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As our planet gets smaller and the social media realm seems to be ever increasing, we see that more and more of our clients are tempted to re-use content across several different spectrums of social media. For example:
The content for your newsletter should not be repurposed for your News section of your site, at least not entirely. More importantly, your email marketing campaign should not repeat your newsletter, and your Facebook and Twitter accounts should not mirror the email marketing campaign.

I know, sounds like a lot of double talk, but you have to take a step back and look at who the audiences are for each of these applications.
1. Your Web site – your users are most likely potential clients, current clients and peers, and perhaps job seekers. You should be writing with this in mind.
2. Newsletter – Your newsletter probably goes out to many people in your community, people with whom you are on different boards or commitees, clients, your Aunt Ruth, and current clients. The newsletter needs to invite people to your site, it needs to bring fresh and interesting news, and perhaps a bit of the human factor in your company.
3. Email marketing campaigns – these need to focus on what you can provide a potential client, or what new services you can provide for existing clients. They need to be upbeat, but not longer than absolutely necessary. They need to serve the reader with some immediate and easy call to action.

Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer has a great article on this very topic, I suggest you check it out.

I know fresh copy ideas can be a pain in the uh, neck, but you can make the most of all of these endeavors with a bit of effort and some perspective on who will be reading what you have to say, and why you are saying it.
Dana Phillips, one of our Marketing Specialists just spent a few days down in sunny Florida learning the newest and best strategies for an email marketing campaign at a Marketing Sherpa seminar. She learned a lot and we like to put her brain to use, so if you have any questions regarding your email marketing give her a jingle or shoot her an email @ dana at tkg dot com . She’s happy to answer any questions.

Your landing pages are a vital part of your overall online strategy. You have to keep in mind that not everyone enters your site on the homepage. Your landing pages need to speak to who you are as a company, quickly and concisely, and hopefully imparting your unique value proposition. If you are unfamiliar with what your unique selling proposition, or value proposition is, an article by Melissa Burton can give you some pointers.
A landing page is essentially any page that appears in the SERP for a search. Hopefully your page will reflect what has been searched for, and therefore, have something to offer the user.
Effective landing pages can be a key to your online success, if you do them properly. They should be clear, they should tell what your company or product are about, and they should sell your product. This sounds simple enough, until you realize that every page of your site has the potential to be a landing page. On the best sites, each page has a goal, or a topic (key phrases) that is specific to that particular page. You optimize for this topic, and your page is on it’s way to becoming a landing page for users who do a search related to the material on the page. This just reinforces what we’ve always said about great copy and well done on page efforts being the backbone of SEO. It comes full circle, when you get the idea that even your third tier page that you figure no one may ever see can be the page that draws a new customer to your site.
So, I’m sure this has you thinking you have a lot of work to do. What pages are the most important? What should you tackle first? Well, what product or service do you want folks to find out about the most? What drives your business? This should at least give you a jumping off point…

The 2009 Business Expo is going to be held February 25, 2009 from 4-8 p.m. at the Kent State Stark Campus Professional Education and Conference Center. This event is open to the public. Contact us for complimentary passes; just call our receptionist Hannah at 888-485-4932 or 330-493-6141. We’ll see you there!

Breakfast Bootcamp, March 12, 2009. Our Social Media Marketing Specialist, Corey Hammond, will be talking about how to market your website using social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and others. He’ll also talk about blogging, including some pointers to help determine if a blog is right for your business. Space is very limited so be sure to reserve your spot today!For more information, visit our SEO Breakfast Bootcamp page or email Collyn Floyd to sign up.

Aaron Geh will be speaking at The 2009 AAM Summit: Marketingpalooza will be held in Austin, Texas in June of 2009.

Geoff Karcher, President of TKG, will be speaking at the Canton Chamber’s Fast Break Breakfast on May 8, 2009. The topic he’ll be discussing is “Working with Young Professionals, How to Attract Them and Keep Them Happy.” Very fitting as Geoff has become an expert at fostering the young talent that we have here at TKG. From those we’ve met in the After Hours program to interns and full-time staff alike, our company is full of young professionals! They have not only learned a lot from Geoff and his company, but have stayed to help his business grow.

This event is being held at the Courtyard by Marriott:
4375 Metro Circle NW, North Canton

For more information visit the Canton Chamber or contact (330)-456-7253

So, we aren’t the only ones who have noticed… Search Engine Land has a few things to say about the pitifully sad job Fortune 500s are doing in the SEO department. Siting a study done by Conductor, a New York-based search and analytics agency, Search Engine Land reports that 2/3 of Fortune 500s don’t even show up in rankings even for their advertised key phrases.

So what are they going to do about it? What are the marketing executives of big corporations such as Ford, Chrysler and GM doing to change this for 2009? I’m thinking that the copy that is lacking for many of theses sites needs to be written properly. Some attention to keyword density, as well as keyword proximity needs to be paid. Because many of these sites are missing any real copy, ranking for keywords is just not happening. Beyond that, the copy that is present many times does not focus enough on the keywords for the page, if it is even possible to identify what keywords the company is targeting.
Now, I have to take a moment to mention that it is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I suspect many users when the keywords are over used on a page, to the point of being spammy. The trick here is to identify the main topic of the page, select the keyword(s) and phrase(s), and create copy that is user friendly (easy and enjoyable to read) while still ensuring that the SEs will recognize what the main topic of the page is about. Maybe plug the keyword or phrase in the topic sentence, perhaps once in the main body of copy, and in your conclusion. (on a side note: make sure that you don’t mix up the order of a selected and researched keyphrase – “Jeep Rubicon parts” and “Rubicon Jeep parts” are NOT the same keyphrase!)
Keyword proximity is not the same thing, but is related to keyword density. Keyword proximity refers to how your keyphrases are ordered. If you have targeted the phrase “Rubicon Jeep parts”, then you want to keep that phrase as close together as possible throughout your copy. The sentence “Rubicon Jeep parts are now on sale with free shipping!” is ideal as the whole phrase is together. “Free shipping for parts for Rubicons and other Jeeps” is still good, as the phrase is there, and the search engines will establish what the page is about, but it will not carry as much weight for the phrase as the first example. One last item on the keyword list is keyword prominence. This includes the title tag, h1, and top left of the page content (where SEs weight the content a bit more heavily, as it is most likely to be read be a user). The targeted key phrase(s) should be utilized most especially in these areas, to garner the greatest ranking benefit from the SEs.
So, do you think the Fortune 500s are listening? Surely they have some ears to the ground. I can’t believe they have gotten where they are in either the good or the bad sense without some attention to new and old marketing trends, consumer habits, and just recognizing a potential ROI.

In my exploration of some of the Fortune 500s that aren’t doing as well as they would like, I have another minor recommendation for them: Copy! Many of the homepages of these companies are completely devoid of any copy! All the Big Three auto makers have corporate sites with homepages that would benefit from some, or a little more content.

Just one or two well written paragraphs that get quickly to the point, encompassing what the site is about, would do the trick. Even a bulleted list is better than nothing (some cases, just better), and users enjoy the ability to scan a page quickly to figure out what the page is all about. Copy should be for the user, but you have to remember that it impacts the SE’s as well. Some good copy with your key phrases can help boost rankings, visibility.

A few companies that could use a little verbiage on the homepage:
Berkshire Hathaway
Exxon Mobile
Goldman Sachs
Boeing
James Richardson has some good points about copy writing for the homepage. Worth checking out.

It is frustrating to look at these huge companies throwing money at PPC, TV and other methods of advertising, when a small step in the SEO direction could be garnering the consumer response they are after.
What say you? Do you have copy on your homepage? Is it working for you, or do you need to juice it up?