COMMENTS
Pete, you are spot on. The reason I became a Hubspot client is that I knew that despite years of exposure to SEO issues -- eg, keywords, links, daily diligence, research -- I was getting abysmal results. Now I am taking very seriously friendly admonitions like these, and expect things to change. My Hubspot tools make it a lot easier.
3 Really Bad Creative Writing Mistakes I Bet Your Making, (+1 extra mistake) 1. Article Too Long
2. An Authoritative Tone without much proof
3. No Story Structure
4(Bonus). Poorly styled Reply Box - light grey, small box width and height, crazy spacing and giant text
I really like Hubspot,
I'm writing negatively (authoritative tone) to give you an idea how the article comes across.
The Drawn Stage Curtain - Reveal to them they're already a star.
Empower your audience, make them feel smart and and passionate about what your talking about, not stupid and uncaring.
Validate what they already know and show them how to use those skills to achieve their goals.
Guilty as charged! I definitely came out of the gate with no web strategy (just like most small biz owners bridging from bricks to clicks ) My dribbling has definitely improved, but I'm off to the cyber blender for a hearty keyword research shake followed by some analytic circuits!
@Joel and Lisa. I'm glad you're moving on the right track.
@Andrew. I think you and I could have some fun together. Points taken... to heart. Really.
My justification for this tone is the following: If people can't handle the criticism, that's their loss. I really only want to talk to people who want help, need help, are willing to admit they need help and follow my advice to a T.
Question regarding keywords: We have done (and are still doing) plenty of keyword research but what if they keywords for an industry aren't laymen's terms? For example, we provide electronic payment processing for small businesses, but when a small business owner is looking for a solution they aren't likely to search ACH disbursement, echeck processing, etc. This industry is filled with hundreds of confusing acronyms and bizarre language -- how do you balance general terms with industry related terms for the best organic results?
@chad gardner I think you need to talk about your business in the terms that your customers will be searching. If you want to sell to people who are searching for "ACH disbursement" or "echeck processing" use those terms. If you want to sell to people who use laymen's terms, use those.
What do other folks think?
@chad and @rick I'd suggest that PaySimple optimize around both the technical terms and laymen's terms and then implement analytics and closed loop marketing so that paysimple can determine the keyword that's most likely to convert into a customer.
I'd also recommend optimizing for them all by just creating a lot of pages, preferably on a blog.
Thanks for the help, guys. It looks like this is just going to be a balancing act.
Hi Peter - I had a question:
My web stat report shows me the key words people have used to find my site.
How much should we be looking at that list to determine if our key word strings are optimal?
Are these skewed because, if they found my site, it's because the key words they put in matched mine?
Thanks for the great tips, as always. Karen
Peter - you're right on point. First it's about getting traffic - and the best way to do this is to optimize for the best keywords that fit your business.
Second, just like you said - if you're not converting your traffic to qualified leads - you're basically running on a treadmill and not going anywhere. Writing copy for great call-to-actions are not always easy....but with enough testing and tweaking - you should find the right formula to generate the best conversion rates.
Finally - only recently I've really started to concentrate on mistake #3. You really need to pinpoint which activities are bringing in your leads - then "double-down" on these activities. To do this, you need to have at least a basic understanding on how to read and understand your analytics (Google or Hubspot). The key is to increase your efficiency and ROI by repositioning your time and money in activities that are driving new leads versus toiling around with activities that are ineffective.
I think the title was well written because it caused me to click through from my outlook box to this article.
The comment by andrew brown was funny though. He seems like the type of guy who gets drunk and points out all of his friends' shortcomings. Like me.
Poor bit of link bait designed to drive traffic and links to other services... lame quality.
It's humorous how a little blog post can illicit such negative reactions. And such positive ones at the same time.
@gabe you're doing a lot of stuff right. you're at the point now that it is just time to do "more of what works". kudos to you, man. you're earning your success.
@karen. you need to start looking at more than just "what keywords brought some one to your site". You need to look at search volume, competitiveness and where you rank now and visit volume/keyword... in order to do keyword research effectively. How can you pick keywords to optimize around if you don't know how many people search for them or how many competitors are targeting them?
I think one other mistake that many people are making is buying packages of seo links on thousands of "blogs" from disreputable companies.
These links are virtually worthless.
@Andy Fox. That's a good thing "not" to do. I was trying to keep this article about "what to do".
I think most people never really do any link building.
I have to admit that we don't have "lots" of calls to action - I'm still looking for some good value-adds to put on there. eBooks, webinars, and other offers do take time to develop, time I can also spend offering a better core product, as does knowing your audience well enough to know what materials would be useful to them.
Peter - First of all, kudos and thank you! I appreciate anyone willing to put their cojones on the line with a professional opinion and then stick by it! It rubs me wrong when people react negatively in an environment where that good ol' Delete button is but a pinky extension away.
The fact of the matter is that we are all learning in an environment where the tools of the trade are years old, not 10s or 100s. Google Analytics, Hubspot, Double Click, etc, weren't even here (really) in the last dot com bust. So I think it's quite positive that people have an environment to share an opinion so we can all learn on how to survive the next one. Which, by the way, is here.
Cheers,
Steve
i: http://www.implu.com/user/steve
Thanks dude but I guess all these three are very old points and everybody is familiar with them by now but still you have written them in a great way...
Cheers,
Mudassir
@Dobes. Let us know how we can help. You guys are a class act and we want nothing but wild and crazy success for you. :-)
@Steve. Thanks. Keep up the good work at implu. I think your growth is an indicator that smart entrepreneurs will survive any downturn. There is growth to be had. And its the growth of individual companies that grow the collective economy. Keep it up.
@Mudassir. Everyone knows that "no-follow" in blog comments doesn't pass SEO credit too, Yet people still use their keywords when they're asked to enter their name when leaving a comment. I am extremely confident that very few people understand these things. And there are a very very small number of people who actually do it. I'm glad you found usefulness to the post even though YOU know this stuff.
Even though an old topic to discuss about, the importance of keyword research and the landing pages optimization is expressed very well. Informative for the beginners.
Good luck
To the first point, I typically get a balance between keyword research and just natural writing.
I think there is a problem always going after keywords in the tools available because I don't believe they show near enough of what is being searched. I use natural and I usually run into gold mines of searches that I never thought were possible.
For keyword research, there is still no substitute for talking directly with your audience and understanding their messaging needs. We maintain an inside sales team that still does things the old-fashioned way... via the telephone. It is amazing how much insight and intelligence one can gain toward an online marketing strategy by simply picking up the phone.
@chris I agree that you shouldn't force the use of keywords just to use keywords. Articles should read naturally. However, there are ways to use keywords in the right spots without screwing up human readability. I think the conflict between writing for humans and writing for search engines is a bit overblown.
@Sam. I always encourage people to brainstorm for keywords and use the words that their clients use. However, if that's all you do, you're missing out. Keyword databases are built based on keywords that are typed online. Many of your clients are typing online. There are many combinations of words that you'll rarely think to combine, that a database will suggest. The database is just designed to help you brainstorm.
@peter. Agreed. I should clarify. Having spent most of my career working with technology companies, I've noticed they share a common flaw in their approach to messaging... they tend to fall in love with their technology and lose sight of the problems their prospects and customers are trying to solve. Focusing on technology related keywords often leads them into competition with box pushers when most would prefer to be thought of as solution providers.
@sam well said. companies need to focus on the problems they solve, keywords, copy, white papers, webinars, calls to action. landing pages should all flow from that.
Increasing the number of offers on your site makes a lot of sense. I see how this can work for business that provide a service, but how can this technique be used for an e-commerce site?
@Liz. Great question.
I think it's even more important for ecommerce companies to have better lead generation practices because if they leave, they're probably not coming back.
The only difference is (unless you sell a high priced item), you're not going to call your leads. You're going to do email marketing to them.
How about white papers like "How to choose the best camera for your needs?" OR "10 Tips on Getting the Most out of your new widget" or "Top 10 cars for growing families on a budget".
Be creative.
@Pete That makes sense. I guess I would've thought of those sorts of things (especially the Top 10 lists) as more blog posts than something people would consider worth giving us their email address.
Also saw a site that just offered store credit for anyone who signed up for their mailing list. Considering that strategy as well.
Will ponder this one more though. Thanks!!
Not doing proper niche research is a much bigger mistake that is being made. I'd put that over keyword research anyday.
@Liz - You have to balance what you give away (ie blog posts) with what you use to capture leads. At HubSpot, you'll notice we give away a lot. But, we repurpose and expand on our content and create white papers and webinars. Sometimes, we put as much or more thought into a blog post than a white paper. The key is finding things that strike a chord. If the offer matches the visitor's interest, they'll give you their email address. And if it matches the interest of enough visitors, you're good.
@Jay - if you're running a more traditional business, "niche" keywords is not as important as "long tail" keywords that describe the product or service you sell OR things that describe a prospect's problems (eg no traffic) or goals (eg increase traffic). Most of our customers are more traditional businesses that have already figured out what biz they're in. Not affiliate marketers trying to find a unfilled niche to exploit. Nothing wrong with that. Just a different audience with different problems.
This article has be extremely helpful to me. The article itself is helful - the comments are helpful as well.
Very nice article had one question acn we use the downloadable kits as part of a promotion? and is there any rules to the game..
Well, I believe article is too long and essence is too small. Looks like an effort to create lot of contents, or may be like witting a 400 words essay for school exams.
These are very normal things we read in almost all SEO articles.
1. Research Keywords Properly
2. Landing Page should be affective.
3. Measure results.
From Title I was expecting some real tips.
I disagree with a comment made above about the tone tenor of this piece. If you are introducing Hubspot to people and offering assistance at the same time, the idea IS to sound authoritative [as in "I know what I'm talking about because we've tested this & it works]. I think the tone does stimulate people to action; certainly me because you are spot on-I am guilty as charged. I've gotta fix this stuff. Any advce on sites for keyword research?
Thanks Ellen. The article is written for the average small business owner. If you pick 100 small business websites at random, I bet atleast 90% are making these mistakes.
Mr. Wisdom Talks is probably a bit more advanced than the average business owner is.
Keyword Grader, a piece of the HubSpot software helps you do 3 things:
1. Discover new potential keywords to target.
2. Evaluate whether targeting those keywords is a good idea (eg how much traffic can you get if you can rank for them AND how difficult will it be to rank.
3. Check your ranking of all of your chosen keywords.
This enables business owners to do SEO through an iterative process. The process and data helps guide them in generating more and more traffic from more and more keywords over time as they create more and more content. You should request a demo if you'd like to see it.
There are also many tools out there that you can piece together to try and accomplish the same thing. Just do some searching for keyword research in google and you'll find a bunch of tools.
Hi Pete. Thanks for the great tips. We're doing some website restructuring at the moment and the article has made me focus on doing a good restructure with more keyword research, rather than just a restructure for the sake of it. Thanks!
i like your post , long and clear
You talk about conversions on a site. I have quite a few sites that I maintain and I wanted to know what would be the average conversion rate. I do understand that of course other factors are important such as ensuring that the right people are coming to the site and if they are staying on the site (bounce). We have been trying to increase the conversions but what is standard or what is a fair amount of conversions.
We have started to add a lot more forms as the contact page is not really a conversion because it only means that someone clicked on the page and not that they actually did anything.
Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Examples of some of our more recent sites include
www.dialademo.co.zawww.gopherpromo.co.zawww.print-n-ink.co.za As for your blog, I would recommend that this block (comment) is a little bigger as its always nice to be able to read more of what we have already read.
You nailed my problems right on the nose. I think I did an average job with keyword research, but my landing pages are abysmal. Some day I'll fix them! Thanks for the pointers.