Monday Must-Reads…

Posted on by

By: iCopywriter Blogger Alex Dalenberg

OK, it might not be as invigorating as a strong cup of coffee, but why not start your week with a potent brew of SEO and copywriting knowledge? If you’re interested in staying found on the Web – and what business isn’t? – then you know at some level you’ve got to keep up with this stuff.

Luckily, we’re huge geeks here at the iCopyInsider, so we’ve done the hard part for you. Welcome to our new feature: Monday Must Reads. Every Monday, we’ll bring you some of the best articles from around the Web related to SEO, SEO copywriting and pretty much anything else we think you might useful or interesting.

 

Here are five reads that we think are worth your time this week. Enjoy!

1. Is a picture worth a 1,000 clicks? How to boost SEO with infographics via Practical eCommerce.

2. VentureBeat asks an important question: Are you getting a good deal on SEO?

3. We wrote about the growing importance of Google+ last week, but here it is again. AdWeek talks about how Google+ is following Facebook’s trajectory.

4. Here’s a new tool recommended by PCWorld that you can use to see if your Twitter followers are actual humans.

5. And finally, here is a good read in The Guardian about the dying art of creative copywriting.

 

 

FreakyFriday – Weird of the Day: Long Live the Royal Molecatcher

Posted on by

By iCopy blogger Alex Dalenberg

We live in an age of disruption. Trends come and go. Companies rise and fall. Groupon surged out of the gate to be hailed as the next big thing, but it now seems to be declining just as quickly, with its shares tumbling. The New York Times, the closest thing there is to a bastion of old media, announced this week that it will be offering buyouts for 30 newsroom positions.

But there are some jobs and industries that stubbornly endure. Enter the royal molecatcher of Versailles.

Yes, according to the Associated Press, an official molecatcher has been gainfully employed at the French court since the 1600s, surviving the monarchy itself, multiple revolutions and two world wars. Today the job is held by Frenchman Jerome Dormion, who even signs his text messages, molecatcher to the king.

Versailles it seems, isn’t just a pleasure garden for the human set, but also moles. The population has been booming since its natural predators – wildcats and weasels – have declined in the wild. The job is still much the same. Even the tools haven’t changed. Dormion is charged with keeping the roughly 2,000 acres of grounds – an iconic symbol of France – mole free.

Not to uh, make mountains out of molehills, but I actually see a few smart business lessons buried here.

1. Dormion fills an important niche: a single mole can make up to 30 molehills per day, so even a handful of moles can completely deface a country estate.

2. He’s unlikely to be replaced until engineers invent an efficient mole-catching robot, probably not a major concern for robotics experts.

3. He’s an expert. Most amateur gardeners struggle to capture wily moles, which are exceptionally intelligent.

What does your business do that will stand the test of time? Do you have a “royal molecatcher” position?

Photo credit: AP Photo/Thibault Camus

Big News- Google’s Author Rank is on its Way

Posted on by

By iCopy blogger Alex Dalenberg

So … this is happening:Google authorship.

If you haven’t yet heard the rumblings coming out of SEO world, heads up. If you create, post or access content on the Web, Google’s new author-ranking scheme is going to affect you, one way or another.

Here’s the gist of it. Google has been quietly rolling out its new author rank program – which has more or less been in the works for years. The idea is that content creators are now able to link the stories and posts they create to their Google Plus identity.

This is a big deal because the conventional wisdom says that someday soon, authorship is going to play a major part in Google’s page rankings.

You can find a few good primers at Forbes as well as the SEOmoz blog, but the main takeaway here is that it isn’t just going to matter how well a page or domain performs; it’s going to matter who writes it, as well.

The idea is that more reputable authors – judged by things like social sharing in the form of likes and plus ones, comments, links and more – produce better, more reputable content. Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect that Google is going to give posts by those authors much more weight in search listing results.

This isn’t out of the blue. As the Web becomes more social-oriented, so should the way we search – at least in theory. But for now, here is the least you need to know, as far as we see it here at iCopywriter.

1. Your Google Plus account matters now.

Love it or hate it, Google is pushing hard to make its own social network much more relevant. And, as far as it can affect search rankings, they have a lot of leverage here. If you’ve been neglecting your profile, it’s time to get it up to date and start posting your content.

And, if you post your own content, it’s time to make sure that Google can find you. They have a comprehensive set of instructions here.

2. The rules are still the same. Quality content will win.

The fundamentals of this game are unchanged. Quality authors will provide quality, relevant content. However, more than ever, it’s time to think about how to create content that readers are likely to share and discuss. In my mind, this means useful content.

3. Do you know who is writing your stuff?

You will need to soon. With Google Authorship, the focus is shifting to individuals and personalities. For those who are willing to embrace the different voices that make up their company, rewards await.

iCopywriter is keeping up with the news and happenings of Author Rank (and all-things-SEO). Don’t you want us on your team?

Photo credit: followtheseinstructions

 

Google vs. Bing – The Battle Gets Heated

Posted on by

By: iCopywriter Blogger Alex Dalenberg

It looks like Microsoft is taking the fight for search traffic directly to Google – just in time for the holidays – with ads explicitly calling out the Web giant as a terrible place to shop.

This is according to a recent article by The Associated Press. Microsoft, of course, wants to drive eyeballs to its own search engine, Bing, which is a far-off second to Google when it comes to traffic.

Microsoft’s main issue – and it’s fair game – is that Google is charging merchants to appear in its special shopping listings. This of course goes against Google’s overall ethos as the fairest and best source of information on the Web. Microsoft has set up its own site as part of the ad campaign: Scroogled. The site doesn’t shy away from saying that the Google guys are basically hypocrites, using their own words against them to pretty devastating effect.

Although, as Danny Sullivan, an editor at SearchEngineLand.com, tells the AP, even though Microsoft’s attacks on Google are more or less fair, Bing isn’t exactly innocent. It takes its own cut from listings provided by Shopping.com, though the majority of Bing’s shopping listings aren’t paid for.

My initial reaction is that tech companies like Google are going to keep looking for ways to drive new revenue – like any company would – except that the Web is so ridiculously competitive. And the margins are so low that we really shouldn’t be surprised if Google starts balking on some of its idealistic promises. Witness Facebook’s recent changes to its business pages, which more or less force users to pay to promote their posts in order to reach their full audience.

After all, giving away the world’s information is expensive, especially if you’re doing it for free. The question is how much companies like Google and Facebook can get away with before they compromise their brand – and drive away users.

On the Web, you’re only as good as your audience. My sense is that Google messing around with its shopping listings isn’t much of a game changer. There are a ton of other price comparison apps out there; people will gravitate toward the one that actually finds the best prices. If Google can’t do that through paid ads, then people won’t use the site.

But if Google starts fooling with its actual search page – which is about as close to sacrosanct as you can get on the Web – well, then it’s time to have a whole new conversation.

How do you feel about the Microsoft/Google dust-up?

Photo Credit: michperu

FreakyFriday: Weird of the Day – Robots vs. Writers

Posted on by

By: iCopywriter blogger Alex Dalenberg

Guess what? The writers are still winning. That may come as a shock to anyone who works in the media industry (your humble blogger is himself the veteran of a mass newsroom layoff, even at the tender age of 27).

Old media’s struggle to adapt to digital disruption wasn’t bad enough. But anyone who has been watching the bleeding edge of online content over the past few years knows that the geeks who rule our world are hard at work on the robots that will finish us all off.

Not physical robots of course, but algorithms that can aggregate and even write stories in the place of humans. Statsheet.com is one of these. It automatically writes game recaps based on data. For example, this story about Gonzaga crushing Lewis & Clark State* in basketball this week, was not written by a human. Of course, the writing is, shall we say, robotic.

But, this week, one of the pioneers of this kind of automation — TechMeme founder Gabe Rivera had some interesting things to say this week about the old-fashioned process of curating news. This is via the tech blog GigaOm, by the way.

Rivera’s site, of course, automatically aggregates Silicon Valley headlines from around the Web — and it works quite well. But in the past few years, he’s added human editors throughout the country to help the machines do their job better. The problem is that the algos can’t yet sense when a story is played out, or not truly worthy of the front page. For now, human news sense still can’t be replicated.

Not that this doesn’t mean algorithms and aggregation are dead. The fairly obvious feeling I get from this is that the publishers who will be successful are the ones who find the best mix of automation and the human touch. Excellent content — and how it’s organized and presented — still rules the day.

Which actually isn’t so freaky after all.

* Side note: the human who edited this piece looked a little more into that Gonzaga-Lewis & Clark State bot-originated article. We scanned the article in question, and the Flesch-Kincaid readability calculator suggested that FIVE of the 18 sentences be revised. 30% of the content.

Hmmmm…Can you get bot content for your site? Sure. Will it be a cheaper option for you? Yep. Will Google know if your content was bot-generated? Bet on it – they’re not dummies. Will they penalize you? We think so…are you willing to chance it?  iCopywriter real, live, human writers and editors.

Photo Credit: Sebastianlund

SEO Guru Blog – Part II: SEO-Cubed: Three Suggestions from Three Search Engine Gurus

Posted on by

Last week at iCopyInsider we featured the first part of an interview we did with some of the fantastic project managers we work with.

We grilled them about all-things-copywriting and SEO to get their take on how businesses should approach the sometimes-daunting task of staying found on the Internet. They dropped a lot of knowledge, far more than we could fit into one post; so today we bring you the second installment.

To refresh, here is your expert panel of SEO gurus:

Fumi Matsubara, Director of Account Services at Geary LSF Group

http://LSFinteractive.com

http://Gearyi.com

http://GearyLSF.com

Miguel Salcido, CEO of Organic Media Group

http://organicseoconsultant.com/

http://organicmediagroup.org/

Jenna Allison, Account Services Manager at Geary LSF Group

http://LSFinteractive.com

http://Gearyi.com

http://GearyLSF.com

And here is each of our guru’s answers to the following question:

“What are the top three suggestions you can give clients who want to improve their ranking?

Fumi Matsubara

1. Develop strong, sound site architecture. Improve title tags that are not just keyword rich, but also with call to action to help with your click through rate.

2. Make sure your website is mobile compatible. This way you can broaden customer base and provide a quality user experience.

3. Invest time and resources in a good content marketing strategy.

Miguel Salcido

1. Be dedicated. Put aside enough budget for at least 6 to 12 months and let it ride. Basically, you need commit to SEO and see it through without getting antsy.

2. Create great content and continuously create new content. The more content that you have, the more traffic. It’s pretty simple.

3. Promote your content. Your content is the gift that keeps on giving. You should be proud to promote it.

Jenna Allison

1. Make it easy for Google to read and understand your site. Make sure that any content on your site pages is organic and natural, and update any title/meta tag descriptions for those pages.

2. Don’t over optimize. Several years ago, it was common practice to “stuff” keywords into your content. This is no good now. The way you should look at doing any content on your pages or for link building is to create conversational content. Don’t write something that wouldn’t make sense if you were having a conversation with somebody in front of you. Google is smart enough to understand what you are doing if you use too many keywords in one space.

3. Think quality over quantity when it comes to link building. This is one of the keys to creating authority for your site as well as boosting search rankings. Make sure that you aren’t overdoing it though. A few years ago it was OK to syndicate content over thousands of different blog farms. Now, Google is actually devaluing and penalizing those sites because it isn’t natural. You want to create content with links that are going to be beneficial to the reader/user: this is Google’s main objective when it feeds you a search results page.

Check out iCopywriter for YOUR online content needs

 

 

FreakyFriday: Weird of the Day – Black Friday Gets Freaky

Posted on by

By: iCopywriter blogger Alex Dalenberg

Is there a freakier Friday than Black Friday? This blogger is tucking into the leftover sweet potatoes and apple pie and skipping out on the Super Bowl of shopping. So far, it’s looking more and more like I made a good decision.

ABC News has a good rundown of the chaos thus far. Some of the lowlights:

  • 71-year-old man arrested in a Walmart parking lot in Covington, Wash., for vehicular assault. He ran over two people with his SUV.
  • In San Antonio, a shopper pulled a gun on a man who cut in line outside a Sears.
  • Five men assaulted and robbed a 14-year-old boy outside of a Bed Bath and Beyond early this morning in Baltimore.
  • And, in Massachusetts, a man scored a big-screen TV, but left his two-year-old son at a Kmart.

Also, the Los Angeles Times reports that there was a small earthquake in New Jersey, but thankfully no injuries.

Of course, the funny part is that Black Friday may not even offer best deals of the year outside of a few limited doorbusters that the big-box stores use as loss leaders. Fox Business reports that, at least in 2011, Black Friday was actually one of the worst days of the year for a snagging good deal. And Decide.com, a Seattle-based price tracking website that also attempts to predict whether an item will go up or down in price, says that the best deals of the holiday season are actually yet to come.

As consumers are armed with more and more information, it’s worth asking how long traditions like Black Friday can hold up. Sure, there’s a certain sport to Black Friday that has its own unique appeal, but for today I’m perfectly content typing away here at home over some cold turkey.

But as an alternative, I’d like to suggest events like Small Business Saturday as well as other local shopping events being promoted by smaller retailers and businesses. It’s a good way to keep a few dollars in the community and find some great new stores outside the usual mega-retailers.

And, of course, a belated Happy Thanksgiving from the team here at iCopywriter. Whether you’re a Black Friday warrior or spent the day sleeping in, have a happy and safe holiday season!

Did you hit the stores today? We’d love to hear from you…

Photo Credit: Robert Banh

SEO Guru Blog – Part I: The Benefits of an SEO Copywriter & SEO Agency

Posted on by

We’re giant nerds for all things copywriting and SEO here at the iCopyInsider blog. Turns out we’re not alone. To get another take on those burning SEO questions that businesses face everyday, we turned to some of the amazing project managers we know at a couple of our favorite SEO firms.

We wanted to pick their brains about what it really means for businesses to dive into the giant, sometimes overwhelming world of search engine marketing.

Needless to say, it was a long conversation, so we’re splitting the results into several parts. Up first, three SEO questions every business should know the answer to.

And so, without further adieu, your expert panel of SEO gurus:

Fumi Matsubara, Director of Account Services at Geary LSF Group

http://LSFinteractive.com

http://Gearyi.com

http://GearyLSF.com

Miguel Salcido, CEO of Organic Media Group

http://www.organicseoconsultant.com

http://organicmediagroup.org/

Jenna Allison, Account Services Manager at Geary LSF Group

http://LSFinteractive.com

http://Gearyi.com

http://GearyLSF.com

And here’s what they had to say.

 

Q: What is the most misunderstood aspect of SEO you find when speaking with clients?

FM — Meta keywords.

“Most major search engines ignore these Meta tags, so there is no sense [in] spending too much time on this. They were useful back in 1999, but they are virtually extinct in terms of ranking factors in this day and age.”

MS — ROI is long-term.

“What people do not realize is that SEO almost always has an ROI, eventually. It may take two years but you will earn your money back because there is equity in every search position that you can gain. That means long after you’ve stopped paying that SEO consultant or agency, you’ll be reaping the benefits of the traffic they grew for you.”

JA — It takes patience.

“It can take anywhere from three to nine months to see any progress for your traffic/conversions/keyword rankings. It’s sometimes hard for a client to see why we are doing certain things to their website, like content re-writes, title and Meta tag description updates and then not see immediate results, especially if they are also doing paid search, where you can see changes almost instantly.”

Q: In your opinion, does every site need to hire an SEO agency or expert?

FM — Yes.

“This will free you from the time-consuming work of understanding search engine algorithms, which allows you to focus on what’s most important to you: your business.”

MS — If it’s the right fit.

“If you are a small bakery then you may be better off with PPC or Facebook ads because you may only have a few hundred dollars a month to spend on online marketing and because chances are there is not much search volume for your target keywords. But if you have the budget, then you should absolutely hire an expert. SEO is so specialized that it’s tough to build an effective in-house team.”

JA — Absolutely, even for simple stuff.

“Even if it is just doing something as simple as making sure you don’t have duplicate content on your pages, this will help you. Google has pushed out more algorithm updates in the past year than we have seen in the last several years combined, making the ‘rules’ of how you should be running your site much more specific.”

Q: What is the importance of the actual writing component in an SEO campaign?

FM — Unique content is critical to high search rankings.

“Time and time again, we see clients’ sites littered with content that has been borrowed from here-and-there to create Frankenstein pages of content. If brands think they can get away with copy-and-pasting content from another company’s website or blog, think again. Your website should always have original and unique content. We see that companies that invest in good content not only rank well, but also have high engagements and conversions.”

MS — Excellent content means more sharing.

“You have to produce great content that people are engaged with and want to share. That is the way to increased branding, links, and traffic.”

JA — SEO doesn’t work without great writing.

“If you just put a bunch of gibberish on a page with a link, Google is smart enough to realize that you are trying to cheat the system by just putting a bunch of links out into the universe without making the content beneficial to anybody. Make sure you look into using a copywriting team if you don’t think you can handle creating a good piece of content on your own.”

Stay tuned for Part II of our Guru Blog. Check out iCopywriter for YOUR online content needs.  

Photo Credit: FindYourSearch

FreakyFriday: Weird of the Day – The Twinkies are All Right

Posted on by

By: iCopy Blogger Alex Dalenberg

With snack-making giant Hostess Brands announcing that it intends to close shop after some 80 years, the social Web is mourning the death of the iconic Twinkie.

Both Hostess and Twinkies are trending today on Twitter. To paraphrase the classic film Ghostbusters – and the greatest Twinkie-related line in film history – let’s say your average Twinkie represents the normal amount of social media activity related to cream-filled sponge cakes.

Well, according to this morning’s sample, it would now be a Twinkie 35 feet long weighing approximately 600 pounds.

As Winston would say, that’s a big Twinkie.

But don’t weep for your snack food yet. According to USA Today, it’s very likely that another company could pick up the brand, which still has plenty of name recognition, given today’s social media spike.

Have you checked out iCopywriter lately?

Photo Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Freaky Friday: Weird of the Day – #drunknatesilver Ruins Freaky Friday, Debunks its Freakiness

Posted on by

By: Alex Dalenberg, iCopywriter Blogger

“Statistically speaking, Friday isn’t freakier than any other day of the week.”

OK, New York Times über stats geek Nate Silver didn’t actually say that, but we imagine that he might, especially after putting back a few. Welcome to our favorite Election Week meme, #drunknatesilver. Twitter is having statistically unprecedented amounts of fun (unprecedented except to Nate Silver) imagining the math man carousing about the town to celebrate his dead-on prediction in the presidential election.

This isn’t that surprising. Silver was more or less dead on predicting the 2008 presidential election, missing just one state. And while some see Silver as a wizard, he uses a fairly straightforward forecasting model that averages the results of numerous polls and gives more weight to the ones with a better track record of picking the eventual winner. The idea is that, this way, outliers have less of an effect on the prediction.

A few of the best #drunknatesilver tweets.

@davelevitan: Drunk Nate Silver stumbles through traffic on the Jersey Turnpike, screaming out what time each driver will get home. #DrunkNateSilver

@kelkulus: Drunk Nate Silver stumbles through the streets, shouting obscenities at the future ex-wives that he has yet to meet. #DrunkNateSilver

@copyblogger: Drunk Nate Silver says “Call me maybe? I’ll know it’s you because your number is …” #drunknatesilver

All kidding aside, Nate Silver is a model of viral success for every blogger seeking to create compelling, vital content. He started as a relatively humble contributor at liberal political blog Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com, but because his work focused less on the ideology and more on the numbers, he found a much wider readership.

Silver turned his musings and number-crunching into the smash-hit website FiveThirtyEight.com which was subsequently picked up by The New York Times. According to the executive editor, it’s now one of their biggest traffic generators.

His new book, “The Signal and the Noise: Why so many predictions fail, but some don’t” is also worth a read. Not just for political junkies, but any business decision maker who wants to better understand how to sort good information from the bad.

As we see it, here are three lessons to takeaway from sober Nate Silver.

1) Use content to address an unmet need.

Silver saw that most political coverage struggled to rise above the day-to-day minutiae, spin and partisan emotion dominating the news cycle. Silver found a way to let the data speak for itself. Readers looking for a better way to make sense of the political climate flocked to his approach. What need does your content fill?

2) Don’t just aggregate, interpret.

Polling is a mainstay of modern politics, but Silver isn’t a pollster. He’s an aggregator but, more important, an interpreter. The numbers aren’t his, but he explains them. Don’t just retweet and repost. Give readers context.

3) Make your content indispensable. 

Easier said than done, but there’s a reason the bleary-eyed hordes of political junkies keep Silver’s website bookmarked: his take on the polls are can’t-miss content. These days, if Silver isn’t part of your repertoire, love him or hate him, you just don’t follow politics. If only all of us could say that about our industry blogs.

#drunknatesilver says be like him and you’ll have at least a 72.3337492 chance of content success.

Have you checked out iCopywriter lately?

Photo Credit: joewcampbell