When it comes to turning those leads that come in through your PPC campaigns and SEO efforts, the thing that’s most important is to maximize the chances you have with each lead. Every bit of effort helps, as over time you’ll end up with thousands more in sales.

Follow up on the leads you receive is probably the most important thing when it comes to getting the most conversions out of them. If a lead isn’t followed up on promptly, constantly, and with relevant information, you will lose them to someone who provides all three. Remember that most of the leads you receive don’t use your website exclusively; they are active shoppers who are trying to get a feel for what you do, along with dozens of other sites. So that’s why it’s crucial to follow up with them right away (within the hour if at all possible), put them on a drip-marketing system so they will continue to see your branding over time, and also make sure that information you send to them is really helpful. Many buyers are just getting their toes wet as far as buying large-ticket items is concerned, so that’s another thing to consider; many of them won’t be ready to ‘get serious’ for months. That’s all the more reason to keep in touch with them over time! The person who’s there for them the entire time, even if they aren’t interested in responding right away, is usually the one they contact when the time comes to finally make a decision on who to work with.

If you need someone to step in and maximize the impact of your online marketing campaigns, look no further! The professionals at BigSERP.Com are here to assist you with expert SEO & PPC consultation, all the way from concept to your successfully launched campaign. We always offer a free initial consultation to get you on the right track.

Quite often in our line of work we come across clients who don’t understand the value of SEO content in boosting natural rankings. They are downright shocked when we tell them that to rank for competitive terms in their area/industry they will need at least 50 pages of relevant content written to target specific key phrases. Granted, much of the shock comes from the hefty up front price tag that can come with this big of a project, but we still think they are actually surprised that content makes that big of a difference when it comes to quantity.

We always find it works best to explain it this way: if you’ve done everything else right to SEO your site (by scouring BigSERP.Com for lots of helpful tips!) the more uniquely branded content you have on your site, the more likely you will show up for key phrases. Think about it… imagine you’re back in the 1980’s, when you had to (sigh) look up everything in encyclopedias. Remember how much stuff they would cram into those plastic/leather bound volumes? Imagine you’re looking for a lot of quality information on widgets. Sadly, you probably wouldn’t find any reference to widgets in the 80’s, but let’s just pretend there are two encyclopedia sets. The first encyclopedia set has letters A-Z all neatly arranged. So you look at the ‘W’ volume, and can imagine that inside of it there is a neatly written section on widgets. Now imagine, looking at the other encyclopedia set, and notice that every single book in the set is written about widgets! When you’re given this choice, which encyclopedia set are you most likely to use in the 1980’s?

If you haven’t taken off that hideous headband and stashed away your calculator watch, please do so now. That 80’s flashback should demonstrate to you why it is key to have as much uniquely branded relevant content on your site as possible. Because no one, including the search engines, is going to first look for ‘buy widgets’ at the site that only contains reference to ‘buy widgets’ when there’s another site that has targeted pages for ‘buy widgets’, ‘widgets for sale’, ‘wholesale widgets’, etc.

Ask different SEO professionals about the relevance, importance, and impact that URLs have on natural rankings and you will most definitely get differing answers, opinions, and suggestions. Until the major search engines post their inner-workings online for all SEOers to read, then the question should not be whether having relevant keywords in your domains is actually doing anything, but rather what are the benefits of having relevant keywords in your domains.

One school of thought is that by having relevant keywords in the domain, the search engines will see this as a more relevant and appropriate search result for search queries. As time and algorithms change, so follows this common misconception. It is now much less important for a domain to have relevant keywords in it for search engine rankings. In addition, with the evolution of dynamic websites, implementing highly relevant domains is becoming more and more difficult. However, before you give up on your domain buying efforts and start selling your existing domains with relevant keywords keep in mind that creating URLs with relevant keywords is NOT obsolete or completely unnecessary.

Here are some reasons to feel a little better about the 100 plus keyword stuffed domains you might be sitting on:

1) Having relevant keywords in your domain still has some beneficial effects on natural rankings in and of itself as the search engines have not completely denounced these efforts yet.

2) Consider the ad copy that appears in the SERPs: the domain name occupies just about 20% of the very valuable real estate in each SERP result. No matter how you see it, one cannot deny its function as a call to action and the increase it provides to the searcher’s perceived relevance.

3) The simple fact that keyword based URLs are much easier to remember than long, irrelevant URLs is one reason that you should snatch up any domains that contain your company most relevant keywords.

4) Since search engines give credit to anchor text with keywords in them and anchor text usually cites the domain, having keyword based domains and anchor text with these keyword embedded domains will provide some search engine ranking help.

5) The psychological effects of seeing what you are looking for in a display url in a SERP result in a way acts as a call to action. Think about it, if you are searching for “los angeles real estate” and you get results with these domains:

www.realtypros.com
www.mrla.com
www.losangelesrealestate.com

Which one are you going to click on?

Exactly!

When writing SEO content for your site, it’s easy to lose sight (do you like that I used two words that sound the same but have different spellings so closely together?) of the fact that the information you are drafting for your traffic is meant first and foremost for the search engine spiders. To write helpful articles, reports, newsletters, blog entries, etc. for your site can make a huge difference, but don’t bother writing them at all if you don’t have the reinforcement of critical keywords and key phrases to your business as the main focus of them.

So should you really sweat about where that comma is, or about if you gave information that people can’t find anywhere else? Or if they even find the information interesting? Not so much. As long as your copy is centered around and contains terms that have a high traffic volume, put on pages that are close to the top of your domain structure as possible, and that have their page tags set correctly, then your original work will not be in vain. If you’re worried about page tags and your domain structure, you should be. Fortunately they are not difficult to address.

For the page tags, just make sure that the exact key phrase you are targeting is the first thing in the title tag. If your actual copy title is different, just put a dash in after the key phrase and paste your real title in after. This way the search engine knows that to find relevant information about X key phrase, it should know that your page contains just what it’s looking for. Also, make sure that the page itself is very easy to find in the structure of the website. If at all possible, make the copy directly accessible from the home page. If it gets in the way of your design, then put a small text link at the bottom of your home page that goes to a simple index page of all your SEO content. Easy as pie, right? You bet!

One tool we’ve found extremely useful in formulating what key phrases to target with our SEO copywriting is Google’s Keyword Tool that’s located inside the Adwords Editor. Definitely take advantage of the Keyword Tool’s ability to show you relative traffic for search terms. That way you’re not wasting time addressing a niche that won’t give you any traffic. There’s no sense in writing pages and pages of content that will get you into positions that aren’t ever seen! Perhaps the greatest thing about the Keyword Tool and its application in your SEO campaigns is the feature that shows you how relatively aggressive your competition is bidding on all terms. With this you can tell which terms are both yielding a high search volume and a low amount of bidding. While the approach with PPC and SEO certainly have their differences, there’s no denying that knowing which useful key phrases aren’t being aggressively bid upon in PPC could be useful to your SEO approach. We recommend adding content to your site that addresses all key phrases that yield a high search volume, but you would be best served by having twice as much content on your site reinforcing those phrases that aren’t as aggressively sought out, because it can give you the competitive edge on your competition who’s only going after the obvious search phrases.

Okay, so you’re psyched to get your SEO content rolling… well that’s great! When you’re eagerly chomping at the bit to start assaulting a blank page with copy for your site, the last thing you want is someone digitally handing you an SEO style guide, but that’s what you need to consider before you even type the “w” in “Welcome to Widgets And More.” Allow SEOContentPros.Com to chip in here with its ten top tips to maximize the SEO effectiveness of your copywriting efforts.

1. Make Your SEO Copy Relevant

This one may seem obvious, but it’s easy to stray from your topic (and its key phrases) without even realizing it. Just make sure that, like a good politician (that’s an oxymoron, right?) you remain focused on your message, excluding any extraneous information. That’s not to say you can’t take things where they naturally would go through your copy, but just be careful that you don’t start entirely talking about unrelated topics that may water down the SEO potency of your keywords and key phrases.

2. Who Is Your SEO Target?

This is a big one, because if you don’t take that into consideration, the person who ends up reading your copy will quickly bounce off the page. If your site mainly appeals to middle-aged hippies, then don’t start off on some lengthy l33tsp33k blitzkreig. Not only will your readers not get it, but the kinds of sites that you want to be identified with by the search engines will not be associated with your site due to the vastly different demographic you’re appealing to with the SEO copy.

3. Spellchecking & Grammar For SEO Content

No, we’re not all librarians, that’s for sure. But that doesn’t mean we can’t give our copy a little editing TLC along the way. There are benefits to running your SEO copy through a spellchecker. For one, any keyword or phrase that’s misspelled will not get indexed properly. And unless you want to get into the shady business of targeting misspelled words, this will not help get you the kind of quality traffic you desire. If you can’t properly edit your copy, then by all means hire someone, or pass it along to that friend who wrote papers for you in your college English class.

4. Organize Your Information Wisely (SEO Friendly!)

It doesn’t matter if you have all the great subject matter in the world for your keywords and key phrases. If you don’t know how to hierarchically organize it into neatly manageable chunks of writing, the strength of your overall marketing effort through the SEO copy will suffer. Before you begin writing a passage of text, ask yourself “how does this piece of writing fit into to my website’s plan?” And remember, if you break a lengthy assignment into smaller portions that have their own unique headers and content, that will make them better candidates for indexing than if you cram them all together onto one page.

5. Make Your SEO Copy Timely

Go onto message boards, blogs, social bookmarking sites, and other fresh content centers, especially the ones that relate most closely to your market and its keywords and key phrases. Any posting you notice has a high readership, ranking, or number of replies is a gold mine for you. Immediately make plans to address the same slant with a great article and use it to steer that traffic towards your site by posting it on other forums, newsgroups, etc. It’s just your way of making sure that the popular word gets spread, and that it benefits your SEO as well.

6. Condense Your Information To Maximize SEO Benefit

How concise can you say something? Now is the time to find out. Unless you’re a poetry website (which, if that’s the case, by all means go astray with your use of alliteration, metaphor, and enjambment) there’s no reason you can’t get to the point about things when it comes to writing your SEO content. No one who’s quickly looking for information cares if you can compose a perfectly worded, tear-jerking introduction into your materials. Bottom line: if you can say it clearly and correctly in as few words as possible, your likelihood of being picked up by the search engines improves.

7. Would You Link To Your SEO Content? Blog About It?

Why bother writing anything at all unless it’s something people would be interested in reading! Sure you could write pages and pages about your return policy, but it’s frankly a waste of time. Instead dedicate your time and energy towards fleshing out the information on your site that you would want to read about your subject. Here’s not only your chance to establish yourself as the utmost authority on your keywords and key phrases, but also an opportunity to gain the trust of your readers by giving them the tools they need to make an informed decision about your products and services. If they find it really helpful, they may very well link to your SEO content page in a forum, blog, or on their highly trusted website (we can always shoot for the stars, right?).

8. Use Unique Language Throughout Your SEO Writing

Search engines and people have a striking similarity when it comes to the kind of copy they find boring. They both will yawn if you repeatedly say something the same way. The search engines are smart enough to know if you are trying to pack keywords and key phrases into your copy to the detriment of your content with the sole intention of trying to get indexed for those terms, so why risk getting penalized for such poor-quality SEO content? Instead write in a unique voice that isn’t afraid to phrase things differently. Try to never say the same thing twice in your copy. Pick out an alternate way of relating your terms so that they’ll make the highest impact possible.

9. Write Captivating, Keyword-Rich Headers For Your SEO Copy

Everyone is drawn to a well-worded title, so don’t skimp out with your attention when it comes to creating them for your passages of content. Trying to be sly and clever can work to an extent; that tactic is best used when you’re targeting a demographic that appreciates that brand of humor. Whatever you do, make sure not to let your slick wit get entirely in the way of the keywords and key phrases that you’re trying to get picked up for in your SEO copy. The search engines do consider the wording of your paragraph headers (at all levels), so make sure they contain the gist of what each portion of copy is getting at.

10. Link To Authority Sites From Your SEO Copy

This one doesn’t have much to do with the copy itself, but it still can help get your text picked up by the search engines: pick quality sites with high pagerank (and relevancy to your content) and link to them throughout your SEO writing. Sprinkle them in, don’t make every sentence contain two links! Always use keyword and key phrase text as your links to resources that are relevant to them. Of course, don’t link to your competition, or link to pages that have a lot of advertising by your competition. If you go about this in a highly selective manner that makes sense to a reader (meaning they aren’t jarred by a lack of relevancy when they visit one of the links you put on your page), then they may follow that link. And when you direct enough traffic to an authority, they might do you the ultimate favor of linking to your site, so keep track of where your visitors exit; it might make sense to contact those sites you link to down the road for some favorable reciprocal linking.

There’s no better way to get yourself on the path to RSS syndication or linking than to start drafting a series of catchy-sounding lists. There’s also no better way to establish yourself as the authority on any subject. If you can grade the top ten office supply innovations of 2007, or list out “Extreme Mountain Biking Upgrades”, or give a 101 course on how to soothe a crying baby, you’re much more likely to get the attention of someone than by simply relating your professional experiences.

In the case of the top ten list, that approach gives you credibility as a judge of products. With the bike upgrades, you’re setting yourself up as a trend-setter. And as for the 101 lesson, you’re enticing potential visitors with free professional advice. All three ways attract the attention of visitors in different ways, but the main thing to take away from this is that your content is more attractive to other sites if it can be easily integrated. And these buzzword content templates make it easy for you to expound upon what might be the most boring subject… Top Ten Nifty Features Of The New Swingline Stapler sounds much more appealing than New Swingline Stapler Released.

So let your imagination run wild. These topics also give you plenty of opportunities to inject some humor and personality into the subject matter. So take advantage of it!

This tip is for those who have already drafted (or contracted out with a professional copywriter to have written) some unique, original content for their website. If you’re not one of those people… Come back here once you’ve installed multiple pages of copy on each of your web pages.

This tip is for the person who is now wondering “what more can I do other than wait?” Well, I’m sorry to say it, but you can ALWAYS use more relevant content. The search engines will send their spiders to your site more often if they notice that you regularly, relevantly, and significantly update your site. If you update your site frequently enough, they may even spider your site multiple times a day. Imagine that, getting daily attention from some of the most powerful companies in the world. It can happen, but you have to be willing to put in the work, and do it wisely.

Now when faced with what to write about, the most important thing is knowing how to “fill in the gaps” of the content you’ve already written. Go back and look at all of your copy. I’m certain that on each page there are several missed opportunities. Things mentioned, but never fleshed out. It is now your job to go back in and think like a search engine; visualize scanning your pages for additional links to drill down into. It should become obvious what things you can continue to expound upon in additional pages of content.

This new content will not only continue to build your website to the search engines, but it will make it a more entertaining, informational read to your visitors. Which leads to them spending more time on your site, becoming familiar with your branding, and perhaps even doing you the ultimate favor: linking to your site from their trusted site because they value your wealth of knowledge.

There is little to no debate that duplicate content is going to hurt your natural rankings in the search engines. However, there is plenty of debate as to how much duplicate content actually hurts your marketing strategy. There is, of course, no absolute answer to this question so why take a chance…write something original. There is plenty of knowledge and insight on just about every subject so why not share your spin? You might not think it is going to benefit someone or be read, but do not underestimate the plethora of inquiring minds on the Internet.

The best thing you can do to expedite the process of your site’s content being indexed and being ranked high, naturally is to share your own knowledge on a subject. Do some research, try not to regurgitate someone else’s knowledge, and let loose with what you have learned, gathered, and experienced. You will be surprised at the audience you attract. I know that I do not speak for myself when I say that I am always looking for as much information on a subject as possible. And that includes any and all sides, views, and opinions on every subject matter.

As more and more people turn to the Internet each day as their primary source of research, the demand for as much information as possible increases exponentially. When you can provide even the smallest piece of information that no one else has replicated many times over, you are going to gain a strong following and a certain amount of respect as a resource on the Internet. And, in turn, your site/blog/forum is going to gradually leap frog your competition for those natural spots you have been longing for ever since you were a novice SEO’er.

It is no doubt that providing original content on the Internet is one of the most difficult things to do, hence the respect it is given, but if you are able to share your own knowledge, no matter how minuscule you may think it is, you will most definitely reap the benefits. Just think – one little piece of information that is brand new and informative on the Internet is going to cascade into thousands of pairs of eyes on your hard work. How do you think the tabloids sell so many magazines and distract you when you are standing in line at the grocery store? When we see something that we have never seen before we are immediately and sub-consciously attracted to it. Use that mind set when you are writing your next blog entry or page of copy for your website. It is going to be harder to start that typing, but the end result will surpass your initial frustrations.

You came to this page because you were looking for something, anything that will help your new (or older) site climb up the natural Google or Yahoo page rankings to the first page. That’s where everyone wants to be! Unfortunately, figuring out how to get there is a little like turning a blank canvas into a masterpiece. Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do that, when combined, will shape your website slowly into the ‘something to behold’ that you want it to be to the search engines.

The first thing we always ask someone is: “What is your site about?” Often proud site owners will go on for hours about what they are trying to accomplish, the services they offer, and why they are the best. And then we open up their site to see nothing more than a (sometimes) flashy domain name and some contact information. That means little more to the search engines than a flimsy digital business card: maybe they’ll tuck it in a folder somewhere. Though they might just wash it after leaving it in their jeans, or worse yet decide after getting it that they really don’t need it.

What Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and the other engines really need to deliver relevant content to their searchers is substance; meaning professionally written, captivating content that keeps visitors on your page once they get there, and most importantly, gives the search engines something meaty to spider onto. Without in-depth SEO content, all the work in the world on page tags, domain name research, and other considerations will be pointless, because in the end anyone who visits your page will still be asking “What is your site about?”

BigSERP.Com provides professional SEO content solutions for businesses of all sizes.