Copywriting Best Practices for your Website

You need to take steps for your users to find your website. Studies show more than 80% of Internet users begin their time online when searching for products and services. You want to increase the likelihood that your site will come up near the top of the search results.

The sophisticated algorithms of Google, Yahoo! and MSN match the best websites for each search. The search engines are looking for the content that matches the search most closely. The words you use on your web page(s) tell the search engines whether or not your page is relevant. Taking time to focus on good keywords will likely increase the traffic to your page.

Choosing Keywords/Keyword Phrases
Think about how your target audience is searching for you. What phrases would they enter into a search engine if they were trying to find a business/product like yours? Choose 3-5 keyword phrases per page that fit your business and also would likely be common phrases that people would use in a search. Here are some free keyword research tools:

-Google AdWords keyword tool
-NicheBotClassic.com
-GoodKeywords.com

Create Relevant Page Copy
It's essential to create relevant copy by spending time researching keywords and keyword phrases that match what visitors are searching for. Examples of relevant keywords and keyword phrases could include:

-Your company and/or product (ABC widgets)
-Local attributes (New Prague Minnesota widgets)
-Special attributes (Minnesota blue widgets)

In the examples above, the keywords would be relevant or "optimized" keywords or keyword phrases. Use these relevant keywords/keyword phrases in your web page copy, photo captions, links, etc.

Quick Tips About Page Text
1) Search engines place strong emphasis on the first words on your page; place keyword phrases at the beginning and in order of importance.
2) Avoid repeating them more than 3 times.
3) Be sure text is related to the overall theme of the page and organized in logical sentences or bullet points.

Other Details to Remember
1) Use text-based keyword phrases in headings. Avoid using only images/graphics as headers because search engines cannot "read" them. When posting photos or videos to your pages, add text descriptions/captions nearby that include a keyword/keyword phrase.
2) Search engines weigh link text more heavily than plain text; use keywords/keyword phrases in on-page links.

Updated features of Google's free Local Business Ads

Get the most recent updates from Google about your local business ads here.

Google has added great new functionality to your listing that allow you to learn more about your business. Starting in a few weeks, they will also be adding a new interaction report available through your account’s Report Center. The report
will help you accurately assess your return on investment with local
business ads by detailing how many users opened your info window and
clicked on each of the new interactive links. Read more here.

Let me know if you have questions and have fun using all of Google's great tools for small businesses!
--Paula

Bad Advertising

As a small business, I have to make the most of my advertising budget. So when I'm driving traffic to my website I need to be sure it's effective. Here's a great article from Mark Widawer. He specializes in effective landing pages (the page you send traffic to with your advertising).

This reminder from Mark is an absolute MUST if you're running a small business and you want to have the most effective advertising on- or offline.

Read more here.

Effective Technique of Article Marketing

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com

Article marketing is a good way to get your link seen by millions of
potential customers and has been the most popular way to promote your
on-line business and increase your PR (page rank) for free. This
marketing technique is one of the most commonly discussed on the
internet today. Article marketing is becoming one of the most used ways
of advertising your site for free, it is definitely one method you
should try if you haven't already. Read more...

Publish your Email Newsletters to Twitter

Hey all you Twitter lovers! If you are also an AWeber user, you can know post a link your AWeber email newsletter in Twitter automatically each time you broadcast. This is pretty cool and is a great way to simplify your tasks.