Persona = motivation (what the visitor needs, why they are on your site)
Personality = temperament (how they navigate, what they need to see or read to find what they want)

Using both personalities and personas is important when writing great content that is both user- and search-engine friendly.

Use personalities to give your visitors the content the need

Despite what we believe about some people, every person has a personality. That personality determines how searchers seek out information that interests them. It effects keywords, sites they click on, how they navigate and what their expectations are.

There are four basic personality types, and every person usually has one that is dominant over the others, while maintaining some attributes of them all. Understanding these personality types helps you create a site that provides visitors the information they need to make the best decision for them and for you.

The four personality types:

• Competitive (aka Choleric or Lion)
• Spontaneous (aka Phlegmatic or Golden Retriever)
• Humanistic (aka Sanguine or Otter)
• Methodical (aka Melancholy or Beaver)

Competitive
Mal is a competitive personality. He wants to see options before making a decision. Not just some of them; all of them. He will often look at every nuance possible to determine which iteration of a particular product or service is the best one. Because of this, Mal can become frustrated when he can’t find the “perfect” option.

Mal is driven and thrives on challenges, sometimes even volunteering when others avoid. Everything is measured in goals and achieving those goals. Leisurely (non-goal oriented) activity is difficult for Mal as he measures his self worth through success. Mal does not like inefficiency and constantly seeks ways to improve things. When looking for a product, the one and only concern is – will it help him achieve his goals. As such, he is also hard to sell to, as he isn’t easily swayed by fluffy marketing language.

Traits:

• Spontaneous buyers – no time to “shop around”
• Curiosity driven – try to peak their interest
• Goal oriented – they are there for a purpose
• Appreciates honesty – no BS!
• Loyal customer – earn their business, they’ll be back
• Hard to sell – forget all the emotional fluff
• Dislikes inefficiency and disorganization – make your site EASY to use
• Impatient – tell them and tell them quick!
• Abandons page and sale easily – if they can’t find it they’re out

To sell to Mal, you must start with being upfront and honest. Creditability is important and you can establish that by saying what most people won’t–point out your own negatives along with your positives. Never make claims that cannot be substantiated and proven true. Do what you can to demonstrate the true value of your product without over-hyping it. Make sure all necessary information is readily available so they don’t have to dig just to find what they need. Use links and calls to action to get them to take the next step in the conversion process.

Spontaneous
Kaylee is a follower of whatever happens to be the latest trends and places a high value on others opinions. For her, it’s not so much about finding the value herself, but seeing what other trusted sources have to say. This gives her assurance she is making the right purchasing decision. She also fears missing out on a good thing, which can cause her to buy based on the excitement factor alone. Immediate gratification is a primary motivation, so great customer service before and after the sale helps provide the comfort and justification needed to help her feel like she made a good decision.

Traits:

• Follows trends – fads are a good thing
• Feeds on positive opinion – get testimonials and reviews
• Opinion-based buying – facts don’t matter so much
• Sold by word of mouth – social media is key
• Turned away by negative opinions – good products rule
• May suffer from buyer’s remorse – after-the-sale reinforcement is needed to get them back

To sell to Kaylee, your site must go beyond the bland corporate mumbo-jumbo. Content must be captivating and speak to her on an emotional level. Kaylee wants a lot of information but will likely skim until she finds what she needs. Be sure to clearly show your unique value proposition and that of your products and/or services. Provided they are good, having ready access to customer reviews and testimonials will be the final push for her purchasing decision.

Humanistic
Zoe wants to see your testimonials, but for a different reason. She is looking for anything that confirms that you are able to meet her needs, and the testimonials will either back that up or send up the red flags. Zoe looks at the bigger picture when making decisions and will often put the needs of others before herself. She wants to choose something that has broad acceptance, fearing any decision that may leave her hung out to dry on a planet full of Reavers. She doesn’t like getting “locked in,” so providing options for cancellation or returns can give her a sense of freedom to change her mind.

Traits:

• Motivated by security – display guarantees, return and cancellation policies
• Repeat buyer – once comfortable, they’ll come back
• Scared of commitment – make buying (and changing mind) easy
• Needs constant reassurance – hold their hand through the sales process
• Relies too heavily on others’ opinions – build up positive reviews and testimonials

To reach Zoe, be sure to have ample links to the pages that reinforce your trust, commitment and quality. About us and testimonial pages are frequently visited so make sure yours is robust. Provide reassurances via guarantees, links to policy pages and iterate your site security. Be sure your content maintains a personal tone and often speaks of the bigger picture, as to Zoe, it’s not always about her.

Methodical
Simon Tam will be the most likely to read every word on your page. In fact, he’s likely to read every page on your site. He’s not an impulse buyers but reviews and weighs all the evidence in order to make an informed decision. Dr. Tam is a logical person with an eye for detail. He is likely on your site looking to solve a problem of some kind. Before making a decision, he weighs everything to make sure it is a responsible decision in the end.

Traits:

• Feature oriented – benefits are not warranted here
• Does not like fluff – be straight and honest
• Factual based buyer – back up your claims
• Engaged in content – more info is good info
• Skeptical – convincing may be tough
• Needs specific, detailed information – provide as much as you can

To reach Simon you need to present hard evidence in an organized fashion. He doesn’t care about a personal touch, but rather wants an authoritative voice. Simon likes graphs and tables, specs and any other detailed “proof” you can provide. State your facts with little fluff as that only raises the skeptical hairs on his head. Don’t say anything that sounds too good to be true, because it likely is and Simon will walk away.

Using information about these basic personalities helps SEOs and content writers to structure a website with the most appropriate content available on each page. Used in conjunction with established personas, the site content can be created to meet the specific needs of different individuals with different temperaments, different desires and different goals… but ultimately driving them to the final goal: the sale.

Addressing the right persona with the right temperament in the right place can be tricky. But these considerations are an important part of creating a website that will drive the most conversions possible.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

When creating engaging content, there are two concepts that you must first understand: why visitors are on your site and what they want to find. These two concepts can be translated into two words: personas and personalities.

Persona = motivation (what the visitor needs, why they are on your site)
Personality = temperament (how they navigate, what they need to see or read to find what they want)

If you want to create content that engages with your audience and motivates them to take the conversion action you desire, you have to get into the mind of the visitor. Know what they want and why, and then you can create content that engages readers on their level and allows your content to meet their specific needs.

I’ll cover the personality aspect of writing in another post. Here we’ll discuss how to create personas that help you understand your visitors’ motivations, why they are on your site and how your content can convert them based on that knowledge.

Using Personas to See Your Visitor’s Needs

Because there can be dozens, if not hundreds, of reasons a visitor might be coming to your site, it’s easy to get bogged down in trying to develop a persona for every possibility. Don’t get stuck in that trap. With a little work, you can boil everything into a handful of personas that you can use to craft content that meets virtually all of your potential customer’s needs.

I’ve developed three very basic personas that can provide a solid framework for just about any visitor. This is by no means comprehensive, nor will they work for every kind of site, but it can give you a general idea how to quickly put together a persona you can work with. You’ll want to put more work into analyzing visitors to your site specifically, but this should give you start.

The “how-to” Persona
This person is an information seeker. They are not necessarily looking to buy a product or service, but want to learn how do it themselves. This visitor likes checklists, how-to guides, videos and any other information they can get their digital hands on. Basically, they are information and knowledge seekers. Usually they are looking for free information, but some are willing to pay if the value is there.

Example: Athena goes to a baby products site to find out how to properly install a car seat in her Raptor. Her goal is to learn how install the seat properly, with minimal work, and without teaching her baby, Hera, how to say “fracking”, “fracked up”, “frack it” or any other of its variables.

How-to videos or step-by-step instructions give Athena and her hubby, Helo, exactly what they are looking for. This type of free how-to content doesn’t create immediate sales, but it does build brand loyalists. Athena may never become a customer, but she may share information about your site with Starbuck, who also has a child. Or, Athena may post about it on her blog, sharing your content (and brand name) with all of the 12 colonies!

The “I care” Persona
These people are usually researching something they care about, and a thoughtful approach is necessary. They are passionate about a topic and likely consider themselves extremely knowledgeable, if not “experts.” Anything less than authoritative content will likely leave them unimpressed. Your job is to show them how your product or service is going to meet their needs and convince them it is the best solution.

Example: Gaeta goes to a baby products site looking for a safe and reliable car seat. He’s been reading (on your site?) about the importance of car seats, which car seats have better safety ratings, and learning how to install them properly in a number of spacecraft. His goal is to buy the best seat possible, regardless of price. Whistles and bells are a secondary concern. If you can provide the information that satisfies Gaeta’s informational needs, and have the product in stock, you’ve got yourself a reliable customer.

The “Just get it to me” Persona
They are the type that don’t really know what they want but don’t care about much of anything other than, “how do I get this (or do this) fast?” They have a need but are unsure on how to best to fill that need. They just want a product or service that gives them the desire result.

Example: Tigh needs a car seat. To him (and Ellen, his wife), all car seats are essentially the same. They don’t understand why one is more expensive than the other, unless it comes with apps that tap directly into the CIC, or allow him to order his next bottle (his or the baby’s) through a network-connected device. Most likely Tigh will choose the least expensive car seat available, as long as it works and it has a place to hold his flask. Given the right information in the right way, Tigh can be convinced to pay more for certain features.

You can see how each of these personas gives you ammunition for creating content that will meet the needs and expectations of each. Some content may be stand-alone for each persona, however it’s possible to incorporate elements (or links) for each of these into a single page. The better your personas, the better targeted your content will be, and more likely it will be to produce the conversions you want.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

There are countless test you can do with your website to help increase your conversion rates. A/B and multivariate tests can help you increase your conversion rate a couple of points, which can often translate into thousands of dollars of increased profits. But in all that conversion testing, trial and error, banging your head against the wall and twisting customer’s arms until they cry “UNCLE!,” there is often one overlooked piece of information that can help you dramatically improve your conversions.

That piece of information is: information. Content, to be exact!

A little information can go a long way when building relationships with your visitors–your would-be customers and bringers of the sacred sale. Building a relationship that is based on a genuine interest and possible dialogue with your customer can lead to more customers, higher sales and significant business growth. No arm twisting or head-banging needed!

Unfortunately, many websites employ the “less is more” philosophy. They see content as the barrier that prevents the customer from getting to the check out isle. Unfortunately, when you remove the content you are not removing barriers; you’re removing the associate that helps the customer find what they need.

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself in the middle of the store looking for someone–anyone–who can help me. Looking up and down isles, not finding an available employee within driving distance, I get the urge to shout, “I’m going to steal something!” just to see if anyone cares!

Your content shows them you do.

How information wins conversions

Unique content on your home, category, sub-category and product pages explains the value in purchasing your products and services. It allows you to provide the relevant information each visitor needs to know your product will satisfy their wants and needs. It gives them the emotional justification needed to commit to buying what you’re offering and make them feel like a puppy just licked them in the face while they do it!

More information on your site creates less resistance in convincing the customer to buy. Content on your site essentially greases the wheels for the potential customer to move through the various phases of the buying cycle. The more customer focused your information is, the easier it will be for your customers to justify a purchase from you.

Essentially, adding quality information to your site helps your visitors make smart purchasing decisions. When customers make decisions on little and/or incomplete information, you may get the sale today, but quite possibly the return will come in the mail tomorrow. Lacking enough product information and purchase justification on the site means you’ll ultimately lose the customer for life instead of gaining a life-long spending buddy.

Detailed information on your products and services gives you greater opportunity to create happy customers. Being up front with both pros and cons, benefits and possible side-effects, allows the customer to weigh each against that of other products or even your competitors. Short of that information you risk having an unhappy customer or no customer at all, when all that was missing was the correct information they needed to pull the trigger on a purchase.

Well-written and customer-focused content creates an open and honest relationship with your customers. The more open you are about your strengths and weaknesses, the more open your customers will be with you, as well. This will give you better opportunities to meet their needs, if not now, at some later point down the road with new product or service innovation. Even if you lose that customer today, you’ve built a bridge to bring them back to you later.

Building up a content-rich website through all levels of the buying process gives your customers reassurance that you are trustworthy and a valuable resource for them to return to. When customers trust you, they hesitate less when making purchase decisions, which ultimately leads to more customer confidence and translates into greater sales and repeat customers.

Any business looking for the long term customers: content can make the difference between no sale at all and a life-long customer. You’re essentially allowing your content to play the role of the store employee roaming the isles asking customers, “How can I help you?” If you want to get  conversions on your site, you need to think about how much content you’re giving your visitors.

If you don’t have quality, engaging, explanative and customer-focused content on your site, you’re preventing your customers from getting the information they need to make an informed purchase decision. That click you just heard is the sound of your visitors leaving because they can’t find any text that makes them confident in your products or services. That cha-ching is is the sound of your competitors’ cash registers ringing from the sales you just lost! And that crying? That’s you.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

For me, the focal point of the conference (beyond curiosity about Lady Gaga’s bizarre meat dress, currently on display at the Rock Hall) can be summed up in this phrase: fascinate, compel and convert your audience using the power of story. If you want to succeed in online marketing today, content must be a foundational pillar, not some website architect’s last-minute add-on.

Now, just four short days after leaving Cleveland, I’m living in the dénouement, wondering whether I can fit all this juicy beef on the skinny little stretched-out bun I call my normal life. As I continue to chew on ideas that have the greatest potential to empower Pole Position Marketing and our clients, I see five key challenges that many organizations must face in the process of implementing an effective content, search and social campaign.

1. Time.
   Despite the Rolling Stones’ claim that Time is on My Side, that’s not true for a majority of business owners, marketing managers and communication coordinators. Writing blogs, snapping pix, staying on top of social media and capturing videos – even in “real time,” as David Meerman Scott calls it – all takes time. And not just once in a while. To see any fruit from your labors, you must devote time each day on a consistent basis and be prepared to handle the unexpected opportunity or crisis. All quick tips aside, how committed are you to garnering online attention and sales? You’ll need to prove it with your time.
2. Resources.
   You’ve Got a Friend, right? Hopefully, more than one because running a successful content+search+social campaign means having access to the “write” resources. With fewer FTEs on staff these days (or perhaps no other FTE but you), less must be more. However, a marketing specialist isn’t necessarily a writer. And a writer isn’t necessarily a programmer. And a programmer isn’t necessarily a writer or a marketing specialist. (You can usually be guaranteed of the last one.) So, if you need help in these areas, whom do you turn to? Agencies are good, but what if you can’t afford one on an ongoing basis? (That’s another resource issue!) If you are one of the few resources – or the only resource – at your company, you will need to determine just how much you can do or afford on a consistent basis.
3. Creativity.
   While Natasha Bedingfield is staring at the blank page (I can relate), Sally Hogshead makes it clear how important it is to “fascinate” in the world of online content. After all, we’re appealing to readers who, according to Hogshead, have the attention span of a gold fish. But, it’s tough to be creative when you’re working on 10 different projects at once or only had a few hours of sleep. And, if you don’t feel that you’re naturally fascinating (Hogshead says we all have to unlearn how to be boring), what will it take for you to get “in the zone”?
4. Know-how.
   Shania’s not impressed much by rocket scientists, so people who are into online marketing are in luck: it’s not rocket science! But, it IS a rapidly changing field that requires some technical knowledge or (back to #2) knowledgeable resources. Good news here… If you’ve got the time (#1), you can find all the information you need to create, monitor and measure a content campaign, often for free. You just have to wade through tons of online content to learn!
5. Speed.
   High Speed ”you on” in the of world of digital marketing. Things may happen and be over before you even realize anything of importance occurred in your industry. So, to compete online, you must constantly monitor what’s going on and be, at the very least, responsive. Proactive would be better. Do you have all the tools in place that will allow you to create, implement, broadcast and share content quickly (see #4)? Or, may perfectionism, fear or lack of time and/or resources hold you back?

I’m pragmatic by nature (or perhaps by nurture), and I much prefer to acknowledge the foes I face in all areas of life. It gives me the advantage going in, as well as a darn good chance that I’ll prevail in the long run. These challenges – time, resources, creativity, know-how and speed – are my Content Marketing World dénouement, and I will have to overcome them to achieve success in my career as a content marketer.

In the end, I wonder, “Have I bitten off more than I can chew?” It doesn’t matter. I want to taste victory.

Did you attend Content Marketing World last week? If yes, tell me about your experience. Share your comments below or follow me at @martijen or at @PolePositionMkg.

Throughout history, communication has evolved. Common vocabulary has gone from “thou” to “you” to “u”, and in some cases, to “fu!”

Once common words change spelling, meaning and even become obsolete. (Anyone remember wearing “slacks”?) New is the new old.

Soundbites have become essential to anyone wanting to make a point. If it can’t be said in nine seconds, you’re SOL!

I think it’s policy that no policy is good policy unless it can fit on a bumper sticker.

Paragraphs in old books sometimes go on for pages. Paragraphs today are usually no more than a few sentences.

Even long chapters appear too difficult for our quick-takeaway minds to absorb. Why else would Dan Brown be so popular?

We’ve been spoiled by social media. Some might use a different word. #ruined

In the internet age, we have to look beyond the 9 second soundbite and start thinking in 140 character twitterbites.

We must communicate in standalone points. Anything more than 140 characters can’t be tweeted. (120 for retweets.)

If your point is tied to larger concepts that can’t be quickly summarized, it’s difficult to get it socialized.

We have to write–and often even speak–in a way that allows our thoughts to be socialized as easily as possible.

Instead of just getting your post title tweeted by a few, isn’t it better to get your point retweeted by many?

Tweeting a post title is cool and all, but if you can make your point in a tweet, well, you made your point.

Post titles say, “This might interest you.” Twitterbites say “Here’s a good point.”

Twitterbites pass your “authority” without someone having to be read (or scan) your entire blog post.

Do twitterbites prevent clicks? No more than free SEO advice loses clients. Sounds good in theory but doesn’t pan out.

You don’t have to blog in exact twitterbites, but the more you provide, the greater opportunity for re/tweets.

The more re/tweets your twitterbite gets, the greater the exposure, and more your authority builds. #allgood

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Yet, optimizing a site isn’t terribly difficult. Anybody can be taught the basics, which many already know and are implementing on their websites right now. But SEO is more than basic implementation of strategies you’ve read about online or on Twitter. SEO is much bigger the sum of its parts.

There are hundreds of “parts” that can play a role in an effective optimization campaign. Google looks at more than 200 “signals” alone, each with varying degrees of value and necessity. Most people who start out doing SEO soon realize there is a lot to keep up with, and it’s better passed on to more capable hands.

So, just who do these capable hands belong to? Well, that depends on who you talk to. Everybody believes there is a certain level of knowledge and know-how that pre-qualifies you as an SEO. Sometimes it’s fun to see what certain bottom line “requirements” are. In light of that, I put together this list of things you absolutely, certainly, necessarily or quite possibly need to know in order to qualify as an SEO.

You’re not an SEO unless…

…you know HTML code

HTML is pretty much as basic as basic SEO gets. But guess what, you really don’t need to know every bit of HTML to SEO a site. Does it help? Absolutely! You do need a considerable amount of HTML knowledge, but don’t let anyone tell you that if you can’t code an entire site by hand, you’re not an SEO.

…you monitor the search engine algorithms.

SEOs need to know what the search engines are doing, but how much “monitoring” is really required? Some SEOs have almost a religious dedication to documenting, analyzing and testing every detail of an algorithm and then doing it all again when Google makes a change. Others take a big picture approach, looking at long-term SEO strategies that are not affected by every algorithm whim. Just because you don’t monitor algorithms as much as someone else doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you read search engine patents.

I admire those who can read search engine patents and makes sense of them. These individuals have their pulse on what is possibly coming to a search engine near you. But, only possibly. Not all patents actually result in something being incorporated into the algorithm. They help you keep an eye on a possible future, but not necessarily the destined future. Just because you don’t read search engine patents doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you build links.

Every SEO should know how to build links, but some are far better at it than others. Link building is like sales. Some people just have the gift. Every SEO should understand both basic and advanced link-building concepts and their corresponding strategies, but just because you don’t do actual link building doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you know analytics.

Analytics is the best way to prove the value of your SEO efforts. But analytics itself isn’t SEO. It’s simply the reporting method. If you want to know how well your SEO is really doing, you need to learn analytics or, better yet, employ someone who can in order to analyze your website traffic data. But if you can’t, that doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you follow search engine guidelines.

The search engine guidelines are just that: guidelines. It’s smart to be sure your SEO strategies don’t violate any policies that might get your site dinged. On the other hand, some of the guidelines propagated by the search engines are entirely self-serving. Being good at SEO doesn’t even require that you know the guidelines, so not knowing them doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you can initiate “black hat” SEO strategies.

In some industries, it’s very difficult to get good results unless you invest in black hat SEO strategies. If you’re not in those industries, then you don’t need to worry about it. And not knowing how to implement these type of strategies certainly doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you’re a copywriter.

Copywriting skills are a must… for copywriters, not necessarily SEOs. While SEOs work with copy and should be able to craft a decent sentence and fiddle around with keyword additions into the text, the SEO can pass the job of actual copywriting to a copywriter. Not having the gift of copywriting doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you are a conversion optimizer.

Conversion optimization is good for SEO and necessary for a strong marketing campaign, but this isn’t, strictly speaking, SEO. I’d definitely want an SEO that understands usability and persuasion before letting them make changes to my site, but not understanding conversion optimization doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

You’re not an SEO unless you read this conclusion

All of the factors above help make SEO valuable. But not having any one or two of them doesn’t disqualify you from being an SEO any more than not knowing how to weld a pipe precludes you from being a plumber. Valuable, but not strictly necessary.

But make no mistake, these are important, and to the degree a person has knowledge, understanding and skills in these areas is a factor into how valuable they can be as an SEO. Any one of these, however, is not a defining factor. SEOs are often best judged on the results they get. If you don’t get results, then you’re not an SEO.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Web developers and SEOs often focus on the bigger picture but forget to do what we learned in Algebra: check your work.

If you’re a developer, you want to make sure the sight design looks just right and all the pieces align visually. You might also want to make sure some basic title tags are in place that accurately represent each page. SEOs need to look at things like keyword research, great keyword integration into the copy, writing keyword rich title tags, getting links and so on.

But for both web developers and SEOs, it’s the small things that can often sink a ship the fastest. Here are the three most commonly overlooked tasks when uploading new or changed content to your website:

Forgetting to Check Spelling and Grammar

More times than I can count, I’ve made only minor edits to a page only to later realize I left behind some glaring spelling or grammatical errors. It was such a small change and my quick review didn’t spot anything wrong, but sure enough, it was there. Large changes or small, errors are inevitable.

I’ve also seen new site’s roll out from the developers with spelling or grammar errors galore. Nothing wreaks unprofessionalism more than misspeled words and grammer on the site errors. Fortunately, most people will give you a pass or won’t notice a single mistake or two. But make any moore then that and you look fool!

Bottom line: spell check every change. When you add new content, update content, reword content or even remove content, a few added minutes checking your spelling and grammar pays off. Plus, you’ll save embarrassment from having someone else point it out to you, or worse, not tell you, causing it to stay on your site for weeks, months or even years!

Overlooking HTML Validation

Validating your code is not entirely important for optimization, but it will ensure that there are no coding problems that can prevent search engine spiders from properly indexing your pages.

If you’ve ever gone through the process of validating your code you have likely encountered many “errors” that really have no effect on how a page displays in your browser or the search engine’s ability to “read” the page’s content. A lot of the “errors” in HTML are completely innocuous and sometimes even pointless. Is it really worth it to add alt attributes to every image on your site, even if they are blank?

The answer to that (along with all the other sometimes inane validation errors that pop up) is: absolutely! It might take some time with the first pass validating each page, but getting those errors down to zero (or as few as possible) is worthwhile in the long run.

Why?

First, unless you run a validation check, you won’t know if you have any serious problems with the code that need to be resolved. Your code may be spiderable, but you need to know if there are any errors that might prevent the search engines from analyzing it properly.

Second, once your code is validated, after making any new change, you can quickly see if new, potentially harmful validation errors pop up. If you leave code unvalidated, you may change something that creates one or more potentially harmful validation errors and never really know about it.

Keeping pages validated eliminates a chunk of SEO guesswork.

Failing to Fix Those Damn Broken Links

Like spelling errors, broken links happen quite easily, and often without you doing anything on your end at all.

Internal broken links can happen when you or your developer move, rename or delete pages of content. Such changes require going through and changing all internal links. Don’t just stop at the navigation; be sure to specifically look for any in-content links.

External broken links happen when a site or page your are linking to has moved or gone defunct. The other site may have redesigned and moved pages around and not captured the traffic with a 301 redirect (all bad!).

Regardless of what they have done, you want to make sure you don’t send your visitors off to someplace that doesn’t exist. That makes a pretty significant statement about your ability to keep your information current and up to date (all bad x2!).

If you run a broken link check regularly (every 1-2 months), that will help you find and fix these types of errors.

While these issues generally won’t have a significant impact on your SEO campaign (with the exception of serious coding issues), they are nonetheless important. SEO is, in large part, about credibility. The less credible your site is due to broken links, spelling and grammar errors, etc., the less likely you are to get links, which help improve your credibility in the search algorithms.

Once each of these checks are performed and issues fixed, upkeep from that point doesn’t take much time at all. But the benefit of performing these checks can be substantial. When you lose credibility with your visitors, you also lose credibility with the search engines.

The goal in SEO is to develop the best site possible and give your visitors reasons to consider your site the most authoritative. More of that is always good for business.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

It’s unfortunate that “optimized content” has somehow come to mean something other than “marketing content” for a website.

Optimizing content for search engine rankings is first and foremost writing marketing copy for your visitors. The key difference is we know what (key) words your visitors are looking for, and it’s just a matter of crafting the content to accommodate their interests.

When optimizing a page, we generally like to have something to work with. Most clients provide us some initial verbiage to use as a starting point. This information can help us better understand the client’s perspective on their products or services and is an excellent resource for the finalized product.

Of course, this is only one resource. We also like to have a good understanding of the client’s philosophies, hot points, key selling propositions, etc. All these get worked into the content as needed.

Keep Your Focus on Keywords

While optimized content is primarily sales and marketing driven, it must also use the keywords that searchers are using to find your products or services. There are three different types of “keywords” we try to work into every optimized page: core terms, supporting words, and related words.

Core Terms

Core terms are generally the subject of a page. A core term is a two, sometimes three-word phrase that summarizes what that page is focused on. All other phrases will be based on this primary phrase.

Examples:

• motorcycle battery
• dog collar
• plastic card
• kids clothes

Supporting Phrases

Supporting phrases are essentially the core term plus one or two other “qualifying words” that create a unique phrase. Generally, any single core term can have 100-1000 supporting phrases, but we like to focus a page on 10-20 of these phrases that are tightly related to each other.

Examples:

• motorcycle battery charger
• bark control dog collar
• plastic business card manufacturer
• kids ski clothes

These additional supporting words (charger, bark control, business, ski) can be used liberally within the content (keeping quality a priority). They do not necessarily need to be used within the full phrase, but should be when possible and it makes sense to do so. The key is to make sure these words are used on the page in some form or another.

Related Words

Related words are words and phrases that are generally found on pages focused on this particular topic. They may or may not be words people are typically searching, and they are definitely not words we are trying to rank for with this page, but they provide the reader (and search engine) greater context regarding the topic of the page.

Examples:

• motorcycle battery chargers
• bark control dog collars
• plastic business card manufacturing
• kids ski clothing

Related words might include stemmed variations of the core term (i.e., if the core term is “run,” then stemmed variations might be: running and ran). But they are not always words that can be worked into the target phrase.

Look for words with similar meaning as the core term (jog, walk, hike, stroll) or words most often used in conjunction with the core terms (shoes, fast, sweat, exercise, hide, hydrate, etc). Not all related words will be relevant for a particular page. The writer should pick and choose related words to be used within the proper context.

It is important for all core, supporting and related words be carefully considered before optimizing a page. Core terms are the most important terms on each page and should be used as a phrase as often as good, readable copy allows.

Pay Attention to Writing Style

While keywords must be considered an important aspect of each optimized page, the ability to produce content with a natural style of writing and a focus on the marketing goals trumps all else. The content should use customer-focused language which speaks to the visitor’s needs, providing solutions and organized in a manner that makes reading, skimming, clicking and purchasing easier.

Sales Message: Each page must have a clear sales message that entices the visitor to continue reading, offering easy click-access deeper into the site and ultimately into the final conversion. The writer must research both the company and the product or services being sold in order to deliver that message and provide enough information to help users make an informed decision about what they want.

Headings: Page and paragraph headings should be used wherever appropriate. Every page must have a page heading which succinctly introduces the content on the page. Headings should be matter-of-fact and, if it makes sense, use the core term (i.e. Expert PC Repair and Computer Networking Solutions).

Bullet Points: Certain paragraphs can often be broken down into bulleted lists for easy reading and scanning. This is a great way to get readers to find the benefits of a product or service quickly without reading a lot of the other text. Bullets help break up a redundant text page while making skimming and scanning easier.

Bolds and Italics: Bolded and italicize words should be used infrequently and only in ways which help the overall readability of the page. Skim- and scan-ability can be improved with selective bold and italic usage of important information. Don’t only bold or italicize keywords, but rather phrases that contain key takeaways.

Internal Hyperlinks: When writing each optimized page, look for opportunities to link out to other pages of the website, or in some cases, external resources. Linked text should be absolutely relevant to the topic and link to pages that give greater detail or more information that can’t be worked into that page. Links to ‘about us,’ ‘contact us,’ and products/service pages can be used liberally, as good writing and usability allows.

Calls to Action: A page without a call to action is a page wasted. The goal of every optimized page is to get the reader to take an action. Whether that action is to read more, find out how, download, purchase or to get additional information, the call to action is necessary to propel the visitor forward toward those goals.

Write Strong Page Titles and Descriptions

Each optimized page must have both a title and description (for HTML title and meta description tags), which are separate from the visible body content. Titles and descriptions are most often seen in search engine results and are primarily responsible for driving the click from the search result to the optimized page.

Titles: The “title” of every optimized page is probably the single most important place to optimize. The title should be 8-12 words in length and contain the core term.

Since the title is the clickable link in the search results, it must provide value to searchers so that they will be compelled to click into to the site. Titles should never be deceptive or provide information that is not found in the body content of the page.

Descriptions: Also used in the search results, page descriptions need to provide additional, relevant information that can’t fit into the title. Both core and supporting keywords should be used in the description, giving the searcher as much information as possible in a very short and succinct paragraph. Description should be 30-50 words in length.

Putting all of these components together can give you a very strong, well-crafted, optimized page that will perform well for both search engines and visitors alike. Getting keyword rankings isn’t good enough. The page must generate profits! Any page can get traffic. An optimized page should draw traffic through rankings and be a critical part of the conversion/persuasion process.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

I can’t help thinking, what’s wrong with THIS picture?

For the past 10 years, I’ve made my living as a marketing and PR writer, and – though I scorn pandering, hyperbole and truth twisting – I’ve had to spin some yarns from time to time. Traditionally, companies have attracted people to their product or service by hyping it. The more alluring or creative (or shocking) your advertisement, the more likely people are to notice it, for at least a second. However, the majority have clearly become jaded by and distrustful of this old approach.

Content marketing, on the other hand, appeals more to reason and relationships than to hype. That’s what happens when consumers – who are usually inclined to educate themselves before buying – now have the power to do so at their fingertips. They’re looking for solid advice, helpful conversations and enough useful information to enable them to make a well-informed purchase. That’s what the Web can deliver.

I like this shift away from hype and toward authenticity. It’s attractive to me personally, and, judging from the growth of Internet communication and commerce, it also appeals to millions and millions of others across the globe.

In his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott says, “The Web is different. Instead of one-way interruption [that's common with traditional marketing and advertising], Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it.”

Do writers use the Web to deliver false information? Yes. Do companies still provide biased opinions in their Internet content? Absolutely. (Will my kids still have to be careful of online ploys? Without a doubt!) The key is that there are many voices on the Web, and it behooves a business to be as honest, transparent and responsive as possible. In the long run, this approach will help them build trust with their customers and garner more loyalty than an amusing commercial or billboard ever will.

I am excited to be part of this new marketing strategy and welcome the changes it brings to my industry.

If you’re in the market for a (quality) SEO, you’re going to find providers that go well beyond services aimed at achieving top search engine rankings. In fact, if your SEO only knows how to throw keywords you want to rank for onto your site pages, I can tell you that you’re NOT getting your money’s worth (even if you are only paying a few hundred dollars a month).

SEO, in today’s world, is much more about online marketing than it is about manipulating a site to achieve top rankings for a few keywords. Here are some key components to a well-rounded optimization campaign:

Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of the most important elements of the optimization process. While it’s not as important as the site architecture, you need to perform some initial keyword research in order to build your site architecture properly.

Spend some time to research your core terms, and then figure out how they will apply to your site. Be sure to build your site with your main keywords in mind, creating sections and pages around user search patterns.

Later, you’ll do more research and organization in order to make sure each of your pages is targeting your search audience in the best way possible.

Website Architecture

A solid architecture is the foundation for all your online marketing efforts. If your site isn’t built in a search engine friendly way, then you’re going to have trouble optimizing the site for search engines to index your data properly. You’ll also run into trouble with visitor usability.

It’s a good idea to start with some basic keyword research and information architecture (the site flow chart, if you will) to figure out how your site navigation and pages will be structured. Build this around your keyword research, while also keeping your industry and visitor expectations in mind.

Usability & Testing

You can get more sales by bringing more people to your site, or by improving the conversion rate. Bringing more people in before improving your conversion rate is like trying to fill a bucket with holes in it. Sure, if you pour fast enough, you’ll eventually be able to fill the bucket. But, if you plug the holes, you’ll fill it much faster and with a lot less waste.

In this case, instead of wasting water, you’ll be wasting money. Most companies fare far better by plugging the holes in their site to bring in those immediate sales, then worry about delivering more traffic to the site once that issue has been corrected.

Testing is an important part of this process. You can’t just make a change because it feels good. Test every change to see if it actually improves the bottom line or not. If not, change it back. If it does, keep it and move on to the next improvement.

Copywriting

A good Copywriter is essential to being sure that your content performs its conversion duties properly. Far too many people create text for the sake of text, not realizing that it is an extremely important part of convincing and converting searchers to become buyers.

If you lack good copy on a page, you just have a bunch of words and/or pretty pictures. Visitors read copy because it helps them learn about what you offer, the quality of the products or services, and what they can expect. It also tells them what to do next or provides them more ways to find needed information.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is critical for optimization success, but it’s not a stand-alone process. It’s more of an oversight process. The SEO needs to have a balance between keyword targeting, usability, site architecture and more. SEOs have their hands in all of it, hopefully with the goal of creating a perfectly balanced page for both visitors and search engines.

Social Media / Links

I like Social Media over traditional link building because it is far more audience targeted. Link building is about getting a link purely for the “link juice” it provides. Social Media leverages your target audience to get links, name recognition, and branding. So instead of a link for link juice, you get a link for your audience that comes with link juice.

Using Social Media, each link gets passed around and broadcasted, which generates even more links, therefore reaching even more of your potential audience. When it comes to customer acquisition, the value is in Social Media. But, sometimes you just need a link. Either way, links are an important part of the process.

Analytics

Optimizing without analyzing is like getting all dressed up for a date, but not looking in the mirror before going out. Sure, you see people giving you a double-take as you walk by, but do you really know why?

Analytics provides you with the feedback you need to see why people are reacting they way they are. It allows you to plug more holes and open up other opportunities for success.

SEO Maintenance

SEO isn’t set-it-and-forget-it. It’s an ongoing process of optimizing, reviewing, analyzing, tweaking, and optimizing some more. There is always some new problem that can be uncovered and fixed. There are always more keywords that can be targeted. There is always something that can be improved.

SEO maintenance allows your SEO efforts not to go stale. Competitors are actively engaged in bumping you for those top spots. Inactive SEO makes that all the easier.

PPC

PPC isn’t necessary for an SEO campaign, but it can be a valuable asset. Roughly 30% of searchers click into the paid ads. That’s 30% of traffic you can be missing. Not only that, but running PPC ads with SEO efforts helps fill in gaps where the SEO is under-performing (there is always something, somewhere) and increases brand awareness where the SEO is performing strongly. This results in more traffic and higher sales.

As you can imagine, rolling all these into a single optimization campaign can be quite pricey. But, take any one of them out, and you’re missing a crucial component. Cut corners on any of them, and you’ve got half measures that may move you forward, but not necessarily as fast as you want.

This is where you have to balance budget with expectations and results. Lower your budget, and you have to lower your expectations… because you will get lower results. Increase your budget, and you can increase your expectations because that will increase results.

Leave something out, and you may get good results in one area, but it won’t necessarily translate to good results in another.

For example, even if you get rankings, but no one is converting, what’s the point? Or, you can test and make sure your pages convert well, but if you’re not driving traffic to your site, then you’re just all dressed up with nowhere to go. If you build traffic through Social Media, but the site isn’t optimized to target specific types of keyword searchers, you’ll see higher than normal bounce rates. I could go on and on…

Unfortunately, too many people look at all of these as separate entities that can be added or removed ad hoc. And while they can, they are best when working together for a common goal: your business success.

What I’m talking about is teaching your content how to “engage”, “inform”, “speak” (call to action), and “convert”. Teach these tricks to your content and you’ll see a whole new level of performance on your website.

The first thing to train your content to do is not to overstay it’s welcome. Like a neighbor you enjoy having over occasionally, there comes a time when they must leave. In the same way, you can train your content to know when to stop talking and show the visitor the door to the next page or pages of your site.

Leave them wanting more… and then give them more

We often try to do either too much or too little with our content. The “old school” rules of SEO said you had to have a minimum amount of content. Is it 100 words…200 words? There is a minimum number of words you need per page, but it has nothing to do with counting. It’s the amount of content that is needed for the text to move the visitor to the next step.

There are three simple rules to training your text when it comes to the quantity of text to be used:

1) There is no magic amount. Some pages require a lot of text, but some don’t require much text at all. But, bear in mind, that all pages need some text. Text is what convinces, persuades, informs, and helps your audience decide that they want to buy from you.

2) Keep your text as brief as possible. This doesn’t mean your text has to be short, just that you don’t go for length when length is not needed or warranted.

3) Use no more words than needed to convert. Your audience isn’t just one person. It’s many people looking at many items for many purposes. Once you start looking at personas and personalities trying to target everybody on a single page can be daunting. But, you don’t have to hit everybody perfectly on a single page. Figure out what the next step is for each group, and provide that opportunity. It could be a link to an “About Us” page, a link to “Shipping Policies” or a “Buy Now” button.

The basic idea is to train your text to be minimalist while still providing ways for the reader to request an encore. They do that by clicking further into the site to get even more information, where, hopefully, that page is also trained to provide the audience what it wants as well.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

I remember this day vividly because a bunch of us guys were scouting out the hot chicks, generously helping the new batch of coeds unload and unpack. Later that afternoon, when it was only us guys within ear shot, a buddy of mine claimed, “I got dibs on the red head.” I remember thinking, “Whatever, dude!” Nonetheless, everyone knew Jon had claimed Shannon and she was hands off until he said otherwise.

It wasn’t long before Jon and Shannon started dating, and a few years later they married and are still happily married today.

You Aren’t Special If You’re Last In Line

Dibs are a great thing. It makes us feel special. Like calling “shotgun” to get the front passenger seat, dibs allows us to lay claim to something we otherwise may not have been entitled to: the last piece of pizza, the larger bed, the first shower before all the hot water is gone, and the hot red head that needs a nice, strong college man to help her move into her dorm.

Unfortunately, too many business owners let “dibs” on their website go to everyone else, except those that matter most: the target audience. All too often site design and content is developed for the boss, or the marketing team, or even the search engines. But the audience–the people who the site is supposedly intended for–get left out. They don’t get dibs, they get whatever is left over.

Does that seem right to you?

Your audience is your “A” Girl

I knew someone once who had a philosophy on his women. You could have an A-Girl, B-Girl, and C-Girl. A-Girl could in no way know about B- or C-Girl. B-Girl could know about A-Girl, but couldn’t know about C-Girl. C-Girl could know about both A- and B-Girl.

Don’t laugh, this is true.

This was obviously his way of attempting to build a playground in a minefield. I’m not sure how that worked out for him, but it will work as a good analogy here.

Your audience absolutely must be your A-Girl. Your content must be for her. Your visual presentation must be for her. Your site architecture and usability must be for her. And she doesn’t need to know about your B- and C-Girls… the search engines, or that guy that pays all the bills and has really strong opinions.

What you write, how you write, and the overall presentation you put together on your website shouldn’t be based on the boss’ opinions or what we think the search engines want. Those don’t have to be totally disregarded, but your audience, your A-Girl, comes first. She’s the one that matters. And if she catches a whiff that the site isn’t for her, she’ll be out the door and onto the next site in a matter of minutes.

Keywords are important, and as I noted a few weeks back, your content isn’t good content unless it’s optimized. This is very true, because optimizing for your audience is the same as optimizing for the search engines. The problem is when C-Girl becomes too prominent, A-Girl is sure to notice.

Building a perfect relationship

Your keywords should be present, but not obvious. They should be a part of your relationship with A-Girl, but not overbearing. If you suddenly start giving your girlfriend gifts, she may suspect you’re covering for something else. Same is true here. If you add too many keywords to your pages, they become overpowering. A-Girl isn’t dumb.

Keep your content persuasive. Just because someone knows you love them doesn’t mean you don’t ever have to tell them. Your content should tell your audience what you want them to do. Do you want them to purchase? Download? Learn more? Add to cart? Failure to have calls to action throughout your content will lead to a stagnant relationship. The audience won’t know what you want them to do next and, sooner or later, they will wander off.

Overall, you need to maintain value in your content. If you’re just adding text for the sake of B-Girl or C-Girl, A-Girl will realize that there is nothing there for her. You have to keep your audience engaged. You do this by writing content that helps them learn, grow, improve, understand, etc. A relationship that does not help each side to grow is a dying relationship. If your audience isn’t getting anything new, just the same content they found on every other site, they’ll soon grow bored with you.

Your A-Girl needs dibs. She needs to be the first priority on your website. Sure, you can build a site that pleases the higher-ups, and can write content that is optimized for search engine placement, but your audience must come first. She’s too important for anything less.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Under most circumstances, you want defer to the person who has the strongest skills for each particular task. Let the SEO determine which keywords are best, and let the Copywriter work them into the page. But, when it comes to actually deciding which chosen keywords make it into any particular body of content, the Copywriter needs to have final say.

The SEO often chooses keywords based on things like popularity, importance, and ability to convert. All very important factors, and very likely the keywords that the site needs for optimization. But, sometimes keywords are chosen incorrectly. Sometimes the keyword selection process is circumvented by someone else. Perhaps a boss has a “pet” keyword they want to rank for because they said so. Don’t laugh, it happens.

One of the most common ways to choose a keyword incorrectly is based on competitor usage. While you may want to analyze your competition to see what keywords they are targeting as part of their SEO efforts, you don’t want to automatically use a phrase or keyword that they did, just because they did.

I’ve seen this time and time again. A client says, “We need to rank for “x” because my competitor is.” A little research will show that this particular phrase gets little to no search volume, but none of that matters to the client. Getting good rankings for that keyword may work, but there may be others that would work better. So, is it worth taking the focus off of other keywords that are likely to be more effective to focus on others just because a competitor is using them? The answer is no, it’s not.

Choosing single-word terms is tempting due to the search volume those terms have. Clients often choose these words on that basis alone. Single-word terms are not only difficult to rank for, they generally produce very poor conversions as well. Still, they are tempting targets for business owners who see dollar signs in every potential visit. But, instead of creating dollars, these keywords steal profits away through efforts that are better invested in other places.

I mentioned above that the ultimate decision of a keyword being worked into the page should be that of the Copywriter. Sometimes a keyword can hit all the right criteria, but when it comes to actually working it into the content, it simply doesn’t work. This can be for any number of issues, such as it containing a poor qualifier (which depicts a benefit that isn’t offered), or it’s simply an industry term that just isn’t a match for the rest of the user-focused content.

The Copywriter’s job isn’t to force every keyword given to them into the page. Their job is to make sure the keywords they are given do work and to leave out those that don’t.

The Copywriter might have to do some research of their own, looking at the products, features, benefits, term definitions, etc. If, when all is said and done, the keyword doesn’t work on a page, it needs to be deconsidered. (Ooh, new word… I like it!) The Copywriter may have to pull rank and tell the SEO and/or the site owner what’s what.

The key here is that the keyword research process doesn’t end with the SEO. It needs to continue all the way through to the copywriting process. Don’t let the keyword selection and optimization process be derailed by people picking keywords for all the wrong reasons. Make sure all of your targeted terms work on all levels before demanding they get used on the page.

If you are in the window cleaning business, you can easily discount many of these qualifiers. But there will also be others in there that you most certainly will want to use to optimize your site for higher search engine rankings.

The question is, how do you target all of these qualifiers on your window cleaner web page? The simple answer is: you can’t. Nor should you want to.

Whatever keyword you are researching, the mass of keyword phrase + qualifiers can make you a bit overwhelmed. How do you target so many keywords without mucking up the site? One solution is to look at your keywords from a Research, Shop, Buy lens. Separate them based on visitor intent.

The next step is to start grouping and separating your keywords based on qualifier similarity within each segment of the shopping cycle. Pouring through a list of 50+ keyword phrases, you can immediately begin to see some distinctions between qualifiers and their meanings. The goal is to group together qualifiers that are similar in meaning and/or form a logical grouping together.

In the example above, I’ve chosen three words that can quite easily be worked into the content of a single page. If you are selling cars, you can now easily target “exotic cars,” “vintage cars”, and “classic cars” all on the same page without diluting the effectiveness of your content.

As you group similar qualifiers together, be careful about placing words together that either change the meaning or negate the others. If you were to add the word “cheap” to a page where you are also using the word “quality”, you are pretty much negating the ability to sell your item or service as “quality”.

The qualifiers used in the image above could also easily apply to a jewelry site as well. However, if you provide dance lessons, you probably won’t want to use “exotic” on the same page as “classic”. That gives these keywords an entirely different meanings.

Not all keywords will have a positive or negative impact on each other. But, for the ones that could have a possible negative impact on each other, use them together as a last resort. It’s better to find phrases that have similar meanings first.

When you target phrases with similar meaning and intent, you reinforce the message on the page. Why target the word “discount” when you’re talking about the quality of your products? Let the quality speak for itself. Have another page that offers discount items where you can go after “cheap” and “sale” and all those other words that would otherwise provide additional support or value to similar qualifiers.

Using similar qualifiers together is a great way to reinforce your message without having to repeat yourself over and over. It also helps you give your page an overall unifying theme that speaks to each visitor’s particular wants and desires.

The combination of qualifiers used will vary from site to site. Some combinations will work well for one site, but not for another, as I demonstrated above. But by grouping these similar qualifiers together, you are giving yourself fodder to move up, not only in searches using those qualifiers, but also in searches using your primary phrase. You use the many, similar words to help you focus on the one word that really matters.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

The best way to attract the specific customers you want and make sure you are meeting the needs of your audience is to write your content specifically for them. But even knowing who your audience is doesn’t mean you’re able to speak to them on their level unless you know where they are in the buying process.

Content designed to inform won’t do a good job of selling, just as content designed to sell isn’t what people need when they want to be informed. Therefore different pages of your site need to be targeted, not for a different audience, but the same audience in different places of the buying cycle.

There are essentially three phases of the buying cycle that need to be addressed: Researchers, Shoppers and Buyers. Generally, people start in the research phase, then move into shopping mode, and finally are prepared to buy the product or service they are in need of. A single site can help these people move from one phase of the buying cycle to another and, hopefully, to the goal of getting a conversion.

Not everybody will land on your site starting with the research phase. Some will hit only as they are ready to buy, some will shop and leave, and others will be there for the duration of the process while also moving in and out of other sites as they go from research to buy.

Researchers

Most people start out in the research mode as they get an inkling in their mind that there is a product or service they want. Unfortunately, they don’t quite know what they want or what will meet their specific needs. So, they set out to do some research.

A significant majority of searches performed every day are informational based – where people are looking to gain some knowledge about something, not necessarily looking to buy a product or service. That’s not to say that these people don’t become shoppers at some point, but research is where they start.

Broad category pages and blog posts are generally the best place to target these types of searchers. They are looking for content that helps them gain a better grasp on the topic, so you need to write content that provides the information they need. Don’t try to sell them… just inform them with whatever information is necessary for them to begin to be convinced enough to move to the next phase.

Blogs are especially good at hitting this because information-based searches are often very broadly focused. As informational searches get more specific, the topics (and keywords) you can reach them with will increase as well.

“Research” content is the bait you use to get people to your site. It allows you to become a source of information for their query and gives you the ability to start earning trust.

Shoppers

The next phase people move into is the shopping phase. This is when they know they want to buy something, only now they are trying to learn more about what solutions are out there that will meet their needs.

Think of this as window shopping. They are looking around trying to figure out what they like, don’t like, or has the “features” that will help them accomplish their goals. They are comparing products, looking at the details, and using the new information gathered to help them narrow down their list to only what they believe will give them the best satisfaction.

You generally want shoppers to land on your main product category pages. This will give them some information and a whole lot of products to explore. If you have multiple product sub-categories within categories, use your keyword research to help you determine which sub-categories are the best place to land shoppers, based on how they searched.

You want to optimize your category pages so shoppers land closest to the products that meet their search query without pushing them to a specific product. Pushing them to a product page before they have all the information they need will simply push them away from the sale.

Buyers

Buyers are those who are using the search engine to deliver them the right product with the right features. They are performing very specific searches designed to get them to specific product pages that match their criteria for a purchase.

These guys are ready to buy, and there is no need to try to pre-sell them. Getting them to product pages that have specific details and features listed is the fastest route to a sale. If you deliver these searchers to informational pages or even category pages, you run the risk of sidetracking your visitors. You’ll move them out of buy mode and back into shop mode. Instead of getting a sale, you just have another window shopper.

Knowing your audience is important. But knowing them in broad, general terms is not a substitute for knowing what they need when they search. Obviously, knowing the need of each searcher is impossible, but you can optimize your pages to meet the needs of your audience at large depending on where they are in the research, shop, and buy process.

This allows you to give your visitors more of what they want, when they want it. Get the right content to them early in the buying cycle, and they are more likely to stick with you through the buying process. Get them different content late in the buying cycle and they may buy now! Of course, this is providing that what they want earns those trust points that will turn into sales. Sales are not made by the products you offer… it’s in the content you write.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Uh… no.

That might work in politics, where saying something enough times gets people to start believing it’s true. But, not online.

People are pretty adept at sniffing out the fakes. If your readers come to your site and just see a lot of unnecessary repetition of your keywords, they are going to see right through that. Even if they don’t realize it on a conscious level, their spider-senses will kick in, and they’ll walk away just because they are not “feelin’ it”.

The issue is one of trust. Your readers may not be able to quite put their finger on it, but something will feel… off. And that’s when visitors start to run away.

Build content people trust

No Hype: A lot of people like to use hype. We see it all the time in commercials, billboards, and magazines. That’s been going on for years and people have become accustomed to it. But the web is still new, and people use it for all kinds of things like research, business, shopping and more. This has made hype far less desirable in the online sphere.

Don’t make claims that cannot be substantiated. Don’t claim to be “the best” or the “#1″ or “the ultimate” unless you can back that up with third party verification. Claiming you’re the best because you want to be doesn’t make it so. People get suspicious of such claims.

Be Genuine: Write your content as if you were talking to someone face to face. Use a conversational tone that is both helpful and free of superfluous fluff. Don’t go out of your way to tell outlandish stories or make claims that will appear too-good-to-be-true. Neither stories or verifiable claims are wrong, but how you present them is important to coming across to your readers as genuine.

No Hidden Text: Back in the old days of SEO, people used to write content and color it white on a white background to hide it from the readers. That’s a sure sign that what you have to say blows chunks! Today, you can “hide” content with CSS, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. If you’re hiding content to make it more difficult for readers to find it, that’s the wrong way. If you’re hiding content to make your page more usable, and the reader can easily find it with a simple click or mouse-over, that’s the right way.

When it comes to hidden text, intent matters. In other words, why is it hidden? Where is the content going? Why does it need to be hidden?

But, the most important question? Whether or not the text is valuable. This one matters the most. If the content is valuable, then your visitors need to be able to read it. If it’s not valuable, then it shouldn’t be on the page to begin with.

Negative Reviews: If you’ve got a product site or a blog, and people have the opportunity to write negative comments or reviews, you can’t only allow the good stuff. Nobody is going to believe that 100 of 100 reviews are positive. You lose credibility immediately.

In fact, negative reviews can help sell a product. If the reader can see all the negative things people have to say, they at least have a more well-rounded picture of what they are purchasing. They can use the negative reviews to determine that the good outweighs the bad, and they’ll be less likely to write a negative review themselves because they know what they are getting into.

If your readers cannot trust you, they won’t engage you for business or whatever else you want them to do. Your content is the first impression your visitors will have of you, so you have to make sure that you give them a good first impression rather than a jumbled mess of “keyword optimized” content. It all goes back to writing for your visitors first.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

When dealing with your online content you have to find the right keywords and the right place for them on the page. SEO 1997 was all about throwing keywords anywhere and everywhere on the page in hopes to claim those top spots on AltaVista, WebCrawler, Excite and the six other search engines you were gunning for. (Ahhh, remember the days!)

In today’s world SEO has meaning beyond getting rankings, ’cause, you know… people are gonna see that stuff. Your content has to read, not like a keyword laundry list but more like information that actually helps sell your product or services, or provide information the reader finds helpful to them.

Everybody has a job to do

Making SEO work requires the involvement of more than just a good SEO or a good copywriter. In fact, both have their role in finding and integrating keywords into the content of the page.

The SEO is largely in charge of keyword selection. It’s not the copywriter’s job to go out and do the in-depth keyword research or to be responsible for selecting the keywords that should be worked into the page.

Integrating the keywords into the content is the job of a good copywriter. The SEO hands off the keyword lists and the copywriter edits, tweaks, rewrites and adjusts the content so the optimized keywords have been worked into the content in a way that doesn’t destroy the flow or the goals of the page.

While each have their roles, there are times when the roles can overlap a bit. Many times the keywords “selected” by the SEOs won’t fit on the selected page. I always ask my copywriters to use their judgment on whether any given keyword, phrase or qualifier works on a page or not.

This is where the SEO and the copywriter need to work together. The SEO might see a way that the keyword can work that perhaps the copywriter doesn’t quite get. A little working together, some give and take and the SEO and copywriter should be able to come to an agreement whether a keyword can or should be used on a particular page.

The SEO also needs to be able to have input as to where certain keywords need to be placed on the page. Unless the copywriter understands SEO they may not get that some keywords need to be in headings, some in body content and some need to be used a bit more frequently than others. But again, the copywriter should have final say as to how those keywords are used in the content to make sure it really works.

Good content cannot be rushed

The process of selecting keywords and integrating them into content is not one to be taken lightly. This isn’t 1997! Give your team time to figure what the best keywords are and how to properly work those into the page. A good optimized page will take several hours for research and content writing and will go through a few edits.

When you allow the page to work its way through the development process you’ll get content that is search engine optimized, brings in targeted traffic, provides your visitors the information they need and helps move them through the sales process. Each keyword will have a place and be used in its place to get the visitors in the place you want them to be because they have the information they need.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Perhaps I can come up with a better example. I recently upgraded my copy of The Princess Bride from DVD to gloriously beautiful Blu-ray. The video quality is far superior to DVD which was a considerable improvement on my old VHS copy that I owned way back when. Moving to Blu-ray was a much needed improvement over what came before it.

Tinkering that makes sense

Generally when they re-release movies on a new format they go back and remaster it from the original print. This allows them to bring the quality up to the new quality standards. I don’t know about you but watching stuff on VHS just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. As time changes so do our expectations. We no longer settle for sub-par video quality when we can get regular TV delivered in HD. Watching an improved version of The Princess Bride or Ghostbusters on Blu-ray is tinkering I can definitely get behind.

Websites work the same. As times goes by so do your visitor’s expectations. So as much as you think you’ve got the “perfect page” or your content is just the way you want it… it’s probably time to review it to make sure it’s still doing the job it’s supposed to.

More than once I’ve run across a business owner that wants their site “optimized” but was reluctant to make any changes to their website. “Just work on the stuff you can’t see.” Unfortunately, optimizing your site for search engines and visitors means you have to make changes to the visible portions of the site itself. These people often walk away disappointed.

Ensuring your site continues to meet your visitor’s needs means you need to be willing to review key areas of your content and its presentation.

The most obvious place to start is with your keywords. Whether your site has been optimized or not, reviewing keyword selection is something you need to do on a regular basis. Over time keywords people use change. I’ve seen this repeatedly over time where certain keyword phrases get searched less over time while other phrase variations become more popular.

As keyword phrases change you’ll need to review your content to ensure you’re using the more common terminology being searched. This doesn’t mean you have to change the focus of your content, just the words used in how you present it.

If it’s good for the engines…

Also look at how your content is presented on the page. One of the frustrations SEOs have is when site owners want to hide content from the visitors. Some of this is carryover from the days when SEOs were “improving” content the way George Lucas improved the Star Wars saga with Episodes I, II and III. What is more common, however is that they layout of the site is “just right” and any new necessary content just doesn’t fit. Keywords are not JarJar Binks! They do have a purpose and they can be added into the site without making you throw up a little in your mouth.

The solution many site owners come up with is to find creative ways of hiding or removing content they don’t like.

There are reasons to place content behind “hidden” layers, such as tabbed content, that improves the usability of the content on a single page. The idea of this isn’t to hide the optimized content from the visitor (only being available to the search engines) but it’s to ensure that all the necessary content is presented in a format that gives the reader easy access to the content in digestible chunks.

As soon as you start trying to hide content from your readers you begin to lose trust, not just with them but the search engines as well.

Hiding the darker side

It’s entirely understandable that people don’t want anything negative about them to appear on their own website. But when it comes to product reviews negative reviews next to positive reviews not only give you additional credibility, they give some context to the buyers.

I often want to read the negative reviews of a product I’m looking to buy just so I feel like I won’t be hit with any unexpected “problems” later on. If your customers know the downside before they buy they will be less likely to return the product due to dissatisfaction.

Avoid the hype

One thing you want to be sure to clear your content of is unnecessary and unsubstantiated hype. At the same time, anything that can be substantiated should be added and if needed, linked to the external resource that proves it. Keep your “perfect” content up to date with fresh testimonials, links to new and valuable resources, and including anything that improves the sales process.

Keeping your content genuine and current is essential to ensuring that you are able to meet your visitor’s needs as their expectations change over time. We often get satisfied when our content is “just right.” But the reality is that things change and so your content needs to change too.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Headings

The first place to begin in writing your content is to create a great heading for each page. In the last post I discussed grabbing the visitor’s attention. This is one of the primary jobs of page headings.

The heading is different from the page title tag. Where the title tag is displayed in the search results the heading is viewed on the page itself. Sometimes you want the heading and the title to be the same, other times you don’t. The title MUST use keywords in it. The heading SHOULD use keywords in it. It all depends on the hook you want to use to grab attention and entice your visitor to keep reading.

No SEO is complete without good content. You can stuff keywords into the text all you want, and that might be okay to get you some decent keyword rankings for a time, but it won’t do anything to improve the long-term success of your business.

A website without good copywriting is a sports car with an engine that doesn’t run. It doesn’t matter how pretty it is, the content is what is needed to provide your visitors the information they need in order for you to make the sale (or conversion, or whatever else you want your visitors to do.)

Understanding Copy

The information here has been updated to include not only the check points but also the explanations of each, so you don’t have to keep referring back to the blog posts above. I’ve also added a few points here and there, but no major overhaul or anything.

Anyway, here you go: The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, PDF!

Phase IV: Organizing Keywords for Success

Making SEO Successful

Organizing your keywords into an effective marketing strategy is the most important of the four phases of keyword research outlined in this document. While most often SEOs and keyword researchers focus on the research phases, organizing your keyword properly can truly help you create a vastly more successful optimization and marketing campaign.

Let’s use the analogy of building an engine to help us understand the value in this final step in the process.