myContentWebsite.com

Google has been working on new parameters to help with the duplicate content issue lately. Navneet Kaushal shares some tips on how to help prevent duplicate content on his blog.

Navneet’s main tips are these:
• Recognizing Duplicate Content on the Website

• Having Consistency Within the Website

• Applying 301 Permanent Redirects

• Implementing the rel=”canonical” Link Element Where you Can on Your Pages

• Using URL Parameter Handling Tool in Google Webmaster Tools

Read his full article here.

Google’s own Greg Grothaus shares some of these tips as well:

And just in case you need a little more help, here is Greg Grothaus again, this time with WebProNews’ Mike McDonald. He explains the 301 redirect verses the canonical tag:

People are constantly trying to come up with new content for their web pages.

Josh McCoy’s article on Bill Hartzer’s Vizion Interactive has a great tip for generating content: education.

He suggests adding a glossary of commonly used terms.

He says, “Placing a term glossary on-site will benefit you within the realm of internal-linking, increased pages, keyword targeting, etc., all leading up to one of our favorite words, rankings.

Before you send your copywriter into a writing frenzy it is important that you create the glossary with SEO in mind.”

Josh also says to place each term on a new page. You can go into more detail with titles, headings, and links. And, you are also creating more pages and content by doing so.

Of course, you want terms that relate to your site and products or services, and include keywords that will be searched for on the search engines.

You can also use internal links with your terms. Link the term back to the product; this makes it so much easier for the user to get back to whatever you are selling.

Be sure to include a main page with all the glossary terms, kind of like an index page but instead of numbers to pages just have the links.

I think it is important to remember that not every customer is an avid Internet user. They might need this extra education in their purchases decisions. Just make it easier on them, and hopefully increase sales!

Hope this helps. Read Josh’s full article here.

There was a lot of great information discussed at SES San Jose last week. One interesting session was called “Igniting Viral Campaigns: Leveraging Consumer-Generated Content”. You want your company and content to stand out and be talked about. And here are some tips to help you do so:

Social Media. Social media can help build consumer trust. It can help consumers get to know your company and therefore making your content a credible source to go to. Consumer reviews also give your business credibility.

Sharing Content. This can be done in many ways. Use humor, bulleted list, educational info, and/or breaking news.
Social Networks. Use these to promote or just give out information, and do it during peak hours. Make it easy for readers to then re-publish your content on their own pages so it gets to as many people as possible.

Proper Formatting. You want your content to be easy to consume. Make it visually appealing. Maybe try keeping content more casual and not so much like it is coming straight from the corporate side of your business.

Video. This is another great content platform. Some tips for video include making sure your titles are accurate. You also want a good description. You want it to also be accurate and something that will interest readers. Use tags to describe your videos, but don’t keyword stuff. Let people comment. This will engage your readers and make it more interesting for them. Take your time with these things, don’t rush it and be sure it is high quality, unique content.

Hopefully these few tips will help you get even close to great content!

Simple navigation. Don’t make your customers work too hard. Remember, not everyone is as web savvy as you.

Test the usability. Have your friends and family look at your site. See if they know how to navigate it. What they think about the design. And if they are interested in the content on the page.

Use instructive headings. Use words that catch the eye and grab attention.

Research your keywords. Don’t use so many of the same keywords that it gets spammy looking though. You have to keep the user and the search engines in mind.

Try using list and bullets. This will help show off your key points and it also is beneficial because readers can just scan the page more quickly if all the major things are put right there in a list for them.

As always, compelling content. You don’t want content like every other page on the web. You want yours to stand out. To be better than the rest. Give users a reason to come to your site over the competitor.

Remember these easy tips and you will be on your way to great content!

You already have great content right? Now how about getting that content to as many people as possible?

I ran across an article recently about how to market your articles. In the post, the author suggests some key points to consider. The three that I thought were really important were:

Reach out to the real websites who republish your articles.
Go to sites like ezine and submit articles, but also talk to them and offer unique, quality content.

Interlink Your Articles,
Once you have established a pretty good base, link out to your other articles on different websites.

Use Social Media.
Twitter and Facebook can be used as great tools for marketing. My advice? Not to overload your pages with links. But, when you have something extra special, go ahead and post it. And maybe, other people will repost your links as well.

Create a podcast or a slideshow.
Turn your article into a podcast. You can read your article out loud and create a podcast. You can find many helpful sites online for tips on how to get started with either one of these. You could also make a video!

The post has even more useful tips for getting your articles out there. You can read it here.

This week, I thought we would kind of pick up where we left off, on the topic of content and social media. This time we will focus more on your audience.

First up, you must be able to listen! What do your readers want from you? What do they find valuable? Why are they in your network to begin with?

Social media is (well, should be) more about the quality of your friends/followers. Not seeing how many people you can get. Are you there to just promote your business or are you there to develop relationships with your audience/customers?

Sure, there’s no doubt that many people are there to build their brand, but how are they going about it? Instead of just sending links and products out, tell people how the product will benefit them. Give people as much info as you can. One example I can offer is if you see a “tweet” about your company or product, reply to the person. Don’t just let other people answer the question or whatever it may be. This example came from today when I saw a question about my company. Even though I knew other people that didn’t work here were answering, I replied anyways. I think it shows that you are listening and getting involved in the conversation. That is just one more person that will probably go to our site and check it out.

A couple other ideas…

Jessica from TopRank suggests running promotions involving user generate articles, videos, images or other content that can be shared, promoted and recognized. Great idea. This gets your audience involved more than they normally would be.

Or, you could simply ask your audience what they want from your blog, Twitter or Facebook page. It never hurts to ask right?

Social media, marketing, content, can all be put together to help build your brand. And not to mention, they are all free!

Lee Odden recently made an excellent point. He said, “The lesson for Public Relations is to ensure news content is not only search engine friendly, but social media friendly.”

We all have seen by now that a lot of information gets shared through social networks. No one wants to see press releases and pitches all over their social networks they use but there are ways to create content that is interesting and more likely to be shared. You can use social bookmarks, RSS feeds, and eye-catching buttons, widgets, and icons. Not only is there sharing, but commenting, voting, and linking. If your content gets to be popular among readers on social networks, then it gets more exposure, which means more traffic, and better search engine results.

Use keywords. Share a video on Twitter or Facebook, add in some keywords, make your content interesting and people will pick up on it. Then they will share it, and link to it.

As PR professionals, wouldn’t it be easier to take an interesting article and try to promote it through the social networking scenes instead of calling companies to try to get them to talk about or publish your content? I know I am more than likely to click on an interesting link that a friend has posted about something than to go read a press release, or even a press release I receive in email. If I see an article that I like, that is interesting, I will “tweet” about it. Then usually, one of my followers will pick it up and they will tweet about it, which of course like I said before, content gets shared, and that means more traffic to your site.

Just remember, improving your visibility on social networks and other sites also means improving visibility in search engines.

Get your name, your brand, your content AND those keywords out there, and you are sure to see results.

I ran across an older article today titled “Design and Content Tips” from Webreference.com. Surprisingly, it offered some refreshing content tips that you might not have heard in a while.

The author mentions four main things:

Categorize
Be A Site Visitor
Consistency and Predictability
Loud Colors Do Not Equal Creativity

I think the most important one is “Be A Site Visitor”, particularly putting yourself in the visitors’ shoes. How would you go about finding a product on your site?

The author makes a really good point: To pretend like you have never seen the site or knew about the content. Think outside of the box and think about what is not so obvious to everyday users. I actually thought about this point myself the other day. I was working with a site that had small, white text. I thought, well I know what all this says without struggling but would the average reader? Since the text was a little hard to read for even me who looks at that type of site all day, it would probably be really hard for visitors.

Take these things into consideration when dealing with your own content, and you may get better results. 

Read the full article here.

I’ve put together a small list of content tips for you. Here are the links and some main points in each article:

Website Content Tips

• Aim for a conversational tone.

• Keep things interesting.

• Offer something to visitors.

SEO Friendly Content

• Approach from your readers’ perspective.

• Select the appropriate keywords.

Tips for Getting Something on the Page

• Create a resource list using other people’s work.

• Use social networking sites to see what’s hot.

• Make things look pretty by using images.

31 content tips and ideas for your B2B email newsletter

• Keep a content folder.

• Develop reserve content.

• Sign-up to your competitors’ newsletters.

And here are some great articles from Matt Tuens about writing and conversions that will be good to read.

Hope all these tips help when you are trying to come up with your own content!

In June 2008, Google announced it would start indexing Flash content. Great! Right?

While there are some benefits, there are still some negatives that you should be aware of.

Matthew Elshaw has recently come out with a post about the negative sides of Flash, especially for small business owners.

A couple he mentions are:

1. Different Content is not on Different URLs

-All your content will be on one file. There’s no additional pages or individual elements for Google to index.

2. Basic SEO Tags are Still Missing

-Anchor text, alt image text, H1 tags will all be lost.

Another great thing Matthew brings up is that

3. Flash Doesn’t Receive a Lot of Links

-People won’t be able to copy and link back to your text.

Most SEOs would agree that you shouldn’t go crazy with Flash on your site, but you also shoudn’t get rid of it completely. Use it to make your website more interactive, just keep it scaled back, so you still get good search engine rankings.

Maybe some of these problems will be worked out in the future. For now, just be smart about your content.

For more information, visit these blog posts that also talk about SEO and Flash:

http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2008/07/flash-is-still-too-flashy-for.php

http://searchengineland.com/are-the-search-engines-really-indexing-flash-16942

Also, check out Adobe’s Search Engine Optimization Technology Center.