Although my SEO copywriting series is over, I wanted to point out some other great posts that can help you in this area before I move on to the next series.
Keywords: Roberta has a great post on determining relevant keyword phrases, and Jordan points to a free keyword research white paper that she says is worth a look.
Title Tags: Excellent post from Rand on title tag best practices.
Content: Revisit Chris Garrett’s Performancing post on flagship content.
Promotion: Aaron points out that targeted emails are still key to link building, Scott looks at using social media in lieu of press releases, and Chris Anderson does too.
General SEO: Just because links matter most doesn’t mean that general site optimization principles no longer matter. In fact, Neil Patel of ACS helped me with a few things on Copyblogger late last year that improved my search engine rankings noticeably. Thanks again, Neil!
Here are some great SEO resources:
- The Basics of Search Engine Optimization from Phillip Lennsen.
- How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines from Darren Rowse.
- Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization from SEOmoz.
- SEO Book ($79 aff) from Aaron Wall.
So there you have it. And if you’d like a hint as to what my next series will be about (starting later this week), revisit this post about the guy who performed Purple Rain in the pouring rain, and got the entire Super Bowl to sing along.
You’ve got to love You Tube for things like this. Check out video of His Royal Badness from the best halftime show ever (feed and email readers click here to watch).
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Brian,
Love your blog; thanks for the link. One thing: I’m a ’she.’ Thanks again!
Jordan, so sorry! Fixed.
The Title tags thang has helped me tremendously.
I took 2 corporate blogs and put the the keywords in the post title and hit #4, #2, #3 and #4 again on Google in just days.
I left them out of the post title and put them in the first paragraph and got squat from it.
Gotta love those headlines and titles.
Thanks for all your learnin’s !
You’re doing a great job as copywriter, Brian. But music-wise… hmmm let’s not forget U2 in 2002!
Thanks as always, Brian, for the link note. Always appreciated!
I’ll never forget U2 in 2002, and I never thought I’d see a better halftime show then that one. But when you break it down to pure performance, and factor out the sheer emotional power U2 had going due to 9-11, I’d have to say that Prince wins.
This should be an effective post to refer to time and again. And your take on Prince’s performance is off the mark, you talkin’ like a fan now!
Nothing wrong with that, but it’s better to know that you will not be suspectible to reason! For Bon Jovi can beat a response+performance like that while in his sleep.
I love how subjective art is. I generally like Prince, but found that performance yesterday terribly boring … until “Purple Rain”, that is. Medleys are fine and good, but he tried to cram about 6 songs (I think) into about 10 minutes and it didn’t work for me. Never made the connection that great art makes.
U2 on the other hand… post 9/11 or not, that was perfect.
I must be confused… for a minute there I thought someone came over here and mentioned Bon Jovi.
Matt, I still watch that U2 performance once a year at least… just as my own reminder of something positive that resulted from the September before.
Press releases are still important especially to companies who are seeking to get their information in front of print media. Your daily newspaper may not have the readership it once had, but community newspapers offer a solid readership and only a press release would interest reporters seeking newsworthy, not spammy, information.
But will the newspaper link to you? Even those that have online versions generally bogart the live links.
We are talking about SEO here, not general PR.
Virtually no MSM blogger shares links and the majority don’t allow comments, so for SEO, they suck like, er …. like Bon Jovi.
Prince reigns !
Brian,
One other important copywriting tip to include is for people to stop we-ing all over themselves. They should write from the point of you of their customer. People just love to write how “We are…” etc. I have a nifty tool on my site called the wewe calculator. Check it out at http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm
Ok Mr Brian, I can see it now: a post titled, “SEO strategies as seen by Bon Jovi”, where you probably tell us what not to do in SEO.
Any guesses what would you include in it?
How about that ‘rest of the content in your blog/website piggybacks on one hit post’ … just like a Bon Jovi song in any of his albums.
But I understand that you will be taking a different road to Copyblogger than SEO, as you mentioned. Maybe you will be covering Prince from now on.
As a brit can’t really add much to the artistic ranking of superbowl performances, but I can add what a helpful series of posts these have been. And what great coffee break refreshers they’ve been.
Great article Brian, thanks, this is a good article to resources for SEO beginners.