Best Free Marketing Tips

Writing web content sounds easy enough: if you can write, you can write for the web, right? Not necessarily. Some small business owners find writing for the web to be a time consuming and frustrating task. It’s not always easy to put your thoughts into words–and optimize those words for search. Here are a few tips on how to write for the web from The Website Wordsmith, Alexa Steele .  

Headlines are, in many ways, the most important aspect of your website content. They are the first thing your reader sees and must therefore be attention-grabbing. They are also indexed by search engines, and so need to be optimized with keywords. Writing your headline first can focus your writing and help you establish a connection with these two distinct audiences.

One of the biggest differences between writing for the web and writing for other media is the need for search engine optimization (SEO). Keywords are at the heart of all SEO. By using a tool like Google AdWords Keyword tool you can identify keywords and key-phrases people are using to search for your topic. You should then include at least two or three of these keywords in your content.

Who’s going to be reading your content? Do they know your subject well or are they beginners in need of detailed explanations? Are they looking for information or entertainment? Are they familiar with your brand or do you need to introduce yourself? The answers to these questions–and others–will impact how you write your content so get an idea of who your audience is before you begin.

Web surfers are notorious for their short attention spans. They have a tendency to scan webpages before (or instead of) reading them thoroughly. By including headlines, sub-headings, lists, quotes, and bold lettering you can highlight important points and make skimming easier . Also, unless you know your audience is more advanced (see tip #3) it’s a good idea to keep your writing at about an eighth grade reading level. Have someone proofread your writing, too, to edit out errors that can trip up and confuse a reader.

Ultimately, you’re creating your content for a reason: you want the people who read it to take an action. Including a call to action like “call now,” “click here,” or “leave a comment” lets your readers know what they should to do next, which increases the likelihood that you will get conversions.

SEO copywriter Alexa Steele works with marketers and small business owners to create engaging, persuasive, search engine optimized copy for websites and other forms of Internet marketing. To read more of Alexa’s articles–or to engage her for your next SEO copywriting project–visit www.thewebsitewordsmith.com.    

What marketing expert should you be working with for each marketing tactic that you want to implement? This is a short list to help you figure out who you need to call. In a larger business, it is typically the brand or product manager that writes the marketing strategy and plan and then oversees all the specialized experts who make it happen.  Here is a brief list of who to work with…

• Marketing Communications: could be an AD agency or just a graphic artist, copywriter and web designer. The Ad agency would also have a creative director that oversees the other 3 specialists. They create your identity, logo, brochures, website, packaging, ads (both online and off) and most materials. Can also create email newsletters. A direct marketing specialist would also fall into this category.
• Web site: web designer works on the visual representation, web developer handles ecommerce, community forums and other functionality, SEO expert gets your chosen keywords emphasized,
• Social Media: blog/community manager oversees blog content and responds to community members (blogger could also be in a different dept. like PR). Twitter and forum communicator.
• PR: gets feature articles written, product placements, press tours, press kits, press releases, speaker placement, quotes,and more.
• Event Marketing: identifies, schedules and prioritizes marketing events, creates booths, demos, etc.
• Channel Marketing: work with resellers, OEM, Affiliate managers and Evangelists: who get 3rd parties to sell your products or services or use them in their own products
• Business Development & Sales – works directly with key customer accounts to close a sale.

This is most of the major categories of specialists. The ones you need to work with can vary depending on your type of business.

What other marketing specialists have you used?