A website’s keywords (or keyphrases) are put together through a variety of steps and each expert’s technique will be slightly different. One can either start big, with a huge long list of every possible permutation of brand, product or service, and then work down; or start small with a refined list of proven keywords and work outwards, hoping not to miss any gaps. There are lots of tools that will help with this research along the way.

Ultimately, a keyword will make it onto the list if it has a certain level of search volume, isn’t too competitive for the website (eg. ‘iphone’ would be too competitive a keyword for most small business websites) and represents what is on the page it is to appear on. The days of keyword stuffing and keyword density are just about over, but that doesn’t mean writers know what to do with this list.

It’s a balance: you need to include the keywords to get visitors via the search engines, but you also need to keep those visitors once they arrive. The easiest way to do this is to be sensible about the number of keywords you’re aiming for and to write copy with those words in mind from the very beginning. Ideally, such an informed awareness of the way your customer is searching for what you offer will actually lead to better sales copy than you would have had without the research.

Here’s why:

• you’ll learn how long it actually takes you to write, which will make your life much easier when it comes to pitching ideas, timeframes and rates.
• you’ll learn how long it actually takes you to proofread and edit your work (see benefits above).
• you’ll learn to ask the right questions when receiving a brief, which means you’ll avoid those clients or assignments that aren’t right for you.
• you’ll get much better at not procrastinating and therefore better at overall time management.
• you’ll learn ‘what works for you’. For example, I know that writing before breakfast is my sweet spot; I’m more productive then than at any other time of day so it makes sense for me to factor that in to my writing schedule and, for example, go for a run when my concentration starts to lag around midday.
• practice makes perfect and lots of deadlines means lots of writing.

I write a lot but I know that if I didn’t have deadlines to keep me in check, nothing would ever get finished!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0grANlx7y2E

(I suggest full-screening it.)

And, feel free to follow up with Ned Block:

http://bit.ly/cahHDs

I am amazed by how long this washing machine lasts after the brick is thrown in it. I threw a brick into my clothes washer to see it if it would behave the same way, but all it did was put a big dent in my washboard and put a hole in my tin wash basin. It didn’t even shake a little bit.

Jargon, or any kind of industry slang, usually doesn’t help with any of these objectives. There are a few exceptions, which I’ll come to after this: my top three reasons to avoid jargon.

1. Search Engines

Search engines work by sending out robots to read your web pages. If a user searches for a term that appears on one of your site’s pages, you stand a chance of ranking in the results. (Of course, Google’s algorithm is a LOT more complex than this and takes loads of other factors into account, but copy is one of the most important). If, therefore, you don’t use the language that your customers are using to search for you, your search engine traffic will suffer dramatically. The way to combat this is to conduct keyphrase research to check you and your customers are using the same kinds of words to describe your services.

2. Jargon is Boring.

If you land on a webpage and can’t understand half the words or need to keep hovering over acronyms to see what they stand for, chances are you’ll hit that back button and get on out of there. Effective copy doesn’t just bring customers in, it keeps them there.

3. Jargon doesn’t convert.

If you want a customer to click that ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Buy’ button, you need to make them feel confident and in control. If all your copy refers to products or services in language that doesn’t make much sense outside of your office bubble, you’ll alienate rather than reassure and that potential customer will go elsewhere.

When Jargon Works

Of course, the exception to the no-jargon rule comes when you’re expecting to deal with expert customers; people who will search using specific industry terms, become more interested when they see lots of them on a page and finally convert when they feel the business is expert enough to deserve their custom. The number one lesson is to understand your audience and always talk in their language.

Step One: Understand what ‘Good Content’ is.

The golden rule of blogging is to create content that people will actually want to read. That means that all posts need to be at least one of the following: interesting, funny or useful. When coming up with ideas, make sure that they all have the potential to deliver within one or more of these categories.

Step Two: Think Ahead

Your mind isn’t always at a steady level of creativity and, therefore, won’t supply premium post ideas for your blog on demand. However, there will be times when inspiration hits and you’ll find yourself churning out great concepts. Make sure you write them all down! I’m very aware of the limitations of my memory, so I take care to always carry a pad and pencil around with me in case one of those moments should hit while I’m away from my desk (which, to be honest, is when they usually occur!).

When you’re grabbing these ideas out the ether, don’t worry too much about what the post will eventually look like, just don’t let the potential get away.

Step Three: Ask your clients

Clients, potential or existing, are probably the main audience you’re trying to reach with your blog, so make the effort to ask them what they’d like to read about. It pays to get a bit creative in the asking; rather than just sticking a line in your latest post about welcoming ideas, go out and get them! Try contacting individual customers that you know are engaged with your brand and find out what excites or frustrates them about their dealings with you.

Step Four: Stay in the loop

Set up a Google Alert for a few keywords closely related to your business. Not only will you then receive any mainstream news related to your industry, you’ll also stay up to date with bloggers writing within the same area as you. Other blogs can be a great place to find inspiration for your posts, but be careful not to pinch ideas.

Step Five: Keep Your Eye In

One of the best ways to come up with fresh ideas is to start writing. Obviously, if you don’t have any ideas to begin with, this is a bit of a non-starter! To get round this, try and come up with some sort of regular post, either daily or weekly, that you can reliably write without too much hassle. Here are a few ideas for a series of posts: a weekly summary of industry news, a tip or trick, a summary of your favourite online reading that week, a fuller explanation of your FAQs one by one, a feature on a customer or employee, an analogy that compares your industry to something in popular culture.

As with most things, the more you practice coming up with fresh ideas, the more accomplished you’ll become. Why not start today by writing a post inspired by this one: for example, How I Come Up With Ideas for my Business Blog.

Here are my five top tips for reaching headline nirvana without sacrificing your readers along the way:

- Good headlines aren’t a product of the digital age; they’ve been around for years and years. Check out more conventional media, like your local rag or magazine rack, to learn some of the oldest tricks in the trade.

- Test your headlines. You don’t need to do this for every post you write, but try testing a few different headlines on different audiences to see if you can pick up any pointers for what goes down well. If you have an established Twitter following, try out a few one liners to see which get the most click throughs. Alternatively, you could ask friends or family to pick the most intriguing headline out of a group.

- Use a formula. Copyblogger has an excellent range of ‘fail-safe’ headline formulae, for example ‘Who Else Wants [blank]?’ or ‘Little Known Ways To [Blank]‘.

- Sleep on it. If you’ve been banging away at a blog post or article all day, chances are your brain won’t be as fresh as it was five hours ago. You need to think creatively about a headline, so give your mind time to step back from the subject matter and reapproach it from a new angle the next day.

- Slim it down. A great headline gets the interest of an article across in very few words. A wonderful exercise for learning the ‘art of headlining’ is to take your whole article, cut out half the words, cut in half again, rinse and repeat until you get down to something headline-length. This might not be the actual title you use, but it’s really good training for recognising the most important elements of a story.

The bottom line? Never underestimate the power of a good headline, but remember it has to work with rather than against your article.

Here is the clip (warning: some bad language. Duh.)

Go to Comedy Central to see more clips or the whole South Park episode.

Oh, and if you are interested in visiting South Park on Facebook, just click the link.

[ Youtube via Neatorama ]

Say you’re ready to start beautifully illustrating each of your carefully crafted pieces. Where do you go to find these gorgeous images for your publication. Here are a few tricks I have up my sleeve.

FREE STUFF

You know what they say about stuff that’s free. It’s only sort of true when it comes to stock photography. Flickr is the holy grail of free photography, but the catch is you have to restrict your search to the Creative Commons area. That’s simple enough in principle, but you’ll find that Flickr’s interface whisks you right out of the Creative Commons with great ease, so you’ll find yourself looking at the perfect photo, only to check out the fine print and see that it’s a copyrighted image. Frustrating, FYI. So there’s a bit of a trade off on the free stuff. You’ll also want to make sure that you give credit to the source and link back to it.

Another option is to use a Google image search, and set the advanced options under “usage rights.” There are other places to get free pictures as well. The best way to assemble your go-to list is to take note of them when you’re doing other things, then you’ll know you can go back and get a good pic.

PAID OPTIONS

I really like iStock Photo. Since they were acquired by Getty Images a few years ago, the prices have gone up like 200%. However, it is still affordable enough for hobby-type use. The reason I still like them in spite of the price is that it saves me time because a) you can always find the right picture and b) you don’t have to attribute, you own it for purposes of your blog.

Fotolia is the same way. It is cheaper and it used to be that the quality and selection was iffy. However, it’s come along quite a bit and now offers really good quality for around $1 a picture.

Here are some links that are helpful on this issue:

Blogosphere Trends and Choosing Images

Using Images to Take Your Posts to a New Level

Give Each Photo a Pretty Face with Flickr