Archive for the ‘SEO’ tag
Web Writing and Keywords: your best SEO tool is your brain
If you’re unfamiliar with SEO, it means Search Engine Optimization. You’ll often be asked to write “SEO articles” for clients, and of course, when you’re writing your own projects, you need to optimize them if you can.
With that out of the way, let’s get on with our topic, using your brain to discover the most effective keywords. 
Web searches are keyword-based. This means that whether you’re writing your own projects, or are writing projects for clients, you need to pay attention to keywords.
But…
When I’m working with Web writing training students, I find that many of them rely too much on keyword tools, such as the Google AdWords Keyword tool. This is a mistake.
Here’s the problem with relying on a tool: all the data in a tool, no matter how wonderful the tool is, is historical. The tool shows you what terms people searched for in the past. It can’t show you what terms people will use today, or in the future. Since many keyword terms are new — they’ve never been used before — this presents you with a challenge, and an opportunity.
Here’s the challenge: some keywords are so popular that it’s almost impossible for your articles and sales copy to be found if you use them.
For example, take a term like “weight loss.” If you optimize for that keyword, and expect to be found, you’ll be disappointed. There are many millions of references to “weight loss” online, and without heavy promotion, which involves lots of money, NOTHING you write which is optimized on that keyword will be found. So writing that’s optimized for that keyword is a waste of time, right?
No… because every challenge also presents you with an opportunity.
Use your brain: it’s the best keyword tool ever
When you’re writing for the Web, your best keyword tool is your BRAIN.
Let’s imagine that a client asks you to write ten articles optimized for the “weight loss” keyword.
Use your head first.
Think about individuals who want to lose weight. They’re fat — or at least they perceive themselves as fat. A woman who’s ten pounds overweight can be even more upset about this than another woman (or man, let’s not be sexist) who’s 150 pounds overweight.
How do does a fat individual feel? Probably guilty, ashamed, perhaps even humiliated, if someone has looked at them with contempt, or has made an unkind remark.
It’s taken that individual time to gain weight. It will take them time to lose weight. However, something has triggered their desire to lose weight… So they want to lose it fast.
What might this overweight person think, and then type into a search engine?
Just make a list.
Some examples:
how do I lose weight by next week
I want to lose weight for my wedding
lose weight 50 pounds
lose weight with a good diet
a healthy way to lose weight
fat and lose weight
what should I weigh?
get rid of fat
And so on…
I haven’t spent any time thinking about this at all. I just typed whatever came into my head.
If I were really writing a series of articles based on the “weight loss” keyword, I’d type a list just like this, then I’d look in weight loss forums online, and I’d page through a couple of diet and/ or fitness magazines.
I have these magazines at home, but if I didn’t have paper magazines on hand, I’d Google “diet magazines” or “fitness magazines” to find them. These magazines would give me lots of ideas for additional keywords.
The bonus: using your brain to find keywords gives you ideas for your writing
The big bonus of mining your own brain for keywords is that you’re kick-starting your creativity.
Keyword lists that I create myself get me excited.
I could write articles titled “I Wanted to Lose Weight for My Wedding: I Did, Here’s How” and “Get Rid of Fat for Good: the Seven Simplest Ways to Lose Weight” very quickly. And so could you.
Not only is the competition you face much less (there are only 618,000 Google references to “get rid of fat”, compared to 55,000,000 for “weight loss” for example), you’ll find that you will write faster, and write more, when you mine your brain for keywords.
Want to write for the Web? Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) gives you all the information and practical training you need. You can go from zero income to making $250 per hour in just a year. Does this sound like a long time to you? Consider that you’ll be making money quickly, and that your income will build month by month. Writing for the Web, the SYWON way, is fun, and exciting, and you get personal coaching from me, Angela Booth, right throughout your training. Join us — you’ll love it, I promise.
Web writing: links are powerful and valuable
If you’re new to writing for the web, there’s one thing you need to know, and to remember. It’s this: relevant links are both powerful and valuable. The web is the web because of links, after all.
Links are the foundation of search engine optimization (SEO). They’re the primary way any web page is found online.
In the first few lessons of Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) web writing training, I ask you to create several sites.
Some writers tell me that they don’t need to do the “create a site” assignments in the lessons, because they already have a site. We tell them that’s great, but please follow the assignments as written, because there’s a strategy involved, and the more links they have, the better.
Just this morning, Julia wrote in response to a member query:
Start a Blogger blog; link it to your other websites. LINKS are vital; the more the merrier, and the more you’ll show up in the search engine results. So, create as many Blogger blogs as you wish. (Each blog must be genuine, and not created solely for links, that would be spam.)
That aside, there’s no limit on the number of free Blogger and WordPress.com blogs you can create, pointing back to your “real” websites. There’s a reason Angela has so many sites…
Get all the RELEVANT links you can
It’s vital that you get relevant links. As you go through the training, you’ll find that the sites you create start working for you, bringing you traffic via your links, and that as a result of the links, your income rapidly increases.
One point: please notice I said “relevant” links — not just any old links.
Relevant links are those which are relevant: they have something to do with the purpose of the site you’ve created.
Your writer’s portfolio site could have links from your clients (always ask clients to link to you from their sites; some will, some won’t). Your clients may be in many different industries. So you could have links from businesses which sell pet food, or which sell concrete rebar. Neither pet food or rebar are relevant on the face of it, BUT if they link to you using a keyword like “writer” or “freelance writer” or your name, they are relevant.
A warning: beware “we’ll get you to the top of Google” scams
Scammers love to sell linking scams. Therefore, delete any “we’ll get you to the top of Google” email messages you receive.
They’re scams. Here’s why: getting you to the first page of the search engine query results for a valuable and competitive keyword like “freelance writer” is impossible. You need to spend lots of time (and money) to achieve that.
These scammers provide you with totally irrelevant garbage links, which will get you banned from the search engines, so please don’t be misled.
Are you a member of Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) web writing training? Join us: you’ll have lots of fun, and you’ll become an established, well paid web writer, more quickly than you believe possible.
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