Tag Archives: Google+
No blog? Your website is doomed. Or not.
Your website must have a blog. If your site has no blog, you have no hope of getting the attention of potential customers or search engines and your website is doomed. And your business too. Or so many web gurus will tell you.
Your blogless website will sink like a stone. Not.
Balderdash.
The blog is a powerful tool when generating website traffic and developing your brand. A blog really does help demonstrate your industry expertise and help your potential customers understand who you are and what you do. But there are other ways to achieve similar goals.
Consider social media. If you maintain a business presence on Google+ or Facebook is there really any difference between posting a focused, informative status update and writing an identical article to be hosted on your website? Of course not. Your followers and their friends will still see that you know what you are talking about and that you really are an expert. And if they want to know more they can leave a post on your wall or click through to your website. They might even buy something.
That’s not to say that posting to a social network is necessarily any easier than writing a blog post. You will still need to read, research, write and edit until you have something interesting and engaging to share with your followers. Is it easy to generate compelling content day after day, week after week? Absolutely not, and nor is it a quick job. Which is why you may still like to consider outsourcing the job.
The SEO gurus are correct on one issue however. It is absolutely essential that your business be actively creating web content somewhere on the internet. And not only writing for the web, but engaging with people and forging relationships. If you miss this key point, your website really could be doomed.
Need help creating content for your social network (or even your blog)? Tech Write can help, just drop us a line!
Klout changes it’s algorithm – should you be concerned?
The Internet has been abuzz over the past 48 hours with chat relating to a change in the way Klout measures social influence. For many people it’s a big deal, while others appear completely unfazed. So should you be concerned?
Do you use social media?
If the answer is no, then you can forget all about Klout. Without a Twitter, Facebook or Google+ account it is impossible to obtain a Klout score.
Should I focus on improving my Klout score?
If you are a business, absolutely not! Your core focus should be providing the very best products and services to customers, rather than chasing down a rather arbitrary guide on how popular you are. Make the use of social media another channel by which you interact with clients, resolving their issues and educating them. Make that your overall goal and your Klout score may well improve as a result. 
However, just because your own Klout score may be irrelevant to your business, you may find it a useful way to track down individuals who could add value to your proposition. Businesses can use Klout to identify individuals who are influential in their industry or key demographic and link with them. By providing “thought leaders” (as Klout classifies them) with demos or free access to your products, they become much more likely to talk about your business with their network of contacts, increasing your pool of leads and your brand exposure.
Does it matter?
At the end of the day, Klout is a tool which has many keen fans and just as many detractors. The results generated by Klout are an interesting metric into which users can read as much or as little as they want. It won’t harm your business to check it out, but as with any “influence measurement tool”, there are no guaranteed returns.
Making your web content work harder – Part 2
On Tuesday I related the case of a copywriting client who wanted to know about recycling an article I had written. This question then led me to create a list of ten uses for a single item of copy, five of which were covered in the previous post. Here in this second part of the series I outline another 5 uses which will help ensure a maximum return on your copywriting investment:
6. Sales materials and brochures
If your business thought a subject was important enough to secure professional copywriting services, then it is almost certainly the sort of content which you would pass on to would-be customers. Why not “cherry-pick” key stories and phrases for publication on your sales literature? 
7. Social media teasers
A quick quote lifted from a blog post can make excellent linkbait for use on the Twitter microblogging platform, drawing more visitors to your website as they seek more information. Sites like Facebook and Google+ accept longer posts, so you can create a shortened version of your blog post for submission on a company social media account.
8. An eBook
Electronic books are rapidly gaining in popularity thanks to lightweight, cost-effective ereaders. As such people are always looking for content and, best of all, many are willing to pay for these ebooks.
Obviously a single blog post will not make a great ebook, but if there are several entries on a related topic, why not combine and edit them carefully to create a multi-page document? If you feel the content is particularly valuable, you can even put the ebook up for sale through an online marketplace like the iBook Store, Google Play or Amazon.
9. Guest posts
Long recognised as a great way of creating backlinks and increasing your search engine rankings, re-written blog posts can be “donated” to other sites which are relevant to your industry. The website which receives your guest post benefits from some free content and you benefit from some free publicity – a great return on your initial copywriting project.
10. A Wikipedia article
Wikipedia do not condone self-promotion by businesses, but there is nothing to stop companies adding general information, or adding to existing entries. Your blog may well reference pertinent information which can be used to update Wikipedia – you can even create a reference back to your site when quoting facts and figures.
And that completes the list of ten additional uses for a blog post helping to ensure you get the best from your paid-for content. And if you are concerned that you are not getting a satisfactory return on your copywriting projects, try putting a few of these techniques into practice.
If you are looking for a blogger or need some professional copywriting services, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Making your web content work harder – Part 1
Recently I was asked by a customer whether it was OK to post an article which I had written for them in multiple locations. Obviously duplicating content across the web tends to cause trouble with search engines and so I advised against it. However the question led me to ask one of my own – how can my clients make better use of the content which they have commissioned me to write thereby maximising the return on their investment in my copywriting services?
So I came up with ten ways to rework and repurpose an initial blog post or article without having to request more content. Here are the first five (the second set will appear on Thursday):
1. A press release
If the initial article was about a new product, service or achievement, why not turn it into a press release? There are thousands of publications and blogs looking for content and press releases help them meet their needs. With a little work, the press release can be pitched at industry publications or commentators with a view to gaining extra brand exposure. Alternatively you can submit the news item to an online distribution site as a way of gaining backlinks.
2. A white paper
Try expanding the original article with some relevant research and pertinent quotes to create a multi-page document. The completed white paper can then be offered as an incentive to would-be mailing list subscribers or made available for free download from your website.
3. Newsletter content
If your company sends out a periodic newsletter, chances are that you often struggle for content with which to fill the pages. Cut down on the time and effort usually associated with writing a newsletter by repurposing some of the content from your blog.
4. A forum topic starter
If your company maintains a forum somewhere (like LinkedIn), you can use a cut down article to start a new thread, thereby stimulating debate. Even better, give a brief rundown of the article along with a link back to the original article on your website. You can then pose a question based on the article to get people talking about your business.
5. A manual
Often overlooked, manuals are still very important to some users and should not be completely neglected in favour of self-help forums. You can collect together related blog posts for compilation into a manual which can then be made available for reading online or download from your website. Much cheaper than having someone write one from scratch.
So there you have the first five. Don’t forget to check out the next 5 examples of Making your web content work harder.
If you need assistance with a copywriting project in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
Who should you target, Search Engines or Readers?
When producing content for a website, writers are faced with a severe dilemma – should web copy be optimised for search engines at the expense of readability, or should it be written for the reader alone, even at the expense of search engine result placement? After all, if most people come into contact with your website for the first time from search results, should content not be created specifically to increase the likelihood of that happening?
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It is always important to remember that search engine optimisation is but one tool in the arsenal available to you. Nothing attracts business like a positive referral from an existing customer, and many of these are sent by email or general conversation. They never usually come through a search result.
Social media is also changing the direction and source of website referrals, with millions of links being shared everyday through Facebook and Twitter. The rise of the Google+ social network and its new ‘Authorship’ ranking tags is also set to skew search results forever; in future Google plans to generate search results using the author’s online reputation as a significant factor in its algorithm – the higher the reputation, the higher the search engine result placement for their content.
Ultimately the correct answer to the conundrum is to try and compromise between SEO and readability, using keywords throughout your text to ‘pique’ search engine interest, whilst maintaining a well written article or blog post for the reader. If push comes to shove however, we always suggest producing quality content over anything else – your reader is your customer after all, not Google or Bing.
If you would like assistance with producing quality content for your website or blog, please get in touch with Tech Write today.
