Long before the turkeys start shivering and Santa Claus takes his red suit to the dry cleaners, businesses should begin preparing for holiday profits. Leveraging your web content provider allows you to capitalize on powerful marketing materials, while giving you the time needed to focus on the core of your business operations.
From penning holiday prose to composing cheerful newsletters, your web content provider is a creative resource for marketing ideas. Consider the myriad of ways your freelance writer can help you prepare for the bounty of holiday sales.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner, now is the time to begin preparing for the bounty of holiday sales!
Read moreMicrosoft hopes that Bing, their “decision” search engine, can chip away at Google, the goliath of search engines. In August, Bing held 10.7% of the search engine market, while Yahoo fell 4% to 16% of the market share. Google slipped, but still retained a 64.6% share, according to The Nielsen Co.
Preliminary polls estimate that Bing will eventually capture 15% to 30% of search engine users – making Bing a strong competitor against Google. In addition, if Yahoo and Microsoft’s proposed partnership can pass antitrust inspections, be prepared for Bing to shake Google’s dominance.
Is Your Website Indexed in Bing?
While most webmasters currently tailor their search engine optimization strategies to Google’s algorithm, Bing’s foray into the search market will change the SEO playing field. Taking steps now to optimize your website for Bing will help you capitalize on their battle against Google. The first step is to verify that Bing is indeed indexing your website.
Once you have taken these two preliminary steps, then it is time to delve into Bing SEO, also nicknamed DEO (decision engine optimization).
Bing vs. Google: SEO Discrepancies
In reviewing Bing’s Webmaster Center, many of their published SEO guidelines are very similar, if not identical, to Google. Like Google, Bing evaluates the quality of your website based upon content, keyword relevance, and backlinks. However, there are discrepancies between Bing and Google to keep in mind.
Some elements of Bing’s algorithm, such as weighting your domain’s age, leave you little room for SEO techniques. However, hiring a freelance SEO writer to create informative specialized web pages, cleaning up your code, and continuing to build quality backlinks are easy steps you can take to optimize for Bing.
Could Bing be the “David” that brings Goliath Google to its demise? Only time and effective search results will tell, but with preparation, at least your website can be successful, regardless of who wins the battle.
Read moreSanta Claus is coming to town – but if he can’t find you online, you should check your SEO list twice.
Too many businesses wait until November or December to begin adding SEO content to their websites. Alas, paying a freelance writer to create content during the late holiday season may not maximize the SEO benefits. The search engines can take weeks, if not months, to fully spider and index new content on your website, especially if you do not make updates regularly.
When to Start for SEO’s Sake
Creating your holiday content in August or September will maximize the Christmas cheer your bottom line enjoys in December. By starting early, the search engines have ample time to crawl your website and update their search results. While starting your holiday SEO efforts early may take planning on your part, the rewards are certainly worthwhile – both in the sense of increased holiday sales and decreased advertising costs, such as expensive PPC campaigns that spike in cost near Christmas.
Content to Optimize for Search Claus
There are a variety of strategies your freelance writer can employ to optimize your holiday content, including:
While the sun may be shining and your tan has not begun fading, now is the time to begin optimizing for the holiday season. By planning ahead, you can ensure that your bottom line will not cry or pout this year when Santa Claus comes to your town.
Read moreWhile the sun may be cheerfully shining outside, retailers and Wall Street investors are facing the gloomy height of the summer doldrums. If your revenues are currently in the summer slumps, consider utilizing the power of social networks to jumpstart your sales. With a freelance writer by your side, you can connect with existing and potential customers and help the sun shine on your bottom line.
Capitalize on Social Network Users – Whose Numbers Have Doubled Since 2007
According to Forrester Research, 55.6 million adults, or one third of the American population, regularly visit social networks. In fact, social networks are used more frequently than even instant messaging!
Based upon the number of monthly visits thus far in 2009, the five most popular social networks are:
With all this impressive data in mind, how can your online business capitalize on the surging popularity of social networks?
Connect with Your Existing Customers and Develop Lifelong Loyalty
Indeed, it is much more cost-effective to retain an existing customer than to attract a new one. Social networks present you with a fantastic opportunity to develop a closer relationship with your existing customer base. When you connect with your customers on a personal level, you foster a deeper loyalty – which translates well for your repeat business revenues.
By communicating with your existing clients through your social network accounts, you give them a glimpse into the personalized workings of your business. Whether you ask your freelance writer to post about new products, compose amusing stories of experiences around the office, or host giveaways, social networks allow you to connect with your customers on an entirely new level.
On your website’s blog and in the footer of your emails, place an icon of your particular social network and invite your customers to become your “friends.” Before you know it, you will develop a league of followers that translates into a stronger bottom line for you.
Publish “Linkbait” Articles to Find New Customers – Hook, Line, and Sinker
Linkbait articles, which can be funny, controversial, or a highly useful resource, remain one of the foremost ways to generate exposure and new customers for online businesses. Your freelance writer composes a linkbait article specifically to garner the interest of social network users. This is the type of content that becomes viral, spreading to thousands of potential customers who may have otherwise never visited your website.
Once your freelance writer composes the linkbait article, simply post it on your social network profile. Or you can publish the article directly on your website and “Tweet,” “Digg” or “Stumble” the content, bringing traffic directly to your website from the social networks.
Use Incentives to Power the Momentum of Your Social Networking Efforts
Give your social network “friends” reasons to consistently stay abreast of your activities. Consider hosting regular giveaways through your social networking profiles to stay in the forefront of users’ minds. Encourage users to check your profile regularly through incentives. For example, you can offer all customers who mention the coupon code “Facebook” free shipping. When you entice the social networks with giveaways and incentives, your following can only grow stronger.
Social networks are a powerful marketing tool just waiting to be tapped this summer. Enlist your freelance writer’s prose, don your creative giveaway cap, and you are quickly on your way to sunnier revenues!
Read moreContent reigns as the internet king – but who is helping you build your online business kingdom? While many would like to become your freelance writer squire, not all word-wielders are created equal. Before you give any freelance writer a dubbing ceremony, make sure the powers of her pen will maximize your website’s branding, exposure, and revenue potential.
Solidify Your Specific Content Needs
Before you begin your search for a freelance writer, take a moment to reflect upon your content needs. The more you fully understand your content aspirations, the more precisely you can hone your quest in finding the perfect freelance writer. There are two overarching elements to consider in your content planning process:
How to Evaluate Freelance Writers
With your branding style and content goals in mind, you can begin reviewing prospective freelance writers. Keep in mind that most freelance writers specialize in a particular genre or niche, ranging from fiction to SEO web content. Choosing the right freelance writer means hiring one whose specialty is in line with your specific needs.
The right freelance writer can be a powerful addition to your online kingdom’s round table. By choosing an ideal wordsmith, you can tap into the powerful potential of the internet and maximize your bottom line.
Read moreCommunication is more than a line of nouns, verbs, and adjectives strung together with punctuation. Instead, communication should be focused on achieving a goal, whether it is eliciting an emotional response or enlightening the reader with interesting information.
The power of written prose is especially important online, where you do not have body language, voice tones, and facial expressions upon which to rest your communication laurels. With this in mind, there are three time-tested strategies that can certainly help you and your business communicate better online.
Trust that Your English Teacher was Right about W/C
Your English teacher’s red pen was right – at least about the dreaded editing abbreviation, w/c, otherwise known as word choice. Passive and bland words are not sufficient online, where the reader’s attention is easily swayed by millions of competing websites. Instead, you should always look for more powerful alternatives. Is the sweater you are selling light blue in color, or is it a Hawaiian teal? Do you want your customer to “shop at our spring sale,” or “enjoy discounts up to 50% at our spring sale extravaganza?” To communicate better, the first step is to choose words that are powerful, create an image in the reader’s mind, and deliver your message.
Communicate with the Finish Line in Sight
In business, the success of your communication is measured by the numbers of increased sales and revenues. With this in mind, it is critical to ensure that your freelance writer or SEO writer completely understands the goals you wish the content to achieve. Are you attempting to garner trust and authority in the industry? Would you like to convert visitors into paying customers? Is your goal to cement your clients’ brand loyalty? These goals are each served by very distinct types of content. To communicate better, you must understand your goal and convey it clearly to your freelance writer or SEO writer.
Speak Only to Busy People
Internet users are notorious for their short attention spans. With the incredible plethora of information available online, it is no surprise that internet visitors are finicky and have expectations of finding the content they need instantaneously.
To communicate better with online users, you must speak with a busy person in mind. Would you elaborate painstaking details to a busy CEO? How long would your elevator pitch to a Wall Street broker be? Keep your online content concise, and you will capture the attention of the internet user. Make use of sub-headings, lists, and bullet points, and you make the busy internet visitor’s reading task even easier.
The websites that communicate better than their competitors understand the psychological power of word choice, the importance of driving home their end goal, and the short attention span of internet users. With these perspectives in your arsenal, it’s time for your content to communicate better.
Read moreIn the SEO pie, backlinks take up many slices of importance. As the primary method in which Google differentiated the quality of its search results from its competitions in the early dotcom days, backlinks are particularly utilized by Google to determine the legitimacy, relevancy, and authority of a particular website.
How can you, dedicated webmaster and business owner, improve the strength of your website’s backlinks? Before you embark upon your link building campaign, keep in mind that quality should always be first and foremost. For example, a dozen quality backlinks are much stronger for your SEO endeavors than thousands of PR 0 or PR 1 links.
With that said, there are three legitimate strategies that you can utilize to enhance the strength of your backlinks.
Befriend the Social Networks
Web 2.0 has been a godsend for link building campaigns. Each time an article or blog post on your website gets submitted to the social networks, you enjoy a backlink to your website. The more people that vote, “Digg” or “Stumbleupon” your content, the stronger the results for both your traffic and SEO efforts.
However, with so many webmasters and publishers submitting content to the social networks, how can your website rise to the top – or rather, the front page of social networks? The answer lies within the catchphrase “linkbait.” There is no fishing or phishing involved in this strategy, but only interesting, catchy content that will garner the short attention spans of the average social network user. Have your freelance SEO writer compose a piece that is controversial, highly resourceful, creative, or funny to increase the chances of sitting on the front page of the social networks.
Be Generous with Your Knowledge
If you have niche experience or unique knowledge, then sharing your wisdom can reap rewards for your SEO efforts. You can publish a white paper, “how to” article series, or a report that others can download for free. Bloggers and publishers in your industry will be keen to offer value to their readers – meaning that they are looking to link to interesting, unique information.
Even if writing is not your forte, you can convey a list of ideas to your freelance writer, who can compose the prose that will garner you the industry backlinks you seek.
Lean on the Traditional Article Directories
Last but not least, the traditional article directories are still a reliable source of generating backlinks to your website. While there are literally thousands of article directories today, submitting your content to ones that have high Page Ranks will build powerful one-way backlinks to your website. Remember to hyperlink your important keywords in the resources box to maximize the SEO impact of article directory submissions, rather than simply listing the URL.
By taking advantage of these legitimate strategies, you can indeed have your SEO cake and eat it too!
Read moreFrom Coca-Cola and GM to Southwest Airlines and Marriott, companies everywhere are jumping on the blogging bandwagon. In fact, 60 Fortune 500 companies publish blogs on their websites. Even Martha Stewart is blogging!
Reach Out and Virtually Touch Your Customers
Blogging continues to be a very powerful branding strategy, one that may be even more promising than advertising campaigns. What other medium gives you direct, unadulterated contact with your customers? TV, radio, print, and even PPC ads all feature one-way communication. In contrast, through the prose penned on a company blog, you can connect with your customers on a personal level, giving your target audience a chance to comment and provide feedback.
In addition, blogging is a powerful and affordable way to reinforce your branding strategy. For example, Southwest Airlines’ “Nuts about Southwest Blog” publishes humorous, personality-infused posts about new events and corporate culture that continue to extend its quirky branding strategy, while simultaneously connecting on a personal level with passengers.
With the branding benefits of blogging (no alliteration intended), how can you market and maximize the impact of your company’s blog?
Steer Clear of Advertising
While it may seem counterintuitive, you should not use your blog posts as an opportunity to advertise – at least, blatantly. Instead, the most successful corporate blogs provide interesting value and personal insight. For example, in a recent entry, Bill Marriott blogged about how the recession is impacting Marriot Hotels and what all companies can do to effectively cut costs to stay profitable. Coca-Cola’s historian Phil Mooney shares interesting tidbits of information about the beverage company’s illustrious past. Martha Stewart becomes even more endearing when she shares photos of her kitchen and the adventures of her adorable French bulldogs.
The common thread that runs through all of these corporate blogs is that they are not utilizing the platform to blatantly advertise or toot their own proverbial horn. Instead, through sharing personal insights and interesting information, they are building brand affinity, a strategy that allows the customer to feel a deeper connection with the company.
With brand affinity created through your blog posts, you don’t need to vulgarly advertise. For example, if you read Bill Marriott’s post about the fact that he is personally cutting 75% of his 2009 salary to minimize the number of employees that need to be laid off, wouldn’t you want to naturally make a reservation at a Marriott Hotel because you feel a personal connection with Bill? Or if you read Southwest Airline’s blog and have been keeping track of flight attendants Jodi and Christie on The Amazing Race, wouldn’t you feel inclined to click the “ding” button on the right sidebar to make a reservation? None of these blogs blatantly promote their businesses, but the subtle, humanizing connection translates into a healthier bottom line.
Whether you compose your own blogging prose or hire a freelance writer to express your thoughts, one fact is certain: your corporate blog can lead you right into the hearts and pocketbooks of your customers!
Read moreAs a webmaster, you suffer from a 90% probability that your website will fail. Popular statistics estimate that 9 out of 10 new websites close their proverbial web doors every year. While poor business acumen can be blamed, there are several other reasons why so many webmasters’ dreams are virtually shattered each year.
Paucity of Content
Too many websites have failed because of a sheer lack of content. Without content, how will the search engines index your website? What will visitors read and see once the flashy intro has concluded?
The only adage that has stayed relevant since the birth of the internet through Web 2.0 days is “content is king.” While other SEO strategies have come and gone, the value of content cannot be understated.
Publishing useful, valuable content serves two strategies: establishing your website’s validity in your visitors’ eyes and harnessing the power of SEO. An abundance of original, unique content remains a foremost factor for improving your Page Rank and search results. To aid in your endeavors, you can always hire an affordable SEO content writer, which is an investment that will certainly pay dividends in the future.
Virtual Staleness
You would never visit a bakery should its goods be stale. Your website is no different! If your website remains stale, without fresh content or regular updates, what reason would visitors have to return to your website? Even more importantly, why would the search engines return to index your website if nothing ever changes? After all, even spiders don’t like stale goods.
Your website is an entity that is constantly evolving. Just like you can’t give birth to a baby and never parent the child again, you cannot simply launch your website without regularly shaping its growth. To make your life as a parenting webmaster easier, you can always hire a “babysitter,” or SEO content writer, to add fresh articles to your website that will help it grow.
Remember, the more regularly you update your website with meaningful content, the more frequently the search bots will visit – translating into more indexed pages and improved search results.
Sluggish Communication
Too many websites fail because the webmasters cannot manage timely communication. If you do not respond to your emails and messages promptly, then you can essentially wish regulars visitors farewell. In a world where nine out of ten websites die, visitors will correlate the speediness of your communication with whether or not your website is “alive.”
The internet is open 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. In a lighting-speed environment, everyone expects timely communication. Promptly manage your inbox and messages, and you will be able to develop a rapport that will lead to return visitors.
Weak Keyword Choice
Keywords act as road signs that guide visitors into your website. In today’s competitive web environment, however, there are millions of billboard signs competing for the same traffic.
To direct visitors to your property, you must ensure that your keywords are powerful and effective road signs for your website. The more specific you can be, the more effectively you can reach your target audience. There is tremendous competition amidst today’s saturated web environment, and you want to ensure that you are not needlessly competing for general keywords that may not generate increased traffic to your website.
For example, if your website will sell couture ladies foot apparel, then you do not want to simply optimize for the generic keywords of shoes, sandals, and sneakers. Instead, you want to focus your keywords based upon how your high-end target audience searches for the latest designer shoes. In your keyword research, consider what your typical client would type into the search engine, such as “Christian Louboutin pumps,” “Jimmy Choo sandals,” or even “wedding shoes.” These keywords are much more effective than simply attempting to compete for rankings for the generic keywords of “shoes” and “sandals.”
Capitalize upon smart keywords, fresh and extensive SEO content, and responsive customer support to catapult your online presence into the 10% of websites that DO succeed every year!
Read moreSimply because your customers are tightening their purse strings does not force you to loosen customer loyalty. With the appropriate content development strategies, you can strengthen your customer relations and bottom line.
Most successful businesses see 80% of their revenues derived from 20% of their loyal customers, and keeping a customer is exponentially more affordable than attempting to attract new ones. With that said, consider incorporating these three content development strategies to cement your profitable customer loyalty bonds.
Ensure Your Content Development Brings Pocketbook Value
In a time where consumers are only spending on the necessities, it is important that your content clearly highlights how much value your products and services bring to their pocketbooks.
For example, if you sell beauty products online, then your content development should resoundingly show how much value the purchase yields to the client. Your content development copy could read, “Our luxurious algae mask rivals the ingredients found in high-end spas. Bring this indulgent mask home at a fraction of the cost of visiting a spa, and you have enough nutritious ingredients to enjoy 15 home facials. Save the $1,000 you would have spent at the spa, and instead indulge yourself again and again in the privacy of your own home for only $50.”
By clearly demonstrating the value of your products, including how much you can help your clients “save,” you can develop further customer loyalty – and of course, additional sales.
Highlight Creative Repurposing Ideas in Your Content Development
Encouraging a customer to purchase from you becomes easier if you can show how many purposes your products can fill. Be very creative in your content development process and think outside of the cardboard box.
If you sell laptop carrying cases, for example, begin to explore other uses your products may fill. For example, could you cater to working mothers, showing them how your laptop bags can carry both their work documents and their babies’ necessities? Or could your laptop cases be repurposed into the perfect camera equipment tote, allowing photographers to enjoy two uses from one product?
Use your item descriptions as an opportunity to show clients exactly how many uses they can enjoy from your products. Incorporating this content development strategy will prompt customers to see your products in a more valuable light. In addition, they will most likely appreciate your creative and helpful suggestions, which again, will lead to future customer loyalty.
Involve Your Customers in Your Business
Human beings naturally want acceptance, recognition, and appreciation. If your company can meet these psychological needs, then you will enjoy lifelong customer loyalty. While there are a myriad of ways to fulfill your customers’ needs, one easy way is to involve them in your business.
For companies that publish a regular blog on their website, you can easily involve your customers and build their lifelong loyalty. In your content development process, think about how you can encourage your customers to participate in your business. For example, you can ask customers to send in pictures of them using your products, and you can feature one client each week on the blog. Hold a competition on the blog, where your customers submit different ideas on how they have repurposed your products. The customers with the best ideas enjoy a $10 gift certificate to your website, and you are also left with an arsenal of ideas to include in your product descriptions’ content development.
Reciprocity is an innate psychological reaction, and you can build your customer loyalty by clearly demonstrating how steadfast you are towards their needs and feedback.
Customer loyalty is the bread and butter of every business. Use these content development strategies and see your bottom line rise.
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