1)    It’s gotta be regular! If you want your website to appear anywhere in Google, you MUST update it with fresh SEO content on a regular basis. At a minimum, you need to be adding content to your site once a week – if you can do it more often, that’s even better. The operative word here is “adding”. There’s a mistaken belief in some circles that you should re-write your existing pages on a regular basis, when in fact it’s adding new content that will really boost your chances in the search engines. Try to ensure that the majority of your SEO content is unique. It’s OK to post an occasional piece of content from another site but keep in mind that Google is looking for sites with something original to say.

2)    Write a blog. A lot of websites are “static”, i.e. basic brochure-style sites with content that don’t really need embellishing or updating. Installing a blog is therefore a neat solution to the problem of needing to add regular content. The blog can have its own section on the site (www.sitename.co.uk/blog) and any number of posts can be added without disrupting the overall usability of the website. If you use a CMS (Content Management System) like Wordpress for your blog, you’ll find it’s as easy to use as Microsoft Word. Lace your blog articles with your keywords and link those keywords to other pages of your site for extra SEO brownie points.

3)    Say something useful. A business blog is only as good as the topics it writes about. After all, you want the readers to engage with your carefully crafted SEO content and subsequently take an interest in your products and services. What do your customers find interesting and useful? The reason our own SEO content focuses on blogging is because we’re a team of article writers and blog writers and we want to attract readers who share our interests. Don’t make the mistake of using your business blog as your personal diary. Your blog needs a consistent theme that’s relevant to the needs and interests of its readership.

Online publishers are starting to think Rupert Murdoch was right: the “free” web is dead. The global recession has caused advertising revenues to dry up and publishers of SEO content are having to stretch their brains to think how they could make a charging model work.

Writing web content has never easily translated into earning money. Some kinds of online content (mainly porn and music) has always been chargeable, but punters are used to getting their online news for free. Until now, publishers have made do with advertising revenue, but that’s not looking sustainable in the current economic climate.

So how does the online publishing industry convince the general public to start paying for their online news? The answer could lie in micropayments, the basic principle of which is to charge a price that is so small it won’t put off customers, but will accumulate sufficient revenues, via mass sales, to keep the publisher in profit.

Frank Fisher, a website writer for The Guardian suggests that the Google Adsense technology could be reversed in order to establish an industry standard for taking SEO content micropayments. Google Adsense was designed for publishers to earn money from small ads which they would include on their website. Every time a customer clicks on a Google Ad, the publisher earns a tiny amount of money. Once a month, the publisher receives a payment for all the clicks their ads received.

Fisher suggests that, in order to apply the technology to a charging model for SEO content, “individuals would sign up with Google, deposit funds. They’d have a unique ID attached to them at that point – an encrypted cookie stored on whichever PC they happen to log in with. When they visit a site with GoogleDosh embedded they’re allowed in, a fraction of a penny is switched to the content provider’s account for every item they read.”

At present all of our SEO training takes place on a private basis, but we are putting together a public copywriting course as well. Please let us know your feedback!

Event Concept

Course name: Website Words - Copywriting Course

Date: TBC

Cost: £295 – includes handouts, lunch & refreshments and post-workshop email support

Capacity: Up to 15 delegates

Copywriting Course Description:

Choosing the right words for your website is just as important as choosing the right design. You need words that communicate the benefits of your product or service in the customer’s language. Plus, when you’re writing for the web, you need words that appeal to the search engines.

“Website Words” is a one-day interactive copywriting course, designed to give you a thorough overview of what you need to do in order to write engaging, optimised web copy.

By the end of the course, you will know:

• How to write SEO content
• Where to find your keywords and how to select the best ones
• How to structure the text on your website to achieve maximum enquiries and sales from your visitors
• Why customers treat websites differently to other forms of media
• Essential “do’s” and “don’ts” of website copywriting

Learn how to create text for your website that simultaneously appeals to your customers and to the search engines. This copywriting course will give you hands-on, practical techniques that you can put into action straightaway on your own website.

Your trainer

We are pleased to introduce your trainer Heidi Williamson, a highly experienced website copywriter and trainer. For the last seven years, Heidi has been responsible for training the copywriting team at Virgin Money.

Heidi has written and edited web copy for many of the Virgin brands (Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Wines, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Vie, and Virgin Experiences), as well as other big brands such as HSBC and Prudential.

Get in touch

If you’d like to receive details of this course when it’s up and running simply send your details to training@writemysite.co.uk. If you have feedback on the proposed course contents, please post a comment!