The impact of copy writing on your SEO and SERP's

This blog post discusses some of the very many issues associated with your copy writing and getting Good SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) due to the associated #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that reach out from your in-page copy writing into your #OPSEO  (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) through Good well manged social media marketing of your online content.  

The semantic foot print associated with your #FUFISM based marketing is the primary driver of the many semantically linked SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) that benefit significantly from ensuring that your online content gets the necessary social media attention  as well as the required link building and associated relationship building attention.

This post came about due to a comment that I left on a post by +Michael Q Todd   which you can find here  

Copy writing is a very serious issue and needs to be done with your intended target audience in mind.

Your content should be laid out and written for your intended target audience and not a search engine. This does not mean that you should ignore the search engine, but that the interests of your intended target audience should come first, with user friendly in-page navigation and links (Call To Action Statements) to in-page book marks as well as off page points where the conversation and topics may be expanded further.

The SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issues associated with copy writing are very complicated and need to be approached from a #FUFISM  perspective. The issues listed below need to be in place to assist the copy writer in laying out the content as well as putting the content into the correct perspective so that your *TOPIC TARGETING*  and related key word research can be used in the correct context for maximum impact, through the use of in-page book marks, as well as off page links that expand specific in-page topics, and keep the end user (your viewer) engaged and topic focused.

1. a document discussing  the purpose aims and objectives of the page in question
2. List of links to related pages that have already been published, along with the documented issues of

• who is the target audience of these pages, as they may be different from the page in question
• documented purpose, aims and objectives of these pages, as they may be very different from the page in question.
• documented key word research and associated demographics of intended target market for these pages as well as for the page in question so that these may be compared and any adjustments made with the connectivity between these pages as well as the social media marketing that would go along with the new page which is being evaluated for copy writing.
• list of page specific topics indicating topic targeted issues  to assist in key word research
• document discussing the sales / marketing funnel, clearly indicating at what point within the cycle the page in question is, as well as the primary landing page of the next step within the sales / marketing funnel.

These notes and associated documentation should later be available to the social media marketing team, so that they do not need to repeat any  research, but can take a little time to evaluate and make sensible use of this data when compiling their posts, and use the same TOPIC TARGETING as well as AUDIENCE TARGETING notes*

You do need to remember that SEO has two very separate components which are interconnected and intertwined in such a way that they are actually one single complex marketing issue.  These are  #IPSEO  (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) and  #OPSEO   (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation)

It is important to note that all social media marketing and link building as well as relationship building are directly connected to the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimization) first, and then become part of the Off Page Search Engine Optimisation (OPSEO)

It is thus evident that the copy writing of a web page or blog post is an awful lot more important than most marketing folks actually realise, as all your social media and related off page marketing are based around the actual copy within the web page in question, and the issue of *TOPIC TARGETING* needs to be well documented and carried through from the copy writing of the IN PAGE CONTENT to the RELATED OPM (Off Page Marketing)   Your Off Page Marketing, also referenced to as OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) or content marketing in many contexts,  should include but not be limited to :

1) social media posts on all platforms that you choose to use for this particular marketing campaign
2) any blog posts that may be associated with the online marketing of the page in question
3) any marketing of the page in question in classified adds including both online techniques as well as all off  line marketing avenues, which may include, but is definitely not limited to:

•  any news paper advertising,
•  any magazine or other print media advertising 
•  any radio or  audio visual marketing such as YouTube  videos or HOA's (Hangout On Air) that may be associated with this page and related pages within your web site.

Your in page  copy should include  short sentences, with no more than five sentences in any one paragraph,  ensuring that there is adequate paragraph spacing as this is a very important signal that search engines (Google in particular) use as part of their algorithm which evaluates user friendly behavior. User experience within your pages is becoming an increasingly important  #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) and readability is one of the major components here.  Short sentences and paragraph spacing are critical elements within the SEMANTIC SEARCH SPACE as well as user friendliness issues.

Any images that you may use  within the in-page layout should be topic related and contain well thought through in image META DATA such as

• key words list
• image description
• image title
• image alt text
• geo data if applicable
• image creator (photographer)
• publisher data
• other related meta data that may be applicable to these issues.

The META DATA included in your image needs to be well thought through by your graphic design team,  after consultation with the SEO manager, and be made available to the copywriter so as to ensure that  the context of the image is understood by both your target audience as well as the search engine algorithms which will use this meta data along with the associated semantic image issues,  which the search engine may have managed to extract from the image in terms of the new techniques used to identify individual in image entities and other image related semantics

This is also important from a SEMANTIC SEARCH  perspective as the in-image meta data is used along with each sentence, and the context of the paragraph where it is connected,  to form interconnected small key word chains,  that are evaluated by search engines to define and separate the individual entities within each separate sentence,  and then associate these unique identified digital entities with a variety of different entity specific  semantic foot prints.  These different digital entities and associated SEMANTIC FOOTPRINTS include but are not limited to

1. the author's semantic foot print if applicable as defined in the HTML code by the *REL = AUTHOR* tag
2. the registered publisher's semantic foot print as defined in the HTML code of the page through the *REL = PUBLISHER* tag
3. the semantic foot print of any blog as well as all individual blog posts that may be associated with the page in question or linked to this in-page content in some way.
4. the semantic foot print of any person, or identifiable digital entity  who  posts about this page with an embedded link to the page in their social media post, or shares a post that has an embedded link to the page in question.
5. the semantic foot print of any online community, with Google plus communities featuring better than most others,  where this page has an embedded link within a post that points to the web page in question, as well as any person, page or other digital entity who shares any such post.
6. the semantic foot print of any Google plus page which has a post that contains an embedded link to the page in question, as well as any digital entity who shares this post.
7. the semantic foot print of any web site or blog that has an embedded link to the page in question  which has come about as part of your link building efforts in terms of your SEO policies which may be in place.

These associated SEMANTIC FOOT PRINTS all form part and parcel of the SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which are used by  search engines  in evaluating a search query, which makes them IMPORTANT from an SEO perspective.

Copy writing does not get the credit that it deserves within the SEO community, and the Google Humming bird algorithm needs to be better understood by you and all others who are working on your project. 

READ MORE HUMMING BIRD  HERE

The Google Humming Bird algorithm was basically a re-write of the entire Google code around semantic issues allowing for the identification of individual digital entities to be understood and compared to real life individual entities such as people, places, artifacts, tools, natural items, man made items and so many more.

The Google Humming Bird Algorithm was introduced so that search could be better implemented with the understanding of which real life entity the end user of a search engine desires to know more about, and how the search engine can identify exactly which  online resource would best satisfy the end users information request.

Online search is indeed a very complicated affair, and you do need to take advice from all quarters, and evaluate which SEO tactics you can implement your self, and which you need assistance with so that you may implement better Search Engine Optimisation policies and procedures to get the best possible SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)


Copy writing thus has a very significant impact on your SERP's from a variety of angles where the semantics identified within the content of your copy writing are extended to other digital entities, and then connected back to your web site, where the impacts can be seen on many different areas including, but not limited to

• your domain rank
• the site rank of individual sub domains
• page rank of individual pages
• author and publisher related metrics
• domain trust factors
• key word and long tail search related metrics
• actual SERP rankings (Search engine Results Pages)

 

This blog post was made to expand on my personal comment in this post by +Michael Q Todd 

IPSEO - Topic targeteting for SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into two major sections the first is #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation and the second is #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.  These two sections are both important, with Off Page Search Engine Optimisation caring more weight than In page Search Engine Optimisation, how ever the In page stuff needs to be done first, and needs to be done correctly and with intent on ensuring that the correct set of key words and related information flow patterns around these selected key words is actually in-place, to suit the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question.

Key word targeting is not an easy task, as there are so many surrounding issues that need to be considered, and the subject matter needs to be clearly understood along with where in the sales / marketing funnel the page in question is considered to be.  Here questions  around the following issues, amongst many others,   need to be addressed.  You will know what these other issues are once you take the time to document and understand the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question.

• What is the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question
• is this a general information page
• is this page near the top of the marketing / sales funnel
• is this page near the bottom end of the sales / marketing funnel
• how many in page CTA's (Call to action) are important for the sales / marketing funnel's next stage
• is this page connected to a Google community (or other social media community) information drive
• what is the theme of the page in question, and where does it sit in the total marketing strategy
• issues that come up during key word research and target market matching
• copy writing  issues connected to target market and keyword matching 
• Who are your target audience, and why is this group considered to be your target audience.
• is this page part of your network building strategy
• is this page part of your link building strategy, and if so how does this fit in with other in-page issues

 Key word targeting is subservient to the issues around topic targeting, which is determined by the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question along with the marketing / sales funnel stage and related relationship building activities.  When a page has a clearly defined topic then key word selection is an awful lot easier, and copy writing will also be simpler.

Defining a topic for your page is not as easy as one would think, and there are many different issues that come to play, with copy-writing, and the core subject matter as well as the intentions of the page being a very big parts of the long term planning of every page in your site or blog.  Copy writing for a specific topic is an awful lot easier than writing for a whole bunch of different topics that have a similar focus area.

Understanding the intentions of the page in question will help in defining the topic for the page, and that will then define the criteria to be used for your key word selection process.  Topic targeting is not very well understood, as most people within the SEO industry only talk of keyword targeting, but do not inform people of the methods involved in determining the criteria that one has put in place, or *should have put in place* to manage your keyword selection process.  Selecting an appropriate topic that defines the intentions of the page in question is very helpful, and this should be considered when defining the tile of the page within the title tag in the head section.  The title tag in your head section should have a very clear and obvious connection to the topic of the page, as well as the description and key words listed in the meta tags of your page.

Many will tell you that the key words as well as titles and descriptions of your page are not needed in the meta tags of your page. Ignore these people, and use these very powerful #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which Google Humming bird uses within their semantic foot print and trust factor evaluations of your web site.  The META TAGS in the head section carry an awful lot more weight than most SEO practitioners will tell you, but many now ignore these powerful SEOVI because they have heard rumors that these tags are dead.

These very powerful meta tags that reside in the *HEAD SECTION* of your HTML 5 CODE should not be sneezed at, and you should be very weary and not easily trust those who tell you that these high level SEOVI are worthless.  They are used in many new places since the Google Humming Bird Algorithm has been introduced.  These SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are hidden within the *HEAD SECTION* of your web site or blog are an awful lot more powerful than you think, and they are directly connected to the in-page trust issues, so use them wisely and do not spam or misuse these great opportunities to get deeper penetration within the SERP's (Search Engine Optimisation Results pages)

Using the page title, page description or key words lists within the head section of your web site or blog to spam the search engines, or attempting to mislead the search engines through inappropriate use of these HTML 5 META TAGS will backfire and cause your page, as well as your domain some considerable harm.

Ensuring that the META TAGS within the HEAD SECTION of your web site reflect the*TOPIC OF YOUR PAGE* is essential for good SERP's and should be done as part of your basic SEO practices that you implement for your site.

Once again taking a #FUFISM based marketing view of things is very helpful, as this will give you the tools and thinking patterns needed to be able to select relevant topics, as well as page titles, page descriptions and related key words to be used in your copy writing. These issues associated with topic selection for your pages are not easy and require quite a bit of input from others in your team.  The topic of your page does need to be brainstormed by your marketing team, after everybody has read the marketing brief which should contain the intentions, purpose aims and objectives of the page in question.


This post has been written around a post by +Cyrus Shepard  of +Moz  Visiting this page will help you expand the ideas generated in this post.


http://moz.com/blog/on-page-topic-seo?utm_source=google_plus&utm_medium=social&utm_content=on_page_topic_targeting&utm_campaign=blog_post

Content Marketing Essentials

Content marketing is a complicated business that is mistakenly separated from the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) component of your online marketing strategy, which is a big mistake.  

Content marketing is a division of your SEO

 

Once you realise that Content Marketing is one of the primary components of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and take this very seriously, then you are onto the right track and will begin to understand the essential components of content marketing.  The biggest issue is to define your intended target market audience, and determine how best to write for this group in a manner that best suits your intended purpose of the content that you wish to put in front of their eyes.

Those who tell you that content marketing is not a sub division of your SEO need to be treated with caution.

Many SEO experts will try to convince you that content marketing does not fall under the management umbrella of your Search Engine Optimisation manager, but these people are very mistaken, and in my personal opinion need to be shown the way to your back door, then asked to leave very quietly, and told to never set foot in your office again.  Take a minute or two and think about content marketing and the purpose that you as an individual  would want to do any content marketing.  Next do the same for SEO and write down (document these issues clearly)  the similarities and differences.  compare this then evaluate your decision to separate SEO and Content marketing or keep them connected.

Usually the purpose of content marketing is to ensure that your content gets better traction with your target audience, but every business will have a slightly different perspective of the purpose of content marketing.  With out a clear well defined purpose for your content marketing you have no way of understanding the potential impacts of content marketing, or even  the intended aims and objectives of your content marketing.

Content marketing is not an add on issue, but is something that needs to be considered early in the content design stages. 

 

When defining the purpose of your content marketing you should be using the following documents as guide lines and references.

1. the purpose of your online marketing
2. the aims and objectives of your  online marketing plan
3. the aims and objectives of you web site if you have one
4. the aims and objectives of your blog if you have one
5. the aims and objectives of your social media policy if you have one
6. the purpose, aims and objectives  of the specific content that you will be marketing

These documents along with the documentation supplied discussing the intended target market groups, as well as related marketing campaigns that have already been run and those that are either currently being run or planned for the near future will dictate the way forward within any specific content marketing campaign.

Your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  has the same identical target audience but is mostly focused on ensuring that

1) your content is located within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)
2) your target audience will select your link in the SERP's
3) those who clicked on your result in the SERP's actually clicks on a CTA (Call To Action) within the page that they chose to open.  (note that links in your navigation structure are also considered as CTA's)

If your content marketing was poorly done, then step (2) and (3) in the above list of essential steps may perhaps  not  be completed, as your viewers may be expecting different information or not be pleased at what they are exposed to within the page, because they have been mislead by your content marketing.  It thus follows that content marketing is a very essential and critical part of the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) process, and that your content marketing needs to be aligned with, and integrated into your SEO process.

Failure here will lead to many interconnected and related issues that impact on your over all success within your online marketing efforts. Things like BOUNCE RATES, conversion rates,  market share retention,  customer satisfaction as well as many others are at stake.  This means that CONTENT MARKETING is a very big issue and that you need to pay careful attention to detail during this process.

The essential elements that need to be considered when doing content marketing are

1. target market research and understanding the various target market groups needs, desires and aspirations as well as cultural and language  issues
2. product / service research
3.  platform research
4. key word and general information management
5. content management issues specific to platform
6. co-operation with other marketing divisions including but not limited to:

• SEO team
• copy writing team
• image development team
• blogging team
• web site design team
• print media team
• digital media team
• social media teams for each platform
• public relations team

Content marketing can not be done in isolation as many content marketing folks are currently trying to do, purely because they do not understand that content marketing is subservient to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).  Once one takes the #FUFISM (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) approach to online marketing then the many different #SEOVI  ( Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that need to be considered will be included within the content marketing stages of preparing your online content.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is a new marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core communication element that binds all your marketing both online and off line into one single well balance marketing effort.

This article was written after reading articles by    +Ryan Hanley     
see   1) http://www.ryanhanley.com/7-ways-to-fail-at-content-marketing/  
2) http://www.ryanhanley.com/does-content-marketing-work/

These articles did not stress that content marketing is subservient to your SEO but I am sure that Ryan understands this, as he is very involved within the SEO industry.  Ryan is one of the few guys that is upfront and blunt when he describes what it is that you need to know, and why he believes that this is important.

Please leave a comment below...

Is great content enough to get good SERP's?

   This Post has been written in response to a comment on this Google plus post

+Rand Fishkin  of +Moz  posed the question : Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content and there were many comments on the post in question.  How ever many questions were left un-answered because of the individuals involved specific agendas.  see the post and follow the link there for a deeper understanding of the issues discussed here.

First we need to remind those who know, and inform those who have not heard, that #FUFISM is a new marketing term which is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media  which every person who does any form of online marketing needs to understand and put into practice.

 Read more about +fufism  as discussed in this blog  or in our web pages here

Engagement within the social media, in most cases,  involves some form of passive link building, as you offer links to your web pages, blog or other online resource, and hope that your target audience and those who have an interest, share your social media posts further, and most of these have links that are useful or offer your target audience specific information relating to your online discussion, or where to find more information on an item that has been requested in the ongoing social media conversation.

Link building is a very delicate affair, and building your social audience is directly linked to your social media policy, especially where your social media policy discusses link building and related issues that need to be avoided such as  inadvertently spamming your influencers with requests to share your posts further.



 

An earlier post discussing link building can be found here

 Influencer marketing (new terminology for public relations management activity)   is also directly linked to your link building strategies and should be discussed in your social media policy statements which every employee needs to be aware of.   This awareness should be done through   your own in-house workshops where you ensure that your staff are knowledgeable of your company or organisational social media policies, and what impact their social media activities will have on your total online marketing effort.

If you have more than 5 people working on your online marketing then this is a very critical issue.  failure here can and will lead to many issues where your online marketing will have a negative impact on your SERP's through errors that are made by your staff  which could easily have been avoided through proper communication.  This is where #FUFISM based marketing strategies come into their own, and ensure better co-operation between the various different departments who each play a different role and have a different impact on your toatal marketing strategies.

Things like a junior member of the team, or a new employee making use of a link farm, because he / she thinks that this will help, but is not aware of the impact of this type of marketing.

Other issues are when people within your online marketing use different structures for their NAT issues (NAT= Name Address and Phone Number)   A set NAT format that should be used across all platforms, especially within the link building activities on social media, as this  is a very sneaky and devious issue, which  comes to play with Google Humming Bird and Google pigeon as well as a few other un-named algorithms.

SEO is an aful lot more than doing inpage coding, and involves many off page activities, some of which are even off line, such as adverts in the news paper, adverts on the radio or even television advertising, all of which influence how your target market searches for your info online and which words they type into the search engine. 

Are your pages optimized for these specific words used in your offline marketing?

Things like   industry specific words which you push out there into the public space (cyberspace) hoping to influence your target markets choice of words when searching online are also part of the SEO industries problems, and link building around these specific sets of terminology are of extreme importance, especially the passive type of link building where these words are used in the social media posts that are put out there with links to pages in your online resources that expand on the conversation around your hash tags and other industry specific terminology.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a vastly complex issue that has three criteria that need to be met

1) your pages must be found within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

2) Your intended target market must click on your link in the SERP's

3) Those who found your listing in the SERP's and then selected your link there must either click on a CTA (Call Ta Action) within the page  or stay on page long enough to satisfy the search engine that they benefited from the information on that page

If any one of these criteria are not met then your SEO has failed.  poor link building, especially that of the passive kind, leads to poor conversion rates and has a very big impact on increasing the bounce rate for your pages, as those who have been mislead by your social media posts that have been shared by your influencers, will not stay on page long enough to satisfy a search engine that they have gained any benifit from your content within that specific page.   This is where CO or Content Optimisation becomes one of the most critical elements of your SEO efforts.  

YES YOU READ RIGHT CONTENT OPTIMISATION (CO) IS A SUB SET OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION and any body that tells you different should in my opinion never be trusted with your SEO, or any other part of your online marketing in any way.

Your bounce rate is a very critical issue and all search engines are now looking at ways to use this as a tool to push pages with poor bounce rates lower down the SERP's over time, and lift those which have better bounce rates higher up the SERP's.  Google's Humming Bird algo is very active here, and those who do not take this seriously will soon discover that their rankings are slipping and they may not be able to fix this untill they fix their Content Optimisation.  Your link building, and especially your link building within the social media plays a very critical role in your Conversion Optimisation (CO) as this leads to an expectation of what the viewer will find when they land on your page, and if their expectations which have been developed within your social media marketing are not met when they land on your page, you will not get any clicks and the end user (your intended target market) will depart in a very short time.

Your bounce rate is a very important #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) that you need to keep under control. This is not an easy task as there are so many factors involved, and your link building through the social media is one of the primary areas that need your attention, as the impact on your CO (Conversion Optimisation) coming from your social media link building activities, both active and passive are extreme in nature.

The CTA's (Call To Action) statements within your online content must match the expectations of your intended target market which you have created within your social media marketing, through your link building and influence marketing tactics, which should all be included within your company social media policies and directives issued to your staff.  

It thus follows that what +Rand Fishkin  discussed in this WHITE BOARD FRIDAY is very important and you need to watch closely, and listen clearly because he talks around this issue with great care not to offend those who have niche markets such as CO (Content Optimisation) , CM (Content Marketing) SEM (Search Engine Marketers) as well as many others, all of which in my humble opinion are sub sections of Search Engine Optimisation.

Many thanx for reading this post. please leave a comment as this is a very controversial matter and the more people that discuss this the better for all.