So, you’re a writer and assume you know nothing about SEO. That’s a fine excuse, up until now, because now you have some basis of what direction you should be headed in! These SEO strategies are extremely easy to employ so don’t be nervous, and in the same light, don’t think you’re a guru from doing these small steps – there are hundreds of people who do more coding and manipulating than I can wrap my head around, but the common ground lies here:

·         Be sure to put your substantive, primary keywords as close to the beginning of the tip or article as possible, obviously while maintaining the integrity of your work.

·         Feel free to use the additional keywords but be proportionate in how often you use them.

·         To help your tip rank higher, keep in mind the concept of keyword proximity. If you’re using your primary keyword in the opening sentence, try using the secondary keyword close by so that when the spiders crawl the page, they can immediately understand your reference.

·         Keyword phrases rank higher than just keywords. Most of the time the primary keyword will be just that – a keyword. However, when you have people searching for something and bit more specific, using a keyword phrase as a secondary tool will rank much higher because the longer, more specific keyword phrase you use, the better the traffic is of those who come to the site. They have already figured out specifically what they are looking for and will use your article or tip to find it!

Thanks in advance for following these strategies. You are now a step closer to becoming an SEO writer!

**The Job Board will return next week with a Vengeance...to be continued!**

To all of our great writers who were able to phone in for our Monthly Writer's Call-In, I'm very happy that you were able to join us.

And to anyone who was not able to join us, no worries! You can still listen in to the call to get all of the updates from LifeTips. President and Founder of LifeTips, Byron White, and myself, Amanda Smyth, hosted the Call-In and we were so happy to have the chance to meet so many of you via the phone. We here at LifeTips are working hard for you. We are always looking for new ways to promote better job opportunities for our writers and to get everyone involved in the writer's community. Whether you are an expert freelancer or a newbie to the writing world, we can help you. 

So, I encourage everyone to log in to your account at LifeTips and to listen to the MP3 recording of the Call-In. The link to the MP3's can be found on the left hand side of your screen after you log in.

Next month's call will be hosted by the LifeTips Editorial Team which consists of Amanda Smyth, Carolyn McKibbin and Mona Johany. After all, shouldn't you know who is editing your work? We will be hosting a call in June during which time we will go over some of the FAQ's that we get, such as: how payment works, how our sliding scale of payment works, how we judge your work, how you can get better jobs through LifeTips, and what the heck do we mean when we say "GIVE US MORE C.O.W.B.E.L.L.?" As well as any other questions that need answering.  

So stay tuned for more info and if you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with us! 

So, the great minds at TigerLogic put their craniums together and spewed out a brand new tool that actually is very beneficial for the consumer, and not the SEO’er! The tool is called “ChunkIt” and it’s just as sweet as that old school chocolate bar, Chunky!   ChunkIt!  helps the viewer to eliminate result listings that are irrelevant to their overall search by showing them a larger preview of what the SERP has to offer. Instead of seeing a sliver of a meta tag, you get to see an entire paragraph with the keyword you’re looking for highlighted all throughout the description, so you’re able to figure out whether or not you want to click on that listing.

Let’s say you were looking for a stylish head wrap to go with your new outfit. Results for food will inevitably show up. Instead of wasting your time looking through those results, ChunkIt! allows you to preview those listings in more depth without having to actually click on it. In the long run, it saves you time and a load of frustration.

How will this affect SEO, you ask? Well, it’s beneficial to the SERPs because it lowers your CTR to reflect a more accurate metric. In order to adapt, you will need to create more descriptive meta tags for your landing pages. Once you do this, you have pretty much employed the best SEO practices. You’ve made it into the top SERPs and now you’ve enhanced your description to meet the needs of the latest market trends. Keep in mind: ChunkIt! isn’t here for the SEO person, but for the consumer.

Here's a sneak preview of the tool.  I’m telling you, once you make it to the end of the demo, you’ll either update your website or chuck it! J

We have some great projects on the horizon! Stay tuned and check your job board regularly if any of these topics catches your eye:

·         Home organization and how to de-clutter a garage

·         Designer sunglasses

·         Flowers

·         Trendsetting in your silver years

·         Asbestos and mesothelioma

·         Gas, oil refinery and oil knowledge

·         Personal finance

In just a few days we’ll have our Job Pitch Board ready, where you’ll be able to submit sample tips, bid on projects, and pitch yourself as the most qualified guru for a project!

Aside from moving into our superfly new office in the North End of Boston (and the fact that we have all gained 5lbs from the cannolis and cappuccinos), LifeTips is knee deep in new technology and great changes. All for the better! We currently have the best pool of writers that we've ever had and our writers community is coming together like never before. Keep up the good work, Writers! Keep updating your profiles, keep checking the job board every day and look for a new job board to be posted within the next few days. Our second job board will feature job listings that we expect will be coming through within the next month (this will give you a chance to jump on a project early. It's ok to call "DIBS!")

We will also be hosting a conference call with our Writer's Community on May 1st at 5pm. All of our writers have received an invitation to this, and if you happen to miss it, don't feel too bad. We will repost the call on our site later. The phone-in will feature Byron White, President and Founder of LifeTips. He will guide our writers through our new changes and he will offer great tips on how to get more involved and make yourself more marketable through LifeTips.  

So my tip to you Writers is to get active, get involved and get noticed on LifeTips via our Writers community! We look forward to working with each and every one of you.

“So, Carolyn, what’s cookin’ in the LifeTips kitchen? Any new projects I should keep my eye open for?”

What a great question. We do have some great projects available in the next week or two. Here is a list of topics for which we’ll be looking for writers:

·         Web domain name registration, web design and management services

·         Planning, organizing, and executing a fun-filled birthday party

·         How to live—and thrive—with a disability

·         Extended-stay housing

·         High-quality graphic design and custom printing

·         Eye health and wellness

·         Home theaters, big screen projectors, and surround-sound entertainment systems

·         Lockers and shelves

·         Pets (everyone’s favorite!)

Writers, check your job board regularly and apply to a topic that gets your creative juices flowing!

What makes a great tip? That’s the million-dollar question at LifeTips. To help demystify the secret of a fabulous, “oh my God I never knew this” tip, the editorial staff enlisted the help of Christopher Walken and the cowbell skit on Saturday Night Live.

In the sagacious words of Mr. Walken: “I gotta have more cowbell, baby!”

C: Clear, Concise, Compelling. Cut the fat and give us a juicy piece of meat (or tofu, if you’re vegetarian like me). We want bite-sized tips that deserve every second we spend sinking our teeth into them.

O: Optimized. You have your list of keywords, so make sure you use them naturally and buffer them with additional keywords.

W: Witty. Funny is good—we like to laugh. Wit is a fine craft, and if you use it skillfully your readers will ♥ you.

B: Bona fide. Original, authentic, FRESH. Give us something we’ve never seen before.

E: Educational. Enlighten us. We think we’re really smart, so bring us to our knees—humble us. Make us not worthy.

L: Language. Our job is easier when you use correct grammar, punctuation, and mechanics. We have standards people!

L: LifeTips. LifeTips has a fever, and the only prescription is more C.O.W.B.E.L.L.!

So you're a published writer with a career in magazines, newspapers or books, and you're trying to branch out into Web writing. Well, haven't you heard? It is the way of the future, you know. But what separates the greats from the mediocre in the virtual jungle?

1. Great Writing. Unfortunately, many individuals think that when it comes to writing all you need is an Internet connection, spell-check, Wikipedia and a pulse. NEWSFLASH! Great writing is created by fantastic writers who are also knowledgeable and able to research endless topics with accuracy. So if your writing experience boils down to a few covered-in-red papers in college, please don't apply.

2. Strategic Use of Keywords. Keywords are not provided as a mere suggestion, but a necessity. Include the keyword(s) in the middle of your content, and surround it with the suggested additional keywords. For the writers who have made a habit of tossing in a keyword at the beginning or end of a tip—you know who you are— think of the search engine bots as hungry kids, and your content as a rich, nougat center surrounded by chocolate yumminess.

3. Meet that Deadline. Although Web editors don’t need to print issues, we still have to post and deliver content in a timely manner. So as my esteemed colleague, Carolyn, puts it: don’t insult our intelligence by emailing us about your “bad Internet.” Just deliver.

Bias blinds many Internet users from maximizing their time spent monitoring online campaigns. They spend hours thinking of creative new strategies for PPC or for simple strategic SEO manipulations, but they completely miss the fact that both SEO and PPC are secret sisters and work together to bring you better search results.

The best thing about SEO is what the entire world already knows – it’s free! Well, sort of. If you don’t add in the time spent creating substantial content and the hours lapsed pulling relevant keywords, then it’s free, right?  Either way, it’s inarguably cheaper than PPC! PPC stands for pay per click and are the ads that show up on the side of your SERP (search engine results page) when someone searches for a keyword you optimize around.

If you do one or the other, SEO or PPC, you’re dividing the sisters and sisters love to work together. By optimizing the PPC ad text as well as the SEO meta description, title tag and content, you’ll be reuniting these long lost sisters – think Thelma and Louise minus the driving off a cliff!

When someone searches for a term that you have effectively optimized in both texts, you’re telling the Google bots to rank both of your ads. By doing this, the SERP will show both paid and organic ads, giving consumers the ability to mentally log how many times they see your name come up, become familiar with it, and then click on it, whether it be paid for or free. Don’t believe me? Click on the following link for stats:

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/146/report_display.asp

Enough about the sisterhood! It’s time for some fun. Check out this entertaining video on PPC best practices.

Reject. Rejected. Rejection. I know these aren’t nice words. But if you don’t like a tip, just reject it. Make sure, however, that you are very specific about why you're rejecting. Do this by:

a)      Telling us exactly what you want changed, or

b)      Pasting your revised tip into the comments box.

I promise you won’t hurt our feelings!