The Confident Copywriter

Archive for the ‘Random News’ Category

On Thursday, we introduced the concept of Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), technology poised to change the way we use keywords to optimize copy.

One way you can get moving is by starting a blog. You’ve heard this advice many times, but the truth is that the humble blog is becoming more important, not less. That should be a relief to some who have questioned whether social media is making blogging obsolete.

If you want to rank well in organic search, your site must reward the search engines with lots of valuable content. There is no faster or easier way to achieve this goal than with a blog. It’s one of the smartest ways to build content.

Once your blog is ready to go, be sure to publish at least three posts each week. Why is this important? Because each post is counted as a new page. More posts equals deeper content, and a higher page rank.

LSI is not meant to replace the all-important keyword, but to enhance it. Be sure to optimize your blog posts with keywords, as well as tagging and categorizing the post.

And never, ever forget the importance of relevant information!

Keyword-Optimized Images

Adding keyword-optimized images is another important strategy. Google does include images when indexing your website, so make sure you’ve got some keyword-optimized images. Before you do this, be sure the images you choose add relevancy to your content. A blog post about SEO accompanied by a picture of an ice cream cone probably isn’t going to be as optimized as it could be. The point of a picture is to add weight to the message.

To keyword-optimize the image, simply include one of your top keywords in your HTML code where the image is linked to the page. (In the image “alt” text. Wordpress users, use the “Title” field.)

The Ever-Popular Video

Videos are enjoying immense popularity. Unfortunately, search engine spiders are deaf. Therefore, build individual videos around one important keyword, and be sure to use that keyword in the video title. And don’t forget the importance of a transcript, the actual words used in your video. This helps the search engines recognize the keyword you’ve so carefully used. For example, when uploading a video to YouTube, choose “closed captioning” to also upload the transcript.

Nike Got It Right

Search is going through an unprecedented transition. As social media networks continue to infiltrate our lives, people rely less and less on the search engines and more and more on the opinions of ‘friends’ to make trustworthy recommendations. If you’re not on board with social media yet, time is running out. (That’s not a sneaky plea to win business. It’s the truth.)

As a child, when my Mom would nag me on some point I had heard umpteen times, I would complain, “Ma! You already told me 100 times!” To which my very wise mother would reply, “If you would just do it, I wouldn’t have to keep talking about it!”

If you’ve been marketing online, even for a short time, you understand the importance of keywords. Keywords direct web visitors to the products and services they want…if you’ve optimized your site properly, those visitors end up on your website.

News Flash: Traditional keyword usage is changing.

This is important news for copywriters, because we must understand how to optimize client copy to achieve the best results. Even if you are a business owner writing your own copy, it’s important.

This is important news for anyone who sells a product or service on the web too.

Here’s what’s new:

Keywords will not always be the most important part of an SEO strategy. Why? Because search engines are becoming more sophisticated, increasingly focusing, not just on the keywords themselves, but on the content surrounding the keywords.
Enter Latent Semantic Indexing, a mathematics-based indexing and retrieval method currently being tested. If you’re scratching your head on this one, you’re not alone.

KnowledgeSearch.org explains, “Latent semantic indexing adds an important step to the document indexing process. In addition to recording which keywords a document contains, the method examines the document collection as a whole, to see which other documents contain some of those same words. LSI considers documents that have many words in common to be semantically close, and ones with few words in common to be semantically distant. This simple method correlates surprisingly well with how a human being, looking at content, might classify a document collection. Although the LSI algorithm doesn’t understand anything about what the words mean, the patterns it notices can make it seem astonishingly intelligent.”

OK…in layman’s terms…if you are selling a vegetarian lifestyle guide, your top keyword might be “vegetarian lifestyle”. So you will use the regular methods to optimize your copy for this phrase. However, LSI dictates you must optimize your content for related words and phrases, such as:

• vegetarian
• no-meat diet
• eating healthy
• nutritional requirements
• benefits of eating legumes
… and so forth.

Some of these terms, such as “eating healthy” and “nutritional requirements,” are generic; not specific to “vegetarian lifestyle guide”. However, the search engines expect to find these types of terms in conjunction with a website optimized for your main keyword. These ‘outside’ keywords signal the search engines: “Relevant content found here.”

After all, this is the whole purpose of the search engine: to match the visitor’s query with the right information.

Thankfully, true latent semantic indexing is not yet being used by the search engines, so you have time to get on board. But you can bet computer wizards are working towards this goal. You might as well get ready now.

What are your thoughts on this?

Q: When do you want more customers?

Yesterday

Now

Tomorrow

Whenever it’s convenient for people

Hmmm…I’ll bet you didn’t choose the last option. Maybe that choice made you chuckle. It does sound funny.

In reality, it’s no joke. If we agree this choice is ridiculous, why aren’t we working harder to create marketing messages that motivate our audience and demand action?

No doubt, you’d like more work right now. Yesterday might be nice. Tomorrow is even better.

Did the title of this post…with the strange word “Chin”, make you stop what you were doing to see what it was all about?

The title uses a ‘trick’ that can help you get more business: the trick is to interrupt your customer’s train of thought, no matter what they might be doing…so the attention is on you, your company, your products and services.

As a willful small child, my mother often reprimanded me by grabbing my little chin and turning my face to hers. As I grew, the chin grabbing ceased, replaced by a stern, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Without fail, I always got her message, loud and clear.

What can you do to grab the virtual chins of your customers and demand attention? Perhaps more importantly, how can you help your clients grab their customers by the chin?

The web landscape is strewn with millions of marketing messages, all vying for the same eyes. Your copywriting skills can make all the difference for your clients. Or not.

Either way, pretty words are no longer enough.

When your customer thinks about hiring you, he isn’t thinking about your copywriting skills. He’s thinking about results. His sole goal is to get his phone ringing, his email dinging and his shopping cart singing. He wants first-time customers to make a purchase, come back again and tell their friends. He wants the search engine spiders to find his web site, eat it up and spit it out, right onto page one.

Think for a second: when your customer tells you, “You did a great job last time”, he’s essentially saying “I got great results and I want you to do that again.”

That’s a high, scary mountain for any copywriter to climb. No wonder so many remain at the bottom, slaving away for pennies, held back from greatness by fear of failure.

How would you react if suddenly someone yelled, Help!”, “Fire!”, or “Dial 911!” Just one or two tiny words…yet the immediacy, the urgency, is instantly conveyed.

I think we’ll agree that humans are procrastinators. Your job is not to force the customer to take action. Rather, your job is to prevent the customer from inaction. They are not the same.

A few tips:

Create an ‘act now!” perception in their customer’s mind, using the right words, at the right time

Don’t overdo it, as this will weaken the message

Take it easy with the exclamation points!

Create urgency with phrases like “don’t delay”, limited time offer”, “limited seating”, “reserve your space”, “this offer expires on…”, “while supplies last”, “one-day sale”, or be even more creative. The sky is the limit.

Few people want to be left out of a good thing. Make the customer think he just might be missing something.

Don’t forget the humble call to action phrase. People want to be told what to do. They are busy, overwhelmed, and in a rush, so make it super easy to place a phone call, fill out a form, request a demo, purchase a product, etc.

For more information, visit Marketing Experiments study, Testing the Power of Urgency on Offer Pages.

Over the last week, I’ve received numerous emails regarding the Facebook privacy issue. Some of them go more or less like this:

“I know how to fix the Facebook privacy issue. I deleted my account! So there. That will show them! My real friends and family already know how to reach me.”

Brilliant solution…NOT…and one that completely misses the boat on this topic. Here’s the point: there is no reason to contribute to the mass hysteria surrounding this privacy issue. I would venture a guess that someone who can so easily dismiss his or her account doesn’t have much going on in terms of online marketing anyway. I have thousands of Facebook followers, and deleting my account could have serious consequences to my overall marketing plan.

So what additional steps can you take? Here comes the good part.

Recently, I shared in a LinkedIn discussion with Sara Nussbacher, an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant in North Carolina, who turned me on to the coolest little tool for managing your FB privacy settings. The tool is called the Facebook Privacy Scanner, available at www.reclaimprivacy.org.

I spoke with the owner/designer, Matthew Pizzamenti, (also cofounder at www.Olark.com, a very affordable, very cool live chat tool I love and have installed here on the blog.) I was very pleased to learn the Facebook Privacy Scanner tool is free, although plans to keep it that way may change soon. Facebook Privacy Scanner is simple to use, quick, and will ensure that, even if you followed my instructions for manually privatizing your profile, you haven’t missed any crucial steps.

Sara tells me she discovered an important missed spot…”sharing info with friends”…essentially the function which alerts others that you are online and active.

I strongly suggest you take a moment to jump over to www.ReclaimPrivacy.org and follow the very easy instructions. It’s the final piece in your privacy puzzle.

This topic has started a firestorm of discussion here at The Confident Copywriter and across social media. Some have claimed there is no such thing as a “UVP”, chiding me for using the abbreviation as a stand-in for “Unique Value Proposition”. Others claim the UVP has been replaced by the USP, “Unique Selling Proposition” a more modern version but with the same basic meaning.

I don’t enjoy getting ‘bashed’ by those who…ahem…strongly disagree with my opinions. But for you, dear reader, I’ll jump back into the fray one last time. Decide for yourself if these terms are the same or different. Determine how you can grow your business by understand how your company is different. But above all, don’t ignore the importance of differentiation. It’s the lifeblood of your business and, sometimes, the very act of writing it all down is a journey in itself.

Jeff Smith at Info Marketers Zone states, “Your unique value proposition is a clear statement, in line with your market’s challenges and desires, communicating the unique contribution your company, product and services provide to your market different than your competitors.” (Source: http://bit.ly/cw8hlG )

Wikipedia states, “The Unique Selling Proposition (also Unique Selling Point) is a marketing concept referring to any aspect of an object that differentiates it from similar objects. Businesses use USPs as a basis for their marketing campaigns.” (Source: Wikipedia.com (adapted))

In other words, it’s all about what makes one product or service different from and, perhaps ‘better’ in the consumer’s eyes than the competition.

According to Rosser Reeves (1961; Reality in Advertising), the USP is widely misunderstood, (even more 40 years ago). Reeves offers this precise three-part definition:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique – either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

Clear as mud?

Your Unique Value Proposition, Unique Selling Proposition, UVP or USP…whatever you want to call it…showcases how your company, products and services differ from your competitors, so consumers can decide which brand to do business with. For example, you may sell the exact same widget as 20 other companies, but your company may be committed to green initiatives, whereas your competitors are not. This brings unique value to your offering.

Regardless, successful business ownership is not really about uniqueness; not much on this planet is truly unique, aside from people. Success is about standing out in a market crowded with similar products and services. Simple to say. Not so easy to articulate.

In an earlier post, I promised to provide you with the manual steps for protecting your privacy on Facebook. Without further ado, let’s begin.

1. Log in to your FB account
2. In the top right corner, click on Account
3. Click on Application Setting

In the drop down box at the top right of your list of applications, change “Show” to “Authorized.” You can now view all of your current applications.

For each app you wish to remove, click on the X in the right hand column of the list corresponding to that app. A pop-up box will appear. Click “Remove” to delete the app, then click “Okay” to confirm removal.

Being that the issue here is privacy and confidentiality, and given that FB offers little choice, some experts suggest deleting every app- wiping the slate clean, so to speak.

To avoid sharing your personal information, such as location and phone number, we’ll need to adjust the Privacy settings.
Once again, in the top right corner of your profile, click on ‘Account’. Then choose ‘Privacy Settings’.

From your privacy settings page, click each of the individual options, such as Profile Information, Contact Information, etc. and follow the on page directions to go through and choose the settings you want. In almost every case, you have the option to select ‘Only Me’ to ensure no one but you can see certain private information. You can select ‘Specific Friends’ by inputting their email addresses. You can select ‘Friends Only’ or ‘Everyone’.

From Privacy Settings, select “Applications and Websites.”

On the next page, go through each option and choose the settings you want. Most importantly, choose “Edit Setting” next to “Instant Personalization Program”.

You will arrive at the Instant Personalization Pilot Program page, the page causing all the hubbub. “Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features…” will already be checked. Facebook has kindly done this for you, so your information can be shared with sister websites Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft docs. If you wish to disable this feature, and we assume you do since you’re reading this, simply uncheck the box. Confirm your opt-out choice in a new window by clicking on ‘Confirm.’

ONE FINAL STEP…

You must also opt-out manually on Microsoft Docs, Pandora, and Yelp. Visit the following pages separately and select “Block Application.” A new window will ask you to confirm as before. Select OK.

Microsoft Docs: http://www.facebook.com/docs

Pandora: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=139475280761

Yelp: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=97534753161

VOILA! Control over your privacy! Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

At Facebook’s recent f8 developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed changes that may adversely affect your privacy settings, putting you in the unwelcome position of giving up more information than you intended to share.

Facebook has changed privacy settings and privacy policies, making it easy for the network to integrate with partner sites, and making it difficult for users to limit privacy invasion. So-called “instant personalization” provides Facebook’s business partners, Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft Docs, with access to users’ likes, interests, friends, etc. unless the user opts out.
Also removed is a key privacy safeguard that allows third parties to store user data indefinitely. NOTE: You’re also sharing all of your friends’ information by proxy, unless they’ve adequately protected themselves.

Zuckerberg offered no solutions to this dilemma, leading to speculation that this is just one step in FB’s ongoing bid to dominate the world.

Wait. I thought Apple was bidding for world domination with the iPOD on May 28th? (Somewhere, superheroes are cracking up.)

No doubt, thousands of previously satisfied FB users have been unduly alienated. Those who attempt to fix their own profiles will be even more disgruntled to discover FB has made the process quite complex, leading the Electronic Privacy Information Center and fourteen other consumer protection groups to file a formal complaint with the FTC.

Earlier in the month, PC World reported it had discovered an FB ‘bug’ that added applications to user profiles without their knowledge. While the bug has been corrected, any unwanted applications added to your profile must be manually removed to avoid unintentionally sharing your information.

What does this really mean? Everyone can see your personal interests. If that doesn’t sound so bad, consider this: If one of your interests is pornography, you are automatically linked to Facebook’s Pornography interest page. Anyone and everyone can see this, including family, your boss, your neighbors…Or perhaps you favor a specific religious or political affiliation, but usually keep your opinions under wraps.

Not anymore, you don’t.

How can you prevent this from happening? Good question. Tech types are scrambling to put together information to help us understand how to opt out.

FB boasts over 400 million users. The network now rivals Google in size and reach. But many believe Zuckerberg and his cohorts have gone too far. One thing we can all be sure of: The Internet keeps a-changin’, whether we like those changes or not. It pays to stay on top of what’s going on.

But never fear…Friday’s blog post will outline what to do to correct your settings and protect yourself.

Watch this space.

If one of your complaints about social media marketing is the time it consumes, you’ll love this little gem of a tool:

The program is Nutshellmail…a simple and easy social media organization tool that you can set up literally in just a few short minutes. Nutshellmail aggregates social media email so you receive just 1 email per day summarizing:

Linkedin & Facebook personal messages: Birthdays, photos, friend/connection requests, wall posts, news feeds, group/event invites, private messages. Comment/respond right from your inbox!

Twitter Mentions: See mentions, new followers, quitters, and your friends’ latest tweets in your Twitter summary. Tweet, Reply, Retweet, and DM without leaving your inbox.

MySpace Updates: New messages, friend requests, photos, videos, groups, and status updates

Ning Updates: All the latest from your Ning networks, like The Copywriters Business Network!

Imagine! Turn off all your alerts, set up Nutshellmail, and reap the rewards of extra time!

Check it out- I think you’ll love it. I do.

Once upon a time, the Big Social Media Question was “Who are you?”

Shortly thereafter, Twitter emerged, asking, “What are you doing?”

Now, we have a new question to answer, “Where are you doing it?”

Welcome to location-based social networking, the next evolution in social media. Geolocation tools emerging on Facebook, Twitter, Google, and smaller companies like Yelp, FourSquare and Gowalla already know the secret: social media is driven by advertising. Advertising makes money. Mobile technology makes the Internet available from anywhere 24/7, giving advertisers the opportunity to engage customers on many levels. Small businesses also benefit with special offers that drive customers.

Read about Facebook’s geolocation technology.

Geolocation technology was topic numero uno at the recent SXSW Interactive conference, where the debate raged on: pushing a button to share your location has some intriguing applications…but what happens to privacy? When the entire world knows you’re away from home, and they know exactly where you are, are you putting yourself at a dangerous risk?

Sounds silly? Picture this:

….A burglary ring begins to monitor status updates en masse …

….Your home is robbed after you tweet your vacation status…then your insurance company denies the claim because you put your property at risk…then your premiums go up…

…Anyone, anytime, anywhere can pick up your exact geographic coordinates and find you…whether you want to be found or not…

…You call in sick to work, but your boss checks Twitter and sees you were at a club with your friends last night at 1 am. 2 + 2 = Fired.

Sure, this is all speculation…but not for long.

The solution? Common sense, of course. Think about why you’re sharing, who is likely to see it, and what the consequences might be. Use social media tools responsibly.

Lest you believe you’ll never use location-based social media technology…the tech world says one day you will. Beyond checking in with friends to meet up at the corner bar, geolocation technology will soon become the ‘it’ trend for building your online brand and controlling your digital presence.

Technology marches forward, even if you and I follow kicking and screaming.

Have you ever received one of those weird emails from overseas, claiming someone you never heard of died and left you millions?

They’re at it again.

I just received an email with an ominous subject line:

Internet copyright of TheConfidentCopywriter (To Principal)
The email stated:

Dear Victoria Ipri,

We are an organization specified at dealing with domain name dispute and registration in Asia. We have something important on intellectual property right need to confirm with your company.

Today we received a formal application from a company called B2bmarketplace International, who applied to register ” TheConfidentCopywriter ” as their domain name in some countries and Network Trademark. During our preliminary investigation, we found that these domain names’ keyword is identical with your trademark. I wonder whether you consigned B2bmarketplace International to register these domain names with us? Or is B2bmarketplace International your business partner or distributor in Asia?

Currently, we have already postponed this application of this company temporarily. Therefore please let the relevant person make a confirmation with me by telephone or email ASAP.

Best Regards,

Wanda Peng
Auditing Department(HK Office)
Tel:00852 95 66 0205
FAX:00852-3071-7730
Email:wanda@skasiadnr.net
wanda.peng@dnrcenter.hk
Web:www.asiadm.hk.cn

I immediately freaked out and began writing back to “Wanda”, proclaiming my ownership of this domain, the legalities of my business…I mean, the nerve of this B2bmarketplace, whoever they were!

Then the good angel, who never leaves my right shoulder, screamed in my ear, “Hey, Stupid! You’re giving away confidential information? Go check this company out first!”

And I did. And guess what I found?

You’re gonna love this one.

I found a blog, www.miproconsulting.com, and the wonderful Jeff Ventura, who suffered the exact same fate and wrote about it back in June 2008:

“This approach is obviously personalized to the owner/manager of a commercial Internet brand and hints at risk to our online trademark due to a foreign application being made for our trademark name in country-specific flavors (.asia, .biz, .cc, .cn, .com. cn., .hk, etc.). Being the nice foreign domain registrar they are, the sender of this message, SK Holdings, is asking us if we want to do business with them and secure all of the miproconsulting variants listed below so that we can protect our Internet brand from this foreign applicant. Isn’t it nice that someone halfway across the globe is looking out for our best interests? Makes me want to do business with them right away.”

Wow, people. This is a new one on me. I quickly erased my email to ‘Wanda’ and stashed her email in my FRAUD folder for future reference.

Thank you, Jeff! I see you have 111 responses to this email. So apparently, the tactic isn’t new; just new to me.

If it’s new to me, it might be new to you. So, to my readers who own domain names, watch out!

This is a sneak attack we all need to be aware of.

OK…you can go back to whatever you were doing now…