Writing for People and Search Engines Written by Jennifer Ryan
Writing for search engines is much different than writing in any other medium. Search engines are finicky, but they love text, so you're talking thier language. When writing your web content, it's important to to keep following three things in mind. 1. What You Want Reader to Do: While writing your content, keep overall objective of page in view. Think about what you want reader to do. Do you want them to sign up for something? Click to another page? Buy something? Visit your store? Download an e-book? Whatever it is you want them to do, keep that in mind as you write. 2. Search Engine Optimization: Remember search engines as you write too. Usually it's better to do a quick draft without thinking of search engines first, then later, come back and optimize writing of page. We will get into details of how to make your web content friendly to search engines later. For now, just remember that it's one of those things you have to keep in mind as you write your web content. 3. How people use web. Know that people do not use web like we sometimes think they do. People are more likely to briefly scan your writing rather than to dig-in and read it. Keep your content should be relevant and informational and conversational. People don't want to read a book, they want to be informed. Give them information they crave and they'll keep coming back for more. Now that you know what to keep in mind as you write your classic web content, we are going to discuss different elements of search engine optimization. The good thing about SEO is that your page will show up at top of search engines so that people--lots of people--will actually be able to read what you've written. What a concept! The SEO Lowdown Keywords Keywords are what drives search engines optimization. Here's how it works: * People type words into search boxes at Google. * Google goes through all pages it already knows about...these pages are in its database because they've been crawled and indexed beforehand. * Google delivers webpages that match keywords searcher uses to find what they're looking for. When Google comes to your page, only way they know it's good for search is by keywords--period. More About Keywords We've already established that you need keywords woven throughout content of page, right? You also need keywords in your title. Here's a few other things to know about keyword placement in your webpage. * Do not overdo it. Don't gross people out by sticking keywords everywhere. That's not good business. Be discreet when inserting keywords in your website content (hint, hint). * If you are optimizing for a certain keyphrase, you must keep entire phrase in tact throughout page content for keyword phrase to have any affect on SEO. * The keywords you should use should be carefully picked out and are always industry and subject specific. * Optimize for one to two keywords or phrases per page, with exception of homepage. Your homepage contains everything but kitchen sink, but that's another article. * Putting your keywords in bold gives your site a boost. Headers There are up to six levels of headers in an html document. Usually as a web content writer you won't be going beyond third or fourth header. Headers are very important to search engines. They use them to decipher page relevancy for searches. When you include keywords about your subject your article's headers, you are scoring points with search engine crawlers. Here is an example of different header tags.
| | Tips on Having a Great Brochure DesignWritten by Mart Gil Abareta
Brochures are great marketing tools for businesses. Often times, businesses consider creation of brochure designs on their own. Even though they don’t actually have exact idea on how to carry out this task, they take risk because they only want to produce what’s actually on their minds. If this is also your case, you there is certainly nothing wrong with not getting help of professional graphic designers but you have to follow several tips on how to come up with an effectual brochure design. First, you have to make sure that messages in your brochures must be brief and concise. Every paragraph must contain at most three sentences and its total space must not exceed 10 lines. Brochure designs also take on different text formatting rules and you have to be familiar with them. In addition, texts in your brochures must be readable enough from a distance of an arm’s length. Most often, a brochure simply generates leads or provides more information to potential clients. Second, images on your brochure design are of equal importance to messages that a brochure contains. Same as texts, they also communicate with your clients. More often, they grab and hold a reader’s attention. This is how powerful visual presentations are. A brochure with high quality photos and graphics is expected to serve its functions well. Remember that pictures speak a thousand words.
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