Technology Marketing Tips

The current issue

A personal message from David Rosam

The odds are, if you're reading Technology Marketing Tips, you or your company has a Web site. Is it taken seriously as a marketing tool? How is it performing on the major search engines?

This issue looks at How to enjoy a better return from your Web site through appealing to the search engines - some of the rules have changed with the latest Google update.

Seeing errors in your own writing can be just about impossible - it's a human characteristic that we see what we want to see not what's actually there. That means mistakes slip through. This issue's Writing tip shows how to give yourself a better chance to pinpoint the errors and weed out what's not working in your writing.

I'll sign off now, and wish you a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Best regards

David

How to enjoy a better return from your Web site

The Google Jagger update (the leading search engine periodically changes its algorithms and gives the Web a good shake-up) finished some weeks back, and Web site owners, online businesses and search engine optimization experts continue picking through the ashes.

Some sites have done well; other site owners are still smarting as their sites have plummeted out of their previously high positions. And with that new-found obscurity comes lower traffic, lower sales and lower profitability. There's some real pain out there.

The world after Jagger

The reams of Jagger analysis often disappear into search engine optimization obscurity, but the fundamental question is what do you need to do to get the best from the Google search engine?

The trick is not to use tricks. Never lose sight of the fact that your Web site is a marketing tool, and as such it needs to obey the rules of good marketing. Some technology companies I talk to are convinced that good search engine rankings are the result of technological solutions - tweak the php, add a new script, automatically generate some new META tags or something along those lines.

Some of the technical advice you read is right - you certainly need to have your HTML and URLs sorted so the search engines can access your content efficiently and index it. But much of it is, at best, irrelevant.

Google now likes content even more

You still need good marketing content if your site is going to engage with your customers - I'd say 'professionally written content to a high standard' because the odds are that the top sites you're competing with either have an in-house writer (or team) or employ a freelance or agency.

It's interesting that Google is rewarding sites that have a good quantity of good, original content. Sites with minimal content, 'borrowed' content, lists of links scraped from search engines and other low value pages for human readers are less interesting to Google, too.

Put up great content for people, and you'll be going a significant way to satisfying the search engines, too.

Make sure you have good links

Finally, you'll need to make sure you have some of the right kind of links - Jagger has made Google even more selective about links. Possibly the biggest news is that link exchanges are less effective, so you need to further concentrate on one-way (incoming) links.

There's a lot more to say about optimizing a site, but these basic principles will get you a long way. For more information about Search Engine Optimization, see Web Positioning Centre at http://www.webpositioningcentre.co.uk.

Writing tips

Get some distance between you and your writing so that you can see your mistakes. Put the draft aside for a day or two before re-reading it.

I also like to break the link between the writing process and the screen by getting a paper copy and walking around while reading the material aloud. It's very different from sitting quietly in front of a screen writing.

About David Rosam

Hijacked some time in the 80s by a Paris-based advertising agency, David Rosam cut his teeth on writing for IBM's EMEA division. Since then, he has written copy for small and medium enterprises through to global brands such as Microsoft, Oracle and Hewlett Packard.

David's direct mail experience rolled itself on to the Web a decade ago, and now he writes online copy, Search Engine Optimized copy, direct mail, brochures and newsletters as well as consulting to a number of individuals and companies.

Need some advice?

Contact me at mailto:david@ITcopy.com, +44 (0)70 440 76726 or Skype:davidrosam - there's no obligation.

Why are you receiving Technology Marketing Tips?

Simple. Either because we already have a relationship - I know you personally, or through online networking, we've met face-to-face, exchanged business cards, or we've e-mailed each other, or we've been asked by you or your comapny to write a proposal - or you have subscribed online (at http://itcopy.com/subscribe.php).

How to Unsubscribe

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Chamaeleon Marketing Communications
IT Copywriting and Marketing
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Technology Marketing Tips copyright (c) Chamaeleon Marketing Communications, 2005

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