Events for Writers – SEMNE – Content Writing for SEO Professionals

How did we live BG? Seriously, how did we live Before Google? How did we ever get anything done?

Search engines have attained ubiquity in our society, yet many businesses struggle with how to increase and maximize their search engine exposure. For so long, many have thought it was about the right tags in the right place or tricking the search engines. That strategy foolishly overlooks the ultimate beneficiary of the search engine. The human user. The user doesn’t want tricks or tags, the user wants information, accurate, timely, easy to locate, information. Information is conveyed via the content (web pages, blog posts, Tweets, Facebook updates, etc.) that a company makes available on the Internet.

On her blog, Conversation Agent, Valeria Maltoni says “Content is your digital body language. Good content is a way for your business to be useful and become attractive through search (digital media) and sharing (social media)” **

That my friends is where you come in. You, are a writer. You, are a content creator. YOU ARE ALL POWERFULL *ahem* Sorry, got a little carried away there. How do you know what kind of content your target audience is looking for?. Should you draft articles? Can content be repurposed? How can you learn what your audience wants to read? Dianna Huff knows.

Dianna started out as a copywriter. After the dot com bubble burst, she realized to succeed, she had to be able offer her clients more, so she taught her self the art and science of SEO. She is elated that the industry is finally coming to realize what she’s known all along; it is the content that matters most. Dianna is the featured speaker at next week’s SEMNE (Search Engine Marketing New England) meeting. SEMNE is “a regional association of search marketers who gather six times per year to learn, exchange information and network with other search marketers.” The organization was founded by Jill Whalen and Pauline Jakober The group is now managed by Jonathan Hochman of Hochman Consultants. According to Jonathan, “ SEO should not be a job, is it should be a skill used by all web professionals.”

Where: The Crowne Plaza Natick (Rte, 9 across from the Natick Mall).

When: Wednesday September 15, 2010 6:30pm-9pm.

Cost: $49 for non-members, free for members

Details: semne.org

If you make it be sure and say hi, my very blonde hair makes me easy to spot.

**Hat tip to Lee Odden for the link to the blog post via Linked In

Lee Laughlin is a writer, wife, and mom, frequently all of those things at once. She blogs at Livefearlesslee.com and Thisnhlife.com. Her words have appeared in a broad range of publications from community newspapers to the Boston Globe.

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Are You Saying What You Think You’re Saying? Find Out with Wordle?

More on SEO. Even though I am not a fan of three and for letter acronyms, last week I wrote about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is about getting found on the web. It is one piece to having an effective marketing strategy and measures in place.

There are hundreds of millions of websites and blogs out there. Few, it any, of us are lucky enough to gain instant traffic to our sites. If you are going to invest time on a website, blog, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, you might as well be effective.

First things first. Whether you consider yourself a grown up or not, decide who you are or who you want to be. In other words, you need to understand your personal brand. Do you write about fashion or politics; sports or living green; Motown music or the automobile industry? Are you local, regional or national? Are you funny, trendy, deadly serious, academic or homespun and friendly? Once you’ve figured out your brand, you can begin to figure out how to publicize it or promote it, develop a following and get more work.

Use your Words. SEO is the process of improving a web site’s, web page’s or blog’s visibility. For a writer, understanding SEO can help you design content to increase traffic to your site. Figure out the key words a reader, an editor or a client might type into Google, Bing or Yahoo! to find you and what you do. Make sure those words appear on your site. In my case it meant calling myself a Food Writer & More instead of simply a Writer. I still mention the other areas I cover but highlight the topic for which I am best known.

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Improve your Visibility with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Part I

Do you keep running into terms like Web 2.0, tag clouds and SEO and wonder what it’s all about? (And if not, why not?) For the uninformed, which included me until a few months ago, SEO is all about getting your blog or website to pop to the top of a Google, Yahoo! or Bing search.

I avoided SEO for awhile. In my defense, for many years I worked in high tech sales and marketing where three and four letter acronyms are king. Now I have a tendency to avoid, ignore or at least cringe at anything with an acronym instead of a name. Particularly if the real name behind the three or four letters is filled with terribly important words. Names like Mission Critical this, Business Continuity that or Something Something Optimization. To get my drift, say these names out loud with your most important announcer’s voice … MISSION CRITICAL SERVICES. BUSINESS CONTINUITY SOLUTIONS. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. In spite of my aversion to acronyms and services names that sound like they should be delivered by super heroes, SEO finally managed to get my attention. 

Since I consider myself an on-going student of social media, it was a natural step. Certainly, I understand the power of the internet. I know that there are hundreds of millions of websites and blogs out there. I have my own website, three blogs  and participate on a fourth. I’ve made an effort to figure out Facebook and Twitter. I have videos and my own channel on YouTube. With all the time I invest on the web, I decided I might as well be effective. Or maybe jealousy got the better of me.

I experimented with a few web searches. It was easy to find me by name but Google “food writer” and I was nowhere or so deep in the 134,000,000 results that even a kind and loving friend couldn’t me. Try “food writer” NH and I was still nowhere. Since everything is relative I tried a new search: thrifty writer NH. Up popped my friend Wendy with her press release for her $729.94 egg, an NHPR interview and a couple of “Simple Thrift” columns from the Nashua Telegraph. I saw a notice for a Search Engine Optimization workshop, decided I could learn something and headed down to Concord.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of improving a web site’s, web page’s or blog’s visibility. For a writer, understanding SEO can help you design your web or blog content to increase traffic to your site. SEO is particularly important for writers because it is our job to craft stories that engage people not algorithms. However, if we fail to pay attention or at least respect the algorithms we can get lost in 134,000,000 Google results.

You don’t have to sell your soul to the techno devil to do it. You just need to make a few changes. Based on your personal brand or platform, change a few words and phrases on your website or blog to raise your visibility. First, I changed Writer to Food Writer & More. Although the bulk of my portfolio is food writing, I have resisted calling myself a food writer. I cover other topics and worry about getting typecast. However, invisibility was too steep a price to pay for the more flexible title.

Create an active site. Active sites are more visible on the web. You can keep you blog or website active by updating regularly and linking to other sites. I was already updating my blogs and website weekly but needed to do a better job with links. Many of the magazines I write for put some articles on-line. My next step was to track down as many as I could find and link my blogs and website to my articles. This step created an added bonus, my editors are very happy to see me market their magazines.

The results? Search “food writer” NH on Google today and I occupy the first two spots. First is a quote I gave to a writer friend at the Hippo in Manchester and the second is my website. I don’t do quite as well on Bing.com where my YouTube channel comes in the number four slot and my Hippo quote is at number eight. A Yahoo! search yields my website at numbers two and three.

Next Steps. I still have lots of work to do to help interested readers, editors and publishers find my blogs. In addition, I’m nowhere when it comes to a search for “food writer” “New England”. But at least I know that I have lots more to learn and for now, I am happy to see progress.

Susan Nye is a corporate dropout turned freelance writer. Her favorite topics are food, small business and green living. Feel free to visit her website, food blog Susan Nye – Around the Table, photoblog or the cleverly named Susan Nye’s Other Blog where she writes about other stuff. © Susan W. Nye, 2010

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