Devour The Web

Hang around web writing circles for any length of time, and the inevitable “write for search engines or write for people” debate comes up. It’s a bit strange, really.

Last time I checked, it’s people who use search engines, not some other life form. So you’re always writing for people.

Obviously, the debate stems from the fact that search engines are powered by computer algorithms. But as search engines have gotten smarter, writing that pleases people and satisfies spiders is not that far apart, if at all.

Let’s look at four factors that work well for SEO and see how well they cater to the needs of people.

1. Compelling Content

As we saw in Does SEO Copywriting Still Matter?, link attraction is the biggest aspect of today’s practice of search engine optimization. Google looks at the links pointing at your domain, and those pointing at particular pages, as votes of legitimacy. Taking it a step further, Google also takes into account the words people use when linking to you (anchor text) as a trusted signal of keyword relevance.

Sponsored Links

I’ve found it just doesn’t pay to crow too much about what I’ve accomplished.

Sure, I celebrate when things go well. But I’ve found that talking too much about my achievements leads not only to criticism, but to disappointment.

There’s always going to be someone who’s done more or worked harder. And until they carve my name into the side of the moon, I see no reason in puffing myself up. The minute you get a big head is the same minute that reality smacks you and you realize that you aren’t as cool as you think you are.

So self-adulation is something I try to stay away from. But self promotion? That’s a whole different story.

If you take a look at the most successful (or talked about) people in any field, you’ll almost always see someone incredibly talented in the art of self-promotion.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad books, mentioned at one point that he’s a “bestselling author” and not a “best-writing author.” Dean Karnazes, known as “The Ultramarathon Man,” is not the best athlete in his field, but he is by far the best at self-promotion.

We had a Deep Web specialist on the show today.  Bill Wardell talked about the “Deep Web” and how it offers a virtually untapped bounty of information and services most people don’t know exist.
What is the Deep Web?
It’s basically the 90% of the web the the big 2 search engines haven’t spidered or accessed.
Google only […]

Exploring the Deep Web is a post from: Blogging tips for bloggers who want more than a following!

Does your blog get traffic? Make Money? Want it to? Click Here!

When I first started Copyblogger in 2006, I was almost militantly against on-page search optimization. Seems strange, since I’d been a successful student of SEO since 2000.

It was because I saw all these people fretting over keywords like it’s 1999, and yet they had no links. Their content was weak. Their sites weren’t trusted.

You can’t optimize something that’s dead in the water. So my initial goal was to get people to focus on content that attracted attention and links first. Only then do you have something you can make better (that’s what optimize means, naturally).

Fours years later, it seems things have swung in the opposite direction for some. Social media “experts” maintain that SEO doesn’t matter because search traffic just “happens.”

Yes, search traffic “happens” if you produce unique content and don’t make it impossible to find. But the “right” search traffic doesn’t just happen, not unless you’re lucky (which simply means you don’t know what you’re doing).

This article is designed to help you know how to tell search engines what you’re talking about is the same as what people are looking for. That’s all SEO really is.

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

It occurred to me late last year, as I was readying yet another Landing Page Makeover, that the end of one year and the beginning of the next was a good time to do a “Where are they now?” post. So first things first, I went back and contacted all makeover participants from the very beginning of the series.

Of the more than 20 contacted, I learned that one is no longer in business, MagicPumpkinArt.com (Makeover #14) and two are in the midst of developing new products or revising their focus: TheLast10lbs.com (Makeover #4) and 4PsofPodcasting.com (Makeover #9).

The rest? Well, most did not respond to our request for follow-up details. (This is me sad ) But of those who did, I think you’ll find their answers interesting and their results encouraging. Here are the questions I posed:

1. Did you implement all/some/few or none of the recommendations made about your website?
2. If yes, did you see any tangible results — increased traffic, sign ups, conversions, sales? Were the results the same, better or worse after making the changes? Which changes produced the biggest results and why?

If there’s any one thing that can be said about SEO with certainty, it’s that it manages to cause a lot of confusion.

For example, it seems like many people’s idea of SEO was formed 10 years ago, and hasn’t bothered to change with the times. Even an online veteran like Robert Scoble is completely clueless about modern best practices for search engine optimization.

So, before we go any further, let me answer the question posed by the headline . . .

Yes, SEO copywriting still matters.

Here’s why.

Search is still the biggest game in town

“Pick your survey, search remains one of the top activities on the Internet and has been for over a decade,” said search industry legend Danny Sullivan when I pinged him on Twitter. Danny pointed me to one such survey that shows search is the most common online activity after email, and that fact cuts across generations.

“People make billions of unique searches each month,” said SEO guru Aaron Wall via email, “and unlike Facebook flittering, those people are in focus mode.” In other words, compared with most Internet traffic, searchers are the most motivated people that hit your site.

Those of you who subscribe to the Internet Marketing for Smart People email newsletter found out on Monday what Brian and I have been up to for the past few months.

We knew it would be cool, because, well, we designed it to be cool.

We wanted to build something people would really get value from.

But still, when we saw what people were doing inside after the first day, we all looked around at one another and pulled a Keanu.

Whoa.

Inside the Third Tribe has been active for just under two days now. What’s been happening so far?

• Artists and SEOs and copywriters and entrepreneurs of every stripe are all giving each other business advice, feedback, encouragement, and ideas.
• Nitty gritty conversations are springing up about promotional tactics, how to manage entrepreneurial stress, getting past roadblocks, finding our niches, and dozens of other topics.
• Chris Brogan and Laura Roeder have been helping a Triber see how he can measure social media ROI in the real world.

A quick note, readers, to let you know that this blog will soon be shuttered and its content merged with ClickZ’s regular news and features coverage.

The news and commentary you’re used to seeing here will soon begin to appear over in ClickZ’s regular news section. To subscribe to all our news content, please see our e-mail newsletter and RSS feed subscription pages.

As for the back-story: we created the ClickZ News Blog in 2005 as an experiment in format - a way for our reporters to cover digital marketing outside the confines of traditional journalism. In doing so, we intended to follow in the footsteps of entrepreneurial news organizations like TechCrunch, Politico, PaidContent, and others that prioritize chasing tips and fleshing out back-stories over covering press releases.

It’s served that purpose well. Over the past three years the blog has built a solid following of marketers who look to it for breaking news, analysis, and aggregated content from around the Web.

However, it also has its drawbacks. Publishing it requires us to maintain a separate CMS, taxonomy, and analytics tools. And it lacks its own e-mail newsletter, a key way we deliver other content to you.

One has to credit Pepsi’s commitment to charitable programs in its “Refresh Project,” which will ultimately donate $20 million to local community projects.

For more than a month, the soft drinks maker has been hammering the PR message that it’s going to use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media entities to promote the initiative. Pepsi’s been touting these ideas while pointing out - in a self-congratulatory fashion - that it’s passing on a Super Bowl ad for the first time in 23 years in favor of social media buzz.

Well, this led me to check out the brand’s Facebook presence this morning. It had 307,326 “fans.”

That piqued my curiosity to see what Coke’s Facebook presence looked like. Somewhat surprising was the humongous gap between the “big two” - Coke has more than 4.5 million “fans.”

But the social media picture is not all bad for Pepsi. It has 20,923 “followers” on Twitter, while Coke has 15,798.

Following ads it posted last month seeking monetization staff, Twitter has hired a new media partnership exec in the shape of Robin Sloan.

In a blog post, Sloan confirmed his appointment, and said his role would involve “everything at the intersection of Twitter and media.” It’s unclear at this point if that will include anything directly marketing related, but the assumption is that said partnerships are likely to include some kind of sponsorship element.

According to Sloan, he will work alongside existing media partnership Twitter staffer, Chloe Sladden, both of which previously held positions at Current TV. He starts mid-February.