Fast forward to now.

As a content writer at Adcuda, a great deal of my day consists of doing research on the products or services our clients are selling. From my experience, I’ve found that scouring numerous websites and resources regarding a single topic is the best way to gain the most accurate information possible.

And yes, I do occasionally still check out Wikipedia for help.

It was just a couple weeks ago that I finally understood what my very wise professors were saying all along.

While researching a particular Italian product, I came across this:





Fortunately, the folks at Wikipedia caught it fairly quickly and edited the “creative” addition out before widespread panic could ensue.

After some further checking, you may be happy to know that the people of Italy are doing just fine and are not suffering from excessive flatulence. Boy am I glad that I check and recheck information.

Here, let’s pare this down to its elements: What are you selling? Who are you selling to?

If you were explaining your product to a potential client, what would you say? This shouldn’t be too difficult a question, I imagine you’ve done it more than a few times already – so why not write as you would speak? Just because you’re transferring thoughts to the written word, there’s no reason to think you need to transform yourself into Shakespeare. As you may have learned from Sesame Street, just be yourself – don’t try to be too clever, don’t oversell, just be honest and friendly. Sure, Thesaurus.com might come in handy here and there, but be sure to speak to your customer and don’t bust out the fancy words unless they really and truly fit.

So, what’s your demographic? If you’re selling slopestyle and freeride bikes you’re likely angling for crazy, Red Bull-chugging youngsters; the Rolls Royce Motor Car demo are affluent, slightly older individuals concerned with style and luxury; and both of those are likely a tad to the side of the people actively searching for those “Truck Nutz” things for, you know, their truck. The point is to speak to your customer in text as you would normally with your gob – use your real voice and you may be surprised how well you engage your clientele and how that ultimately transfers towards your sales.

And hey, if it still ends up all being a bit overwhelming, I *ahem* know a guy…

OK, yes, I obviously realize the extreme limitations of your average PPC ad, I don’t expect to be whisked away on some adventure or, what is it movie reviewers say – something, something, roller-coaster thrill-ride? But how difficult is it to at least make your ad slightly different from the competition? Writing PPC ads doesn’t require an English Doctorate, a do-it-yourselfer can get noticed by following a few very simple rules that even some of the pro’s seemingly forget as they cobble together yet another ad about tennis shoes, car tires or Red Vines, the most delicious licorice ever (Tom here in the office has fueled an entirely new addiction for me – THANKS, TOM).

Let’s get this thing rolling then, here’s part one in my, um, some number, series of how to stop being so darned lazy with your PPC ads. Sooo, no particular order, and no, it’s not because I’m lazy… geez:

Check the Competition
I understand you might have a metric crap-ton of keywords attached to a certain ad group, but you should know which are your big-bangers off the top. Simply sling the heavy-hitters into the search engine you’re writing for, hit “search”, and see what ad copy gets served up. What do these ads look like? Which are drawing your eye, if any? Are all the ads essentially the same? Remember, you aren’t trying to camouflage your ad, you want to draw the eye, be unique! Consider what will set yours apart, either with your message, with the inclusion of numbers, or heck, even the shape of your ad.

A week ago I was looking at bikes online with my son and did a search for “giant anthem”, because sometimes I like to pretend I’m rich and can just buy a new bike whenever I want. I just double-checked as I’m writing this and it’s still the same: every PPC ad has the exact same headline… and if you look closely the text doesn’t read properly, leading me to believe these are all dynamic text ads. Making a dynamic text ad is a pain in the rear – I’m sure the people who built these would be thrilled to see this.

What I’m looking at here is a perfect opportunity for a Giant dealer in Kansas City (where I am), even if it’s just some hole-in-the-wall shop, to get some attention and move some of his or her Anthems. Hell, add a word or two to the title and write some copy that actually makes sense and BAM!, you’ll far and away have the best ad of the lot – and you wouldn’t even have to bid anywhere near the top to stick out from the crowd!

Let’s consider you actually have some legit competition that isn’t poorly using dynamic text ads to all look the same, the question remains: from a purely cosmetic standpoint, what will set you apart? Think about it, a searcher isn’t automatically reading every ad at once, something irregular is pulling their attention. In my experience numbers have been strong, whether it’s a price, a percentage, or the easiest (though it does eat up some characters): adding a phone number. Everyone in the SEO game will tell you that putting your keyword in the title and body of the ad is best, and listen, I’m certainly not advising against it, but do a search for “used cars” and see how much of a difference you think those bolded keywords make. If everyone is using the same trick, it’s no longer a trick, is it?

I realize I may have thrown a few people when I mentioned the shape of your ad, and admittedly this one is fairly gimmicky, but hey, you have to draw the eye before you can draw a click, amirite? You can do the ol’ upside-down pyramid, making your title the longest bit and slowly shrinking the next couple lines, or, if you’d like a proper challenge: going the other way with a crazy-short title – just don’t forget that your PPC ad copy has to say something sensible once your potential customer shows up to read it.

And I’ll try to remind you at the end of each of these articles: don’t forget to test your ads! Make multiple ads to see what works. Are your silly pyramids working? How about the numbers? Does it matter where the numbers are in the copy? Keep what’s working and experiment with the losers, and don’t forget, keep an eye on your competitors – your best ad could accidentally get pirated by more than one company and before you know it you’ll be blended back into the sidebar.

OK, stay tuned next week for the, erm, next part of this series I decide should come next – ’til then, happy PPC-ing!

Edward Sothern's jaws giving birth to a... style?

OK, so you’re looking to grab more members – it’s the Worldwide Web after all, there has to be more than three of you on the planet, right? So, how do you draw these other tastefully be-bristled folks to you?

First, for the sake of this post anyway, ya’ gotta have a blog, which, quite honestly, I can’t imagine your dundreary site not having, as there has to be tons of new styling gels to test, monocle swap-meets, pretentious art house meetings to organize, political discussion, this thing should be buzzing. As we’ve discussed many times before, from a search engine optimization angle, this is the fresh content the engines adore, but they can’t do much for you if you aren’t using the right keywords in your writing. You need to find out how people are searching for your subject matter – what are they typing into the search engines when they want to know if sporting some extreme dundrearies can drown them? Is that even a common search? Let’s find out!

As with any good keyword hunt, I find it’s best to start with Google AdWords to sprinkle some seeds and see what sprouts up. I spotted AdWords “dundrearies” and “dundreary” and this is the best it could muster:

Hmmm, doesn't appear to be a popular search in Kansas City... or anywhere else.

Wow, that’s a little disappointing. Clearly, we’re dealing with a fairly niche lifestyle choice here, but hey, we have a better idea now of how people are searching for their information and which words carry the most strength. Starting with the keyword “dundrearies” we now have a breakdown of which of the *sigh* four words and phrases should be included the most in your future posts.

Armed with this knowledge be careful not to overdo it from here on out. A good guideline to follow is to not go over 5% keyword density in your writing because not only will the search engines start thinking you’re trying to manipulate them (they don’t like that), but your writing starts to look like crap. So, for example, lets say you’re putting together a feature on the best new pomade for styling your dundrearies into stylish curls and the word count is roughly 500 words. Multiply 500 by .05 (for my mathematically challenged brothers and sisters out there, that’s your 5%) and you come up with 25, which means you don’t want to go beyond stuffing 25 keywords into the entire piece. That’s a total by the way, I don’t mean for you to try that with each and every keyword, that could get messy.

Simply maintaining your blog gives you the opportunity to not only build on existing keywords, but if you check periodically you can also seamlessly plug in new keywords should they arise. And by doing a good job you show yourself as an authority on your subject matter, and provided you’re constantly researching and staying on top of your industry, then you really and truly are – right? Yes, imagine, the online leader in dundreary technology… dare to dream my friends.

Now let’s say he actually goes headfirst onto the web.  If you wanted to be an SEO copywriter for his website, let’s call it Who Cares What Time of the Day it is, It’s Conan!, your first priority would be keyword placement of this extremely long title.

Now you’ve gone to Wordtracker and started your keyword research.  What comes up?  Wordtracker gives you a blank look.  Just typing the beginning of the title will cause Google to go crazy and give you around 529,000 results with the title sporadically thrown around each result.  It’s allright, you’re just beginning the optimization process for the website.

Next, try It’s Conan! and see where that gets you.  Wordtracker again comes up looking as puzzled as before.  Google AdWords gives you a variety of “Conan the Barbarian” terms to go up against “Conan O’Brien” (A monthly search volume of 165,000 for each)–no help there either.

Now your left to go back to the producer of the show, most likely Conan himself, and timidly tell him you are unable to make the title fit and that he should think of another one that would be “search engine friendly”.  He laughs at you and tells you to go back to the drawing board with the original.  You go back to your office and defiantly think up something that would catch the eyes of Wordtracker and Google AdWords.

And then it hits you:  Yay, Conan! Now type it in Wordtracker and see your hard work pay off:  search result…1.  And the lone keyword reads:  “conan obrien yay boo beer”.  Not exactly your best avenue to promote the show, but at least you’re getting somewhere.  Trial and error eventually will give you the platform for which to spread the news of Conan’s new website.  Finding clever ways to utilize your keywords inside the brand without sacrificing the reader’s attention is one of many tools to excel at SEO.

If it makes you feel better, whatever title you give Conan’s new show, it would probably rise to the top 5 organic searches on Google in about an hour—besides writing for The Simpsons, Conan O’Brien has a rabid fan base.  It just never hurts to practice your Wordtracker and Google AdWords searches.

 Conrad L. Hall has been rewarded for his cinematography wonders by being nominated by the Academy Awards 10 times (3 of them taken home).  Conrad L. Hall had a certain approach to each scene that was his own, sometimes leaving the lens still for an entire scene.  For over 37 years, modern cinema was gifted by his presence, a presence that if left out of Sam Mendes’ movies would have taken a little steam out of the end product. 

 How does this incorporate into websites?  Cinematography can just as easily translate to content writing for a website.  Practice, practice, practice!    Turn a hobby of writing poems and essays into a daily routine where you write whatever comes to mind.  Leave the editing portion of your work aside for just a second.  That will come after you have everything in place.  Amid the chaos of writing piece after piece you must never neglect reading other people’s work, online or print.  Absorb as much information as one human can withstand.  The more ideas and writing styles you have bouncing around inside your brain, the better you are at preventing the mind-numbing pitfalls of writer’s block.  Make a small investment into a pocket-sized notepad to carry around with you at all times.  This will safely lock away any public inspirations you feel while sitting at a coffee house, waiting in line at McDonald’s, running for shelter during a downpour and so on. 

 These are just a few tidbits on how to compliment pen to paper and form your own style of writing.  Master your method, read up, and when all is said and done, try even harder.  Be a Conrad L. Hall and help make a Sam Mendes out of your website.