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Indexing - SEO
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Tuesday, 23 February 2010
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Written by Sévy
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Some people seem to think that getting a website indexed is just a matter of filling in the site’s META tags: with the TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS tags heading the list. Is that still the case today?
When the web first got up and running, keyword and description META tags were simple solutions for indexing a site. Search engines like Google used them for a long time because those tags made it possible to provide pertinent information about a site’s content: subject, actors, business sector, products, etc. However that method reached its limits early on.
A great many webmasters indeed took advantage of the technique by trying to brainwash Google and other search engines, cramming them with propaganda…or more precisely, with keywords. There are examples galore. A noteworthy example is the one for “Pamela Anderson”, used as a keyword in websites that had nothing to do with the web’s most popular star a few years back. But Google wasn’t to be fooled long and quickly made some adjustments, punishing that type of indexing practice by considering it as spam. Google went back to the drawing board and improved its algorithm, making sure it used relevancy criteria other than META tags. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Web writing/editing
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Thursday, 18 February 2010
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Written by Leslie
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Well, we had a short team meeting yesterday and when I looked back at my notes this morning, they basically looked like resolutions. But it’s mid-February, so I guess I should call them objectives. In addition to the ones we talked about in the meeting, I’ve added some of my own, more personal objectives. Let me know what you think. Am I being reasonable and realistic?
• Write short(er) blog articles
• Write more frequent articles (should be easier, if they’re shorter!)
• Use Twitter more (to see what stephanghys is up to ;)
• Fine-tune WR Traduction, our new website devoted to translations into English
• Update my training presentation on the WR Formation website for the “Writing in English” workshop for French trainees (before the March session)
• Translate all the slides included in the “Writing for the Web” course
• Buy a new translation tool (like many, I picked Trados due to their massive advertising but I’m seriously thinking about switching to Wordfast – it seems more adapted to our needs)
• Learn more about collaborative translation and crowdsourcing (for the time being, I’m skeptical) and write an article about it ;)
More personal objectives:
• Support blogs I read regularly through comments and links, instead of just smiling idiotically, alone, in front of my screen |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Web writing/editing
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Friday, 12 February 2010
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Written by Sévy
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"Writing copy for the web" and "writing to be read onscreen": what exactly do these increasingly popular expressions mean?
I've tried to sum up what the job of a web copywriter is all about. Here is what “Writing for the web” means in 10 key points:
1. Write to please an audience (attract readers, make your target audience loyal)
2. Write to get indexed in Google (the principle of natural indexing)
3. Write to gain loyalty (know how to update your content regularly)
4. Make it short and to the point…what I’m concentrating on doing here ;)
5. Write to make people click (the principle of marketing copy)
6. Write to create a network (use netlinking)
7. Add value to your site via content, images and video
8. Stick to an editorial line (the principle of editorial guidelines)
9. Start a community or run a blog
10. Write on a regular basis to stay in touch with your web readers
Are you a web writer? Do you want to develop your web writing skills? Check out the training course taught by Frédéric Panserrieu, a practical course full of examples, anecdotes and real-life cases.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Indexing - SEO
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Friday, 18 December 2009
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Written by Leslie
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How to improve your website’s visibility in Google?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is all about promoting your website by increasing its visibility in the result pages of search engines, and mainly in Google’s. Here are some answers to questions about SEM and what actually increases your website’s visibility.
How do you submit a site to Google?
You can use the Google URL submission form to list a site that’s just been created. Otherwise, if there’s a link to your site, Google search engines will visit it automatically. However, even if you make Google aware of your site, that doesn’t mean it will be ranked highly. It’s just the first step in letting them know you exist on the web.
To make sure all your pages are listed in Google, you need to create “internal linking”, meaning as many links as possible between the pages of your site. In fact, show the Googlebots the way so they can go from link to link to visit your site in depth. To be really thorough, it’s even more effective to supply Google with a sitemap via the Google Webmaster tool.
Above all, to be on the right track to Google ranking, you’ll need to create lots of in-bound links on your site. Getting others to link to you will increase your rank in the search engine result pages. Check out these Webmaster Guidelines where Google highlights the best practices to help you steer clear of common errors and enhance your site ranking.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Web writing/editing
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Tuesday, 21 July 2009
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Written by Leslie
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You need help for content. In today’s global marketplace, a company can’t go without communicating and that means having a website, advertising and if possible a blog and newsletter. Creating that written material or “copy” requires time and effort. If you’re cutting budget corners and asking company product managers and/or sales managers to do the writing job, that means people doing a lot of work they weren’t trained for and not leaving enough time to focus on the business aspects they know about. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Web-marketing
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Monday, 08 June 2009
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Written by Leslie
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When Twitter was launched in 2006, the first converts were Web 2.0 techies and geeks. Since then, Twitter’s user base has grown gradually and some of its newest converts are advertising agencies and businesses.
If you don’t know what Twitter is all about, check out this video explanation in plain English. If you already know the Twitter basics, read on.
For all you Twitter cynics, I’m not sure this will convince you, but hey...
Twitter & your company communication strategy
The whole idea behind Twitter was originally about people networking to share news about what they were doing right when they were doing it; it was not about using the network to do business. However, as Twitter has gained popularity, its original purpose has inevitably been sidetracked. Although it can work as a communication strategy, it can also backfire. So if you’re thinking about using Twitter as part of your communication strategy…be careful.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Newsletters
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Tuesday, 07 April 2009
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Written by Leslie
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Should blogs replace newsletters?
A friend recently told me his company had given up on sending out an e-newsletter and replaced it by a blog. The reason being two-fold:
- publishing their e-newsletter on a regular basis required too much work and it was often spammed
- the company’s main website had been redone but didn’t keep their audience up to date about all the company’s ongoing projects.
He asked me to take a look at their company blog and tell him what I thought. Sure.
Blogs shouldn’t replace newsletters
My first reaction was: hold on a minute…according to Webrédacteurs, newsletters and blogs are two very different mediums. They are both effective tools for communicating. Newsletters are more official while blogs let writers adopt a more laid-back style. Most often, we steer a customer towards one or the other, or a combination of both, depending on the customer’s aims. But a blog shouldn’t be seen as a newsletter substitute.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Web-marketing
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Tuesday, 24 March 2009
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Written by Leslie
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Online sales are booming compared to regular store sales for lots of reasons: customers can find what they need fast with keyword searches; once they’re on a site they can learn all about a product without even asking a question; products can be easily compared on a single site or between several sites. And in the end, customers may save time, gas and money!
So how can an online sales website get a piece of the action?
The main objectives are:
1. get potential customers to visit the site (that depends on site indexing and rank). Read the article: Get indexed in Google’s top 10,
2. once on the site, keep the potential buyer long enough to make a purchase
3. get buyers as well as casual visitors to come back
An example of buying leather apparel online
Last week was my boyfriend’s birthday and I wanted to surprise him with a nice leather jacket. I had tons of work and so was running late in my jacket hunt. To find it as fast as possible, the obvious choice was to buy it online. That online buying experience offered me a good opportunity to analyze what led me to buy what I did. Here are some of the main deciding factors:
1. Keyword search
Since I live in France, I did a quick Google search with “blouson cuir” (leather jacket, in French) and came up with Cuiropolis and Peaulisse at the top of the page of Google results, then Cuir-City, La-Canadienne and Milpau in the top 10 references. Afterwards I tried a “leather” and “leather outerwear” search in English but I couldn’t find any websites that would deliver to France . |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Indexing - SEO
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Wednesday, 18 February 2009
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Written by Leslie
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All this stuff about indexing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is fairly new to me, but I have a few thoughts on the subject. I’m a translator/writer. Keep that in mind as you read this.
Getting your site ranked on Google’s first page is rather nice, that I don’t deny. It has happened to me and it felt pretty good. But it was by far not the best article I’d ever written, so obviously I work with some people who know the tricks of the trade.
From my point of view, instead of getting all worked up about page ranking, it would definitely be more worthwhile to make sure your writing style is of quality and your content is (very) regularly updated. Content quality + writing style is what really makes a website worth reading.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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Web-marketing
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Friday, 05 December 2008
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Written by Sévy
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What exactly is buzz or “viral” marketing all about?
A little recipe for some buzz: reveal info (or intox) on the web, in the form of an article or a video; the content needs to be funny or really offbeat to make sure you set the Internet on fire: bloggers, columnists and the online media jump on it, get excited, and the advertiser is in seventh heaven because sales take off all at once (thanks Mr. BUZZ!).
Become a web star in record time, that’s the key to buzz marketing. Kind of like the advertiser’s Holy Grail. What advertiser hasn’t ever dreamed of that?
Let’s take a look at 3 examples of good buzz marketing campaigns off and online:
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )
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