by Marty | Nov 5, 2010 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips, General Pearls of Wisdom
How To SEO Blogposts
Got a great question in an email from a guy named John, asking:
Do you have a resource that can actually spell out (or at least provide guidelines) for how often to use a keyword in an article, and a little bit about placement for someone who is really green, but keen to get started?
SoapBox Answer: The problem with looking for a reliable keyword-to-content ratio or set of guidelines, is there is none. Different niches and scenarios will bring similarly different results. One size cannot possibly fit all.
Keyphrase strength becomes an individually evaluated thing that flexes wildly. More importantly, this is only one thing (among so many) used to evaluate a site or page’s value. Concentrating on keywords and keyphrases alone is more likely to hurt you in other aspects, most commonly in general usability and coherence.
You also run a very real risk of a search engine filtering for over-optimizing, should you get too happy with repeating a keyword in a page or a link campaign.
When the keywords are the most important things, you lose track of why you are creating the web page to begin with, which is to engage readers. Step back a bit: it’s time to see the forest, too.
It’s true, the right keywords will work wonders, but it is infinitely easier for most people to figure out something that makes them special. Subject matter expertise is going to trump most keyword-driven shenanigans. Certainly, if you are in it for the long haul, this is going to prove true…give it time.
The Sad Truth: The Right Keyphrases Are Not Magic Pills
Ultimately for most people, keyphrases themselves just won’t help you like you think they will. You can’t plug them into your idea later on – normally, they should’ve been a part of your idea from the start. Pasting them on later is very difficult, and rarely effective – unless you are paying for it to happen, or guided by professionals. Better to chuck the idea of keywords at that point, and simply create better and deeper content for your readers, based on subject matter.
And don’t think there is a magic ratio, or keyword density or anything like that that matters. I promise you, there isn’t and it doesn’t. Anyone selling you a recipe including keyword density optimizing, is full of shit. There is no blanket approach that will work for you in every situation, there is no formula to attach to it.
Keywords are nuanced by niche activity.
No Ancient Chinese Secrets Here
You must only write things that connect to your audience for it to be effective. The emphasis on keywords is really displaced, because you need to focus a lot more on each page having a specific meaning to your visitors. But meaning is an esoteric thing, and hard to evaluate, or measure, or pay for. Yet it works – quite often, better than many keyword-originated strategies will.
Google is drastically changing what it is doing and how it is ranking things – so creating the assumed value around a keyword or keyphrase is as important as the words themselves, if that makes sense. Build meaning.
OK. But How Do I Optimize a Webpage for Simple Keyphrases?
That babbling disclaimery stuff all said, making sure you are amply covered for a specific keyphrase/keyword is easy.
- Include your keyword in your page title {This tells the search engines what the page is about}. Titles have been important for years. They continue to be…though, I personally have reason to believe a focus on page content over titles is a smarter move for staying power. I completely optimize every page title of important sites with a ton of care and time. Even on lesser sites, I make sure each one is unique at a minimum to make them work effectively. Aim for titles of about 70 characters, but don’t worry about counting your characters. Just write a decent title, and use your keywords in a realistically strategic way – nothing earth shattering needs to happen. The placement of keywords might be important, so value the left side as strongest, and create your titles with your main keywords coming up more immediately in the flow. There doesn’t seem to be one separator preferred over another (dashes, commas, colons etc.). Using less or more characters in a title does not seem to tip it either way on its own merit, though I admit never isolating it to fully verify this. Just a good hunch, here.
- Include your keyword thru your body copy{Use it both verbatim, and in various forms for greatest effect}. There is no set rule on where, and how much to use keyphrases – I veryloosely aim for the opening sentence, the middle of the page, and the conclusion if possible, at a minimum. Why? Because then the keyphrase occurs naturally thru the entire page. Emphasis here on “natural” appearance.
- Add a meta description that is meant for enticing readers, that is about two sentences, and includes the keyword again, naturally in the flow of describing the page contents. No big whoop. 30 seconds per page.
- Use various forms of the keyword to build a link campaign {Using the keyword and variations, create internal and external links to build power to the page you wrote-variations will help you deflect or minimize over-optimizing filters}. In your own site’s content, blog comments, article sites, or wherever you are building links, try to use the keyword and its various forms as anchor text. Mixing it up but staying on topic is a great strategy.
That’s it – rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. Never ends, but what a ride.
Final Ideas:
Don’t feel the need to buy anything. Products and memberships might come later, when you understand more. There is plenty to learn for free, on your own, before you start paying for a boost or joining a club. Test more, on the cheap – join less. Read tons.
Read – learn, and start websites. See if it -this work- really makes a good fit for you. Take in everything, but let experience guide you. Not every message is true or honest out there – and if you are trying to learn, getting swept-up believing in “easy” can cost you a fortune. Build sites, and test things. Be skeptical. Empirical data rules.
I’ll repeat: there is no easy. There are smart, hard workers that certainly succeed and emerge every day – but none of it comes easy. It is hard work, and smart moves. Pony-up, and roll up those sleeves. Unless of course, following those 4 steps above comes very easy for you – in which case, you should be both pleased, and insanely busy. More power to you. Milk it hombre, and you’re buying next time we meet.
There is never going to be a single product that makes web marketing easy. I think I gave you here, all you need to know to get started, provided you have something worth starting. The latter is the key point to chomp here: have something worth saying before you decide to start talking. {NOTE: talking to a friend, he said he disagrees here. He believes more in the get started, and let experience provide you something to say – which I thought was a good point. My own point, is geared more toward the folks I am seeing learning techniques in search engine loop-holes without having a deeper foundation in a business direction first. I am old, though, and cantankerous.}
I think you should have an airtight business plan before you plan on spending profits, or outsourcing anything. Start with a product to promote, not the process to promote.
No one cares about another Internet Marketer one way or another. Make them care about something you believe in personally, and you are on your way. No reason to shill: find a calling that suits you, and work into it slowly. Plenty for everybody out there, and you don’t have to scam to succeed.
Good luck – and I hope you forever avoid squishing into the unicorn poop of Internet Marketing.
by Marty | Oct 22, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
In a great interview I was lucky enough to do with Tamar Weinberg for SEOBook, she closed with a quote that bears repeating (bold is mine):
Don’t spread yourself too thin. Try to build your presence where you know you can really make a difference, and branch out slowly if you want to experiment. Hopefully your marketing tactics will pay off to the tune of more business, more money, and the ability to hire more people who can help further your marketing message in the world wide open. 😉
Tamar is an excellent writer, so she knew what a clever phrase she was turning here. I know, because I asked her about it (making sure it was intentional), and she laughed, saying she debated leaving it in, but liked it. So do I – and here’s why.
I think Tamar is referring to two things: one) to marketing without limiting yourself by eWalls or other hurdles of personal construction; and, two) approaching the web – and marketing in general – wide open. Transparent. Willing to be what it is you are. Making an honest difference.
Both ideas are worth chewing on – thanks Tamar.
{Late edit: it made me a little sad to do some research, and learn Tamar wasn’t actually the first to say it. I love it no less.}
by Marty | Oct 9, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
CosmicConnie had a tweet about a beautifully succinct post on the Examiner by Cassandra Yorge: http://www.examiner.com/social-change-in-national/a-moment-of-silence-for-the-victims-of-james-arthur-ray:
Last October James Arthur Ray killed three peoplein a sweat lodge. The deaths of Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman weigh heavy on my heart even though I never knew them in life. They should not have died. Their murderer should be in prison. The latest word is that James Ray’s trial will be in February 2011, at which point he will face triple manslaughter charges. Currently he is blathering away on YouTube. I ask you to join me for a moment of silence for those who died at James Ray’s hands.
[ ]
Ok, enough for silence.
How about a little outrage now?
I want to honor the victims who died at the hands of this horrible cretin, and help to stop other horrible cretins from getting the chance to do harm. All I have is a voice though, so I am willing to use it because a thing like Sedona should have never happened.
And why did it happen? Among the many things that will no doubt be argued in court as murderer James Arthur Ray faces his crimes, at the bottom of it is greed. Filthy, despicable, self-aggrandizing greed.
It is this that I want to use my voice against, it is this underlying greed that I want to admonish. In my own way, it’s how I want to honor the victims of James Ray today.
Greed treats individuals like a number or a cog. There is no respect nor a shred of basic human dignity offered toward “the mark” – they are simply evaluated for net worth, used-up, and discarded…and another is deftly slipped in to the still-warm, empty spot.
It is a vicious cycle, and one that preys on you. You are particularly in danger when you are looking for help, or guidance – like Kirby, James and Liz – for greedy opportunists understand there is a monetary value in convincing you to believe there is always something better coming soon- and this thing, this one thing, might be just the thing you need to get there.
Yet what they deliver, because it is the only possible thing to deliver to such an absurd promise, are Magic bullets and unicorn dreams to distract you from the fact they are figuring out your net worth to lubricte the cycle. By the time you might begin to notice it is not your best interests being protected or even considered at any point, you might find yourself dead in a sweat lodge.
The greed of James Ray was no doubt a big part of what drove him to cut corners in providing adequate resources in Sedona. He was no expert, and this was a dangerous thing by any measure. But he still created a sweat lodge and killed people in it.
3 of them: Kirby, James and Liz.
These are not the only deaths being attributed to James Ray and his greed. Hopefully by the time the dust settles in court, they find or invent very interesting ways to punish the guilty.
Today, James Ray is tweeting. Obscenely, others have families that are mourning and there are (at least) three of them.
The families of Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman.
I will join those who remember what you did to these people, James Ray. I will use my little voice to say it again, because it ALWAYS bears repeating: James Authur Ray is responsible for their deaths. He killed people with his selfishily irresponsible greed.
No doubt, James Ray will rot in whatever hell exists. Because no matter what happens next: he killed people.
While there might never be a way to understand the deepest mechanics of why it happened, how it happened is definitely worth examining by the proper authorities. And remembering is important to the survivors, and the families of those lost.
And punishing this charlatan is important to send another message that there is a system of checks and balances. So is speaking up, and speaking out against it. I look forward to justice being swift and heavy-handed.
I want to honor the families of the victims of James Arthur Ray in the Sedona tragedy last year. I am so sincerely sorry for your loss. May you soon find peace. Please let my voice join with those that already offer you support. What happened matters, and we lift our voices to remember with you.
by Marty | Apr 10, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
Please.
Collectively – just shut up, and think about what you want to say. Just take a second.
{ }
Thanks. This greatly improves our chances of connecting in a meaningful way.
I recently saw a writer jump into a very tech-savvy crowd and pitch a very low-level eBook. Worse, the writer used an inanely simplistic marketing method. “Buy this color-by-numbers book, because I say I am a writer.”
This crowd and their normal discussions of online marketing were light years beyond this pitch. If it had not received the wall of indifference it ran into, this pitch may have easily been seen as a little insulting.
But the pros there did not say a thing about it.
Like a tiny fart on the breeze, this pitch was unwanted, ignored, and quickly forgotten.
Oops
The young writer unknowingly torched their own cornfield here. An inability to shut up about the obvious became the lasting impression only because this writer did not take the time to accurately understand the landscape.
Not only were no eBooks sold, but this connection was burned to the ground for this unknowing young writer because these tech-savvy folks remember bad pitches as much or more than they remember good ones. No contracts, no contacts, no progress.
Wasted spend all around, mainly because this rookie was too green to realize the useless e-book they were (re)selling was more-or-less the repackaged ideas of the very people being sold to here.
Ooops.
If you are new to the trade, chances are good you should probably shut up for a while. Same goes when you are brand new to a forum, group or association.
Read more, do some homework, and develop an understanding before you pose question one. Before you freak on that one, let me clarify.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if they are unorthodox – logical questions quickly rise to the top of conversations, and for good reason. Good questions can literally build good communities.
But these are always good questions, asked after diving into the deep end once or twice to find your own pearls.
Break a few of your own eggs before you start demanding omlettes from others.
Don’t go into a new place, and just start yelling, or pitching, or spewing. Go in, feel it out, and take time to understand the natural flow. In this way, when you ask a question or offer a pitch, you are adding to what is happening, not impeding it.
Shutting-up for a minute helps.
And don’t underestimate the true reach of your online neighborhood. Anonymous nicknames can hide lots.
Just saying. This poor young writer has no idea how much potential was pooped on here.
Shutting up for just a minute first may have meant the difference – turning this lesson into a different one entirely.
by Marty | Feb 26, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
In business, as in your personal life, who you deal with is of crucial importance. It might even make you end a title in a preposition if you’re not careful.
Knowing who you are dealing with on the web is a little unlike anything else – the methods to mask identity are not complex. If you want to sneak in and out of the Internet, you can. People do.
I don’t.
I work in a pretty transparent way – I am who you see. My comments, when signed by me somewhere out there, are my thoughts. Still, I feel you should know more about who I am and why you should trust me.
So what better way, than to introduce you to my finest hair moment. Meet 17 year-old Marty Lamers, and his freelance mohawk.
Freelance SEO Copywriter and Passionate Thin Cotton Tie Endorser, Marty Lamers
My glasses are now a lot smaller (as if larger ones are possible), and my bald spot negates the possibility of this work-retardant hairstyle ever working the same way for me again. Though trying it today would be interesting, for sure.
Ahhhh, setting gel and cheap hairspray: the clumsy magic that was 1983.
I am sure I would still have that tie too, if my wife didn’t have the good sense to intervene when she did.
There you have it – now you know. I make no apologies.
by Marty | Feb 12, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
I have the unfortunate experience to have a lot of domains hosted in GoDaddy.
There are many reasons I don’t really like using them, but the fact remains I have a lot of domains there.
But I have seen one thing they do that I want to warn everyone about – beware of GoDaddy scamming your domain.
Here’s What Happens
Let’s say you have a domain registered in GoDaddy, and want to set up a blog in Blogger. Cool – Blogger gives you instructions on how to change the C record and the A record to make it work.
So this is what I did. And when I looked at my site an hour later, it looked like this, which was good:
Everything cool. The blog worked, the domain seemed ok and the instructions from Blogger seemed to do the trick.
So I thought, anyway.
What I found a few weeks later when I was getting ready to return to this site was pretty shocking.
You see, I wanted to go to the site but I forgot to type in the www. Simple mistake. And usually, if I am setting up a site in normal situations (not using Blogger), I set both the www and non-www to work seamlessly.
But no – I saw this – and if you don’t know what this is, it is a PPC page. This means it is something GoDaddy set up to run on my domain.
What it does, is display ads that other people pay to have displayed on certain keywords. The domain I had concerned small business money, so look at how it matches the subject matter.
Needless to say, I was pretty shocked. This was not a parked domain mind you – it was live. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but figured it must have been my fault somewhere in the settings – I was not terribly used to Blogger, so I could have missed something.
Nope.
The GoDaddy Sham Deepens
There was something wrong with the canonical set-up, but I had it set up correctly, as you can see to the left here. Blogger makes it so you can correct any canonical errors – meaning, the www and non-www versions of the site would be the same.
This made me more concerned. If I had this set up correctly, and my A and C records were properly set up, why was this happening?
I looked at the source code and found: 
Now I realize most people don’t read code, so this means that GoDaddy placed an AdWord campaign directly on my domain, targeting relevant keywords in a broad match manner. Since my domain was about business money, the ads were about business money-so my competitors can suddenly get clicks from MY DOMAIN. GoDaddy gets paid for every click.
Keep in mind too – I bought “myDomain.com” not the www version. GoDaddy was using the domain I bought and set up as my blog.
The GoDaddy Response (or Lack Thereof)
So by now, I am pissed. I write an email to my rep – and I have an executive rep over there because I have so many domains. I kinda feel sorry for him really – he is new to my account, and this was really our second interaction.
But since I was mad, I write the email and let it sit for 4 days. I had all the same images I have here – just not blurred out – and basically, but very directly, asked for an explanation.
I send it, and wait for my response. And wait. And wait.
A week later, I re-forward my original complaint and demand a response.
Finally get a one-line email saying I need to go into the account and delete the C and A record settings and forward the domain to the www to make it work. My original complaint asked about whether or not I now needed to check my other 100+ live sites to make sure this is not happening everywhere – crickets.
Every bit of my complaint ignored – handled by this one-line response. Pathetic.
Why This is So Shady
The reason this chaps me so much, is not for my own situation but what it represents. GoDaddy is a huge registrar…and they do more aggressive advertising than any other. So they’ll attract people who know nothing about the web, but want to get started.
I know what I am doing more than a lot of business owners would, and still did not catch this canonical error. By the time I did, this scam had been running for months. When I looked for help, I was ignored. I had to demand a fix.
GoDaddy was paid for my domain. They then hijacked it, and profited further by sending potential leads I might have received to my competitors.
Shameless.
It makes you wonder how many sites are unassumingly being compromised and swallowed by GoDaddy’s greed?
