The quality of the content on your Website matters.

If you walked into a brick-and-mortar business office and noticed that the roof was leaking, the carpet was stained, and the furniture was out of date, would that affect your opinion of effectiveness and quality of the business? Of course it would! Environment matters, and in the world of online business, your Website design and content are your environment.

(That’s why it pays to hire a professional content copywriter or content editor to manage your Website’s content production.)

The excerpt below is from an article that discusses how costly content errors can be for online businesses. Click the link at the bottom to read the full original article.

“When communicating online, almost every message you make is done by written word. This is the main reason that it is essential that your website content be original and error-free.   Quality content can create an inherent trust in site visitors that leads to more conversions and profit. In order to stand out from the competition, you need to appear like an established authority on your subject matter. This is why the quality of your website content should not be ignored or dismissed as trivial.   When improper spelling on a website is fixed, it has been shown to increase sales as much as 100%. A single spelling or grammar mistake in your text can lead people to be wary of some sort of scam, sending potential customers running.”
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If you’re new to integrating SEO into your blog or Website, this article (see link below) provides basic beginner-level tips to get started. While we believe that it’s important to integrate SEO into your content, we also are not die-hard SEO supporters to the extreme. First and foremost, you should write your content for living, breathing human beings who will be visiting your Website- not for the Google bots.

However, just like it’s a good idea for a car manufacturer to pay attention to optimal gas mileage, where to place the cup holders, and what size tires and rims are popular when building a new car, it’s important for online businesses to consider SEO and keywords before, during and after the content creation phase of developing a Website.

SEO is a tool- it is not the core of your Website. Your content is the meat and potatoes of your online business.

“If the content is the King, we can say SEO is the Queen.”

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Have you ever wondered if anyone ever really reads your About page on your Website. Well, the resounding answer from online consumers is, “YES!”

In fact, some consumers say that a Website’s About page is so important that if they don’t like what they read (or if the About page is missing) they won’t return to that particular Website. Click the link below this post to read more from an original article about how important your About page really is.

And, if you need to beef up your About page (or add one to your Website), we offer special pricing for creating a single About page for businesses. Contact us to find out more.

“How important is the ‘About’ page on your blog?”
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Are you struggling with writing email newsletters for your business? Newsletters are an effective and inexpensive way to market your business, but crafting a quality newsletter can be a daunting task.

If you need professional assistance in writing a stunning newsletter campaign that will draw consumers to your online business, try hiring a professional copywriter, or you can read these newsletter tips from the original article linked below.

“Here are four best practices to help ensure your business and your customers benefit from email newsletters.”
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Slogan writing is one of those tasks that seems simple… until you actually attempt it. With a blank page or a blinking cursor staring back at you, it’s easy to waste hours trying to craft the perfect effective slogan only to end up with a long list of mediocre slogan and a wastebasket full of crumpled ideas.

The excerpt below is from an article at Inc.com that lists solid tips for crafting effective slogan- like the big dogs. Click the link to read the full original article.

“A slogan is the most important advertisement a company can have. Follow these five tips and you’ll have an excellent tagline in no time.”
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We use Gmail for everything (at least it seems like it) here in the office. In fact, the whole Google suite of apps and services is pretty instrumental in how smoothly things run from day to day. Google announced a new offline feature that allows you to work with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs without an Internet connection.

While this feature may not be useful for many of you urbanites (who have Wi-Fi coming out your ears), us rural folk are thrilled to hear this. This means I can take my iPad outside under a nice shade tree and work on my schedule without interruptions from social media sites and without worrying about toting along a HotSpot. That equals pure joy in my book.

Here’s the official announcement:

“The great thing about web apps is that you can access all of your information on the go, and we’ve introduced ways to use Google Apps on a variety of devices like mobile phones and tablets. But it’s inevitable that you’ll occasionally find yourself in situations when you don’t have an Internet connection, like planes, trains and carpools.

When we announced Chromebooks at Google I/O 2011, we talked about bringing offline access to our web apps, and now we’re taking our first steps in that direction. Gmail offline will be available today, and offline for Google Calendar and Google Docs will be rolling out over the next week, starting today.

 

Gmail Offline is a Chrome Web Store app that’s intended for situations when you need to read, respond to, organize and archive email without an internet connection. This HTML5-powered app is based on the Gmail web app for tablets, which was built to function with or without web access. After you install the Gmail Offline app from the Chrome Web Store, you can continue using Gmail when you lose your connection by clicking the Gmail Offline icon on Chrome’s “new tab” page.”

 

How will offline access affect your productivity?
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Is your Twitter followers group filled with spammers, lonely people, and newbies? Do you feel like no one actually reads your Tweets? The problem may lie in what you are Tweeting… and how you are Tweeting it.

There’s an unspoken rule to Tweeting that many people seem to have forgotten in all the excitement of following, followers, and tons of information moving at the speed of light across your Twitter stream-

what you tweet reflects who you are, as a business professional and as a human being.

2 Hard and Fast Rules for Using Twitter

1. NEVER post anything you didn’t read yourself. If you can’t be bothered to click through and read it, why should anyone else? This also helps avoid posting links to articles with great headlines but spammy content, which adversely affects your reputation on Twitter.

2. Twitter REQUIRES interaction. If you expect to just post 900 links to your own content everyday and everyone will fall in love with your blog (and you)… well, let’s just say you probably have more serious problems in life than a crappy following on Twitter. Get to know a few folks on Twitter. Exchange morning pleasantries. Say please and thank you and give credit where credit is due. Engage people in conversations about their posts, their businesses, or their lives. Twitter is not a soapbox or a soap opera where you are the star of the show. Take time to interact with others.

Which one is your favorite?

 
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Productivity tools are always a welcome addition in my office, as long as they actually increase productivity and not slow me down. I’m currently loving StawberryJ.am from this list at Problogger. Which ones are you using?

“This guest post is by Leo Widrich of Buffer. After Google+ entered the social networking scene not so long ago, …”

 
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From Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone, here are the 7 essential elements of effective social media marketing.

1. Get your home base together

2. Who’s the face of your business?

3. Who else has your customers?

4. Pick a primary platform

5. Manage your time

6. Content first, conversation second

7. Don’t forget SEO

As an SEO copywriter, I especially like number seven. And while Darren Rowse had a guest poster a while back who knocked SEO copywriting pretty hard, I think taking a common sense approach to SEO copywriting is essential. You don’t have to fill your Website with senseless keyword-laden, awkward copy just to perform well on a SERP. Common sense should tell you to writer for your audience first, but pitch to the Search Engines as well. Quality SEO Copywriters know how to strike the perfect balance and still get the job done.

Here’s the opening from the original post. Click through the link to read for the full article.

“So in the past few weeks, we’ve told you it’s a bad idea to be a digital sharecropper, building your business entirely on someone else’s land (like Facebook, Tumblr, or any other third party you don’t control)”

 
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Jim Connolly claims that the key to getting a more profitable client list is to get specific by marketing to your target audience, which is always solid marketing advice.

Who is your target audience?
“The way to build a great client list, is to feed your business with high quality leads, from your ideal profile of client….”
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Are you considering using a blog platform as your main company Website? You should. Blogs are great for SEO purposes and help to attract industry-specific readers, visitors, and customers. If you’re looking for a few tips on using your blogs as a business Website, or if you’re still on the fence, this post is a must-read.

“Using a blog as a main website make sense for many types of businesses for many reasons: (Some powerful tips when you are writing a blog…”
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