The Wrong Stuff: The danger of keyword stuffing
It’s common that we think we’re doing ourselves a huge favor by stuffing our pages with as many keywords as possible. Unfortunately, doing so usually hurts more than it helps. It’s overkill.
Does your web copy pass the aural test?
Putting SEO and keywords aside for a moment, let’s think about what constitutes good web copy. It should be current, original, informative and authoritative. Unfortunately, ignoring one major area will undermine your copy even if it has all those traits: readability.
Why the “contact us” page is crucial for conversions
Failing to bridge that crucial gap from customer to business owner online with a contact button is just as bad as forgetting to give your lovebird your phone number. Unless you operate a retail website with a full online purchasing and checkout system, you won’t convert customers if they don’t find you.
Google beefs up local reviews with purchase of ZAGAT
Google has bought successful restaurant/entertainment review publisher ZAGAT. The move is likely to make Google Places an even more trusted authority for local, user-generated reviews. Google Places scours the web for any information it can find about every business with a mailing address. It pre-populates information like pictures, descriptions, addresses, telephone numbers, etc. With Google's purchase of ZAGAT, all of that content is likely to find its way on to Places (if not upcoming Google+ brand profiles).
If you can publish it on the web, you can optimize it
Sometimes, we forget that anything publishable online can be optimized. Because these types of files – like PDFs – are more difficult to manipulate than others, we often overlook them as SEO tools. Don’t! Using PDFs as an example, let’s explore how and why you can make any publishable web file work for you in your quest to optimize your site.
Five ways to become a more efficient web writer
User engagement is everything these days. To impress search engines like Google and to keep users on your site, your content needs to be both fresh and relevant. In other words, you have to write often and you have to write well. The thought of accomplishing both scares some people, so I’d like to share a few tips on how to write efficiently and effectively (in random order).
How to make keywords with negative meanings work for you, not against you
For a change today, let’s talk about a more intermediate or even advanced SEO tactic. How do you make keywords work for you, not against you, when the words you need to target have negative connotations?
Don’t blog for the sake of blogging
While it’s important to keep your user engagement high and keep pumping your SEO keywords with up-to-date content, which could include blogs, you have to be careful not to simply blog for the sake of blogging. If you don’t have an organized message or point to disseminate, you may actually decrease your site’s user engagement and risk turning readers off.
Promote your endorsements
On the Internet, as in life, talk is cheap. You can brag that your product or service is best from all the rest, but that's exactly what it is - bragging. If you really want people to know how wonderful your products and services are, let other people tell them. And you can do that easily enough through third-party rating and review sites like Yelp! and Google Places.
Spelling is a lossed art
Whether it’s fair or not, spelling and grammar mistakes connote certain negative characteristics about a company that can seriously damage the reputation of your online image and conversion rates.