) in the main H1 tag at the top of the page.

URL Writing

Having the primary keyword in a URL can also help a page’s ranking. This doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be the name of your website. Example: www.christmasgiftsformen.com.

Anywhere in the URL works (and is generally more practical). Example: www.FashionableMale.com/christmas-gifts-for-men.

One important thing to remember if you ever change your existing URLs: Make sure you do a permanent 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL. If this sounds completely confusing and out of your element, you will need a web developer to help you out with this one.

For more info on 301 redirects you can check out Google Webmaster Central.

META DESCRIPTION

The search engines display meta descriptions on their results pages, so the description needs to be compelling and informative.

The meta description is a short blurb inviting customers to find the answers they seek on your website. When writing the meta description, remember what the motivation for the click might be.

It can work to your advantage to use keyword variations in the meta description because the search terms used will be shown in bold. This can make a big difference in clicks and visibility because it stands out to the scanning eye.

The maximum number of characters for display (including spaces) is 160 characters.

Meta Keywords

At one point in time, meta keywords held some value with all of the search engines. Do not focus too much time on meta keyword selection as this data is only of minor importance when it comes to ranking.

In fact, I wouldn’t even bother with them if you’re looking to save some time.

Covering the basics for site optimization doesn’t need to be overly complicated, but it does require educating yourself on how to do it. If all of this seems like a lot to deal with, don’t worry. There are plenty of online marketers around who are more than willing to help you with your site!

Resources

Here are some other SEO peeps who have offered their views on onpage optimization:

1. Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization
2. On-page SEO – The Google Way
3. On Page SEO Basics

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Stephanie Woods is an internet marketer living in Kelowna, BC. You can find her at her new internet marketing blog . She has also been known to frequent Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.

Communicating is not an easy task. Especially through the website copy. Communicating to our target market is about knowing who they are, what they like, etc… But have we considered the people that we alienate when communicating to our target market?

Often times, to make a point or win people over we make fun of or belittle other people. This is all fun and games until people are offended. Even the target market can become offended for those people and be turned off to the product or service.

This may seem like common sense but I think not. In fact, I think that most of the time we don’t even know that we are being offensive. We become immersed in the culture of our company which promotes a culture of “us” vs. “them.” Inside our culture we are not concerned about “them” or being offensive because we are surrounded by like-minded people. Once our thoughts are published online, they become public and not everyone who reads will be like-minded. This creates the environment where alienation can easily take place.

The good news is that we can present an image without alienating. A campaign that achieved this is the MAC/PC commercials by Apple. They are able to present an image of youth, creativity and style without alienating the 40 plus population or analytical people. I haven’t met one person (even my parents, computer nerds and avid PC users) who haven’t enjoyed the humor of those ads. This communication tells people that they will be youthful, creative and stylish if they have a MAC, no matter their age or the side of their brain they use.

It would have been easy for Apple to inadvertently alienate the 40 plus population and brainy people by making fun of them. Possibly insinuating that old, geeky people use PCs and young, creative people use MACs instead of MACs making people youthful and creative. Instead, everyone loves PC. He is adorable & likeable and yet, the target market still desires a MAC. The campaign successfully presents the image of a MAC without alienating people that aren’t in the target market.