Posts Tagged copywriting
How to Avoid Duplicate Content Penalties from Google
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on February 8th, 2010
Many of you are undoubtedly using Private Label Rights (PLR) articles or post news on your site that you get from other sources. These could be considered duplicate content by Google. Or perhaps you have printer-only versions of your pages that are duplicate content of your own site. Whatever the reason, duplicate content can land you in serious hot water with Google and lead to big penalties, including having your site banned entirely.
Here are some tips to avoid duplicate content penalties with Google. Many of them are straight from Google.
First, make sure to tell Google your preferred URL (canonicalization). This tells Google that if you have duplicate content within your site, to refer to the main URL and not penalize you (yes, this is a condensed and basic version of what it does on purpose).
Simply put this in the <head> tags:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mysite.com">
If the content is a duplicate of your own pages (such as printer-friendly versions), you can tell Google not to index the duplicate pages. Simply include this is in your <head> tags on the duplicate page:
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">
If you are using Private Label Rights (PLR) material, then you will still have to put in a little effort in order to avoid duplicate content penalties. Change some of the words, especially the high-density keywords, so that:
“The easiest way to learn guitar…” becomes “The best way to study guitar…” or “The number one method for learning guitar…”
OR
“Guitar lessons are often expensive” becomes “Learning guitar can be costly” or “Guitar instruction is generally reserved for the wealthy”
Use a thesaurus and find synonyms for common words.
You can also reorder some of the sentences and paragraphs, or take out a few sentences that aren’t needed, as well as add your own content. Add a sentence of your own to each paragraph or two.
When you are done, be sure to use a copy checker like CopyScape or one of the free tools from Google and Yahoo to check it out. I hope it helps!
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Random Web Design Tips for Review Sites and Others
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Web Design on February 5th, 2010
For some reason over the past week I have been oft asked the same questions by affiliates regarding their review sites, so naturally I decided it would be helpful to share some of the tips that I gave them. These are the things that Google likes and prevents them from slapping you silly. These are the things that site visitors like and prevents them from going back to Google to seek out another review. They lead to more visitors and more buyers.
I have rewritten some of the most useful tips here and hope that help you.
One of the most common themes was the presence of very salesy content. I actually covered this topic yesterday somewhat in this post. Of course, you want to convert them into a buyer, but the more salesy you come across on your review site, the less genuine your review becomes. Trust me, we will try to sell them, so let us do that. Say a few nice things and tell your story…then let them come to us for the sales pitch.
You definitely need a privacy policy, contact page, and the like. I have written about this twice in FeedFront Magazine and I can’t think of anything I would add.
The Five Most Common Missing Pieces to Affiliate Sites and my Top Ten Web Site Design Tips from 2001 articles cover these topics in depth.
Review sites often have a boatload of outgoing links and very few in-site links. This is backwards.
On review sites, for every outgoing link, affiliate or otherwise, you have, you should have at least two or three in-site links. Add a ton of content pages, tips, articles, a glossary of terms, whatever, and link early and often to these pages.
Ultimately, the objective is to come across as what you are presenting yourself as: a review site; a site that reviews products, gives the reader the pluses and minuses of each product, and makes a recommendation.
Good reviewers aren’t trying to sell anything and they aren’t afraid to get asked questions by their readers.
This ended up being a much shorter post than I expected since a lot of it is covered in the other posts I link to, but I do hope it helps!
Compelling Sales Copywriting Tips
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on February 4th, 2010
SEO ROI recently posted a great article on their blog authored by Christine O’Kelly entitled “Six Steps to More Engaging Copy That Sells,” that I definitely wanted to share with you.
O’Kelly points studies what three sites, InfusionSoft, Butterfly Marketing, and Traffic Geyser have done that can help you.
When I got to the six tips I was reminded of so many of the marketing lessons I have learned and have shared here as well.
Copy should be engaging. Copy should be passionate. Copy should be…well not copy. Copy is such a lame, impersonal word. “Sales letter” is too clinical and too…salesy.
I prefer using words like “story” or “narrative.” Your site should tell a story. It should be adventurous and exciting. It should move something inside of the person reading it. Ultimately the purpose is to get them to buy, but you have to forget about that for a while as you write your…ah I almost said the old word…story.
I am sticking to the original title of this post, but if I had it to do all over again, I would have called it Compelling Storytelling Tips.
Here are there six tips repackaged in my own words, but I still strongly suggest reading their post…just replace the words copy and sales letter with “story” or “narrative.”
- Identify and name your reader’s problem and solve it. They inevitably have a problem. They are searching for something, so know what it is and help them find it.
- If you use video for your story, choose your narrator carefully. Make sure that he or she conveys the right image your trying to put forth.
- Be friendly, exciting, motivating, and passionate about what you are writing or speaking.
- If you are trying to generate leads, rather than sales, leave the reader hanging. A good story that barely reaches the climax or falls just short, leaves them craving more. Everyone has to know the end. Leave the conclusion for once the lead is secured.
- Don’t tell them what you can do for them, let others do it for you. Gather up testimonials and success stories from customers. Let them tell their story. Everyone loves to talk about themselves and your customers are ten times better salespeople than you are.
- Forget what you are trying to sell. Educate them in a narrative that interrupts periodically with stories. Imagine you were telling the story in person. Certain parts would be louder. Certain parts would have your hands flailing everywhere. You might grab the other person by the shoulders. You might move closer to them. Your eyes light up and your pitch gets higher. You stand up straighter and you can hardly control your excitement. Imagine this as you write and use bolding, italics, different colors, etc. to break up the text.
What If Someone Copies Your Web Site?
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Affiliate Tools, Web Design on August 14th, 2009
Previously, I have covered the topic of web site copyright infringement, specifically affiliates who copy other web sites. My basic message was don’t do it!
Later I shared some tips for preventing others from copying you, protecting your web site copy, and two people left comments with their own ways of combating copying, by preventing someone from framing your site and using Google Alerts to catch copycats.
But what about when you are the victim of copyright infringement? What do you do now?
First, let’s acknowledge that you are likely upset. Calm down first and get to work. You will need your wits about you if you intend to do anything.
Second, o some research on the offending web site first. Do they have a contact page? Is their contact information on the site anywhere? If so, contact them and ask them to remove the copied content.
Keep in mind that it is entirely possible that the web site owner does not know that they are copying your site. Perhaps they have a freelance copywriter that they hired who is cheating them. Perhaps someone who works for them is lazy and decides copying your work is easier than writing his own stuff. Either way, keep your first contact professional and courteous. In other words, be nice and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Usually, this is all that needs to be done. If they take it down, great! You are done…sort of. Just remember to keep an eye on them.
Third, if their contact information is not on their site, look them up at Domain Tools and see if their contact information can be found there. Follow the first step from there.
Fourth, if that does not work, contact their web hosting company and tell them that the site is copying your content. You can find the host by using Domain Tools as well. Usually, if you can prove that the other site copied your site, the host will take their site down almost immediately.
Fifth, how can you PROVE that they copied you and not the other way around? By using a tool such as the Wayback Machine to show them that your site looked like this X days ago and theirs did not. Sometimes this is hard. If you cannot prove it in this way, you may be out of luck.
That is unless your content has just enough to it that is specific to your site…i.e. your certain writing style, your name, a reference to your location, etc. Something that would establish that indeed you wrote the content and the other site copied you.
Sixth, if this approach fails, then consider a formal Cease and Desist letter from an attorney. Send it via certified mail. If this is unaffordable, you may consider using a template from a site such as Legal Zoom, but an attorney is strongly recommended.
Lastly, if all else fails, file a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) copyright infringement complaint with the major search engines.
I hope that you never have to use any of these tips, but if you, I hope they help!
Protecting Your Copy - Tools You can Use
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Affiliate Tools, Web Design on August 6th, 2009
Last month I made three posts about affiliates who copy and two tips (here and here) left by commenters about protecting your copy.
I promised to continue on this topic, as it was quite popular. So today, I will address tools that you can use to protect yourself from being copied.
Free Tools / Ideas
- Google Alerts - Using Google Alerts to protect your copy.
- Regular Google and other engine searches for a phrase on your site that is unique.
- Copyright your material. It will scare off enough people to be worth it. Visit the US Copyright Office web site.
- If you only need them temporarily, there are free trials of the paid products below. Copyscape has some great free resources.
Paid Tools
Are there any others out there that you would suggest?
Protect Your Copy - Prevent Others from Framing Your Site
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Web Design on July 30th, 2009
My friend Andy posted a comment yesterday suggesting one way to prevent copycats from stealing your content.
He has apparently been the victim of numerous sites framing his sites without his permission. But he discovered a great piece of code that he added to the header of his sites and blogs that prevents this.
According to Andy, it kills the frame and takes the site visitor to the top level domain (yours). It totally prevents spammers and copycats from framing your site and it serves as a useful redirect if you are getting some traffic from Bing or Google images.
Great tip Andy! I will be posting more tips on how to protect yourself, your copy, and your hard work soon.
Follow-Up to Don’t Copy - Be Original
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on July 29th, 2009
Yesterday I posted an article entitled “Don’t Copy - Be Original” and in less than 15 hours, the comments have been rolling in.
In one comment Vinny O’Hare made an excellent point about how to protect yourself from being copied. He says to set up a Google Alert for specific phrases of unique content that likely can only be found on your site.
So let’s say you have a sentence on your home page that reads: “Have you dreamed for years about learning the guitar?” This is not likely to be an exact phrase that someone else would think up on their own and if someone else is using that exact phrase, you will receive a Google Alert about it. You can then check out their site and see if they are copying you. Perhaps they just happened to think of that phrase themselves and are not copying you, but perhaps they are.
I will be writing more about how to protect yourself from copycats in the coming days and also what actions you can take.
Thanks Vinny for the great suggestion!
Don’t Copy - Be Original
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on July 28th, 2009
This should probably go without saying, but one of the absolute worst things you can do as an affiliate is to copy someone else’s site.
Recently, I had to terminate an affiliate for doing just this. In fact, this affiliate was so blatant, his site even used the original site’s name in the copy and the about us page said he was the other person. Utterly blatant stealing!
It is this simple…we do not tolerate affiliates blatantly copying what other affiliates (or merchants) are doing.
There are a myriad of reasons why you should not do this. Among them:
1. It is unethical…need I continue? OK I will.
2. Your site will be punished. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but before too long, your site will be banned by Google and other search engines for duplicate content. This will apply to both Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization.
3. Your commissions will probably be reversed and you will be kicked out of any program managed by a reputable affiliate manager.
4. You might get sued. In fact, count on this.
Seriously, how would you feel if you devoted days of your life to designing a site, writing the copy, and then some nitwit copies everything you do, spending maybe one hour and trying to steal your hard work?
Be original. Design your own graphics or use some stock art at the very least. Write your own copy.
It is fine to observe what others are doing and get some ideas from them, but copying their text word for word and literally stealing their images is a big no-no.
PPC Copywriting Tips and Mistakes
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Pay Per Click (PPC) on July 22nd, 2009
Econsultancy recently published a great post chock full of PPC ad writing tips and some examples of how to screw it up.
Here are some of the highlights below along with my ideas specific to affiliates. You can read the full post here.
First of all, read the rules. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are not hiding their rules from you, so read them…and follow them. Here are their rules:
Headlines
- Be simple and relevant - easy enough
- Use the keywords that were searched
- Use Dynamic Keyword Inclusion. Google has great advice on this here. Basically this is where you match what was searched automatically with your headline.
Body Text
- Give them a call-to-action. “Buy,” “Order,” “Act Now.”
- Use “Power Words,” such as “Amazing,” “Unique,” “Award-Winning.”
- Brag! Now is not the time to be modest.
- Less is more…sometimes. Experiment with NOT using all 35 characters (or whatever the limit is for that search engine).
- Change your ads to match the sales of the merchant. If we are running a sale, mention it in the ad. Guess what? WE ARE RUNNING A SALE NOW!
Everything Else
- Experiment with different display URLs.
- Be short with the display URL.
- Spell-check…use it!
- TEST!
Yeah, it’s pretty elementary, but sometimes we need these reminders nonetheless.
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