Web Content | SEO Writing

Web Content Quality, Google Panda, and The Borg Hive Mind Mentality

Want to be in Google’s good books? Write good web content. Does Google care how good your website’s content is? Yes. Google wants to be sure that it is sending traffic to good content. If people don’t get what they want from the Google search engine results pages, they’ll stop using it and advertisers will stop paying Google money to advertise for them.

Does Google know if your web content is good or not?

Yes. The Google Panda updates are proof of that. How does Google know what’s good and what’s not? By multiple methods, one of which is via judging user behaviour. If people tweet it, link to it, hit the +1 button, click through to another link on the page, comment on it, opt-in, bookmark it, and so on… this tells Google that the content is getting attention. It’s popular or good, it’s relevant, and deserves to be read by others. The search engines put a lot of stock in user behaviour. That’s one of the reasons that blog posts with a lot of comments rank so well, for instance. Search engines are results-driven. They are expected to continue to fine-tune their algorithms to meet user expectations.

Google pays attention to positive results. Conversely, if people bounce off the page they land on, mark comments as spam, and generally ignore the content, this speaks volumes to search engines as well.

Google – Hive Mind Mentality

If you’re a Star Trek fan, think of Google a bit like the Borg Queen.  Google, as the Borg Queen, looks to the hive for reactions and assimilates that information and disseminates it. Those reactions are gauged to determine the overall opinion of a website and its individual pages. Google looks at multiple factors to determine if the hive believes your pages are using white hat or black hat tactics and to determine how to categorize you. If you’re not aware of the Borg, think of a bee hive that shares information and recommendations. That bee hive has the power to influence what the queen (aka: Yahoo, Bing, Google) thinks and the queen then  influences the hive’s activities with further suggestions. Resistance (to quality) is futile.

No matter which way you look at it, your web site’s content quality matters.

• Write quality content to give your users a good experience
• Write in a way that will influence people to influence others. Compel them to action.
• Remember that search engines don’t just index websites. They index individual web pages. Lots of good pages = lots of diverse traffic sources.
• Write content often. The more often you provide a positive experience and positively influence people, the more often your site will get traffic.
• Pay attention to user behaviour on your website. Use info from your website statistics to form an ongoing and evolving strategy.

Quantity and quality can equal success.

Think of implementing a Borg SEO campaign. Search engine optimize your site for the masses and the search engines will pay attention.

Need help getting quality content? Contact me. I’m a web content writer who focuses on quality, SEO, and conversion.

photo:Krayker

Boost Your Online Reputation to Increase Success

photo: Svilen Milev

If you’re trying to attract online customers, there are a lot of different ways to do it. Creating awesome web content is something I help a lot of my clients do for their websites. But many of your prospects will stop and think twice before ordering from you. Many will stop and do further research on your company to make sure you have a good online reputation.

Do you?

Do you know what they’ll find when they search your company name, your product name? A good portion of prospects won’t just search on a name. Many will also search based on phrases around reviews and scams — in an effort to be as thorough and as savvy a consumer as possible.

Be proactive in giving your customers and prospects a helping hand in demonstrating you are genuine and professional. Optimize your online reputation and create some online “clout” for yourself. Yes, the content on your website is vitally  important but don’t neglect your off page marketing strategy as it can do a lot for your branding and reputation.

How?

As discussed in my article  5 Ways to Get Some Online Clout, you can do a lot of things online to help people see your abilities and your professionalism. Reputation-enriching activities will work in both ways:

1: People looking for you will find evidence of your professionalism.

2: People will happen upon the individual activities and be compelled to follow you, learn more about what you do, opt in to receiving communications from you, and in many ways they could also help you with your marketing efforts through social media, article syndication, and so forth.

Finding nothing, when searching for evidence about your company, isn’t nearly as bad as a negative online reputation but if people find nothing, they may not build up enough confidence to take a leap of faith in ordering from you. Why not optimize your online reputation and show them you mean business and that ordering from you is risk free?

Have you looked online to see what comes up on Page 1 of Google results for your name, your company name, your products? Is there much there?  Is it all positive? Is it the kind of material that will inspire faith in you and in your brand? If not and you want some help, let’s talk.  I specialize in web content writing that helps entrepreneurs and businesses achieve online success. The right SEO writing strategy could help people find great information about your brand and your professionalism when they go looking and it can also naturally lead people to your website. Furthermore, the right online reputation management activities can also boost your SEO results and increase your rate of visitor conversion.

photo: Svilen Milev

Online Traffic ADHD – Tips to Beat the Bounce

If you want to succeed on the web, it’s important that you find a way to overcome the online ADHD an overwhelming majority of your visitors will have.

What is Online ADHD?

Online ADHD happens when people become so accustomed to the internet moving at warp speed that they begin to find it challenging to focus on one thing for too long. If your readers can’t be lassoed for more than 10-15 seconds, they’ll be worthless and you will have a high bounce rate (which also has the potential to hurt your site’s rankings with major search engines). You need to work a little harder in this day and age to grab someone’s attention and hold it for more than a nanosecond. Overcome that ADHD and you’ll improve your conversion rates.

What can you do to help thwart their bouncing off your page soon after they arrive?

Read on for some tips that could change EVERYTHING:

1. Make sure the page loads fast. This means a clean design and for heaven’s sake….NO flash. If the site takes too long to load, you’ll lose them in a humingbird’s heartbeat.
2. A great headline. If you’ve got a good headline, you’ll have a greater chance of visitors doing some reading to figure out what your page is about.
3. A good first paragraph. If you don’t hook the in the first paragraph, chances are that you won’t hook them at all. Hint: They’ll be thinking: “What’s in it for me?”
4. Vivid imagery. A photo or something pleasing to the eye should be above the fold. Work to appeal to your target demographic. A picture is definitely worth a thousand+ words. Don’t use a crummy font, either. Make sure your pages are easily readable to humans and search engines and pleasing to the human eye.
5. Scannable content. Instead of one long block of text that will read like a monotone narration, break your text up into short paragraphs with plenty of bold subheadings. If you make reading your content look too much like work, you’ll lose people. If you make the copy scannable with interesting subheadings, people are more likely to read through to the end. Every paragraph should serve a purpose. Creating scanable content can make the content count with search engines as well. Leverage H1, H2, H3 tags and optimize your headings and body text with relevant keywords.
6. Content that matters. Do you know what sort of visitors are landing on your pages? Read your web stats to make sure you’re catering to their precise needs. Hint: What keyword phrases are being searched on that brings these visitors to your site? And does your content provide high quality information that could compel people to buy? This is vital. Who cares how many read your article, blog post, or other piece of online content if they don’t get value from it? Perceived value can lead to success with visitors.
7. Get them wanting more. At the end, lead people to another page. This takes creativity. If they click once, they aren’t a bounce. Then, on the next page, do the same again.

Here’s the thing:

The longer you keep visitors on your site, the greater the chance that they will convert from visitors to customers. Online ADHD is an affliction that affects many. There are a lot of websites out there that don’t do a great job of grabbing the attention of visitors. If you can grab their attention and show them that you’ve got what they came for, you’ll be better off than the massive list of websites out there with double digit bounce rates.

Need help crafting content that speaks to search engines and readers alike? Contact Dana Prince, SEO writer. I work with SEO companies, marketing consultants, internet marketers, and a number of online businesses who need content that engages both types of online audiences (SEO spiders and people).

How can I help you succeed online? Let’s talk.