Not Just a Pretty Face: The Voice of Your Brand

Everyone knows the value of brand; in such a visually driven age the public face of any business is something worth getting very right.

Companies need a professional logo, not something the MD scribbled on a scrap of paper, but a well thought out logo that catches the eye and accurately reflects the business people identify it with. This is basic marketing one-o-one; you’d be hard pressed to find any firm or individual in business today, without so much as a letterhead. Today a lot of thought goes into designing a company’s image, the correct use of colour, humour, modern or traditional style etc... larger firms even have guidelines as to the type of font, text size and colour which should be used for external mail and e-mails.

We are in an age now, when the voice of a company also needs to be clearly defined ... and used! Recent rapid developments on the web, such as prolific blogging, social media sites, PDA’s, wi-fi and super fast broadband speeds, having taken company branding to another dimension.

Business can no longer afford to be just a pretty face; they need to be speaking, be out there in the ether chatting and interacting with each other, potential clients and competitors. It’s important to find your businesses voice first before you start nattering and then once it’s established, use it, use it, use it!

Mr Google and Mrs Yahoo

Think of search engines as potential users and your website optimisation can’t go wrong. Obviously there are no guarantees you’ll shoot straight to the top of the Google rankings, but at least you’ll be on the right track.

All good website optimisation is organic; work to give the best user experience and the search engines will love you – waste time thinking up strange and imaginative ways to trick them into ranking your site and they will find out and they won’t be happy!

It’s estimated that on-page optimisation only accounts for 20% - 30% of your complete SEO, however it’s still important to get it right.

Web content needs to make sense, appeal to a reader and not be too long or repetitive.
People never read web pages like they would a book; they skim.
Keep this in mind and keep it short, sharp and informative.

Use AIDA: Attract. Inform. (create)Desire. (call to) Action.

Find the right keywords and use them just enough to let the search engines know what the page is about – obviously make sure the keywords are used in context and don’t over use them.

Simples...!

Blog Excerpts: Short, Sweet and Really Annoying:

Well for the likes of me it is anyway – give me a 5,000 word essay any day over trying to carefully craft a perfectly formed SEO sound bite or Wordpress ‘Excerpt’. Working within the confines of any word count is always tricky the first few dozen times you do it and when the limit is 160 characters, then you really have to get creative.

Here are a few handy hints and tips to perfecting the sound bite / descriptive text, required by the majority of blogware and Content Management Systems.

1. Always write the content first.
Before you can write the perfect sound bite, complete with relevant keywords, you need to have your message clear in your mind first. It sounds daft I know, but blog descriptions can be harder to write than the blog itself, so always put the horse before the cart.

2. Think big, then reduce, reduce, reduce.
Once you have your blog you are now at liberty to strip it down to its underwear. It’s usually easier to take one key phrase you’re particularly pleased with, isolate it, strip out any unnecessary preambles, fillers and small talk and sprinkle liberally with key words.

3. Remember that it MUST make sense.
Forget SEO for a minute and just concentrate on what a User and potential customer is going to see. Does it get your message across accurately and clearly reflect what your blog is all about?

4. Bring in the big guns
If you’re struggling, it helps to imagine the blog as a conversation whereas the blog excerpt is more something the crazy lady might shout at you on the bus. Reading it in the style of Stephen Hawkins or ‘I’ll Be Back’ Terminator-esque helps create blunt staccato bursts - just don’t get caught doing it in public.

And for all you Blue Peter enthusiasts out there, to left is one I made earlier...

Carefully craft a perfectly formed SEO sound bite or Wordpress excerpt.
Handy hints for writing 160 character sound bites for blogs, descriptions and other excerpts.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The trouble with being a writer and having a blog is that people expect something spectacular. That’s why in the past I’ve always shied away from having my own blog.

Plus as a ghost writer I specialise in writing in the voice of my clients and I’d hate to be typecast on the basis that someone didn’t like my own personal style.

Nevermind though, enough is enough and I’ve spent so long extolling on the benefits of blogging that I thought it about time I bite the bullet and practiced what I preach – not to mention utilise some of those benefits for my own growing business.

So here it is a shiny new blog for a shiny new year. Shame I can’t think of anything mind blowing to say... and of course it is such a nuisance to maintain... If only there was someone out there who wrote these sorts of things for a living, could always thinks of something fabulous to put into words, understood keywords and SEO and was an absolute pleasure to work with, I don’t know, a kind of web maintenance Mary Poppins...

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay, um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay