Posts Tagged ‘Grammar’

Top 10 Tips For Writing SEO Articles Like an SEO Pro

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

SEO Articles are designed to draw traffic to your website by giving you a higher position on Search Engine rankings. The motto of SEOs has long been ‘Content is King’, but I’m of the opinion that good content is not enough. Content needs subtly optimizing and in line with SEO strategies. Content needs to be original and regularly refreshed in order to get the most attention from Google’s spiders. I’ve put together a list of 10 top tips.

TIP 1: PLAN AHEAD: Plan your Keywords out in advance and then strategically place them throughout the article. Don’t try to stuff them in at the end; it will make the SEO article nonsensical. Never over-stuff your article with Keywords; the Search Engines are designed to avoid duplication. Try not to use your Keyword more than two or three times, but always try to use a keyword at the beginning and end of the article. The main Keyword should be in the title.

TIP 2: WRITE FOR THE READER: If you are only writing the article for a Search Engine to ‘read’ the chances are that you’ll write a dull and uninspiring article. Remember people do read these articles and they all add to your credibility. Write about what you know, show yourself to be an expert with proven skills.

TIP 3: GOOD GRAMMAR: Always double-check your SEO articles for grammar and spelling issues. Poorly spelt articles with weak grammar will badly damage your credibility.

TIP 4: KEEP IT BRIEF: Don’t use more words than you need to get the job done. You should aim for no more than 1000 words and no less than 250 words. Keep your paragraphs short too, no more than five or six lines.

TIP 5: KNOW YOUR STUFF: It’s essential that what you write is accurate. Many people will not trust writers who have not worked in the area on which they are writing. However, a good article writer can write on any subject, if they do their research. The Internet is a powerful research tool, but don’t take everything that’s written there to be fact. Check your facts before submitting the article.

TIP 6: HAVE AN OPINION: No one said that you had to write neutrally about every subject. It’s okay to have an opinion. Just remember that people may not agree with you and a grossly out of touch opinion may damage your credibility. Nonetheless, it may bring you more traffic and higher rankings. That’s not an encouragement to be outrageous though.

TIP 7: BOAST ABOUT BENEFITS: Don’t worry about features, always talk about benefits. These help sell whatever you are writing about to the reader because they want to know what’s in it for them. Features are what you offer, benefits connect to the reader’s inbuilt selfishness.

TIP 8: HYPE YOUR LINKS: If you can embed some quality hyperlinks into your work, you will benefit from drawing more general interest. Furthermore, the Search Engine’s spiders have a great chance of finding your site by linking to quality websites.

TIP 9: WRITE LOTS OF ARTICLES: Okay, this one is rather simple and obvious, but the greater number of keyword optimized, credible and well-written, hyperlinked articles that you have all pointing to the website of your choice, the better chance that the Search Engines will find it.

TIP 10: CALL TO ACTION: End your well-written article with a call for the reader to take action. The idea of most articles is to have the impressed reader click your link and go to your website. See below for an excellent example.

The 20 Most Common Mistakes in Website Design

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

These twenty mistakes are the difference between a very poor website and a very good website. You may know some of these mistakes already, but if you have avoided or corrected all of them you are almost certain to keep visitors coming in and coming back.

This list is especially important for new designers, amateurs or the experienced but sloppy who need a list to work from for a website spot check.

1. Bad Layout and Design - Yes, there are some ugly, unbalanced or overloaded webpages out there. Make your page a pleasant viewing experience. If you are not sure about the looks of you design, then let some people see a screenshot of your webpage.

2. Non-Standard Links - Why confuse your visitors with links that are different colors or fonts that vary from page to page. Don’t frustrate your visitors, it shouldn’t be a guessing game.

3. Iffy Navigation - Take it easy on the moving objects, trailing images and other stuff you see on kids websites. It’s just not that entertaining and it can get in the way and distract your visitors. Keep it stable easy to find and read.

4. Slow Pages - Who wants to watch your dumb load meter rack up the percents of loaded kilobytes or megabytes? Keep your pages lean and fast, under 50k if possible. Do not bore your visitors.

5. Wild and Crazy Color Schemes - Some pages look idiotic with overly bright colors, maybe even revolting. Your texts must be easy to read, not a sensational nightmare.

6. Spelling and Grammar - Errors in spelling and grammar make your page look amateurish or childish - always spell check.

7. Page Text - Keep your pages easy to read. Break texts into paragraphs or blocks. People scan pages more than they read them, make it easy on them.

8. Font Style and Size - Choose easy to read fonts and use the right size - not micro reading or headlines on every line.

9. Dumb, Out of Control Music - select background music that fits the subject matter and make sure it can be turned off easily.

10. Under Construction - Avoid having a visitor coming to you closed or not yet opened website. What’s the point? Give them a single page of content with a notice as to when the whole site will be available.

11. Untested Web Site - Always look at your website in multiple browsers and make changes accordingly before uploading your site to the web.

12. Sloppy Texts - Make sure all the right words are in all the right places - “Content is King” for readers and search engines.

13. Old Content - Updating your website is important, visitors need to see something new once in a while.

14. Too Many Clicks - Why should a visitor have to jump through page after page to find anything on your website. Make sure everything is only 3 clicks or less from the homepage.

15. No Contact Information - Keep your contact information easy to find and easy to read.

16. Free Hosting Service - When you see a webpage that has a name so long that it has at least one period in the middle of it you know it’s a free hosting situation. Everyone knows the limitations of free hosts and the limitations that they place on a webpage. Don’t use a free web host if you want to be taken seriously.

17. Advertising - Do not overload you page with ads, especially the big grotesque banners. Well placed, well designed ads are okay if you don’t overload the page.

18. Bad Images - Don’t make a visitor suffer missing graphics file or badly shaped or cropped images. Optimize your images and use the best heights and widths, and keep your files in the best formats - jpeg for Photographs and gif for artwork.

19. Website Best Viewed - Don’t say this on your website, it looks like a beginner’s website.

20. No Prices - If you sell something don’t waste your time hoping you will get email inquiries on your prices - just include a price with the item description.

That should do it. Follow these directions to correct the 20 most common mistakes in website design to make sure your webpage is in good shape.