1 Hour To Great Results with Sycara

June 15, 2011 – 7:23 pm

The Sycara SEO tool is great for quick site audits and the results for the time invested are outstanding. The steps for a quick one hour audit are:

1. Login to your Sycara account.
2. Add your site to the Sycara system using the ‘Add Site’ menu option – supply the site name and site URL and hit save.
3. When the ‘Next Steps’ options appear click ‘Visit Site Dashboard’
4. Gather your list of top keywords and turn them in a CSV format on one line i.e. diamond watch, gold ring.
5. Under ‘Site Settings’ -> ‘Map Keywords’ click the down arrow on the blue bar and select ‘Add Keywords’ – cut and paste your CSV keyword string here.
6. To the left of each keyword click the down arrow and ‘Best Page’ option and select a URL to map this keyword to.
7. From the menu bar select ‘Reports’ -> ‘Report Scheduler’
8. Click the ‘Create Report’ button, select ‘Keyword Ranking’ and click the ‘Run’ button.
9. Click the ‘Create Report’ button, select ‘Site Audit’ and click the ‘Run’ button.
10. Click the ‘Create Report’ button, select ‘SEO Optimization’ and click the ‘Run’ button.

The reports will be complete in about 15 minutes… have a coffee while you wait…

Go to ‘Reports’ -> ‘Report History’

1. When the ranking report arrives check your site’s rankings – this is your baseline.
2. When the Site Audit Report is available, click the report and scan down it – any time you see any numbers in the ‘Alert’ or ‘High’ columns click the number and view the recommendations. Correct all the Alerts and as many highs as you can.
3. When the SEO Optimization Report is available, click the report and scan down it – any time you see any numbers in the ‘Alert’ or ‘High’ columns click the number and view the recommendations. Correct all the Alerts and as many highs as you can.
4. If you have time left from the one hour allocated correct as many normal issues as you can too.

If this is work destined for another person to implement:

1. Open up Word or the equivalent.
2. Screen capture the ranking report and paste into the Word Document.
   For each Keyword add a headline with the keyword – URL combination.
   For each issue in the site audit cut and paste the text into the word document.
   For each issue in the SEO optimization report cut and paste the text into the word document.
3. For non-keyword mapped URL issues shown in the site audit add these under a section called ‘Other Pages’

All completed in around 30 minutes.

It is recommended these reports are scheduled every two weeks to fully optimize your site in the organic search results.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Make More Money by Performing Keyword Research

June 6, 2011 – 5:19 pm

By Karon Thackston © 2011, All Rights Reserved

Whether you’re a virtual assistant, copywriter, web design pro or search engine optimizer, keyword research is a useful and necessary service you can add to your lineup to make more money.

Anyone with a website or blog who aims to rank high in the search engines can benefit from professional-quality keyword research.

Why Would Others Pay You to Perform Keyword Research?

Because, as a trained professional, you will gather and evaluate data and make confident decisions. You won’t be an amateur who doesn’t understand the finer points of this craft and guesses at which terms are best to use where.

The issue lies in the fact that most people *think* they know how to conduct keyword research.  Either that or they believe it solely depends on search counts.  But because they haven’t been trained and they don’t stay on top of the latest developments, they aren’t aware of the little things that can make a huge difference.

For instance, did you know that Wordtracker presents annual search counts?  Most people believe they deliver daily counts.

They did, years ago, but their website states (in several places) that the search totals displayed on their site are for a 365-day period.  Just imagine if you incorrectly think you’re comparing daily Wordtracker results with monthly Google results?  You’re research is going to be seriously flawed.

An Ongoing Source of Revenue

Conducting keyword research is not a one-time event.  New products and services are coming out all the time.  New ways to describe things are constantly developing. For instance, “search engine copywriting” has gotten several new names over the past few years.  You now hear it called “SEO content writing” or “keyword optimization writing” among other things.

If search engine writers wanted to attract traffic from every possible source, they would need to continually research new keywords to optimize their website pages for.  The same is true for every other industry.  Here’s another example.

There are major differences sometimes in what keywords a company uses and which ones customers use.  A client of mine manufacturers those big inflatable advertising balloons that are shaped like soda bottles or giant products.  The company called these “cold-air inflatables” or other industry-related terms.

Their customers, however, used phrases like “giant advertising balloons” and so forth.

As you can see, there are numerous reasons your clients would need repeated keyword research, meaning you have an ongoing source of revenue IF you learn to do it right.

Is Keyword Research That Hard to Do?

Not when you know how   The problem is, most people don’t take the time or spend the money to get professional training.  If you aren’t shown the right way to conduct keyword research, you will almost certainly hang a hard left turn that takes you down the wrong path.  If your research doesn’t produce results for your clients, you’ve wasted your time as well as your clients’ time and money.

Here’s what I recommend.  It’s an ebook I wrote called “Demystifying Keyword Research.” No, don’t worry… it’s not a $100+ complicated ebook that will take you 6 months to read.  In fact, it’s not for sale at all.  But I will GIVE you a FREE copy.

Included in this ebook is everything you need to know to conduct professional-level keyword research, choose the best search terms for various web pages and more.  It’s a mere 25 pages long, but don’t worry: I didn’t skimp on any of the information you need to know.  I just took out all the fluff and boiled down the good stuff into an easy-to-understand, quick-read format.

How do you get your copy of Karon’s free keyword research guide?

Simply click to this page now

http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keywordreport.html and start creating a new and profitable source of income for your business.

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Who Invited MySpace?

May 27, 2011 – 12:26 am

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

How to Clean a Washing Machine

May 10, 2011 – 11:21 am

Turn washer to highest level and hottest temperature. With nothing in the drum but water, put two cups of bleach in and let the washer lid sit open allowing the hot water and bleach clean the drum. After letting that mixture sit for awhile close the lid and let the cycle go all the way through to the end.

Once the cycle is complete, start it over again at the highest level and hottest temperature and add the two cups of white vinegar into the water. Again let that sit for awhile with the lid open. After letting it sit, close the lid and allow for the cycle to finish.

If you can, remove the fabric softener dispenser and bleach dispenser from the machine and scrub them. Remove the agitator from the drum and clean the inside of that too. Once all that is finished, re-do the two steps of bleach and vinegar again. Your washer should be completely clean after that.

My suggestion is that you DO NOT use fabric softener in your loads. Instead replace it with a cup of white vinegar, or nothing at all.

When you go to dry your laundry DO NOT use dryer sheets because they are a fire hazard and also produce a film in your dryer allowing lint to adhere to the inside increasing your chances of having a fire.

Also I suggest that you have a chimney sweep come and clean out your lint trap that goes from the dryer to the outside of the house. This improves the dryers ability to dry your laundry and decrease the chance of a fire.

By doing all these things your laundry will come out cleaner and smell better than you ever imagined.

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Human side of dentistry

May 2, 2011 – 3:20 pm

Otto talks about reacting with fear at the dentist. http://www.geniuscoaching.com/gc/2011/05/may-2-2011-visiting-my-dentist/

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Why Are We Allergic to So Many Foods?

April 30, 2011 – 2:02 pm

Interesting video:

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Small Business Owners: Are You Making These 3 Deadly Website Copywriting Mistakes?

April 28, 2011 – 9:13 pm

By Karon Thackston © 2010, All Rights Reserved

It’s a common question.  “What copywriting mistakes should I avoid?”  There are many, but the 3 I chose might surprise you.

Why?  Because while these can potentially cause the greatest amount of damage they are not ones most copywriters talk about.

Why?  Because these aren’t the “sexy” copywriting mistakes.  They aren’t the quick-fix aspects. They require thinking and judgment and… <gasp!>… work!  However, they are the ones that – when implemented correctly – can drastically boost the performance of your copy and content whether that be a blog post, article, web page, email or other forms of text.

Copywriting Mistake #1 – Writing Without a Plan

Regardless of what you write, you’ll get better results if you perform due diligence with a little prior planning.  In fact, if you go through the planning phase of copywriting, chances are the copy will all but write itself.  How so?

Because research allows you the opportunity to get to know your target customer, organize your thoughts, outline features, benefits and end results, get your creative juices flowing, and much more. It also allows you to overcome what might otherwise become copywriting mistakes.

Take this article, for instance.  When I started, I didn’t just lay fingers to keyboard and begin rambling on.  I thought about the topic I’d like to approach.  I looked into keyphrases that might be a good fit. (For this piece, I chose “copywriting mistakes” and “copywriting mistake.”)

Then, I gave some thought about what – specifically – I’d like to accomplish in the article.  What, precisely, did I want to communicate to you?  Those became the “3 copywriting mistakes”

mentioned in the headline as well as the outline for my writing.

All that was left to do was fill in the blanks.

The same applies to writing website copy.  When you follow a process for outlining features, benefits and end results, researching keywords, and creating a skeleton of what the page should accomplish, it all falls into place much easier.

Copywriting Mistake #2 – Writing About Your Company/Product Instead of To Your Site Visitor

One of my biggest pet peeves – and one of the most common copywriting mistakes I see – is ignoring your site visitors.

Indulge me for a minute as I climb on my soapbox.

If someone walked into your office, shook your hand and asked how you could help them, you would not immediately begin to rattle off everything you believed to be a strong point about your product or company.  No.  What would you do?  You’d start getting to know the customer.

You would ask questions.  You would find out what their problems/challenges are.  You’d get details on specifically what they want to do/accomplish and then you would address their exact issues.

Instead of “we do this and we do that and our company… let us help… we, we, us, us, our, our, our…blah, blah, blah” you would speak to the customer who is seated in front of you.  Instead of “we-ing all over yourself,” you’d say something like this:

“Mr. Smith, you can get to where you want to go. It’s not as hard as you think.  You can improve the image others have of your company and help reinforce your brand with a system that offers 3 important advantages.  First, you’ll find that ____________________________….”  You get the idea.

Does that mean you can never use “us” or “we” or “our?”

Certainly not!  But keep it to a minimum.  I’d venture to guess you should you those words less than 10% of the time.  After all, it’s not about you… it’s about the ones who have the money:  your customers.

Copywriting Mistake #3 – Thinking Copywriting Only Happens on Your Web Page

If you plan to write search engine optimized copy, you’ll have to understand that your copy actually begins in the search engine results pages (SERPs).  The title tag and the META description tag create a little advertisement for you in Yahoo!, Google, Bing and the other engines.

Let’s say a surfer types in “black cowboy boots” (for example).

The very first exposure that customer has to your web page is what they find in the SERPs. Which of these tag sets grabs your attention?

Black Cowboy Boots – Black Cowboy Boots

Black cowboy boots are manufactured by all of the major cowboy boot makers. This most popular boot comes in various styles depending on your needs.

Black Cowboy Boots – Free Shipping and Return Shipping Buy cowboy boots with a price guarantee and top rated customer service. You can compare multiple … Dan Post Boots Eel Cowboy – Black (Men’s) $249.95 …

Western Spurs, Tshirts, Western Wear, Art, Posters Black Cowboy Boot with Spurs keychains • Black Cowboy Boot with Spurs Key Chain by White_Wedding. praying cowboy pet clothing • praying cowboy dog shirt …

I don’t know about you, but I’d be clicking that free shipping one with the price guarantee!

You have to write your title tag and META description tag as an advertisement. Tell the surfer why they should click to your page as opposed to the other 10,000 in the SERPs. What’s in it for them if they click to you?

So, now you know.  And now that you know, you can avoid making the 3 most deadly copywriting mistakes small business owners make.

Are you looking to revamp or build a small business website but aren’t sure where to start? Karon’s book Effective Websites for Small Businesses helps you work with professional to make it happen. Learn more at http://www.EffectiveWebsitesForSmallBusinesses.com.

 

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Continuity in SEO Copywriting Improves Rankings & Conversions

March 16, 2011 – 3:34 pm

By Karon Thackston © 2011, All Rights Reserved

It has become a fundamental principle of Internet marketing. When sending a prospect from some form of trigger (banner ad, pay-per-click ad, tweet, etc.) to the landing page, there must be continuity: the message must flow.

For example, when constructing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, there has to be continuity between the ad and the landing page. The use of the same keyphrases, copy that flows seamlessly from ad to landing page and other factors can make or break your campaign. If these elements aren’t in place the disconnect your visitors will suffer will confuse them and send them packing.

Why then do we rarely see any consistency in these areas when writing search engine optimized (SEO) copy?

Create Links in a Chain

On most web pages the tag sets are scattered.  Take note the next time you’re surfing.  You’ll see title tags that are unrelated to the description tag, both of which are distant from the headline of the copy on the actual page, etc., etc., etc.  There is no flow.  Nothing exists to usher the prospect from one step to the next.

It should work just like links in a chain.  One is directly connected to the next and so forth.  The basis of writing organic SEO copy is developing and following the same topic from your visitor’s first exposure to your site (the organic Google/Bing/Yahoo! listing title) to the call-to-action on the web page itself.  It should – in essence – work exactly like the process when writing a paid ad/landing page combo.

Take it One Step at a Time

Create a plan before you write pages with optimized copy.  Don’t view it with tunnel vision; strictly from the standpoint of what’s happening on the page.  Take it one step at a time and walk the path your prospects will walk.

• Where will the site visitor come from?  An organic search engine listing.
• What’s the first exposure to your site?  The title tag of the organic listing.
• If the title tag captures their attention, where will they look for more information?  The description tag underneath the title tag.
• When they click to your web page, how will they know they are in the right place? The message (copy) and keyphrases will be carried through from the search engine results page (SERP) to the web page.

See how it works?  With each glance, with each click, the visitor takes a new step toward conversion.  That’s because, just like with paid marketing campaigns, you’ve laid out a clear path for your prospects to follow rather than forcing them to navigate a rocky and confusing road.

When you’re ready to write expert-level copy that boosts rankings & converts more visitors get Karon’s Step-by-Step Copywriting Course (5th edition) and learn to do it right. http://www.CopywritingCourse.com

Posted in Copywriting | 1 Comment »

Think Keyword Density is Still a Factor? Prove It!

March 4, 2011 – 12:29 pm

By Karon Thackston © 2011, All Rights Reserved

As I read her email I could literally feel my blood pressure rising.  She’d heard me speak at a webinar I did for Wordtracker about ecommerce copywriting where I said keyword density hadn’t been a factor in SEO copywriting for years.  The lump in my throat got bigger as Zoe (not her real name) explained why she thought the myth about keyword density simply wouldn’t die.

“Keyword density is going to remain a hot (contentious) topic. I just read an article in the “New Yorker” yesterday about the new AOL CEO: “Can Tim Armstrong save AOL?” Apparently AOL is going to put greater focus on being content providers. Here’s an excerpt from page 36:

‘The writing, too, is often designed to appeal more to search engines than to readers. In the list of “contributor resources”

for Seed, the most prominent category is for “search engine optimization”–S.E.O.–the process of packing stories with words that will make them appear higher in the list of results that Google and Bing display when users search for terms related to the subject. Seed links to guidelines that instruct writers to pay attention to what is called “keyword density”: the number of times that certain phrases appear in a story as a percentage of total words in a piece. If you’re writing a story on herbal tea, you should use that phrase early and often.’

“So, while I’ve read articles by plenty of respected SEO experts who insist they’ve tested various keyword density models and it doesn’t correlate with returns, I have to say I’ve read at least as many articles like this that still bang the keyword density drum. Well you can see how the mixed messages can be frustrating.”

“Writing often designed to appeal more to search engines?”

“Packing stories with words?”  Arrgg!  Give me a break!  Talk about old school.  Keyword density has not been a valid measure of SEO copywriting success in probably 8-10 years now.

• Do you need to include keyphrases in your copy?  Yes.
• Do you need to “pack” your copy with keywords?  No.
• Does your content need to appeal more to search engines than
  people. Absolutely not!

Yet, dreadfully, Zoe is right about one thing.  There are still plenty of so-called experts out there that will swear to you copy must be written to a certain keyword density percentage.  They’ll vow that this is the only way to write search engine optimized copy.  To those who believe this, I say:

Oh Yeah?  Prove It!

Have you ever tested it?  Or are you just blindly following this outdated myth that refuses to die?

I can prove that keyword density is not an issue.  Can you prove
- quantifiably show me in a measurable form – that copy must have a certain keyword density to rank high?  I’m sure you’ve written pages that have a 2%, 5% or even 10% keyword density ratio, but what happens if you remove some of those phrases from the copy?

Does the ranking drop?  Not in my experience.

In fact, clients have hired me to rewrite their previously awful-sounding copy to be more natural.  While the former copy was not keyword stuffed, it did not flow very well at all.

Rewriting it without so many keyphrase mentions not only improved conversions, but also *increased* rankings.

When writing SEO copy for my clients, I never calculate keyword density and the pages rank consistently well.

From as far back as 2006, Matt Cutts (Google’s Antispam Chief) and other officials have stated that keyword density is a non-issue.  Here are just a few quotes from Matt and Google.

2006: “I’d recommend thinking more about words and variants (the “long-tail”) and thinking less about keyword density or repeating phrases.” — Matt Cutts

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-writing-useful-articles-that-readers-will-love/

2008: “Keyword Density: Not really a factor. Yes keyword should be present but density is not important. Include the keyword but make writing sound natural.” — Matt Cutts

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/join-the-webmaster-chat-today/

2009:  “As long as I’ve been at Google, keyword density has not been a core factor … in either the main site text, title tag or any of the other associated tags…” — Adam Lasnik speaking at Search Masters ’09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhknZUEueKc (About 3:00 into

video)

2010: “‘Keyword stuffing’ refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.” — Google Webmaster Central

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66358

Please, PLEASE don’t just follow along with what the majority of people online are repeating.  If you read interviews from AOL saying they instruct writers to use keyword density and you also read blog posts from reliable sources telling you not to subscribe to keyword density ratios, do your own testing.  Find out for yourself who’s telling the truth.

Remember what your mother used to ask you: “If your best friend jumped off a 100-foot cliff, would you do it, too?”  Honestly, whether we’re talking about SEO copywriting or not, following the crowd is usually the kiss of death.  Keyword density is no exception.

When you’re ready to write expert-level website & SEO copy that doesn’t rely on myths and misconceptions, get Karon’s Step-by-Step Copywriting Course (5th edition) and learn to do it right. http://www.CopywritingCourse.com

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IE9 Beta First Impressions

September 16, 2010 – 11:13 am

After following the IE Blog for months about how great their new browser is they finally announced an open Beta. As I develop for the Internet I can’t install on my work machine as it might interfere with my testing of code on IE8 so last night I installed on two machines at home.

My main problem currently is the lack of speed in IE8. I run IE8 on a 2 year old laptop with 2GB RAM and it can take 30 seconds to start. The Javascript performance is appalling. The built in debugger is confusing. I generally work in Firefox 3 with Firebug which in comparison starts in less than 5 seconds, Firebug is really intuitive too and with the Web Developer plugin I get control of CSS on the fly – and ideal development environment.

First impression of the install – why do I need to reboot windows to install this? I don’t need to reboot for Firefox updates, nor most other software. Then on the reboot its obviously reconfiguring and installing something at the system level. Thought this tight integration wasn’t allowed any more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case Guess that doesn’t apply in the US.

So now we’re running IE9 Beta and gave it a test spin with Zillow.com. Initial reactions were that most sites just worked. The property details page failed to show the property map but otherwise worked fine.

My wife tried it going to Gmail but had issues with the application crashing and got a little fed up, but being Beta software some issues are to be expected.

I ran some of the browser benchmarks such as the IE Fish Tank and they run really smooth, much better than my Firefox installation at the office http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/fishIE%20tank/default.html

The Speed Reading test is impossible to read on either IE9 or Firefox 3 – on IE9 its too quick, and on Firefox 3 its too slow to bother waiting for.

Overall the browser seems really nice, I’m really looking forward to the speed improvements in rich content, the other new features I didn’t see a point to yet. Some work on the remaining bugs and it should be a good upgrade.

Posted in Uncategorized, Web Design and Development | No Comments »