Erfan Internet Marketing & SEO 101

Headline Secrets - Uncovered

2008-08-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys and Gals. Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. I've been really busy with SEO projects, involving link bait campaigns, article writing and link building. More Recently I've been experimenting with a link building/article writing task.

In a future post I will delve into the research, planning, writing, purpose and use of the article but for this post, I will focus on the writing of the headline.

My task: To create an intriguing headline for an article on New Zealand's best campervan parks. My first Ideas came out in an objective fashion. Directly describing the articles content. The keywords I needed to include in the heading were: "New Zealand" and "Campervan".

The following headlines get straight to the point with little emotive language, intrigue, sense of urgency or reward.

Objective Headlines

- New Zealand’s Best Campervan Spots

- New Zealand’s Best Campervan Sites

- New Zealand’s Favourite Campervan Sites

- New Zealand’s Best Campervan Parks

- New Zealand’s Best Camper Van Holiday Parks

- New Zealand’s Top Campervan Parks

- New Zealand’s Top Campervan Holiday Ideas

- New Zealand’s Top Campervan Holiday Attractions

- New Zealand’s Best Campervan Tours

- New Zealand’s Favourite Campervan Holiday Tours

- New Zealand’s Best Campervan Holiday Ideas

- New Zealand’s Best Campervan Holiday Routes

- New Zealand’s Top Attractions

- New Zealand’s Must See Attractions

- New Zealand’s Greatest Sights

- Top New Zealand Sights and Attractions

The above headlines are all forms of direct advertising and do not sound very creative. These type of headlines can sometimes work as they quickly communicate the offer and lay the facts bare. Dramatisation, curiosity, greed, fear and self fullfilment are all but a few qualities which play a part in great headlines. The following headlines are more creative, connects with the viewer emotionally and creates more interest.

Emotive Headlines

Who Wants New Zealand’s Best Campervan Holiday?

- Get New Zealand’s Best Campervan Holiday!

- 5 Reasons to Hire a Campervan in New Zealand.

- Who Else Wants New Zealand’s Greatest Campervan Holidays?

- The Secret of New Zealand’s Holiday Parks.

- Here is a Method to Finding New Zealand’s Top Campervan Parks.

- Find New Zealand’s Greatest Campervan Parks Today!

- Relax in New Zealand’s Top Campervan Parks.

- Enjoy New Zealand’s Best Campervan Parks.

- Have the Greatest Holiday at New Zealand’s Top Campervan Parks.

- You Deserve New Zealand’s Top Campervan Park.

- Include New Zealand’s Top Campervan Park in Your Holiday.

- 5 Ways to Enjoy New Zealand in a Campervan.

- If You Love New Zealand, You’ll Love the Top Campervan Parks.

- Warning! Choose New Zealand’s Top Campervan Park.

- Warning: Don’t Go To Any New Zealand Campervan Park.

- Only choose New Zealand’s Top Campervan Park.

- How to Have the Best Campervan Holiday in New Zealand.

- Are You Looking for the Top Campervan Park in New Zealand?

- How I Had The Best Holiday EVER in New Zealand.

As you can see, just by adding a few words, you can effectively communicate your message while creating a desire within the reader. Whether you created that desire through fear, greed or self fulfillment, you have achieved your headlines goal.

So now it is your turn to practise some of these techniques. Start by closely looking at the above headline examples and skewing/adjusting them to suit your own topic/keywords. After a while you should begin to understand what makes a great headline and you will be able to brainstorm 20 headline ideas in 10 minutes.

Thanks for reading my post.. I'll keep you posted.

Anchor Text - A Noobs Perspective

2008-04-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

Anchor Text - A Noobs Perspective

Anchor text are the words which if clicked on, will send the user to another website or document. Typically this text is underlined, bold or in a different colour. A good example of anchor text is shown when the anchor text describes the content of the document/website it is linking to.

eg. "I knew there would be snakes on the plane, but I didn't expect camels on the submarine!"

Anchor text is often an integral part of a sentence as shown in the bold text above. The above example is showing a good use of anchor text:

1) The text is descriptive of the page it is linking to.
2) The anchor text is differentiated from the rest of the sentence by appearing BOLD. (as long as the anchor text is differentiated or obviously symbolised as a link it shouldnt matter. This is upto the designers or writers aesthetic opinion.
3) The anchor text is an integral part of the sentence and does not interrupt the flow of reading.

A bad example of anchor text is shown below:

eg.

a) "I knew there would be snakes on the plane, but I didn't expect camels on the submarine! Click here for camels on a submarine."

b) "I knew there would be snakes on the plane, but I didn't expect camels on the submarine! Click here."

c) "I knew there would be snakes on the plane, but I didn't expect camels on the submarine!"Click here for camels on a submarine."

The problems with the above examples are quite obvious. With example a), The Anchor text is not
incorporated within the main body. This is annoying for the viewer as it interrupts the flow of reading. This does not add any valuable information/content to the previous sentence either.

With example b) and c) the words "Click here" is used as the anchor text. This is unproductive for the search engines to recognize what page the Anchor text is linking to. The search engine will think you are linking to a website with information on "Click here", where in fact, you are wanting to tell the search engine that you are linking to a page on "Camels on a Submarine".

As search engines try to provide the user with the most relevant websites for their search query; the relevancy of the page being linked to and the anchor text is also an important factor.

Good example: Camels on a Submarine linking to www.camelsonboats/submarines.com

This is good because keywords in the anchor text are also in the URL of the page being linked to.
The search engine will recognise the relevancy and account for it.

The relevancy of the content on the page is another important factor.
There are many other influencing factors that determine the worthiness of a link and anchor text but I may go over them in a later post. For now you should have enough understanding on anchor text to apply some practise.

Keep an eye out for my next post.

The SEO Journey Begins...

2008-04-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

Learning SEO Basics

Hello everyone,

My name is Erfan Nourozi and im a recent Bachelor of Design (Visual Communications) graduate from New Zealand. Im 21 and am newly entering the real creative industry. After searching for graphics related jobs in my local area and attending interviews/interrogations I have met a number of people in the industry. From large companies and television ad directors to small, friendly design studios consisting of just a couple of friends. Throughout the interviews I have been given advice, constructive criticism and compliments to further advance myself in the industry.

I was recently employed by a web development company to carry out basic website testing and soon moved on to work with the SEO department due to a heavy workload. Instantly the SEO department was doubled, due to only having one existing member who is Aidan Rogers (aka) SEO ninja.

I have been doing some directory listings, link building and blogging. With these different aspects which are all part of SEO comes different techniques, strategies and terms which I have come to learn and am still learning.

This blog is an initiative to help me record my progress/learning as I work as an SEO apprentice.

So join me on my adventure through the jungle of information that is SEO.

Stuck in an SEO rut? Disclose your competitors’ secret tricks and get ahead of the curve!