Archive for the 'SEO' Category
**Note: This is a guest post written by one of our readers, Corry Cummings. For more information on how to submit a guest post, please send an email to janelle [dot] vadnais [at] gmail [dot] com or see our guidelines for guest posting.
It is common that a writer will stare blankly at the computer screen wracking their brain for an effective title. It can be one of the hardest things to do. A good title shows the reader what they can expect to learn by reading the related content. However, a bad title can quickly turn the most well written article or post into a piece delegated to the content bargain bin. Creating better titles should not be a daunting task.
Whether you are writing yourself, or you are using article writers, there are a handful of approaches that you can use to make sure you have good titles for your content. A good title can be the difference between gaining a new lifetime customer or reader and having a potential customer hitting the back button.
1. Keep the Title Short
Not only does Google limit displayed titles at 64 characters but readers will likely impose much harsher limits. As the average Internet reader will only read about 1/20 of your article or post, your title needs to tell them exactly what they will expect to find. There is never a reason to write a title that is more than 64 characters. If your piece is very specific, save the continuations of titles for subheads or your introductory paragraph. Remember, you have the meta description to work with if you need more space to center your piece.
Example: Wrong – A Simple Write Up on the Dangers of High Sugar Content in Food as it Relates to the Development of Children. Right – Child Development – High Sugar Content in Food
2. Keep the Title Descriptive
Nothing reduces the clarity of a title faster than word play or creativity. If your reader cannot determine exactly what your piece is about based on your title, you need to revise. Sure, a title might be humorous after the article is read. However, you never know into what context your article will be placed. A clever title to you might be an unrelated topic, or worse, offensive sentence if taken out of context. By keeping your title neat and clear, you will be able to reach a wider audience base. Few people ever avoiding reading an article because it didn’t have a catchy title.
Example: Wrong – A Magical Journey Through the World of Better Titles. Right – 4 Steps to Creating Better Titles
3. Eliminate Common Words
Search engines will summarily ignore common words like (the),(and) and (a). Strike these words from your title and replace them with items like (-) and (|). Doing so can save you some much needed characters and make titles much easier to read. If the search engines won’t find the words, there is no reason that you should include them.
Example: Wrong – The 4 Steps to Creating Better Titles. Right – 4 Steps to Creating Better Titles
4. Be Clear About Your Article
Although you should keep the title short, never sacrifice clarity for brevity. Your readers need to be able to determine exactly what they will learn about reading your post. Simply using the keyword as the title is nowhere near enough. This is especially true if you have multiple posts or articles on the same topic. If you really need that major keyword in your title, make sure you include a hyphen with more information after it.
Example: Wrong – Shoes. Right – Black Dress Shoes for Men
About the author: Corry Cummings is the owner of Content Customs, a content creation company that specializes in high quality web content writing services. He also runs a blog over at Content Customs, which is managed and written by one of the head writers of the company.
August 02 2010 | Blogging and Guest Posts and Marketing and SEO and business | No Comments »
When the Yellow Pages (Phone Book) charges a business hundreds if not thousands per month to run a 12 month ad that the business is locked in to, do they guarantee in writing a certain ROI? I don’t think so.
What about Direct Mail through something like Money Mailer that usually costs about $500 for 10,000 addresses. Again, I don’t think so.
What about a newspaper ad that may cost $500, $1,000, $2,000 or more for 1 ad depending on the city and the size of the ad. Again, I say… I don’t think so.
So what’s up with people concerning Internet Marketing? Is there a guarantee that the phone will ring from it? No, it’s marketing. It’s advertising. There are lots and lots of variables…consistency…budget…the client…etc.
Marketing and advertising should give a higher ROI than the investment, but that is not always the case. In our Internet Marketing Business, the clients who get the biggest ROI are the ones that let us do what we were hired to do and trust our expertise in the field. These clients are usually very happy. The clients who are not happy are the controlling ones that often expect next day results. O.K., realistically not next day just the day after.
Two simple case studies…Both in the same field but one targets men and the other targets women. That’s why we worked with both at the same time.
Client 1: Knows exactly what the business is about
Client 2: Doesn’t have a clear business focus
Client 1: Approves our work fast
Client 2: Continuously revises copy
Client 1: Has a phone number that rings to a live person during business hours
Client 2: Phone number is a cell phone that doesn’t get reception at their office
I could go on and on. Needless to say,client # 2 decided that since their phone wasn’t ringing from the internet that they’d no longer use our services. We think it’s best if they find another marketing company.
Share your thoughts below…
February 28 2008 | Internet Marketing and Marketing and SEO | 4 Comments »
This is part of a series that I am doing weekly on Favorite FREE SEO Tools. 
I encourage comments on the tools that are featured each week.
Please comment as follows:
1) Comment on the Tool that is featured.
2) Mention a similar Tool that you use that you like just as good or better.
3) Please do not simply link to Aaron Wall’s SEO Tools Page (just an example) and say, Check out all these FREE SEO Tools by Aaron Wall.
I hope you don’t mind me setting up the simple 3 step guideline above to keep the comments focused on just the tool being mentioned or other very similar tools.
Quintura is the featured tool this week. With this tool, you can find like keywords and dig, dig, dig even deeper.
Here’s a screen shot using the word “Real Estate” as the search phrase.
Notice the words surrounding “Real Estate:”Agent, Company, Services, Brokers, Listings, Commercial, etc. In other words, the tool is suggesting “Real Estate Agent,” “Real Estate Company,” etc. Notice what happens when I click on Company…the words change. Also, notice that the word “Mortgage” shows up:
Mortgage has to do with “Real Estate.” Then, notice below what happens when I click on “Mortgage.”
Can you see how Quintura can help you expand your keyword horizons?
February 06 2008 | Marketing and SEO | 5 Comments »
This is the beginning of a series that I plan to do weekly on “Favorite FREE SEO Tools.”
I encourage comments on the tools that are featured each week. Please comment as follows:
1) Comment on the Tool that is featured.
2) Mention a similar Tool that you use that you like just as good or better.
3) Please do not simply link to Aaron Wall’s SEO Tools Page (just an example) and say, “Check out all these “FREE SEO Tools” by Aaron Wall.”
I hope you don’t mind me setting up the simple 3 step guideline above to keep the comments focused on just the tool being mentioned or other very similar tools.
Let’s start with one of my absolute favorites: SEO Quake for Firefox and Explorer.
If you don’t have it installed and like SEO, you should give it a whirl. It provides a snapshot very quickly of important data needed for foundational SEO. Here’s a screen shot:
After you install SEO Quake, you will have a request parameters button just below the search box before the rankings. Anytime you are surfing using a search engine, you can click REQUEST PARAMETERS to see all kinds of information on the page about all the sites on that page.
Here’s how I use it to make me look good in just seconds…
1) On the phone with a Potential Client
2) May I have your domain name
3) I’ll then usually either do a site:www. or I’ll use the SEO Quake Tool Bar that is installed. Either way, I gather some quick data.
4) I respond with… I see that you site is ____ months/years old, you have ____ links pointing to your site and you have ____ pages in Google.
5) Remember, this is just quick 15 second snapshot
Now, this is how I use SEO Quake to give additional feedback.
1) Armed with the information above.
2) What is a phrase that you would like to rank for.
3) I type that phrase in Google and hit request parameters.
4) I then look at the Age, Pages Indexed in Google and Links Pointing to the sites.
5) Remember, all of this is literally done in just 2 or 3 minutes. Quick Snapshot.
6) Based on info from the potential clients site and info from the Top 10 ranked sites, I may give combinations of feedback like…
“Your site is a June 2007 site and all of the Top 10 for that term are 2005 or older” (Hint: Site is too new to potentially compete.)
“Your site has 57 links and all of the Top 10 sites have at least 950+ links; however, this does not mean you cannot compete. Linking is more about quality, but I’ll have to dig further on this one.”
“Your site has 5 pages indexed. Most of the Top 10 sites have 100+ pages indexed.”(Hint: They are probably targeting more terms, have a good sitemap, have solid links, etc. Why does the site have only 5 pages? Is it really that small or just not being indexed well?)
Please don’t take me out of context. This is the short version of just some of the things you can do with SEO Quake.
Do you use SEO Quake? It will make you look pretty sharp in a matter of seconds when talking on the phone with someone. Please share your comments.
January 30 2008 | Marketing and SEO | 5 Comments »
