Selecting the right kinds of SEO keywords and keyword phrases is important. Get them wrong and you’re Vicky Pollard chatting with the Queen – you’re Lester Burnham on the pull, you’re Paul and Yoko. It’s not going to work out.

You need to talk in a language that your audience understands. More importantly you need to use the language they us – to share their ’semantic space’. Smart keyword research gets right under the semantic skin, explores and identifies a whole range of useful words and phrases. Sure, there are the obvious generic terms that you can and probably should use but the chances are that they’ll be highly competitive on organic searches and highly expensive when it comes to PPC.

For real SEO breadth and depth you need to get lateral, to granularize. Spend little time exploring the crooks and nannies. See what they tell you.

They’ll probably suggest using Google Insights. It’s a great SEO tool. A way of quickly and easily identifying what terms are being searched for, when and where. It’s… insightful SEO. Google itself says -

‘With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. ‘

Have a play, check out this SEO Google SEO vid or take  a look at this excellent Google Insights tutorial

I did a quick search on the term SEO for 2010 and drilled down by location to find Manchester. Interestingly SEO Manchester comes out third ahead of SEO London. Possibly even more interestingly the top two locations were Bletchley and Brentford (anyone know why?).

Here are the top SEO search terms:

1. SEO Google
2. Web SEO
3. SEO UK
4. Website SEO
5. Free SEO
6. SEO London
7. SEO marketing
8. SEO tools
9. SEO Wordpress
10. Wordpress SEO

Even better than that Google Insights lists ‘Rising Searches’:

1. Google keyword +80%
2. Keyword tool +70%
3. Search engine optimization +70%
4. Wordpress SEO plugin +60%
5. SEO tutorial +50%
6. Webmaster tools +40%
7. SEO checker +40%
8. SEO optimization +40%
9. Wordpress +40%

Seek the keyword heat and make good things happen.

Do you use Google Insights? Thoughts?

Thanks to Triplezero for the Flickr image

Top drawer copywriting, content strategy and content marketing presentation from Adam Singer.

View more presentations from Adam Singer.

I’m loving this.

Any other new presentations out there dealing with content strategy, copywriting and content marketing that are worth checking out?

Please let me know. Thanks.

The life of a freelance copywriter can be a mixed bag. One day you’re getting down and dirty SEO copywriting, the next a ghost blog, a newsletter, a sales letter or web copywriting project – all in the name of helping people make happy decisions.

It’s the way I like it, and if you asked any freelance copywriter they’d probably tell you that it’s the variety, the range of subject matter, the breadth of research plus the application of their own insight and experiences that keeps freelance copywriting interesting.

I’m just coming down from finishing a major project alongside the wonderful Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdóttir, Managing Director of Iceland Music Export – lots of interviews with the great and the good of the Nordic Music Industry – for example Olarfur Arnalds – playing 1st July at Bridgewater Hall Manchester. Freelance copywriter heaven as far as I’m concerned.

The report, on behalf of the Nordic music export offices will hopefully lead to funding enabling them to work closer together and market their acts internationally with even greater success than they do already. Think Sigur Ros, Bjork, Efterklang, Kings of Convenience, Múm.

Well anyway…. I just wanted to share a great piece of software that I happened across that proved really useful.

It’s called G-Recorder and records Skype conversations. They are stored locally but also emailed to your Gmail account as mp3 files. It’s a really tidy piece of kit especially if you’re doing interviews. Highly recommended. Unfortunately the more recordings you make the more work needs transcribing (oh for a magical voice recognition silver bullet that would just instantly turn audio into docs – if anyone knows of anything good please do share).

TurnerInk tweeted recently about her passion for Evernote as a method for collecting and collating ideas. I love Delicious and make a point of tagging and book marking any half interesting page I come across for future use.

What are your essential tools or apps? The kind of easy low/no learning curve tool that you find genuinely useful. Flickr for Creative Commons images? Google Reader for RSS? I like Posterous too as a nice easy outpost blog . Google Insights as keyword inspiration? And of course there’s Twitter. In effect a 24/7 stream of comment, ideas and links to content as relevant an you want it to be. There’s Stumbleupon too which I love stumbling through and finding fresh sites and fresh inspiration.

We pick things up all the time. Play a little.  Too complicated, too much hassle, no good, then they get dropped. What’s stuck for you?

What are your favourite copywriting tools? Software that makes you more productive and your life as a copywriter or content strategist genuinely easier?

Thanks to Tashland for the image

In my recent ‘Call yourself a copywriter post?‘ I questioned whether the pure and simple title ‘copywriter‘ was being devalued by the copy mills and the SEO drive to force feed the interweb with fodder copy. Could it be possible to sidestep the low-rent pay per word perception and reclaim the business high ground for real value adding copywriters? Copywriters who as well as making money for clients through the words they write also contribute to the conceptualisation, the research, the planning and the enactment of a copy led online marketing plan. A supercharged copywriter. A copywriter plus.

A content strategist?

I’ve been doing a little digging around and have come up with some brilliantly insightful content strategy debate – For example, a hot of the press Content Strategists : what do they do? blog post by Dan Zambonini and a Kristina Halvorson post entitled Content Strategy is in fact, the next big thing in which she shows that Content Strategy is more or less on the same trajectory as social media was three years ago.

Tamsin Hemingray at icrossing writes a great web editor Vs content strategist article and there is a splendid discussion on Lauren Pope’s What’s the Difference between a Content Strategist and a Web Editor? Posterous blog, also well worth a read.

Has social media and the need for link destinations of genuine worth really shown up a lack of strategy, a lack of quality content and delivered creatives a great new opportunity? It would seem so, with copywriting agencies increasingly focusing energy on delivering specialist content strategy.

Halvorson says: “Most companies can’t sustain social media engagement because they lack the internal editorial infrastructure to support it.

They don’t have a content strategy.

It’s not that this hasn’t been a problem for years. It’s simply that social media has made the problem more obvious (and more public) than ever before,”

Isn’t this the perfect opportunity for creatives, for copywriters, for copy content strategists to step up to the plate?

As I commented on the Zambonini post:

Really interesting stuff Dan, thanks.

Anything to differentiate what us “added value” copywriting types do from the pure spider food content mills. In that respect I see a shift in approach on our side. In order to impress upon clients the importance of quality content and a more strategic approach the term content strategist might have an important role to play.

Complementing existing skills by strengthening IA, tech and analytical know how would seem the obvious way forward.

As Tamsin Hemingray said in a post : “It feels to me that over the last 15 years there has been an ongoing process where we’ve all been working to create websites that look nice, that are sensibly organised, that are really easy to use, that are easy to find, and now we’re finally considering building websites that have stuff on them that people want and like.”

UK copywriting : Manchester copywriting and content strategy.

Make sense?

Is this business evolution or are we in danger of taking our eye off the specialist copywriter ball?

Seth Godin talks about the difference between hourly work and linchpin work and refers to the story of his college professor Henry who solved a damp problem in a high rise building and saved tens of thousands of pounds in the process. It reminded me of the old Henry Ford tale where Ford explains a problem he’s having to the famous engineer Nikola Tesla.

Tesla hears him out, has a good think and then chalks a small X on piece of machinery. X marking the spot. The source of problem. A short time later Ford receives the bill – $10,000.

Asked for an explanation Tesla tells him: “$1 for marking the X, $9,999 for knowing where to put it.” Ding dong. Know how.

The distance between knowing how and not knowing can be immense; years of experience, insight, practice or study. It might be innate, intuitive, it might be something you read on the bus this morning. Who knows? What’s certain though is that if you want to succeed in an ultra competitive world, to scratch your mark on history then talent rules.  You’ll need to factor in some X.  X is where it’s at. X is the difference.

Anyone can tell a story, anyone can write. Not everyone knows where to put the X.

For content strategy, content development and inspirational copywriting to help build your business, call me now on 07806 064015.

Thanks to Eva the Weaver for the Flickr photo