Monday, September 18, 2017

On the Internet, Being Brief may not be Best

It can be said than when you post text on your website or blog, you are writing for TWO audiences: your potential customers and the search engines.
  • Readers want you to be BRIEF and to the POINT
  • Search Engines want to measure you on the relevancy of a keyword search and therefore, MORE matches is BETTER 
Seems like a "catch-22", yes?

Addressing what the potential customer wants.
  • In Google, there are two kinds of searches: shopper searches and buyer searches. 
  • Shopper searches are by people just looking around. They use generally use 3 words or less in the search. Example: “folsom chiropractor”
  • Buyer searches are 3 words or more and are more specific. Example: “folsom sports chiropractor”. A person doing a buyer search is far more likely to be a buyer than the first
  • Include keywords within your text that are likely included in searches by your target market
  • Start the page with a 350-ish word summary of a longer article to follow (they can then choose to read the lengthy article or not)
  • Have a "call to action" just below the summary or in a column to the right so they know what to do if they are interested in your products or services
Addressing what the search engines want:
  • The truth is Google is that they don't score pages well with less than 350 to 500 words. 
  • If you look at the first page results on Google for 3+ key word searches for many keyword types and averaged across the country, they come out on average at just under 1900 words of text as measured by Google on the page. Might as well aim a little high – 2000+ ish words.
What you need to do:
  • Write a good (educational, relevant) article of 1200 to 1400 words around a keyword phrase topic. It is far more effective when you write this even if  you hire someone to do all the rest. 
  • Don't be too broad in the topic as it will "water down" the relevancy of the page. Stick to the point in the article, but elaborate.
  • Use headers / titles (header tags are best structurally) for the parts of the article
  • Find pictures that illustrate your article (use you own images whenever possible as it put a "face to your name"). Rename the images using keywords and include descriptions in their meta info.
  • Rewrite the text replacing pronouns with keywords wherever possible. You may need to rewrite the text to flow smoothly once you've changed the words.
Things you need to know:
  • Decide what your goals are in writing for the Internet. Do you want to attract customers, searches or both
  • Good writers are generally available for a nickle to a dime a word depending on how good the initial article is and how technical the subject. Make sure they understand your goals.
  • You need to understand the current criteria for search results if that's your goal or hire someone who does. Google changes the rules all the time and each search engine has a different formula. 
  • Be aware that THEY do NOT control the ranking results (Google does)  so be sure to track your return-on-investment.

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