What we’re not dealing with here is the technical side of SEO – the link juice, the internal link structures, the on page optimisation, the domain authority and so on - let’s assume you’re on the ball with these things already.  Think of those factors as channels of promotion and packaging – what we’re talking about here is the product itself – the content.

It’s the content that tends to so undervalued in the SEO world, despite the fact that every SEO pretty much has “content is king” engraved on their eyeballs from the early days in their career.  This is largely down to SEO deriving from a very technical group of people; at a time where simply listing more keywords on the page was the key to success.  Fortunately the market has matured since then and we’re slowly edging out the keyword filled sites in lieu of better content, but bland, average sites are still rampant and no doubt the owners wonder why their rankings aren’t as strong as they could be.

The answer is simple – both people and search engines want good results, yet a large part of SEO is about essentially ranking *any* page for relevant terms, rather than creating a page that *deserves* to rank for that term. 

Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not suggesting that SEO is getting it wrong – quite the opposite in fact, many SEOs get it right with style!  More than that though, the SEO industry has encouraged a level of competition amongst websites that drives innovation and development – I think we would have a very different web today if it wasn’t for the SEO industry.

The point is that in many cases, SEO is kinda just tagged on the end of a project, almost as an afterthought – almost a case of “we want to rank for x, y or z – go and do it”.  The effectiveness of the work tends to boil down to the skills and experience of the SEO behind it, and I while I do think that’s always and should be important, the main deciding factor should be down to the quality of the page.  The two aren’t mutually exclusive – let’s look at the points to building a category killing page;

Define your objectives

What is your page all about?  By defining the purpose of your page from the outset, you can not only easily accommodate any SEO details, but also ensure the page design includes everything you need it to in order to maximise the benefit you get from your traffic.

Some questions to ask yourself:

1. What do competing pages offer in terms of content?
2. What am I trying to achieve with this page?
3. What content do I need on this page?
4. What content *don’t* I need on this page?
5. What can I offer that no one else is?
6. What makes this page better than other similar pages?
7. What will users searching for my targeted search term expect to find on this page?
8. How important is this page to my business strategy?

The answers to these questions begin to give you a very strong picture of what your page should look like and importantly, what content it should have in it.  The point is, the temptation might just be to throw up a blog or other CMS to manage your content – is this really appropriate for what you are trying to achieve?  Essentially, what you want to avoid:

• Product pages with nothing more than a couple of lines of product description text (the page will have less chance of ranking).
• Link bait pages that don’t link internally to other key pages (the page will pass on less benefit to other key pages).
• Pages that are swamped with ads to the detriment of user experience (conversion rates will drop).
• Sales pages that say nothing (or worse, too much) about your product or service (as above).
• Bland, uninteresting pages that are no different to any other competing page (the fickle surfer will lose interest and leave).
• Generic, catch-all pages that don’t really fuffil the requirements of the visitors that end up on the page (pseudo-doorway pages).

Your content is not just about copywriting – it’s about creating a product that you package in your website and promote via SEO (and other marketing channels).

Plan and prioritise your layout

When you have your product concept nailed, it’s time to design it.  This is a critical stage of the process – your page design and layout is the first facet of your product that your visitors will see and in many cases it will be the deciding factor on whether they:

• Continue reading.
• Engage with your website (buy something / post a review / etc).
• Link to your site from their own (I rarely link to sites I don’t like the look of).
• Spread the joy (social media).

Many sites will push ads in front of the user as soon as they land on the page (i.e. above the fold / before the content), which is fair enough if this is the objective of the page.  But in cases where the objective is more complicated (link bait, product sales, attracting reviews, etc), then excessive ads or internal fluff (navigation and so on) can detract from this objective.

It’s very easy to ignore this when using a CMS – template driven pages can be a PITA to redesign on a case by case basis – you might not to take the time or spend the resources on doing this.  But forget that for the moment – that’s something that can be considered at the next stage.  Right now, you’re looking for a best case scenario – what’s the absolutely best solution that will meet your requirements?  Ask yourself these questions:

1. What’s the ultimate objective of the page?  Keep repeating this to yourself at every stage – it’s critical you don’t lose sight of this.
2. Which pieces of content are most important?  Prioritise them.
3. Which pieces of content could you live without on the page?
4. What are your targeted search terms and what will users expect to find on this page?  If there are different expectations (common with generic search terms), then your design should prioritise and accommodate for them appropriately.
5. Is there anything you are offering that others aren’t?  Perhaps it’s worth highlighting this!

Now you have a solid list of requirements and priorities, your design should pretty much build itself – have a think about how far away you are from when you started.

Review and assess the situation

Your best case scenario may not be an entirely practical solution for the time being, so it’s worth going back and looking over what you’ve done and what you can achieve with the resources you have.  It’s never a bad thing to take a step back and perhaps do less than originally planned if it means you can do at least that part well. 

Your page now should be a least more than a basic block of text stuck in a bog standard template – it should:

• Have all the information a user expects when arriving at your site.
• Offer a logical structure, with clear objectives. 
• Be simple for your visitor to perform whatever action you want them to.
• Look good and give the impression of professionalism.
• Encourage people to come back to the site / link to it / syndicate your page via social media.

Moreover, it should stand out from every other page in the market.  Regardless of whether your objective is to create a page that search engines think is the best, or users think is the best, you should have a good result.  Coupled with the technical SEO bits and pieces (which I assume you know if you’re reading this!), your page will serve you well.

Of course, depending on the type of content you are promoting, this might not be the end of the story.  A killer page doesn’t necessary mean it will be a category killer – additional stages of internal and external promotion will most likely be needed, particularly in highly competitive areas (a blog post for another day), but at least you are in the game knowing your product is as solid as you can make it.

Given this is all rather bland, theoretical stuff, I’m planning on writing a follow up post with a practical example showing how to apply these points and how I might go about creating a category killing page.  Would anyone like to suggest a keyword / market / industry to use as an example?

Scott

I’ve chipped in my 2c from time to time on the recent discussions, but having read back even a week or two I see small businesses being advised to do some pretty ridiculous stuff.  Its nuts – people are being advised by “experts” to churn out thousands of pages (one per town) just to target different locations. 

I can see the logic from a marketing point of view – conducting local campaigns offline requires location specific targeting – fair enough.  But do we really need mom n’ pop sites creating what are essentially doorway pages to target local areas?  That’s just going to lead to a world of pain for them.

I wrote an article on optimising for local terms a while back and I generally point people to that – I think that’s a pretty good start for small businesses to begin with as it doesn’t directly lead the less savvy to the conclusion that they need to churn out loads of content to target loads of local terms.

That’s the key IMO – keeping the less savvy tamed so they don’t run off and do something silly (which is perhaps one of the most common causes of SEO problems for small businesses – DIY SEO gone awry)…

• Tell people they need keywords on the page – that can lead to keyword stuffing or hidden text.
• Tell people they need different pages to target different keywords – that can lead to doorway pages or crap content pages.

We need to educate our market – but we need to educate responsibly

The amount of rubbish that is being sold as “fact” around the SEO world is becoming ridiculous.  Just in the past week I’ve seen the following “facts” being posted on forums by people offering professional SEO services:

1. Big directories aren’t well optimised – they just rank well because of their homepage PR.
2. Directories are well optimised – you need to add more keywords to your page to compete.
3. Keyword domains rank better than non keyword domains.
4. Just get deep links to compete with larger sites targeting local areas.
5. The more pages you have the more keywords you can target.  I have thousands of pages for (mid competitive key term) one for each town in the UK.

OK, these aren’t necessarily bad statements – but taken in context they can be very dangerous for small businesses.

These statements are made by low experience SEOs probably based on some mild success they’ve had.  Fair enough – but in most cases the advice is grossly inappropriate for the situation – the SEOs simply don’t have a sufficient understanding of how search works to be able to give out solid advice…

1. Yeh, big directories may have a strong homepage PR – that doesn’t necessarily mean that all their local rankings are a consequence of that.  Sending out this message to a small business will only result on them embarking on a quest for PR which would be a fools errand and potentially risky (if they start messing with paid links, cross linking sites, hording PR and so on).
2. Yeh, some directories may be well optimised but telling a small business site to add more keywords to their page is plain stupid.  There’s a sweet spot to hit with on page optimisation and if you don’t make that clear to small businesses they WILL take it to extremes.
3. Yeh, keyword domains may rank better than non keyword domains – that’s just down to people linking to them using the site name (keywords).  Sending out this message will see small businesses sacrificing branding and reputation for keyword domains which is crazy talk.
4. Yeh, deep links can help certain campaigns but they aren’t a prerequisite for success and IMO are entirely unnecessary for UK local campaigns (with the exceptions being high population areas or high £££ markets).  Why send small businesses out looking for deep links when solid on page optimisation and decent homepage link building will suffice in most cases?  This one particularly annoys me as I see “deep linking” being presented as a solution for poor site architecture or on page SEO all the time.
5. Yeh, the more pages you have, the more terms you can target.  But do you really want to have 1000 pages conveying a single message?  How much variation in content can you really achieve?  I don’t care how superb your copy is – if you have 1000 pages saying the same thing it is spam.  The guy suggesting this had his SEO site targeting obscure towns – the pages (optimised for SEO + town terms) had decent copy – but it was all irrelevant (non SEO) information like the population and history of the town.  How is that a good result?  And same problem again – 9 out of 10 small businesses won’t go to the lengths of writing decent copy on this level – it will just be regurgitated crap which ends up as a crap result for searchers.  See my article on SEO agency copywriting sins too!

The key problems:

• Inexperienced SEOs offering opinion as fact. 
• Inexperienced businesses taking SEO too far.

These are issues that really need to be addressed.  There was a time that almost 50% of my consultancy business came from fixing other peoples work – that is not a good state of affairs for our industry to be in.

The problem is that it is easy for anyone to build up credibility as a SEO on non SEO forums – there’s generally a similar level of SEO knowledge and experience on the forums and it’s not like the advice given out is bad – it’s more that the manner in which it’s given out is inappropriate.

Here’s my suggestion for a solution:

All you experienced SEOs out there – take the time every now and again to visit your preferred local / small business forums and help out answering a few questions.   It’s not like the noise factor on some SEO forums – small business owners are all usually very grateful and if we do it enough then perhaps we can undo some of the damage done by the less than reputable members of our industry.

And as for all you folks with less SEO experience - I’m not saying don’t help people out – all I’m saying is that we really do need to be careful how we give out advice.  Small businesses asking for advice are usually about to attempt some DIY SEO – the responsible thing to do is to ensure all the risks are outlined and that you really are confident that what you are saying is accurate (if not, just say so – that’s the right thing to do). 

Small business SEO advice is a very delicate process – it’s not like people are optimising a blog or Adsense site that they can chuck away if it goes wrong – in a lot of cases their business website is core to their living – you need to treat it with that level of respect, especially if you are selling yourself as an SEO professional.

Lastly, to all those non-SEOs-but-like-to-dish-out-advice-because-they-optimised-their-own-blog – stop it!  I don’t care if you got your poxy little site to number 1 for a competitive term – that doesn’t make you an SEO and it’s incredibly arrogant to assume you are qualified to hand out advice.  Yes, you!  The “SEO is easy” crowd.  I mean, seriously, I’ve seen professional printers advising small businesses reliant on their site to change their existing site to Wordpress because “they once optimised a blog and got some traffic”.  Just stop it.  Yes, you people who self-scored a 6 on the SEOmoz level of SEO professional test even though you’ve only ever optimised your own crappy little blog.  Stop it now!

Scott

Let me clarify.  I don’t think search engine optimisers are spammers.  Some are, clearly, but most aren’t.  I just think some are a little bit liberal with how far to take the optimisation process and need to expand their borders a little.

Take my article about SEO agency copywriting sins.  That is what I would consider to be an “optimised” article.  Why?  The focus is on the content, not the optimisation.  It isn’t particularly targeted very well but then again I don’t think every article you write should be focused so tightly on keywords. 

OK if it isn’t technically targeting juicy keywords then it isn’t particularly well optimised – I know.  But my point is the technical process of optimising an article not the actual targeting itself.

One of the main things I think the SEO industry is guilty of is stifling creativity and narrowing focus.  Not everything needs to be about the keywords!  The point is that breaking the mold of intensive keyword targeting can be a form of optimisation in itself.  Just like using the same title tag on every page is bad, using the same generic form of copy optimisation can be bad too.  Not bad in terms of direct SEO, but more for how users perceive your content.

  

A “perfect” example

A perfect example of this is from 2006.  I wrote a somewhat sarcastic review of an article written by Bigmouthmedia, which was entitled, “Google PageRank Update, Page Rank Update and Page Rank Explained” – read my take on it here.

Keyword stuffing in the title.  Misssspellings.  No real solid information.  It’s not real spam (as spam might be defined by most of the SEO industry), but it’s not a real article either is it?  It doesn’t mean BMM are spammers – it’s just a badly written article. 

The point I’m making here is that “made for SEO” articles isn’t search engine optimisation in my opinion.  The clue is in the name.  Optimisation.  You optimise existing copy or write new copy with optimisation in mind.  Creating an article that has no value just for the sake of having a page rank for that term is just spam in my opinion.  Maybe a nice cherry coloured spam, but spam nonetheless.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve all done it (me included), but more and more these days I’m starting to think it’s getting out of hand.  You visit some websites and it’s like browsing through an elaborate Wordtracker printout.

  

Content can have different objectives

Every page on your site should have its own mini content strategy.  Perhaps not something formal, but certainly a general rule of thumb should be attached to each content type.

Consider these examples:

• A forum thread
• A news article
• A blog post
• A product page
• A category page
• A social media page
• A directory page

Should each of these pages follow the same optimisation process?  No.

You don’t want to be ranking for high money terms with a forum thread – you don’t want a core product page to be treated like a news item.  You should be carefully crafting your different content areas to accommodate for different types of searches.

Using the BMM example – that, IMO, is just plain lazy.  They’ve used their news CMS to pubish an article that attempts to target a generic term.  What’s the point  in that?  They don’t allow comments – the page doesn’t sell anything.  That was just an ego optimisation that they tried and failed to rank for. 

If a page has no purpose other than an attempt to rank for a random term, then it is spam.

  

The Sphinn / Search Engine Land example

This is one I’ve been thinking about for a while.  I don’t think Third door media are really managing their content well.

Search Engine Land has loads of great content – it has all the makings of a great news site, but has been confined in a stuffy little blog format with a poor comments system.  Bad archiving (for users) means it’s pretty hard to find anything of use – it seems more like it has been optimised for RSS than for users or search eninges.

Sphinn approaches the news format using a Digg model (which personally I don’t think works very well, but that’s just my personal opinion) - again, there are issues there.  From a user’s point of view you really have to browse through lists and hope you find something – the front page stuff is usually worth a read but it isn’t for everyone.

The issue is that there’s tonnes of awesome content there – from guest columns on SEL to mentions of great blog posts on Sphinn.  It’s just the way that the content is presented to users that holds the sites back (IMO) – they have the potential to be an awesome resource.  But the narrow approach taken (Digg clone / blog format) has also narrowed the potential of the sites.

  

What do you reckon? 

Optimise or don’t bother trying?  Does every page on your site really need to be nailed solidly to anything with a good KEI?  Can every page on your site be presented in the same manner?  When you think of “optimising your content”, do you restrict yourself solely to what keywords are targeted or do you think about the end user?

If you stick to solidly to the concept of SEO, then you run the risk of taking your business along a predetermined set of tracks.  You really need to break free from those tracks – while you can still use them as a guide, you need to explore the surrounding areas.   Digg is a success because it was an innovation – Digg clones can fail because they have the flaws of the system, without the momentum to sail through them.

Take a peek in the Forest of Quality Editorials, bathe in the Pools of User Experience, run wild with the Wildebeast of Imagination and fornicate with the Longtail Vixens of Serendipity Falls.  Or just follow the same old road that everyone else does.  I think it leads to the town of Mediocrity.

Scott

ADDED – a good example of the flaws of the Digg type system used by Sphinn – the Valentines day post made the homepage on Feb 15th – a day late.  The way the content is presented is flawed because the community hasn’t reached the critical mass required to maintain the model.

In no particular order…

1. “Avoid bad neighbourhoods”

Other than being sooooo 2004, this statement holds no real meaning for potential clients.  This is a SEO concept and really only adds another layer of confusion to an already complicated industry.  SEO is still greatly misunderstood by many clients – the industry seriously needs to work on educating consumers and statements like this just serve to complicate matters.

The concept of a bad neighbourhood is still important within the SEO process – but note the key word there – “within”.  It shouldn’t be part of initial contact – it should be part of the post sale education process (or part of a concerted effort by the industry to educate clients in general).

2.  We are the top agency in [insert vague reference to a number one ranking]

An SEO claiming they are the top anything because they have a number one ranking for an agency related term is just plain silly.  Top rankings for terms like “SEO agency” and so on are great and certainly should be used to show your strengths as an SEO. 

But think carefully about how you word your statement – equating a top ranking to “being the best” can be taken the wrong way by less savvy clients.  Worst still, the statement may hold negative connotations for more savvy clients who understand that top rankings don’t necessarily equate to top quality.  Would a savvy client hire a SEO who doesn’t appear to understand this difference?

There’s highlighting your strengths and achievements – and there’s taking it too far.  Sometimes the “yeh, yeh we’re brilliant, YEH!” approach isn’t always appropriate.

3.  Buyer’s guides (in general)

Reputable and impartial organisations can justify pushing buyer’s guides to consumers – companies with clear bias really shouldn’t.  This is just my personal opinion and I’m sure some will disagree.  I just don’t think it’s appropriate for a site selling the service they are “advising” people how to buy.  And I also don’t believe that many consumers will view it in a good light – a fake sales pitch can be as negative as a good sales pitch can be positive.

4.  Outdated or inappropriate auto generated copy (aka laziness)

I just looked at the site of a UK based SEO agency and their SEO process page (where they outline the project process for potential clients) – there’s some default text at the bottom that gives the article date (2002) and a disclaimer saying that it doesn’t necessarily match the current opinions / views of the company.

What kind of mixed message does that send out?

5.  Outdated examples of work

Basically, showing examples of work that no longer are appropriate (either the client has left or the rankings lost or both).  I’ve seen examples on agency sites that haven’t ranked as the site claims for over 3 years.

That kind of oversight can end a sales process before it begins.  I’m a client.  I like the look of the site.  I want to find out more.  I see examples.  I check one of them.  Bang!  The ranking is gone completely.  As am I.

6.  Ethical SEO – no children were harmed in the making of this ranking…

Yet another SEO term that can hold a different or no meaning for clients.  Why send out mixed messages?  Most clients don’t understand the concept of ethical SEO – so they automatically attach their own meaning to the statement.

The purpose of your sales copy is to convey a clear message to potential clients – you need to avoid any potential areas that can cause confusion or be misinterpreted.

7.  Using misspellings or regional variations

Search engine optimisation or search engine optimization.  Pick one and run with it.  If you think about it enough you could probably optimise for both without suggesting that people who visit your site are illiterate.

Misspellings on the other hand should be avoided.  Save them for your spam sites.  I know some people will disagree with this, but personally I’d prefer better conversion rates over targeting trickles of typo traffic.

And no, saying something like, “widget is sometimes spelled like wigdets, wodgets, qidgets, etc” is not a clever way of getting around it.

8.  Exclusive inside information

OK fair enough – if you have an exclusive, then shout about it as loud as you want.  But describing something you read on Webmaster World does not constitute an exclusive.  While some clients will take what you say at face value, there will always be some “in the know” who will look down on statements like this.

9.  Excessively bigging up your employees

Closely tied to the previous point.  While there’s no harm in boasting about how great your staff are (and indeed, there is benefit in doing so), giving newbies jumped up job titles and flaunting them over your site as experts is just a little lame.  I’ve seen examples of companies promoting their “vertical specialists” who turn out to be completely new to SEO with only minor experience within their vertical.  In my opinion this is bordering on an issue for Trading Standards to deal with – you simply shouldn’t be selling a service based on fake staff experience – clients aren’t getting the product they think they are paying for.

I’ve avoided posting examples, but I have a positive one now that shows the opposite of this.  Over at DaveN’s blog, one of his new employees (Dan) starting guest posting when he joined the company and talked about learning the SEO process.  It was (and is) a great read and compliments Dave’s already solid reputation.

I would much rather potential clients have a high opinion of someone just learning, than a low opinion of someone billed as an “expert”.  Managed expectations and honesty can make a lot of difference to your marketing efforts.

What are your pet peeves when it comes to sales pitch copywriting?

I’m sure there are loads more examples of cringe worthy copywriting – what are your “favourites”?

This article was written by Scott Boyd, Managing Director (and King of Everything) of eFlaunt Internet Marketing – currently top agency in the world for the term “the”.  Contact eFlaunt for our ethical SEO buyer’s guide for exclusive (aka ecxlusive) insider information.

MG

1/ What do I know about?

2/ What am I passionate about?

3/ What subject am I prepared to research and produce original content for that is more thorough than the 9 other people (some of which may be online super brands) fighting for recognition on Google’s 1st page of search results?

Don’t look for the quick fix – namely as it is unlikely to yield long-term results and credibility. We are in a media industry that is less that is not much more than 10 years old -invest in the long-term success of your internet business.

Apologies to publishers who feel condescended by this piece (but I’m sure you’ve stumbled across this sites I’m referring to) and apologies to any black-hat SEO gurus who make a decent living staying 1 step ahead of algorithms. For the rest of us mere mortals – my advice is to engage www2 for what it is and research with gusto and write with passion – This is what builds eye-balled websites and businesses thereafter.

For more guidance on defining content strategy see digitalAim – Online Marketing Consultants