A new search engine purports to search social media sites in real time. It’s called Bliipa, and it offers some interesting possibilities. For example…

• Find out who’s talking about you
• Find out who’s talking about your competitors
• Monitor chatter about keywords you’re interested in, and join in (i.e. better target your conversion)
• More easily find people you can form alliances with

The major search engines have (so far) been unable to provide real time search on social media sites. Bing does monitor certain sites, and I wondered whether or not Bliipa was monitoring less known sites.

To test this, I entered text from specific feeds I placed on my own Twitter page. Sure enough, Bliipa found them. This looks like a fantastic new tool, and something web marketing folk can put to very good use.

No tags

Here’s a heads up for those of us who want to learn about web marketing as a discipline, rather than wallow in the usual hype and empty promises. It’s an in-depth series of articles about the Web Marketing Process. It’s being released in bite-sized chunks on The Lead Generation Blog.

Here are direct links to each part. Naturally, I suggest you start with part one!

1. An overview of The Web Marketing Process.
2. Objectives – 1st installment
3. Objectives – 2nd installment
4. Objectives – 3rd installment

The next instalment (still on objectives, thus hinting at the depth of information on offer) promises a marketing plan you can use when running your own campaigns. In fact, this is what parts 2-4 have been building to.

As new instalments go live, they’re announced on this Twitter page. I suggest you start following it, so you can continue with the series.

Web Marketing, web marketing process

The words are those of Saul Pett, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He never wrote web copy, but his sentiment is just as true for web writers. It’s what lies behind the tyranny of the blank page, or the Microsoft Word screen, empty except for a flashing cursor.

Every copywriter has his or her routine for getting started, and it’s something you have to develop for yourself. Look first to your assets, the things that make it easier to hit the keys.

You have a brief. Someone has told you what the objective of the web page (or the entire site) is – and if they haven’t, go back to them and talk it through. So, you know the effect you have to create.

You have an audience. Once again, you have been briefed on the target market that the website owner is aiming at, and why they might be interested in the proposition. If that wasn’t included in the brief, go back and define your audience.

You know the language to use. The audience brief should have included the language they speak – not Serbo-Croat or Mandarin – but the depth of knowledge they have of the product or service being offered. The deeper their understanding, the more specific the language you can use.

You have your research. You’ve analysed competitor sites, looking at key words, spotting points of difference. You’ve read the collateral your client already has. You’ve looked at competitor literature and webpages. You’ve considered what works, and what doesn’t. You’ve talked with potential users and stakeholders in the business.

And you have your greatest asset, a writer’s skill.

With those assets, it’s time to start clicking keys. It almost doesn’t matter what you write. This is not yet a draft, not even a skeleton. It’s just a pile of bones. When the pile begins to grow, you can arrange the bones, promoting some, discarding others, looking for new ones, until you have the skeleton of a narrative – the story that is going to convince readers to take whatever action is your client’s objective.

Now put flesh on those bones. Rely only on your own skills. DON’T CUT, PASTE AND EDIT MATERIAL FROM OTHER SITES. That’s not the action of a writer, but of a thief. And your readers will know that it’s stolen. It just won’t hang together. It won’t flow. It certainly won’t convince.

So, write it. Print it. Read it. Correct it. And then leave it alone, for as long as your deadline allows. What you do now is think. The hard bit.

Have you said enough? Have you said too much? Have you missed anything? Are all the keywords there, and at the right density? Is there a different, better way of convincing your audience?

When you’re through, rewrite. Rewrite until you’re convinced it’s as good as it’ll get. Sounds tough? It is. Dorothy Parker said “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”

Only when you’ve satisfied yourself that it couldn’t possibly be better have you arrived at a first draft you can present to your client. And if they’re a good client, they won’t want you to rewrite it! Yeah, sure.

copy, Copywriting, web, webcopy, writing

From the outside in, social media marketing appears to be free. Social media sites are free to use, as are almost all of the utilities that make it easier to integrate them.

Sounds good, right? Almost too good.

And it is too good to be true. The plain fact is, social media marketing isn’t free. It takes time to…

• Prepare a social media marketing strategy
• Create a social media marketing plan
• Implement the plan
• Analyse the results

Somebody has to do this work. If it’s you, you’re paying an opportunity cost. If it’s a professional, you’re paying a premium for expertise (hopefully recovered by superior results).

Recently a professional social media marketer told me she spent at least 4 hours per day on social media sites. It’s her bread and butter, so I suppose it’s not as surprising as it first seems. Yet I can’t imagine investing that amount of time working sites like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and the like.

Social media may purport to be a wonderful new marketing tool that changes all the rules. Despite the hype, I suspect the fundamental law of economics still applies: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Social Media Marketing

Search Engine Optimization contains three main components. They are…

1. Research
2. Content optimization
3. Backlink generation

Each of the stages must be done in order. There’s no point optimizing content until you’ve found out which keywords will have the most impact. Likewise, there’s little point doing any backlink generation until your content is optimized to receive it.

Research:

The research stage involves working out which keywords people use to find your type of website. That way you optimize your site’s content for search terms people actually use.

The main tool used by SEO professionals to research keywords is the Google Keyword Analysis tool. To use this tool, simply enter one keyword you think might be useful. Google will then give you a long list of similar terms.

This tool gives you a lot of data about the keyword phrases available to you. I find the most useful phrases are…

• The number of searches per month on each phrase (in your local area and worldwide)
• The amount of competition for each keyword in Google AdWords

Your task is to use this information to home in on 2 or 3 keyword phrases that generate enough searches per month to send visitors to your site, and that you can realistically compete for. For example, it’s unlikely someone new to SEO will be able to compete for a keyword that attracts 100,000 searches per month.

If your site is brand new, it’s best to stick to modest terms. For example, I recently optimised the web site of a London Dentist. He has a new site, so there’s no point trying to compete for “Dentist” or even “London Dentist” at this stage. Instead, we’ve picked “Battersea Dentist”. This term attracts 600 local searches per month. Despite the low search volume, there’s a lot of competition in AdWords for this term.

The low search volume is misleading, because it’s specific to a particular London suburb. There is a high likelihood that somebody typing “Battersea Dentist” into Google needs a dentist in Battersea. They may even need one urgently! Such a person is likely to be a good quality visitor, and the relatively high number of people bidding for the keyword in AdWords confirms it.

The best way to learn the ins and outs of Google’s keyword analysis tools is to start using it. Your goal is to create a short-list of keyword phrases appropriate to your particular situation. Here’s a handy guide…

• Look for low-volume keywords if your site is new, if you don’t have much SEO experience, and/or you need to get a top 3 result quickly
• Look for medium volume keywords if you have an established site that is already in the top 3 for several low volume keyword phrases
• Look for high volume keywords if you have a lot of SEO experience, have the ability to add content to webpages with high PageRank scores, and/or are already in at least one top 3 spot for a medium volume keyword

What constitutes low, medium or high volumes? It depends entirely on your particular set of keyword phrases. It’s best to look at the search volumes returned by the Google Keyword Analysis tool and make a relative judgement. One keyword might generate nothing over 1,000 searches per month. Another might have several variations that attract millions of searches per month. You need to make a judgement call for the specific keyword variations you’re looking at.

Content Optimisation:

Content optimisation is what most beginners think of as SEO. This is where you optimise the content on a web page for the 2-3 keyword phrases you’ve selected. If you’ve never done content optimisation before, it’s best to stick to your site’s homepage and optimise that.

As you gain experience, and see your homepage make it onto page one of Google for a specific keyword, you can shift your focus to other pages.

Here are the elements that matter when it comes to content optimisation…

• The HTML title tag
• The main headline on the page
• The rest of the plain-text content
• The meta keyword tag
• The meta description tag
• Internal contextual links

The HTML title should contain the main keyword phrase. This should be written as a natural sentence, rather than shoe-horned in. If you can get all 3 keyword phrases into the title, that’s great. If you can’t, don’t worry too much. You’re better off getting a top 3 spot for your main search term, than landing on page 2 for all 3 keywords.

Focus is the key to SEO success. Especially when you’re first starting out.

The main headline for the page should appear within HTML h1 tags. This headline should include your main keyword phrase, and be a natural sentence. Remember, it has to serve as a headline as well as a place to restate your main keyword.

The rest of the text on the page should include your keyword phrase at least twice. This ensures your main keyword appears at least 3 times in the text of the page (headline and in the text). Use a keyword density tool to make sure your main keyword appears at or near the top.

I use the keyword density tool in SEO Quake. It’s easily the most useful free SEO tool on the web. Especially when it comes to building custom meta keyword tags for specific pages on your site.

The meta keywords tag should contain only keywords that appear on the page you’re creating the tag for. Don’t simply stuff in every keyword you can think of. Instead, use the Density tool in SEO Quake to tell you the number of times each keyword appears.

If you find none of your targeted keywords appear on a particular page, it tells you that you haven’t optimised your content. You must rethink it, and find ways to add your keywords into the page’s content.

The meta description should contain natural sentences that include your main keywords (no more than 3 keywords).

An Internal link is one that appears on a webpage on your site, and that links back to your homepage. It becomes contextual when the clickable text in your link contains your main keyword phrase. For example, if you wanted to optimise your homepage for the keyword Battersea Dentist, you’d make that text clickable (as per my example).

Google will note the text in the link, and associate it with the page you’re linking to. This is a powerful SEO technique, because you have absolute control over the internal content of your site.

Backlink Generation:

Once you’ve optimised your site, it’s time to start generating links back to it. Here’s what you need to know about backlinks from an SEO perspective…

• Make sure the site doesn’t add the nofollow attribute
• Make sure the link is to the page you’re optimising (e.g. homepage in our case)
• The higher the PageRank of the webpage you’re linking from, the more SEO power it has
• Try to get the 3rd party site owner to make your main keyword phrase clickable (i.e. a contextual link)
• Link swaps have little or no SEO value. You need links that are one way (from them to you)

The nofollow attribute is a link that has this code added to it: rel=”nofollow”. This harmless looking attribute means Google negates any SEO power the link may have had. Many well-known sites add this attribute. For example, Twitter automatically nofollows every link.

The only way to tell for sure, is to examine other links on the site and see if they have the nofollow attribute. To do this, you need visit the page and view the source (click the view menu in your browser, and then click the view source option). Use the search function and look for nofollow.

A site’s PageRank is a measure of its credibility in Google. The higher the PageRank, the more SEO power it conveys. Often military, university and government sites have a high PageRank. If you have the contacts necessary to get a contextual link from such site, it will help your SEO efforts.

You can examine a site’s PageRank by installing Google’s toolbar in your browser. Once it’s installed, use the options button to switch on the PageRank graph. As a general rule of thumb, avoid getting links from sites with a PageRank of zero.

As you can see, there’s a lot to search engine optimization. This is a beginner’s guide, designed to get you started. Want in-depth information about DIY SEO? Download the DIY Guide to SEO on SEO Marketing London.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

search engine optimization, SEO, seo marketing

No sooner had I completed the ‘grammar’ article below, than along came this press release. Directed at journalists who, still, generally know their apostrophes from their assonance, any coverage the release generates is likely to major on ridicule, rather than the marketing message.

Only the first para has been pasted-in, to spare too many blushes:

“November 23, 2009 — GPS navigator and GPS System sale’s are booming more than ever say’s My New Cheap Director’s. This year 2009 not including the Christmas rush a staggering one billion and over GPS navigation devices including, car GPS, bike GPS, GPS aviation, Marine GPS and handheld GPS have been sold worldwide. This does not include types of GPS software and mobile phone GPS which will double the market in 2010. My New cheap “MNC Group” only have a small percentage of the market but in a fast growing market like GPS, its all MNC need. Customer are also benefiting from Eco Routes for saving fuel and not being caught by naughty speed camera’s. Its a win win for everyone.”

copy, Copywriting, grammar, press release., webcopy

It’s back to school time. Sorry. I know we’re supposed to be more relaxed about spelling and grammar nowadays, but for a website to work to the max, it must avoid alienating its target audience. And some people get intensely annoyed by what they regard as sloppy writing. So here goes. Five common mistakes:

It’s/Its
Only use it’s with an apostrophe, when it represents a contraction of it is. It’s easy to remember. It’s = it is.

Any other use of its, and there’s no apostrophe:

The store opened its doors for the first time.
It’s going to be a hard winter.
The team presented its new players.
No doubt – it’s going to be a great season.

Spell checker hell
It’s something to do with fingers. When we use a keyboard sometimes our fingers consistently enter a word wrongly. Usually the spell checker spots the problem. But where the wrong word is a good word, no alarms ring. My problems are two little words. For, and from. Often I type them fro and form. So do others – it’s a mistake often seen. Learn what your problem words are and make a point of looking out for them when proofreading. Here are a few more:

One – On
Name – Mane
Red – Ref
Fade – Fads
Two – Tow

Same sound, different spelling, different meaning
Lots of examples – too many , but here are a few. This is where an online dictionary (or even a paper one) is your best friend. If you’re uncertain, look it up.

Discreet – Discrete
Principle – Principal
Stationary – Stationery
Their – There
Affect – Effect
Weather – Whether – Wether (that last one is definitely worth looking up, unless you were born on a farm)
Border – Boarder
Born – Borne
Berth – Birth
Etc.

To/Too/Two
There should be no excuse for confusing to and two, but poor old too often loses its last letter. If you’ve used to and you could substitute the word also then add an ‘o’. And her mother came too. But too is also used to mean an excess. He has too much talent. That use is easier to spot, and causes less mistakes, but when your fingers are really flying, look out for it.

Inconsistent numbering
There’s a writing convention. Numbers up to ten are spelt. Numbers over ten are shown in figures.

There were five staff in the store.
We are launching 43 new products.

If you use that rule keep it consistent. It trips the reader up to see ten in one place and 10 in another.

But what should you do if you have both a large and a small number appearing in the same sentence?

The ten syndicate members won £23,000 each.

Rearrange.

There were ten syndicate members. Each won £23,000.

And don’t forget. Proofread.

copy, Copywriting, grammatical errors, webcopy, writing

What’s your web marketing strategy? It’s the kind of question many small business owners don’t give much thought to. After all, now the site is up and running what’s the point of having a strategy?

The thing is, a web marketing strategy should be written before work starts on the site. Why? Because a web marketing strategy dictates the purpose and objectives of the resulting site. In particular…

• What the business aims to achieve on the web
• The revenue the business expects to generate
• The budget (i.e. amount of money) the business is prepared to invest to achieve its revenue target
• The specific components required to achieve the site’s aims

If these high level items aren’t thought of before the site is built, what’s the purpose of the web site? How much can the business afford to spend on it? How can the business owner know whether or not the site is successful?

And how can anybody know what should or shouldn’t be included in the site?

When the web marketing strategy comes first, it’s much easier for all concerned. Everything falls out of the strategy…

• What content to include (i.e. focus)
• What content to exclude
• Whether or not some particular component is too expensive
• Whether or not some particular designer or programmer is too expensive

These four things can tie up a business owner’s time for months. Yet an Internet marketing strategy can be created in less than a day.

It needn’t be a complex document. It’s not a business plan. In most cases, it won’t be used to secure financing (by a small business owner). Its purpose is simply to define what the site should achieve. It becomes a tool for making good choices, and doing away with nice-to-have components the business owner can’t really afford.

The plain fact is, your web marketing strategy only needs to state what you want to achieve, how much you expect to earn, how much you’re prepared to invest, and give a date by when you want to achieve your target.

marketing strategy, Web Marketing

A little rule. 100% of people will read 10 words; 10% of people will read 100 words.

Not true of course, but a good guide to the penalty exacted by long copy.

So, a few tips on cutting copy. Not the full treatise, which will follow, but ways to lose a word or two without losing anything else.

In order to. What’s wrong with ‘to’?

We are doing this in order to achieve that. We are doing this to achieve that.

Same as. Same as is the same as ‘like’, sometimes.

Our products are the same as our competitors’ but cost less. Our products are like our competitors’ but cost less.

As well as. A phrase that can often be swapped for ‘too’ or ‘both’.

We supply red lorries as well as yellow lorries. We supply both red lorries and yellow lorries. We supply both red and yellow lorries. We supply red lorries, and yellow lorries too.

The apostrophe. It can save a vital letter or two.

They will be available in the New Year. They’ll be available in the New Year.

We will get right back to you. We’ll get right back to you.

Don’t state the obvious.

We’ll get right back to you. We’ll get right back.

Adjectives – don’t make lists (it smells like overselling).

This stunning, exciting, innovative new service. This exciting new service.

Articles. Definite and possessive articles are often understood in their absence.

The research shows. Research shows.

Our customers are clamouring for more. Customers are clamouring for more.

———–

There are many more ways of cutting copy, including radical rewrites. But  little wins, like these, can make a big difference. Read on, if you wish.

From a Transport for London web page:

Cycle revolution
Cycle journeys in London have more than doubled in the past decade, with a nine per cent increase in cycle journeys on the city’s major roads in the past year alone.
The new facilities will provide for growing cyclist demand and also help to promote cycling as an easy and convenient way to get around the Capital.
Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor’s transport adviser, said: “If we are to deliver a cycle revolution in the Capital we must ensure Londoners can park their bikes where and when they want to.
‘The availability of cycle parking plays a major role in helping people decide whether it is convenient to take to two wheels or not.
113 words, 628 characters

or:

Cycle revolution
London cycle journeys have more than doubled in a decade, with a 9% rise on major roads in the last year.
New facilities will meet growing demand and help promote cycling as an easy and convenient way to get around.
Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor’s transport adviser, said: ‘If we are to deliver a cycle revolution Londoners must be able to park bikes where and when they want.
Cycle parking plays a major role when people decide whether to take to two wheels.
82 words, 452 characters

Write Limited. Write for Web. Linked In. Twitter

Copywriting, web, webcopy, writing

Turning a visitor to your website into a lead (or a client) requires 2 things…

1. An offer
2. A conversion strategy

The offer and conversion strategy are intimately linked to the target audience, and it’s specific needs. In this article I’ll show how a lead generation offer and conversion strategy can be created once the target audience is understood.

The Objective:

A company wants to sell small cars to young single women living in cities. They see the primary concerns of their market as follows…

• Easy to drive
• Easy to park
• Plenty of storage for shopping
• ipod compatible sound-system
• Eco-friendly
• Good income, low savings

In online terms, they believe their target market will typically be found on social media sites, and surfing online versions of magazines aimed at this group.

From a lead generation perspective, the company thinks this group view cars as a fashion accessory, and otherwise have no interest in the product. The challenge the company faces is figuring out how to get their target market interested in a test drive.

Shaping the Offer to the Market:

In purely practical terms, a car costs too much for this market to consider it an outright purchase. Financing will be required, and a low monthly payment is likely to increase conversion.

As this is a fashion purchase, it will be essential to associate the car with influential fashion gurus (e.g. an upcoming designer).

As a lifestyle item, it will be essential to associate the car with the kind of activities the target market enjoys.

Pushing Conversion:

This target audience isn’t likely to respond to an offer to test-drive the car, or read an in-depth review in a car magazine. That sort of offer isn’t pleasurable in and of itself to this audience (a sure sign a marketing campaign is likely to fail).

Via the media their market consumes, they offer to provide the car along with a day’s shopping at well-known malls in key cities. Their market is invited to come to the mall, try the car in the parking lot, and even drive one home if they like it.

If they buy on the day, they get $300 in cash to go shopping. What’s more, they encourage their market to bring their friends and make a day of it.

The prospect must book a session, and select a colour. This is done in real time (i.e. online), with an on-screen confirmation message. A email ticket is then sent, which explains where the prospect needs to go, and confirms the time, date and colour of the car they’ll try.

In other words, to take a test-drive. The difference is the offer has been adapted to its target market. The company’s prospective customers get a day of shopping, and the chance to check out a desirable new car while they’re at it. This greatly increases the pleasure involved for the prospective customers.

This offer is designed from the ground up to fit into the lifestyles, needs and wants of the target market. The conversion strategy is part of the offer itself. Once a person turns up to see the car, s/he can confirm it does everything they need it to…

• Look great
• Hold all their shopping
• Easy to drive
• Easy to park
• Plenty of room for friends
• Work with their ipod

The sales person can then explain the low monthly fee, and has an opportunity to close the deal. Assuming enough desire for the car is generated, and the prospect has the ability to pay the monthly fee, the deal can be done right there in the parking lot.

Lead Generation, offer