SEO - Affect Selling - Simply Effective Marketing

by: Peter Sandeen

101 Headline Formulas that Capture Attention and Get Your Message Read

101 Headline Formulas - The Ultimate Swipe File

“The Only Swipe File You’ll Ever Need”

The headline is the most important part of any text.

It will either keep people reading what you have to say, or send them away.

How many headlines do you read during a day? Twitter, Facebook, email, magazines, etc. Altogether 100? Maybe more?

And how many of those make you read more?

An average headline gets around 25% of people to read on. And even fewer read to the end. Even when reading and leaving are the only possibilities (landing pages, magazines, etc.).

What do you think happens to those percentages in Twitter where dozens of headlines fight for attention?

So, what can you do to beat the odds?

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by: Peter Sandeen

5 Most Important Design Aspects of a Business Website

The New Blog Theme and the New Website are Finished

My new blog theme and the new website are finally online.

The new blog theme and a website I built from scratch are finally here. It took me about 11 weeks and 100 liters of tea (yes tea, not coffee).

I’m not a developer so I won’t attempt to say much about the coding. I’m a business owner and the goal of my blog is to support my business; that was the starting point for the design.

But why on earth did I decide to do it myself instead of hiring someone to do it for me? Uhmm… Because I wanted to be in full control of every element and I had no idea how much work it would be The depressing part is that I’m nowhere near finished; there’s a lot I’m going to change. But for now, the basics are done.

I did learn a lot and these things apply to every web site, not just blogs, meant to drive business.

So, here’s the five most important design aspects of a website from a business stand point.

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by: Peter Sandeen

SEO that Works: Rational Approach to SEO

There are more self-proclaimed “SEO gurus” than polar bears in the world. They “know” (without any way to prove it) the perfect keyword densities and link formats and everything else about SEO. I’m not a guru, nor do I have any percentages, studies, or great successes to share. But I do have a rational approach to things, SEO included.

If I were Google, how would I work? Google is made by people, rational people I suppose. So, if you think about search engine rankings rationally, you should end up with a similar logic. I know it sometimes feels like they do irrational choices (like the “Panda” update that hit hard many quality sites). But I’m sure they at least attempt to think rationally the big question: How to rank webpages?

Here’s a rational approach to SEO, which should work if the search engines are rational

Rational SEO

So, what’s rational SEO? It’s feeding the search engines what a rationally thinking search engine is looking for.

If a Google search meant that a human reads all webpages and then ranks them against your keyword, it would be rational. But since Google isn’t a person, it only has the rules people built into it. Fortunately those people are rational. And by definition rational choices can be traced. So, lets trace the rational behind search engines.

There are three questions a search engine asks when it ranks results:

What’s the question?
Which pages are closest to answering that question?
Which of the results is the most trustworthy?

You could relatively easily interpret what someone is looking for, based on the keywords they used. But for a computer program it isn’t always so easy. It can only follow rules.

Top 10 rational search engine ranking factors

Here’s a top 10 of the most important ranking factors I’d use as a search engine. If Google (and the merry band of search engines) are rational, they’ve probably come up with a similar logic.

10. Outbound links. Links to related high quality external sites and sources, are a sign of knowledge. And they can also help in categorizing the topic of the page.

9. Meta description. This is what you (usually) see below the title in the search results page. If it’s custom written it probably is a fairly accurate representation of the content on the site. I use an SEO plugin to do it. As an added bonus, the meta description has a huge impact on the click-through rate (it’s worth nothing to be the top ranking result if no one clicks through).

8. Article length. The longest isn’t always the best. But nor is the shortest. It all depends on the question, but a 1000-word article tends to be better researched than a 200-word article.

7. Site statistics. Older sites are usually more reliable. But so is younger content. So, fresh content in an old site should be most reliable. Other statistics like Technorati and Alexa rankings aren’t the most accurate but they do provide some insight into the popularity of a website.

6. Surrounding content. What’s the site generally about, and who’s the author. Lots of related content on the same site or by the same author indicates relevance and trustworthiness.

5. Inbound links. The currency of the internet and the most talked about SEO factor is inbound links. If others are linking to it, it’s a sign of good quality. Where the links come from is the key here. It’s like in “real life”; a recommendation by a respected person is worth a lot more than a thousand recommendations by druggies. Where exactly the links point to is also important. Links to the home page only says, “The site is somehow significant enough to be linked to.” But a deep link (a link to a specific page/article) says, “This specific content is worth linking to.”

4. Keywords in the content. The most obvious factor in SEO. But not only the exact keywords are important. Close matches and related words tell a lot about an article. And if there are no related words, then the page is probably irrelevant to the search.

3. Title. Nothing describes a webpage better than it’s title. It has to be short, so there’s nothing extra to confuse the search engine. I believe the title is the most important factor in getting to the first pages. But the last two points in this list define which results get to the very top, and which results fade away from the first results pages.

2. Click through rate. Which results people click-through when searching with the keywords you used. A computer program is always a computer program even if it’s Google. Analyzing what real people do is the best way for a search engine to understand the relevance of its results.

1. Bounce rate. If you return to the search results page after clicking through to one result, it’s safe to assume that the page didn’t answer your question. The faster you return, the less valuable the page was for you. When you no longer return to search more, your question was most likely answered.

So, those are the most important factors I’d use if I had to build a new search engine. As a bonus I’ve gathered three more SEO tips for you. These are often talked about, but I’m not sure what to think of them.

Top 3 controversial SEO tips

3. Meta keywords. A representative from Google has directly said, that Google isn’t interested in meta keywords. Why not?! If there’s only a couple of meta keywords, they’re likely to represent the content accurately. And if there’s a hundred meta keywords, they tell that the page is probably spam. I don’t know what to think about this. Does Google lie, or does it waste a perfectly good way to rank webpages. I do define meta keywords for each post independently. But I write a maximum of five keywords.

2. Page source code. Some people claim a clean code would rank better than a messy one. I’m not an HTML expert but I find this difficult to believe. A search engine bot can easily scan through the code and only pay attention to the headers, paragraphs, and links. What’s the difference to the bot?

1. Commenting on blogs. Anyone can leave a comment on a blog. It tells nothing about the quality of the comment’s author’s content. So, why should links in the comment section matter? I find it difficult to believe that they would make any difference in search engine rankings. There are other good reasons why you should comment on blogs, but the SEO benefits are questionable at best.

What’s your favorite SEO tip? Share it in the comments below. And if you have other knowledge about SEO, then please share that too.

by: Peter Sandeen

Content Marketing

Search for information

In the internet there are two types of people you can convert to customers. There are those who are actively looking for your services. And those who don’t know you have something to offer for them. Both types of people go to Google and look for keywords related to your products/services. To turn them into your customers you only need to be the source of the content they find. Simple? Yes. Easy? Yes?

Create useful content

Lets say you sell cars. Your potential customers can type these keyword phrases into Google: “how to buy a new car”, or “which Volvo is the best”. If you write an article that answers one of these questions your chances of being found increases. If you write a hundred similar articles, each answering one question, you’re even more likely to get new customers. But just writing these articles isn’t enough. They need to be found. The most important rule here is that the content has to be useful. Even if you get 1,000 new visitors but they all leave as soon as they come to your website, you gain nothing. At the same time if the content is useful there’s a chance they become your customers and tell their friends about you and your article. How to rank well in Google and other methods of being found are a topic for another post. Here I’ll concentrate on the types of content you can produce.

1. Answering questions

People use the internet to get answers to their questions. Your competitors are probably already using this opportunity. Chances are your niche is already populated with answers to the most common questions. But what about the less popular ones? “Where to buy a Volvo” gets 133,000,000 results, but “which one to buy V70 or S40″ only gets 30,400,000 results and none of them answer the question. This means you’d find it hard to rank well with the first phrase but the second would be quite simple. And with the second one you could illustrate your expertise. Writing similar articles isn’t difficult for an expert. And ranking well in Google with these articles is easier than with almost any other kind.

2. Customer service

This is actually a subcategory of the previous one about answering questions. Many people look for an answer from the internet before calling customer service. So many companies encourage people to go to their website first that it has become a habit. If you write your own FAQ and articles that cover the typical customer service inquiries you free up time from answering simple questions. (The downside is not speaking to customers and losing the possibility to create a relationship/sell more. In many situations it’s still more profitable to have the basic questions answered on your website.)

3. News

Whenever your company does something, yes anything, write an article about it. It can be really short even. As long as it’s something someone could find interesting: new products arriving, setting up a bargain sale, or even hiring a new person. You can write something about all of these topics. There are a few advantages to writing news (even small ones).

You seem active. Have you ever visited a company’s website where you see “Latest News”? And the latest update is a year old? It makes you wonder if the company even exists anymore.

You get found. A commonly agreed SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tip is to update regularly. This means more and regular updates (news) results in better rankings in Google (and other search engines).

They’re easy to write. It doesn’t take much time or effort to tell what’s going on at your company. Obviously you can make the story more interesting by writing well, but getting a simple message across is valuable too.

You create a relationship. Writing authentic stories about the life of your company and its employees builds relationships to readers. Readers feel like they know you even if they’ve never heard of you before. When they call you and you say something about a topic they read about, the feeling gets stronger.

4. Reviews or comparisons

Even if you sell cars you can review them and be credible. But you can only do this if you’re authentic. It’s always difficult to trust someone’s review if they also sell the product but there’s a way around this. Instead of reviewing individual products, compare two or more. And don’t make it a sales pitch! Everyone can see right through them. “This is the best option if you’re looking for this and that. And this is the best option if you’re looking for that and this.” these types of articles will only undermine your credibility. If you’re not willing to admit what’s not so great about a product, why should anyone trust you. But if you honestly share your expertise it will be valued by readers.

How to publish content?

A blog is the easiest way to publish content regularly. If you’re not quite sure what a blog is read this article. Ask your webmaster to create a blog function into your current website. Using it is as easy as writing with Microsoft Word. An emailing list is another great way to share content to interested people. The most popular (and probably the best) solution for managing an emailing list is AWeber. With it you can easily gather subscriptions and customize the emails (or make a template that is automatically sent with the latest blog updates). One especially beneficial way to use emailing lists is using a sequence of prewritten emails. The sequence starts when someone subscribes to your emailing list. Usually the first message is a welcoming message that tells what they can expect. Then maybe a week later they’ll receive their first prewritten email. It can highlight some of the best blog posts you’ve written or anything else you want them to find. The next email could be themed around a specific problem/product/idea. Along with the sequence emails regular emails about updates to your blog/news section will be sent automatically or manually if you so choose. An emailing list is a great and very cost-effective way to engage interested prospects. If you haven’t done so yet, I suggest you at least try it.

Do you use content marketing? How do you share the content you create? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences so share them in the comments below.