Content Optimization came up in an article I wrote an last week on Do-it-Yourself SEO Tips. One of my readers made a comment about Content Optimization. Content Optimization is something I do every day, and I don’t really think much about it. However, not everyone knows what content optimization entails, so I wanted to give you a quick rundown on how – and how not – to optimize content for SEO.

What is Content Optimization?

Content Optimization is the practice of creating content that is targeted to perform well for specific keyword searches. For example, if I wanted to create a page that would pop up high in the search results when people looked for “Root Beer,” I’d want to optimize my content on the page to capture a high search engine page rank. The more competitive the keyword set, the more difficult it is to capture a high keyword page rank – because more people are going after the same page rank. One thing you can do to ensure you get a high page rank is to optimize your content so the search engine ‘likes’ it.

Long Tail, Short Tail and Alternate Keywords

When you’re optimizing your content for SEO, you’ll run across a few phrases that you might not have heard before: long tail keywords, short tail keywords and alternate keywords. I’ll give you a clue: these phrases have nothing to do with furry woodland creatures. These are the various types of keywords you can use in your content optimization pursuits:

Long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords are the exact keyword phrases that people search for on the Web to find their content. Long tail keywords might be awkward and difficult to work into your copy, but it helps to have at least one instance of a long tail keyword in your copy, as well as in your title. While long tail keywords are typically very specific, they also tend to target a demographic that is prepared to make a decision, which translates to a higher potential for conversion with long tail keywords.

Short tail keywords.

Short tail keywords are short, general keyword sequences that may describe the overall purpose of your page. While long tail keywords are very specific, short tail keywords are very general. A good example of the difference might be:

Long tail: business writer Cambridge, MA

Short tail: business writer

As you can see, the short tail is a much more general keyword set. When you use short tail keywords, you’re likely to come up on a wider range of websites, but because short tail keywords are so general, you’ll be competing with far more pages. That means you’re less likely to come up near the top of the search. Long tail keywords are much more targeted, but because they’re so specific, you’re likely to come up near the top of a long tail keyword search. You can use both long tail and short tail keywords in your copy, but where you place them plays a big role in how your page comes up.

Alternate keywords.

Alternate keywords are variations on a keyword set that people might use when referring to a product or service. For example, some people might search for “business writer,” while others might search for “corporate writer.” If you see variations on your primary keyword, you’ll want to find a way to work alternate keywords into your copy so you have a chance of getting traffic for those keywords, too.

How to Find Your Keywords

Don’t just take a stab in the dark as to what keywords people are using to find your website. You can use several tools to find your keywords.

1. Use a keyword search tool. Free tools exist and they’re easy to use. Try Google’s Ad Words Keyword Tool or Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool. You can also find other free or paid keyword search tools, so feel free to shop around.
2. Do a Web search for the keywords you might use to find your site. Think about it logically. How would you go looking for your product or service, if you were a client? Do a Web search, and see what comes up. If you see a huge website, such as Yahoo or Travelocity, you’ll know you need to use more long tail keywords to stand a chance of coming up high in the search results.
3. Install a Web tracking tool on your website. I use Google Analytics, which is free, but a friend of mine uses a paid Web tracking tool. Use whatever tool you’re comfortable installing and using. Most Web tracking tools tell you what keywords people are using to find your page, and whether or not they stuck around to read it after finding it. Capitalize on the popular keyword searches, and you might want to consider changing pages that don’t have high keyword hits.

Where to Use Keywords

Writing organically is a great way to provide human-readable content, but it might not rank the highest with search engines without a little help. When you’re optimizing your content for SEO, try to include the long tail keyword as close as possible to the beginning of your article. One rule of thumb is to make sure the long tail keyword occurs within the first 9 words or your article. You should also try to include the long tail in your title. After that, you don’t have to use your long tail keyword again at all! If you’re working with short tail or alternate keywords, try to work them into the content organically, and you get a bonus if you can work these keywords into titles.

How Not to Use Keywords

One mistake that people make is to overload their article with extraneous keywords. “Keyword density” is a phrase bandied about when people are talking SEO, but it’s becoming less and less relevant in SEO rankings – except to penalize you. That’s right – if you use a keyword too many times in your copy, you can actually be penalized in search engine rankings. When a search engine, such as Google, sees a high keyword density, it assumes the copy is written to ‘trick’ the search engine into ranking it well and actually gives it a lower placement because the data might not be valuable. Write your articles organically, and make sure you don’t overload them with keywords, or you can actually find your search engine rank dropping.

Note: Keep in mind that search engine algorithms change periodically, and aren’t exactly the same from search engine to search engine. Stay up to date with current SEO practices to ensure you’re putting your keywords in the right place and using them the appropriate number of times. If all else fails, write organically and see what the search engine thinks of your copy!

Formatting Your Content

Take advantage of the formatting tips I provided in the DIY article. Use Headers in your content formatting instead of Bold tags to break up the sections. You should also try to break up the text into manageable chunks, and use bullet points or ordered lists to make the text more human-scannable. While you want to get a high page rank to drive traffic to your page, there’s no point in driving traffic only to create a page that people can’t read, and will click away again immediately!

Target Your Pages to Specific Content

Finally, don’t try to cover too much content on a page, because you’ll dilute the message. Target the content on your page to a specific message or keyword set. You might need more pages on your website, but you’ll vastly improve your search engine results if you aren’t trying to cram too much on a page and confusing the search engines as to what your page is actually about. Less is more – try to keep your content in the 500-1500 word mark (although 1500 is a bit long) and use more pages if you need to talk about a variety of different topics or products.

One of the reasons it’s so important to target your audience is that you want to talk to your audience. If you’re writing to people with no knowledge about a product or service whatsoever, you have to start by educating them about the problem and the solution. On the other hand, if you’re talking to a knowledgeable, savvy audience, you can bore them and lose readers if you spend too much time explaining the basics. To maximize your marketing return, you need to talk to your specific audience.

Identify your target audience.

One step that many companies miss when they’re developing marketing materials is to identify their target audience. Many companies make the determination “This is what I want to convey,” without thinking about the intended recipient. This is important because you might convey your message differently to different audiences.

For example, if you’re trying to sell a service, you might have two targets for your copy: people who have already had your service and understand it, and people who have never had your service and don’t know anything about it. These are two entirely different audiences, and it’s challenging to create a message targeted to both of them. You get a better ROI when you invest in a specific message for a specific audience.

Develop different messages for different audiences.

Once you determine your target audiences, work on developing different messages for each audience. In the previous example, you might want to talk to prior clients about how using your service again can benefit them. You’d probably want to create a different message for new clients, explaining what your service is and why it helps them, or how you differentiate yourselves from your competitors.

Talk to your audience.

Consider your audience’s knowledge level about your product or service when you’re creating a message. By identifying various target audiences, you can assess their knowledge individually to more accurately create a message encompassing their demographic. In the example we’re using here, the people who have already had your service are starting at a more advanced point than people who have never had your service. This means you can do less explaining your service to the repeat customers, and more targeting the benefits to their return. With new customers, you need to spend more time explaining things up front and setting up your company as a provider.

Each is effective in a different way. If you dilute your message by trying to address both audiences simultaneously, you have to provide extra information for the new clients that might simply bore or turn away existing clients, and the new clients won’t benefit from your targeting of benefits for return visits you direct at repeat clients.

Bottom line: Identify your target audience, and speak directly to your target audience. Consider their knowledge of your services and products. If you have more than one target audience, you may need to develop multiple messages. This produces a better ROI and increased conversion rates, so it’s worthwhile to spend the time and capital to create targeted, individual messages,

In light of my articles on Why You Need SEO and Beware of Seo Firms last month, I thought I’d post some do-it-yourself SEO tips and tricks for small businesses or individuals who want to improve their search engine results without hiring a large firm. You can do a lot to improve your SEO on your own. If you don’t have the time, or don’t want to mess with the more technical aspects of do-it-yourself SEO, you can always outsource these functions – but know what they entail so you can decide if you’re getting what you pay for.

Content Optimization.

Content optimization is one of the keys of overall SEO, and it’s a service that I regularly provide for my clients. To optimize your content, you should break your content down into digestible chunks that pertain to a specific topic. Make sure the content relates to the title. If you’re not sure what to write about, or what title to use, try a free keyword search tool, such as Google’s Ad Words Keyword Tool, Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool, or other keyword search tools. These tools can give you an idea of what people are searching for so you can optimize your content for popular keywords in your field.

Use headers in your formatting to improve SEO.

One of the most important things you can do to improve your SEO yourself is to use headers in your Web page formatting. Many people simply use a “<strong>” tag to bold important subheadings in Web page designs. This totally misses out on the optimization available by using targeted headings. If you use a “<h1>”, “<h2>”, or “<h3>” tag for your headings, search engines place more weight on those headings, and give you a higher page rank if your headings relate to your title and your Web page content. By using the <strong> tool instead, search engines read your webpage as having no subheadings at all, and you’ll miss out on the opportunity to take advantage of those headings to boost your SEO and page rank.

Pay close attention to Title tags in DIY SEO applications.

Title tags are perhaps the single most important part of providing good SEO for your Web pages. Search engines look at title tags for keywords, and compare the title tags to your page to see if the content supports the title. If you don’t get your keywords in the title tag, you might not get ranked at all for that content – in spite of optimizing your content. The closer the keyword to the front of the title tag, the more it can influence your page rank. You should also make sure that the important title keywords appear at least once in your copy – bonus if you can work it into your subheadings and use the appropriate heading tags.

Leave the styling for CSS.

We’ve already looked at what opportunities you miss when you bold your headers instead of using header tags. Similarly, you should try to forgo styling in HTML as much as possible and leave the styling to the CSS. When you use CSS to style your page, you can specify how headings should look, how links should look and what visual styles you want to apply to your website. That means less code in your Web pages themselves, since the code is in the style sheet – and a better code-to-content ratio, which improves SEO.

Additionally, by keeping your styling in the CSS style sheets, you can implement standard HTML tags and code and capitalize on SEO functionality. You can also easily change styles via CSS to alter colors and other display properties, and test how these font and style changes affect conversion. This gives you an easy way to improve your conversion rates without having to spend hours changing every page’s HTML.

Deciding when to outsource SEO.

SEO isn’t something that everyone wants to do. Even though much of SEO is simple enough for anyone to implement themselves, it does still take time and requires you to tinker with the website. If you simply don’t want to deal with managing your website, or making the little tweaks that improve your SEO, it might be worthwhile to outsource your SEO.

Beware of expensive firms that charge you thousands of dollars for relatively minor SEO tweaks. Find out exactly what a firm’s SEO services entail, and decide whether it’s worth the cost for you. Much of what SEO companies do breaks down into these SEO categories: optimizing content, optimizing title tags and adjusting formatting. The technical aspects, such as title tags and formatting, are relatively easy tweaks and shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg.

For more info on things to look out for when you’re outsourcing your SEO, check out my article “Beware of SEO Firms.”

If you’re looking for a writer for the first time, you face challenges. What to request? How do you decide which writer is right for the job? How much should you pay? If you’re thinking of hiring a writer, here are some tips for how to place an ad, and what questions to ask to help you find the right writer.

Decide where to advertise.

The first question you face when hiring a writer is to decide where to advertise. Do you place an ad, or do you contact a writer directly? A Web search can potentially turn up writers and copywriters in your area, but without contacting them, you have no way of knowing whether or not they’re right for the work you have in mind. You can review website materials and get an idea of their experience and writing style (if it’s a comprehensive website) but you don’t have a lot to evaluate. I have had clients contact me through my website, but many clients prefer to use a freelance website to place an ad and select a provider.

If you’ve decided to use a freelance website, you have two options: job-posting boards, or full-scale freelance websites. Job posting boards enable you to post an ad and get email responses. However, these boards provide you no way of evaluating your providers – you’re just sending your ad off into the ether. This is fine if you know what you’re looking for and are satisfied to handle your project independently, but doesn’t offer any additional protection.

Full-scale freelance websites, on the other hand, such as Elance and Guru, give you an entire system to manage your freelance job from start to finish. You can place an ad, evaluate providers, agree to project terms, arrange payment and leave feedback all through these freelance systems. While these systems confine you somewhat within the terms of use, they provide a valuable tool for clients who are searching for a new writer or hiring a writer for the first time.

Map out your job before you place an ad.

One cause of contention between clients and writers is not having the same picture of what a project entails. A client may believe that the project is fairly straightforward, and have a perfect sense in his head of what a project should be. Writers aren’t mind-readers, though, so unless you give your writer a clear idea of what you expect, you’re more likely to be disappointed than not.

To avoid disappointment, or to avoid falling victim to a project that unexpectedly changes scope, map out your job before you ever place an ad. Get a picture in your mind of exactly what you want. If you’re picturing a series of 500-word articles targeted to a specific keyword, convey that in your ad. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a 10-page report to distribute to mailing list clients, make that clear to a writer up front. If you don’t know quite what you want, you might want to give it some more thought before you place an ad to hire a writer.

Be clear when you place an ad.

When you do place an ad to hire a writer, be clear about what you want. I see ads all the time where clients say things like “I need 10 articles” or “I want to produce a weekly newsletter for my mailing list clients.” This is a good place to start, but you need to flesh out the project so writers know what you need and can bid accordingly. What’s your niche? On what subject would you like articles? How long is your project? What’s your timeframe? The more information you can provide a writer, the better your chances of finding a writer who fits your needs.

A good writer bids on projects for which they’re qualified.

By providing clear information about what you need and expect, you’re automatically narrowing down the list of writers who might apply for your ad. If you say something generic like “I need 10 articles,” you might get upwards of 20 or 30 responses – or more. A good writer will ask you for more details, but many responses will simply quote you a rate without any information about expertise or how a writer handles your niche.

However, when you say “I need 10 articles on Web design, CSS and HTML5,” you automatically self-select the writers who apply for your project. While you may still get some generic responses, you’ll get more responses by writers who are familiar with your content and can provide you samples of their work on related topics. You automatically reduce the number of people who reply to your ad, while simultaneously eliciting information specific to your topics. This saves a ton of time when you’re narrowing down your short list of writers by giving you information about a writer’s qualifications specific to your project.

Determining budget.

Generally speaking, if you pay a low rate, you’ll get a low-quality writer. In theory, anyone can call themselves anything – I could sign up for a freelance website or create my own website right now saying that I’m a Web designer. However, a real Web designer with years of experience – the kind of Web designer who produces websites that make you happy to browse – has experience, references and samples, and typically comes at a premium.

The same thing holds true for writers. When you’re looking to hire a writer, you might get a host of responses from people with no real writing experience. These might be students fresh out of college, teachers trying to make money on the side or even housewives trying to supplement their income. These people might have a range of experience and skill levels from non-existent to quality work. However, the real writers – the people who have been doing it for long enough to hone their skills and learn about the industry and niche – cost more. They spend more time on their work, and therefore must charge more for it.

When you’re considering budget, think about what you want. Do you simply want content? If you’re not looking for high-quality work, you might be able to afford to go low-budget on your project. However, low-quality content produces a poor ROI, and you simply don’t get the same results. When you’re setting your budget, ask yourself what you want your content to be, and what you want it to do.

If you need content that performs, you might need to pay more for a writer up front to yield better rewards and ROI. Be clear about your budget in your ad, though, so you don’t waste your time following up with a writer who is out of your price range, or a low-budget writer who can’t deliver what you seek.

In December, I wrote the first part in a series on how to leverage social networking for your business. If you have a good Web presence, then social networking can provide a great tool for you to drive traffic to your site and capitalize on increased readership. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll look at ways to utilize a specific social networking tool for your business: Facebook.

Why pursue social networking for your business through Facebook?

At first glance, Facebook may not seem well-suited for business promotion. The premise of Facebook is to provide a means for friends and acquaintances to connect, stay in touch and interact with one another. However, at last count, Facebook had more than 350 million active users. This is a huge potential audience for your company’s products or services, and some companies have been very successful at managing a Facebook presence to increase and maintain customers.

Grow customers virally through Facebook.

Once you’ve established your presence on Facebook, you can grow customers virally through this social networking tool. When you create a Page for your business, Facebook users can become ‘Fans.’ When a user becomes a ‘fan’ of your page, his friends can see on his profile that he has become a fan of your page, and can follow a link to check out your Page. Your ‘fans’ can also share links and other information that you publish to their friends, thus growing your audience – and potential customers – virally through Facebook.

Create a Page.

While you can interact with people on Facebook as yourself, the best way to promote your business on Facebook is to create a Page for it. You can only create a Page if you’re an authorized member of an organization or company, but a Page gives you a professional face for your organization on Facebook. Once you’ve created a Page, you can add other people as administrators to help you manage Page content. When you create a Page, it doesn’t link back to you as the creator, and people aren’t able to use a Page to find your personal information.

Page offers valuable tools.

When you start a Facebook Page, you give yourself valuable tools to interact with your audience. Other Facebook users can become ‘fans’ of your page, and then they can see status updates that you post in their News Feeds. They can also browse to your Wall and view information that you’ve posted, interact with other users via comments and interact with elements of your Page. Finally, as a Page administrator, you can target your audience – sending updates to a specific demographic based on age, location or sex. This provides an extremely valuable method for you to target your marketing efforts at a core demographic, and to develop targeted messages for various demographics. You can also install Facebook applications on your Page, as well as manage Events through your page.

Share information.

One way in which you can communicate with your audience via Facebook is to share information with your fans. You can let them know about new products, specific events or share news related to your business. Some of the best business Pages are fun blends of news updates and interactive communities. Sharing information enables you to alert people to new products or services, as well as being in the public eye when a potential customer needs the services or products you offer.

Offer promotions.

Another very successful way to interact with your fans is to offer promotions via Facebook. Some companies hold prize drawings for people who become ‘fans’ as a way to get more people to sign up for a Page. In this way, if the buzz is good, you can gain hundreds or thousands of new ‘fans’ for the price of a few $50 gift cards or promotional merchandise. Then you have a captive audience to share updates and promote your services.

You can also host promotions that feature special deals for your Facebook fans to get them to take action with your company. For example, some companies host promotions periodically where Facebook fans get 10 to 20 percent off of an item for a weekend, or 20% off of an order with a special promotional code. This entices fans to visit your business or website and take action – buying products from you. This can be a great way to drastically boost your business, as well as spread viral buzz about your company.

Host events.

Finally, when you have a Page on Facebook, you can host events for your customers. This is a great option if you have a physical location and products to promote. If you create a Page on Facebook, you can host private “fans-only” events – extended hour events where only Facebook fans are admitted, and receive a discount or promotional materials for attending the event. If your business provides services, you can also host Events – free clinics or informational sessions for your services. Don’t underestimate events as a valuable way to promote your business.

Case Studies.

Don’t just take my word for it that Facebook provides valuable social networking tools for businesses. Personally, I have a Facebook profile and am a ‘fan’ of several businesses. These businesses include both services and products, and both physical and online-only businesses. Here are a few businesses that have utilized Facebook as a valuable way to promote their business and grow their customer base:

Zipcar.

Zipcar is a car-sharing company with vehicles available in several major cities around the United States. Zipcar has a Facebook page, which to date has over 28,000 fans. Zipcar uses its Facebook page to share information and reminders about policies, host promotions and create a buzzing community of fans.

Land’s End.

Land’s End is another company that has a Facebook Page and is successfully utilizing Facebook to reach potential customers. To date, Land’s End has over 253,000 fans. They regularly host promotions that involve giveaways to new fans, as well as use the Page to update fans about upcoming sales at the Land’s End website. Land’s End also hosts events which typically include promotions – all of which successfully generate buzz about products and increases sales.

Newegg.

Newegg is a website that sells primarily computers, computer components and computer accessories at reasonable prices, but they also sell other electronics. Newegg is a website only – no physical store locations to promote. However, Newegg has nearly 240,000 Facebook fans, and they employ a similar strategy to Land’s End on their Facebook page. Newegg uses its Facebook page to host promotions and share information about products with fans, but it’s also a fairly active fan community with people discussing computers and electronic products.

Formaggio’s Kitchen.

Finally, there’s Formaggio’s Kitchen: a physical store specializing in cheese and high-end food products. While Formaggio’s Kitchen does have a website storefront, it’s also a physical location, and much of its Facebook Page is dedicated to promoting the physical storefront. Formaggio’s Kitchen uses its Page to share information about products and post Events that it hosts at its storefront to sell and promote products.

You can leverage social networking for your business through Facebook.

These success stories prove that you can successfully leverage social networking to promote your business through Facebook. Thousands of businesses, both online only and with physical storefronts, utilize Facebook to reach a targeted audience and build a potential customer base. Even better – this is a relatively low-cost marketing tool: all you need is some time, or to hire someone to manage your business Facebook Page. Facebook provides an easy way to reach a potential audience of 350 million for the cost of a small time investment.

The question of quality vs. quantity is a question you face in any marketing campaign. If you keep a blog, should you strive to post daily and occasionally let drivel slip through, or post once or twice a week but limit your posts to quality information? If you’re using articles to promote your services, should you contract for ten short articles just to get your name out there, or one quality article to increase conversion and convince people to use your services?

The argument for quantity.

The argument for quantity is obvious. The more opportunities that people have to see your name, the more likely you are to reach people who wouldn’t see you otherwise. I.e. if you have 10 articles posted on 10 different websites, you’ve got a much higher chance for readers to see your articles than if you have 1 article posted on 1 website.

This is a common mistake that many people make when they’re planning a new marketing campaign. Many people would look at a limited budget, and say “Ok, I can get 10 low-quality articles out of this budget if I hire a low cost provider.” The simple mathematical outcome would drive the decision to select a low-cost provider for the sake of getting a greater quantity. Unfortunately, that approach only examines one part of the picture.

The argument for quality.

The argument for quality has more subtle benefits. If you deliver quality content, you’ll give your readers valuable content – content that they’ll have a reason to stick around and read. When readers see low-quality content, they’re likely to click away again immediately in search of someone else who provides better content. In this respect, quantity gives you more opportunities to get in front of readers, but less of an opportunity to make an impact.

For offisite article marketing, a similar principal applies. If you’re posting content offsite to try to lure readers onto your website and into using your services, you’ll need to give them a compelling reason to click that link. When you post ten articles that are full of the same drivel you can find on any other website, readers have no reason to click through to find more information and no temptation to use your services. If you post only two or three articles that contain unique information and convince your readers that your services are valuable, you’ve given those readers an excuse to click through to your website.

Quality content is your key to conversion.

Quality content also serves a very valuable purpose: it establishes you as an expert. Provide readers with informative, unique information, and they’ll see that you know your field. If you speak only in generalities or fail to give readers something they can’t find on a hundred other websites, they have no reason to choose your services over any other provider. When you’re looking for conversion, quality counts.

Quality content drives page views organically.

The primary argument in favor of quantity versus quality is the argument that a higher quantity of content gets you visibility in more places. While this is technically true, it’s not the only way you can get visibility. If you provide quality content on a wide range of topics – especially if you provide content on an ongoing basis, like in blogging – you’re much more likely to capture readers organically through search engine results and word of mouth. SEO is skewed to provide greater preference to ‘quality’ content; not keyword-laden pieces that are designed to ‘trick’ search engines into providing a higher page rank; so you’re more likely to capture readers organically if you provide quality content. This gives you opportunities you wouldn’t have with poor-quality, high-quantity content.

Quality content is good for word-of-mouth.

Low-quality content may get you page views, but people won’t think of you twice and certainly won’t recommend you. High-quality content – content that provides valuable or difficult-to-find information – is content that people will remember, and recommend to friends and contacts. How do you think things grow virally? It isn’t because it’s forgettable content. The key to viral marketing is to provide memorable content that people want to share – not mediocre content that people just don’t care about.

Bottom line: ROI on quality content is better.

Bottom line: your return on investment for quality content is better than quantity. Sure, quantity can get you page views – but low-quality content won’t get you conversion. Since the key to any business website is conversion, quantity just doesn’t have the bang for the buck that quality content provides. Invest in quality content, and you’ll see a direct return on investment that correlates with the quality of your content.