Marketing Yourself! It's OK to be Self-Centered!

I've basically started my blog out pumping information to you in order to ensure you have the basics to understand what I'm talking about and be able to apply what you are learning.   This blog WILL NOT be as boring as it was all last week =).  Now that you understand what SEO is and how to promote your work, you can now focus on what exactly you are going to write about.

Unfortunately, it can be really really difficult to find inspiration.  It is extremely important to know that in SEO and Internet Marketing, (just like Advertising and Product Development), you HAVE to be creative, fresh, and innovative. Not only do you have to write about something that the person wants to know about (keywords keywords keywords) you also have to keep them in suspense and enjoying what they are reading.

Successful copywriters are great at relating what they are writing about to each individual reader.  Wow! Talk about pressure! Most importantly, as a copywriter, it is important to do some self marketing and getting your name out there as a credible source for information.  A great way to do this is to write some Informational Articles and post them up on sites like:

http://ezinearticles.com/

http://www.1888articles.com

http://www.articlefeeder.com

Even if you are working for someone else, chances are you won't be working for them forever. Therefore, as a copywriter it is your job to prove yourself to be a credible source and writing articles is a great way to do this while also promoting your company, service, or product.

I'd like to use my blog to offer out writing tips, SEO advice, and short diary like stories about life. 

Feel free to leave a comment with topics or questions you have!

The SEO Importance of KEYWORDS!!

When it comes to internet writing, blogging, marketing, etc., KEYWORDS are extremely important.

Keywords are basically the words in your copy that match what people are searching.  As you know, millions of searches are conducted each day on popular search engines by people all around the world.

Fortunately for you, most major search engines provide a way to glimpse into the web's query stream to discover the most popular search keywords or topics. These are just a few:

• Ask IQ: See top searches at Ask.
   
• Dogpile SearchSpy: Choose to see either a filtered or non-filtered sample of top, real-time search terms from this popular meta search service. Sister site MetaCrawler offers a similar MetaCrawler MetaSpy service.
   
• Google Trends: Allows you to tap into Google's database of searches, to determine what's popular. View the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages and so on. Compare multiple terms, as well. See our review: Google Trends: Peer Into Google's Database Of Searches.
   
• Google Zeitgeist: What people are searching for at Google and its associated specialty services in a variety of categories. There are versions for various countries, as well.
   
• Lycos 50: Long-standing service showing top searches at Lycos each week.
   
• Yahoo Buzz Index: Shows you what's hot and what's not in terms of search topics at Yahoo.

 
 It is important to actually search a couple of these sites before even starting a new blog post or whatever copy you are planning on doing.  That way you can ensure you are writing about something current and interesting in the minds of the majority of people.

DOING THIS COULD EVEN SUPPLY YOU WITH SOME INSPIRATION! YAY!

I also found this GREAT site http://www.seomoz.org which has some very helpful SEO resources you might want to check out as well. 

This particular page is actually telling you where the search engines are "crawling" or searching for keywords the most, which is basically where you want to focus your keyword attention on. 

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#on-page-keyword-specific-ranking-factors

What is CopyWriting?

Copywriting is the art of writing sales and marketing related materials and is used in every major area of business.  It is basically the communication between your business and the outside world. 

I absolutely love this definition from google: Copywriting is writing content for creative executions. 

The most important word in that sentence is CREATIVE.  What most people do not realize is the fact that we live in a world where conformity overpowers the creative mind.  We are brought up to listen to our teachers and parents and “follow the rules” the majority of our learning lives. 

Unfortunately with the mania that is the internet, conformity is not what is going to make you big money.  Standing out in the mass internet crowd is what catches attention and gets people interested in what you have to say.  Being creative, fresh and innovative are the words you must live by.   

This blog will be creative, fresh and innovative in itself by offering short and simple tips as blog posts rather than long and confusing article type reading.  We live in an age of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) where if you are not an expert on what you are reading and what you are reading is too complicated to understand, you are not going to have the patience to figure it out! 

In my opinion (and I'm pretty sure some experts would agree with me) taking in information in small amounts is the best road to learning, understanding, and retaining what you read.