Over the last couple months a few of my clients have asked me for my opinion on the future of SEO, particularly given the way that Google Now and various mobile apps present information to people in more compartmentalized, directed, and instantaneous ways.  As I thought about it, and considered the many ways in which I use mobile apps on my phone or tablet, it occurred to me that SEO won’t fade away as some analysts have maintained, rather, what I believe will happen is that SEO will depend less and less on particular, static keywords, and more and more on the dynamics of a conversation or a dialog.  In other words, in order to keep your content optimized, you’ll not just have to write up a page that uses the necessary keywords, but maintain a part of your site that can be easily updated and refreshed and used to interact with your clients, potential clients or critics.

Don’t just rely on Social Media for fresh content – update your pages more often

In other words, the content on your site might have to borrow more from how you use social media and a blog. Of course, writing up a blog and having a live feed of your twitter or Facebook page imbedded on your website are all excellent ways to maintain dynamic content, but the problem with that type of dynamic content is that it relies heavily on people who have already found your website.  In order to add another dimension to how you present information, you’ll likely have to update your web pages more often than you had expected. In order to achieve that, I would recommend that you set up an editorial calendar, not just for your blogs and/or your social media campaigns, but also for the web pages that might benefit most from being more dynamic – and updated more frequently.

Offer fresh content to anyone who visits your website

Let’s say, for instance, that you’re writing about a new tech product that you’re going to release at next year’s CES Show.  You might set up a landing page in advance of the show, hinting at the product’s features, and then release the full page once the show begins.  You should then consider how and when you’ll update that product’s content page three months after the show, and then again six or nine months after that. These updates can reflect not just what you thought of your product when you introduced it, but also what early adopters have said about your product based on their first impressions as well as their lasting impressions.  Essentially, you can keep your website useful for visitors by including information that people would look for at various stages of their own interaction with your product or service – offering information that anticipates the questions of potential new customers while also addressing the concerns of more established clients.

Selecting the right keywords to showcase on your Website pages seems like it would be pretty straightforward and easy: identify the names of the products you offer and sprinkle those names throughout the copy.  As you might already be thinking, that strategy is far too limited and self-contained. In order to capture the attention of your audience, you need to speak with your audience on their terms. In other words, while you might refer to your product with terms that anyone in your industry would know, it’s also very likely that your potential customers use different words to find products like yours.

How do you find out what kinds of terms your customers use in their online searches?

The easy answer: a keyword tool like Google’s AdWords.  AdWords will give you a ton of information about your Website, about competitor Websites and about any keywords you want to test.  It’s useful information that can definitely guide you in your marketing strategy, but it’s not enough. If you want to know what you’re customers are saying about your product or service, or products or services like yours, you have to go to them.  Go to site that offers customer reviews and see what the customers have to say about what they like or dislike in a product, read their comments on your own boards, or visit a few websites that offer reviews (and comments), and read as much as you can.

As you go through different Websites and comments pages, you might find that certain terms start to pop up over and over again – and they might not have been on your initial list of keywords.   Once you’ve assembled a more organic list of keywords, then you’re in great shape to start writing more compelling and engaging search-engine-optimized copy.

Over the last few years I’ve done a lot of rewriting of existing copy for clients, often finding that the material I’m revising had been written by a professional writer, and oftentimes someone claiming to be familiar with SEO.  Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of writers, even very talented ones, aren’t familiar with all the nuances of writing good SEO copy.

Use the keywords your customer use. Avoid jargon.

I was recently reviewing a website for a client and found that the copywriter had used a lot of terms that aligned with the product on the page, but none of those terms ranked highly in keyword searches.  They were terms that someone who already knew what they were looking for would use, not terms that a customer would type into a search engine.

Blend keywords into your layout

There are many nuances to SEO copywriting. These range from writing copy in a way that’s easily read online to using headlines, bold and bullet points effectively enough to allow search bots to recognize the most important keywords on a page.  There’s also the matter of keyword density and making sure that certain keywords appear throughout a site, not just on select pages, and that these keywords also make it into the meta-data.

Different social media sites have different styles of copy

Aside from keywords and layout, there’s also the matter of knowing what types of material search engines rank most highly. While most SEO professionals know that Google’s recent algorithm change tends to favor fresh copy, direct links and imbedded video housed at Youtube, a lot of SEO copywriters still haven’t familiarized themselves enough with how to blend their copy into social media tools like Facebook pages, Google+, Twitter and, to an extent, LinkedIn. By not knowing the different types of styles and word-usage methods particular to these social media sites, a copywriter can unwittingly write material that just doesn’t generate much interest among followers and fans.

Review your websites – and keep the copy fresh

The next time you’re reviewing the copy on your site, look at the amount of jargon that’s used or the ways in which keywords are interspersed throughout the page.  Keywords should be part of the copy, the headline, the meta-data and even the images, but it should always flow first and foremost. If your keywords are just dumped onto the page pell-mell or repeated carelessly you run the risk of having a beautiful webpage with poor quality copy that gets ignored by the major search engines.

Use your Facebook Page to support your brand image

This excerpt from Patagonia’s Facebook Page captures something that a lot of companies and businesses fail to note: your Facebook Page shouldn’t just be filled with links to your products, your blog or your specials; rather, your Facebook Page gives you a unique opportunity to share something about your brand, your company philosophy, your company culture, with your customers.

In this excerpt, Patagonia lets their customers know about something that matters to them as a company – but that also is consistent with the lifestyle of the customer’s they serve. If you’re looking for the ROI on their use of Facebook, it would be captured in the simplest numbers: 107 People Like This, View all 13 Shares.

107 Likes and 13 shares might seem like small numbers for a company like Patagonia, but it’s very likely that among those 107 likes and 13 shares there are friends of people who weren’t familiar with Patagonia or who hadn’t thought to follow Patagonia on Facebook before. Let’s just say that only 20 people respond to the likes, and 4 acknowledge the shares, according to Facebook the average user has 130 friends, so you can see the potential for likes and shares to lead to new fans for Patagonia’s Facebook Page among the 800+ million users throughout the world. In other words, even if you think of it in modest terms, a customer connection that begins in Facebook can easily blossom into new customers for you business.

Use your Facebook Page to share important information with your customers

As with Patagonia, in this excerpt Vibram uses their Facebook Page to share information with their fans – and to address some of the concerns that they know their customers (and potential customers) might have about the benefits of barefoot and minimalist-shoe running.

Here, Vibram points their fans to an article that discusses the effects of barefoot running shoes, while introducing it with a playful nod that connects them with the converted: “But you already knew that, right?”

In terms of social media ROI, 312 likes, 142 shares and 47 comments is a good indicator of a post that connects with the customer base.  It’s also consistent with what a lot of people have come to expect from the Vibram FiveFingers Facebook Page, since it has been one of the best sources of information on how to run barefoot, providing advice for beginners and updates about runners wearing FiveFingers in races and on trails throughout the world.  You can grow your social media market by following this example from Vibram and using your Facebook Page to connect with your customers about issues that might be on their minds when they buy or think about buying your product or service.

Use your Facebook Page to connect with customers through a contest

The last example we’ll look at here is from Lucky Brand Jeans.  Unlike the two previous examples, this one refers to the way Lucky uses their Facebook Page to announce a contest.

By addressing their Facebook Fans and inviting them to submit their photos to their page, Lucky isn’t just creating an opportunity for someone to win a $1000 shopping spree, they’re also adding to the growth of their community.

As you’ve probably experienced with your personal Facebook account, people like to have their pictures online and have friends and family comment on them.  Lucky knows this, and they also seem to know something about their client base: they’re fashionable, fit (mostly) and certainly plenty of them are photogenic.  But it’s not just an opportunity for Lucky to welcome new fans to their Facebook Page, it’s also an opportunity for people who post their photos to the contest to share that photo with their friends – and to invite their friends to become fans of Facebook.  It might also be the case that visitors will like one of the images they see on the site, and end up sharing that photo with their friends – including friends who’ve never shopped at Lucky before, or who hadn’t even though of liking Lucky’s Facebook Page.  If you’re thinking of creating a contest for your Facebook Page, take a tip from what we see here in Lucky’s page, and create a contest that encourages people to share with one another, connect, and participate in the community that is your marketplace.

Before you can write an effective Tweet, you’ve got to know the basics:  Twitter gives you just 140 characters to get your message across.  That’s characters, not letters, so the limit includes spaces, hashtags (#) and links to your website, your blog, or an online article, etc.  Getting an entire message into that space can be challenging and in this blog we’ll focus on what it takes to write an effective Tweet.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
First of all, know your audience, your material and your goal.  If you want to announce a special deal, make sure that you include enough information in that initial Tweet to let your followers know the value of that deal.  Don’t oversell, and don’t try to make it sound better than it is.  Just stay to the point, be accurate and write in a way that gets your followers to lift their eyebrows and say, hey, what’s this about – and then click on your link.  One of the ways to make sure you’re striking the right note with your audience is to read a lot of Tweets yourself.  Take note of which Tweets get your attention, which Tweets motivate you to click on a link and which Tweets you just ignore.

AVOID ABBREVIATIONS AND THE URGE TO SOUND HIP
While it’s a matter of preference, when writing a Tweet for your business, avoid the use of Twitter speak (stuff like “2b” instead of “to be” or “2gether” rather than “together”),  and don’t try to hard to sound hip, current or cool (such as when politicians try to Tweet in a vernacular).

BE TRUSTWORTHY
Instead compose Tweets that let your readers know that they can trust your opinion and that you’ve given some thought to your words, even if it’s just a quick Tweet about a new product you’ll release in a month or two.

LEARN ABOUT HASHTAGS AND USE THEM
The use of hashtags (#) , while necessary, can also be kind of messy.  If you’re posting directly from Twitter to Facebook, the hash tags will look terrible and interfere with the message, which is why it’s often the better choice to take that extra step and write a second post for Facebook.  When you do use hashtags, do not overwhelm the message with them and make sure that you still leave enough room so that if someone retweets your message there is  room for your Twitter name.  Part of having that room means that you get in the habit of writing sentences that avoid unnecessary lengthy words and protracted phrases.  Be pithy.  You should also get to know which hash tags are common for your business or industry, including their abbreviated forms.

WHAT TO TWEET ABOUT
What sort of stuff you Tweet about is up to you, but keep in mind that Twitter can be a great way for you to participate in a conversation about a topic that affects your business.  If you find a great article online, you can introduce it by asking your followers what they think or you can offer your own view on that article, just don’t forget to include the link.  While it’s nice to tweet about non-business related things sometimes, don’t get caught up in the ease of tweeting.  Before you’re about to post your tweet, take a moment to ask yourself if it’s relevant or compelling.  If it’s not, you may want to revise it and start over.  Twitter is your opportunity to convey who you are and to build up your brand image with potential customers, clients and peers, use Twitter to give them a sense of who you are, what you do, and how you do it.

Let’s sum it up:

• Don’t use all 140 characters for your tweet, leave room for your name to be included in a retweet.
• Be honest, useful and trustworthy.
• Use short, direct active verbs.
• Get to know the hash tags for your industry and use them wisely for Twitter but avoid them in Facebook.
• Read more tweets and take note of what grabs you.
• Be pithy.

Originally posted at Strategic eMarketing.

You’re probably already familiar with how to use email as a direct-marketing tool, and like most anyone with an email account, you get a few emails a day telling you about special offers or sharing news with you about a favorite company or product. The best direct-marketing emails tend to have a catchy subject line to pull you in, and then not a lot of copy to get you to click on a link to a website – sometimes to a special page just for people who subscribe to email notifications. When marketing through email, make sure that you use your customer and friend list sparingly. Keep your emails brief and to the point and engage your audience with compelling offers, a great picture or a note on a timely topic that will interest them.

Marketing through social media also requires brevity and well-tailored pitches, but the audience is slightly different from what you got through email. Social media sites and applications are like little communities. The three biggies, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, allow people to create and maintain their own circle of friends and contacts, which is also like their own circle of influence. However, it’s important to remember that each of these sites functions on a very different level of interaction. Facebook tends to foster more personal connections between users and their friends, while Twitter can be a vast communication tool that people use to reach out and share thoughts with complete strangers. LinkedIn is more of a business tool, but you can also use to connect with new customers or clients by approaching it the same way you would Facebook and Twitter.

The secret is to use social media as a kind of online mom and pop shop. People enjoy the personal attention they get in small, local shops, and you can offer customers that same kind of attention through social media. Getting started is easy. When you post a message on Facebook, follow up on the comments people leave behind. Do the same thing with Twitter. Build up your social-media relationships with your customers, so that when you blog about something that catches their eye, or share some important insights on your Facebook wall, your customers will copy your link onto their own pages, share the link with friends, or even retweet to their followers.   When you reach new customers through the relationships you foster via social media, you’re closing that advertising gap between you and more business.

Beware promises to get you ranked #1 on Google

SEO, you’ve no doubt seen those three letters tossed around a lot on the web. There are companies that promise to boost your Google ranking through SEO, and there are tools out there that claim to make SEO so easy that anyone can do it. While some of the companies or tools might help you to some extent, one of the best ways to improve your SEO is by developing a WordPress based website.

Build a beautiful, easily optimized website with WordPress

If you’re not familiar with WordPress you can find two quick introductions at WordPress.org and WordPress.com. While WordPress.com makes it easy to setup a blog-based site and get it up quickly, you’ll have to pay a bit to customize your site as much as you could by installing WordPress on your own site.

I’ve helped dozens of clients redesign their websites using WordPress, and almost every time I get asked: “But isn’t WordPress just for blogs?” Sometimes I direct them to my own site for the answer to that question, or I show them a few other websites that were built with WordPress, but which don’t look like blogs at all. Of course, these sites still have blogs, or sections that function as blogs, but their primary focus is to offer visitors a business’s basic information while also establishing a central location for links to all of that business’s social media sites and additional online resources.

I recommend WordPress to clients because it is simple to load, customize and maintain. Getting the most out of WordPress, however, does require a bit of learning time and technical savvy – or at least a willingness to bring someone on board who can make the changes, big and small, that will make any WordPress theme look like it’s just your own. A good SEO consultant should be able to set up the right plugins for your site, update copy with optimal keywords, and make the best use of keywords in the meta-data of your pages and your posts. With a bit of homework you should be able to do a lot of this yourself, though keep in mind that you might get better results from working with an expert first and then making sure that you keep your content fresh and compelling (and optimized).

A professional copywriter doesn’t just write original content for your business.  A professional writer knows how to review your existing copy and see if the message conveyed by the words matches the sentiments and ideas as described by you, the business owner.  Often times, there’s a gap between the ideas and passions that drive a client and the words put to the page.  That’s where professional writers have to step in and do their job.

Our copywriting philosophy

At Scrivenry, our job is to tailor the words we use in your content not only to match your enthusiasm but also to echo the brand voice that prevails in your website, brochures, blog and even in your showroom or on your sales calls.  We want to make sure that the content we create captures the prevalent language of your market community, and use that language consistently in any copy we write or revise.

Let’s not forget about Social Media

Community is a key word here.  With the meteoric rise of social media sites and services like Facebook and Twitter, we don’t just write copy that sells, we also have to write copy that connects. If  you hire Scrivenry to write or optimize your blog,  we’ll make sure that your blog posts get the right kind of traction through timely, compelling updates on social media sites like Facebook , Twitter and LinkedIn.   We’ll also offer you advice on how to write  a Tweet that announces your blog but that doesn’t make the mistake of overselling and alienating your followers on Twitter.

A professional writer respects your brand’s voice

We work with words, and how we arrange those words is our product, so we create content based on our knowledge of how words work.  You don’t have a lot of space on your website or time with a potential client to have your words make an impact, so it’s vital for each and every word on your website to serve a purpose.  When we craft a sentence, we’ll use the language and style that suits your market, but we’ll also bring our expertise to bear and avoid using shallow adverbs or vague verbs that don’t convey a purpose. We’ll write in a way that tells your brand’s story, while also creating a picture of how your products or services will benefit your customers.  You are the best authority on your product, your customers and the benefits of your products to your customers, and we can help ensure that your content conveys those benefits with words that are effective, efficient and even elegant.

Finding the Whole in Drama and a Tweet
For Aristotle, drama, in particular Tragedy, which he regarded as its highest form of expression, can affect an audience profoundly, not just because of the subject matter, but because of its ability to be complete. Aristotle writes, “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; for there may be a whole that is wanting in magnitude.” It’s this wholeness that often eludes us when writing the quips that become a 140 character message in Twitter, or the initial, longer exchange of Facebook or Linknedin.

What is essential about this wholeness, and it’s something that’s often lost or just not considered when writing a Tweet, a Facebook post or an email subject line, is what makes up this wholeness, namely: the beginning, middle and the end.

Here’s what Aristotle tells us about these three parts of a Tragedy/drama:

A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.

How to Structure a Tweet or Social Media Message
Take a moment to reread that passage and consider how it applies to something as simple as a Tweet. When you’re writing a Tweet – be it for yourself or your client – you should consider these same three parts. Your Tweet should be informed by a beginning – by which I mean that which precedes and informs the words in your Tweet. You have a limited number of characters, even if you use a service like TweetDeck to go beyond the 140 character limit, and you have to use that space wisely, not just to point up what you want the readers to know they might find by following a link in your Tweet, but in order to give them a sense of where you (or your clients) come from – and what informs the Tweet in the first place.

The Stuff in the Middle
The middle, or “that which follows something as some other thing follows it” is essentially the stuff of your Tweet. The middle is your opportunity to grab the attention of your reader, and to let your reader know that there is more to that Tweet than just the words contained in its limited space. The Middle – by which I mean the Tweet itself – must convey the beginning, while also hinting at the End. The End could then be what the reader will find by clicking on a link and going to your website, blog or special offer.

Putting Aristotle to Work in Social Media
So many of the Tweets I read online are focused only on the End – the stuff they want to sell – and fail to introduce a sense of where the Tweet begins – or why I should entrust my simple click to this particular Twitterer. It sounds absurd, and to an extent it is, but every Tweet, every post on Facebook, or Email subject line we write for our clients should have a beginning, middle and an end – at least in the the process of constructing that post and coming up with the right words.

By crafting a 140 character note that is consistent with a company or client’s brand, we write Tweets that must then capture that brand, and convey to the reader a reason for them to trust us to lead them toward a consistent end that further relates to their interests – interests that first aligned them with our clients and first encouraged them to Like, Follow, sign-up for or Join their social network.