The Merriam site offers this , regarding seminal (bold, mine): Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Latin seminalis, from semin-, semen seed

This is a post where I just want to hype something wonderful I read recently. A seed.

Rae Hoffman, an outspoken SEO/Affiliate/Marketing expert has once again released what will be considered one of the more pertinent documents on current linking strategies. Her company sites are found at http://www.sugarrae.com/ and http://outspokenmedia.com/. If you have never read Rae’s work, start with the Sugarrae site – it is inspiring, funny, helpful, and establishes clearly why this is a professional you should listen to.

Here is the post on link building techniques in 2010.  You might want to bring a snack – it’s a truly meaty post, and reading it will take a while for sure.

This is the third post of this type that Rae has put together, and each of them are pretty fabulous. Here’s a link to her post on linking strategies from 2007, and here’s a link to 2008’s feature on linking. I am always a fan of Rae’s “bare knuckle” style, but her writing takes a back seat in these efforts, as she allows a diverse set of ideas to do all the talking.

How does she do it? By connecting some of the best minds on the subject, having everyone answer the same questions without seeing others’ responses, and compiling the answers for comparison. The result is a collection of original and thought-provoking observations from some of the brightest minds in this industry: a must read.

This year’s cast of characters includes some of the best-known, trustworthy names on the web, if you are into marketing and SEO:

I have already read this twice, and bookmarked it for more detailed repeat viewings as I need them. But I wanted to share this with anyone who hasn’t yet seen it, as it is a seminal post, and a fine example of creating value and meaning in web content.

Three cheers, Rae – I feel I owe you a beer, should our paths ever cross.

And thanks to all these folks for again sharing their knowledge and experience, helping us all do a little better online.

Here again, is a link to the post on link building techniques in 2010. Pay attention – you’ll learn something!

Shhhhh.

I am going to tell you the secret. This is the secret successful copywriters don’t want you to know.

But first, let me tell you a little about my story.

I used to be just like you – struggling to find the answers that would unlock SEO goodness. I wanted the best search engine rankings, and I was ready to spend all afternoon to get there.

I saw other people in the search positions I wanted, so I knew that since I too, had a website, I could be up there, too – if I only knew their secret.

I bought a big calculator to figure out what Google was doing, and was discouraged to learn that it was really hard. I just knew, if I had the secret that I could stop trying and start earning.

And I WAS RIGHT!!!

Once I learned the secret, I started to gain all those positions in the search engine that I had only dreamed about. My traffic shot through the roof, and more money came in than ever before.

Better still, I threw away the calculator, and knew that I would never have to worry about it again – Google would love me most of all.

So what’s the secret?

Write something good.

Quit recycling pap and chasing links. Quit trying to unroll the magic formula. Quit taking shortcuts.

Write something good.

Answer to your users’ needs. Answer to your higher power. Choose a path. Choose to make a difference.

Write something good.

Stand-out. Stick-up. Push-out. Flare-up. Break stuff.

Write something good.

The best possible SEO copywriting tip I can offer you, is to write like no other. It works, every time…so don’t tell. Luckily, most people will never learn our little secret. They are too busy believing that search results are delivered by leprechauns riding on unicorns.

Shhhhh. Don’t wake them.

In SEO copywriting, the way things change is pretty astounding. So here’s an SEO tip: dial it back a little.

The way I have been seeing the SERPs behave lately, they are not favoring the heavy-handed keyword slam. The opposite seems to be true.

In the past, it may have helped you to have your keyword in the meta title, alt attributes in images, and sprinkled naturally throughout your text. That hasn’t changed – all of those things are good.

What is not good, is aligning them too literally. You pound one keyword to death – at the expense of it working well anymore. Variety. It is not simply the spice of life, it is also good for your handling of keywords.

Simple Example Using Business Turtles

You have a page about business turtle resort getaways in the islands somewhere. Pretty all the time (business turtles deserve only the best). So you want to rank well for “Business Turtle Spas” and “Business Turtle Resorts” is a secondary keyphrase you target. 

In the title, try: “Exotic Business Turtle Spas | Resorts for Business Turtles.” 

• I have an exact match of the targeted keyword placed one word into the title.
• The preceding word is what I call a relative modifier. I think “exotic” might not have too much interference, given it is referencing a spa. In this case, one word is sufficient. A relative modifier adds just a little padding before the optimizing begins. It is worth noting if you ask me.  
• I pick up the secondary keyphrase as well due to L-R word order, and scoop a few related combinations.

In the H1 tag, I don’t want to hammer the keyword to death. Try: ” A Spa and Resort Every Business Turtle Will Adore“

• I am not concerned as much with the keywords: I am aware of them. I imply them. I am after the reader here. And the bots. There’s that balance thing you need to achieve again, kids - discuss.
• You may have to come back and rework this later, to make it effective. Sweating a title is not a crime – it is what carries the power of the message many times. Think of the turtles.
• Aim it at the reader. This is on-page, so the bot becomes the passenger, behind the users and turtles. Or even I suppose is more accurate…but when in doubt, readability for the win.
• Don’t think this is not effective toward the larger keyword just because you don’t use the keyword exactly.

In the body then, it is a light, relevant sprinkling of variations and synonyms we are seeking. The title and H1 will connect with one or two mentions sprinkled naturally within a few hundred words. The rest should not be direct.

The more competitive the term, the more information the surrounding text should carry. Repetition or (shudder) density might play a SMALL part here, but it is usually small. I think, the more competitive your niche, the more unique and valuable your content must be.

Everyone with a tent on the beach will be clamoring to get a piece of the hot Business Turtle spa action. So they will repeat that term as many times as possible on a page to try to dominate. If you, instead, blend your keyword only a few times (maybe 2, maybe 3, maybe one) and keep the paragraphs on-topic, you can substitute variations of the keyword (singular for plural, synonyms) and do very well.

Worth noting, to me.

How much is too much then? You tell me.

Here’s an SEO copywriting tip that is a little weird – if you want to improve ranking for a specific keyphrase, one good way to build on-page strength for it is through using synonyms.

“What?” your collective gasp asks breathlessly, “But what about increasing our keyword density?” (sounds of panic, anvils falling into pianos, people hurling themselves into walls and lots of self-flagellation. Sirens, mayhem, bludgeoning, chaos. Keywords, writhing on the floor, covered in blood.)

In case you have been living under a rock, keyword density is a silly way to measure your on-page strength in 2010. Heck, it was silly even when it worked, but we’ve covered that.

No, the search engines (the big G in particular) are much more shrewd these days. The algorithms are refined, and hand reviews are probably more commonplace. SPAM is much thicker, so filters and hurdles have been erected to make it at least a little challenging to rank a page.

Adding your keyphrase to a page more often is not usually going to help as much as you might want it to. Nope.

Instead, the use of synonyms, context and related terms allows you to remain on-topic and adding value without pushing the potential over-saturation of your main keyword. This can improve your pull, increase retention and can actually build page strength for the main keyphrase, believe it or not.

Let’s get a little more specific.

Ah Yes, the Prerequisite Simple Illustration

You are targeting “small business turtles” as your main keyword. Some naturally connected terms might be: turtle, corporate turtle, business reptiles, business turtle, and so on. List them, and see what you can make of them as far as search volume and competitiveness if appropriate.

Since “small business turtles” as the plural is your targeted phrase, this is the one you will have prominently in your meta title, like: Sexy Small Business Turtles | Greater Atlanta Business Turtles

I usually will include it in the meta description tag as well. Though it does not improve the ranking here, it will align in a SERP result. This makes a better connection for the user to your main point of this page: small business turtles.

The synonyms and relative terms really come into play in the body text, starting with the first header (H1, for those playing the home version).

Since we used the targeted keyphrase verbatim and partially in the title, I like to modify it in some way again in the first headline – so I might use some variation of “A business turtle”  in the header to change the plural to singular, and to remove one of the targeted modifiers, maybe: “This Business Turtle Brings Atlanta New Sexiness“. Note how it stays close to the title without duplicating it – this is the key.

I believe this adds some (very little, but a plus nonetheless) value to the main phrase (the keywords are still in it, just pared down a little) while not oversaturating it and making it look spammy with yet anotherexact match.

Over-optimizing your page can result in you not achieving the results you want, and it is often hard to detect for many people. Too many exact match keyphrases is VERY easy to see: as an optimizing strategy, to penalize, or even for your competitors to duplicate.

As you roll on through the page text then, you blend in your synonyms and related words. This allows you to also more naturally get your targeted keyword in there a couple more times (still usually needed to rank), but the flow and natural feel of the content will likely be better from using the synonyms.

Since a hand reviewer is going to see the relative terms as you staying on subject and perhaps offering a bit of depth, you win. If the algorithms become smarter (and they do) and start including more semantic connections in their valuations (which they seem to be doing), you win again.

Best of all, as a user, the intent of the page (to rank for “small business turtles”) is  masked behind a shroud of usefulness.

And the inherent sexiness of small business turtles, of course.

This also holds true for your anchor text of incoming links (when you can control it) - mixing it up with synonyms and variations makes them work better for most people in most situations. We’ll cover this aspect more in a later post.

Enjoy, all you turtle-lovers!

Yes.

With the clear understanding that engines are useless without someone running them.

Get back to work.

Call me a snob, but SEO Copywriting is an art. If absolutely anyone could successfully add keywords into general ideas and make it work, there would be no such thing as freelance SEO writing because we’d all be too busy tending our wheelbarrows full of money.

No, weaving contextually important keywords and phrases into a naturally flowing and effective page of content is not something that tends to just “happen.” But there are some simple ways you can focus SEO copywriting efforts to make each project more successful.

My simple SEO copywriting tip today: research the potential visitor impact of your keywords to help focus your project. 

Two Common Scenarios

In a very general sense, SEO copywriting gigs will usually be one of two types. Either the client gives you a list of potential keywords (or perhaps products) and you build a page for each; or, you receive a subject matter for which you are asked to write something appropriately engaging and you’d provide insight into the keywords to use to bring in the greatest audience.

In both cases, a little research before you start can help you to make your finished product more powerful.

The key is to look very specifically at the search volume and trends of all the targeted keywords. Running your potential keywords through a couple of SEO tools can help you do this quickly and easily. 

One of my favorite ways is to take a potential keyword and drop it into SEOBook’s free Keyword Research Tool. This tool will show you the potential search volumes that keywords (and variations) are receiving every month. It is a pretty solid snapshot to give you a look at the surrounding keyphrases, search trends, and patterns associated with your entry. Plus, this specific tool is set up so there are links to data offered by AdWords, Yahoo!, Google Trends and more. Dig deeper with just a click.

What to See In the Data

Let’s say you have a scenario where the client gives you a list of keywords and wants pages built. On the list, is the term “business loan” and you are supposed to build a page that makes ”business loan” carry weight on the client’s site.

By popping the term into the Keyword Research Tool, you see business loan as well as a variety of longer phrases associated with this term. Click on the screen capture below and you’ll see part of the display for this search.
Now looking at this image, you might notice that ”business loan” is not even showing. That is because it is found further down the page. The results are sorted by estimated daily searches. The exact match had 305 est. daily searches, less than the variations seen here.

Which is precisely the point I want to make.

How to Interpret the Data

First is a reminder to never take these tools as something that is “truth” or gospel or anything more than what they are. Tools offer you insight and suggest strategy by collecting larger data sets than you can get on your own. But remember to take them for what they are, and don’t get lost in analysis paralysis…you have work to do.

That said, there is gold in them thar hills when you read these reports with an eye trained on strategy.

Referring back to the example, I can use this single search to see some of the long tail opportunities, the differences in singular versus plurals, the effect of regional modifiers, and applying other modifiers to the targeted keyword.

This can help me to select secondary or tertiary keywords for a page, or maybe suggest alternatives to the main keyword I was originally looking at. Many times, I have used data like this to explain to the client that a strategy toward a more powerful keyphrase makes sense. 

How you use the data you dig up is at this point is based on the project…there are millions of ways to exploit the data found through keyword research. Think of each entry as new starting points, and you can see how limitless it becomes.

When Do You Apply It?

One of the most crucial aspects of keyword research (as it pertains to SEO copywriting) is the timing. Knowing potential search volumes after you have written something is far less effective than knowing this information before you start drafting.

If you are performing research after you have already drafted a page, you are looking for ways to blend targeted keyphrases into existing content. Epic fail for most everybody.

Adding keywords to existing content is hard for me to do, and I have been doing this for almost a decade. It is hard to make keywords that were not in an original page to suddenly be there in a natural manner. Not impossible by any means, but not typically the best way to approach this.

Doing keyword research before you begin drafting gives you the strategic edge needed to bring real value to your SEO copywriting clients.  It creates a measurable direction. The client can supply general keywords or suggestions, and you can offer researched data to push their thoughts, budget and efforts toward the best online strategy.

Progress can be measured by setting a baseline: usually, traffic analysis on the incoming keywords before you start. Measure the impact of incoming visits driven by the new keywords after you add your efforts. Simple, but effective job security.

Word of Caution

If doing research on search volume, do not be blinded by the highest number. We’re not in Vegas.

If your client wants to go after “St. Louis Business Loan Provider” and you say, “No, ’small business loans’ has a MUCH higher estimated daily search volume,” you may be stating the facts, but more times than not, you’d be giving bad advice.

Why? Because a smaller business is going to find “small business loans” almost impenetrable, but a tightly focused regional phrase would be pretty easy to overtake. Use additional research to understand the competitive landscape before you bite off more than you can chew.

This is not to say don’t go after the bigger keywords – just that strategically, for most businesses it makes sense to start smaller and build toward the bigger pay-off.

So my SEO copywriter tip for you today is before you draft word one, to use the estimated search volumes to look at a range of potential keyword variations that can be seamlessly incorporated into your page content. Part of your value as an experienced SEO copywriter is in knowing which phrases might be the easiest ones to take over.

The value of SEO copywriting is quickly apparent to people trying to gain positioning in the SERPs. The real value found through professional SEO copywriting takes years and hopefully a couple wheelbarrows to properly measure.

I am a big fan of the Showtime Original series, “Dexter.” If you haven’t seen it, it is a show where the main character is a forensics blood-spatter expert by day, serial killer by night.

In the first season, Dexter manages his balance between these two extremes by rigidly following “the Code” which is a set of rules his father Harry established to protect Dexter. Harry’s Code acknowledges Dexter’s need to kill, and sets forth a rigid set of rules that MUST be followed, or else Dexter increases his risks of getting caught. Learning Harry’s Code is what enables Dexter to find and begin to practice his “art.” 

However, as the seasons of this show progress, the audience sees Dexter questioning the need of Harry’s Code, and he looks to find his own answers. Amazingly, if you watch a season or two you’ll find yourself rooting for a serial killer to find himself, and achieve his murders without being caught. Really fun stuff, and wonderfully addicting.

I want to suggest that in writing corporate communications, Dexter makes a killer metaphoric role model. 

• Harry’s Code: Think of grammar rules as the Harry’s Code of corporate writing. There is a fixed set of rigid rules to follow that guarantee safety. Like Dexter, if a writer follows the Code (rules of grammar) religiously, chances are pretty good they will always find safety. Learning and understanding the Code is a necessity to enter into the life we choose. Like Dexter, the Code needs to become intrinsic to your very being, so a violation of the Code immediately sends up a distress signal. As Dexter’s character grows, he starts to question the code, and test it. He knows the details of Harry’s Code as if it were twisted in his DNA, but he starts to use experience and desire to carve out his own set of rules. The results are not always good, but they start to establish Dexter as a character that is separate from Harry’s influence – or in metaphor-speak, a writer with a uniquely competitive edge. Kick your grammar lessons to the curb and see what happens. Breaking away from the codes and traditions that get us to where we are is not easy – but it is often necessary to achieve the unique character that keeps us successful season after season.    
• Research the Kill for greatest impact. On the show, Dexter’s success comes from the fact that he is a very methodical serial killer. He does extensive research on each target, and understands and prepares the situation as well as he can before he engages. His planning is framed on his understanding of Harry’s Code and his own experiences. There is nothing casual or random in how things unfold: Dexter intimately learns the personal habits of the target and he uses the environments to carefully plan every detail so it goes without a hitch. He does not force his ways blindly onto every situation, but instead, he uses experience and patience to ensure he will strike only when he gets the strongest return. Many times, if all the elements do not align, he will wait for better circumstances to more effectively manage his risk. There is an eye fixed on the end result and passion drives the process, but only restraint, control, and discipline allow him to be at the top of his game. When things do line-up, which they always do in time, Dexter goes in (very precisely) for the kill. Passion inspires him to find what he needs. Research and attention to detail are what he uses to uncover opportunity, which in a sense, his passions are constantly proactively creating. Dexter is very plugged-in to his art and builds on each experience to become more effective.  Every kill has purpose, he is always striving to be better. Even when he seems to be simply catering to his “needs,” he is perfecting his art by testing and tightening the routines, validating the power of Harry’s Code by either using it, or deliberately choosing not to. As writers, the metaphoric lessons Dexter’s carved out for us here are clear.
• Don’t be afraid to change. One reason the series continues  to be so successful (in my opinion), is that Dexter’s character is growing and changing. As the world around him morphs, he adapts. He is trying new things, and his character is allowed to become deeper. At his core, the things we loved about Dexter remain: he is a killer conflicted by his immenent “dark passenger” – the need to kill – and what it does to him. His story unfolds in the very elaborate efforts to ensure a guise of normalcy while keeping the dark passenger entertained. After we are introduced to the safety offered by rigid attention to the details of Harry’s Code, we see Dexter shed it to find his own meaning. His quest seems to always bring him close to the magic elixir, but he has yet to find his perfect balance and complete his hero’s journey. We see him try and fail but try again, and all the while he is changing, growing and evolving. Writers need to be like this, and find the work that excites them enough to change. Test the limits created by of your own version of “Harry’s Code” (grammar rules, using slang, etc.) and see where it lands you. Pitch the rules, and start over. Let the past shape you, let the rules point you in the right direction, but don’t allow convention to dictate every step of your path.    

Ok, so maybe a serial killer is not the best role model.

But in corporate communications, people talk all the time about “killer copy” and headlines that kill it. I argue that this is only possible when like Dexter, you understand enough to avoid normalcy. You must embrace the Code long enough to earn the right to use experience to discard it at will. And above all else, you must be willing to adapt, change and grow to keep the audience engaged.  

Work with me, people.

Pretty sexy title, huh?

Better still, my advice is to ignore them.

Actually, you won’t find this provocative post here – it was a guest post that I did last week for SEORabbit, a friend up in Connecticut, who is an expert on local search.

Give it a good eyeballing here: http://www.seorabbit.com/the-best-way-to-attract-search-engines-to-your-copy

In completing a few things on the boil this week, I just sent off a couple guest blog posts. They were really fun to write, and I hope they do well for us all. I also just tucked-in to a 17 page word document of new site content I am writing for a frame shop in Wisconsin – going to be reading and tweaking until my eyes slam shut tonight. Have an ad concept meeting on Friday, and gotta get a new statement of work together for a new project.

This made me think of the different types of work I have done recently, all of it tied in some way to SEO copywriting. I am going to list them here, and encourage you to use this as a reference if you are trying to figure out who might need your services:

• Site content. Ah yes, the staple of our trade. Businesses ALWAYS need site content. But in this case I refer to the core pages of a site, the skeleton of someone’s corporate message. There is always a new business idea seeking the right presentation or a tired business needing a new idea, so as a writer, you can make a huge impact on a successful launch (or re-branding). If nothing is jumping out at you for where to find work, go where your passions lie and see who needs help. Ask, and ye shall find. Working on the right project recharges your batteries, and more experience (both good and bad) makes you ready for bigger and better projects.
• Ad copy. Static ad copy that works is a very valuable thing. Making the most of a medium is key here, so if you have specific experience (e.g., in AdWords, Local Search, banners, Facebook, etc.)  it is no crime to mention it. Writing tight little ads for Adwords, Facebook, or other specific mediums is bank. Proof of your mastery is visible in days (in many cases). If you have experience (and no non-compete agreements to prevent it), look to the niches where you have already found success. Build on it. Ad copy (of the Adword variety here – not speaking of more traditional ad copy) is not usually something I land as a gig on its own, but I lump it into a larger web project quite often. 
• Blogposts.Yes, blogposts. As I said, I have been doing some guest posts lately which have been fun. Sometimes I even write as me now! But I also write a lot of corporate style blogposts anonymously. Businesses appreciate all styles of writing for blogs, so find the tones where you are most comfortable and offer your services, if appropriate. If you like a blog, you can also just write a guest post and offer it – most people would love to have something authored by an expert, so get out there. If they reject your guest post, they may offer suggestions on what to do to bring it up to speed for them – it rarely hurts to try, anyway. Blog owners like having a day off where the content still flows. It works for you in strangely wonderful ways sometimes.
• Press Releases.Press releases are gold for most small businesses. A press release is a legitimate way to spread positive propaganda about your business, and you can reach a really large audience very quickly if you handle it correctly. Knowing how solid press releases are written is a bankable skill in any industry. These are one of my favorite things to do, really – I find them incredibly easy, so I can spend a good deal of time strategizing the SEO and making them work really well. I have written press releases for auto salvage yards, doctor’s offices, financial providers, service providers, an international overhead door company, geospatial imaging specialists, architects, veterinarians, life coaches, a Vespa scooter dealer and more. All businesses have news, and knowing how to properly leverage a press release is a search engine strategy that still packs a mighty punch.
• Product descriptions. Last year, I wrote catalog descriptions for two large-scale retailers. What it does for them, is it gives each product page more meat so the search engines appreciate the site a little more. It is a great strategy to pull in more long-tail searches. For me, it was good, steady work for months at a time. There are lots of businesses that can benefit from unique, focused product descriptions – the difficulty I have experienced, is usually more about finding someone willing to pay what it costs for creating that many pages. (But many business owners understand the power here, and know a moderate investment now pays for itself repeatedly over time). Not the most glamorous writing gig for some people, but I actually like the rhythm of it once I get the corporate tone in stride - kind of like riding on a train while you work. Some companies like really unique product descriptions too, so it is a lot more creative than most people might think. Sometimes.
• Articles for article sites. A 200-800 word article on a specifically identified topic can help a business in their search engine efforts. I worked on a couple strategies recently that involved creating articles for article sites, so the embedded links could be leveraged from a topic aligned with the client’s business. The pay level is not usually high for this kind of thing, but it is something I can bump out without much effort. One important thing to know if you are not aware: power writers on article sites will get the love. If you are a freelance writer and don’t have many active clients, look to these article sites and aim to get enough solid material in one to raise your status to a power contributor. Personally, I don’t think enough of article sites any more to spend time developing my own profiles to gain power from them – I have other fish to fry. But I certainly have written my share of articles for these sites, and it is a strategy many businesses will hire you for. And if you become a power author, you have clout that can earn you some bank from what I understand.

The point of this list is to consider where you could target people looking for this kind of SEO copywriting. Or, if you are talking to someone about the possibility of hiring you, you might mention some of these as options for potential projects.

One last thing to think about from this list, is how widely varied the SEO copywriter’s tool chest can be. You can easily make a specialty out of any one of the things I listed above – or like me, you can go where they need you most.

Call it one small step for job security!