Archive for: October 2008

Headlines aren’t just for newspapers, of course. But they are typically the first thing that customers read in your ads, in your e-newsletter articles, on your web pages, and even in your emails. A headline that grabs attention can immediately engage customers and pique their interest – or it can be skimmed over and ignored as they move on to something else. But since headlines are responsible for up to 80% of a customer’s response, here are some ideas for writing headlines that boost those response rates and attract lots of attention from readers:

1. Give Tips, Hints, or Information – One of the best ways to grab attention is to use a list of tips or hints in your headline. The “top 10 ways to”, “tips to help you”, or “the best ideas for” are sure-fire ways to get attention from readers.
2. Use a How-To – Another tried-and-true attention grabber is using a “how-to” teaser in your headline. Customers love free advice or gaining new information, and “how-to” headlines are a great way to clue in your readers that you’re about to give them something they already want.
3. Ask a Question – Involve your customers immediately by asking a question in your headline. Make sure the question is relevant to both their interests and your products or services. Use a question that will make them curious enough to read what comes after the headline.
4. Make an Announcement – People love something new, so write your headline to announce something in a way they’ve not heard it before. Use words like “Introducing,” “New,” and “Announcing” as a way to generate excitement.
5. Point Out the Benefits – Let your customers know right away that your message will help them in some way, or fill a need that they have. Touch on the benefits in your headline, then provide the supporting detail in the content of your offer.

Writing powerful headlines can be the spark you need to capture your customers’ attention and compel them to keep reading your message. And once you get their attention, you have an opportunity to convince them with your content and motivate them to respond. If you can write effective headlines for your ads, articles, and web pages, you greatly improve the odds that your content will be noticed instead of neglected.

If you’re like many small businesses, you probably spent a lot of time (and money) pulling together a web site for your company, only to find that in order to be found in the search engines, your site needs to be optimized.

Why is it necessary to optimize a web site for the search engines in the first place? Basically, it’s because there are millions and millions of web sites on the internet today, all different, with no standardized mechanism for indexing or organizing the information they contain. It’s like a giant internet encyclopedia with no table of contents to help users find what they’re looking for.

Search engines were developed in an attempt to organize all of that web information and make it searchable and relevant for users. In the early days of search engines, web authors could simply add “keywords” to the meta data (the behind-the-scenes code) of a web site to let the search engines know what keywords they wanted their sites to be associated with. But eventually, people started using all kinds of keywords that had nothing to do with their site content, and abuse of the system ultimately meant that the search engines had to get smarter about how they organized and evaluated web sites, and how they judged a site’s relevance to any given search.

Today, web sites must rely on search engine optimization techniques and well-optimized web pages in order to get noticed by the search engines, and ultimately found by searchers on the web. Since Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the most effective way to achieve higher rankings in the search engines, it’s important to understand the differences between a web site and an optimized web site, and also to know the basic SEO building blocks that are used to prepare a site to be read, indexed, and ultimately judged relevant by the search engines.

Optimized vs. Non-Optimized

A non-optimized web site might display perfectly fine on the web, but the search engines will all but ignore it. The search engines need to see certain optimizations in place before they can read and include the site into their databases. Some of the basic optimization techniques typically used in SEO include: 1) adding meta tags such as keywords, title, description, etc., 2) including on-page optimizations, e.g., using keywords effectively in the page text, and 3) initiating external link-building activities to boost the relevance and popularity of a web site. An optimized web site will have these elements (and probably several others), which will then help the search engines understand what the site is about and what search terms it should be associated with.

There are, however, several types of sites that cannot easily be read or indexed by the search engines, including frames-based, image-based, or Flash-based sites. Template-based sites can also be a problem in certain instances, since they frequently prohibit individual page code access or block edits to the HTML meta data tags. These types of sites are contradictory to the idea behind SEO, which is to make it as easy as possible for the search engines to read and index a site, and provide the right kinds of “clues” so the search engines can determine which search terms should be associated with the site.

The Case for Optimization

The clear message of SEO is that without optimizing your web site to be read and indexed effectively by the search engines, there’s very little chance that it will show up when users search for the products and services that you sell. Your web site, no matter how beautiful or impressive, is still just one of millions on the web today, all competing for attention. If your competitors take the time and effort to optimize their web sites with well-researched keywords, on-page optimizations, and link building activities, the search engines will understandably pay more attention to those sites than to sites that do not provide any SEO structure or components.

Research shows that the way customers look for information online is through the search engines (more than 74% of all web users, in fact). So it’s vital that you give your web site every possible opportunity to be listed where customers are already searching. SEO is currently the best tool available for getting your web site listed in the search engines, and for influencing the way in which the search engines judge your site’s relevance to the specific search terms and phrases that people use when searching on the web.

Without SEO, your site could very easily be lost in the massive amount of information on the web, without any of the landmarks or signposts necessary to help people locate your business. With SEO, your site stands a much better chance of being noticed by the search engines, indexed into their databases, and displayed on their results pages when searchers look for information on the web.

Meta tags, Alt tags, HTML tags, tags tags tags! There sure are a lot of tags to consider when trying to get your web site listed higher in the search engine results. Well, now there’s another tag on the scene – called a Geo Tag – and it can help your site show up for searches that include specific geographic locations.

As most of us already know, searching on the web is the predominant method of finding information online. In fact, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about half of all internet users conduct at least one online search every day, up from about a third in 2002. Searching is already the second most popular thing to do on the web, right behind email (about 60% of people use email each day).

We also know that good search engine rankings are important to most businesses today, whether they are large or small. But not everyone can show up in the top 10, 20, or even 30 search engine results – there are just too many web sites for that! So how can you differentiate your web site and improve your chances of ranking ahead of your competitors? One way is to optimize your site for local search terms, and Geo Tags are another technique you can use when optimizing for local search.

Localized Results
Geo Tags are used by search engines to provide localized results for search queries. All of the major search engines have local components, such as Google Maps (formerly Google Local), Yahoo Local, Windows Live Local, and AskCity (part of ask.com). These search engines provide business listings and maps in their results when searchers include a location modifier (like a city name or zip code) as part of the search query.

For instance, if you are searching for an Italian restaurant, do you really want to get results for restaurants in Italy? Probably not. You probably want information on Italian restaurants that are close by, so you would naturally include a location in your search (e.g., “Italian restaurants Hartland Michigan”). When specified, search engines take the location into consideration in an effort to provide you with the most relevant results.

Geographic Locations
Using Geo Tags in your local search optimization takes this a step further. Geo Tags provide the latitude and longitude of your business, giving search engines precise information about your geographic location. So if a searcher uses the term “Hartland Michigan” in a search query, the search engines will basically look for sites that have Geo Tags related to (or matching) the geographic location of Hartland Michigan.

Although there are other ways to optimize your web site for local search (like using your business’ physical address in the footer of each web page), Geo Tags are an additional technique that could be helpful for businesses that want to reach local customers.

Does it Work?
Before you get too excited about the power of Geo Tags, remember that Geo Tags are only one of many, many factors considered by the search engines when ranking web sites. Strategies like inbound links and on-page optimizations still count a lot more than Geo Tags in obtaining higher placements. But if you can provide additional information that may improve your chances of higher rankings in the search engines, why wouldn’t you?