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June 2004 In this issue: >> Intro: St.
Peter asks me...
Greetings, First things first -- in the last issue I asked what you did when you walked away from your desk. Hobbies, favorite activities and the like. I'm not sure what I expected, but it seems that our interests are as diverse as one could possibly imagine. Cooking, sky diving, reading, climbing and so on. One good sign is the number of replies I received and the variety of activities listed. At least we are not all tied to our desks twenty four hours a day. (A recurring fear of mine is that one day I arrive at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter asks me, "So what did you do with your life?" To which I reply, "I wrote a lot of copy." And then he says, "Yes, but what did you DO with your life?") Next. If you were expecting this issue to arrive in HTML format, it's coming. Hopefully with the next issue. When the first HTML version arrives, if you want future issues text-only, you'll find a link that allows you to change your profile and select the text-only option. That way, everyone will receive Excess Voice in their preferred format. This week's article takes another look at online newsletters. It's strange I haven't written more on the subject before, as I have very strong opinions about e-newsletters. I think they are enormously valuable and usually under-utilized. Finally, in this issue's survey, I'm asking a couple of questions relating to how writers deal with optimizing their text for search engines. Until next time. Nick >> Feedback: mailto:nick@excessvoice.com =============================================== REVIEW: Articles on SEO This isn't so much a review, as an update on the content of the Excess Voice web site. I recently added a series of twelve articles on search engine optimization to the site. It seems to me that writing for the web and SEO have become so closely intertwined, every online writer needs at least to understand the fundamentals of how SEO works, and how to write in a way that increases organic search results. (And the same is true if you are a designer, webmaster or online marketer.) The articles are not written by me, but by Sumantra Roy, the man behind the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) tool at WordTracker. You'll find the list
of articles here: Also, if you don't yet use WordTracker, you really should check it out. It's a service I use several times a week. I wrote a review for
WordTracker a while back. You'll find it here: I have an annual subscription,
as I use the tool a great deal. But you can try it out with a one-day
subscription for just USD$7.71. The only comparible tool I have found anywhere is embedded within the Site Build It suite of services. It's the 'Research and Brainstorming' tool and does the same thing - going out to the major search engines and finding terms related to the one you enter in the form. It then calculates the 'profitability' of each term based on the ratio of people who search for each term compared to the number of sites competing for that word or phrase. You'll find my review
for Site Build It here: ARTICLE: Be Personal in Your Newsletters This is the second in a pair of articles on email newsletters. In the last issue I bemoaned the fact that more and more newsletters are becoming thinly-disguised promotional emails, or simply devices to get people to click through to the publisher’s site as quickly as possible. In this article I want to look at how you can use a valuable, useful newsletter to strengthen your relationship with your readers. The answer is simply to write your content in a personal, genuine way. All too often newsletter content is simply copied and pasted from some other source. Or it is written as if it were going to appear in print. You can do that if you want. But if you do, you are losing out on the opportunity to engage your readers on a much more personal level. Whenever I am involved with a client’s newsletter, I encourage them to appoint someone as the editor. I then make sure that the editor’s name appears in the newsletter and I either have the editor write the content, or have him or her at least write an introduction to each issue. In other words, I want to make the newsletter come from an individual, not a corporation or organization. And once we have a newsletter that is coming from an individual, I try to get the newsletter content written in a personal style. How come? Because people relate much more closely with people than they do with corporations. People trust individuals more than they do corporations. People develop a bond and connection with individuals more than they do with corporations. If your newsletter has great content and is written in the recognizable voice of an individual, you stand a far better chance of building and retaining a loyal and long-term following. I’ve seen it again and again. The more personal the voice in the newsletter, the higher the open-rates and the deeper the loyalty of the readers. Best of all, the more people enjoy your newsletter, the greater the pass-along and word of mouth. To write an e-newsletter as if it were print is just lazy. And you miss out on a principal strength of the online medium: the opportunity to connect one-on-one with your readers.
** The archives of
all previous ExcessVoice articles can be found here: >> Feedback: mailto:nick@excessvoice.com =============================================== READERS WRITE BACK: When I'm Not Working "I spend so much time at my computer at work that I think my choice of gardening is reflective of my need to not be staring at a monitor during my off hours. The reading thing has been going on since I learned how... :) I just got back into choral singing after a long absence - can't figure out how I went so long without it. Gardening and singing are better than therapy for me." Moira Savel -- "Ever since I turned my hobby (painting) into an income stream, I suppose it technically ceased to be a hobby and began to be an occupation instead. With that out of the frame, reading definitely comes top - fiction or non-fiction, news, magazines, any thing I can get my hands (and/or eyes) on. I read to myself, to my partner, to any unsuspecting children (can't wait to be a parent!) and am forever forwarding, via fax/email/post, snippets of interesting things I have read to other people. I doubt I'm unusual in your subscriber group in this!! Otherwise, I'm an opera-, theatre- and concert-goer and a very keen cook. I make a lot of my own clothes and jewellery, love rummaging through second-hand and antique shops and always have some kind of refurbishment project on the go, often involving furniture. I would normally list gardening under hobbies as well, but I currently live in a 3rd floor apartment, so a more accurate description would be 'keen house plant and window box maintainer'." Emma Cooper
>> Feedback: mailto:nick@excessvoice.com =============================================== SURVEY: Which SEO Tools Do You Use? When you are optimizing your text for search engines, which tools do you use to identify the best keywords and phrases? [ ] WordTracker ====================================================== Don't miss out on future issues of the Excess Voice newsletter for copywriters. Sign up now: (Your email address will be used only for the purpose of sending you this newsletter, and you'll be free to unsubscribe at any time.) |
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