Let me explain..

Creative Connections

Loca is an arts and regeneration agency offered by Kirklees Council as part of its Creative Business Support Programme for artists and creative businesses within the Kirklees region which covers towns such as Huddersfield, Batley, Cleckheaton and of course Dewsbury to name just a few examples.

They run regular networking events under the moniker of ‘Creative Connections’ which feature a guest speaker. On this occasion I was asked to give an overview of Social Media and how artistic businesses could use it to their advantage.

I’ve posted more details about the mechanics of the actual event I spoke at here if you want to learn more.

Brief Encounters (Or Not So, Perhaps)

What made this networking event interesting to start off with was that it was held in a formally disused retail shop bang in the middle of Dewsbury town centre.

Encounters Shop Dewsbury

However it wasn’t any old shop.

For a start off it was previously a vacant shop (of which unfortunately Dewsbury has many) that the council has now taken over on a 2 year lease and has, in collaboration with an artistic collective called Encounters who go around occupying empty shops and then turning them into useable spaces for the local community, turned the shop into community resource.

Chalk Board Wall — Encounters Shop Dewsbury

The shop in Dewsbury I was presenting at was newly opened. Read more details about the shop with some pictures of it by following this link to the Encounters website.

An Introduction to Social Media

My presentation to a room of some 25 artists and creative business owners was an introduction to social media and how they could use it to market their creative businesses.

In my presentation I used my trusted little video “Social Media in Plain English” (below) which I’ve used several times and which always go down well by way of a simple explanation of how social media works for those that don’t know.

However, I needn’t have worried as just about everyone in the room was using social media in some form or other for their businesses and out of a lively open discussion at the end of my 20 minute slot, came some good uses of it.

Two examples of social media being used by people in the room were; Michael Lee Barrett a graphic artist, whom was already making good use of Twitter (@3m3lbi) and has built up a loyal following with his blog which showcases and discusses his work; his “Friday polaroid” feature is particularly popular he told me.

Adrian Burnham, an architectural and CAD designer, was just getting to grips with LinkedIn (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/adrianburnham ) and wanted some advice on how he could connect with people in his target market.

Other examples included a textile-rug artist who is using Flickr to showcase work and collaborate with his associates and a video artist who is using Vimeo to demonstrate his work.

(Sorry I don’t have the URLs for these people which is a shame I know!)

Tell Us Your Story

We’re you there at this event? Post a comment below and share with others your experiences of using social media and how you’ve used it to enhance, promote or add value to your creative business.

Photocredit: Rick Harrison of Forty Below Zero

I’ve been involved in the creative industry in some form or other for the last 10 years.

Whether it’s running my own web design agency, working with freelance graphic designers, illustrators, copy writers, web coders and photographers or perhaps advising on the strategic direction a business should take for its branding or online marketing.

Overall, it can be said that I’ve come across many people who produce artistic and creative work in the fields of design, writing, video, web or software: “creatives” as I call them!

The “creatives” I’ve worked with have produced work ranging from “wow” through to “that’ll do” but ultimately what they all have in common is that the work they produce has and continues to be; original i.e. it’s their own! Admittedly efforts may be influenced by trends in fashion or other creatives in their field of choice, but it’s certainly not plagiarized or blatantly ripped from the web. That’s one of the reasons why my company charges what it charges for the creative projects it delivers.

So, what I mean to say is; use us for bespoke work, then that’s what you’ll get.

However there’s people out there who don’t think or operate, as I do.

[Incidentally, it’s worth pointing out at this stage that my team of creatives no longer includes people who present work to the “that’ll do” standard!]

Plagiarism is Alive and Well on the Internet

If you produce original and readable content on your own web site such as articles or blog posts; which is exactly what internet business coaches like myself, bang on about all the time as the Holy Grail of strategies in order to build site visitor loyalty and high volumes of qualified traffic to a web site; then one of the downsides of doing so, is that less imaginative website owners, looking to find the same Holy Grail; are more likely to rip off your content and claim it as their own.

This practice is not only illegal under international copyright law, but is annoying, insulting and potentially damaging to your Google rankings under their duplicate content policies.

It’s a big problem for website owners that deliver original content.

So What Can You Do About It?

The quick answer to this question is “a lot” ranging from from a snotty request to remove it from the web through to court action. However, I’m not going to go into the whys and wherefores in this post.

Instead, I’d like to tell you a useful resource that constantly monitors the web and your website, compares the two and notifies you of potentially duplicate or ripped off content.

The cool tool I’m talking about is the popular CopyScape website.

Check it our for yourself, there’s a limited free service which gets you used to the service, you can add a warning logo to your web pages to forewarn potential plagiarizers and if brand and content protection are important to your business, then the commercia  fee paying service is well worth the investment.

Give it a try at www.copyscape.com

I’ve taken the risky step of installing the “DoFollow” WordPress Plugin onto this Blog as a means of encouraging more people to leave comments on my Blog Posts.

Now before I go any further it’s worth pointing out that I will be talking techie to some degree in this article but I ask you to please persevere because if you run your own Blog, you’ll find what I have to say interesting and if you use ‘Blog Commenting’ as a method of promoting your website, you’ll similarly learn something.

The NoFollow Link Attribute

As a reader, when you go to a WordPress based Blog (such as the one you’re reading now) you can, like most Blogging platforms; contribute to a post by submitting a comment about it. This comment then appears at the end of the post as a thread in a similar manner to what you’ll find on a message board or forum.

It’s one of the features that makes Blogging both interesting, interactive and therefore popular from the readers’ and writers’ perspective.

So for example if you were to submit a comment to this post, you’d fill in a few simple fields in the form at the end of it which would include your name and your website’s address and then submit the form.

Blog Commenting

When your comment is published, your name (or whatever text you enter into that field) is turned into a link to your website within the post’s comment.

Anchor Links

This type of link is called an Anchor Link. The HTML for such anchor links generally looks like this:

Anchor Text HTML

When the spider based search engines, such as Google, crawl a website in order to catalogue it; their Web Spiders or Robots search for links between pages and between websites. In that way they can travel around the web and take a view as to which are the most popular pages being visited as well as cataloging them for their databases.

By modifying the bog standard Anchor Link HTML code to include the attribute rel=“nofollow” one is able to control how Google’s indexing spider travels around a site and what pages it indexes. In effect the “nofollow” attribute stops Google’s spider from following a particular link to another page or website.

Anchor Text HTML with the noFollow Attribute

There are a number of reasons as to why a website owner would want to implement the “nofollow” attribute on a link, however I’m not going to go into the reasons why in this post, needless to say that WordPress by default, deploys the “nofollow” attribute to all Anchor Links posted as part of its blog comments.

Comment Spam

Search engine marketers know that one way, inbound links to website help build the PageRank value of the target website which in turn boosts its ranking in Google.

Unfortunately the unscrupulous web marketers also know this and as result, blogs have become targets for large volumes of pointless and often irrelevant, comments. ‘Comment Spam’ as it is known as marketers try and build the number of inbound links to a particular website.

It’s an issue of great annoyance to anyone who runs a blog.

To counteract this many of the blog software providers such as WordPress now incorporates the “nofollow” attribute automatically into the links created in their comment posts. This stops Google following a link through to its destination website and as such, contributing to its PageRank value.

Still with me?

DoFollow

So whilst I want to discourage Comment Spam as much as the next man (I’ve also installed the Askimet plugin to counteract it), I also want to encourage legitimate comments on my posts which will contribute to the PageRank value of the commentators website.

Hence the need to remove the “nofollow” attribute from WordPress’ default comment posting settings.

The DoFollow plugin from SemioLogic does this nicely.

Got a WordPress Blog yourself? Then read this useful thread and then download the Plugin for yourself.

I collate the feed from each of the Blogs I susbscribe to, together in a feed aggregator which for me is Google Reader. This handy little tool means I can pick and choose which Blog post to read at any particular time through a single web page without having to keep revisiting each Blog site that I subscribe to to check for updates. In this way feed aggregators are a great time-saving application.

So Much Choice

However, when faced with so many Blog headlines in my Reader, I have decision to make: which particular post, if any, do I read first over another? As you’ve probably figured, its the post’s headline that helps me decide. Think about your daily newspaper, which article’s do you read first? The ones where the headline grabs your attention right?

Motivate Your Readers

So if you regularly write posts for your own Blog, how do you make sure people are drawn to your posts and are suitably motivated to read them?

The answer is good headline writing.

So with this in mind, here are my  top 10, dead cert headline writing techniques for good, attention grabbing headlines for your Blog posts:

1. Who Else Wants [blank]?
   Starting a headline with “Who Else Wants…” is a classic sales strategy that implies there is already an existing desire for something and tends to prompt an “I do” or “Me too” response.
   • Who Else Wants a Successful Website?
   • Who Else Wants a Higher Paying Job?
   • Who Else Wants More Fun and Less Stress Whilst on Holiday?
2. The Secret of [blank]
   This one is used quite a lot, but that’s because it works. Share insider knowledge about a particular subject and translate it into a benefit for the reader.
   • The Secret of Successful Marketing
   • The Secret of Dressing for Success
   • The Secret of Keeping Solvent in a Recession
3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
   Simply identify your target audience and the benefit you can provide them, and fill in the blanks.
   • Here is a Method That is Helping Homeowners Save Money on Insurance
   • Here is a Method That is Helping the Self-Employed to Lower their Tax Bills
   • Here is a Method That is Helping Bloggers Write Better Post Headlines
4. Little Known Ways to [blank]
   A more intriguing (and less common) way of achieving the same thing as “The Secret of…” headline above.
   • Little Known Ways to Save on Your Gas Bills
   • Little Known Ways to Build Visitors to Your Website
   • Little Known Ways to Lose Weight Quickly and Safely
5. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
   A classic formula that identifies either a painful problem or an unfulfilled desire that the reader wants to remedy.
   • Get Rid of Your Time Wasting Habits Once and For All
   • Get Rid of That Bad Breath Once and For All
   • Get Rid of SPAM Once and For All
6. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
   People love quick and easy routes to solving a niggling problem that they may have.
   • Here’s a Quick Way to Get Over a Hangover
   • Here’s a Quick Way to Make More Money
   • Here’s a Quick Way to Manage Your Employees
7. Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
   The is the classic “have your cake and eat it too” headline — a great motivator.
   • Now You Can Quit Your Job and Make Even More Money
   • Now You Can Lose Weight and Still Eat What You Want
   • Now You Can Own That Dream Car for the Same Cost as Your Old One
8. [Do something] like [world-class example]
   This one uses high achievers or celebrates that people may aspire as examples of where the reader ‘can be’ if they read your post.
   • Speak French Like a Native
   • Party Like Guns and Roses
   • Tweet Like Stephen Fry
9. Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
   Appeals to vanity, dissatisfaction, or shame.
   • Build a Design Portfolio You Can Be Proud Of
   • Have a Smile You Can Be Proud Of
   • Build a Network You Can Be Proud Of
10. What Everybody Should Know About [blank]
    Big curiosity draw with this type of headline as it acts almost as a challenge to the reader to go ahead and see if they are missing something.
    • What Everybody Should Know About Writing Great Headlines
    • What Everybody Should Know About Variable Rate Mortgage
    • What Everybody Should Know About Employing Staff

So there you have it, ten great tips for writing attention grabbing headlines for your blog posts. What’s stopping you?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the biggest ‘grey areas’ in online marketing. It is full of jargon, confusion and misinterpretation.

I like making things easy, SEO included. So what I am going to do in this article is to go through some of the bare basics of SEO that you, as a small business owner, can implement into your website. This article is not intended for experienced SEO gurus and experts who always seem to comment on ‘basic SEO’ blogs that the content is too simplified. This article is for people who know nothing about SEO or have been told a whole bunch of jargon about it and want to understand it slightly better to get a general jest of it.

SEO is not a quick fix, however, and using the easy methods below will not suddenly catapult you to the top of Google. Successful SEO is made up of many (hundreds, even) factors and contributors and requires patience. To achieve good results, not all factors and contributors need to be met – doing a few of them very well can be enough.

Ok, so obviously you need some good keywords/keyphrases that you want to be found for in the search engines (different search engines like different things in terms of SEO, but that is another article in itself!). For the purposes of this article, I will use the old favourite, ‘Blue Widgets’, as our keyphrase.

Website Optimisation

Depending on how your website is made, it will have the following basic options for you to edit (in no particular order of importance):

• Meta Keywords
• Meta Descriptions
• Page Title
• ALT Text for images
• Body Text
• H1 Headings
• Bold Text
• Anchor Text

Within the above, you will want to have a good density of your keywords/keyphrases (“Blue Widgets”). A basic way of looking at the above for our keyphrase would be like this:

• Meta Keywords: (Meta keywords are made for search engines only — so that they easily grasp your page’s most important topics. There is a special meta keywords tag, which is supposed to briefly list the topics of your webpage. And it is wise to put your most valuable keywords into it. A meta keywords tag is not obligatory, and some sites do not make it at all. Still it takes so little time to make that if you are serious about optimizing your page, there is simply no reason why you shouldn’t have a good meta keywords tag)Blue, widgets, blue widgets
• Meta Description: (this is just a short sentence/paragraph to describe the website/business – must make sense to read in continuous prose! Search engines look at a page’s meta description to find out what your page is about. You also see meta descriptions quite often – if you make a search in Google and look at the results, you will see some text under each link in the results page. Most often, these texts are pages’ meta descriptions. Meta description may not be extremely important for optimization, but still you have to make sure it looks attractive to search engines and to people)Blue widgets supplier based in London can supply all types of blue widgets and can deliver in the UK. For all blue widgets, contact Blue Widgets Ltd for a competitive quote.
• Page Title: (Search engines pay certain attention to titles, and show them in their results pages. this is also the text at the top of your Internet browser’s window)Blue Widgets – London based Blue Widget Supplier
• ALT (Alternative) Text for images: (The image alt text is used to display text when an image cannot be seen, for example in the case someone visits your page with a browser that has image loading turned off to let pages load faster. Obviously, using alt text makes sense for humans: many users prefer to work with images disabled. What is more important for you now, alt image attributes also have value for search engine optimization. Search engines cannot read figures or letters that are drawn on images. They only read normal text. Your keywords may look fantastic and eye-catching on an image — but the only guarantee that Google.co.uk (pages from the UK) will see them is the alt text. Therefore making alt text attributes and including your keywords into them is another efficient SEO technique)Blue widgets, blue widgets LondonThis method used to attract lots of abuse by people ‘stuffing’ lots of keywords ‘behind’ the image. Don’t do it!
• Body Text: You want to strike a good balance between keyword density (how many times you mention your keyword) and keyword prominence (how early on the page your keywords appear). You must write your body text (and much of the website, for that matter) with a human visitor in mind and not for the search engines. If the site has good, fresh content and is regularly updated the search engines will come and find you anyway. Your body text needs to make sense to human readers whilst having your keyphrase mentioned within the text.
• H1 Headings (and H2, H3…): In HTML code, headings are marked with h1 to h6 tags. These tags simply define the size of your headings, as they appear to the user. Among these six levels of headings, h1 is the biggest one and h6 the smallest. This is an example of an h1 tag: <>Blue Widgets< /h1 >As we want our headlines, titles and other important things to look prominent, we normally put them into h-tags. And just like people think that the most prominent text on the page is more important than the rest, search engines pay more attention to what is written within h-tags. It is important to them how you use your keywords in headings. The biggest heading, h1, is most important to search engines. So to get a better ranking, use your major keywords correctly in h1 tags.
• Bold Text:When a website is ‘read’ by Google, bold text stands out. Simple as! If you can put your keyphrases in bold through your body text whilst still maintaining the theme of the website, go for it!
• Anchor Text: Anchor text is when a keyword/keyphrase is linked to another webpage. Commonly known as a hyperlink. For example, instead of having a link to ‘www.google.co.uk’ an anchor is the word ‘Search Engine’ which is clickable and takes you to whatever website it is linked to.A good practice to consider is to find relevant websites to yours that have a good reputation and are legitimate (i.e. not ‘link farms’) and asking the owner of the website to link back to your site, using an anchor link. So instead of them linking to www.bluewidgets.com you would ask them to link to that site, but using the words ‘Blue Widges’.Remember, each link pointing back to your website is seen as a vote of confidence in your website. You just have to be careful what sort of sites you put your link on.

There is much more to talk about, especially anchor texts and building links pointing back to your website. By looking at the above sections of your website, you will have started some basic SEO.

Remember, having a website is like a shop. If nobody can find your shop, you won’t do much business through it!

Suraj Sodha is the operator of CityLocal in Brent, UK. Brent and Harrow’s’s premier business directory and local community website which is a valuable site for the local community — providing local news, local events and local property listings. If you have a business in the Brent and Harrow region contact Suraj on suraj@citylocal.co.uk to discuss getting your business listed in CityLocal Brent.

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