Jay’s Content Writing and General Internet Blog

One of the issues we encounter pretty often occurs when a prospective client comes to us because their company needs a marketing message, tag line or some other wording that will ultimately appear next to their logos.  Many people think beforehand that coming up with a catchy phrase will be simple, but most soon find out that this is a difficult process, as no one can control when ideas arise.

What seems to happen every time we take on any sort of consulting in this regard is the requirement that we explain how the consistency of their branding needs to work.  For instance, many people want their tag line done, but either don’t have a Web site at all or already have one and don’t want to put any more money into it.  We understand that a Web site can be seen as an ongoing cost/pain to deal with, but really, all you’re doing by not incorporating your new tag line into your Web site design and presentation is creating a situation where your Web site will continue to move towards the realm of sunken cost.

If you’re going to add some slogan or marketing phrase to your company’s logo or presentation, you need to make sure to include that on your Web site as well.  It’s only natural that someone will see a marketing piece from your company and log onto your Web site to find out more about your company.  That’s just the way it works these days, and frankly, that’s a good thing - it not only means that your marketing piece has motivated someone to take the next step, but also that they are learning exactly what you want them to learn about your offerings.

That’s also why it’s critical to make sure that they see the same message on your Web site as they did on the material that drove them there.  If they don’t, that old enemy of any marketing effort - doubt - creeps into their head and could dissuade them from taking the ultimate step - contacting you to find out more and to begin the sales process.

Your Web site is now a living, breathing aspect of your business, and you need to treat it as such.  If you’d like to find out more, take a look at our Web site and feel free to contact us at any time.

Anyone who’s written content for Web sites understands the concept of keywords.  They’re words or phrases that are designed to help bring traffic to a Web site, and they are generally logical in nature.  Basically, if you’re starting a Web site designed to sell cars, you need to place keywords in the text that will match what people are entering into search engines.

For instance, if someone is opening an auto dealership in Chicago, and they’re selling Nissans, then obvious keyword choices would include “Chicago Nissan dealer,” “Chicago Nissan” and “Nissan Chicago,” among many others that could apply.

These words or phrases need to be included in the text, but one of the most common mistakes that content writers make is to over-stuff the content with keywords.  For instance, I’ve seen sites where the keyword “Chicago Nissan” would be included in one page of text as many as 15 times.  This is a terrible strategy for many reasons.

First and foremost, search engines are becoming more aware of the efforts people make to get their sites found.  Therefore, if someone at Google or Yahoo! sees a page where this keyword is clearly stuffed into the content for the sole purpose of improving rankings, it’s possible that the site will be black-listed, meaning that it will not show up anywhere on that search engine’s returns.

The other problem with this strategy is that it’s nearly impossible to write good, proper content with that many keywords.  Our approach is such that the top priority is the quality of writing.  We’ll write pages with the keyword or phrase in mind, and when a logical opportunity arises to place this term into the text, we’ll do so.  We will not manufacture sentences for the sole purpose of including these keywords, as the visitor will not want to read what is basically lousy writing, and any calls-to-action placed on the page will either be ignored or never seen in the first place.

There are many other issues with keywords and SEO in general, but we’ll continue with that discussion soon.  In the meantime, if you would like to see more about our company, visit our Web site.

One of the biggest problems we encounter when we take on new work from clients is getting a handle on their existing content.  In fact, many times we’ll suggest that they completely scrap what they have and allow us to simply build new content from scratch, as it’ll wind up being less expensive in the long run.  However, some are simply tied to the money they’ve already spent on their content and don’t want to have to explain that their investment went down the drain.

It’s really a function of time.  In this business, we always use analogies to make points.  If you’re building a house, and notice that your contractor has already made a mess out of the foundation, is behind on the schedule and over the budget, you may get rid of that contractor.  However, when you hire a new one, you may be apt to ask him or her to simply continue with what’s been built to preserve the original money you spent.

What happens?  The new contractor has to spend time fixing the existing ‘work’ so that the rest of the project can be done.  This increases the time and expense involved.  The same holds true for content generation.  If we have to fix an existing mess, we’re bound to that mess to an extent and must make all sorts of adjustments in order to make sure we don’t just delete that content.

It’s an ongoing problem that we always try to correct.  However, if a client is wed to the existing content, we simply boost the cost estimate and generally double the deliverables schedule, as we need to protect ourselves as well.

If you’d like to find out more about how we approach new work, just to to our Web site.

I guess a good place to start is to let you know why our business came about. I went to journalism school at the University of Wisconsin, and then went to law school in Oregon, so I got seven intense years of training in terms of written communication. When I finished school and gave up on the legal profession, which I despised, I came to San Diego to get into the Internet marketplace.

One of the first things I discovered was just how horrible so much of the writing was on Web sites in general. I’m not just talking about the business-driven sites, but even the news and truly enormous sites out there. It was shocking. Basically, wherever I worked, I was ultimately asked to take over most or all of the writing duties, and that’s what allowed me to learn how content writing works in conjunction with SEO strategies.

After some time doing this, I discovered that the elements one needs for content writing in order to maximize SEO don’t need to necessarily cannibalize the quality of the writing itself. Most of what I read online was either over-packed with keywords, which made the sites difficult to read, or were hard to find in the first place because no SEO thinking was behind the writing.

I eventually discovered a balance, and in future entries I may get into how I achieved that. In the meantime, the writing quality online remains poor, at least in my opinion, but that’s fine with me - it helps our company continue to grow and diversify our offerings. Once again, if you’d like to see what we do, feel free to hit our site, and you should quickly understand what we do during the day.

http://www.pointofe.com

Thanks for reading.

Hello, virtual world -

I own a business that specializes in content writing and general written communication that appears online for the purpose of generating placement, traffic and ultimately new and recurring business to clients in all sorts of industries. One of the strategies we’ve been using for all of our clients is blogs, and I’ve been nothing short of shocked in regards to how quickly a well-done blog can drive traffic to Web sites.

Therefore, I figured I’d put one together for our company. Perhaps that should have been done before now, but as they say, you always get to your own ’stuff’ last. Our company is called Point of Entry Consulting, Inc., and we’re entering our fourth year in operation. It’s been exciting to watch it grow, and every day offers a new learning experience.

You can find our site at http://www.pointofe.com, so feel free to visit. I will be positioning this blog to work in conjunction with our site, so come back and see how that works. Meantime, I’ll also be posting entries about all sorts of things, but they’ll mostly be centered on what we do, how we do it, why we do it and how it affects the ever-changing world of the Internet as a whole.

Thank you for stopping by. I look forward to earning your trust and loyalty in terms of reading what I have to say.