That depends… does your website contain quality content? Google’s latest algorithm change, which they are calling significant compared to the ongoing subtle changes, will impact 11.8% of search queries. What kind of impact? Essentially, high-quality content will be rewarded with higher rankings, while websites with low-quality content will plummet, and in some cases, disappear from search results. Even websites containing predominantly good content can be hurt by a few bad pages. Ouch!

So, what determines whether or not your site contains ‘good content’? Isn’t that somewhat subjective? Without giving away any of those precious algorithm secrets coveted by many a web marketing nerd, Google outlined the criteria on which the new algorithm is based. The long list can be boiled down into these  points:

• Is the content original, thorough, insightful and written by an expert, or is it shallow fluff?
• Does the site contain duplicate content, even very similar content with different keyword variations?
• Are there any grammatical, stylistic or factual errors?
• Is the content created based on reader interest or high-ranking search terms?
• Does the site offer trustworthy advice and secure credit card processing?
• Would you bookmark, recommend or share the content?
• Do excessive ads distract from the main content?

Aside from suggesting you pay attention to the above criteria when developing new content, Google also recommends removing any existing content that could be deemed low quality by these standards.

The Big Picture

Essentially this algorithm change is good news for good copywriters, white hat SEO experts and the smart business folks who hire them. It’s bad news for people who try to cut corners and trick search engines into driving traffic with fluffy, keyword-stuffed content that doesn’t consider the reader.

Now, more than ever, good, customer-centric content is king, and farming less than stellar content with little or no effort in order to drive traffic is becoming a rejected practice. Writing for the site visitor is taking an even bigger role over writing for search engines (according to a search engine, ironically).

The main concern with this update, however, is that well-meaning websites that contain good content for the most part could still be negatively affected should Google detect even a small amount of what the algorithm registers as bad content.

Can Your Site Be Affected?

If you’re concerned your site could be affected by the algorithm change and are confused about the criteria, you could submit your site for review by a web copywriter or other web marketing specialist. A professional copywriter, especially one who’s familiar with ethical SEO practices, can spot bad content a mile away, and even offer suggestions for improvement.

If you’re starting a website for your business from scratch, working with SEO specialists can help you get started right, and reduce your chances of low rankings.

Aside from hiring professionals, these general guidelines should also improve your chances of achieving higher rankings:

• Spend a little extra time planning, researching and writing your blog posts or articles. If you don’t have the time, approach experts in your field to write guest articles.
• Avoid the money-saving temptation of outsourcing to spammy, low-cost service providers, which greatly increases the chances of populating your site with grammatically incorrect, typo-riddled, low quality content.
• Don’t hire ‘black hat’ SEO companies, who often employ unethical and spammy techniques, which did work at one point, but can get your site blacklisted (essentially removing it from search results) now more than ever.
• If you’re writing your own content — edit, edit, edit! And then edit some more and have colleagues proofread it for you to prevent typos and errors from slipping by.
• If you’re including keywords in your content for search engine optimization, ensure they fit logically, and in a way that makes sense to the reader. Don’t force it or overdo it.
• Check your facts and support your claims.
• If you’ve got an online store, ensure your e-commerce system is trusted and secure.

Quality Over Quantity

From what Google has communicated regarding this latest algorithm change, it’s evident they’re moving toward offering greater rewards for genuine, user-centric, thoughtful and technically flawless content. If you haven’t already, it’s probably wise to take our Google overlords’ lead.

Are you happy with the Panda update? Share your thoughts below.

Some companies post fluff on the web as a marketing strategy. We’ve all seen it: “helpful” articles written without the benefit of a decent encyclopedia by writers paid pennies per post. Until recently, Google’s preference for content-heavy sites rewarded these content farms with improved search rankings.

In February, Google took steps to downgrade the search rankings of high volume, low quality sites by making a significant adjustment to it’s algorithm. In April, Google expanded its algorithm change from just U.S. sites to all English-language sites. By some estimates, visibility of some of these sites fell as much as 94% after Google’s initial adjustment.

But fluff isn’t just limited to content farms. Could your site get caught in Google’s fluff reduction efforts? How much of your website is fluff?

The Webcopyplus Fluff Quiz

Take our quiz to see if your site is fluffy or fantastic. Rank your level of agreement with each statement below, then tally your points and read our assessment. Good luck!

1. Our main website priority is search engine optimization.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Unless your target market runs on a chip and looks like the Tin Man, your priority should be human visitors first, and search engines second.

By letting SEO drive your web content, you are creating fluff. It is better to write for your target market first (i.e. some subset of the human race) and then amend as needed to maximize SEO without sacrificing your human audience. SEO tactics may improve your ranking, but people still need to view the site.

2. We like to see what keywords people are searching for and then come up with content to match.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

And that new content is typically fluff.

Creating content based on popular searches might direct traffic your way, but it’s not going to help your conversion rates. It’s fine to amend your content to utilize hot keywords, but only if the keywords are a natural fit for your site. Content driven by keywords not relevant to your site is a recipe for fluff.

3. We sometimes repeat content on our website to maximize keywords.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Repeated content is fluffy content. Repeated content is fluffy content. It irritates the reader. It irritates the reader.

Create your best content and put it on your site once. It disorientates the reader to find the same information in different locations on your site. If you find you need to put the same information in two places, then you need to take closer look at your site architecture.

4.  We sometimes add extra paragraphs or web pages to improve our search engine ranking.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Snore. Oh, sorry. What were you writing there? It was so deathly boring I nodded off.

Never create content just for the sake of creating content. It’s lazy, unimaginative, bores your readers, and makes your brand look bad.

5. When we need to add more content to our site, we randomly link another page or two to our sitemap.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Building a website is like building a home: You need a good plan. You don’t want to rip down walls or build lean-tos in your backyard every time you want to make a change.

If your site architecture is well-planned, it should be scalable, both up and down. It also makes it easier to see where more content is needed and where it is not. If you have one-pagers hanging off your root folder, you may have a fluff infestation.

If your site architecture is a problem, consider whether:

6. We developed our website as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

If you assigned the design, development, and content of your site to a junior assistant, you have fluff. If your web developer scribbled your site plan on pages torn from the back of a Tom Clancy novel, you have fluff. If you acquired a writer with promises of portfolio development and pizza, then you have fluff.

A strong team of professional designers, developers and copywriters can help make sure your website meets your goals while keeping fluff to a minimum.

Fluff is cheap. But it may end up costing you more than you know.

7. If we create an interesting table, list or graph for a presentation, we also like to post it on our website.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

That’s about as appealing as belly button fluff!

Repurposing content is fine. It can be a time-effective way to keep your web content fresh. But you must present all content in context. Don’t post pretty tables, lists, graphs or illustrations without explaining what they are and why people should care. Otherwise: fluff.

8. There is nothing we enjoy more than auto-generating content or scraping content from other sites.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

You need a fluff intervention, my friend. These black hat activities will generate fluff and a Google delisting. Can jail time be far behind?

No need to calculate your score. Delete that website and return to question one.

Scoring

Add up your score and see how you did:

If you scored 8-15:
Congratulations, you are officially fluff-free! Your content is relevant, topical and useful to readers.

If you scored 16-23:
Your website is a little soft and chubby. Time to bring out your inner-editor and start editing.

If you scored 24-31:
You have more fluff than the corporate headquarters of Build-a-Bear. Time for some serious website reworking. Start deleting pages and sections, and think about revising your site architecture.

If you scored 32-40:
Call the fluff exterminators! It’s a fluff swarm of biblical proportions. You can either delete the site and start over, or translate the entire site into Swahili. It might keep you safe until Google expands its algorithmic adjustment to non-English sites, but don’t expect the people of East Africa to be grateful.

FAQs are questions your website visitors and customers frequently ask. But sometimes you need to ask yourself: “Why do they keep asking these same questions?”

The answer could mean there are problems with your website content. What message are you not getting across? What information do people often have problems finding?

Some argue that FAQs are completely unnecessary if you’ve got the right web content. Ideally, your website visitors should be able to find information they need right away, which would prevent them from asking further questions. However, FAQs can serve a purpose if done right.

When FAQs Go Wrong

A recent survey of a person sitting in the same room as myself at this very moment revealed the following poignant insights:

Jill: “What are you doing?”
Me: “Writing an article about FAQs”
Jill: “Ugh, I hate those things!”
Me: “Really? Why do you hate them, Jill?”
Jill: “They’re so wordy! The questions I need answered are never there. Maybe it’s just that no one else wants to know what I want to know.”

While Jill is certainly no web content expert, her comments illustrate some common problems experienced by average website visitors regarding FAQ pages:

• They’re too lengthy and don’t answer questions quickly
• They miss the mark regarding your web visitors’ desires
• They alienate your visitors

Another common mistake happens when people use their FAQ page as a sales opportunity. Notable usability expert Jakob Nielsen believes your FAQ page should never be an excuse to post questions you wish your visitors would ask. For example, “Why is your company so awesome?” answered with, “We’re the best at everything because…” If you are doing this, then consider your FAQ page a waste of valuable Internet space. You could be using that space to show your website visitors you actually care about them by answering their real questions.

When FAQs Go Right

Even when your web content covers everything your site visitor needs to know, an FAQ page can be beneficial if done correctly. Here are some reasons why you might want to keep your FAQ page:

• An FAQ page presents an opportunity to add more keywords to your website, which is great for getting you noticed by search engines.
• If your site visitors are short on time, they can find quick answers to their questions on your FAQ page.
• If you’ve researched your FAQs well, they can demonstrate your knowledge of your visitors’ needs.

With all of this in mind, you’re now ready to develop the content for your FAQ page. What’s the best way to go about that? Like the other content on your site your FAQs should be:

• Scannable: The visitor likely came to the FAQ page with a specific question in mind, so make it easy for them to find it by breaking questions into sections and categorizing them with bold headlines.
• Concise: Perhaps even more so than the rest of your website, your FAQ answers should get to the point immediately. Your visitor wants to find their question, find the answer, and then move on. It’s not a place to tell stories or wax poetics. Additionally, if you think the question could be answered elsewhere on your site, add the appropriate content there, instead.
• Customer-centric: As with your other web content, speak directly to your customer. Find out the questions they really want answered. How can you do this? Monitor customer service calls, emails, and all other customer communication channels to discover the questions being frequently asked.

By conducting thoughtful research surrounding your visitor FAQs, you’ll not only be armed with the tools to build an effective FAQ page, but you’ll also gain insight on how you can serve your customers better, and improve your web content overall. For more on how to improve your web content, check out How to KISS When Your Web Content Isn’t Short and Simple.

In this inaugural edition of Are You Really Gonna Search That?, Opticon makes a peculiar discovery while conducting keyword research for a snowmobiling company in Whistler, BC.

Does the idea of stripping down and engaging in snow sports excite you? You may be in luck! According to my keyword research, a market exists for naked snow sports, and one snow sport in particular is underserved in the web realm. While ‘naked snowmobiling’ has a healthy amount of competition as a search term, ‘naked snowshoeing’ has zero competition and an 81.0 score on the Keyword Effectiveness Index.

Personally, I’d choose naked snowshoeing over snowmobiling. I would fear for the safety of my bits not only in the cold, but also whilst strapped to a snowy crotch rocket hurtling through the rough trails of Whistler. This guy, however, seems to be having a swell time with it:

Are You Really Gonna Search That? Is a regular series on the Webcopyplus blog that chronicles the gems discovered while conducting keyword research and building search engine optimization strategies for our clients.

The value of original, high quality web content continues to rise as Google makes new moves to decrease the visibility of low-quality websites. The search engine giant recently updated its algorithm to suppress the presence of link farms, which generate endless streams of poorly written, regurgitated articles. It’s all in a bid to cater to users who have been complaining about spammy sites appearing in top search results.

While Google reports it makes approximately 500 changes to its algorithm a year, this one’s significant, and SEO types, business owners and users will likely notice changes.

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites — sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful,” Amit Singhal, a Google employee, and Matt Cutts, who leads Google’s anti-spam squad, wrote in a Google blog post. “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Black Hat SEO Versus White Hat SEO

The updated algorithm, which is initially being unleashed in the US, reinforces the need for marketers and business to avoid black hat SEO techniques — illegal tactics that can get websites penalized or de-listed from search engines altogether.

Just days ago, The New York Times reported on how J.C. Penny was caught with thousands of unrelated websites in the retail industry linking to their site — a common black hat SEO maneuver. While the US-based retailer enjoyed a brief boost in online presence and sales, it’s now in Google’s bad books.

The short-term gains of black hat SEO do not make sense for a business seeking long-term success. Businesses are better off developing links from reputable websites and communities through quality web content, including articles and press releases, as well as videos and social media.

White hat SEO involves hard work and dedication, which can reap enduring results. Black hat SEO is risky business, with a high potential for unhappy endings. J.C. Penny learned this the hard way.

Savvy companies have increasingly been posting videos on their websites to help connect with customers. But, as video technologies continue to advance, there will be implications for web copywriters, marketers and business owners alike. To get an edge over the competition tomorrow, you need to ensure your company’s videos are ‘SEO ready’, today.

Video on the Web

The explosive growth in video web content over the past few years has mainly been attributed to decreasing video production and equipment costs, and east-to-use, DIY gear. Once limited to companies with large budgets, video production is now accessible to many businesses. Consequently, more companies are putting more videos on their sites.

The Internet and its surrounding technologies have also improved to better support video. Greater bandwidth and faster download times mean that clicking “play” no longer means risking a long wait time or crashed computer.

Changes to Google’s search algorithm have also supported the prevalence of video on company websites; Google’s search engine favours websites that contain a mix of media. By having a site that features text, video and other media you may improve your search engine results. However, this advantage is becoming less significant as more websites offer mixed media.

Why Use Video?

Several arguments support implementing video on your company website. Video is sticky — visitors tend to stay on your website longer. In theory, the longer visitors stay on your site the more opportunity to sell and solidify your company’s relationship with the visitor.

Video is also ideal for conveying visual information. It’s often easier to watch a how-to video on assembling a product than read how-to instructions. When conducting a product review, it can be helpful to show the reviewer testing the product rather than describing the experience.

Video and SEO: The View Today

If you choose to employ video on your company website, be sure you include supporting SEO text. Providing context for the video and describing its contents to Google will increase your views and exposure. There is nothing worse for users than sitting through several minutes of video and slowly realizing it’s not going to provide them with the information they want.

Video and SEO: The View Ahead

Video technologies continue to change, and we predict the future existence of widely-used software that automatically transcribes and indexes video. In 2008, Google developed a gadget that used transcription and indexing technology, which was applied to politicians’ videos on YouTube during the U.S. elections. Google’s elections video search gadget used speech recognition technologies to automatically transcribe from speech to text and to index it, making the spoken content searchable. Viewers could search speeches for different words or phrases.

Testing revealed some problems, however. Some words were transcribed incorrectly. The gadget also couldn’t return results differentiated by the context in which words were used. For example, if you searched an Obama speech for “Iran” your results could contain references to the country as well as Obama’s morning exercise routine.

Later in 2008, Google expanded this technology by adding a new transcription and indexing tool to their Labs site. Unfortunately, the current status of the tool, which they called GAudi, is unclear. Google removed GAudi from their Labs site and the Google Elections Video Search gadget is no longer available. Nonetheless, we’re betting that development on these technologies will continue at Google, and elsewhere.

When video content becomes searchable, SEO tactics will come into play. Implications are huge: video script writers and maybe even speech writers will need to write text that’s search engine optimized. If your CEO or client is delivering a speech that is being video recorded and posted on your company’s website, you’ll want to make sure  his or her speech contains words and phrases that will help get desired search engine rankings and presence.

Get Your Videos SEO Ready

What does this mean for video production today? Once transcribing and indexing technology becomes available, companies will scramble to re-shoot SEO optimized video content. Those who have already addressed this issue and ensured their video content is search engine optimized will be well ahead of the game. The next time you are developing video content for a website, give some serious thought to making the content search engine friendly.

I am a copywriter, and along with my fellow copywriters, I write copy intended to communicate the benefits of certain products and services to people who will potentially use them. My logo is not a little ‘c’ with a circle around it, and my job has nothing to do with legal rights associated with creative works.

As someone who works with words on a daily basis, and pays special attention to their correct use, being referred to as a ‘copyrighter’ not only makes my blood boil, but it makes me wonder whether people really understand what it is that I do for a living. Don’t even get me started on the fact that not a single person in this discussion thread has pointed out the error in its title:  What is a Good Copyrighter Worth?  Surely, forum participants on Webmasterworld.com would know the difference between a ‘copywriter’, with whom web professionals work regularly, and a ‘copyrighter’, which, I’m quite sure, isn’t even a word. Maybe they’re just not as picky about correct wording as uptight, professional copywriters like me.

Perhaps this is the reason for the abundance of secret rant blogs operated by copywriters everywhere (see Copyranter, for example.) Are they frustrated at the fact that the general public has no idea they exist? We copywriters work really hard to make your plumbing company look so sexy people who don’t even know what a sump pump is are lining up at your store wanting to buy one like it’s an iPhone 5. All we ask is that you call us by our real name — it’s copywriter, not copyrighter, thank you.

Copywriter Goes to a Party

Often, when the popular social topic of what everyone does for a living pops up, I’m met with blank stares when I tell them I am a copywriter.

“So what, you’re like a lawyer? What do you think of illegally downloading music? Uh oh! I’m in trouble!”

Inspired by the frequent occurrence of this conversation, I’ve developed a go-to speech that, unfortunately, may lead my conversation buddy to paint me as a condescending jerk, preventing them from giving a crap if I’m a copywriter or copyrighter.

“Okay, so you know how a business has a website, right? Well, I write the words that fill that website and let the website visitor know that the business is the best choice.”  (It probably doesn’t help that I speak loudly and slowly with many expressive hand motions while explaining this.)

Thankfully, the popularity of shows like Mad Men has left me with a bit more colourful material for parties that incites far less eye-glazing. “You know Peggy Olson?  Yeah, that’s what I do, except mostly for websites, not TV ads for Lucky Strike.”  When in doubt, always go with the pop culture reference (okay, maybe I am a condescending jerk).

Copywrighter, Copywritter

I’m not going to continue bashing your terrible spelling, since, after all, you’re in the market for someone who knows how to write, for obvious reasons.  And of course, I’m here to help.  Just a small piece of advice:  if you are searching online for someone to fill your website or brochure with high quality copywriting, you’ll get much better results if you search the correct term: copywriter. ;)

—Anonymous Copywriter

Website visitors don’t buy products or services; they invest in what the products or services will do for them.

What’s a feature? A descriptive fact — what the product or service is or has.

What’s a benefit? What the product does.

In other words, a benefit is what the customer gains as a result of the feature. If done right, benefits provide compelling reasons the website visitor should purchase the product or service.

Plus, benefit-driven web copy tends to be more customer-centric than feature-driven web copy, which is usually company-centric. Customer-centric web copy speaks directly to a person’s needs and wants, and does a better job engaging individuals on an emotional level, which is key to turning visitors into customers.

Good copywriters know how to convert features into benefits. It’s not an easy feat. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons so much content on the Web focuses on features. Digging into and defining benefits is a challenging, time-consuming task that many copywriters are not able or willing to do.

For instance, in a Web Designer Depot article about self-centered web copy, we noted content promoting binoculars might focus on certain features, such as:

• Oversized lenses
• Rubber coating
• Ergonomic design

That can score points with website visitors in terms of credibility, but the web copy should include the benefits:

• Low-light performance
• Bright, crisp and clear images from dusk until dawn
• Durability to withstand harsh weather and conditions
• Easy handling

So ask yourself what benefits do your features provide customers. How do these features make the product or service more useful, helpful, enjoyable, attractive, affordable, etc. to the customer?

It’s worth the effort because features tell, benefits sell.

SEO copywriters are facing an extremely competitive landscape as an increasing number of businesses are realizing the vast value of  search engine optimization.

There are now more than 14 billion Internet searches made each month, according to comScore. Moreover, Google has noted its index comprises more than 1 trillion pages.

To view for yourself just how competitive the Web is, Google a term like website design New York, NY which brings up 13.8 million search results. That’s for a website design search specifically geared toward New York, NY! Even a search surrounding a much less populated Canadian city like website design Winnipeg generates 704,000 search results.

Going global gets even tougher. Professional web copy, for instance, produces 48.8 million competing pages.

What makes today’s SEO copywriters’ jobs even more challenging is the fact that about 70 per cent of searchers only click on the first page of results—of which many will only peer at the first few results.

Getting to the top is tougher than ever. But getting there reaps lucrative results. It can make the difference between a website that floats aimlessly in cyber space—kind of like a brochure buried in a landfill—and a website that actually generates leads and sales (even as the business owner and staff vacation or sleep).

That’s why it’s important to lean on a team of consultants and firms that specialize in select areas of the Web. Jack-of-all-trades can no longer stay abreast of all the latest search engine algorithms, strategies and technologies.

While hiring a small team of specialists can require a larger budget, it opens up opportunities for options, creativity, results and profit.

Whether you’re a New York IT firm or a San Diego design studio, SEO copywriting services can help you tap into a new stream of leads and sales.

The fact is that 85% of all new traffic to websites arrives via search engines. And it’s no secret that Google owns close to 75 per cent of the market. Hence, if SEO copywriting services get you to rank top 10 on Google, you’ll achieve a powerful return on your investment.

On the topic of investment, website owners often ask what do SEO copywriting services cost. Some supposed ‘SEO experts’ make themselves available for as little as $150 a project, while large SEO agencies can charge tens of thousands of dollars per month.

However, Webcopyplus’ systematic approach provides businesses highly-effective SEO copywriting services for smaller websites starting at about $1,500, which includes a keyword analysis, meta data development and optimized web copy.

What makes our SEO copywriting services different is that we optimize website content for both search engines and visitors. Hence, based on experience and studies, our SEO copywriting services promote traffic and conversions.

Another common question surrounding SEO copywriting services is how much time it takes to complete a project. While the amount of research can vary, our web writers usually complete small- to medium-sized projects within two weeks.

Finally, what can SEO copywriting services do for your website? Lots. While it can take several weeks or even months to get top rankings for a new website, SEO copywriting services can help existing websites achieve lucrative search engine rankings in as little as three weeks.

Feel free to check out our web copy case studies, or learn more about our web copywriting services. To discuss your website, simply contact us.