DIY B2B Direct Marketing and SEO

The WordPress team releases regular updates and it’s wise to upgrade your blog every time  a new version is launched.    

Why? Because if you don’t you leave your blog at the mercy of hackers, infections and other malicious mischief. I know two people who’ve been infected via weaknesses in old versions of WordPress.

As well as security fixes, updated versions include fresh functionality. And it’s easy – as well as free – to upgrade your blog in one click via your WordPress Dashboard.

If you haven’t done it before, check the instructions on the WordPress website first.

Great special offers are strong medicine. They draw publicity and attention as well as driving sales.

Here’s my latest, a Karma-driven offer that’s completely genuine, provides a valuable service and makes me feel good into the bargain. 

I’m devoting one day a month to free charity copywriting.

If you’re a charity in need of direct marketing and direct response focused expertise, a keen eye for SEO and masses of experience just email me at info@helpinthecity.com with the details of your copywriting project and we’ll take it from there. 

First come, first served.

I usually charge £60 an hour so you’ll get £420 worth of copywriting  / editing expertise for free. That’s enough to:

• write or edit a twelve page website av. 350 words per page, or create twelve 350 word web pages
• create ten press releases of around 500 words each
• write eight articles about 750 words each
• create twelve 350 word blog posts
• edit a twenty page corporate brochure

All written beautifully, delivered by 5pm the same day.

My first slot is August 12th 2010 so I’ll need your brief by the end of play on 10th August to give me time to digest things.

You’re very welcome!

Images don’t contribute much to SEO because search engines can’t ‘see’ pictures or analyse their content. But you can make the most of your on-site images by ensuring their ALT attibutes make sense.  

Provided your images’ attributes are descriptive and accurate, search engines will find it a tiny bit easier to rate and classify your website correctly. 

It always helps to have a suitable tool handy. This one checks your website images and tells you how clearly - or otherwise - they can be’ seen’ by Google and co:  http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/alt/

It’s important to check raw website content when it’s in draft form, expressed as a Word or .txt document or whetever. But seeing new content in context gives you a final vital chance to weed out any imperfections. 

Wise site owners like to check new site content in situ before signing it off. Here’s why:

• it’s easier to see if the new copy works in sympathy with the design to make the biggest possible impact
• it’s easier to spot areas where the flow could be improved to make your message clearer or more powerful
• it helps you spot areas where the formatting could be changed to improve response and conversion 
• stuff like stray formatting errors, duplicated words and weak arguments are easier to spot on-site

How come it’s easier to spot improvements to content in situ?

It’s probably very simple. Presumably you’re experiencing the copy in a fresh visual context so improvements leap out at you. Whatever the reason it’s a foolproof way to make 100% sure your new website content works as hard as it can.

If you’ve set up a WordPress blog you can spend hours setting it up for SEO.

Alternatively just install the WordPress All In One SEO Pack plugin. It only takes a few seconds and you’re done. But don’t forget to back up your database first… just in case!

If you like, you can fine tune every aspect of it. But you don’t have to. It works perfectly well ‘out of the box’.