Writing for the Internet ... Lesson 1
William Kelly wrote this article and it provides some insight into
what lies ahead for writers who wish to succeed on the web. In reading
this take note of 3 things as a kind of broad summary ....
-
NO TRAFFIC FROM SEARCH ENGINES ... THEN
NO SALES
-
LOTS OF TRAFFIC FROM SEARCH ENGINES BUT BADLY WRITTEN CONTENT
HAVING NOTHING TO OFFER THE READER (WHO KNOWS WHAT HE/SHE WANTS
BETTER THAN YOU EVER WILL) THEN ALSO NO SALES
-
GREAT CONTENT AND LOTS OF IT WRITTEN TO PLEASE CONSUMERS FIRST
AND SEARCH ENGINES A CLOSE SECOND MEANS YOU GET SALES
As you may have gathered, Seoza.com is all about the Internet. And
the Internet is driven by WORDS. Hence by some logic, Seoza.com also has
a lot to do with words. Words and writing for the Internet consumes our
day and rules our lives. And it's the most fun you can have with your
clothes on!
Words are THE Critical success factor on the Internet. Without
successfully written Internet specific words you cannot succeed. And
without captivationg consumer friendly copy even if you get masses of
traffic you cannot succeed.
Let's be clear upfront. There is a lot of work involved in any
successful story. It is not difficult wok in this case, but there is a
lot of it. Lesson 1 revolves around why there is so much work involved,
and how to get started in your Internet career with us.
The clue to this first lesson I have already given to you. It is WORDS
and more accurately, the way these words are written for the Internet.
How to write on the Internet
This lesson is the most important one and so it is the longest. Please
bear with me as I try and illustrate by example what I mean.
If you think about it, the Internet is a business model that is actually
quite difficult to master. Many have tried and failed. For instance, my
personal favourite is 20 Twenty. Here we have an Internet based bank
that failed. It advertised on R30k a month billboards, for months on
end, in about 25 or so different locations that I counted, just in Jhb
North, and it still failed. It's brand is being abandoned and changing
into Standard Chartered. That's just sad at best, and pathetic if I were
to be really mean about them.
Yet my site competes (successfully) with all the major banks in South
Africa for the term 'Internet Banking'. See for yourself. Go to Ananzi (
www.ananzi.co.za ) and type in
'internet banking'. Click on result number 1 - that's me (or should be
me) at
www.internet-banking-online.com. I want you to forget about the look
of the site for now, we'll deal with that in later lessons.
Focus on the style of writing and how it has been written specifically
for the Internet. Can you see this site being printed in a magazine (in
terms of content). Probably not. That's deliberate and because of my
Internet writing style...
And this is why words are SO important!!
This allows us to compete with anyone, even Standard Bank, or 20 Twenty
for their own market! I am not a bank, but I make money from this site
(hey, any site of ours that DOES NOT make money is canned!). Granted
it's not a lot, only one or two hundred rands a month, but for doing
NOTHING it's not bad and it's more than I had before I did it.
Structuring words on the Internet in a fashion that appeals to VISITORS
is the art and the challenge of good web design.
Consider your Internet audience and write for them
The vital, critical question to all your writing has to be this: Why
would anyone want to read what you have written?
This is actually a very difficult question to answer and it is what
separates the men from the boys on the Internet.
It starts with competition. You see, Google indexes over 8 billion web
pages. It's a stupid number since it is so big it is well beyond our
comprehension, but what it means is that you have a tremendous amount of
competition on the Internet. No matter what you write about, you will
probably have competition - unless you know what to compete for - and
that's where we come into the picture.
But you still have to know HOW to write for the Internet!
Remember always: You have to write for your visitor! Your visitor is the
sole reason your website exists! If you cannot convince your visitor
that you will solve his/her problem, or provide them with the
information they are looking for RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW, they are gone.
And you have all of around 5 seconds to do it in...
Sound familiar?
I want you to really think hard about the way YOU surf the Internet. You
will probably find that 95% of the time you are researching something on
the Internet - you are looking for information on something or other.
Perhaps, occasionally, you are shopping or looking to buy something in
particular. How many sites do you visit on average in looking for this
information? How do you get to these sites? Where do you start? Where do
you finish? How do YOU assess which site answers your needs RIGHT HERE
RIGHT NOW?
Think about it, now and think about it later when you are browsing. YOU
are one of the best references you can have on how to write on the
Internet! Just check out what appeals to YOU, and how sites that you
find that are relevant to YOUR needs manage to entice YOUR attention.
The Internet is about an Audience of ONE. Your unique single visitor. It
is never about tens, hundreds or millions of them. Your writing for the
internet is targeting an audience of ONE specific person with a specific
need at a specific point in time. For all time. Odd thought isn't it?
So now how do you make money out of an audience of one?
The answer is simple enough. You make sure that you manage to get to
that specific audience of one! And then you get to that audience many,
many times.
The implementation is the tricky part! But it is called traffic. Having
lots of 'audiences of one' visiting your website will make you money.
Unless you are spectacularly exceptionally bad on the Internet just like
20 Twenty was, you HAVE to make money.
So now you also have to get traffic.
Luckily for you, that's our job! But we can only do it with your content
and thus we need this content written for the Internet is a highly
targeted fashion.
It also means that in actual fact you have two audiences when writing
for the Internet. It is one and the same person but there is a third
party involved that holds all the power in determining whether your site
is of benefit to your audience of one, or not.
This party is of course the search engines. 80% (and growing) of ALL
website are found through search! If you think about it, it makes
perfect sense. How else is ANYONE ever going to find your site if not
through a search engine? Do you have R300k a month to burn on
billboards? Do you have access to a TV campaign? And what happens when
these campaigns finish? Will people remember your website for all time
for ever and ever until the end of the world?
NO! Of course they won't. But if you do a good job, Google will. And he
will do it for free!
Google in particular is the key.
Google acts like a highly experienced audience of one. Google has seen
it all before. Google knows if your content is relevant, if your content
can be trusted and most of all, if YOUR content is going to give
Google's visitor the BEST most MEANINGFUL Internet EXPERIENCE that
Google can possibly send his visitor to. Google, by ranking you highly
is in fact indirectly, giving your site credence in the mind of your
audience of one. If Google says that the audience of one is likely to
have the BEST possible opportunity of finding satisfaction RIGHT HERE
RIGHT NOW by going to YOUR site, your audience of one is already
expecting an almost immediate answer to their needs.
OK, right about now I expect you to be completely lost. What is the
point you may ask? What do I have to do to get going?
I don't want to overload you too much. A little healthy confusion is a
great start, but let's not overdo it. Writing for an Internet audience
takes time, effort and learning, and getting started is the BEST way of
learning how to write for the Internet,
In simple summary:
1. You are writing for an audience of one who has an immediate need
RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW.
2. You are also writing for a far more important audience of search
engines that will ultimately determine your success or failure.
3. There are 8 billion competing web pages indexed by Google alone.
4. There are 400 000 words in the English language.
5. Words and the combinations of these words are thus critical to
success.
6. Each web PAGE should be about ONE combination of words.
We call these words or combinations of words KEYWORDS.
You will hear a lot from us about keywords when it comes to writing for
the Internet. By way of example, an important keyword for me would be:
"how to build a Koi pond"
Another would be
"building Koi ponds"
These are two completely different keywords and they address two
completely different audiences of one!
Google, when assessing where to send a Google Visitor who types in
"building koi ponds" into Google, will not necessarily send this visitor
to a page that is all about "how to build a Koi pond"!
So what does one do? The answer is that I have two pages. One is about
"how to build a Koi pond" and the other is about "building Koi ponds"!
They are completely separate and have differing content (although
similar in THEME) and in Google's eyes the pages are completely
different and serve two completely different audiences! Google is
however quite clever and is starting to recognise similar themes - more
on that in upcoming issues...
Can you see why 10 pages of content is just the beginning? Our main
sites are often well over a hundred pages each - so there is a LOT of
work involved (don't lose heart - we have some sites that are less than
ten pages that make money as well - but generally, the more the better).
But you cannot get to a hundred pages without making a start. The
important thing is TO START. Somewhere. Anywhere!
And whilst your head is boggling with thousands of questions (I hope)
the one thing that I hope is frustrating you the most is "Where do I
begin?"
If you are asking yourself this question right now - WELL DONE! That,
after this very long winded but IMPORTANT article, is exactly what you
need to be asking me.
And this is part of what we want to teach you. It is our contribution to
this partnership after all. If you succeed we will also. If you do not
succeed, then we fail too!
So your first step is to give me some work! Decide on what you want to
write about. Generate a list of ten single keywords (and in this case I
do mean single words) that revolved around your chosen theme. Mail them
to me. I will research these and create a second list of words that are
important.
Once you have this second list, select one or two that are most
meaningful to you and generate ONE page of content. Once that is down
pat you can start on the other nine. Follow the example that Tony has
created for you here
http://www.the-perfect-opportunity.com/example.htm
Then e-mail your content to me and one of us will critique your page and
help you learn how to write "Internet style". It's easy once you have
done it.
For instance, this page has the following important keywords associated
with it, yet it has been (hopefully) easy for you to read and
understand...
internet
audience
writing
search engines
Google
success
keywords
money
competition
bank
lesson
keywords
Practise. Send us your list of Keywords now and we will send you back a
list of topics in short order. Once you start to get the hang of writing
it becomes a lot of fun and still remains challenging. Oh, and you also
get to make some money whilst doing it!
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