Last summer I had quite the incredible lunch today with Leanne Hoagland Smith – aka “Coach Lee.” She’s the Chief Results Specialist for Advanced Systems Note to us: have we decided on good titles yet? & a co-founder of NWiSM. She got me to thinking about finishing the content on our website and that, yeah, it should have been done five minutes ago.

So, I hope to…sorry, Coach Lee, I mean my goal is to, 1st, have the following done on this site by this weekend so we can get it to at least a functional start:

Last Social Features & Plugins to Get to Start a Corporate Blog

• 301 the category pages from .com/category/category-name to .com/category-name
• Finish writing the following pages
  • About NWiSM
  • What We Do
  • Calendar
  • Contact Us
• Fix the d****** background image
• Add a Contact Us Button
• Add Sharebar (you’ll like it)
• Add back the Facebook fan page
• Add Twitter follow button
• Add MailChimp (might let you do that)
• Fix the Google Analytics code (I used the Project 02 Google Accounts to create it – DOH)

That should get us to functional, for now.

I’ll save prettying up the index page for when your project is done. I’m thinking J/S slider and a static Contact Us Button. And, yes, we can remove the “blog-like” look on the home page and other static pages if you would like. And, of course, we can shell out for a couple prettier custome backgrounds and get that Twitter/Tumblr faded look going. But the purdying of it is sort of your baby so I’ll try to leave it to you. I’ll try.

And, the best thing about the meeting with Coach Lee is that she got me to thinking about the writing of pitch packets.

NWiSM Pitch Packets

• Meetups
• Conferences
• Reviews
• EBooks
• Network of Professionals

And she’ll be having me pay attention to EMV (Emotional Marketing Value) as well as making sure I tier the packages as Good, Better & Best.

Photo Credit: 1) Twitter.com/CoachLee via Flickr

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted

    

Once you’ve have taken the time to choose a blog name and procure a URL, then the fun begins. This is when we start building online profiles to make sure you own your name on the major web platforms both all-around & in your industry.

Preparation Tips – Before You Begin Creating New / Social Media Profiles

Each New / Social Media website does it a little different. In fact, the semantic differences between the sites drive us absolutely crazy. Fortunately, the information you will put in is essentially the same.

Have an Image Ready

Whether it’s a logo or a temp image, have one ready to load up to the sites – especially Gravatar. Make sure the image is good with creative commons. File format: .jpg or .gif.

Pre-write the information.

To cut down on the redundancy of data entry, open a text document or a spreadsheet and write the information in there so all you have to do is copy & paste into the form fields.

Bonus: If you use an AutoFill browser app like in Firefox [that automatically loads contact / billing / shipping information into a website contact form by just pushing the button], you can configure the AutoFill to do some of the basics for you as well.

The form fields are as follows:

User Name – This is the one word name you’ll be identified by on the website. For us, we go after the following:

• nwism
• northwest Indiana social media
• Phoebe’s Organic Donuts & Western Saloon

Screen Name. For the website and for your desired URL choice, make sure you have your brand name spelled out and also as one word. Example, for NWiSM we use:

• “NWISM” (we also go after “nwi sm” when we’re thinking about it)
• “Northwest Indiana Social Media” (we also go after “nwi social media” when we’re thinking about it)
• “NWI SM” (we also go after “northwest indiana internet marketing” when we’re REALLY thinking about it)

URL Name - Some sites will take your username and make the URl of your social media profile page after with it. For example, Twitter does for us. You can see us on Twitter at twitter.com/nwism.

Others will let you specify. Linkedin does that. We recommend making it the same as your URL, but if you have SEO / Googley-Woogley goals that make you want to use different keywords, then go for it.

Name: This is what goes on your website emails and messages. Use either your contact person’s name or you brand name. Some have you put the name in one slot. Some break it up into First Name and last Name. Prepare for BOTH! We use:

• First Name: NWISM
• Last Name: Social Media

We also go for aforementioned variations of our name.

URL: This is where you put in your blog’s URL. We use: http://nwism.com/
NOTE: Remember the forward slash at the end of the URL!

City: Up to you.
State: Up to you.
Zip: Up to you.

Email: Up to you. We’ll use either a standard email off of our blog URL and use Google Apps for an email client or, pending on scope & size and speed, we’ll just use the Gmail account you’ll make after you read all this (See #1 on the 10(+) Essential New / Social Media Websites Where You Should Own Your Name…NOW at the end of this post. I promise it’s there.)

Phone: Once again, up to you. Most all the sites will make publishing this information on the profile pages optional. Some don’t even have this form field. Google even provides phone numbers if you don’t want to give them any other numbers. Skype is another option.

(Short) Description: This is where you give a little tidbit about yourselves.
Long Description: This is where you’ll able to talk more about your blog, goals, topic themes and experience if you’d like.
NOTE: To help with the SEO, Googley-Woogley stuff (to make your site work in search engines better). You’ll want to have multiple long and short descriptions for each. Up to 5 each would be a really smart thing

Variations to look out for:

Facebook will provide additional places for Mission and Vision statements for the like. If your blog is a corporate blog, by all means throw the mission and vision in.

Twitter – the descriptions are really, really short. Get prepared. And your location: it’s about 30 characters. Your Username: it’s about 15 (pending on if they changed it again).

Last Tip:

This will be a long, but rewarding bit of data entry so sit back & relax. For me, I get a toothpick to gnaw on so I don’t snack and I get some grooveshark or streaming radio going. Sometimes I’ll have the DVR going with Doctor Who or I’ll have baseball going, but you get the idea.

Do whatever you need to do to get it done, but most importantly: get it done!

Don’t

Login to the sites with your facebook, twitter, myspace & other profiles! Make a login specific to the site.

AND

Use a spreadsheet to keep track of all the logins

AND THEN

Proofread!

THEN

Proofread!

Now, get to it. Here’s your list:

List – 20 Essential New / Social Media Websites You Should Own Your Name…NOW

1) Google. Try to make a “[yoururl]@gmail.com” as well as a couple other variations of it. then procede to make a Google Account. You’ll be using this Google Account for Gmail, Google Webmasters, Google Analytics… You’ll also want to go to Blogger (BlogSpot), Picassa & YouTube. Your new Google email / account will work but you still have to claim the names you want in order to get URLs with your keywords in them. Lastly, Go to Google Apps so you can own that name and get access to sites.google.com and own that as well.

Bonus: if you want to use Google for your blog’s URL email, you can!

Bonus #2: Once you have Google taken care of, then you can use the new Gmail account to create the other profiles. This way, all the email traffic for your blog is contained because, if you stick with it and start to get traffic, you’ll start to get an increase in email.

Also if you choose to sell the blog one day, you can sweeten the deal and let them know all the content is in one spot and you don’t have to do the mundane work of separating the blog’s stuff from your other stuff.

2) Bing.com – Windows Live ID is good, but more importantly you need it so you can put your site into Bing.com/webmaster – important Googley-Woogley stuff.

3) Yahoo! Yeah, Yahoo! It’s so you can use it for Yahoo!’s Site Explorer. Now, just because you create a Yahoo! profile doesn’t mean you get that username in Flickr (incredible huge photo sharing site / resource) & Delicious (social bookmaring site). Like with YouTube & Blogger for Google, make sure you go to these platforms next.

You’ll notice that we’re already at 10 and we haven’t even gotten to Facebook. Then why did we say “10?” Because if we told you how many you needed, you wouldn’t have gotten this far. Get another toothpick and get back to the grind!

Now once these basics are taken care of, the next place to go to is the Social Media Platforms.

4) Facebook. If you have an account already, then you can make a fan page. Once you get 25 fans, you can get a pretty URL that has your blog name. Blast that fan page out to friends ASAP.
5) Twitter. If your name can also be used as plural, then get the plural form if this name as well. You can leave a message on the plural that says, “go to the other one.”
6) WordPress.com & WordPress.org. Especially if it’s a WordPress blog. If not, get it anyway. Keep those copycaters away. NOTE: Get it from both WordPress.com & WordPress.org!
7) TypePad / LiveJournal. Yeah, we know. But do it anyway.
8 ) MySpace.com. Yeah, we know. Trust us.
9) Digg.com. People still go here
10) Skype. From personal experience: get this one ASAP or you have to go through branding nightmares like I have to with my personal information.
11) Reddit.com. Make sure you promote others more than yourself.
12) StumbleUpon.com. Warning: this site is addictive.
13) Tumblr.com. It’s a coming up in the word.
14) Linkedin.com. Where Social Media meets Business Networking.
15) Posterous.com. Yet another blog site.
16) Gravatar. This is the spot where you can get your icon / image to show up in comments, but we’ll talk more on that later.
17) FourSquare. ‘Round-round, get around. Get that name around.
18) Get Glue. Because.
19) GoWalla. It’s fun.
20) Ning. Still used quite a bit
21) Tagged. It’s got it’s upsides.

And the Newest, most vibrant Social Media Bookmarking site in 2012: Pinterest!

These are the basics so far as we know & use for our sites. If you want to keep going, below is Here’s a few more lists you can use to completely own your name and defend your reputation.

• Chris Brogan’s 50 Online Applications and Sites to Consider
• 60 Second Marketer’s Top 52 Social Media Platforms Every Marketer Should Know
• Mashable Posts on Social Media in 2011

And if you’re really in a profile-building frenzy, check out Wikipedia’s ultimate list of Social Networking Sites. (Yeah, this is when you hire an intern to do the grunt work).

Why do you want to do all this? What’s the Upside? Besides the potential SEO, Googley-Woogley & lead generation benefits, there is also a significant Reputation Management benefit, check out our Lesson 1 in Reputation Management for more insight (to be written soon).

As for your next step. Well, the blog has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?

Let us know how long it takes you to make all of these.

We’re guessing: 4 hours!

Photo Credit: #1 – Richard J Ingram via Flickr.
#2 – Jefferson Bernardes via Flickr.

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted

    

At this point in our maiden voyage you should be able to put the content into the content editor and, gasp, post your blog posts. That includes blog pages as well. We even covered what a WYSIWYG editor is and how you can use the HTML side to correct the nuances that aren’t WYSIWYG.

For this, we fill out the metadata.

What Is Metadata?

How Many Meta Tags Are There?

There are many, many meta tags out there, but we’re only focusing on three for this section:

• Title – where to tell the search engines the name of the page
• Meta Description – where to tell the search engines the description of the page
• Meta Keywords - a place to tell search engines the page concepts. No longer used by the big search engines, today, but we keep filling them out just in case. Where keywords are more important is in your tagging (post to come about tagging shortly).

When playing around with WordPress and other blogging / content management systems, the Meta Tag part of your WYSIWYG editor typically looks like this:

Maiden Voyage? Whaaat?

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted

    

By now you’re at that point where you want to put content into your website. Or you’re learning how to put content in and forget a few steps. Let’s make sure you’re there.

1. Log into your WordPress Blog
2. Click on the Posts Section on the Left (below Dashboard).
3. Click the Add New Button in the Posts Section

Hey, Look. A New Blog Post.

At this point you’ll get a screen that looks like this:

What Is an WYSIWYG Editor?

WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. It’s a pretty standard editor that makes it easier for people without HTML skills to shape the content. It’s a good editor, but it’s not perfect though so make sure you start practicing some basic HTML to get your content as presentable as possible.

Visual / HTML Tabs

The center section is where you write the post. On the right side of the section, towards the top, are two tabs: Visual & HTML. The Visual Side is so you can write while WordPress does most of the formatting. The HTML side is for people who have HTML skills (buy the way, not hard with a little practice. Check out W3 Schools for some basic tutorials) and want to do a little additional functionality. Also, once in awhile, WordPress will mess up once in awhile so it’s good to have some basic HTML.

Kitchen Sink – Get All the Buttons on the Screen

In the center section where the content / copy is going to go, you’ll see a row of bars. It begins with the B – commonly known as the bold button – and ends with a button that comprises of three rows of squares. Move your cursor over that button and the following message appears:

Show/Hide Kitchen Sink (Alt+Shift+Z)

Click the button and a second row of commands appears. Click the button.

On the Right Side Column

You’ll see there’s the Category sections. Make these categories count. Name the categories after industry keywords you believe people you want reading you stuff will use to find content like yours.

And the Post Tags

Remember when we talked about Meta Keywords? Yeah. Post Tags do what keywords used to use. Put in about three or four keywords / phrases in here. It will help the search engines better understand what the content is about and, if you’re real lucky, they’ll index the page with the tags to help increase visibility. So, fill them out.

Paragraph Drop Down Button & the H Headers

The drop down that’s defaulted to either “Format” or “Paragraph” on the second row of buttons helps format a specific section of content. A lot of times, WordPress will put in the formatting when you are writing on the “visual” side. But if you want to section comment, add headers like the headers in this post, you use the drop downs and put out the headings.

H1 Tips for WordPress

When Search Engines read content, they use the H headers to understand how the content is segmented. They look at the H Headers in much the same way students look at titles and headings when the outline chapters in a text book. H1 is title of the subject. H2 is the title of the chapter. H3 are the section headers. With that in mind, here are some tips:

• H1 – For typical Search Engine Optimization reasons, the title of your WordPress is already set to H1. You only want 1 H1 on each page. So, in short, don’t use it.
• H2 – The title of your post will be set in an H2 header. You typically only want 1 H2 header per page unless your article is lengthy and goes into two parts (best practice: put it into two posts – part 1 & part 2). So, in short, really try not to use it.
• H3 – The headings in this post are H3. It’s typically what is used to segment content. It’s also a great way to emphasize the important phrases and keywords.
• H4 – Subsection headers.
• H5 & H6 – We use them when we show photo credits at the bottom of posts. But if your note are that details, by all means go for it.

And the YouTube Glitch

Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs: the last thing you want to do in a post is to add YouTube / embedded videos. Why? Because if you flip back and forth between the Visual & HTML side, the video will disappear. So we recommend you put them in last so you don’t have to worry about it and if you have to edit, keep it to the HTML side. If you’re not that savvy with the HTML side, copy the embed code and put it in a separate text document in case it disappears so you can put it back in without having to go find it again.

If You’re On a WordPress.com site

You’ll have to pay extra to use video embedding. That’s why you want to learn how to self-host your blogs as fast as possible.

With these tips, you should be off to a good start.

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted

    

Your LinkedIn summary is your King Kong, your Empire State Building where you can build your compelling story. Unfortunately the majority of LinkedIn members be them small business owners to even C Suite executive construct resume essays meaning they duplicate their experience, their education and their skills in a written format.  Now does that truly make sense?

Then there are those folks who fail to even have a LinkedIn summary.  Even having a poor one is better than having none at all.

With the ability to expound on your business experience and your education later in your LinkedIn profile, why muddy the waters within your LinkedIn Summary.

This is the time to think compelling marketing message.

Let me repeat, this is the time for a inspiring marketing that further attracts attention and begins to build a mutually beneficial relationship. Here you can be the King Kong of your industry, your world.

Consider your LinkedIn Summary as the first opportunity to connect with your ideal customer or target market by:

• Constructing a story
• Sharing an experience with a client
• Welcoming the visitor

Avoid starting your summary with:

• Your title
• Your current employer
• The how of what you do

Within your summary, it does make sense to highlight your specific skills o further differentiate you from everyone else.  Also share some of the results of your solutions.  The goal here is to showcase your expertise, your depth of knowledge and the value you bring to the marketplace or the business table.

The more compelling your marketing message within your summary the you become King Kong.

Invest some time to read the LinkedIn profiles of others. Use the daily statistics metrics to see how “Who’s Viewed Your Profile.” Then click on the active link of “Your profile has been viewed.”

• Check out the people who look at your profile.

• Ask yourself do they fit your ideal customer?

• Then also glance at the Trends graph of how many times your name has shown up in searches.

By using these marketing statistics, you will have a better understanding if your LinkedIn summary is really attracting attention. If you are not attracting attention, then return to the drawing board and make those necessary course corrections. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  If you LinkedIn profile is not complete, this may explain why you are not showing up in any searches.

Your LinkedIn summary is truly your Empire State Building, your prime marketing real estate.  Invest the time to have buyers (think fellow LinkedIn members) entering your building and leaving with the desire to reach out and connect with you. Then you too can be the King Kong of LinkedIn.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, the Strategic Tactician, is an author, corporate coach and executive consultant who supports crazy busy forward thinking leaders at all levels and in all industries who are tired of the current status quo, of repetitive problems and truly want sustainable results for their teams as well as their selves.

    

Springtime is known as a time to clean out the winter doldrums, refresh the air with those warmer spring breezes.  Maybe now is also the time to spring clean your LinkedIn profile.

Given that your business or professional life has not been static for the last 365 days, so should your LinkedIn profile.  Changes have happened to you from professional development, learning new skills to engaging new customers in new industries.

However, does your LinkedIn profile reflect those changes?

LinkedIn profiles can either attract invitations to connect or repeal them. From working with many small business owners and sales professionals, the majority (well over 50%) probably repel more than attract for these two basic reasons.

Reason #1 – No picture.  The profile lacks a photograph of the individual and preferably a professional one.  The generic LinkedIn avatars do not inspire trust.  Then there are those images that are less than professional.

In 2011, I decided to survey my LinkedIn connections and ask them if they would connect with someone who did not have a photography.  Over 90% said they would never, ever connect with someone either extending or accepting an invitation unless they could see that individual.  People relate to pictures.  Why miss this opportunity to connect with others?

Reason #2 – Boring headline.  Years ago, newspapers understood the value of the headline because compelling headlines sold more newspapers.  Throw a great picture under the underline and watch the sales take off.

Yet so many of the headlines fall into the blah, blah, blah, boring category.  They describe roles from president to customer service representative to business development specialist whatever that means.  Most people know enough C Suite executive leaders, realtors, financial advisors, sales people.  Why would they wish to connect to a few more?

Your headline is about how you are different from all those other gray suits looking to attract attention. This is possibly your last opportunity to grab the attention of a potential customer, a strategic partner or a center of influence. Sales training coaching tip: Your first opportunity was your photograph.

Reality Check:

• No one cares about how you do what you do.

• They care about what you can do for them.

• They care about the results you can potentially deliver.

Many of these LinkedIn members are seeking ways to improve their competitive advantage.  Your LinkedIn profile is your opportunity to be roped by these individuals who are wishing to take their businesses to that next level.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Not all LinkedIn members want to sell something. In many cases they wish to buy something.

So if you wish to increase sales through a better marketing message  invest the time to review your LinkedIn profile. Ask yourself would you like to connect with yourself?  Be honest. This is not the time to be faint hearted because your LinkedIn profile just may be repelling more people than its attracting.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, the Strategic Tactician, is an author, corporate coach and executive consultant who supports crazy busy forward thinking leaders at all levels and in all industries who are tired of the current status quo, of repetitive problems and truly want sustainable results for their teams as well as their selves.

    

Take a few minutes and use your critical eye as you review that most recent LinkedIn profile sitting in your email in box sent by someone who wishes to connect with you.  Ask yourself this question:

Does this LinkedIn profile stand out like a Red Jacket wanting me to immediately connect with that individual or does it remind me of all those other blah, blah people I have met, those gray suits?

If the LinkedIn profile is a gray suit, it may be because it lacks a professional looking picture.  Possibly the individual put a informal photography or did not even upload a photograph to his o her profile?

In 2011, I conducted a brief survey about if LinkedIn members would connect with someone who had no posted a picture.  The overwhelming response (just over 90%) said “No picture, no connection.”  A Red Jacket LinkedIn profile understands the importance of making that initial connection with a picture. These folks also understand how that picture shows up in all discussion groups, when updating status.

Another indication of a gray suit is a boring, common headlines such as:

• Head of (fill in the role)

• Project Manager

• President or some other  C Suite designation

• Realtor

• Financial Advisor

• Business Coach

• Consultant

• Relationship Manager

• Customer Service Support

Do any of these inspire you?

Do these titles propel you want to learn more about that person?

Or have you mentally written them off as another potentially boring individual?

The third most common gray suit behavior when constructing a LinkedIn profile is using the summary as a resume advertisement not as valuable almost priceless marketing real estate. Here you have an incredible opportunity to weave an emotionally compelling story or marketing message so that the reader wants to send you an invite or better yet connect with you directly.

The majority of these summaries are as cold as the deep blue Arctic Ocean leaving the reader to believe he or she is connecting with a metal gray robot and not a real live human being.

Imagine what would happen if you added some emotional fire to your summary?  You craft your marketing message to be emotionally friendly and compelling.  Your goal is to stand out, to be the Red Jacket and not to be like all those other gray robots, I mean gray suits.

LinkedIn has the potential of being your free sales leads database.  You can search and locate potential new sale leads as well as strategic partners and even vendors.  However, just as you can search so can others.

By seeing your LinkedIn profile from a different perspective, you will be able to begin to realize the results of this very powerful social media and marketing vehicle especially for small businesses.  As Marcel Proust wrote:

“The true voyage of discovery is not seeking new landscapes, but seeing with new eyes.”

Now is the time to see with new eyes and look at your LinkedIn profile with those new eyes especially if you wish to increase sales and secure sales success.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, the Strategic Tactician, is an author, corporate coach and executive consultant who supports crazy busy forward thinking leaders at all levels and in all industries who are tired of the current status quo, of repetitive problems and truly want sustainable results for their teams as well as their selves.

    

As we wrote earlier, we firmly believe in SEO Copywriting. Searchers (Search Engine Users) use specific keywords they think identify with your content. Using those words not only helps align those with search engines, but with the language of the searchers.

We also provided tools to search for such keywords in the post. Check them out.

It’s harder to work through anything nowadays as Google works out the inffinite wrinkles in its Panda algorithm changes. Their guidance for good sites might be the worst thing I’ve ever seen them publish but, from what we can see, this is how we’re going to put the tools to good use:

List of 10 SEO Copywriting 101 Tips in a Post-Google Panda World

1. Don’t OVERUSE the tips - You’re going to want to maximize your effort & results. The tips we provide will be navigational beacons but your content will be the one that supplies the maps to the search engines. Overusing the tips would be like putting too many sails or oars on a ship: eventually they get in each other’s way.

Remember: when everything is prioritized, nothing is prioritized!

1. Test. Test. Test – Especially at the time of this writing, search engines are chasing their tails in attempts to discern whose content is original and whose content is scraped. Try longer posts. Try shorter posts (but keep it over 200 words). Write with the hope that someone reads it. Be grateful when they do. Put in videos, put in graphics. Take out videos. REWRITE your press releases. Run live video of your holiday party. Liveblog a tradeshow. Interview clients. Just keep going. In the end, you never really know what’s going to hit.
2. Yeah, the buttons matter – Google’s come out and admitted that how your content is received on social media sites matter. Increase those interactions with Facebook likes & fan pages, Twitter RTs, Google +1s (especially those). Also consider Tumblr, Stumbleupon, Digg and especially the Email button.
3. Remember the canonical URLs and the author tags – Google’s feeble attempt at discerning original authors of content. Use canonical & author tags on every page you use.
4. Keywords in headers – Keywords in the content are good. Keywords in the headers: even better! It maximizes their importance in the content.
5. H3 Headers are you friend - Your page should run 1 H1 tag, 1-2 H2 tags and underneath those H2 tags, use H3 tags in your content within those sections under the H2 header.
6. Bold, italicize & underline keywords on occasion - Search engines will place more consideration on keywords that have been bolded & italicized. When you do it, try to think that it looks more like the way one would emphasize key notes in a college text book and not the way a third grader shows he likes or loves a girl on his desktop graffiti. Necessary evil.
7. Space the keywords out evenly - Leaving the keywords in the top of the content won’t help the back of your content, and vice versa. Spread them out evenly.
8. Moderation & active voice – Keywords in the beginning of sentences & paragraphs are considered more than in the back of sentences. So writing in active voice will be helpful.. But don’t use keywords in every sentence. In fact, if you use the same keyword more than 8 times in 200 words of content, you’ve probably gone too far. So, don’t do that.
9. Make them laugh - It used to be my secret tip until Google came out with horrible writing guidelines that included the suggestions of anedotes in articles. Lame, but it still holds to the number one principle of SEO: User Experience.

Search engines are going to keep getting dumber as they attempt to get smarter. And this is all going to get worse before it gets better, but if you keep consistent, stay thoughtful & selfless & try to provide the users with something they didn’t know before in each and every post, you might be able to navigate these murky waters successfully.

Photo credit: wuperruper via Flickr

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted

    

SEO Copywriting is often the subject of several debates. Like any good intricate art, you’ll find sufficient material to support your argument regardless of whatever side of the “do you need to SEO copywrite” debate you find yourself on. Personally I’m on the side of, “those who oppose it don’t know how to write to begin with,” because if you do it right, SEO Copywritng has a poetic element to it.

In Most Forms of Writing

Technical, Creative, Stream of Consciousness…eventually all forms of writing come down to a theme with elements. Call them:

• Plot
• Theme
• Characters
• Dialogue

Or what have you. In the end, you write for the readers. You’ll even use their words and phrases so they can identify with your story.

The same goes with SEO Copywriting.

The only difference is that in SEO Copywriting you’re looking to attune those themes to words and phrases that searchers identify with and use when they search for the type of content of which your content themes.

SEO Copywriting Is About Getting Your Content Attuned to What the Search Engines Say Their Searchers Identify With

And there’s data available for it:

• Keyword data – Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Keyword Discovery…
• Google Analytics data - GA will tell you what keywords people uses to find your site(s).
• Google Adwords Campaigns – run some search engine marketing campaigns. The best data to have is your own experience.
• Google Wonder Wheel – it shows you how all the keywords are connected to one-another. (UPDATE: Google Wonder Wheel was taken offline 2011/07/03. We hope it returns because it was an awesome tool.)

You learn to speak the searchers language, and you’re halfway home.

But What If the Keywords Don’t Fit in My Content

The #1 rule of SEO, be it SEO analysis, strategy, offsite, onsite or copywriting, is User Experience. You can rank #1 for every keyword under your websites’ suns, but if the users don’t react well to it, then it won’t matter. In the case of SEO Copywriting, that means you should write for the readers. If that means you can’t get an exact phrase to work in your content, don’t worry. Get it close. Search Engines are getting better at understanding word relationships. Google Wonder Wheel was is a great tool to show derivitive relationships (more on that in our SEO Copywriting 101 section). And WHEN it comes back, you’ll be able to see how interconnected the tools are.

For example: the word “apple” would be connected to “Washington Apple” and, more loosely, “fruit.” For now, you can spitball the relationships and get really close. But rule of thumb: when in down, make sure the sentence makes sense. Don’t stuff in a keyword phrase and mess up the fluidity of your prose just to try to get in a keyword exactly.

And in the end, the results will speak for themselves.

Photo credit: drpritch via Flickr

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted

    

So you wanna blog? You’re mad. Mad-capped crazy, I tell you. And you better be! Mad about your profession, industry, craft… Make sure it’s an obsession because you’re going to be tied together to it for awhile. But in the end, once you get that blog over the hump and it starts working for you and giving you the results you’ve been working for, it’s like manna from heaven.

But before you start a blog, you need to make sure you have your name.

If you are starting from scratch, start here. If not you are starting a corporate blog with branding or something that already as a name, skip to step 4:

For now, do the following. After these steps, we’ll talk about owning your name on other popular searches:

1. Look for blogs like yours. Do a Google Blog search. Use common words and phrases from your industry / niche in your search and see what is out there. And, the tough step, take time to read them. You’ll need to see what you are up against.
2. Do some industry keyword research. Take the name you’ve chosen and see if there is a variation that people are using and go with that name. What you’re looking for is the word / phrase that most of your potential core audience is using to search on search engines for the answers your content will provide. The best place to start: Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
   

   Why? Because it’s free.

   Even better, if you have a corporate website or a sister website and you have the website analytics data or, even better, data from Google AdWords PPC campaigns, then you’re already ahead of the game.

   [If you’re not sure what you’re doing here on this step, feel free to contact us. Blog post about keyword research, including advanced steps, coming soon. ]

3. Check out both CopyRight.Gov/records/ and The US Trademark & Patent office to see if the name you want has any copyright/trademark issues. Then check with your state’s government website to see if you can get an LLC in that name. Yeah, for $90, it’s CYA you really can’t live without.
4. Do a little more keyword research for topic ideas. If done right, your categories names will align with words and phrases people use in their search engine searches. Why? It’s a Googley-Woogly thing. In short – it will increase your chances of getting relevant traffic.
5. Time to make a final choice on the URL (web address). Make sure the name you’ve picked is available. Start at WhoIs.net and follow their lead. If they say it’s not been purchased, then it’s yours for the taking. If it has been purchase, sometimes they’ll give you information and a link to where that URL is held. Copy that URL, paste it in your browser and check out the page. If the URL has already been purchased there’s still a good chance you can purchase it from the owner.And while you’re at it, consider purchasing a couple of the common misspellings of your URL to helped fat-fingered typers like myself.

And If You’re REALLY Going Big with the blog: double-check your findings with a corporate lawyer.

Bonus Step: perform a few searches to see if your name is also available on Twitter & Facebook as well. You’ll thank us. Why? Check out our next post, “Own Your Name on All the Big Sites.”

What Names Have You Choosen?

Photo credit: Nene La Beet via Flickr

Nat Finn

Nat Finn is the co-founder of NWiSM. He deals in SEO, Social Media, Blogging & CPC. Also on Sepember 3rd 2012, he’s planning to announce a project he is working on. His list of projects and employers include livemercial, Golden Technologies, Blog Indiana, #NWITweetup and…well…that’s coming.

He’s also a Cubs fan – which means he’s unusually faithful and devoted