Why I became a long-tail keyword junkie.

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Cheetah with long tailIt used to be easy to win with keywords.

Go back ten years and everything was different. If you spent a little time learning the rules, and had access to a decent keyword research tool, you could get yourself placed high up on page one of the Google search results almost every time.

Why was it so easy? For a few reasons.

First, most internet marketers didn’t have a clue when it came to keywords. So with a little knowledge and the right tools you could beat them every time.

Second, there were a lot fewer websites back then. Today? Tens of millions more websites and who knows how many blogs.

Third, Google’s algorithms were a lot less complex and sophisticated. So if you knew the rules, you were good to go.

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To do your best work, you have to like your client’s products.

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dog laughing on monitorThis is true whether you are writing copy or writing content.

The more you like the product you’re writing about, the better the job you will do.

Conversely, if your next gig is on a product, service or topic you don’t like, you’ll find it impossible to do your best work.

In other words, if you think the product is cr*p, you’ll be hard pressed to do a good job promoting it.

Sure, you’ll be professional about it. You’ll put in the hours and apply all your skills the best you can. But I bet your writing won’t shine as brightly as when you are writing about something you think has real value.

If what I say is true – and it is – what does this mean for your work as a freelancer?

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3 Ways for online copywriters to optimize every page of copy they write.

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Three cogs representing three areas of web page optimization.As an online copywriter you probably focus a lot of attention on applying your skills as a copywriter, page by page.

Nothing wrong with that. I do the same. I always want each page of copy I write to be the best it can be.

But I also have to consider three other factors that will impact the performance of my copy. In other words, online copywriting is about more than just writing words that sell.

Here are the three other factors I pay attention to. Once I have addressed them all I can finally relax in the knowledge that the page ready to be published.

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Love your message, and watch your freelance business grow.

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Love your message.I have been saying this for years, and have woven the thought into various talks I have given, webinars I have created and posts I have written.

But I have never written a single post that focuses solely on the power of finding the right message for your freelance business.

So here goes. Here’s what I want you to do…

Stop trying to sell yourself.

And start selling a message that excites you.

Selling yourself is really, really hard. Emotionally it’s hard to stand up or get on the phone and sing your own praises. Most of us feel uncomfortable doing that. We do it very badly, if we do it at all.

Also, trying to sell yourself and your expertise is a terrible way to differentiate yourself from other freelancers.

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Why a shared vision works better than a style guide.

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A shared company visionWork with any company of a reasonable size and you’ll likely be presented with a style guide.

Style guides for writers can be quite long. They give you instructions on the length of headlines, the use of images and other visual content, the number of words you need to write, the phrases you must use and mustn’t use, the tone of voice you should aim to achieve, and so on.

Honestly, they are a nightmare. A pain in the rear for any self-respecting writer or copywriter.

So why do companies create these ghastly guides? Well, they are aiming for consistency in the writing on their websites. They want everything to look much the same and to be written with more or less the same tone of voice.

Plus there is often some nonsense put in there by their lawyers.

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When social media over-promises.

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Poor quality web content and social media.This morning I saw a post on Google+ from a web marketing company I follow.

The post had a headline and about five lines of text. It promised me information that could dramatically improve my web marketing efforts. It was well written and compelling.

So I clicked the link and was taken to the article on the website.

The article was a crashing disappointment. Just basic information that pretty much any online copywriter already knows.

It’s not that the article was bad. It might be useful for someone who had just begun studying the craft of online writing. But that’s not what was sold in the Google+ post.

This is happening more and more. Social media updates over-promise, and the website content they link to under-delivers.

I have stopped following a number of companies for this reason. It’s really annoying to be tricked into clicking through to an article or post that proves to offer far less than I was led to expect.

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