Writing for Search Engines - Live from SES Sweden 2004

[rustybrick]

Heather Lloyd-Martin was up first, her grandparents were from Sweden. What is successful SEO copywriting? (1) Boosts rankings, (2) increases conversion rates and (3) increases site ROI. She finds that most prospects are missing a focus on a specific keyword phrase for an individual page. Heather also finds lots of short and stubby copy, which is bad for many reasons. An other common downfall of many pages is that the pages do not convert, due to the content on the page. An other issue found often are pages filled with links, just too overwhelming. The most common problem are pages without text, flash pages, or pages with text but in an image.

Heather's three tips, (1) picking good keywords, (2) longer text, and (3) smart writing strategy. In addition, the bonus tip on how to control the description found in Google's SERPs, as much as you can.

Jill Whalen was next up and starts off with some basics about how to do keyword research. She then goes into why each page needs to target a specific keyword phrase. Don't use text in graphics, users come first, be descriptive, location is important, keyword phrases (not just words), plural and past tense, and bonus phrases. Search engines dont read graphics, alt attribute can help, html editors stink (might turn all text into a graphic), flash is not too readable, comment tags is not helpful and PDFs are indexable.

Side note: Sorry for my notes being short here, I have been up for 30+ hours.

[Jill Whalen]

Just to clarify...

I didn't say that HTML editors stink.

I said beware of some WSIWYG editors that turn your html text into a graphic. (Most don't do this, but you need to beware of those that do.)

[NFFC]

>I said beware of some WSIWYG editors that turn your html text into a graphic.

Which ones would those be?

[Jill Whalen]

Well, the worst culprit I've ever seen is MS Publisher. Just wasn't made for doing Web pages, but that doesn't seem to stop a newbie every now and then!

[rustybrick]

Just to clarify...

I didn't say that HTML editors stink.

I said beware of some WSIWYG editors that turn your html text into a graphic. (Most don't do this, but you need to beware of those that do.)

Sorry Jill. I guess I let my own feelings slip in. I personally feel all HTML editors stink. :)


Sorry again.

[Jill Whalen]

So you use notepad?

I personally feel that many WYSIWYG editors are not the greatest, but there are many great HTML editors that save tons of time as opposed to using notepad or the like.

I still use my 1994 copy of WebEdit. It's all I ever use.

At any rate, that statement in my presentation was just one tiny mention in the whole thing...kind of a funny one for you to pick up to mention in your coverage.

[Jill Whalen]

Just reread what you originally wrote.

I also never said that each page needs to target a specific keyword phrase. That makes it sound like I advocate optimizing for only one phrase per page.

I don't. Minimally I like 3 phrases. Ocassionally just 2 phrases per page, but often it can be as many as 5 if they're similar.

[rustybrick]

Sorry for not being thorough in covering your presentation. To be honest, I hear that session 3 times. I know that is not an excuse, but that is the reason for my lazy coverage. Next time I will do better. But it is wonderful to have you here fixing my mistake. I sincerely apologize.

I personally do not do much coding, my staff does. When I do, I use BBEdit (for Mac) which colors the syntax of the code. Its an advanced text editor.

My programmers use a mix of NotePad, BBEdit and mostly Zend Studio. So all html is pretty much done by hand.

[Heather Lloyd-Martin]

Side note: Sorry for my notes being short here, I have been up for 30+ hours.

Oh, I so understand that comment! I was operating on about 5 hours sleep the entire time I was there! It was a good time - but I'm glad that I didn't fall asleep while I was on stage!

Thanks for the coverage - and it was great finally meeting you! :)

[rustybrick]

Oh, I so understand that comment! I was operating on about 5 hours sleep the entire time I was there! It was a good time - but I'm glad that I didn't fall asleep while I was on stage!

Thanks for the coverage - and it was great finally meeting you! :)

Really, you sure fooled me. Your expression and emotion during your presentation was borderline explosive (as much as an SEO content speech can be explosive ;) ).

It was a pleasure meeting you as well. See you all in Chicago. :)

[Heather Lloyd-Martin]

Really, you sure fooled me. Your expression and emotion during your presentation was borderline explosive (as much as an SEO content speech can be explosive ;) ).


Hehe, thanks! Of course, the two lattes right before I hit the stage probably helped! Not sure if I could have done it any other way! ;)

See you in Chicago!

[Artyom]

Sorry Jill. I guess I let my own feelings slip in. I personally feel all HTML editors stink. :)


Sorry again.

Do you know about TSW html coder? Breeze and full-functional at the same time :) I just love it and hardly can find any reason why to stick with notepad for the entire life... :)