This week our SEO team has finally been able to implement Word Vision, our super-human proprietary search engine optimization tool. Byron likes to describe it as “super-human” because, with a little bit of guidance from our SEO wizards Michelle and Joyel, Word Vision does the leg work of finding SEO trends, hot topics, and popular keywords. Our ladies simply upload keywords and content into the user interface and let Word Vision work its magic. Over the span of one to two weeks, we check back with reports on listing migration patterns, PPC price, and search volume. This data helps Michelle and Joyel write the most effective title tags and meta descriptions, as well as guide the content the editorial team and our writers subsequently create to leverage these results even further.

It’s the next generation of SEO—finally we are able to measure the impact of our Tip & Advice Centers and Sponsorships that our beloved writers put so much love and elbow grease into making. It’s ROI for our clients and a pat on the back for a job well done by our writers.

We had a choco-rific birthday celebration for our president Byron White this week. Not only did the team gorge ourselves on German chocolate cake from North End super-bakery Mike’s Pastries, we got a trip down LifeTips memory lane with stories about the good-ol’-days of Byron as a fledgling entrepreneur. Our company has come a long way from Byron working by himself in a basement charging $25 a pop for services! Needless to say, it was an uplifting sugar-high of a Wednesday afternoon.

Happy birthday, Byron! Cheers to more years of growing LifeTips, serving our clients, and making happy memories!

Does your company have its own internal style guide? If so, send it to your sitting LifeTips editor at the start of a project so that we can give it to the writer before he or she starts writing your tips and/or articles.

Having this information up front helps the writer capture the voice and language that reflects your brand. It takes out the guesswork. And when I edit the content, I can tune my eye to be aware of style nuances— such as Oxford commas, trademarks, and legal boundaries—unique to your company.

In the end, sharing this information up front saves you time from having to reject content. At LifeTips, we strive for zero rejections with every project.

If your company is thinking of making its own style guide, click here for helpful hints.

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!

What does “separation of church and state” mean? Get ready for a new twist. At LifeTips, the phrase means keeping promotional product copy “tips” separate from informational/advice-oriented tips. We present the informational tip first, followed by the product tip—labeled just so: “Product Tip”—in italics. The label and the italics show that we are honest about our promotion and not trying to sneak it into regular tips.

So why bother with the separation? Good question. Honesty, for one. People browsing your Tip & Advice Center are likely there because they want information, advice, answers, knowledge, tips. They want to learn something new, not have your products shoved down their throat in the form of marketing copy overload.

The more you can give people what they want in the form of valuable information, the more likely they are to post links back to your website, bookmark you, and consider you an authority in your space. Search engine spider bots will love this as much as your readers love your organic content, catapulting your website to higher search rankings. And guess what? When people trust you they are more likely to buy your products. All they have to do is click on the link in your Product Tip and take out their credit card.

Information/trust + higher search engine rankings = more conversions.  That’s a concept our forefathers would be proud of.