Why Your Site Needs effective Copy

Creating a great website requires useful navigation elements, a visually appealing design and interesting content. Unfortunately, most websites don’t focus on the later which is one of the most effective tools in a web marketing expert’s toolkit. Effective copy is the silent sales pitch of your website. It’s the marketing man that never sleeps and should always captivate users to take an action. It also influences visitors to further explore the site or leave and never come back – It’s that powerful.

Bad Copy

A brand’s website is your presence online and the first place potential clients and visitors will see. While the visual design may be effective and be filled to the brim with features that wow, they’re useless if the copy that supports it is weak. Imagine reading a comic book and the dialogue was poor – it would detract from the action then make you board. Instead, images of super heroes fighting super villains are drawn by words and dialogue. You should treat your website the same way as great copy can be more effective than most marketing services.

Weak copy will turn off visitors, dilute your brand’s image and water down the impact of your latest product. But copy, as short as it may be, is a necessity in today’s keyword driven world. The worst kind of copy consists of words that have no purpose and do not help visitors in any way.

How effective Copy Can Generate Results

Having effective copy complimented by effective call to actions will generate results. When done right, it will guide visitors through your site leading them to an objective you want completed. One such example is completing a contact form which could generate a business lead.

Effective copy puts visitors in control. Navigation should be made easier through call to actions that lead visitors to a final goal such as checking out during the purchase process or downloading media. Call to actions and effective copy will not only captivate users but persuade them .

Have you been turned off by a website that had horrible copy? It’s a common problem some designers fail to recognize. Tell me which website made you hit the back button as soon as you started reading it.

What Is Geotagging?

Geotagging is labeling your data with geographical information that tells search engines and people where your business is located or where it was created. Geotagging can be used to label location data on pictures, videos, websites and Tweets. Geotagging helps categorize your content, which helps when someone is searching for a term involving location.

How Geotagging Can Improve Local SEO

Geotagging your website, photos and videos can improve your placement in localized search results. Many search engines like Google Maps, Yelp, Yahoo!, Local Splash and Bing index geotagged content. By adding geographical data to your content, you’re essentially telling search engines to bring up your content when someone searches for a term that includes the same geographical data. For example, if I run a website that focuses on services based in Lake Forest and my website is geotagged properly, anyone who searches for businesses in Lake Forest is more likely to see my website show up higher in search results.

How To Geotag Your Content

Geotagging your content is extremely easy. Most distribution services such as Youtube and Flickr display location data if it’s already included in the video or image file. If your camera or phone has a GPS chip in it, you can geotag your content automatically. Adding geotag data to your website and blog is done through a different approach called metatagging. If you aren’t very proficient with HTML code, you can follow the tutorials on Geo-Tag.de to get a an understanding of what these tags do and how to implement them into your website.

Geotagging your content is very useful, improving visibility in search engine results for location-based content. Small and localized businesses are sure to find many benefits when they utilize these strategies.

Yesterday, Google Instant made its debut to the millions who use the search engine. It shows instant results and adds a layer of predictive searches.

Google Instant

Eric Schmidt gave a precursor to Google Instant at the IFA conference the day before when we spoke about the future of the search engine. He saw Google as being faster, personal and jumpstart the age of “augmented humanity” Google Instant is exactly as its name suggest; instant search as you type. If you visit Google Instant you can enable the feature if it has hasn’t been turned on for you. Within the comings weeks and months, all of Google’s Homepage visitors will see instant search results.

Google Instant was a long time in the making; the search giant needed to build a new infrastructure to enable the capability of instant search, work the feature in to its web design and ensure an optimal user experience. From the Official Google Blog, a few of Instant’s important features:

Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

At its core, Google Instant is predictive search meant to speed up the search process. By suggesting keywords relevant to what you’re looking for, Google claims it can shave 2 to 5 seconds off your total search time.

Google Instant And SEO

Google Instant has a few people questioning how their SEO strategy will factor in to the search giant’s new predictive search feature. If you’re worried, don’t fret; a few notable SEO gurus have said that Google Instant will not hurt your SEO strategy but actually help it.

The general census is that Instant search will create a greater need for optimized content as search results become more refined. SEO Book spoke in praise of Instant as “increasing the value of a well thought out SEO strategy” as it “consolidates search volume into a smaller basket of keywords.” Google noted that natural search results won’t change.

Via Gizmodo

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, announced the future of the search engine; It will understand what you want, give you what you’re looking for and jumpstart the age of “augmented reality.”

Personalized Information At Your Fingertips

Google’s biggest step in expanding its search capabilities is delivering personalized information at a much faster pace. The new Google would deliver information even if it hasn’t been indexed yet. Schmidt emphasized this point when he spoke at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin.

The CEO also praised the expansion of the mobile web noting that small, connected devices such as tablets and phones could deliver a stream of information that is fitted to what you’re searching for. Eric’s vision is only made more appealing as he noted the mobile web is growing 8 times faster when compared to the desktop web we’ve come to know and love only 10 years earlier and that more mobile search queries, about 33% have to do with where a user is.

Schmidt had this to say regarding personalized search:

“Ultimately, search is a personal activity. Ultimately, where search goes is not just the web, but literally all of your information — your email, the things that you care about. This is with your permission, I might add. This is personal search for you and only you, because ultimately search is about finding what you want right now.

And the next step of search is doing this automatically. So, when I walk down the streets of Berlin — I love history — what I want is the computer, my smartphone to be doing searches constantly. ‘Did you know? Did you know? Did you know? Did you know? This occurred here. This occurred there.’ Because it knows who I am. It knows what I care about. It knows roughly where I am. So this notion of autonomous search — this ability to tell me things I didn’t know but am probably very interested in is the next great stage, in my view, of search.”

This notion of autonomous search – to tell me things I didn’t know but am probably interested in, is the next great stage – in my view – of search.”

Implementing Personal Search

Hugo Barra, a Product Management Director, demoed a new, upcoming feature for Google Translate called “conversation mode.” The new feature would allow users to speaking into a mobile phone or device to translate their words in to a different language on the fly.

Schmidt urged businesses that rely on the “economics of scarcity” to convert to the “economics of ubiquity” which would help monetize “augmented humanity.” His example was the monetization of YouTube which is helping push the augmented age and create “healthy debate” about pressing topics. Schmidt also noted that YouTube receives more than 2 billion views per day and an addition 160 million mobile views per days. Advertisers are also up 50% in the last year and 45 billion ads are served each day by DoubleClick.

Via: Search Engine Land

Now that Microsoft powers Yahoo’s searches, the software giant commands 28.1% of the search engine market which is contrasted by Google’s share of 65.8%. Yahoo’s Senior Vice President of Search Products gave his take on the switch:

Yahoo! Web, Image, and Video search experiences on both desktop and mobile devices are now powered by the Microsoft platform in the US and Canada (English), with more markets to come. The speed in which this was completed is a testament to the great work and partnership between a number of Yahoo! and Microsoft employees, the ranks of which are numerous.

While the backend has changed dramatically and Yahoo’s web development team didn’t need to step in, searches will start to look different. However, users are left asking one question; why should I continue to use Yahoo instead of Bing now that the two search engines are virtually the same? The answer comes down to preference, which brand do you trust more? Loyal Yahoo users may shy away from Microsoft’s new search engine but those who have been using Bing may not find Yahoo interesting enough to ‘switch’ to. If you’re an ad agency dealing with Yahoo, be prepared to switch over to Microsoft’s AdCenter this coming October. The ad platform is one of the last platforms to switch over to Microsoft’s solution.

Via: Search Engine Journal

What HTML5 Means For Writers

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding HTML5, especially in regards to HTML5 overtaking flash design for video playback and animation. This is sure to put a tough decision on any ad agency. While Adobe’s Flash and the newly released HTML5 specification compete head to head in both functionality and mindshare, coders and web designers are readily implementing the newest version of HTML. People who write online don’t think about the design process and offload that to the designer. However, HTML5 is shaping up to be a vital tool for them. Martin Belam has a great write up on what HTML5 can do for journalists which introduces them to how it works in relation to their content. If you’re a journalist or Blogger who tends to shy away from coding and instead offload HTML and CSS duties to a contracted designer or website design company, this is the time to embrace it in the form of HTML5.

Incorporating HTML5 Into Website Design

One of the best tools HTML5 offers is article structure which is vital for any writer to clearly show what they’re trying to convey. The “section” tag will allow you to divide up your content on criteria such as tutorials, reviews or news items. Writers can utilize the “aside” tag to identify related content.Factoring  in time and dates to your writing is another important aspect journalists can take advantage of in HTML5 using the “time” tag. A close comparison is the data detectors employed in Mac OS X which recognize time and dates. However, the time tag will be implemented into your CMS in due time.

Another interesting tag to use under HTML5 is the “details” tag, which allows you to insert relevant information that can be collapsed or opened by the reader. This tag could encompass information such as relevant dates, in depth location or directions. The “mark” tag makes your content stand out. The “wbr” tag can be used in place of the break tag when a word break is needed instead of forcing line breaks.

Making HTML5 Writing And SEO Friendly

In addition, HTML5 is SEO friendly and easy to use which is important for any writer looking to promote their work and have it show up in relevant search results. HTML5′s XML-like structure makes it easier for search engines to index. You can also improve your ranking with the “article”, “aside,” “header” and “section” tags. You can also compliment your content with video and identify it appropriately with the new video tag and search engine friendly wording.

Are you a writer or journalist utilizing HTML5? Let us know your experience!