The point she was making was whether you should be writing blog posts for search engines or to engage with your active readers.

And there’s a relatively straight forward alternative question to this: Are you writing blog posts or news articles?

To begin with I’ll state my interpretations of each

Blog posts

Based on ideas around your business (or life for personal users) and your thoughts and comments on what’s happening in the news.

News articles

Based on factual information designed to engage and inform the reader about current or ongoing information (whether about the business directly or articles in the news that relate to your business).

Audience connections – blog posts

On a blog you will generally be posting to an active reader list – people who read what you have to say time and time again. You might get referrals by word or mouth (in this decade: social media) and them sometimes a post you write will perform really well on a particular topic in search engines (See how just one blog post by Flowerona about the UK Royal wedding bouquet received tens of thousands of hits, and resulted in the offer of a column for a floral magazine)

Though search engines are important to gain new subscribers (though the age old ‘word of mouth’ tactic is pretty good – i.e. ‘Share’ buttons) you are making connections with human beings and writing copy that is riveting and compelling. If your blog post is good people should want to share it and it’ll spread across social media platforms such as Twitter.

Audience connections - news articles

You may read or are linked to news articles by the BBC, the Telegraph and other news sites. Look at their tone and how they write. They’re connecting with the reader to inform them of what has/is happening.

It’s a good idea to keep factual information relating to your business where you are informing rather giving opinion in a separate news feed (generally integrated with your website). And this is where you can start putting your Search Engine hat on.

The tone of voice used for writing news articles that inform a reader is exactly the tone that is suitable to writing good search engine copy. They make use of repeating key note information and quotes to reiterate their point (see the correlation?).  By still making a readable piece of copy you can entice searchers on to the news article that you have written and then link them off to a) more information, b) your contact details and c) (if you have one) your own comments on a separate blog. Please feel free to rearrange this order as you see fit.

Expanding the example – the Telegraph

As an illustrative example The Telegraph has news articles for informing their readers of current news and blogs for their editors so that they can give their own comments. There are separated to keep fact from opinion.

The cost of upkeep

Whether you are writing a blog post or a news article the same problem arises: you need to write frequently. To engage with your active readers of a blog then they’ll be wanting new content to come back to. To engage with search engines exactly the same applies. If there’s nothing new they’ll got bored and stop coming back.

What I thought I would do is take the time to comment on how their blackouts are not really blackouts. And all because of Search Engine Optimisation.

I’m going to take WordPress.org and Wikipedia as an example for my post (as they are, to me, the main websites staging this blackout). If you load any page on their sites today you will be confronted by the following pages:

However, on further inspection, these blackout ‘faces’ to these websites are simply masking the content sitting behind them. These websites will load all of the normal content that they should show and then force a full screen display over the top.

With a few bits of in-browser Javascript* you are able to view the full content behind the page as it should be.

So why haven’t they replaced their entire websites to actually ‘black out’?

Being some of the biggest websites on the internet they achieve results through strong search engine rankings. Their sites are rich in content and Google (and others) will check them regularly for any updates in content and update their records of that website accordingly. When a Search Engine wants to look at a website it requests a copy of the ‘source’ of a page just like your browser does. Your browser would then convert this ‘source’ or ‘code’ into a nicely styled version for you to view with pleasure. Search Engines don’t have this same wish for aesthetics and will happily read through the code they’re given to understand what that website is about.

What this is in effect doing is keeping all of the content there to keep their search engines happy but then masking each page using those styles I was talking about to hide the useful content from the user audience. This is instead of supplying user and search engine with just the content and styles for these black out messages.

Now if these websites just supplied the content for the  black out messages then when Google does its check today it will decide that every page on their site now reads on the lines of “WordPress.org protests the protect IP act”. Suddenly you will see every page drop out of its place in the rankings. I guess this is a risk that both websites could not take.

Admittedly for these large websites it wouldn’t take them long to be re-ranked once their normal website content comes back online. And with the number of users that will surf directly to wikipedia.org or wordpress.org without going through a search engine they should still see their traffic rise once again. However this is all theoretical and should happen but will not necessarily happen.

Does this make their stand of less value?

Some could say it does and some could say it doesn’t. Unless you work with websites for a living none of this may be at all obvious to you at all and it will be as though the websites are inaccessible to their normal content. However for me it does show that they’re not willing to take the search engine ranking hit to have a real black out. And taking that hit would potentially be great headlines in the fight against the SOPA and PIPA legislation. But their websites will be left at a huge disadvantage online.

So what do you think?

*Javascript is functionality code that runs within the user’s browser once it has loaded the content of a website. It is most commonly used for powering website slide shows and other pretty things.

**If you would like me to clarify anything in this post please leave a comment and I will do my best to help.

Yes in that writing for the web forces you to take account of the search engines and making sure that what you’re writing reflects what people want to know. But a big, fat, enormous no in that to write truly powerful copy you simply *have* to write for your customers and not for yourself. Great copy attracts, engages and galvanises people into action.

Great copy answers questions that your readers have; shows them that you can solve their problem/ inspires them and entices them to put their trust and hard earned cash your way. It’s very simple really. And to be honest, writing for the web should be no different to writing for your readers.

Sure, you need to make sure that your website gets found. But if you understand *at the outset* what people are looking for in your niche; what people want to know about your product or service then it really isn’t rocket science. Now I’m telling you all this as a copywriter, not as an SEO expert (which I don’t profess to be). But just think about it for a moment. Truly bad copy (and we all see plenty of that about ) often starts out with a headline that bears no resemblence to what follows in the paragraph below. Writing for the web forces you to stay focused. If you want to get found for bespoke kitchens in Surrey; well then you need to make sure you use those words in what you’re writing. And so that it makes sense to the humans that are invariably going to read your website if your SEO ninja tricks pay off; then you need to make sure that the whole paragraph, or better still the whole page is around that theme too – just so that it makes sense…

I’m currently writing two pieces of copy for Stanbrook and Nicholson, a local joinery company based in the Surrey Hills. One is for their brochure, one is for their website. I’m pretty well placed to write this at the moment because we’re currently in the process of starting an extension, so I know exactly what their clients want to know.

I started by writing their brochure. Izzy and I planned out the structure a couple of weeks back, I interviewed the team and we’re now in the process of writing up. I still find it easier to write for people first – call me old fashioned but I have more love for them than robots. We’ve decided that the brochure is going to let the pictures do the talking so it was all about writing short, sharp, evocative paragraphs that told a story.

I then translated this to their web copy. Web doesn’t bring the space constraints with it that printed literature too – so we can allow ourselves the luxury of a few extra pages – more detail on the team and their environmental policy perhaps. It’s at this point that things start to get a bit more focused. With the help of my (now friend) Google and a few other tools I’m looking at various keywords – what people are searching for, what the competition is like, and how we can be different.

At the bottom of each page I’m specifying the keywords I think should be relevant to this page. That’s partly for my own sanity – to make sure each important one is covered off, and mostly to keep me focused. If I want to get found for bespoke kitchens surrey then I need to use those words – and there were places on relevant pages that I hadn’t.

So yes, writing for the web is slightly different to writing for print. But surely it’s just about a bit of discipline in giving the readers what they want? And let’s be honest, we could all use a bit of that!

There’s a reason that I added SEO as an afterthought. It’s because it should be when it comes to blogging. SEO is a nice outcome from a good blog – it’s not the reason for its being.

At the recent Blogging workshop I ran a couple of weeks back with Tom Evans a large chunk of our audience were motivated to blog because of the perceived SEO benefits a blog brings. They felt that if they could just manipulate their blog to bring them in thousands of visitors, then that would have a positive impact on their website. I’m delighted to report that by the end of the day they all felt somewhat different!

Your blog will receive thousands of visitors if the content is great, if it looks good, and if you post regularly. You’ll build up a following of loyal readers who will recommend your blog to their friends and where it features in the search engines will be but a distant memory. You’ll be generating enough business from the blog it won’t matter.

Recently I stumbled upon a blog that had clearly been contrived to provide search traffic for the company. It was an imagery-based website and the images were gorgeous. Sadly I felt a little “used” because the writer clearly wasn’t writing for my benefit. She was writing for the search engines. She’d clearly handpicked a couple of search terms (and no, I won’t tell you what they are) – let’s just say they were lifestyle artist hampshire for arguments sake. Every single blog title was pumped full of these keywords. And scrolling down the list I could see this wasn’t a one off, this was a Search Engine Optimisation onslaught.

Imagine this blog, full of lovely images but pumped full of keywords that mean very little in relation to the post they’re describing. How would you feel as you were reading it? Like a valued reader who just had to return to see what said company had been up to? Or a little used and worthless that the point of the blog was simply to scramble the website up the search rankings.

There’s an art to using your blog to gain traffic and pumping your titles and posts full of “clever” keywords isn’t it. I’m not suggesting that it won’t work from an SEO point of view – I’m sure it does. But my point is that this isn’t a blog.

A blog is your chance to journal what’s going on in your world. It enables you to showcase your expertise, build relationships and generate profitable business. Make the most of the opportunity: if you don’t, your competitors certainly will.

I’ve begun to wonder whether small businesses are getting too het up on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) at the expense of the rest of their marketing strategy.

Don’t get me wrong, getting found on Google is important. But is it important enough to pin all your hopes, dreams and marketing budget on? I mean, are people actually going to Google for your product or service? And when they do, will it revolutionise your business?

A close friend of mine runs a retail company. She invested several thousand pounds last year in an SEO company who promised to get her to page one of Google since he’d done the same thing for two of her competitors. Given that she sells product online it seemed like a sensible thing to do. She has a nice looking website and although there are many improvements that could be made, the site looks good and is converting visitors at the moment.

A year later (and several weeks of nailbiting disappointment whilst she was blacklisted as he’d left the server open and some Chinese casino hackers had put dodgy code in her site) she is finally on page one of Google. And she told me that she used to think that this was the holy grail. That once she was on page one of Google her business would skyrocket. Well she’s getting an extra six hits a week. In what she does that’s not translating into significant sales to make the process worthwhile.

My feeling is that she should be using social media: blogging, twitter and facebook, to drive more traffic to the site. All of these things are free, but time consuming. There are also plenty of things that we could do to her site to make it more sticky and process visitors through it more effectively.

My experience is that small businesses regularly invest huge chunks of money in getting their sites optimised, without looking at the fundamentals.

I was talking to one business owner who was number one on Google in his particular niche… but he had an 80% bounce rate! He was loathe to have anyone touch the site because he didn’t want to fall off the bottom of the search engines. But the design of his website was putting people off, and that’s before he’s thought about the sales structure on there.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t optimise your site; but I do think that before you start paying for people to visit it you should make sure that every last element of your site will do everything it can to convert visitors. And I think that’s the missing link for many small businesses.

If you sell a product that people can buy online, then yes, optimise away. But only once you’ve got the rest of your house in order.

Start with the design. Is it engaging, arresting and attractive to your potential clients? Does it do you justice? Then take a look at the copy: objectively as a human being (not as a search engine). Writing for search engines is all very well, but it’s boring to read. And what you must remember is that once people get to your site they’ll need to be interested in what you have to say.

How about the way your website guides potential visitors to take action? Is that clear? For example, if you want people to buy a particular lawnmower this month, have you asked them to? Have you signposted them around the site?

What’s your imagery like? Naff stock photos or something that’s inspiring and represents your business well? Do you have an easy way of capturing peoples data, via a contact form or newsletter sign up box? Are you doing all you can on social media to bring traffic to your site?

I’d be looking at all of these elements well prior to search engine optimisation. What do you think though? I sense this might be a little controversial!

I’ve been blogging now for 2 1/2 years and have been on a journey that’s taken me from writing passionately to no-one to having a regular daily audience who (thank you, lovely readers) interact and respond to me. I’m often asked by clients how they can get the best out of their blogs, and so here are my top tips on how your blog can win you more business. I hope you’ll see that it’s not rocket science. It’s just about persistence, passion and authenticity.

Embrace the design. We’re visual creatures. Give us a lovely looking blog and we’ll want to stay and chat. Expect us to read something unattractive and it doesn’t matter how compelling your words, we’ll struggle. One of my all time favourite blogs is Decor8. Some of you may find the style OTT, that’s fine. You can’t win em all. Personally I love it! It’s beautiful!

Use twitter and other social networking tools to tell people about what you’re blogging! Driving traffic to your blog is one of the main points about this – don’t post day after day and not tell people what you’re doing! Install a Plugin to push links to your posts (not spam) into your twitter/ facebook/ linkedin accounts.

Make it easy for others to retweet your post if they find it useful. TweetMeMe does this well.

Add an inspiring (non-cheesy) image to every post. And I find the bigger the better, so mine take up the full width of my post window. Reject cheesy stock photo images and find some that really inspire your readers.

Post regularly. 2-3 times a week is good, every day is better. We always used to get frustrated with my mum when she first got her mobile phone because she’d never have it on her when we tried to call her. “But no one ever calls me on it” she’d say. “Well why do you think that is?” we’d retort! Eventually she started taking her phone out with her and we started calling her on it. It’s the same with blogging. You have to persevere. You might be writing to no one to start with, but if you write with passion and conviction then your audience will find you! And you don’t have to sit down and write every day – most blogging platforms enable you to schedule posts, so you can be writing while you’re away!

Give plenty of advice. That’s what people come for. But beware of lecturing or patronising. They won’t thank you for that.

Use your comments and retweet mechanisms for direct feedback on what your readers want. I learned that people want to see what we’ve been up to, which is why I regularly run my “In the studio this week…” feature.

So I think those are my top tips, but how about yours? What else can you add to this list?

Optimising your website is just one way of making sure that your business benefits from your online presence, but it is by no means the only way. An effective website is about more than just where you rank on Google. Try thinking about the following:
Does the design fit with your brand? It’s not uncommon to see a beautifully designed website which bears no relation to the printed material of a business. Or worse still, a horribly dated website which just looks out of sync with the new branding. Prioritise getting everything working together, it really will make a difference.
Is the design appealing to your target audience? Does it tell them what they want to know? Or what you’d like them to know?
What is the goal of your website? What would you like people to know, think and do when they visit your site? How obvious is that?
How does your sales process work? And where does your website fit within that sales process? Do you expect people to be Googling for one of your products, visit your site and buy on line? Or do you offer a service where people are more likely to meet you at an event and then ‘check you out’ before calling/ emailing for a meeting. Of course it may be a combination between the two, but if you can be realistic about how your website fits into your sales process you’ve got a better chance of making it really effective.
What is the purpose of your website? For some it may be a reference site (for example a firm of chartered Surveyors) for others it may be your only source of income (if you’re selling car seats online for example).
How easy is it for your visitors to navigate their way around your site? Is the menu bar easy to follow? Are there pages hidden within pages? Is it easy to find what you’re looking for?
Is there a call to action on every page?
Does every page have a different purpose? Ideally (and especially for optimisation purposes) you’ll have one page for each product or service that you offer.

If you’d like to talk to us about your website why not contact us for a website consultation? You can call us on 01483 401 818 or email guildford@printing.com.

Which do you think people are more likely to click on? The former probably since it entices your readers with a benefit: for example see the impact design has had on other businesses just like yours. Rather than more>>, which doesn’t stand out in the same way or entice.

But there’s more. If your hyperlinks can reinforce your keywords (the words that your target audience are searching for) then you’re not only going to entice your readers to click through, you’ll also be helping your search engine rankings.

I have to say, until very recently my homepage was stuffed full of “more >>”, but I’ve since seen the light and refined the way I build my links. And Google seems to like it too!