SEO Keyword Research and Selection Process

The English language is incredible. There are hundreds of different word combinations that can be used to communicate a single idea. And every combination is a possible SEO keyword phrase for some website. Maybe yours.

So how do you decide which words and phrases to use when you’re optimizing your website to increase search engine traffic? Do you choose the keywords with the highest search volume? The ones that you’re already using on your site? Do you pick keywords with the least competition?

All of these questions must be addressed through the course of developing a comprehensive SEO plan. But for a small business website, one question rises above the rest: Which search terms are your customers using?

SEO Keyword Choices

Putting together a proper SEO plan requires making sensible decisions about which keywords you’ll target and which ones you’ll ignore. Sounds easy, right?

Not so quick. As you conduct keyword research and start developing your ideas for an SEO plan, you’ll be faced with infinite choices regarding which keywords you should include in your SEO campaign. Many (too many) website managers make their decisions in a rash manner, often without giving any consideration to why one keyword might be a better choice over another.

I’ve actually witnessed small business owners and bloggers tackle the decision-making process in an arbitrary, freewheeling manner. So I thought I’d put together an article that addresses some of the considerations that should be involved in making choices among all of your keyword options. And chances are, you’ll have a lot of options.

Synonyms

A synonym is a word that has the exact same meaning as some other word. If you want to find synonyms galore, just open a thesaurus (or visit an online thesaurus). Look up the word buy and you’ll find out that one of its synonyms is purchase. This raises the question: Should you optimize your site with the word buy or with the word purchase? You’ll find that the synonym dilemma arises for every single SEO project. The ongoing challenge in the keyword selection process often involves deciding between synonyms and synonymous phrases.

Search Volume

Search volume refers to the number of searches a term receives in a given time period. For example, the word buy was searched about 68 million times on Google in January. Purchase only received about 6.1 million searches. Still, that’s a lot. A knee-jerk reaction might be to decide that you’ll use the word buy in your SEO because it gets more searches. But there are many cases in which it’s much better to target a keyword with a lower search volume (although you don’t want to go too low!).

Competition

If buy gets more searches than purchase, then more people probably use the word buy. Therefore, it will probably have greater competition, which means you have to work harder (publish more content, obtain more links) to see results. That’s something to think about. Maybe you could optimize for purchase and get a big chunk of the 6.1 million searchers within a few months whereas you could spend a year optimizing for buy and never see a single visitor as a result of your efforts. Don’t worry about which keywords get the most searches. Worry about which keywords will draw your customers and which ones will realistically lead to success.

Customers

The best way to start narrowing down your list of synonyms is to determine which words your customers use when referring to your products. For example, many musicians refer to their recorded music as “records.” They’ll say something like “We made the record for our fans.” But fans don’t search for records. They don’t buy or purchase records. So records are not what music lovers are looking for. The fans — the customers — the searchers — are looking for music. They want to buy or purchase music. Or songs.

Existing Keyword Traffic

Let’s say you sell music on your website. Should you optimize for purchase music or buy music? If you find that you’re already drawing a few visitors every month for the term purchase music but you’ve never drawn a single visitor for the term buy music, then you might be better off working on the former term. Whenever possible, leverage keywords that are already drawing traffic! For example, if purchase music brought in five visitors and you find your site ranked on page 35 of the search engine results pages, you should optimize and try to move up a few pages. Then, you should keep optimizing and try to move up a lot more pages.

Writer-Friendly

Some potential keywords and phrases don’t lend themselves to written content. This includes odd phrases that people will enter in search engines but that they wouldn’t normally say or write while communicating with other people. It also includes keywords that are misspelled (many searchers misspell their search terms). Keep in mind that when you finish your research and finalize your keyword selections, they will have to be implemented on your website, which means they will be written into the text. If you want the language on your site to be readable and correct, then you want to choose writer-friendly keywords.

Narrow the Search

Let’s face it, there’s a whole lot of music out there. You can get more specific about which music you’re selling. If you’re a full-service music store, you’d do well to choose a bunch of keywords with each one targeting a different genre or artist. You could optimize for purchase rock music or purchase pop music. Sometimes you’ll see better results optimizing for a larger pool of keywords that are highly specific and that have less competition.

Long-Tail Keywords

How specific can you get? I already mentioned artists and genres. What about format? Do you sell music downloads? Maybe instead of purchase rock music you should optimize for download rock music. As you add more words to your keyword phrase, it becomes a long-tail keyword, which is simply a keyword that consist of several words. These can be effective when used thoughtfully.

SEO is About Asking the Right Questions

When you start compiling a list of possible keywords, your head might spin. It’s truly mind-boggling how many words and phrases can be used to search for one product or service. As you go through your list of keyword possibilities, avoid making arbitrary or meaningless selections as much as possible. Try to cite a reason for every decision you make. If you eliminate a keyword from the list, make sure you have a reason why.

As you go through the process, asking the right questions is essential to informing your decisions. Think about each keyword and determine how many ways that term might be used by people searching for it. Are they more likely to be looking for your offering or is it possible the search term is even more applicable to something you don’t sell at all:

• If I optimize for download rock music, I might draw searchers who are looking for free downloads.
• If I optimize for purchase rock music, I might get visitors looking to buy sheet music or CDs.
• Should I optimize for buy rock songs online?

Sometimes you end up back at square one, and you have to go back and do more research. But it’s worth it. If you’re going to invest in a serious SEO campaign, you want to get the research and keyword selection right the first time.

Here’s a summary of considerations to keep in mind when making SEO keyword selections:

• Synonyms: Do you have a nice, long list of keyword possibilities to choose from?
• Search Volume: How many searches are conducted for each of the potential keywords?
• Competition: Which keywords are highly competitive in the SEO field?
• Customers: Which keywords do your customers use when looking for your products and services?
• Existing Keyword Traffic: Are you already seeing low volumes of traffic for some of these keywords?
• Writer Friendly: Lean toward keywords that are correctly spelled and fit naturally into written communications.
• Narrow the Search: To attract customers looking for exactly what you offer, narrow your language. Be specific.
• Long-tail Keywords: Be more specific. Use a larger number of keywords that have lower search volumes and less competition.
• Finally: Ask the right questions. Make sure you have a reason for each elimination or selection from your list.

SEO is a tedious process, especially the research and keyword selection phases. But once you get past the nitty-gritty grind of poring over lists of words, phrases, and statistics, you get to move to the next step: keyword implementation. And that’s when SEO gets fun.

Scribizzy offers a full suite of SEO services and can help you through any phase of your SEO campaign. Get a quote online.

How Online Marketing Strategies Level the Playing Field for Small Businesses

When I was a kid, there was this little Mexican restaurant in town. It sat right next to a movie theater, and it was a hot spot. Those folks made a mean burrito! Kids always stopped in on the way home from school for nachos, and whenever we went shopping or to the movies, we’d grab a bite. It was cheap, tasty, and popular.

But apparently, it wasn’t popular enough. Because in 2003, when a big-box store wanted to move in and take over the space, both the restaurant and the movie theater (plus several other small businesses) got knocked out to make way for a chain store.

Rather than relocate and start over from scratch, the restaurant owners closed their doors and walked away after being in business for 30 years.

Missing Main Street

This is not an unusual story. Big businesses are constantly kicking the little guys off the map.

There was a time when every town and city in America was home to small businesses run by hard-working and self-sufficient people — people who possessed an entrepreneurial spirit. They ran restaurants much like the one I just told you about. They owned grocery stores, cafes, and bookstores. But in recent decades, big businesses have slowly been taking over, eliminating the mom-and-pop businesses that defined main-street America.

Nobody believed that a chain of coffee shops could drive community cafes out of business, but Starbuck’s proved it could be done. And because ambitious executives are hooked on exponential growth and thrive on eliminating or overtaking their competition, corporate growth has proven that no industry is safe from its reach.

After all, bigger businesses have the advantage. They have more money to spend on research and development, marketing, and personnel. They can even use that money to affect law, supporting politicians and bills that advance their agendas or opposing those that would give better leverage to the little guys.

Small Business Concerns

They say some industries are safe from corporate competition. I don’t believe it. If there’s a way to make money, the big businesses are going to want to get in on the action eventually.

If you’re a small business owner or if you’re thinking about starting your own business, these are real concerns.

Can you go up against bigger or more established businesses? Even if you can compete now, will a corporation move in on your turf a few years down the road? Should you just get a regular job and forget about it? Or can smart online marketing strategies save your business?

Small Business is Alive and Well

The truth is that small business is alive and well. It just looks different than it did ten or twenty years ago. True, it’s more and more difficult to find a grocery store owned by people rather than shareholders, but there is a whole world of entrepreneurs. And that world is the wild, wild web.

Remember that little Mexican restaurant I told you about, the one that went out of business in 2003? That restaurant recently got itself a Facebook page. Sounds odd, I  know. Why would you set up a Facebook page for a restaurant that has been out of operation for almost seven years?

Maybe the owners are thinking of reopening and are testing the market. Maybe they’re just waxing nostalgic. I have no idea, but what I do know is that they already have hundreds of followers, a pretty good indication that their little restaurant may be gone, but their customers have certainly not forgotten them.

21st Century Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurial spirit will never die. Someone, somewhere will always find a way to outsmart the big guys and either beat them at their own game or build a brand new game.

In 1999, when big corporations already had their arms wrapped around shoe manufacturing, a little company named Zappos hit the scene. It was unheard of. Why would anyone go up against Nike or Manolo? But Zappos found that by skirting marketing and customer service models that big businesses favored and by operating on the web, they could in fact succeed and compete effectively. Less than ten years after it was founded, Zappos was sold to Amazon, reportedly for over a billion dollars.

Hoards of independent-minded people have figured out ways to make money using online marketing strategies. Some of them employ tactics that may be questionable (are they really selling anything?) but most online entrepreneurs just want to offer a decent product or service that brings value to their customers. They want to run a real business, and they want to succeed.

Many of these people make a living from home. Some of them work in their pajamas. Others are working from their couches or backyards. A few of them don’t even realize they’re running a business. They’re blogging for fun, and one day someone offers them some money for something, and next thing you know, they just turned a profit. That’s business, and this is still America.

Online Marketing Strategies

But it’s an online America, a globally connected America. And what’s missing on the game board are small businesses that are doing business the old-fashioned way (with a brick and mortar store, or an in-person service, or some really killer art to sell), while simultaneously harnessing the newfangled marketing advantages that the internet offers.

Let’s face it; some things just can’t be done online (home repairs, haircuts, dining, just to name a few). So, as big business moves in on these industries, traditional businesses need to use the web to compete more effectively.

If a little restaurant that closed its doors ten years ago can use the internet to reclaim hundreds of its former customers without even having a business anymore, then what can your business do with the web?

Scribizzy helps small businesses succeed online. Visit our web content services page to learn more about our copywriting, design, and marketing solutions.

Why Generic Website Copywriting is Bad for Business

A few months ago I launched a quest to find a new dentist, and it was not an easy task. My last dentist, while trying to poke around inside my mouth, informed his assistant that I was a hypersensitive patient (and sent her off to fetch the nitrous oxide). I’m sure that had something to do with the fact that I was maniacally clutching the armrest while burrowing my head into the dental chair. Oh yeah, and my mouth kept closing all by itself every time he lunged at me with a sharp instrument.

A few dental procedures gone wrong had made me wary, if not downright fearful, of dentists. So I need a professional who is compassionate toward patients with dental phobias and anxieties. I’m looking for a dentist with an extra-special skill set.

Since I’m one of those technology-savvy generation Xers and because I am also an internet professional, I launched my search online. Google gave me plenty of options, and I got busy perusing the many dentists within a fifteen-mile radius. Within minutes I had about a dozen potential dentistry websites opened, and I got busy reading through them to see which one would tell me what I wanted to hear: We are sympathetic to your fear of dentists. We won’t hurt you.

I happened across one such dentist early in my search. The text on his site was friendly and comforting. There was even a photo of him. He looked like a nice guy and not at all like the demented dentist from Little Shop of Horrors. But I wanted a list of dentists to choose from. So I kept his site open and continued my search.

A short time later I found another one that looked pretty good. As I started reading through this other guy’s site, I got this weird feeling. Haven’t I read something like this before? Haven’t I just recently (in the past few minutes) read these exact same words in this exact same order?

Two dentists. Same city. Same exact copy. Bad for business.

Good Marketing vs. Bad Marketing

I realize that small businesses have budget guidelines they must follow and sometimes they have to take shortcuts. But using generic copy on a website is never a good idea.

First of all, it was a little creepy. I mean, why would two different dentists have the same exact message? I’m not talking about similarities where one dentist says “Scared of dentists? We understand.” and another says “We understand that you’re scared of dentists.” I’m talking about the exact same copy, down to the periods, commas, and conjunctions.

At one point I had both of these sites open and was clicking back and forth between them, trying to sort it all out. My first concern was that these two dentists had been duped by the same copywriter. I quickly deduced that they had indeed used the same copywriter, but it wasn’t an actual copywriter; it was a copywriting service. Except the copywriting wasn’t a service; it was a product.

The clues let me to an outfit that was selling generic website copy to professionals. Even worse, the professionals were buying it.

Let’s Get Personal

In some situations, discovering duplicate copywriting on two different websites might not rattle me one bit. I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it if I had been searching for a mechanic or a home inspector, professionals who offer relatively generic services. But I am searching for a dentist. I’m going to let this person medicate me, drill holes in my teeth, and then fill them up with strange substances. He might even pull a tooth, and he’s certainly going to do whatever it is that dentists do to give you a sparkling smile. And if the same text on his site is on several other sites, well, then I know the words do not convey his unique message and don’t represent him specifically. It’s just out-of-the-box text. And for all I know, he might not mean a single word of it.

Now, maybe the cost of losing one perspective customer was worth the savings that these two dentists enjoyed by buying canned copy rather than hiring a copywriter. But I doubt I’m the only individual who noticed the duplicate copy and I also doubt that I’m the only person who was completely turned off by it.

I realize that because I’m professional website copywriter, I have a special way of looking at this situation. And because I don’t sell generic text, one would expect me find such practices… well, distasteful. But I’m also a customer, a client, and a patient. Especially as a patient with some measure of dental phobia, I am anything but comforted by this plastic messaging.

When is Generic Acceptable?

Businesses are always trying to find a way to make a buck. I guess someone, somewhere thought it would be a good idea to write some web content for professionals and then resell that same content over and over. The idea is probably profitable for the person who thought up that scheme. It probably also seemed like a good idea to all of those professionals to whom they sold generic copy.

Some products and services can definitely get away with being generic. Website templates and stock photos are a good example of marketing materials that could be considered generic but are often employed, even by big businesses with large budgets.

But website copywriting just can’t get away with being generic. There’s a difference between a generic photo used for business and generic words used to speak to your customers. My own reaction was something like, “You don’t care enough about your patients (or your work) to send a more personalized message, and now you expect me to let you inside my mouth with pointy tools?”

Entrepreneurs and professionals need to be cognizant that marketing copy is a direct form of communication. While imagery and design can be powerful, language allows you to speak to your customers clearly and personally. There’s nothing clear or personal about canned text.

Last Words: Generic Website Copywriting and the SEO Effect

There’s one more consideration that I want to quickly address and will discuss at greater length in a future article: SEO (search engine optimization) and duplicate content. Because not only did these two dentists engage in online marketing tactics that have a distinct capacity to discourage (rather than encourage) new patients, this generic copywriting strategy could also have a detrimental effect on their search engine traffic.

Most SEO specialists agree that duplicate content across different websites is frowned upon by search engines. In other words, if a search engine sees that two sites are using the exact same copy, they both lose points and fall back on the search engine results page. This means that in addition to scaring off perspective clients, the copy that these two dentists were using could also be hindering the amount of traffic they attract to their websites. That means less visitors and less customers.

Like I said, generic website copywriting is just bad for business.

I’m sure that the two dentists have successfully brought in new patients from their websites. But they’ll never know how many potential patients they have lost.

Custom, Personalized Website Copywriting

Scribizzy provides website copywriting services to entrepreneurs and professionals who want to establish an effective online presence. Our copy is organic. It contains no preservatives and is hand-crafted, not canned. Get a quote online.

Small Business Website Design Tips: 9 Things to Avoid

When you’re shopping around for a small business website design, do you know what to look for and what to avoid? Do you know which design elements will make your site more appealing and which elements will turn visitors away?

If you’ve spent much time surfing around the web, then you’ve probably noticed that some websites have design elements that are distracting, annoying, or just plain ugly. We’ve all bumped into a few websites that make us want to scream. Luckily, escape is just a click away.

But if you’re a small business owner, you definitely don’t want visitors clicking away from your website, especially if they’re seeking escape because the design is unappealing or irritating.

10 Design Elements to Avoid

Here’s a list of design elements that people frequently complain about. Most of these recommendations have been on web designers’ things-to-avoid lists for years, but these frustrating features just keep showing up all over the internet.

1. Automatic-loading Music: This is number one on the list for good reason. Nothing startles a website visitor more than loud audio suddenly protruding from the speakers. Maybe the visitor is already listening to background music. Maybe they’re trying to focus on your content (and if your content is not centered around music, the sound is just a distraction). Maybe there’s a baby sleeping nearby. Be considerate and make audio optional.
2. Flashing, Blinking, or Scrolling Text: If it’s subtle, you might be able to get away with it. But like audio, moving text is nothing more than a distraction. Sure, you might be using it to get the visitor’s attention, but once you do and they start seriously perusing your site, it’s just going to become an annoyance.
3. Animations: Some animations work well with a design. If you’re an illustrator or an animated cartoonist, go for it. But if you’ve got a website that’s centered around some product or service that doesn’t include art or animation, then keep your content static.
4. Pop-up Windows: No. Just no. I don’t care if your windows pop up in front, in back, or right on the page. Don’t do it. Some websites are still using pop-ups or have returned to pop-ups. They will never be sustainable because they’ll ultimately annoy people.
5. Image Backgrounds: This one almost didn’t make the list because there are a lot of image backgrounds that work well, especially textures. So this is not so much a design element you need to avoid as one that you need to use judiciously. As long as the images are small and fast-loading, you should be okay. But if a solid color will work just as well, then get rid of your image backgrounds. And do note that most major (and hugely successful) websites don’t use them (Google, Amazon, etc.).
6. Frames: These days, with CSS and other design technologies so readily available, frames are just an unnecessary and outdated technique for organizing the content on a site. The problem with frames is that they are not compatible with all browsers and may render differently on different computers. So opt for a content management system (like WordPress) instead.
7. Excessively Wide or Long Pages: This should go without saying, but I still run into these types of websites on occasion. I always wonder if the designer is using an enormous monitor and has forgotten that most people use 12 to 15 inch screens. And try to remember that visitors don’t like to scroll endlessly down (or across) the page. Except on archived sections of your site, keep scrolling to the length of two or three pages.
8. Indistinguishable Links: Have you ever hovered your mouse over a web page and it caused a window to open or carried you off to some other page? That’s just plain weird. Links are meant to be clicked so make sure they’re clickable and make sure that visitors can distinguish a link from regular text.
9. Opening a Link in a New Window: There are some instances in which I don’t mind links opening in a new window, but usually I prefer to make the decision myself. All I have to do is command-click (Windows users can right-click and choose “open link in new window”). When web designers use this functionality, website visitors end up with dozens of open windows, and there’s a good chance the window with your site on it will get lost in the fray. Let people use the back button. That’s what it’s there for.

Exceptions to These Website Design Tips

These design elements should be avoided, but not always. Whenever you’re reading a list of tips, it’s important to remember that there are usually plenty of exceptions. In the list above, I’ve pointed out some obvious exceptions, but you should always remember to use your best judgment and keep in mind that sometimes breaking the rules or defying convention is a good thing. If you’re not sure about whether a particular website design idea would have a negative impact on your site, ask your website designer or consult with a web content specialist. Also, ask friends, family, customers, and professionals in your network. Nothing beats user feedback!

SEO Starts with Keyword Research

Whenever I’m working on a website copywriting project, I ask my client to fill out a questionnaire that helps me understand their business. This enables me to write copy that truly represents the client’s company, mission, and goals.

One of the items on the questionnaire used to be “Please list any keywords related to your website or business.”

I quickly found out that very few small business owners understood what I meant by “keywords.”  Sometimes, they would jot down something like “use your best judgment.” Usually, they’d list a few keywords, but it was clear that they weren’t researched keywords for SEO. They were simply words and phrases that represented the products and services that the client offered, and they had been selected at random.

Since most small business owners don’t specialize in web content and design, how could they be expected to know that when a web content specialist inquires about keywords, she means keywords that have been researched for SEO purposes?

Entrepreneurs understand business. They are concerned with their industry, profit margins, customers, sales, and ROIs. They know that establishing an online presence is essential to business, but they do not usually realize the complexities involved in developing an effective web presence. For many small businesses, getting online merely involves building a website. So it’s up to web content specialists to educate small business owners. That doesn’t mean selling them products or services they don’t need (and many small businesses do not need keywords or SEO), but it does mean helping them be more informed about their options.

It wasn’t long before I changed my questionnaire to read “Have you conducted any SEO keyword research?” Rewording the question had some interesting results. Some clients simply put “no.” Others became curious: What do you mean by keyword research?

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is an online marketing strategy that grows traffic to a website by increasing its visibility on search engines. This is primarily done through search engine optimization (SEO).

This is easier said than done. Search engine marketing is extremely competitive. Most small business owners think that by simply launching a website, they’ll automatically start getting traffic through search engines. But these days, to get traffic through search engines, you have to carefully optimize your website. That means researching and choosing keywords, implementing those keywords, establishing incoming links, and monitoring keyword and traffic performance.

Search engine marketing isn’t for everyone. If you’re on a tight budget in a field with highly congested keywords, you would be better off with an alternative online marketing strategy. There are lots of ways to draw traffic, and before you start an SEO campaign, you should do your research and make sure it’s a good match for your business.

Keyword Research

You can’t just pluck keywords out of nowhere. Well you can, but your results will be less than ideal. Keyword research can be a tedious process. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of possible keywords for just about any search term you can think of. When you conduct keyword research in preparation of optimizing your site, your goal is to find the keywords that will draw the most traffic. You also want the traffic to be targeted to your business offerings.

Let’s say you run a small, independent bookstore. You might think that a good keyword to pursue would be “books.” But that would be wrong. To gain traffic through a keyword like that would cost tens of thousands of dollars in research, content development, and other SEO efforts. You’d be much better off finding narrower and more localized search terms. Another option would be to forgo search engine marketing altogether and use another strategy to increase traffic to your site.

To discern which search terms would most benefit your website efficiently and effectively, you conduct (or hire someone to conduct) keyword research. This is a process in which you start with some general and obvious search terms and use various online SEO tools to expand the list of terms, so that there are plenty of choices. Then, you review each of the terms to determine how competitive each one will be, how much content you’d have to add to your site to compete effectively, and decide which keywords your target customers are most likely to enter into a search engine. For example, people searching for the term “books” are not necessarily looking for an independent bookstore (here’s a hint — “bookstore” is a more targeted keyword than “books”) and even if they are looking for such a store, they may be in a different geographic location.

Here are some of the questions you want to keep in mind when conducting keyword research:

• What are the primary products or services that the website offers?
• What alternative or synonymous keywords can be used?
• How much search volume do these keywords generate each month?
• Which keywords are potential customers likely to use in searching for these products or services?
• What does the competition for these keywords look like?

It’s important to note that when we talk about keyword competition, it’s not necessarily the same businesses with which we’re competing. In other words, there will be other sites that are using the same keywords as you, but their product or service offerings may not be directly competing with yours. You’re competing with them to get search engine traffic via keywords rather than competing with them in business.

SEO

For many small businesses, a little SEO can really boost traffic. The decision of whether or not to pursue SEO is one that must be made by each individual business, and the decision will likely rest on how competitive keywords are within your industry, the amount of resources you can dedicate to optimization, and the findings that come from keyword research. One thing, however, is basic: SEO starts with keyword research, and keywords should never be chosen on a whim. A little research can go a long way in helping you make smart decisions about whether search engine marketing and SEO is the right online marketing strategy for your business.

Scribizzy offers a full suite of SEO services. To learn more visit our SEO Services page, or if you’re ready to launch an SEO project, start now by getting a quote online.

Planning Your Web Content Development

We’ve already talked about how to lay the groundwork for your web content development by brainstorming. You jotted down all your ideas, did some research, and expanded on those ideas. You looked at the competition and learned more about what your industry is doing in the online marketplace. You took notes and made lists. You asked questions and came up with answers. You went in empty handed and came out with a better understanding of what your online presence should look like.

Once you’ve done your brainstorming, you should have plenty of possibilities for your web content development plan. Maybe you’ve got it scrawled all over a bunch of pieces of scratch paper. Perhaps you used an orderly mind mapping technique. Or PowerPoint.

Take a look at your notes. Those are the seeds that you’ve gathered. Now you need to plant those seeds and make them grow, you have to water and fertilize them, and make sure those seedlings get plenty of sunshine. To do this, you’re going to need a plan. A web content development plan.

The Benefits of Having a Plan

I’m a big fan of planning. If you spend a little time on a plan right now, you can save loads of time later. A good plan will also help you avoid mistakes and bumps in the road because as you build your plan, you’ll naturally contemplate various possibilities and scenarios. You’ll be able to work contingencies into the plan, as well as emergency exits and the notorious plan B.

Running a business is not easy. It takes up a lot of time and energy, especially when you’re just starting out or going through a renovation or expansion. If you don’t write a plan, then you might get caught up in your day-to-day business activities and forget all about the evolution of your online presence. This is especially true if you have a long-term business plan (please tell me you do).

A plan also provides you with a blueprint. There are infinite possibilities on the web and it’s easy to get lost among all the opportunities. If you have a plan, you’ll be able to navigate through your many choices with ease and confidence.

Tips for Web Content Development Planning

Prioritize

I believe that all good plans start with a sense of priority. Let’s say your first web project will be to redesign your website. You decide to scrap all three or four pages of written content because they are outdated, and you want to get rid of the layout, which is just dated. But you’d like to keep your logo. You decide you need about twenty pages of content, including one page for each separate product that you sell. You also want to get set up on popular social media sites. You’d like to use video as well. You’ve got a big list of big ideas and you can’t wait to see them come alive.

But first you need to step back and decide what matters most. This is how you organize and put things in order: Your website is more important that your social media. Your email marketing campaign is more important than your hopes for creating a viral video. Later, we’ll talk about contingencies, timelines, and budgets. But for now, keep in mind that no matter how hard we work or how carefully we plan, things change. You might get a golden opportunity in a few months and have to postpone some of your content development plans for lack of time (being busy is good, right!). You might have a difficult quarter and have to tighten the budget. You just never know what the future holds. So dream big, but then put your dreams in order.

When you’re dealing with a website, for example, you should definitely give your core pages greater priority. These include your home page, about page, products or services page, and contact page. Four simple pages that every business website should have. Viral videos are all the rage but millions of people post videos every day and there’s no guarantee that yours is going to be a phenomenon. A more reliable marketing strategy should come first. Put things in their proper order. Prioritize, and everything else will follow.

Flexibility

Nothing stresses me out more than a plan that has no flexibility built in. Let’s say you’re a middle manager. You have to get a project to your boss by Friday. Please don’t tell your subordinates that it’s due Friday. You tell them it’s due Thursday. Or better, Wednesday. That gives you some leeway in case anything goes wrong. And things do go wrong. Next year, your budget might be twice what it is this year (or it could be half). Even the very best plans, the ones that are perfectly executed, are subject to reality. And in reality, stuff happens. Unpredictable stuff. So create your plan, but don’t create it out of iron or chisel it into stone. And remember, technology is changing all the time. Be prepared because this year’s blog is next year’s Twitter, and who knows what we’ll be dealing with the year after that?

Timeline

A website doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re starting a brand new business, you’ll want the completion of your website to coincide with the launch of the business itself. If you’re doing a redesign and want to time it for a product or service launch, you’ll need to coordinate your timelines.

The biggest mistake I see small business owners making in the online world is not having any plan at all. The second biggest mistake is no timeline. They’re going to start publishing a newsletter, but when? They’ll update their online profiles, eventually. They’d like to add fresh content to the site. Someday.

Lots of people don’t like committing to a timeline. Well, that’s what flexibility is for. At least with a timeline, you can make some sound guesses about the future of your web content. At the very least, you can create a series of events and ascertain how long each will take and how much time you need between each one. For example, you can allot six weeks to creating a website. You might need two weeks to create an email marketing campaign. You don’t have to glue these projects to the calendar, but you can use a timeline to better understand how long everything will take. This will enable you align various facets of your entire business.

Budgeting

Smart businesspeople know how to budget. But we just talked about flexibility and the unforeseeable future. The fact that you cannot know for sure what the future holds also means you can’t know for sure what your budget will be in later months or years. The economy is unpredictable, the market is unpredictable, and consumers are getting more fickle by the day. Hopefully, you’ll have a bigger budget than you hoped for or at least be on track. But we all know how many businesses fail every year (if you don’t know, the answer is this: the vast majority!). And when disappointment comes knocking, the first thing that shrinks is your budget. Some businesses can avoid failure by having a flexible budget, or rather, by having a plan that’s flexible enough to adapt to changing budgets.

You should, however, budget for online marketing on a long-term basis. A lot of small businesses throw a few hundred dollars at a website and then forget about it. Three years later, they remember they have a website and they pay a few hundred more dollars to update it. This is not a healthy cycle. It could be costing the business customers, who are apt to think that if the website is half-baked, the company probably is too. Make sure you have a regular, ongoing budget for online marketing and website maintenance.

Contingencies

A contingency is something that might happen, but there’s no guarantee. It’s a what-if. As a writer, I’m thrilled by what-ifs. Questioning possibility is what drives fiction. It’s also what keeps me up at night. What if the video really does go viral? What if nobody responds to my Facebook page? What if the site become an overnight internet sensation; do I have the resources to handle the new business that the site could attract?

When you’re writing a plan, you have to include contingencies. You probably don’t need a lot of them, but contingencies work alongside flexibility. In your plan, you believe that if you build a site and launch a proper marketing campaign, you should be able to increase your current sales by 20%. So you build the site, but it’s drawing more customers than you anticipated. Will you be ready to handle the new business that’s coming in?

If things happen the way you plan, then your entire business will start to see benefits from your web content development efforts. And if things don’t go as planned, well, you should have a backup plan.

Plan B

If your plan doesn’t pan out the way you intended, what are you going to do? Nobody likes thinking about worst-case scenarios, but this is business and the reality is that success is not guaranteed. However, you can minimize your losses by having a solid backup plan in place. And you never know, a good backup plan might lead to another (and more successful opportunity). Let’s say you’re just out of college and want to be a freelance graphic designer. You set up a website and start hustling online. You do okay, but not great. Your designs are awesome, but sales isn’t your thing. A year in, you’ve invested a lot of time and money building your little business. But now, you’re not sure you’re in it for the long haul.

Secondary plans abound in situations like this. You can rework your website, turn it into an online resume and portfolio, and then use it find a regular job (you can always continue freelancing on the side). You can find a partner who specializes in sales and work together to grow the business. You can sell your site (aged websites have value, and aged sites with decent content have even more value — high traffic sites are worth a lot) and get out of the business altogether.

Yes, it sucks when things don’t work out the way we’d hoped. But it’s not the end of the world. If you have a plan B, you’ll be prepared and you’ll get through any major disappointments just fine.

Get Ready to Execute

Planning takes time and effort, but it can prevent unnecessary hassles later. Take some time to brainstorm your vision for your online presence. Then, turn that raw material into an organized plan, one that’s prioritized and that has a clear budget, a tentative timeline, and a lot of flexibility. Include contingencies and a backup plan. Once you get through that planning phase, you’ll be ready to execute. It’s time to start building!

Scribizzy Web Content Services

Need help putting together a plan for the future of your online presence? Scribizzy provides web content development services. You can even get a quote online.

Simple Online Marketing Strategies and Opportunities

Are you missing simple opportunities to promote your business online?

When you’re working for yourself or running your own business, the lines between your personal and professional life start to blur. You are no longer “on the clock” or “off the clock” because you own the clock. And you want it to tick.

When you work for someone else, there isn’t much motivation to put a link to the company website in your personal email signature. Lots of people who use Facebook and Twitter don’t even list their place of employment. And all kinds of forums are buzzing with workers who want to banter about anything and everything… except work.

Employed workers don’t promote their employers for a number of reasons. First of all, they may not be allowed to, legally. For the average worker, marketing and bringing in business is not part of their job description. Many workers won’t see any benefits from such efforts, anyway. Most would rather not think about work when they’re off the clock.

When these folks leave the cubicle behind for good and set up their own shops, old habits are hard to break. But think about it: now that you’re running your own business, you should seize every opportunity to let people know about the products and services you offer.

Online Marketing Strategies

There are two types of online marketing strategies. The first type is a concrete plan. You’re going to set up a website, publish a newsletter, and launch an email marketing campaign. That’s a clear, comprehensive plan. The other type of online marketing involves an open-minded awareness in which you are able to identify and take advantage of opportunities when they arise. When you’re filling out a form and it asks for your website, do you leave it blank because the form has nothing to do with your business directly? Well, that could be a missed opportunity.

Let’s say you have a Facebook account, which you use primarily to connect with friends and family. You post photos of your kids and pets, play games, and take polls and quizzes. This has nothing to do with business, right?

Wrong. Let’s say your second cousin twice removed lands on your Facebook page and notices that you work as a translator. Maybe she already knew this was your profession and forgot, or maybe she had no idea. The point is, she notices and as it happens, her company is trying to land a foreign-language client. Instead of hitting the yellow pages, she hits you up and you land a pretty decent gig.

You don’t have to wallpaper your life with your business information, but when there’s a space for business, you should use it, even if that space is one that you would normally associate with your personal life.

Signatures

Naturally, you have a website and an email account that uses your website domain. It’s just more professional when the emails you send to clients come from @yourbusiness.com rather than hotmail, gmail, or yahoo. Certainly, you’ve put a professional signature on your business email. Even workers in big companies are required to use such signatures. But what about your personal email account? Just about every email application includes a feature that lets you set up a signature. In that signature, you can put your name, a logo, and a link. So do it. Add a little reminder to let people know you’re in business and you’re available.

Social Media

I’m always surprised when I see business owners who don’t list their businesses in their social media profiles. If you’re using Facebook (or any social media) for friends and family only, why should you mention your business? Your friends and family already know what you do, and they know how to reach you. But that doesn’t mean they’re actively or constantly thinking about your services. When I first started my business, a couple of my acquaintances hired professionals who offered services similar to mine — because they didn’t yet know that I had gone into business for myself. If I’d been quicker getting my profiles up to date with my business information, maybe they would have. Including your business in your personal profiles will keep your business fresh in people’s minds, plus it’s a quick and easy way for folks to grab your link and send it to professionals in their greater network.

Forums

Lots of people use forums, or discussion boards, to engage with other people online. Most forums focus on particular interests — gaming, the arts, science, politics, spirituality. There are forums for every subject under the sun. People gather in these online communities to exchange ideas and information and to share their interests. As a forum member, you set up an account with a profile, which is much like a social media profile. And like an email account, you can usually set up a signature on your forum profile too. This will place your signature on all messages that you send and post in the forum. If you’re in a knitting forum and your profession is restoring antique cars, you may not want to be overt, but it doesn’t hurt to put the name of your website (with a link) just below your name.

All Business All the Time

The idea behind online marketing strategies is to make it as easy as possible for anyone to find you online. Marketing strives to pull people to your business so you don’t have to do as much pushing (selling). And that means using the simple opportunities that arise as well as implementing a comprehensive marketing plan. All three of these simple online marketing strategies (email signatures, social media profiles, and forums) have one thing in common: they each harness existing opportunities to promote your business.

Online Marketing Strategies

Scribizzy works with small business that want to establish an effective online presence. We can help with your online marketing strategies and other marketing collateral, including your website. To learn more, visit our web content services page.

An Inside Look at the Website Copywriting Process

I’ve already touched on the basics of website copywriting. Now, I’d like to present a more elaborate explanation of exactly what website copywriting entails.

Why should I do such a thing?

For starters, I think it’s only fair that my clients understand what I do for them, what they’re paying me for, and how I treat their project.

Also, I’m discomforted by the idea that some small businesses are paying for website copy that’s thrown together in a matter of minutes. That gives me the shudders. If you hire someone to write your copy and pay a fair rate, you deserve quality service. You deserve someone who will put time, effort, and energy into your project.

I’m a methodical person, and I use methodology to my advantage in the services that I provide. Over time, I’ve developed a process that allows me to tackle website copywriting projects in a way that is both efficient and effective. Basically, I follow a series of steps, but they are flexible and allow room for creative thinking and word play. I find that using this process makes the work flow more smoothly while simultaneously making it more fun. Yep, I love what I do.

Because I know which steps I need to take and the order in which I need to take them, I can focus on creating quality content instead of worrying about how I’m going to get it done.

Here’s how I do it:

Step One: Understand the Project

The first step in any website copywriting project is simple: understand the clients’ needs. I need to know where the copy will be published, whether there are any space limitations, and if I should be using any keywords for SEO. I also need to establish the desired call to action. In other words, when website visitors read the copy, what should it encourage them to do next?

Step Two: Get to Know the Client’s Business

I can’t write a single word until I have a good, thorough understanding of my client’s business. It’s not enough to know that they sell carburetors. I need to know what kind of carburetors they sell, whom they are sold to, how much they are sold for, and whether or not they offer carburetor installation or just the actual carburetors. I also like to know how the business got started, who runs it, and their mission and philosophy.

Step Three: Collect and Review Materials

Before I start writing, I usually collect all my information into a single file. Sometimes it’s just a Word document filled with notes, links, and other tidbits that I’ve copied and pasted from email communications with my client. Just before I start composing, I like to go over everything so it’s fresh in my mind, and so I’m ready to write the outline.

Step Four: Outline

I love outlines. Some writers refuse to outline, and that’s okay too. But an outline usually only takes a few minutes and provides a road map for the rest of the project, which means I can travel through it quickly without losing my way or getting off track. Basically, it allows me to complete the work much faster, and this is a saving that I can pass to my customers.

Step Five: Draft Copy

The outline is like a skeleton. When I start drafting, it’s much like filling in the skeleton — putting meat and muscle on the bones. This is where I get creative and have fun choosing the perfect language, images, and style to properly convey my clients’ message. This where I get to tell their story. It’s also the most challenging and time consuming step, but so very rewarding.

Step Six: Revise, Edit, Repeat

In order to let the light of creativity shine while I’m composing the rough draft, I cannot get hung up on technical details. If I’m worrying about commas and apostrophes or spelling and grammar, I cannot keep my attention focused on crafting sentences that compel website visitors. So, once the draft is done, I go through it several times to clean it up and make sure it’s technically correct.

Step Seven: Polish

Here’s a little writer’s trick: After you have revised your copy, let it sit for a few hours, preferably overnight. Then, come back with fresh eyes and give it a final polish. Inevitably, you will find some unnecessary word that can be cut, some gap that needs to be filled with a catchy adjective, or even an empty space where a comma should be. Polishing leads to website copywriting that sparkles and shines!

Step Eight: The Send-Off

Once the copy is buffed to perfection, it’s ready to get sent off to the client. This is always a good feeling, the delivery.

Step Nine: Revisions

Everybody has personal preferences, and I’m no mind reader. Sometimes, in the initial project plan, a small but important detail gets left out. Like including a phone number in the website copy. Or using a special phrase (a tagline or slogan, perhaps) in the text. Maybe I used a word that rubs the client the wrong way. We all have our language peeves, and small business owners are no exception. I always invite clients to request a round of revisions to the final copy. This is usually a quick process and involves going through and changing a few words or adding a line or two. Most of the time, revisions aren’t necessary at all, but I still like to give everyone the option.

That’s it. My entire process. It might sound long and tedious with all those predetermined steps, but it’s a clean and proven way to provide the very best copy possible.

Website Copywriting

Are you doing business online? Want to hire a professional for your website copywriting? Please visit Scribizzy’s Website Copywriting page or get a quote online.

An Introduction to Doing Business Online

Many of my clients do business offline. And by offline, I mean they do all of their business in the three-dimensional world that exists far from the computer and way beyond the internet.

Some of them are new business owners who are just starting out and want to make sure they establish an effective online presence. Others have been in business for years and are finally ready to harness the Internet to expand their customer reach and product or service offerings. Many want nothing more than to update their website with current information, a fresh design, and compelling copy. A few would prefer to keep it entirely offline, but they know better.

Since Scribizzy’s primary service has been website copywriting, these spirited entrepreneurs usually hire me to write a few pages of copy, and as we work through the project, various comments and questions arise about doing business online.

• Do you think this logo looks outdated? What do you think of this tagline I came up with?
• I just had my site redesigned. Any feedback is welcome!
• Is the site missing anything? Are there pages I should add, remove, or change?
• Should I have a products or services page even if I don’t sell my services online?
• What? You mean there’s a way I can sell my wares on the web to thousands more customers?

Funny thing about the web. It’s relatively new. Folks who’ve been in business for twenty years got started before the business website was commonplace. People who are becoming entrepreneurs in their retirement or starting up a small business because they lost their jobs in the down economy may not have any knowledge about the web, website design, or online marketing. They may not even know how to use the internet beyond checking their email, connecting with old friends on Facebook, and shopping on eBay or Amazon.

So, some of these entrepreneurs know very little about online marketing. Most know just enough to be dangerous. But just about every single one of them knows that in this day and age, doing business online is imperative. Even if your website is nothing more than a few pages with basic details about your shop or office.

Getting Started

No matter what you sell or where you sell it, establishing an online presence starts with a website. Your website should clearly communicate your offerings and explain how your products or services will benefit customers. It should include a way for visitors to visit, contact, or order from you, so they can become paying customers.

You also want them to become loyal customers, so your site should espouse outstanding customer service, competitive pricing, and a friendly, positive atmosphere. Loyalty can also come from establishing brand recognition. Make sure your business has a clear, identifiable logo. A tagline or slogan will help make your brand recognizable as will your business’s tone, color scheme, and the general impression it makes.

When visitors come to your website, how does it make them feel? Safe or scared? Confident or confused? Weak or strong? Welcome? Comfortable? Does the information on your site speak to your target audience in language that they understand? Does it include all the details they’re looking for about your industry of field of expertise, products, services, pricing, location, or hours of operation?

Doing Business Online vs. Offline

If your business operates entirely offline, you still need an online presence. People will conduct localized searches for your products and services, and you want them to be able to find you! If you have existing customers, they’ll expect to be able to check your website to grab your phone number, find out your hours of operation, or obtain directions to your location.

You might be planning or already running a business that operates entirely online. Maybe you sell information products and communicate exclusively through email. Perhaps you run a consulting business and your rates depend on the project or the client’s needs. You might even have a blog or some type of website that doesn’t sell anything at all (yet). You need to determine what information is relevant to your visitors — people who you will be dealing with entirely online.

Want the best of both worlds? Lots of businesses are combining online and offline offerings, keeping their local and loyal customers happy while reaching out to millions more potential buyers. If you own a cafe, you can sell recipes online. If you are a handyman, you can make recommendations for do-it-yourself repairs and earn income from affiliate sales by promoting your favorite tools and supplies on your site. If you run a consignment shop, you can take photos of your wares and sell them with e-commerce technology.

For just about every business in the world, there is a way to expand beyond merely having an online presence and start actively, profitably doing business online.

Get Serious About Doing Business Online

Scribizzy offers services for entrepreneurs and small businesses that want to establish a successful online presence, grow their offerings, and expand their customer reach.

Learn more about our web content services and get a quote online.

Happy New Year from Scribizzy!

We have said goodbye to 2009 and stepped into a fresh year and decade, one in which I hope you will all enjoy great success and bountiful prosperity.

The beginning of a new year is a time of reflection and planning, especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses. We all have to close out the last fiscal year (balance those books and file those taxes!) and open the new year with our plans for the future. Hopefully, those include growing our businesses and strengthening our online presence.

This year, Scribizzy will launch a number of new services, including website design, to make it easier and more convenient for our clients to get set up on the web without having to hire multiple service providers. Small business owners have enough to do without having to run around finding one person to write copy, another to create a website design, and then coordinate and manage online marketing projects.

So, my top goal for this year is to provide flexible and affordable website design solutions for small businesses and independent professionals and offer these services in conjunction with Scribizzy’s existing website copywriting, management, and marketing services. Our website design services will range from cost-efficient turnkey solutions to fully customized websites. These service offerings are in development and will launch officially in the coming months, along with WordPress theme customization (for bloggers). In the meantime, if you need a website design, we can always put together a quote and a project plan just for you, so go ahead and use this handy form to tell us about your project.

Once again, I wish all of you the very best in your business and personal endeavors. Let 2010 be a year of peace, prosperity and goodwill.

Sincerely,
Melissa Donovan