We know that content is king and you need to be publishing new content regularly, otherwise you will sink down the Google rankings and your competitors with their fresh content will rise above you.

It’s never been easier to create your own content online. Nearly all of our clients have a content-managed website or a blog, and a large number have Facebook pages too, but most people get very nervous about publishing content online because they don’t know the ‘rules’.

So how do you write content that…

• people want to read?
• people want to share with their friends?
• makes people take action?
• is easy to find in search engines?

Read on and I’ll give you some advice we’ve learned over the last ten years.

You need to tailor your content to your audience and the action you want your reader to take, but some things apply to any type of content you publish.

• You should always have social media sharing buttons. These increase your readership by making it really easy for your readers to share your article with their friends. The most common and effective buttons are:
  • Like this on Facebook
  • Share this on Facebook
  • Tweet this
• Use short paragraphs – no-one likes huge blocks of text
• Make use of graphics – but avoid stock photos if possible. They always look contrived.
• Narrow columns are easier to scan – just like a newspaper or magazine
• Bullet points
• Numbered lists
• The headline is vital, so make it good. As David Ogilvy said “On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 80 per cent of your money.” People seem to like headlines like ’7 social media tips I learned from Elvis’
• Always finish the article with a call to action, e.g. Buy now , sign up here, fill in your details, place a comment.

If the purpose of the article is to sell something:

• Use questions just like you would if you were selling to the reader in person.
• Demonstrate the benefits of your product or service using facts and figures. You will improve your results by 60% if you do this (sorry, I just made that up, but you see what I mean).
• Make sure you include testimonials from satisfied users, a money-back guarantee, and if possible, the offer of a free trial.
• Don’t bore the reader. Don’t give them a reason to click the ‘Back’ button.
• Don’t distract the reader with links to other websites (they might not come back!).
• Give the reader a clear call to action: e.g. “Buy now” or “Start your free trial”.

If the purpose of the article is to inform

• think of the article as answering a specific question, and stick to answering that question
• use sub-headings to break up your article
• provide links to further reading
• at the end of the article, use a poll that asks ‘Did you find this article helpful? Yes or no’

If the purpose of the article is to entertain

• make it entertaining! If you’re lucky it might go viral on the social networks (yeah right!)

And lastly, a word about search engines. You might think that you can fool Google and leapfrog your competitors in the rankings by stuffing your site full of keywords. But wait a minute… Do you really think that you can pull the wool over the eyes of a company worth US$200 billion that makes its living from delivering accurate search engine results? Dream on…

Just sprinkle keywords throughout the article like you normally would. and make sure the headline of the article is in the HTML title of the page, and then go out and tell the world about it. The more people that link to the article, the more Google will like it.

Simple.

But, as shown in the last few days, Google can change the rules without warning. This week, the Google algorithm changed. That’s the recipe Google uses when it’s deciding how to rank sites in its search results. The algorithm is a tightly guarded secret, so competitors can’t emulate it, and so websites can’t game it to get easy high rankings.

Google says the reason for the change is to promote quality sites that produce useful, original content and penalise ‘content farms’ – sites that simply replicate good content from lots of sources in an attempt to lure search engines.

Since the change, sites such as Mahalo.com have seen their web traffic plummet by 75% overnight – and Mahalo.com is faced with laying off 10% of its staff as a result.

The lesson: Don’t put all your eggs in one online basket. Provide a great product or service – and use all of the digital channels at your disposal to promote it.

As Fred Wilson said …
“Live by SEO, die by SEO. Don’t be a google bitch.”

We’re working with the Havelock North Business Association (HNBA) members to give Havelock North a regional ‘digital advantage’ ahead of big events like the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and to provide visitors with information they may require, such as businesses’ opening hours and location.

We have contracted EIT student Damian to get out and about in the streets of Havelock North, creating and verifying Google Places listings in an effort to make Havelock North the most ‘Google-y’ place in New Zealand!

Visitors coming to Hawke’s Bay might be looking for a dentist, tyre stockist, food market or a babysitter. We want to ensure when they are searching online, using a computer or their smartphone, that Havelock North businesses are as easy to find as possible.

According to the official Google Blog, over 4 million businesses around-the-world have claimed their Google Places listings since its launch in September 2009. The listings connect people to relevant information such as hours of operation, vouchers, and product offerings, but also offer photos and video uploads. We want to ensure Havelock North is capitalising on the service.

It’s estimated that around 20% of all searches on Google are related to location. Google Places is a fantastic free service that enables businesses to raise their digital profile and promote their goods and services to people searching the Web.

Another great benefit of Google Places for businesses is that it provides valuable insights into how many people are clicking to their listings, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people travelled from to get to the business. All this can really help a business fine tune their offer or expand into other markets.

Havelock North Business Association President, Adrienne Pierce is excited to see Mogul embrace the tool. “We’re very grateful to Mogul who are willing to invest their own time, for free, for the collective good of Havelock North businesses. The Association is working towards providing Havelock North Village with wi-fi access, so Mogul’s initiative works in really well with our strategy. We live in a digitally mobile society, so Havelock North will be in a powerful position to communicate and direct visitors to the town through their computers and smartphones.”

Anyone can create their own Google Places listing but not everyone is sure how to go about it. If there are any other Havelock North business’ wishing Mogul to volunteer their services to help with their Google Places listing, please contact me (Georgina Miller) at Mogul on 06 877 7478 or email george@mogul.co.nz

There’s a catch – you must be new to Google Adwords.

On the Google landing page, they say:

“We’re giving New Zealand businesses the opportunity to get $75 of free advertising on Google sites. In these challenging times, advertising on Google sites gives you a cost effective and measurable way of reaching prospective customers at the exact moment when they’re searching online for your products or services.”

How can advertising online with Google help your business?

• Reach people searching specifically for your product or service.
• Pay only when people click on your ads.
• Control your advertising costs: set your daily spend limit, there’s no minimum spend or contract required.

If I were you, I would definitely be signing up for this!

Are you in the Top 3?
Or even on the front page?
If not, you’re definitely missing out on traffic, and therefore business.

According to the 2009 Advertising Effectiveness Survey conducted by Forbes magazine, the most effective online tools for generating sales, are:

• search engine optimisation (SEO) (48%)
• e-mail marketing (46%)
• pay-per-click search marketing (32%)

Fortunately, we have a great deal of experience and capability in all three of these areas, and we’re especially good at SEO – just ask Rohan Bowyer from RIOT Recruitment:

“As a consequence of the work put in by Mogul, when the new site went live we saw some immediate real business benefits, including:

• Google optimisation – we moved from being 100’s of places down the search list to 3rd & 4th in our key work searches
• We secured direct business from this Google optimisation, and continue to see this benefit on an ongoing basis
• Site visits – we saw an immediate jump in our site visits (upwards of 300% increase over existing site traffic)”

If you too want to reap the benefits of a well-planned and well-executed search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, talk to us today.