Dangerous Thinking

In case you have your reports delivered by e-mail, you may like to know Google is currently saying the following:

System Message: Analytics Processing Delay from April 30th to May 5th

Google Analytics experienced a data processing error from April 30th to May 5th. Almost all of the data has been recovered and is currently being reprocessed. The recovered data will be reflected in your reports within a few days. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, was not recoverable from those dates.

We sincerely apologize for this processing issue and are taking every precaution to prevent such disruptions from occurring again in the future. For more information, please read through our common questions.

The Google Analytics Team

I’ll be getting on with something else while they do.

Tags: error, Google Analytics

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Google’s Matt Cutts is quite unequivocal in this presentation about Web Spam. “Search Engine Optimization isn’t spam,” he explains. He’s also clear about what makes a site spammy.

It’s definitely worth 10 minutes of your time.

You’ll also be able to see why SEO and great content should be one and the same thing.

Tags: Matt Cutts, spam, web spam, white hat

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My Twitter pal and SEO Copywriter A Charlotte Riley took up my post Writing SEO Copy is Different and ran with it. Her views on writing for the Web are worth quoting, alone:

Traditional media uses communication as a bullhorn, but when writing for the Web we have the ability (and obligation) to turn it around completely. To paraphrase Danny Sullivan, search engines are reverse broadcast marketing.

Perhaps a more eloquent summary of one of the themes that runs through much of my writing here at Dangerous Thinking.

But the real meat of Great copy IS user experience is as follows:

Web copy is an equal partner in user experience design.

Just as the design, typography and other visual elements add to a user-centered experience, so do the words that are shared and join us together. The content is the journey.

The piece is well worth a read.

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That was a painless upgrade.

There’s just one thing that’s not working - the Shared news panel in the sidebar. I can’t see why not, so I’m assuming it’s a feed problem, at least until tomorrow.

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…while I upgrade Wordpress.

Hopefully not too long.

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When writing most marketing or advertising copy you make assumptions. You make propositions built on those assumptions. And produce the most interesting and engaging copy you can.

With SEO copy you start from a different place. That place is key phrase research, and while it provides everyone involved with a Web site with priceless information about its customers and competitor weaknesses, often it throws up surprises about how people think about a product or service.

By their very nature, these surprise findings often do not fit in with the client’s expectations, or carefullly developed proposition. Or perhaps you discover factors you or your client have already discounted as being irrelevant or somehow not interesting enough.

That means sometimes you need to make something interesting that the client just doesn’t see merits talking about. Your key phrase research tells you otherwise, so it’s up to you, as an SEO Copywriter to reconcile the over-familiarity of the client with the expressed needs of the marketplace.

You need to find something compelling to say about what may seem mundane. Or you may need to find something new to say about something you think you may have covered already. Whatever is the case, you need to demonstrate this at-first unappealing starting point will work under all the rules and aims of good copywriting.

Making web site content work in this way, is what good SEO Copywriting is. It’s what we get paid for. And it’s one of the areas that make SEO copywriting a discipline all of its own.

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Someone asked me earlier this month about how SEO copywriting differs from ordinary copywriting. We ended up talking about how sometimes the SEO copywriter ends up working on much less promising material than our advertising cousins.

The following post attempts to make sense of of what we covered in that discussion. I’ve been tweaking it on and off for several weeks, but I’ve never been totally happy with its clarity.

Today is the last day of the month, so to hell with it. I’m going to press the button and publish.

Let me know what you think.

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Please bear with me on this one. Most of my posts here are practical or seek to answer questions that have come up when I’m talking to clients, prospects or colleagues. This one is a little more, shall I say, theoretical - about the nature and process of writing.

Triggered by a Tweet by fellow SEO copywriter michellereno that asked what inspires (copy)writers to write. I believe she has also posted a blog entry.

I’m not sure inspiration is really at the core of my writing - see the third paragraph on this page of my personal blog.

And here’s another angle on the same thing. Some years ago, I found a quote attributed to composer Igor Stravinsky:

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the chains that shackle the spirit.

Although some people disagree with my interpretation, what he’s getting at seems so obvious. It’s about having a routine, a process that nails down the trivia and frees you up to produce what matters.

I believe in process for copywriting. Not only does it deliver when it needs to, but by going through briefing, research, key phrase selection, copy plan, drafts and revisions I have the process under control. I move forward in manageable stages sure that what I’m doing is correct.

The solid grounding gives me confidence to produce good copy.

Update: You can find Michelle on inspiration for writing on her blog.

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Easing myself back into this 2008 blogging thing gently, 15 Principles of Internet Marketing from Conversation Marketing had me nodding at its simple wisdom:

75% of your audience uses a search engine to find you. Get used to it. All the banners and ‘viral’ marketing on earth won’t come close to results produced by a top 5 ranking for a relevant phrase.

Kind of fits in with my last post.

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I’ve been hugely busy in the run-up to Christmas, and almost missed this very important admission by Google. Somehow, it seems to have attracted less comment in the blogosphere than it deserves.

mad.co.uk in PPC shot down by SEO experts reports:

Stuart Small, industry leader, business and industrial markets at Google, backed up the argument and said that with 85% of all B2B purchases starting in a search engine, paid search ads were vital to any business. He added that Google sees 80% of searchers clicking on organic results, with 20% clicking on search ads. (my italics)

That’s a pretty commercially sensitive piece of information, and one that anyone in SEO or who owns a Web site needs to take on board.

The inference is quite clearly that one should do as much Organically as possible, a piece of advice Paul and I have been trotting out regularly since we founded Web Positioning Centre.

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