Whether you do website copywriting for a living or you have your own business and you write your own website, you’ll likely want to improve your website copywriting skills. Regardless of how long you’ve been copywriting and how many websites you’ve written, there is always an opportunity for growth. You may know your own business inside and out, but you also need to know how to convey that knowledge on your website. Improving your website copywriting skills is exactly the way to do that.

Here are a five quick tips for becoming a better website copywriter:

Read a lot.

They say this about all forms of writing and it’s true: You become a better writer by reading other great writing. If you’re looking to improve your website content writing skills, try reading some other websites that you enjoy. Think about why you enjoy them and why they rank highly on search engines. You can learn from their tactics and use this knowledge in your own writing.

Do some research.

The Internet is filled with a lot of great references and information on how to improve your website copywriting talent. Spend some time checking out some great website copywriting and Internet promotion blogs and see what you learn. Hint: This blog is a good place to start! =)

Talk to your friends and colleagues.

What content do your friends enjoy reading? How are your colleagues’ websites doing? It makes sense to take some time to get together with those you trust and who have opinions that you value to discuss the quality of your website content. You’ll soon find that you can grow together and learn from each other’s experiences.

Write.

Just like with almost every other skill, you become a better writer by actually writing. Your blog is a great place to start. You can use your blog to explore new writing styles and try out new concepts. If you don’t have a blog for your website or your business, this is an excellent time to start one. Not only will it give you a great outlet for your writing, but blogging is an excellent way to promote your website and your business online.

Don’t be afraid.

If  your website is getting good traffic, you may be afraid to change things up a bit. That’s understandable, but it doesn’t mean that you should stop writing. Unique, well-written website content is always a plus and it will always help your business and your website. Don’t be afraid to write more content than you’re used to or to change up your writing style a bit. You won’t do any permanent damage to your website if you do. If the change in your writing doesn’t work out, you can always go back to what was successful in the past. Experimentation will make you a better, more interesting writer.

For more website copywriting tips and information, please visit our resources page or contact us for more information.

Much like Google did a little while ago, Bing has now introduced social searching. What does that mean? Well, just like Google started incorporating Google+ content and shares into Google search results, Bing will also use information from social networks in its results. In fact, Bing is going several steps beyond what Google has done and incorporating information from Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live, Foursquare, Quora, LinkedIn, Google+ and Blogger information into search results as well.

What does that mean? It means that the already very social web just got a lot more social.

It’s becoming more and more important to create content that can be easily shared online as well as content that people WANT to share online. Blogging and social media marketing are now huge parts of promoting yourself or your business online. Having a strong social media presence is an incredibly important way to separate yourself from your competitors.

From Bing’s blog:

Bing can help you find people who are influential about the topic you’re searching, based on what they’ve publically blogged or tweeted about. In a glance you will see top experts and enthusiasts from leading networks like Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Blogger to quickly check out what they have to say about the topic you’re searching for. You can follow them, ask them a question or see what they have shared in the past.

Those who are influential in social media (“experts and enthusiasts” as the post calls them) will also be able to influence web searches. Even if someone does not have a Twitter or Facebook account, they will still be able to see the recommendations of those who have a strong social media following. Don’t you want to be one of those experts? Becoming a social media influencer is now more important than ever.

But that’s not all.

You can also gain social media traction and increase traffic to your website by creating content that other social media experts like, value and trust. Writing a blog post that is shared by other influential members of your industry helps raise your profile and draw additional traffic to your website.

For more information on social media marketing and blog writing, please contact us today.

The recent Google Penguin update has the Internet world buzzing and a lot of people panicking. Much like the previous Google Panda update, Penguin was a change to Google’s search results ranking algorithm that resulted in website rankings changing on Google.

Obviously, this was both a problem and a great help for different groups of people and different websites. If your site is now ranked much lower than it was before, you’re likely desperately searching for ways to improve your ranking. If your site is now ranked higher, all is right in the world and you’re pretty happy right now.

So what did the Google Penguin update change?

A Google Penguin Overview

According to Search Engine Watch:

The main purpose of the Penguin update is to put a deep freeze on web spam in Google’s search results. By extension, a big piece of that web spam appears to be links from low-quality networks.

That post on Search Engine Watch goes on to say:

Google analyzes the quantity, quality, and relevance of websites that link to yours. When Google looks at your link profile, they’re looking at such things as what types of websites link to yours, how quickly you acquired these links, and the anchor text (the clickable words) used by the linking website. When Google’s algorithm detects such things as a large number of new links or an imbalance in the anchor text, it raises a big red flag.

As Google and many SEOs have preached for years, you’ll attract more links by creating unique, worthwhile content that others will want to link to naturally.

Strong, high quality website content is a great way to gain links to your website without upsetting search engines. This is exactly what Google wants you to do. You won’t be punished if your website or blog is interesting and popular enough that a lot of people decide to link to it. This is how the Internet works and how Google would like links to be built.

Google doesn’t want you to take part in “link building schemes.” Asking a friend or a related site to link to you is one thing. Asking hundreds of sites to all link to a specific page on your website with specific anchor text looks suspicious and Google notices. The best way to gain links is to create content that other websites will want to link to on their own. These sites won’t all use the name anchor text and they won’t all link to the exact same page on your website. This sort of natural link building is what Google is trying to push with this update.

According to this other Search Engine Watch post, Bob Tripathi, founder and chief marketer at Instant E-Training, offered these tips to market your website online and avoid problems with Google:

Invest more time and resources in social media: Consumer behavior has changed in the past couple of years. People don’t rely just on Google search anymore but more on their friends and network to make recommendations and see what products or services they like.

Blog more and blog regularly: Writing content that is useful for end users will not just increase your reader base but force search engines to crawl, index, and rank your site. After all, engines need good content just as badly (to be relevant to their searchers) just as you need their “free” traffic.

On Google’s “Inside Search” blog, Matt Cutts stated that:

“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site.

What Does the Google Penguin Update Mean for your Website?

There is no “shortcut” to a high ranking on Google. Buying links or using other “black hat” techniques may pay off in the short term, but Google will ultimately change its ranking system to hurt websites that rely on these tactics.

It has been stressed over and over again that high quality website content is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site. Interesting, entertaining and relevant website content that is properly formatted and structured is much more likely to be read, shared and linked by other people. These links and shares will increase your traffic on their own as other websites and people will directly send visitors to your site. You’ll increase your traffic without Google’s help, protecting you from any future changes to Google’s algorithm. The positive side effect is that Google will respect this link profile much more than they would if you desperately tried to get 1000 links with the exact same anchor text.

When you offer high quality website content, your website becomes successful. Visitors are more likely to find it on search engines. Those visitors are more likely to share your blog posts and articles with their friends through email, social networks and by linking to them from their own sites. High quality web content writing also encourages readers to come back for more and it is persuasive enough to turn those readers into paying customers.

If you need help with your Internet promotion strategy, if you’d like to strengthen your online presence or if you need high quality written content for your website, including blogging and article writing, please contact Toronto SEO Web Content today.

Whenever you’re writing website content it’s important to think about who your audience is. 99.9% of the time (if not 100% of the time) your audience is the person you’d like to attract to your website. Your audience is your the customer you’re trying to sell a product or service to or a reader that you’d love to see subscribe to your RSS feed. Your audience is always a PERSON, not a search engine or a social network.

Yes, people find website content by using search engines and social media, but your writing is ultimately going to be read by a PERSON and that person will make the decision to keep reading your website or to move on. The search engine, Twitter feed or Facebook page is simply the tool that directed the person to your site.

Are search engines and social media networks important? Of course they are! They drive people to websites so you definitely have to keep them in mind, but you should never take your focus off of your true audience: Real People. Real people who want to read interesting website content.

A key to successful website copywriting is to create written content that is easily recognized by search engines and shared on social networks as well as content that meets the needs of your target audience. Whether you are writing to promote a product or service or to offer your knowledge to the world, you need to write in a manner that your audience appreciates.

As the Freelance Copywriter’s Blog mentions:

Thankfully, most SEO copywriters today understand the value of natural copy that is written for the reader and not the search engines.

You see, if you write in a natural style about a particular subject, the keywords will appear and at a level that you would expect. The result is great information that is easy to read and that will help your on-screen SEO strategy.

SEO is important and search engines can send a lot of traffic to websites. However, if someone visits your site and finds it filled with nothing but randomly-placed keywords and awkwardly-written content, that person likely won’t spend very much time on your website and that person will leave with a very poor image of you and your company.

You want to increase traffic while increasing audience interest and satisfaction. A million visitors that leave your website almost immediately mean very little and they won’t increase your business at all.

Well-written, interesting content is shared on social networks. It is emailed to friends and posted on Facebook walls. It draws visitors into your site and causes them to spend more time looking around. It lets people know that you are an expert in your field and gets them to trust your products and services. It informs people of exactly what you do. Strong website content is the key to drawing targeted website traffic to your site and growing your business and it all begins with writing for your audience: Real People.

For more information on website copywriting, please contact me.