Looking for Post Google Panda SEO Writing Tips?

Ever since Google shifted their algorithms with the Panda or farmer updates earlier this year it has thrown the SEO content creation world into a topspin. Here’s a great article with some practical tips that you can put to use right away when you are creating SEO content in a post Panda world. These practices should help you get better results from your articles and blog post content-at least until the next update. . .

5 Article Writing Best Practices After Panda Updates
by Sushant

If you’re an SEO article writer, you’re probably aware of Google’s farmer updates and how they have turned the SEO world upside down. Today, webmasters are being extremely careful about choosing their article writing company as they want to make sure their content is good enough for Google guidelines. Therefore, ambitious SEO article writers should follow the best article writing practices to make sure their articles comply with Google’s content quality guidelines. Here are a few things you must keep in mind before you approach your next article:

Focus on Information: The Web is growing bigger and Google is getting smarter. The new algorithms (aka Panda updates) have been designed to value articles that offer original information to the users. Now, Google’s renewed algorithms can spot if your articles contain the same information that is already available within Google’s database. Therefore, if your articles aren’t original enough, Google may not value them as much. In other words, your articles will rank lower in terms of Google search algorithm parameters.

To avoid this, you should have a fresh approach towards SEO article writing. Try to focus more on the quality of information rather than the word-count. Join relevant forums and discussion board to develop an idea on what potential readers are looking for. Your best articles are hidden in the discussions across the Web, so take advantage of them. Do your own research to find the right information in order to make your SEO articles more valuable for Google search engines.

Avoid being Keyword-Centric: We are living in the world of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ where valuable information has a way being recognized and rewarded. Therefore, it’s pointless to go focus too much on SEO aspect of your articles. Using target keywords here and there are fine, but the prime importance must go to the quality of the articles rather than the other way round.

Don’t stress too much on whether you can begin the first sentences with the target keywords or use them in the headings. If you articles are based on research and read naturally, they will get recognized across the social web faster than search engines. Google’s renewed algorithms are smart enough to recognize the social popularity of your articles as well. Therefore, it’s time to shift your focus from keywords to quality information.

Write for Niche Audience: This may be convention wisdom but still holds true today. Keeping your target audience in mind is critical to improving the compliance of your SEO articles for Google search algorithms. This aspect has assumed more importance as Google’s farm updates have been designed to offer the most relevant results and information to the users. Therefore, if your SEO articles are crafted with your target readers in mind, they have increasing chances of being rewarded well on Google’s ranking priorities.

Try to develop articles around the subjects that interest your niche audience. Do a lot more research on what your potential audience is looking for. Write down their questions and see how your articles can address their queries. Use a personal tone to make your SEO articles read naturally and appeal to the taste of the potential readers.

Avoid Rewriting Others Articles: Many SEO article writers have misunderstood Google farmer updates and assume quality content is all about original text. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee – Google doesn’t value spun content anymore. So, there’s no point in sweating over quantity of articles. Moreover, avoid the temptation of rewriting popular articles to steal the advantages. Google is smart enough to recognize the same and devalue your articles categorically. There’s no alternative to doing your own research and writing fresh, innovative and informative SEO articles for better Google rankings and higher social recognition.

Make It Interactive: If you’re active on the social Web, you would have noticed an increasing social inclination towards interactive content. Today, your potential readers are being ambushed by too many articles across the Social Web. They have developed a habit of scanning through their social updates to spot articles that look actually interesting to their eyes at first sight. Therefore, by using interesting and visually interactive images, you can enhance the visual interaction of your target audience. Plus, present the information around your images in a way that appears relevant to the images. Spend some additional time on your SEO articles to make them appear more interactive before you post them.

Post Panda updates, SEO article writers are beginning to approach their articles in a way we couldn’t have imagined before. Article writers can no longer enhance the popularity of their articles buy following the old tricks. The Social Web has also empowered your audience to read articles that are really worth their time. In a way, Google Panda updates have been devised to rank articles based on their social popularity as well. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for SEO article writers to approach their article writing strategies in a whole new way.
Source: SEO Content Writer

Try these tips and see what kind of results you get. Do you have any tips to share that you have learned since the massive sea change from Panda? Feel free to share them in the comments. If you find this article useful, please share it.

Are You Missing Out on the Power of Press Releases for Your Online Business?

 

You are on the web because you want more visibility and more sales for your business, right? Well, what better way to get more visibility than notifying the media and the search engines about a new development or event related to your business? That’s what you accomplish when you write and distribute a press release.

Writing and submitting press releases has more far reaching benefits than just the exposure that you could get for your business if a reporter picks it up and does a news story on you. Press releases can really help to boost your website’s search engine rankings from all of the relevant, high page-rank websites that your release will be published on.

Each time you submit a press or media release you’ll get a ton of fresh back links pointing at your site, which makes it look more important to the search engines. In this article we’ll take a look at two different approaches to writing and submitting press releases for your business, the benefits of each approach, and you’ll get some cool resources that will help you improve the quality of your press releases.
Resources for writing your press release:
The first thing you must keep in mind when you are writing your press release is that the language can not be ‘salesy’ or promotional. A press release is not an ad for your business. Your goal is to get a reporter to find what you are writing about interesting enough to their readers or viewers that they want to do a story on your business.

There is a standard format for a press release that you must follow. You can download a press release template and use that as a framework for adding your content. Keep your target audience in mind when you are writing and keep the language spare and absolutely hype-free.

Here’s a fabulous website that has lots of resources for you if you are going to try to write your own press release:
http://www.press-release-writing.com/press-release-writing-tips-sample-press-release/

These next two resources I got from Nancy Juetten, who is an absolute publicity passionista:

This, ‘Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer,’ is a free tool that will analyze your headline and given a score according to its emotional marketing value.

http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm

HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score.

http://www.pressreleasegrader.com/

Submitting a press release for media exposure for a major event or new development
If you are hosting a major event and you are looking to get media coverage, submitting a press release is the best way to accomplish tat goal. However, while the PR submission service can guarantee that your press release gets delivered, they cannot guarantee that reporters will do a story about your event.

When you are trying to get exposure for your event, submitting your press release to a well-known, reputable pr service gives your release a better chance of being picked up by reporters. The better known services have established a reputation, and reporters are more likely to run with something from prweb.com, or prnewswire.com than from one of the thousands of free press release submission websites online.

Here’s a list of specialty press release distribution resources:
http://www.yudkin.com/resources.htm

Submitting a press release for SEO purposes
If your goal is to get lots of relevant backlinks for your website, gain more exposure online and boost your website’s SEO,  then you should be submitting press releases to the free press release distribution sites on a regular basis.

These are just a few of the hundreds of free press release distribution websites:

  • prlog.com
  • freepressindex.com
  • free-press-release.com

Would you like to see how your website is currently measuring up to your competition? Type your site’s primary keyword into a search engine. Are you are the top of the search engine results page, or is your competitor there above you?

Writing and distributing press releases is a powerful way to help build a ton of high page rank back links to your site, while generating massive exposure and traffic.

Can you see now what an effective tool press releases can be? Whether you are looking for media attention for an event or if you just want a SEO boost for your website, submitting press releases can accomplish either task for you.

If after reading all about how press releases can help your business, you understand what a great benefit they could be, but you’re thinking about how many other things you have to do and how much you dislike writing, I’ve got a solution for that too–Hire me to write it for you. Shoot me an email at ebb567 {AT} gmail {DOT} com and I will send you all the details.

Do you have a success story related to media coverage that you got from submitting a press release? Please leave a comment and share your story.

 

5 Tips for Improving Your Online Writing Skills

Writing for the Web

Writing for the web is not the same as writing for print. If you are going to be writing content that will be consumed online there are a few concepts that you need to get clear on. By now most people understand the fact that we don’t read text online in the same way that we read text in hard copy such as a book or a newspaper that we hold in our hands.

People tend to skim online copy very quickly with their eyes.
The Internet is by nature fast moving and bright and shiny. Our brains and eyes move hyper-fast when we are online and if what we are looking at does not appeal to us, we can quickly get rid of it within a nano-second by clicking the next link.

As writers, we need to get in touch with the way our readers engage with our work online so that we can create a product that will be both useful and enjoyable by those who consume it. You want to craft content that makes your readers stop long enough for you to convey the message that you are trying to send. Your words must draw them in so that they can consume your content and in exchange for their attention you must fulfill the promise of supplying the information they were searching for.

Write for human readers but with SEO in mind.
Another unseen audience that is consuming our content online is the search engines. Since our human readers’ eyeballs are our most important audience we write for them, but it’s also important to keep the principles of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, in mind as we create web content.

Since many of us learned to write prior to the Internet age, there are a few specific strategies that we can employ in order to be effective at online writing.

  • Do Keyword research and write content that focuses on one or two keywords while delivering concise information that the end user is searching for.
  • Link to other related pieces of content within the site that add to topic.
  • Link out to related authority sites that have high search engine rankings and provide additional information for your reader.
  • Use images that illustrate your point and break up the text on the page.
  • Write in shorter paragraphs allowing for sufficient white space on the page to give the reader’s eyes a place to rest.
  • Use bullets and call-out boxes for the skimmers to grab information quickly.
  • Use meaningful sub-headers to introduce ideas.


Tips for sharpening the saw:

This is a list of five tips that can help you to improve your online writing skills, but this does not pretend to be an exhaustive list. You’ll want to keep learning and constantly strive to improve your craft over time–’sharpening the saw’ as Steven Covey calls it.

1. Read excellent writing
While it might sound far too simple and obvious, but reading good writing is really the best way to improve your own writing skills. Read widely on diverse topics. Pick authors whose writing style you admire and read several of their books. Get suggestions for good reads from fellow book-lovers, or make friends with your local librarian.

Here are a few blogs that feature both excellent writing and compelling content for writers:

  • http://www.copyblogger.com/
  • http://www.problogger.net/
  • http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/
  • http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
  • http://www.doshdosh.com/

2. Join a writing group
This can be tricky because a really good, established writing group can be quite challenging to find. You may end up starting one of your own, but find a group of fellow writers of varying levels of skill and accomplishment where you can share your work and get honest feedback on how you can improve it.

There are tons of writing groups online, but I prefer live groups because it gives you the chance to interact with other writers and create real relationships with real people who share your interests. Check out meetup.com to find a local writer’s critique group, or search online writing forums to find local writing groups.

3. Take a class
Visit your local University or Community College’s website to see if they offer an online writing class. It may, oddly enough, only be offered online, but you can find some live online writing classes as well. Other resources for online writing classes include:

  • The Education Portal has an article with links to 10 Universities that offer free online writing classes

    http://education-portal.com/articles/10_Universities_Offering_Free_Writing_Courses_Online.html

  • The Gotham Writing Workshop

    http://www.writingclasses.com/

  • Wrter’s Digest University writing classes

    http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/

4. Hire a writing coach
Working with a writing coach is an excellent investment. If you want to write a book, but you would like to polish up your writing style, a coach can help you to get motivated, get unstuck, create a writing routine that works for your lifestyle, and most of all hold you accountable to the goals that you have set for yourself.

  • http://www.writingforward.com/category/writing-help/writing-coach
  • http://writingcompanion.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/writing-mentor-coach/
  • http://www.genreality.net/ten-reasons-to-hire-a-writing-coach


5. Practice, practice and more practice.

“A writer writes,” as they say. Write something everyday. Set a daily word count goal that you feel that you can stick to, but that will also force you to stretch yourself a bit. Commit to meeting this goal, but don’t beat yourself up when you don’t. Just pick up where you left off. Keeping a daily longhand journal can be therapeutic and help you clear out what’s on your mind so that you can focus on creating good writing.

Keep a blog where you write about whatever inspires you. Write a new post every day and before long you will begin to notice that you are developing a unique style that your readers will come to enjoy.

Additional Writing Resources:

  • http://www.webanddesigners.com/20-ways-to-improve-websites-readability
  • http://www.problogger.net/31-days-to-building-a-better-blog/
  • http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/fifty-50-tools-which-can-help-you-in-writing.html