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SEO – Jargon Buster [Search Engine Optimization]

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

SEO stands for “Scrabble Equality Organization”. This group was formed after the highly controversial World Scrabble final earlier this year. Trailing by 50 points to his opponent, Mr J. Smith of London, the Polish finalist Mr W. Iwillwinski scored 575 points, including his triple word score, for the word “JZCZWIZYQZZY”.

Mr Iwillwinski was incensed when the word was rejected for being a proper noun. “They cheated me,” he said after losing the final, and picked up his runner-up prize of $25, missing out on the $26 winner cheque. “The word was valid – it is my mother’s favorite flower,” he complained.  “Not only  that, but I saw it on my optician’s test chart last week,” he continued.

Such was the uproar that Scrabble World Series organizers have decided to clarify the rules. Rejecting claims of discrimination, they say that they treat all entrants equally, even the delegation of Somali pirates who stole the show, literally.

The Scrabble Equality Organization is charged with restoring the battered reputation of the sport. “This is a respectable sport and the top players are true athletes,” said Dr. Etymological, SEO Chairman. “We have a fine history of sportsmanship,” he went on. “This has really shaken our sport – it is the biggest upset since 1972, when the Italian competitor was caught eating alphabet spaghetti before a match.”

SERIOUSLY:

SEO is all about making your website attractive to search engines.  It stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. It’s the technical side of search (as opposed to the marketing side). SEO can improve your website’s positioning in organic (unpaid) search results.

It’s also about making sure that Search Engines know what your site is about and making it easy for the search engine spiders to find their way around your site. If your site is optimized for search engines, this can increase the volume and quality of traffic that you receive. It can therefore impact significantly on your bottom line.

I have grown to dislike the term “SEO”. Too many dubious SEO practitioners have given it a bad name. It has become a negative term in many people’s minds.  This is especially true when used in the context of Content.  “SEO Content” has become synonymous with poor quality, bland, keyword-stuffed content not fit for human consumption. I think it’s time for genuine, technical SEO practitioners to find themselves another name.

SEO, in its purest technical sense, remains valid (for now). As an online business, it is important that you make sure that the technical bits and pieces of your website are optimized for search engines. There is little point in having great content on your website if the search engines can’t find you, or don’t know what your site is about or can’t find their way around when they visit.

Google advises webmasters to “make pages primarily for users, not just for search engines.” Don’t overdo it on the SEO at the expense of the User Experience.  The ultimate aim of search engines is to ensure that they return quality results for search terms entered by the user. Make sure you put your user first too.

Welcome to The Wittery Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content; Linkerati;  PageRank;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

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PageRank – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Yo bro.

To get by in the hood, you need street cred. In the web hood, street cred is called PageRank.

To get the top street cred in the hood you gotta be connected. You gotta be connected to names – big mo-fo names, like Google and Apple. You’ve gotta run with the big dogs, the bigger the better, and the more the better too. When you connected with a big gang of bad-ass dudes, you get respect and cred.

Street cred goes from 10 down to 0. To get a “10” you gotta be Google, Bo Derek, or Superman, but “3” is common enough for the average brother in the web hood. Nerds get a great big zero, but there is a “N/A” for kids – who ain’t got their cred assessed yet. (The Google-man’s a busy guy, and assesses every crib in the web-hood every three months or so).

To make sales, you gotta make a connection with a user. The user puts out the enquiry with the Google-man, specifying what kinda shit he wants. Google-man acks all the brothers who can supply what the man needs. If a brother can supply, his name goes on his list, then he sorts the list, and the brothers with the biggest cred cahoonies get their names top of the list.

Then the Google-man gives the list to the user.

SERIOUSLY:

PageRank is Google’s way of determining the importance of a webpage or website. A website’s PageRank influences where that site will appear in search results for relevant terms. It can influence the amount of organic (unpaid) traffic that comes to your site from the search engine. It can also influence and inform potential advertisers, partners and others interested in your site. They often check out your PageRank to see what Google thinks of your site before doing business with you.

Google’s view is that if another site links to your webpage, that site is saying that it likes you. Google builds up a picture of your website’s likeability by examining who is linking to your site, how important the linker is and by looking at the context of the link. Not all links are equal and not all links are counted by Google. PageRank Values range from PR0 to PR10.

Google watches out for websites that try to manipulate rankings so it’s not a good idea to engage in dodgy SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices in an attempt to increase your PageRank.  The complete magic recipe for calculating PageRank is known only to Google and the big “G” works on this recipe (algorithm) all the time.

Probably the best way to improve your website’s PageRank is to ignore it. Concentrate instead on improving the User Experience, creating great content, and building relationships online. A good PageRank will follow. Pay attention to this extract from the Blog of Matt Cutts (who happens to be Head of the Webspam Team at Google):

“….A lot of bad SEO happens because people say “I’ll force my way to the top of Google first, and then everyone will find out about my site.” Putting rankings before the creation of a great site is in many ways putting the cart before the horse. Often the search rankings follow from the fact that you’re getting to be well-known on the web completely outside the sphere of search…. By chasing a great user experience above search rankings, many sites turn out to be what search engines would want to return anyway.”*

Remember that PageRank is a Google thing. If you’re building a business online, don’t obsess about Google all the time. Organic search engine traffic is great but look for other ways to bring visitors to your site. Don’t let your business model become solely dependent on Google.  For long-term viability try to think beyond the big “G”.  There’s an insightful post in the archives at DoshDosh.com which gives lots of food for thought about why PageRank may be overrated.

What do you think? Do you think your business model is overly-dependent on Google? If so, are you thinking about taking steps to deal with this?

*This quote is buried deep in the Comments section of the particular blog post. We’ve extracted it to make your life easier but read the entire blog post (including comments) if you have the energy and inclination.

Footnote: The information in this series is stuff that we’ve picked up along the way when setting up The Wittery. We don’t claim to be experts but we’re happy to share what we’ve learned.  The stuff in the “You Cannot Be Serious” section comes straight from the noggins of witty writer members at The Wittery.

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;   Duplicate Content;  Linkerati; SEO; SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit The Wittery to find Freelance Writers to write Witty Content for Your Business.

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Posted in Jargon Buster - Serious/Not Serious Series, Witto | 4 Comments »

Duplicate Content – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Bad bad bad naughty.  Who’s been a vewey nasty blog then?  Noses Will Be rubbed in the bad duplicate content.  Otherwise known as “the little content that can’t”.  There are a number of prestidigitators out there who have not been doing their fair share of creating delightfully diverting NEW stuff for everybody to read.

Luckily a NEW task force has been created to take care of this. Every contributor to the Great Noggin Of The Net will have to pass through the Churn-A-Lator, which will assess every piece and determine if it’s sufficiently fragrant.  Any material judged free of fresh and therefore unfit will be chewed up and spat out and finally subjected to the indignity of appearing as an infomercial on high rotate, even if the subject matter was originally just an uninspired moan about the peeing habits of a neighbor’s cat.

The Churn-A-Lator doesn’t make personal appearances yet, but plans are afoot for the development of a complementary piece of technology called the Blahdeblah-O-Tron which will be so advanced it will not only vet political speeches, it will give them, making use of the deathless nuggets of pithy prose fed to it previously.

Then the Churn-A-Lator will be set upon it and the approving populace can watch them both battle it out unto the death in a massive circular pit, surrounded by jeering HP printers.

SERIOUSLY:

In simple terms, duplicate content is content that appears on more than one web page. There can be valid reasons for having duplicate content across more than one web page. For example, you may have a print version of the page.

However, many people use the term to describe content which has been duplicated with intent to deceive the search engines and manipulate rankings in the search results.  If you copy content from another web page and place it on your own web page Google is likely to consider this type of duplicate content as “spam”.  The big “G” is likely to punish you for this (not to mention the fact that it is usually also a form of theft).

How to avoid this fate? Create your own original fresh content.  It’s hard work but you will be rewarded in the long-run.

Additional Resources:

Blogging with Duplicate Content proves counterproductive. This post from iePlexus.com explains why business blogs should avoid duplicate content. It’s clearly written and easy to understand, even if you’re not so hot on technical issues relating to duplicate content.

Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues:  This video from Google Webmaster Channel explores issues relating to duplicate content. The first third of the video provides a clear explanation of the term.  After that, it gets quite technical (e.g. references to Canonical, 301 redirects, HTP Server, Rel=Canonical, UI device, HTML Tag), so you may want to jump back out of the video after the first bit if that kind of stuff is not for you.

[The "You Cannot Be Serious" part of this post comes to you courtesy of a Wittery ghost writer. The rest of the post emanated from Witto's fingertips. Do let Witto know if there are particular topics that you would like him to cover in this Jargon Series. He's highly suggestible.]

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Linkerati;  PageRank;  SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.

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Attraction Marketing – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

It’s all about arousal. It’s making people forcibly aware of just how alluring you are. And this is a serious business.

Such is the dangerous state of the dating scene today that it would take an unbalanced individual to even think about opening up negotiations with a potential mate, who may be:

a)  a spotty giggling schoolboy
b)  a flatulent pension fund manager
c)  irrational and inebriated.

So it’s easy for any sober marketing professional to see the problem.

Obviously what is required is a systematic approach to overcoming a natural opposition towards engaging in any sort of silly sex-talk or crouching outside someone’s bedroom window in the fork of a handy tree. In the normal course of things, this sort of behavior will lead only to disappointment and athlete’s foot, not to mention a citation.

Therefore, what is needed is a multi-media campaign that clearly demonstrates the benefits of being attracted to someone, while drastically minimising the afore-mentioned drawbacks.

It’s beyond the scope of this forum to elucidate further upon how exactly this would be achieved. And I’m bloody glad I don’t have to come up with it.

SERIOUSLY:

Attraction marketing is a technique where you create a relationship with the prospective customer well in advance of the sale.

Your online business can do this by providing informative, engaging content so the potential customer starts trusting you in advance of considering a purchase.

An updated, informative, engaging business blog is an effective attraction marketing tool. It establishes your reputation and encourages the visitor to revisit your website.

Attraction marketing can turn your business into the buyers’ natural choice when they’re ready to buy.

(Yes, you’ve guessed it. The Wittery ghostwriters have interfered again.)

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content;  Linkerati;  PageRank;   SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

This is The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.

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8 Reasons Why Wit is IT for Your Business

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

The Wittery (Not so serious) Guide to Why Wit is IT

1) Wit SELLS

If WIT were a person they’d be shaking your hand and congratulating you on the wonderful used car you just bought. You’d take the keys and drive away before you realized that when you left the house you were only planning on buying a bag of milk.

And then you’d remember you left your new car at Witty Will’s Used Car Emporium. Wit is that good a salesperson.

2) Stand Out from the Crowd

Although the Wittery Writers prefer to stay holed up in their garrets with their quills, bottles of ink and parchment, their words like to walk the streets wearing a big yellow bird costume, shaking their tail feathers in the faces of everyone they meet.

Big yellow birds and witty words have an uncanny knack for getting noticed.

3) Humor is Viral

Like the flu you pretended to have to avoid that work meeting, people find it hard to build up an immunity to WIT.

Symptoms of exposure to Wit include, but are not limited to:

  • laughing to the point of severe stomach pains
  • an uncontrollable urge to share the pain with others
  • a frenzied obsession with finding the share button on web pages
  • spraying commonly ingested liquids out of noses

4) Make Google Happy

Google is a beast with a big magic search box plastered on its forehead. To keep Google happy, you must feed the beast premium meat.  It also helps to scratch its back. If you do this it’s more likely to spit out your business name when a Googler pops a query into its box.

The beast is best kept happy by letting it gorge on engaging fresh content. The next time a user rushes to the beast with the box to find out about the many uses of yak spit or how to build a lawn chair out of compost (and waits the 0.067885 seconds for the 1,765,987 relevant results), your business could end up being the chosen clicked one if you follow the happiness rules.

This will of course only be relevant if you are a yak spit reseller or a purveyor of compost, but the same theory applies no matter what your business.

5) Create the buzz… get people talking

Unless you’re being held captive and submitted to some kind of perverse dry content torture, you probably haven’t heard the story about the guy who sat down on a chair and stayed there.

But if the guy fell out of his chair in a rum induced stupor, splitting the crotch of his three-sizes-too-small pants and showing his in-laws just how well endowed he is, you’ve probably heard the story a hundred times.

6) Big Brands Do Wit

Big brands have nothing that you don’t have… aside from loads of money.

Luckily, words can be cheaper than your Great Aunt Hilda, and the Witty Writers sit fingers hovering ready to make your customers forget that you sell hand-knitted vests for cats from your basement and Walmart does not.

7) Ban the Bland

On joining The Wittery, each writer is presented with a powerful bland banishing stick. Following the completion of a strict training regime (consisting primarily of watching cartoons and eating bowls of cereal) they are permitted to go forth and banish the bland.

Which means, right now, Witty Writers are sitting in their garrets playing with their sticks and thinking of ways to beat the greyness out of your brand.

8) Sticky

Like the time you bonded your fingers together just to see if crazy glue was in fact crazy, people get stuck on witty content and find it hard to leave.

Businesses who use witty content as a sales tool often notice a surge in emails from customers’ close relatives begging them to cease and desist with the witty content so that normal family life can resume.

Relatives complain that witty content is wreaking havoc at home because the sticky individual has spent the last three months on the one website, has a permanent silly smile plastered on their face and is beginning to smell bad.

Best advice to deal with this? Include a “stickiness” disclaimer on your site and direct disgruntled relatives to it.  Of course, once the relatives visit your sticky website, they’re likely to get stuck too. Happy Days!

[This article was ghostwritten for Witto by a Wittery Writer.  Just to prove we take your funny business very seriously, you'll find the "serious sister" version of these tips here.]

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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8 Tips for Writing Killer Job Posts: The Wittery Guide

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

A light-hearted look at the serious business of commissioning witty content

1) Size Matters:

As in other walks of life, size does matter. If yours is big, all the better. Give the writers an estimate of its size. (We’re talking about your word count and project size here - did your mind wander off there?)

2) Shout it Out:

Regrettably The Wittery Writers don’t have psychic, mind-reading powers and we need to live with that (for now). You know what you want from your project. They don’t. Spell it out for them. Be specific. They love details, the more the merrier. Shout it from the rooftop. Earplugs are supplied at The Wittery and our insurance covers hearing damage claims, so shout as loud as you like.

Classified Information: we are currently working on a revolutionary drug to cure the psychic malfunction in witty writers and you’ll be first to know when it gets FDA approval.

3) Technobabble:

“Just write something really witty on reconfiguration of semi-postulating low rotatory energizing data modules – do all the data modules research yourself (I know all about them but I’m not going to tell you.)”

It may come as a surprise that this type of job post doesn’t tend to get responses. If your content is technical in nature or business-specific, offer a rough draft to be “wittified”. This is a realistic, cost-effective way of getting witty business content.

You know the raw business better. Give the writers the ingredients and they can mix in the mirth. There’s humor everywhere, even in semi-postulating low rotatory energizing data modules, and The Wittery Writers are skilled at sniffing out the wit.

4) Cheap as Chips:

“Write all the content for my 20 page website and make it really witty. Experienced award winning advertising copywriters or creative directors only need apply. Budget $100. Delivery Date - by 4pm today”.

What’s wrong with this job post? Answers on a postcard please to:

The Department of Great Expectations, The Wittery.

The WINNER will receive: A Card Every Year on their Birthday. We won’t send it to you. We just assume you’ll receive one from someone somewhere. The prize is more of a prediction than a promise of any commitment on our part.

A few hints to get you started: we don’t have monkeys looking for peanuts at The Wittery. When assessing the value of fresh witty content remember it’s your content that reaches your customers’ souls and it’s easier to reach into their pocket from there. By naming a realistic budget, writers will know whether to bid on the project or continue to sit starving in their garrets sticking pen nibs into photographs of Bill Bryson.

5) Define your Target:

If your online store sells religious clothing to Roman Catholic nuns, witticisms about boozy nights out, extra-marital affairs and heavy doses of expletives may not suit. Spell out who you’re targeting with your witty content so the writers can aim accurately for the correct Wit bulls-eye.

6) Go Public:

Select a Public Profile and give some details about your business. It’s guaranteed you’ll receive more pitches. Witty writers are like nervy little squirrels. Show them your nuts and they’ll scamper towards you. In short, writers like to know who they are dealing with.

7) Name a Date:

Specify a delivery date (if possible). A good lead-in time can work to your advantage as it helps the creative process. The writers prepare for the challenge in the way a professional athlete prepares for his or her physical performance. Some are even on special wit-boosting diets and avoid ejaculation as a means to keep their brains in peak comedic mode.

8) Love your Witty Writers:

We don’t expect you to marry them but, being a rare species, they do deserve your respect. Don’t feed them or wave sticks at them either. They thrive on a good relationship and you’ll see the results in their copy. Collaborate and Conquer the Competition creatively together. Enjoy the experience while you’re at it. They don’t bite.

(This Blog Post has been ghostwritten for Witto by a Wittery Writer. Commenting on the experience, Witto provided this exclusive: “OMG, it makes me look so good – do I have to admit it has been ghostwritten?” Witto would like to remind you that we take your funny business very seriously at The Wittery. We even have a ’serious sister’ version of this guide to prove it. It’s here.)

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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Beta Bits

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Anyone mind if I interrupt these witty writers to reclaim my blog to make this post? If you were expecting witty, skip on down to the next post.

The beta phase is going well. This phase is important, as it allows us to gather feedback, do some testing, make changes in response to feedback and clear out the odd bug (all part of being in beta). We are almost ready to let content seekers in to meet the witty writers.

We will launch the freelance job posting facility very soon and would be pleased to have some volunteer content seekers to help with initial testing of the facility. In return, you can expect to receive some pitches to your jobs from the writers who have already taken up residence at The Wittery. We are offering a free trial to a limited number of content seekers during this period. To avail of the free trial, simply complete the content seeker registration form.

If you have already pre-registered your interest in the service, you will automatically qualify for the free trial and we will be in touch with you separately.

If you would like some guidance about your job posting or if you would like The Wittery to post the job for you, simply get in touch [info(at)thewittery(dot)com].

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Visit The Witty Writer Marketplace to source your fresh witty content

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Caffeine

Friday, January 1st, 2010

May your Twenty Ten be full of mirth, humor and engaged customers who smile a lot and buy loads.

Did you know that Google is about to overdose on caffeine for the new year? “Google Caffeine” is the codename for the souped-up version of the search engine which Google is going to roll out some time very soon. (“After the Holidays” is about as specific as Google has got about the launch date.)

The Caffeinated Google will do search faster and websites that lack fresh content are likely to lose page rank. It is described as an “under the hood” development. Another nail in the coffin for stale, lacklustre, duplicated content then.

What a perfect time to add humorous engaging content to your list of “must have” marketing tools for the new year.

As a coffee lover myself, bring it on. That should clear a few cobwebs. Any chance of a sandwich with that quadruple espresso?

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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Crimbo

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

From a small island with a big heart on the edge of Europe, here’s wishing you a very happy Crimbo.

My flame retardant stocking is hanging demurely over the fireplace, I have left the glass of whiskey out for Santa and I am so excited that I could eat an elf.

I have to confess that I have already imbibed some rather tasty mulled wine today and am feeling mildly muddled and merry. As it might be an offence in some parts of the globe to be tipsy in charge of a blog, I won’t linger in case I am caught. (Shh… please don’t rat on me; it is Christmas after all.)

I am getting in the mood for the next decade and am looking forward to introducing you to some special guest bloggers in the new year. Thank you for your support for this new venture and I promise to go easy on the sauce in 2010.

Happy Crimbo.

(Did you hear that hiccup in between paragraph 2 and 3?)

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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Welcome to Witto’s World

Monday, November 30th, 2009

“Blog”, they said. I didn’t know what they were talking about. “The Wittery thing was your idea, so you can do the blogging”, they said. I am an ideas man myself. I am not so hot at this writing mullarkey.

“Fine”, I said. Before the word was even out of my mouth, I had hatched a cunning plan; the writers will help me with the blog. They are word wizards after all. Sorted. That will make this blog quite scrumptious.

I promised to do the first few posts all by myself, so that I could introduce myself. They all call me Witto, so you can too. Welcome to The Wittery, where we champion funny business, happy customers and engaged web visitors.

(p.s. At the risk of offending my native countrymen, I have chosen to use American spelling at The Wittery. Do you think anyone will notice?)

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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