Copy writing (without) Panda in Mind

Published on November 10th, 2011.

Okay so, there are over 19 million search volume on this topic phrase  and just the same most copy found floating around the web have only  a few centimeters depth in their copy. It is sad there are those who  find Panda rules restrictive when the guidelines are really what copy  writing is all about.

Copy writing by Wikipedia definition is :

“the use of words and ideas to promote a person,business, opinion or idea.”

Let us apply this to the world wide web: content that promotes  products, services, niche and website is copy writing. To make this easier and less painful, content is the best term that will be applied through out this article. There are just some ‘writers’ who think that copy writing really means copying another content or rewriting one. This kind of thinking actually paved the way for Google Panda, it is a cause and effect scenario here.

For experienced writers who are new to writing for the web or green ones who think it is easy as cake, I assure you it is not. Getting writing assignments from clients for something that you know nothing about are bound to make your eyes glaze over.

1. Learn to Research and dig 6×6 deep to get to the heart of the matter.

Pre-Panda content writers have experienced a writing job that required you to refer to a site, not as an inspiration, but as a very close cousin. Always ask this question: How sure are you that the site also copied another site and left out some details that are important?
Get busy and know your topic like the back of your hand with a deeper understanding. Writer’s are innately imaginative don’t be scared to feel and absorb information, it is the only way to write effectively.

2. Experience is the best teacher.

We are unique from the next person and there are experiences we have gone through that we can relate to the topic when called for. This makes the post authentic because you have a part of your life in the story.

A writer had to write about pet training and behavior several times, she grew up in a house that had both cats and dogs. Drawing from the memories this experience provided her,  original anecdotes about past pets came naturally. Eventually she got a dog for her birthday and tried the training she researched about and it helped her write personalized pieces that were sincere and with depth.

2. Supplement the material that is online with:

academic resources
These are written by scholars and people who have the expertise. These are properly annotated and referenced, there is no questioning the authenticity. These are mostly research papers distributed all over the academe and scrutinized by their peers. Fail safe, in depth and raw material just waiting for a reader-friendly version (this is where you come in with you 2 cents worth).

reputable sites
Sometimes, when academic papers aren’t available for the niche or topic, you have to turn to reputable sites to draw inspiration from and not copy from okay. Reading articles from reputable sites to get its and pieces to expound on or refer to as a source or something you can build your article on (as a review, reaction to or opinion).

actual books on the topic
I will never believe that a writer is not a book reader if not a voracious one. Actual books are proof-read and written by someone who has enough knowledge to fill up a 300 page book. We are talking about real-world books and not virtual e books. Some e-books are just several pages of 28 pt fonts and a load of images and graphs which are condensed already.

3. Originality…look in on everything at a different and useful angle.

With the use of the sources mentioned in #2, you can pick out a fragment of the topic and weave a relevant and useful post/ article about it. One of the best examples of getting an angle on something is the story below; this happened to a reporter friend of mine.

He was local news reporter who did not have any of the controversial story and it was getting close to the deadline. Seeing graffiti on the wall he did a short piece on values and the effect it had on the city. It was a quaint story but a relevant one that dealt with the rising cases of vandalism by gangs in the city. My friend got his story and his editor had a the best feature story for the week. The other stations caught on the topic and did their own take on the topic- as trend followers set by my reporter friend.

4. Brush up on the terms or jargon of a topic.
Rewrite an article or post with no reference and you will surely reword an important part of the topic that an expert will call your attention on that. There is nothing more questionable than an author who does not know the terms used on the topic.

Let’s say you would be writing about baking, which may not be your cup of tea. Interchanging mince to chop because this was an alternate word the thesaurus supplied. A small detail for some but it could spoil the recipe.

There is another issue about using alternate meanings in writing software, the program replacing the words to make a different article altogether. One Virtual Assistant was told to use an article spinner for an article about game fowl. The spinner would substitute fowl for any domesticated bird with feathers, like the rooster. There is another incident when an article that mentioned the country Turkey once and in the succeeding spins the country became a chicken or fowl.
People who use writing software are not writers, they are posers who let an unthinking set of codes to rewrite an article a hundred times over.

5. Switch writing tones when needed.
Writing tones are how you ‘dress up’ your article or post. Analyze the topic and the need of the reader.

Would you write in an academic way if you were writing about a cowboy party theme?

Would anyone feel comfortable reading a humorous account of a tragedy?

Wrong tones on an article spoil the mood for user interaction, positive feedback, credibility and relevance. Aligning the reader’s mood to the topic is essential to online interaction, this is a fine line that defines success.

6. Give more fuel to the gallon.
A shallow article is one that sounds clinical and just skims on the surface of a topic. You get 500 to 1000 words of NOTHING- will make your website hurt in SERPs today.

Imagine an article titled Life as an Exchange Student to Australia, 500 words of benefits of studying in the land Down Under. Wouldn’t this be more useful if important information on requirements, traveling restrictions, clothing, conditions of stay and cultural influences that may be encountered were included?

Useful and relevant information, no matter how far between your posts are, makes your site’s current and a good friend of search engines.

In the hope of helping out people affected by the new algorithm and copy writers, Panda is just enforcing a set standard. A poor SERPs result or a high bounce rate is all about the copy you write and the information you spread- Panda just reminds you to play fair.

Filled under SEO & SEM, Web Writing. No Comments.

Importance Of An Updated Website For A Business

Published on July 16th, 2010.

The demand to start an online website for any business has been the growing since the start of the 21st century. When browsing the web you could go dizzy seeing how many websites are turned up when a Google search is made, every product you could think of now has a website that presents their products and all you need fro about them.

Considering the growing numbers, only a handful of online entrepreneurs see the value of an updated website. For most, as long as the orders are coming (mostly from old customers) the need to update is never considered. To be able to appreciate website updating, it would be best to know the reasons why a website needs one:

Increase customer base
Every business loves making a sale always, with the use of an online business site you get to increase the number of customers. The beauty of the Internet is in the continuous exposure each website has to the entire world 24/7. Even as you sleep, your website will attract visitors and users who are looking for something in your website. An updated website helps your business go global.

Build credibility
Everyone is capable of sizing up someone when they get to see face to face, how could anyone do this online? This concept is a bit difficult, since the users would have to contend with just a picture of you in the About Us page. But consider your business website as an extension of the owner. An updated website gets referral visitors from other sites and search engine because the website properly represents the product and services.

Online presence
When it comes to referred and search engine driven traffic, a website has to be current in its content. Once a website posts useful and informative content in their website and blog, search engines are bound to remember. Besides a popular store is always well-visited and always precedes it’s reputation.

Easy integration of applications and plug-ins
Though you may not need new applications or plug-ins, it is always best to be prepared when the time comes. If a website runs on a WordPress or Magento templates, the updated versions should be installed for purposes of keeping up with the improvement of the template.

All of the reasons mentioned above all translate to more online visits, increased sales and more opportunities. To be able to know when your website needs an update depends on the sites performance when it comes to user frequency and page bounce rates. With the help of an online website analytics script, you will be able to see what pages are driving traffic to your site and which pages are being left as soon as users get there. Once the figures are in, then you could see the difference by a mile.

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Refining Your Google Search (the basics)

Published on April 29th, 2010.

Are you planning to dive into the world of Search Engine Optimization? There is a lot for you to learn, one of which is the very basic : the search. Each website is crawled by bots and spiders and depending on the search engine,  information and data from your site is sandbox-ed and will get listed. Since Google is the frontrunner among the search engines that have made guidelines about how to optimize your weblog or website, we start with the things we rarely use for searches. Using the Google Search bar as a standard, here are several ways they would put forth a search:

Square Brackets denotes a [query]
We are so used to working offline that we carry over several offline practices that may get you inferior search results.

Phrase Search are phrases attributed to “a person” or “part of a title” “words attributed to someone”

The quotation marks would signal that you want  each phrase and a more trimmed down search focused on the phrase itself.

Inside a specific  [site: ]
You know where you found the article on anti-aging cremes, the thing is you forgot what Item code of the Face Gravity crème was in. The braces and the colon before the website name you need to find out about. [Face Gravity crème: anti-aging.com]

Terms not needed [-]
Terms are connected to some other terms that just muddle up your search. The best thing to put is the hyphen [-] for excluding other terms form the search. For instance, you want to find our about the latest Flip camera that has a USB port [Flip camera-HP printer].

Asking the *unknown
This type of query, the  search engine knows what word or words take preceding  among the ones you listed. Other words listed with the *word is there to narrow the search but information
you need is on the ones with the *asterisk before it. The *asterisk works on a word and not a string of words.

[Exact + Searches]
symbol before a word, joins it with the word before the + sign. This makes the search more accurate the. Typing and adding+an typing a sentence or a long-worded query.

OR | Option
Putting OR in caps between 2 sets of information you need enable the search engine to search for wither of the 2 sets of information. You can also use the symbol | which done by pressing at the  shift key and the backward slash key. Some searches though can’t be [exactly] put nor can Google classify the word: or,  in lower case, as a specific alternate search. For the search engine not to misinterpret the query, keep these in mind:

• several words are ignored automatically and are called ‘stop words’. These are ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘for’ phrases or words which are well known and are normally attributed to the term itself.

ex. (the mentalist) the search will not exclude the word ‘the’ since this is a well known movie turned TV series;

• the term Single Ladies doesn’t need the ‘+‘ or the [bracket] for Google to know it’s Beyonce’s song
• sometimes synonyms may replace the original words you put in the query
• language analysis will refine your searches as long as there is sufficient data that the page is deemed relevant    ex. Casio baby watches will always result to the Baby G-shock watches by Casio

• Unless you would want a to see product by its series number, the $ must always be put before any number if you are searching for a product being sold at a particular price.

• When using the hyphen: a space before and after indicate you don’t want this term searched on the other hand sans space after the hyphen and a space before the hyphen indicate that these words are strongly -connected

This is the way people at Google have thought of refining searches with the use of punctuation or symbols on your keyboard. The first time anyone would ever have heard about this is during a review on Google’s guidelines.There are several search engines empowering people to make use of the Internet as a reference, yet only Google has set the standard of what a search engine can contribute to website optimization and an easier search process.

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3 Google Searches For Numbers

Published on April 22nd, 2010.

There are a lot of search engines that exist, yet there are only 3 search giants that slug it out for company owners and online publishers attention. Among the 3 search engines, Google has invested time and logistics to get the best people to come up with applications people will actually use.  It is amazing how Google is able to get to the heart of every matter concerning the Internet. Being online is what most people do most of the day. We communicate, shop, make reservations and do business in the online. People have made electronic communication a staple in everyday life.

Being one of the most content oriented search engines, Google sees this trend of dependence on online transactions and information. It;s just like Google to take the statistics and convert into an application for information that makes it convenient for users to use. There are other ways for Google Search to help anybody, one f them is with number searches.

Package Tracking for UPS, FedEx or USPS. Type the tracking number in teh search field and get the details on your package status.

Patent Numbers can be checked by typing : the word patent and  in the search filed. The results come up in seconds,  you get the links to sites that mention the word “patent” and the number you typed in.

Area Code
Letters marked RTS are the ones that get returned because we forgot to write in the zip code. Google has every area  code every number in the world.

Google has gone beyond what a search engine does, aside from giving everyone access to a lot ofwebsites they provide the information you need in just a few  clicks.

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Microsites are Baaack

Published on April 15th, 2010.

Is it me or do internet tactics go on a periodic cycle just like the fashion trends?

Sign-ups for creating several microsites have surged and this trend is catchy that everyone is bound to hitch on the band wagon on an experimental level. Before today’s take on on microsites, it is but right to have a bit of a flashback on it.

Microsites have been with us since early 2004 when power copywriting meant writing content for a long webpage that have several calls to action and sign-up buttons interspersed with special offers and ‘value-off’ on the products being sold..

By 2006 , microsites are mini-sites that draw in traffic to a main website. In several web marketing advice, companies with several different products qualify for a microsite. Around this time microsites are also a literal translation of the term itself. Pages are less than 20, minimal links, front page in 2-scroll downs.

The year now is 2010 and we have Google and other search engines to thank for optimization and marketing techniques that are sure-fire answers to getting traffic and conversions. But with a great deal of competition for keywords and behavioral programs can make reaching potential buyers more difficult than ever. One of the most frustrating things about trying to rank for a keyword is, registering a domain that is far from the keywords you would want to rank for.

Just like the 60′s mini skirt revival- the style comes back but with revisions that makes it more current. Microsites today are still sites that are supportive of the main website. The difference lies in several elements:

Domain name – in order to rank for the popular search term that is within your websites’ niche, buy a domain name for the phrase or word you want to rank in (it has to be sensible though).

ie. chiccousa.com can have chiccobabytoysale, chiccousasale or chiccosale as a domain name for their micro site.

Keywords- both main website and micro website will have a better chance at ranking with the use of the common keywords.

Website structure- before it used to be the longer the better. Today, website structure is equated to a fold: services, prices and features are all involves proper positioning and layout of logo, company name and navigation hyperlinks. A proper site structure is one that makes site navigation stress free.

Shopping cart integration- even if a sale is not imminent, installation of a shopping cart is useful for analytics, customer behavior and customer tracking. Today a microsite can have several of products that are being sold in the main site. Each Learn More or Buy Now button connects the micro to the main.

Then again it is just the beginning of 2010, there may be more changes to come and new trends to follow and innovate.

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