I was recently asked if I’d be interested in writing some articles to increase a company’s search presence. I had to turn the job down, though, because the client was only prepared to pay US $10 per 500 words. (Actually, in light of my article PR experience, they generously upped their offer to $15 per [...]

We all know the advertising truism: focus on the positives, not the negatives. You’ll sell more by talking up the benefits of buying, than you will by harping on the risks of not. In his book, ‘Scientific Advertising’, legendary ad-man, Claude Hopkins, says: “We are attracted by sunshine, beauty, happiness, health, success. Then point the [...]

Just read some very interesting statistics presented by one of my favourite writers, Gerry McGovern. (The statistcis weren’t from his research; he was just discussing them.) According to a February 2008 study published by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research, “Sixty-two percent of marketers believe traditional television advertising has become less effective in [...]

‘Link baiting’ may just be a fancy name for ‘good web content’, but it’s a handy reminder that content is critical to a high search engine ranking. Simply put, it’s about making your site content so good that people can’t help but link to it. They feel they’d be doing their own visitors a disservice [...]

Just a quick post this time… I quite often find myself recommending tools or specific applications of tools for copywriting and SEO copywriting. So I thought I’d cut out the middle-man and simply publish my list and a few comments on each tool. So here’s my list of copywriting tools and SEO copywriting tools. If [...]

While this isn’t, strictly speaking, the domain of the copywriter, it is a question I get asked quite often. In fact, this question came up recently in one of our forums (see Please critique my ‘Contact’ page. As you might expect, my answer to this question is based on my understanding of usability, not copywriting. [...]

Within the HTML code behind your page, there are things called ‘meta tags’. These are short notes within the header of the code which describe some aspects of your page to the search engines. Although there is some debate over how important meta tags are when it comes to SEO, it’s generally agreed that they [...]

Whether you’re an SEO copywriter or not, you’ve probably heard plenty of rules (accurate and otherwise) regarding how many words you need on each page of your website. Chances are, the loudest voices in the clamor are those advocating HEAPS of copy. But remember, the person with the loudest voice isn’t always right… While I [...]

It’s been a while since my last post. Sorry! But I have a good reason, honest… As you’ve probably already guessed from my headline, Divine Write has launched a copywriting forum. It’ll interest copywriters, business owners, marketing managers and webmasters most, but ‘regular’ writers will also find it useful (I hope). Current forums include: General [...]

When you’re writing your SEO copy, chances are there’ll come a time when you’ll wonder whether you should target the plural of your keyword or the singular. e.g. Do I target “tennis shoe” or “tennis shoes”? To answer this question, the first thing you need to do is find out what your target visitors are [...]