SiteSell Blog

Create Sparks on Your Home Page

Content & Article Writing

Your website's home page is where you establish your Valuable PREselling Proposition ("VPP"), cleanly, sharply and quickly. In the reader's mind, your VPP must answer the question, "Who is this person and why should I pay attention?"

Visitors want adventures, stories, characters, spirit, credibility. If the subject matter is more serious, like business, they want authority, of course. But they want you most of all and no matter what. So...

Are Your Web Pages Doing Their Job?

Content & Article Writing

When you build Web pages for your content site, there are two audiences to please - human visitors and the Search Engine spider bots. The goal is to best meet both of their expectations and to also get your "most wanted response"...

1) For your human readers, make your copy sufficiently compelling to get the click directly to your income source, or as a second choice to a related content page.

2) For your spider readers, work your specific keyword or topic for your site's theme (and general related keywords and common synonyms) throughout your page so that the Search Engines rank it highly in their search results. And where applicable, provide clean, visible links to your related content pages on your site. This helps spiders to "click through," scan and then bring info back to their Search Engines' databases.

"On-page criteria" are the key points that the engines need in order to know what the page is about and how to rank it (in comparison to other pages on the Net about the same topic). We'll discuss 3 points on the criteria list in this article...

Images Are Also Content

Content & Article Writing

Images are also content... especially if your niche is very visual (ex., a travel niche). If your site fits that bill, optimize all images by following these guidelines...

1) File Name:  The page's keyword should be in the image's file name (the exact keyword is best, dashes between each word in a multi-word keyword).

2) Alt Attribute (Alt Text) and Title Attribute:   Use the page's keyword in a brief Alt Text description of what the image is about. Keep it short, but make it descriptive (ex., a photo of the pool at the Cuisinart Hotel might say "Cuisinart Hotel swimming pool").

Are You Paying for Plagiarism or Quality Content?

Content & Article Writing

Be sure you are not buying plagiarism if you outsource content. You become legally responsible.

First, you should have a basic agreement in place that includes a point that all material submitted is original, does not violate anyone else's copyright and that they have the sole right to sell it to you, and that they are selling it exclusively to you.

This is a key clause. It makes them legally responsible to you.

Does Your L&F Get the Monetizing Click?

Content & Article Writing

The Look & Feel ("L&F") reflects the theme and sets the tone for your website, connecting with your reader at a quick, subconscious level. However, your content is what ultimately wins or loses your visitor's confidence and trust. And that's what gets the monetizing click!

In short... bad L&F loses visitors quickly. They won't give you the benefit of the doubt and wait even a few seconds to see what you have to say.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression!

2 New Ways To Keep Up on Your Niche

Content & Article Writing

You only have x hours to put into your online business per day. Try to put some of your time into following your niche.

There are some great ways to do that using Search It! and we just added 2 more searches into this handy e-business tool (Step 1's "Reference Library for Content"). They are...

Google Realtime and Google Discussions

12 Tips For Writing Headlines That Work!

Content & Article Writing

1) Use strong active verbs (ex., slash, chop, stagger, etc.) to create powerful headlines with emotional impact... headlines that push your customer's hottest buttons!

2) Never accept your first stab at a headline -- keep improving until it's as good as it can be.  You "nailed it"!

3) Stir an emotion. Get the reader excited or fearful or protective.

Use "You" or "We" in Your Writing?

Content & Article Writing

"Should I use "you" or "we" when I am writing?" This question pops up in the SBI! forums every so often. For many sites, it's not an issue. For example, in a travel site, you talk about your travels (so you use largely "I" and "we"). And, if applicable, you can draw people into a dialog on your site by using "you" in the invitation (ex., "Do you have a travel trip to share?").

For some sites, though, you need to think about the choice for online business success. The bottom line question for a site, and for your core audience (you simply must be able to visualize your typical visitor/customer) is...

Organizing and Executing Your 3 TIERs (Cont.)

Content & Article Writing

Getting your website's architecture right creates a solid foundation for your site's layout. SBI! Lessons #4-6 follow (click here if you missed SBI! Lessons #1-3)...

Lesson #4
Never do anything just for the Search Engines.

If you're making a page a TIER 2 to get indexed faster by Google and then demoting it to a TIER 3, consider these outcomes...

1) Worst case is that Google doesn't like being manipulated, discovers this, and penalizes you.

2) Best case is that when you "demote" a page to TIER 3, so will Google.

So in the long run, there's not a lot to gain from this extra work.

Organizing and Executing Your Website's 3 TIERs

Content & Article Writing

Getting your website's architecture right creates a solid foundation for your site's layout. The following SBI! lessons will help you organize your TIERs properly...

Lesson #1
Build a easy-to-navigate 3-TIER site's architecture.

In a properly structured website, you only have one home page, perhaps 5-15 or more TIER 2 pages, and many times more TIER 3 pages than TIER 2s. TIER 3 pages are the end-topics of the sub-categories or sub-concepts (TIER 2) of your Site Concept (TIER 1).

After all, if everything is a TIER 2, Google stops taking that seriously. And your human visitors won't have a navigable site. (Watch this SBI! video to deepen your understanding of a 3-tier blueprint.)