Perhaps you never studied writing and you have never read a book from cover-to-cover since your school days; that does not mean you’re bound to struggle with writing. In fact, studies have shown that reading, albeit a book, article, or glimpsing at a blog can improve a writer’s style ever so slightly. However, after studying writing, there are a few techniques and stylistic choices that can improve your writing on and offline.

Show, Don’t Tell

There’s a golden rule that every writer has been told since they first put pen to page (or, more appropriately, fingertips to keys): “show don’t tell.” Many writers are plagued by this simple phrase because it can often be difficult to grasp the difference between “showing” and “telling”.
Telling means that you are simply writing in a matter-of-fact style (i.e. The ball is red; My business has a large sales and customer service department; We make and develop websites). All of these examples are fine grammatically and they accomplish just what a sentence should – to inform the reader. However, notice the weak nature of these sentences. They lie flat on the page and leave the reader feel nothing more than the movement of their eyes from left to right.

“Showing” is the ability to grasp and maintain the readers attention by giving apt details. A simple way to do this is to think about the subject at hand with all of your senses (i.e. The red rubber ball had a fine, protruding zigzag groove; WEBii’s staff includes a variety of experienced, helpful, and concerned individuals who take pride in their work; Our company develops contemporary, electrifying websites that will place your business at the forefront of the Internet). It’s adjustments like these that will change your sentences into statements, into something you can be proud of and the reader will have enjoyed reading.

Brevity

While “show don’t tell” is the golden rule for any strong piece of writing, brevity is still pivotal to any piece. Blogs, especially, need to be brief (more brief than a fictional story or a book). Some people spend all day sitting at a computer reading whatever’s in front of them for work or pleasure. This can cause bad posture and waning vision. This is the point where proofreading becomes a key component to writing. If you have a difficult time getting to the end of your own piece, then go back and make the necessary corrections. That said, even if you are passionate about your business or cause, you should never make the experience of reading your blog the equivalent to “pulling teeth.” Get to the point, expand with enough detail to either start a discussion or answer a question, and conclude.

What should you do? Is this a good idea?  Is it a scam?  What in the world do you get out of a link exchange?

First, the why: this is an old tactic used since the 90′s to try to promote a website – an early Internet marketing technique.  With today’s SEO, building links to your website (links from other websites that bring traffic to yours) is an important element.   But be wary of invitations to exchange links.

Here are my basic recommendations:

• If the email sounds canned, it probably is.  A lot of “Internet spammers” use automated programs to send thousands of these invites to any site they can find.  And sometimes the sites offering a link to you are not incredibly legitimate or note worthy.
• If you do not know or love the website offering the link, it probably isn’t worth considering.  In fact, that website might even be a competitor.
• If you do know and love the website, or if they are respected in your industry or well known to have high traffic (let’s say the official Pizza Hut website offered you a link), consider it.
• Instead of exchanging links with a website you don’t know (a cold invite) why not link to sites that belong to companies you do actually partner with and refer with?
• If you do accept a link exchange with any site, make sure the link is present on their website before you add one to your site.  And check back somewhat regularly to ensure they keep your link on their website. (If they roll it off in a few weeks – take the link you posted down. It’s only fair.)

Is this kind of email always a bad idea? Well, no.

There are still some legitimate, committed webmasters who manually select particular websites (maybe related to similar subjects or industries) to personally invite to link build with.  There might be some good efforts here and maybe their own website really is well-ranked or has some decent traffic.  (A link on a higher ranked website could have more weight and bring you some “SEO juice”.)

In most cases, you can ignore and delete an email you receive to post a link to someone’s website.  There are other ways to build quality legitimate links to your own website and gain traffic – including writing and guest writing blogs, articles, and press releases.

You can also leave helpful comments on other blogs that you read.  Feel free to leave comments here, but no spammy stuff of course!

In a recent video from Google, Matt Cutts explains his perspective on SEO and clears up the misconception that Google doesn’t like SEO providers.  He states that there is such a thing as quality “white hat” SEO and if you find such a provider, you can benefit your own website as well as Google and the whole searchable Internet.

Watch the Video: Google Says SEO is Not Spam

He points out that good practices include finding the right keywords, structuring your website to be easily legible (able to be found) by a search engine, and making it relevant to the audience.

This is right inline with what WEBii does for it’s clients, and Matt is right – we really are helping people and Google.  Because with every fine tuning we make to your website’s relevance, we are helping the right people find the right information more efficiently.  That is Google’s end goal.

Another thing mentioned in the video is that a good SEO provider will tell you the kinds of things they are going to do.  This is definitely one of the ways we stand out from “black hats”.  We really do tell you everything we are going to do during our proposal, and throughout the process we keep you informed about the tasks we performed.

And an important point is that we do all those things manually, with human intent.  There are plenty of small SEO services out there who will promise you the moon (or several moons) for the price of a few Big Macs.  Let’s be realistic – how can they make that work unless they are just using basic automated software?  How quality of a service can you expect from them?

Our “white hat” techniques are proven techniques, and we are seeing stellar results for our clients.  Our clients are succeeding on Google, because we are pushing good quality, relevant content – and to the right people (your actual customer!).

So do you have a “black hat” SEO experience?  Did someone promise you that “number 1″ ranking and not deliver?  Share your experience with me, and let us know if you would like to learn more about the right direction.

Oh, but wait a minute – you need orders?

Yes, that’s right, the Internet is a beautiful thing, but it isn’t a leprechaun.  You have to market your website to bring traffic to it, and you need to pay attention to certain things to convert those visitors to buying customers.  Here are a few things to consider for your e-commerce marketing plan.

1. Tap your current customers.

Announce your new e-commerce website to your established customers!  Make it bold, make it loud, make it plentiful!  Wouldn’t it be terrible if you learned that one of your loyal customers purchased something online from a competitor just because they had no idea you sold it online too?  Use all the standard forms of media that you usually announce news and specials to your customers – in-store signage, window posters, e-mail newsletters, a blog, the stickers at your registers.

If your customers are not used to receiving things from you (especially e-mail), be a little careful and don’t bombard them with information.  You just want to inform them, not offend them.

2. Offer an incentive.

Give people a reason to revisit your business.  For example:

• Offer a small coupon discount toward their first purchase in your online store.
• Offer free shipping for a limited time.
• Offer free shipping for orders of a certain size.
• Offer a free add-on product with every order.

Come on – get creative – you can do it.

3. Tag-team your physical and online stores.

Launching an online site should be an expansion of your business, so it doesn’t have to make your retail store suffer.  Try offering special coupons during checkout of your retail shop for the customer’s next online purchase, and vice-versa, offer a special coupon on your website for in-store purchases.  Feature exclusive items in-store and different exclusive items on the website only.

4. Go to the presses.

Launching (or relaunching) a new website is news!  Write a press release about your new website and how exceptional it is.  Explain the amazing reasons behind why you chose to branch into online sales and what kind of wonderful experience customers can expect when shopping online with you.  Distribute your press release with a marketing consultant and resources like PR Web, or consult your SEO provider to work that content into your SEO marketing plan.

5. Build your SEO campaign.

Search engine optimization is important and you just cannot ignore it. Hire a reliable, proven SEO professional to build a strategy that will drive traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines to your website.  Learn more about WEBii SEO Services.

6. Maintain your website catalog.

When the visitor reaches your website, what will they see that engages them and urges them to buy?  Update your website (especially the homepage) periodically with new products or specials.  Make sure your catalog is updated regularly with accurate in-stock merchandise and the latest pricing.  Include a striking image (when possible) with each product so the customer understands immediately what you are selling and how great it looks.

6.b. Product images mean something.

I realize that images are not always shot by a professional photographer.  If you can afford to hire a photographer, do. You won’t regret it – because those photos can really help sell your product.  Granted, several website I have worked on have been successful with pretty decent photos taken by a graphic designer or a store owner.  If you are selling a virtual product, such as a class or a seminar, try to find a quality photo that compliments that.  Online shoppers are very visual and very impatient.  Having a photo of your instructor, your classroom, a happy customer – something, is better than a blank background.   One of our clients sells fitness bootcamps online, and in the early days we had photos of fitness gear posted with those product pages; later as their business grew and they gathered more actual photos of the bootcamps, we started using some of those photos of the instructors and customers in action.

The same goes for SEO activity. Focusing content on key words or referencing current events along with your business, can direct traffic to your website. Having knowledge of what keywords will help your business’s web presence grow is a great start.

If you were to go to a search engine and type in a word relevant to your company’s industry and the area you are located, is your site in one of the top three spots, or even on the first page? If not, you may want to consider asking yourself what are they doing that I am not?

More likely than not, they are better utilizing SEO. One tool that may help garner better results is by starting and maintaining a blog. Blogs are effective on two fronts, not only do they generate traffic if they are keyword rich, but they also grant your customers a glimpse into your business, personality, and ideas. 

Even though search engines ultimately determine where your site is ranked, remember that they are not the ones who support your business. Always keep in touch with customers, old and new, so that you will grow on and offline.

A great way to get in touch with Webii is through our Facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/webiinet. ‘Like’ us today!

If you have any questions regarding SEO, we will be happy to answer them and provide a free evaluation and proposal for your website!

Though Facebook’s relevance and presence in the social media market is more strongly felt than any other, the sheer magnitude of this iconic site has begun to diminish the original exclusivity that it was born from.

This has created a dilemma for some users. As in real life, you may be friends with many people, but you do not want to share every conversation, photo, video, or memory with all of them. The same can be said for social networking world as well.

Enter Google+. In an attempt to cater to those needs, Google  launched a trial version of its new social networking site. The  main feature that distinguishes Google+ is “Circles”. Circles allow the user to allocate friends into groups for a limited sharing experience so that not everyone sees every comment, photo, or video that you to share.

Another new feature on Google+ that will help differentiate itself from Facebook
is “Sparks”. Sparks is linked to Google’s search engine and after telling Sparks what you are interested in (by typing in information like you would for a Google search) it  streams information to you and the people within your circle based upon common interests.  Sparks provides results for products, events, or anything that one has shown interest in. These results can in turn be easily shared with others in their Circle.

The combination of these two features seem to further enhance the necessity for your site to have strong SEO capabilities. Since Sparks is connected to Google’s search engine, page rank especially on Google, would obviously be an important factor, but it may not be the entire story.

In a recent article by Barry Schwartz, he noted that he had spoken with Dewitt Clinton of Google on this very topic. Here is the response he received in regard to how Sparks results will be generated, “Still very much in flux and being further expanded and tuned….but this is very early still.”

Since it is still in the test phase only time will tell how valuable of a resource this will be, but one thing that is evident is the necessity for your site to be visible on search engines especially in an age where search results will not only be sought out by the consumer, but also suggested to them based on their searches, interests, and needs as well.

You can still manage other “blogs” on separate websites, which will help with your link building strategy (good organic SEO).

Some people might tell you that certain dynamic website technologies make your website “bad for SEO”.  But, languages like PHP can actually make your website more efficient and easier to manage – which is good for SEO.

It is the way you build your website overall, strategically and with visible content, that makes your website search-engine-friendly. Quality content is the foundation of your SEO worthiness.  PHP is just one of many technologies used to build websites in a dynamic way – to pull and display content from a database-driven application, for example.

Sometimes, the url (or “path”) of a page will look a bit lengthy and unattractive. Such as: www.webii.net/blog/12345?=123.php

This is not quite as SEO-friendly as we would like.  But there are simple ways to improve the urls of your website, by using either a built-in custom url option inside of your software (like WordPress or Joomla) or by adding an SEO-friendly URL module to your software (such as with Drupal and Path Auto), or by using mod_rewrite features of the web server and modifying .htaccess files.

Sometimes this URL issue alone is what causes people to panic and say “PHP is not seo-friendly”.  This is simply untrue.  In fact, many other languages like ASP any other database applications can have numerical or forumla looking url structures, and they too can be modified with some work.  There are some challenges if the web hosting server does not support the ability to modify the urls (if the server does not support mod_rewrite), so in some cases you need to work with your web host to accommodate this.

So, how can you stand out among the competition and improve your ranking with SEO? The answer is keywords.

According to SEOMoz, keywords are

“fundamental to the search process–they are the building blocks of language and of search. In fact, the entire science of information retrieval…is based on keywords.”

From an Internet user (or consumer) perspective, keywords are the terms and phrases entered into a search engine to find information. For example, a consumer might enter “specialty landscaping Austin” (known as a keyphrase) into Google to find a local landscaping service. From a web developer (or business owner) perspective, keywords are the terms and phrases implemented throughout a website and utilized in an SEO campaign to help the search engine crawlers find a website. Basically, properly implementing keywords helps to make sure that when users search “specialty landscaping Austin,” your website related to that subject appears high in the search results list.

The keywords you decide to use for your campaign do not appear out of nowhere. A strong keyword list is built from keyword research. The first step in keyword research is understanding your audience. Who do you want to find your website? People in different audience segments may perform searches in different ways. For example, if your website is a database of job openings for engineers, you will want to take into consideration that job applicants and employers will be searching different terms, i.e. “engineering job listings” vs. “post engineering jobs.” Another aspect of keyword research involves understanding your competition. What keywords does your competition rank highly for? How can you tailor keywords, or make keywords more specific to separate yourself from the competition. Finally, it’s also useful to evaluate the search volume of the keywords you are considering. Are your proposed keywords actually being searched for? Are there atleast more than 50 searches a month?

Your research will help you build a strong list of keywords. Keywords tailored to your audience(s), keywords that help you set your website apart from the competition, and keywords that are actually being searched by users.

The keyword research phase of your SEO campaign is on-going, and the success of your  SEO campaign depends greatly on monitoring successful keywords, and removing unsuccessful keywords from your list. Your keyword list is dynamic. Once it is created, it should be updated to reflect changes in the SEO campaign.

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page, used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set.

What? Larry Page?  Gee, I thought it was something about a Google index page. Interesting, isn’t it?

In SEO it is enlightening to periodically run a ranking report of the website to get a picture of how the site is ranking for certain terms over periods of time.  This helps us gauge how “relevant” the page is according to what changes or enhancements we have made to it – basically, what is working or what isn’t making an impact.