I know you’ve been there – your mind thirsty for knowledge, the promise of the infinite wisdom of the collective human consciousness hanging out there in space-time, throwing yourself at Google’s feet just begging for answers.

So you type in your query and hope for the best. Sometimes the search results will lead you to a delightful little nugget that satisfies your every desire. But other times, they lead you to a pile of rubbish that makes you wonder how such a page could ever be ranked so highly in the first place.

So what happens when you land on a site with generic, poorly-written content? You click the back button and try another, instantly becoming a statistic for bounce rates. There are plenty of SEO tactics you can implement to achieve a high rank, but they don’t mean anything if your bounce rates are off the charts or your conversion rates stink – people pop in, take a moment to read what stands out and instantaneously decide whether they’re going to explore the site or return to the search results page. If your page isn’t up to par, they make a hasty retreat and your bounce rates analytics will look ugly.

The other day I was shopping for a new pair of Air Jordans. The site pictured here was one of the top links, and the first I happened to choose – mainly because it had the word “cheap” in the title. My eyes went right to the middle of the home page and I only made it through two sentences before realizing it was a trashy site that doesn’t deserve my business. It seemed to me like the shoes were probably fake (also known as “factory variants.”) If they’re real, the writers did a terrible job of proving it to me.

Increasing traffic to your site is the whole point of SEO, but high bounce rates and poor conversion rates mean you haven’t put the effort into developing the content on your website. Here are some essential methods for keeping visitors happy:

-         Gain their trust. Spam or generic duplicate content doesn’t give you much of a chance. Make the user feel like they’re in the right place by installing compelling, useful, original content that they’ll want to share.

-         Design your pages in a way that enhances the user’s experience and makes them think you’re worthy of their business. Doing so will drive conversion rates.

-         Include video. Original content doesn’t have to mean clunky blocks of text.

There are no shortcuts in SEO. From content to design to development, your site has to be well made all the way around to avoid high bounce rates and drive conversions.

I finally made a connection between the philosophy and purpose of her services and what we do regarding SEO copywriting here at Adcuda. Sadly, many online marketing companies resort to spamming and keyword stuffing as short term methods for generating traffic. We, on the other hand, are not worried about sneaking in keywords in tricky ways or trying to outsmart these search engines. The way they read and rank pages is becoming increasingly more sophisticated and these days the risk of the penalties Google is applying to sites with shady SEO copywriting outweighs any potential advantages. Cutting corners to quickly increase web traffic is never the right answer, and neither is messy writing.

That’s why I try to write with users in mind. Likewise, my coworkers try to design and develop sites in ways that enhance the user’s experience. On my end, I try to avoid awkwardly placed sentences that exist for the sole purpose of mixing in keywords. It’s more important that our SEO copywriting seem conversational and natural instead of forced and obnoxious. The user appreciates the flow and in turn you bring in more quality traffic, thereby boosting the overall value of the site.

The overriding goal of SEO copywriting isn’t just to increase web traffic and get people to look at your site. That’s only half the battle. The other half is creating a positive customer experience – getting them to enjoy your site and making them feel comfortable with giving you their business. Good writing is part of that picture and when it represents a quality client, backed by a well-developed, intelligently designed website, that’s when Google magic happens.

I know you’ve seen them too. That’s why it’s important that we clear this up. Silly errors like this can ruin the professionalism and credibility of your work and your business…I mean, their work and their business.

Well, this is for them…and purely for your review. I know it’s not you making these errors.

Six Common Online Grammatical Mix-ups That Can Ruin Your Credibility

1. Your vs. You’re
Your is the possessive form of you. You’re means “you are”.
Example: “You’re going on vacation with your grandma next week, right?”

2. Their vs. They’re vs. There
Their is the possessive form of they. They’re means “they are”. There is describing a place somewhere other than where you are.
Example: “They’re rowing their boat over there.”

3. Its vs. It’s
Its is the possessive form of it. It’s means “it is”.
Example: “It’s difficult to determine why its leaves fell off early.”

4. Effect vs. Affect
Effect is a noun. Affect is a verb. To help myself remember this one, I simply imagine the “A” turned upside down and it looks like a “V”; that’s the one that is a verb.
Example: “The effects of stress are even visible physically.” and “Stress affects each body differently.”

5. Loose vs. Lose
Loose is used when something is not as snug or tight as it should be. Lose is used when your favorite team blows it in the playoffs.
Example: “If your laces are loose, you may lose your shoe.”

6. i.e. vs. e.g.
This is one that I have messed up many times. “I.e.” is an abbreviation for the latin words “id est”, which means “that is”. “E.g.” is an abbreviation for “exempli gratia”, which means “for the sake of example”. So use “i.e.” when you want to paraphrase something and “e.g.” when you want to give an example.
Example: “Monkeys are mammals, i.e., warm-blooded animals that give birth to live young.” and “We have soda, e.g., Coca-cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper.”

Here are a few trends and examples of “meet the team” pages. One trend worth mentioning is the most popular:

1. Employee photos.

One idea for employee photos is to make custom avatars – like we did on Adcuda’s site. This is a great way to let an employee’s personality shine through while keeping the design professional and consistent. Our team page holds a little biographical line beside each employee photo – We like to show our creative personalities by sounding not-so-serious on our about page.

2. Social Media Links

As you know there are many professionals out there that have linkedin, facebook and twitter accounts. Why not have your potential clients connect with your employees? It is a great way to lead your clients to current events/thoughts and it builds strong relationships. Before doing this, make sure your employee’s content is appropriate. You do not want to damage your company’s reputation. There is also a way to add in a team member’s latest tweet to the page next to their profile. What fun!

3. Expanded profiles

While many sites only include basic information about each of the team, others include extended profile info. this is done through the uses of pop up windows, sliders, new pages, etc. Extended info is a geat way to give clients more insight into the employees behind a company. The simpler the layout, the more effective. You do not want to bombard your prospective clients with too much info – but it is nice to include info like “our story” or “what we bring to the table”

Here are some visual examples:

Th_nk

Blue Sky Resumes

MW Design Interactive

nGen Works

glue Isobar

Etsy

kudos smashing magazine

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.

If you’re selling a product or service that’s unique to your business then you should have no issues with cobbling together all your unique selling points and working the simplest angle: “This is the only place you can find this, the choice is obvious!” For the majority though, you likely offer something readily available, if not locally, then at least elsewhere online. In this case you need to give your product descriptions a bit of a pop, not bashing the reader over the head, not being too cutesy, but something that gives the reader all the necessary information without being too bland. I don’t think I have the space to put together a comprehensive writing class in this post, *ahem* nor would you want to sit through it, so let’s take a quick look at some of the biggest traps and simplest solutions for your product descriptions:

1. What does your cool thing do and to what awesome end does it do it?

It doesn’t get much more basic than this. Let’s say you’re selling running shoes – what is there to say about these shoes? Without getting into the hyperbolic we can safely say, “They cover your feet.” That’s a solid description, but will it shift many pair of these sweet shoes? How about we change it to, “They cover your feet in style.”

Boom, you just sold some shoes!

Explaining that a feature of your product saves time, saves money, turns a sandwich into a banquet, whatever it does, no matter how obvious you think it may be, is a nice reinforcement of what a terrific product it is.

2. Hmmm, how is your price so cheap on this item?

Especially when it comes to online sales, unless you’ve really built trust in your brand, people are skeptical of noticeable price breaks. It might not hurt to explain that you ordered too many, maybe the manufacturer had a closeout for that model and you’re passing along the savings, maybe your car dealership is too close to a baseball field/driving range – it’s worth mentioning this to ease any kind of customer concern.

3. Oh, cool, I didn’t know that.

If your particular item has any interesting background your average customer may not be aware of, throw it in. A good friend and former client of mine manufactured carbon fiber components for a wide variety of industries: everything from satellite components, to racecar bits and bobs, and hush-hush “defense contract” business. They also happen to produce barrels for paintball markers… now do you think their background might, just maybe, be a bit of a hook for the paintball market?

4. This Potatoes-In-A-Box mix reminds me of Mom…

If you’re up for it, consider latching onto your readers’ emotions. Now, watch it, you don’t want to get disingenuous with some over-the-top rhetoric about how if every household were to buy your blender, terrorism would end; maybe you want to start simple with something like, “Now you too can make margaritas like Grandma used to make with our stainless steel Blend-A-Whirl.”

Something to that effect…

5. PROOFREAD!

Oh yeah, it might not hurt to go back through once more to make sure the price you have listed is current, maybe the color, sizes, whatever it is the customer will want to know before adding to their shopping cart. Finding a listing that does contain the information they’re searching for is only a mouse click away after all.

Now, go out and write my pretties! Sell! SELL!