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  • Cranking Up The Volume On Your SEO Content Writing

    Cranking Up The Volume On Your SEO Content Writing

    Cut Out the Excess Noise, And Your SEO Content Writing Will Pop!

    Writing comes in all kinds of styles and lengths, but one thing distinguishes great writing from mediocre: doing more with less. If your SEO content writing boasts thorough research and clear expression of facts, congratulations! You’ve passed level one. After all, truth is the first goal of expression. But what if you took the writing itself—the expression of the truth—to the next level? Can you make the truth unforgettable, even for clients whose market doesn’t interest you personally?

    This is the challenge of professional SEO content writing. At 216digital, we practice this all the time! We continually improve upon our own work, growing and learning from everything we’ve ever written. Were we born knowing our clients’ markets? No way. We only got here through strategic research into every client we write for. But we’ve found that great research isn’t enough. Great research must lead to great writing—and great writing is a process.

    To see this in action, I’ll give you a micro-tour of our revision process. We’ll look at a few examples of sentences from first drafts produced by our SEO content writing team. Each of these gives you a little snapshot of our writing refinement process. In the first version of each sentence, you might notice a little wordiness or a lack of clarity. In the revised sentence, you’ll notice that the meaning really pops off the screen. In the final version, you’ll see how we’ve achieved the ultimate in the clear expression of the truth.

    SEO Content Writing Process: Examples

    Example 1:

    “Today, we’ll be examining the way in which some example phrases are constructed. We’ll try and see if we can say the same thing using one half or even one third of the original number of words, compared to the original.”

    “Let’s look at the construction of some example phrases. Can we say the same thing in half the words—maybe even a third of the words?”

    “In these sample phrases, we’ll work on saying the same thing in half the words—maybe even a third of the words.”

    Example 2:

    “You should aim to have a high quality score because that means that your bounce rate is going to plummet.”

    “A high quality score will cut your bounce rate dramatically.”

    “A high quality score will slash your bounce rate.”

    Example 3:

    “Since 1999, 216digital has been a premier Miva developer. Over that time, we have become experts in the design and development of responsive Miva websites and custom Miva applications and modules.”

    “216digital has been a Miva developer since 1999. We’re experts in responsive design and development, and we rock Miva applications and modules.”

    We couldn’t really improve on that one. The first revision was the final revision.

    The Bottom Line

    SEO content writing

    The point here is that your best writing is never your best. At each stage in the writing process, the writer of each of these sentences couldn’t find anything else to improve on. Yet after a little time away, we found we could take these sentences through two more versions to reach the ultimate in clear, concise expression.

    This process is easy for us now. Fast drafting and revision are second nature to us! We bring these skills to every client we serve. If you’re looking to improve your existing SEO content writing, or if you’re about to dive in for the first time, get in touch with our SEO content writing team. Let’s start talking about your next big thing.

    Greg McNeil

    June 17, 2015
    Content Marketing, SEO
  • Content Writing: Taking Miva Design To The Next Level

    Content Writing: Taking Miva Design To The Next Level

    Completing The Miva Design Picture with SEO Content Writing

    So you have a killer Miva design for your online store. You’re ready to sell your great niche products to a hungry market. You’ve heard about SEO (search engine optimization). You don’t know quite how to do it, but you hope to pop up on the first page of Google someday. You keep checking, but your competitors are bumping you down to the 4th, 5th, even the 6th page of search results. What’s going on? Why aren’t your niche customers flocking to your great Miva design?

    Miva Design: A Skeleton In Need of Flesh and Blood

    Don’t let me confuse you: mobile responsive design is critical to the success of any online store, but it’s only part of the picture. Think of a great Miva design as the skeleton on which you’ll hang the healthy, athletic body you’re building. One critical component of that body is your store’s products. Okay, you’ve got that covered. But the final element—and the most difficult to master—is engaging, well-written content.

    The doomsday predictions on increasing web use and decreasing literacy have turned out wrong. If anything, the web has all of us reading more than ever. It’s not how much we read that’s changing—but what we read, and how we read it. Tapping into this knowledge and using it strategically in your content writing is critical to engaging your customers—which, by the way, is critical in SEO.

    People search the web for everything imaginable. As this article from Search Engine Land explains, people use Google not only to find specific websites, to get information, and to buy things, but also to delve deeper into a topic for which they have only basic knowledge.

    Engaging, Useful Content: The New SEO Rocket Fuel

    How can content improve your business’s SEO? That depends on what you’re selling. Take a step back and look at your market. Most markets that can support online stores also have knowledge and entertainment angles that businesses can leverage into blog posts.
    Think about it: the only transaction you make without needing further information is your regular grocery shopping. You always get the same kind of toothpaste. You buy whatever toilet paper is on sale. This kind of market—which sells simple, cheap commodities that everyone needs—doesn’t have much of a content angle to it. But niche markets, which sell specialty products to a base of avid enthusiasts, are another story entirely!
    Let’s look at it from the user’s perspective. (By the way, that’s the first rule in content writing!) Say you’re a car enthusiast. You just bought a car for customizing, and you’re joining a passionate community who modify this make of car. You’ve customized other cars, but you know very little about the specifics of this model. You want to learn about common modifications, inherent design strengths and weaknesses, and possible pitfalls before you start taking things apart. You google something like, “X model powertrain customization.” You find a great blog post at SomeKindOfCar.com/blog that explains not only the basic characteristics of the stock powertrain in your car, but some of the most popular mods to the powertrain. The post has a few links in it leading to the aftermarket car parts you’ll need for these mods. You buy the parts, noticing that the online store lives at the same URL—SomeKindOfCar.com.
    Guess what? The folks at SomeKindOfCar.com just sold you the exact parts you wanted, using SEO-guided content writing.

    Leveraging Content Writing for SEO

    Writing great content to improve your business’s SEO takes more than an ear for language and a deep knowledge of your products. A good SEO content writer couples three things together: the artistic ability to write with power and precision, the technical knowledge of the subject matter, and a strategic SEO vision derived from detailed keyword analytics tools.

    Good SEO writing isn’t just search engine food. It isn’t a poetry contest, either. It hangs squarely between best technical practices, informative coverage, and engaging style.

    That’s a demanding list to hit. Many businesses can cover one or two of these requirements in-house, but not all three. If you can’t hit all three of these with your existing staff, consider outsourcing your writing to a dedicated SEO content writing team.

    At 216digital, our content writing team researches every client’s market for topics, style, and voice. We analyze our clients’ existing writing on landing pages and blog posts (if a blog exists). We formulate recommendations for improving landing page copy, and we watch these changes jack that page up in Google search. Through consistent communication, we nail down a blog voice for each client. Then we crank out informative, well-written posts day after day—all of it strategically informed by our extensive suite of keyword analytics tools.

    If you’re ready to watch your site leap through page rank, get in touch with our SEO content writing team today. We’d love to start talking about your next big thing.

    Greg McNeil

    June 12, 2015
    SEO
    Content Writing, Digital Marketing, Miva Design, SEO
  • Targeted SEO Content Writing

    Targeted SEO Content Writing

    Great research is the key to SEO content writing

    Without adequate research, a piece of writing is at risk for factual errors. Nothing destroys reader trust like reading something that’s obviously false. This is especially true when the error is so basic that a little research on the writer’s part would’ve nipped the mistake in the bud. But great research isn’t the only factor involved in SEO content writing success; an audience-tailored voice ensures that all that great research gets through to those who want to read it. In other words, at 216digital, we believe that voice and style are just as important as good research.

    In marketing, customer research involves the discovery of different market segments—different portions of a customer base defined by age, education, income, interests, and so on. Say one of our SEO content writing clients sells aftermarket parts for a highly customizable make of car. That client’s general customer is enthusiasts who love that kind of car. But not all of those readers are the same. We might divide these customers into different segments—say, longtime car lovers who’ve had their car for years, and younger customers who are just getting into that kind of car and have some basic to mid-level questions. These customer segments will have different concerns and knowledge levels.

    Different sections of this client’s website might cater to one market segment or the other—or both. Any copy we write has to fit the segment or segments who will read it. If multiple segments will read the page, our copy has to work at a higher level of generality while still popping off the screen. If only one segment will read the page, our copy has to work at that segment’s knowledge level and speak to their exact concerns—while still popping off the screen.

    Voice and Tone

    The voice of a piece of writing is critical to its success. How many times have you clicked on a page, started reading, and quit because the writer couldn’t write? In writing fiction, “voice” is what separates one author from another. It’s the most difficult quality for a writer to develop, and it’s often the last to emerge. Think of it like stage presence for a musician. Every successful musician carries herself differently on stage, making every performer unique; but all successful performers have one thing in common—a highly developed persona unlike anything else in the business.

    Every client we write for needs a different voice. We may find, through audience research, that some clients require similar voices. That’s fine—but we can’t start with that assumption; we can only work that way once we’ve researched our audience and we know that a voice we’ve used before is appropriate.

    Some clients will need a highly technical voice that writes with a lot of technical knowledge. These clients will require even more extensive research than others. A client in the engineering sector will need a far different voice from a client who sells retail clothing. Each of these clients needs its own voice to match its target market and sales strategy.

    How do we determine what kind of voice to use for a particular client? By researching that client’s content competitors and soaking up the best writing in that market. For example, to develop a voice for articles on 216digital.com, I looked at SEO articles on www.searchengineland.com as well as ecommerce customer case studies from Miva, the premier online store platform. Reading these sources not only gave me raw information, but it helped me capture the tone that turns our audience on. We take the same approach with every client. We find the best content sources in our client’s market, imitate that tone to teach it to ourselves, and finish by blowing that tone away.

    Putting Audience First

    It’s simple: we put our audience first. With every sentence and every article we write, we ask if it serves our audience. Every word that gets in the way has to go. We find creativity in structure and topic, rather than in using more words. We owe it to our audience to give them the shortest, most dynamic structure and phrasing we can.

    If you’re looking for incredible content marketing services, consider the SEO content writing team at 216digital. Get in touch today, and we’ll start talking about your next big thing.

    Greg McNeil

    June 10, 2015
    Content Marketing, SEO
  • It’s More Than Just Teenage Poetry: Why You Need To Add A Blog to Your Online Store

    It’s More Than Just Teenage Poetry: Why You Need To Add A Blog to Your Online Store

    In the last several years, blogging has expanded from something that was the primary domain of moody teenagers to part of the backbone of internet culture and business. If you’re reading this, you are probably considering adding a blog to your ecommerce store or you might already have one. While many people understand that blogging is an important business tool, most don’t know why.

    For starters, a company weblog gives you a convenient soapbox to share news about your company or make announcements about products or special events. You can also offer coupons, discounts, or other special offers to your most loyal customers. It’s like having your own newspaper all about you. But, why does it really matter? The news-giving function of a blog is obvious, but there are a few reasons to add a blog to your website that aren’t as apparent but still give your website the edge it needs in an increasingly crowded internet marketplace.

    The most effective blogs are ones that have an authentic voice to them and build the brand of the company they represent. They’re compelling and well-written, but most of all let your customers know exactly who you are. If you want your customers to open their wallets for you, they need to have some trust in you. When you speak directly to your customers, you become more than just some company on the internet, you give yourself a personality. Create posts that talk about who you are as a company, not just in the boilerplate way, but use the space to show people about your interests or highlight employees.  Make your blog a window into your company culture and let your customers get to know you. Also, make sure you have an “about” page that not only identifies the business that owns the website, but also who’s doing the writing. Throw a picture of the author up there, too, and provide a face to go with the voice. Don’t forget to respond to comments, too. Conversation goes a long way to making your company a real persona in the minds of your customers.

    An integrated blog is also one of the easiest tools for SEO. Google loves fresh content, and posting to your blog constantly adds more pages to your site which gives you a better chance of increasing your organic search ranking. Your posts need to be written coherently, and with your audience in mind. But don’t forget, a big chunk of content is an opportunity to capitalize on keyword optimization opportunities. Links to your products are also great for your site’s SEO so be sure to include them when you talk about or post pictures of the things you sell. Customers are also much more inclined to buy when you make it easy for them. A link to the product you’re talking about in your post is a must-have. Don’t forget to add sharing tools so that customers can increase your visibility on social media platforms, that way your customers can help evangelize your brand!

    For a few ideas: share funny stories from the office or post a topical meme, discuss an industry-related headline in the news, make how-to articles and answer customer questions, or just give your customers new and different uses for your products! With a blog, brand-building and SEO gets easier, and it’s a great way to reach your customers without a middle-man, which is something they’re sure to appreciate.

    Greg McNeil

    March 11, 2015
    SEO
    blog
  • 5 Reasons You Cannot Ignore SEO

    5 Reasons You Cannot Ignore SEO

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is hard to pin down because there are so many elements to it. Broadly, it is the ways in which you can change keywords and content on your website to gain more visibility on the internet. This can be one of the most difficult parts of redesigning your website, because determining what keywords to use, what content to change, what kinds of social media to work with, and everything in between. It can all seem incredibly daunting, and some may wonder if SEO is worth it in the end. We’re here to tell you that yes, it is. Here are 5 reasons why your ecommerce website can’t ignore SEO:

    1. Get more qualified traffic: The more keywords you use, the more qualified traffic you’ll get. Your website’s bounce rates will decrease, and people who actually want your product will visit your website and you’ll have a higher chance to convert them. If you don’t include keywords on your website, Google and other search engines won’t know how to index your website, and you may get hits, but those hits won’t be by people who actually want to buy what you’re selling.

    2. Be seen on more avenues: Every time an article or blog post is written by or about your

    company, it’s like an arrow that’s pointing to your website. Some potential customers might not be using a search engine to find what they are looking for—they may be scrolling through Facebook or reading a blog. By introducing your website to these different social media outlets, you also introduce it to more potential buyers.

    3. Be more user friendly: It may seem like your website is easy to navigate, but by improving and updating the content on your website, you will greatly improve the experience of your visitors. Simply making tabs more accessible, descriptions more detailed, and adding more information about you and your company will help your customer navigate your site with ease and will also increase the trust between you and your customers.

    4. Increase your rankings: This is probably one of the main reasons why people use SEO tactics. By incorporating more keywords into your website’s content, your ranking on search engines will increase on its own. This is vital to your business’s visibility, because the higher up you are in the rankings, the more people will see you when searching for the products you sell.

    5. Help the crawlers out: Google, Bing, and Yahoo are constantly trying to improve their websites to get the most qualified results for their search queries. They send out crawlers that navigate and categorize websites all over the internet. If your website contains the right keywords, search engines will know exactly how to categorize it, which will in turn increase your rankings. However, if you include the wrong keywords, it will hide your website in a back corner of the internet.

    Here at 216digital, we understand how incredibly valuable SEO is to getting your website seen by the most people possible. Our content writers work hard to create blogs and articles that will attract qualified customers to your website. We are partnered with Google and accredited by Bing, so we can determine the best avenues to take to optimize your website. Our SEO technicians have been working to increase traffic to websites and grow businesses for years. Let us help your business grow. Together, we can create something amazing.

    Greg McNeil

    February 26, 2015
    SEO
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