SEO, web copywriting & internet marketing

Traditionally, we’re all taught to use capital letters (upper case) in titles and names (proper nouns), as well as at the start of sentences. And, most people write things in CAPS if they want to draw attention to it.

This is all very well in print – but capital letters just lose their appeal on the web because they’re hard to read.

However, this doesn’t mean we should ditch them – just cut down on their use in your web copywriting.

What’s the point of capital letters?

Capital letters are supposed to draw the eye to the start of something important. That’s why we should use them at the beginning of sentences and in names.

But overuse them and the web reader starts to get confused:

• Which bit is important?
• Is that a name?
• Why is that capped?

It’s especially confusing if your site has links and navigation on most of the pages – use too many caps, and your users won’t be sure what to click on next.

Capital letters also take longer to read than lower case – so Something Like This will take longer to read than something like this. And we all know how web users like to scan a page and get what they want quickly.

That’s why think we should use sentence case for all web content, including headings and links. Unless of course it’s a proper noun like Thomas Hallett – it’ll look odd otherwise. And we don’t want to upset the traditionalists too much!

ALL CAPS

I think we should also avoid using ALL UPPER CASE. Even for titles and section headings. Because:

1. IT DOESN’T LOOK VERY GOOD, and

2. IT’S HARDER TO READ (see?)

This is because we can tell what a word is by its shape. And capital letters don’t have a distinctive shape at the top and bottom – so they all look the same when you look at them quickly.

Some web writing gurus will say that using ALL CAPS for some content is ok. And after experimenting with title case text for the main navigation links on this website, I have to agree – the navigation (home, about me etc.) looks much better in caps. But it depends on the design of your site – I always recommend using sentence case where you can.

Using caps in page titles

Ok, I know it sounds like I hate caps. But I do have a habit of using Title Case in page titles (the bit right at the top of your web browser which uses the <title>tag in the source).

This is because this bit also appears on the search engine results pages and somebody once told me that using title case here can increase click-throughs from a search engine results page (SERP) ever so slightly.

Which reminds me, I must test that out…

Bad weather closed schools, offices and workplaces across the Southampton area this week.

As a result of the snow I’ve seen lots of businesses putting special messages on their website home pages warning customers of reduced opening hours, longer delivery times, unmanned phones and closed offices.

Quick and easy access

This is all very well if you can get in the office and easily update your site. But in my experience, many small business websites are not set up to allow quick and easy page editing – in many instances they have either no easy access via a CMS, or only have access to product or catalogue pages, or pages that are updated regularly.

There’s also a question of design – will a special message or announcement fit easily into your home page layout?

So in many instances, you’d have to ask your web developer to update the page. This usually costs money and time even if it’s a relatively simple job.

A Twitter widget could be the answer

Twitter is potentially a great way to keep in touch with customers and keep them updated. But you can also use it to keep your website updated by adding a Twitter widget to your site.

A widget is basically a chunk of code you can add to your site, which is updated every time the source (this case, your Twitter feed) publishes new content.

Here’s an example of a Twitter widget for my Twitter feed which I’ve embedded in this post:

Here’s another example of a Twitter widget in action on the Velvet Buses website (a bus company based in Eastleigh). See the widget in the left-hand menu on each page.

If you’re not very tech-savvy, you’ll probably have to ask a web developer to add it to your home page. But once it’s there, it will update each time you update your Twitter feed. And the beauty of Twitter is that you can update from anywhere as long as you have access to a web connection. You can even text your updates to Twitter – handy if you’re stuck in a snow drift on the way to the office.

Engage, engage, engage

Of course, with Twitter and other social media, you can’t just set up an account and hope for the best.

And while keeping customers up to date with company news is one good use of Twitter, you have to actively participate in conversations and engage with the Twitter community to get the best out of it.

If you have a small business, you may not have the time, resources or the budget to start a full-on SEO campaign for your website.

Here are 4 ‘do-it-yourself‘ ways you can make your website more visible in Google. Although these actions will take some (minimal) time to implement, you should be able to do them yourself without the need for extra resources and costs such as web developers. (I’ve mentioned where you might need extra skills or the services of a web developer.)

1. Make sure your page titles are unique

The title is the text in the source of each of your web pages between the <title> and </title> tags. The title then appears in the top of your web browser like this:

It also appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs) as the link to your site like this:

It’s important that all pages that have been indexed by Google (i.e the pages that Google has access to) all have unique titles.

To find out what pages have been indexed and if there are any duplicates you can do a manual search of your site by typing site:yourURL into the Google search box (for example site:http://thomashallett.co.uk). You can also use Google Webmaster Tools – log in and go to ‘diagnostics’ and then ‘HTML suggestions’. Webmaster Tools will tell you if it sees any duplicate titles on your site.

If you don’t have a content management system (CMS), it’s usually quite easy to update the title tags on your site without the need for a web developer – you just need access to the page files via an FTP client (your website hosting company should be able to give you your FTP login details).

Then:

1. Save the file you want to update on your PC.
2. Save a backup copy (in case you mess anything up).
3. Open the file in a text editor like Notepad.
4. Find the text between the <title> and </title> tags and amend to something unique, then save.
5. Replace the old file in your FTP client – your changes will now be live.

If you don’t feel confident accessing your files through an FTP client you could make a list of the pages you want to change then ask your web developer to send you the files. Then once you have made the changes they can do the last step, although they may charge for this.

2. Appear in ‘local’ searches

Ensure you have an up-to-date Google Maps listing for your business, especially if you cover specific local areas.

A listing on Google Maps is like an entry in the Yellow Pages. It means your business has a chance of being found when a potential customer does a related search on Google Maps. Google also sometimes display maps listing in their main search engine results pages (SERPs) giving potential customers another way of finding information about your business and accessing your website. If you have several offices or locations, include a Google Maps listing for each one.

If you have a .com website, you can also set your ‘geographic target’ in Google Webmaster Tools – go to ’site configuration’ then ’settings’. So if you serve only the UK, set the geographic target to ‘United Kingdom’.

To improve your site’s visibility on Google for local search queries, you can also do the following although you may need help from a web developer depending on your skills and your content management system (CMS):

• Include a footer with your business’s address and nearby locations – for example: ‘Based in Southampton, we also cover Totton, Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh, Hedge End and Fareham’.
• Make sure your site has a ‘contact us’ page or similar, again with your address details and areas you cover.
• Try to mention your location and areas you serve in the title tag and main body of text on your home page and other relevant pages. For example, if you are a pub in Southampton, the title of your main page might be: <title>Real Ale Pub | The Nag’s Head in Southampton, Hampshire</title>

3. Make sure your home page isn’t duplicated

Do the site:yourURL search again on Google.

Sometimes you’ll find that Google has indexed two or more versions of your home page – for example, if different versions of the page exist at http://www.yoursite.co.uk, http://www.yoursite.co.uk/home and http://yoursite.co.uk, Google could index all of them. This means that any of these URLs could be used by other sites to link to your home page. So the SEO benefits of having links to your home page (‘votes’ in Google’s eyes) could be diluted across each version of the page as Google will see each version as a unique page.

Ideally you’ll want to set up a permanent 301 redirect to the page you want Google to index as your home page. But this will usually involve some work by your web developer. And some of the smaller web hosting companies don’t allow you to set up a 301 redirect.

Instead you can add the canonical tag to your home page. As with amending your page titles above, you’ll need access to your home page’s main file via FTP. Then:

1. Save the file you want to update on your PC.
2. Save a backup copy (in case you mess anything up).
3. Open the file in a text editor like Notepad.
4. Find the <head> section in the code. It should be near the top of the document and will start with <head> and end with </head>
5. Somewhere in the <head> section, add <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.yoursite.co.uk” /> (with www.yoursite.co.uk being your preferred URL for your home page).
6. Save, then replace the old file in your FTP client – your changes will now be live and Google will use your preferred URL as the page to index.

4. Ask for inbound links

You probably know that link building is an important part of an SEO campaign. And you’ve probably heard that getting good links can take a lot of time and effort.

But this doesn’t meant you can’t do your own link building. Ask for links from other websites and businesses you have good relationships with.  For example, customers, suppliers and other local websites such as your local Chamber of Trade & Commerce or community websites.

Links like this will help your rankings and potentially deliver new business opportunities.