The first step in optimizing your online presence is making sure you have a website worth optimizing. That means creating a site that your target visitors will be glad they found once they arrive, and will spend some time with because the site provides the information they need in an easy-to-find manner.

It’s like planning a large event or party in your home. If you had a noisy furnace, an unfinished bathroom, or paint peeling on your eaves, you’d want to take care of those issues before you send out invitations. Your website similarly has to be in great shape before you “invite” visitors to it through optimization.

Four key elements of designing an effective business website are:

• • Technology (Platform)
• • Graphic Design
• • Information Architecture
• • Content

Technology

The first decision is the technology, or platform, the site will be built on. The options are almost endless, from custom code, to a development environment such as Adobe DreamWeaver, to hosted content management systems (CMS) options, to free platforms like WordPress. Among the key considerations to keep in mind when selecting a platform are:

Capabilities—will the platform support the sophistication of your design? Do you need extra features, like a built-in CRM system, the ability to easily integrate with external systems, create secure areas of the site, or manage ecommerce transactions?

Usability—does the platform make it easy for non-technical users to add or update content? Is it easy to add new pages and even entire new sections to the site?

Search engine friendliness—does the platform or tool produce clean, W3C-vaild underlying code? Is it easy to add meta tags and customize page URLs? Most modern CMS systems are relatively search-friendly, but this is a critical component for optimization, so do some investigation to make sure the platform you select is strong in this area. One way to check is to run the URLs of some other sites built on the tool through a tool like Website Grader to see how well they score (though keep in mind that factors other than just code quality can affect these scores).

Scalability—will the platform chosen support the planned size and complexity of your website, as well as providing room for growth?

Mobility—though website visits from smart phones and tablets currently accounts for only seven percent of online traffic worldwide, that figure is expected to grow rapidly. Make sure your chosen platform can serve up an optimized experience on both desktop and mobile devices (and automatically detect the visitor’s device) without a separate mobile development effort.

Make this decision carefully as you will be essentially “stuck” with your chosen platform until you reach a point where you need to redesign your site—depending on your industry and growth rate, generally two to five years. Avoid obscure platforms that force you to rely on a single consultant or agency for support.

Graphic Design

Effects Like Transparency and Typography Can Enhance Website Design

Though design considerations are often subjective, two key questions to ask when developing the overall look and feel of your website (fonts, colors, images and other design elements) are:

• • Does the design reflect the “personality” of our brand (e.g. bold, conservative, leading-edge, safe, sophisticated, intelligent, friendly)?
• • Will the design appeal to our target audience?

Special effects such as texture, transparency, typography and motion can enhance a design and provide a distinctive look—but these should be used carefully to enhance the user experience, not simply to “dress up” the site in ways that don’t help the user, or worse, that make the site seem complex and confusing.

Information Architecture

Possibly the most critical element of website design, this is the “map” of your site: what information will be included, where, and how different areas of information be connected. And the single most important consideration in developing your information architecture is your audiences: your website shouldn’t be about what information you want to provide, but rather about what information your key audiences want and need in order to engage with you.

The primary audience for most business websites is sales prospects. To determine their needs, first identify them as precisely as possible by title, role, industry and other attributes. Then put yourself in their shoes: why are they looking for information? What are their burning issues? What information do they need when they come to your site—at different stages in their buying process? How can you help move them through that process, and convert them into identifiable leads?

Secondary audiences may include existing customers, prospective employment candidates, investors, analysts (industry or financial), partners, and the media. Most of these groups are likely to have some information needs in common with your sales prospects, as well as some unique needs. Make sure your site meets the information needs of these audiences without detracting from the prospective buyer experience.

The output of this stage of the design process is an information architecture map, which may look something like this:

This information architecture map also serves as a guide for scoping out the work required to create the new site; establishing priorities; collecting any required images or website assets; and assigning content to writers.

Content

Content should be developed using two primary guides: the information architecture map (what to write), and keyword research (how to write it). Keyword research helps to identify the specific phrases your prospects most commonly use when searching for your types of products and/or services, as well to determine which terms have the best potential for optimization.

Knowing the keywords and topics, writers should be able to develop content that answers the five key questions every business website needs to address:

• • Who are you?
• • What do you sell?
• • Who do you sell to?
• • Why are you the best?
• • How do I buy from you?

Once you’ve designed and developed a site that uses a search-friendly platform, is designed and written with your key audiences in mind, and answers the questions and potential concerns of your sales prospects , you have a site truly worth optimizing as the core of your web presence.

Writing has always been a demanding vocation, but the challenge of producing copy that stands out and compels people to action in today’s environment of sensory overload is uniquely daunting. Sentences must be short. Ideas must be explicit. Prose must be lucid. Benefits must be explained in a clear and compelling manner using the language of the reader. Flowery copy and “corporate speak” are definitely out the window. Attention is a scarce commodity; you won’t get much of it, so use what you get as well as you can.

Below are five posts from outstanding writers that will help you write copy that gets found, read, and acted upon.

7 steps to writing killer sales copy by Mike Consol

In this guest post, Patrick Schwerdtfeger outlines the “Motivating Sales Sequence” sales process and how it relates to copy writing, starting with getting their attention (“The opening sentences need to jolt your readers to attention.”) and concluding with a call to action (“Be specific. Explain exactly what you want the reader to do.”).

How to Create Remarkable B2B Content by Savvy B2B Marketing

Stephanie Tilton shares a half-dozen ideas for developing content that stands out from the online clutter, such as showing how your product or service stacks up against the competition: “a majority of tech buyers want content comparing a vendor’s offering to the competition as they get further along in the buying cycle. Yet few companies put out competitive comparisons for public consumption…(many) organizations are averse to taking this step, but the problem is that your prospects are looking for this information. And if you don’t offer it but your competitors do, guess who’ll make the short list of potential vendors.”

SEO As a Copywriting Tool by iMedia Connection

Daniel Flamberg argues that far from being a straitjacket on the competitive process, incorporating SEO keyword research and knowledge into web copyrighting is essential and an opportunity missed if not employed; “Effective key words and phrases can be creative cues for other forms of branded customer engaging messaging. But too few creatives mine the insights from SEO analytics.”

25 SEO copywriting tips and content ideas you can implement today by Success Works

Heather Lloyd-Martin offers an excellent list of tips to keep handy when crafting search-optimized web copy.

How to write for the web: 23 useful rules by eConsultancy

Conceding that “rules are always there to be broken,” Chris Lake nevertheless proceeds to provide 23 rules—or guidelines if you prefer—for successful web writing, including writing the opening paragraph last, keeping sentences short, limiting yourself to one comma per sentence (helps you stick to the previous rule), and following the “wiggly left margin” rule.

Now that content marketing has turned every marketer into a publisher, writing skills are more important than ever. Want to launch a successful blog? That takes great writing. Maximize the impact of Twitter for your business? It takes great writing to convey meaning and achieve impact in only 140 characters. Use article marketing to spread your fame and generate links for SEO? Optimize LinkedIn profiles? Write a script for a potentially viral YouTube video? All require great writing.

No one is born a great writer, but anyone with the proper cerebral architecture can learn the skills. Read on for some of the best tips on great copy writing in the past year, from recognized authorities such as Newt Barrett, Ardath Albee and Copyblogger.

Take 5 Minutes Now to Learn How to Write Great Headlines by Content Marketing Today

Newt Barrett reviews Tom Whitwell’s online presentation on writing great headlines, noting that a well-crafted headline can increase readership by a factor of 10 or 20.  Tom sums up the task as “working out what the story is, what your reader will respond to, and how to squeeze all the goodness into 68 characters.”

Don’t Do These 12 Things When Writing Headlines by Copyblogger

While the post above focuses on how to write great headlines, Jonathan Morrow here explains a dozen headline writing mistakes to avoid, such as trying to be too clever, ignoring the needs of readers, and settling for less than your best.

The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words and Phrases by SpeedyWap

The misuse, and proper use, of common terms such as “alright” (it’s not a word), “unique” (a word so definative it needs no modifier) and “inflammable” (George Carlin had the greatest line about this: “why do we have flammable, inflammable, and non-inflammable? Seems to me two words should be able to take care of that; either it flams or it doesn’t”).

Darth Blogger’s Holiday Writing Rant by ToughSledding

Along the same lines as the post above, Bill Sledzik shares his list of tragically common writing gaffes from PR students, including using “due to” in place of “because” and starting a sentence with “there is.” My favorite: “Lifeless verbs strangle sentences.”

B2B Marketing Content Turn Offs by Marketing Interactions

Ardath Albee warns writers to avoid seven deadly sins in b2b content writing, such as the use of jargon/hype/fluff and ambiguous takeaways.

Marcom A to Z — J for Jargon by converge

Anna Baxter Kirk explains why jargon isn’t always bad, but advises writers to “beware overused, misunderstood jargon, and terms so obscure that, outside of a certain industry, profession or group, no one will understand.”

A B2B marketing message angle that could close sales by B2BMarketingSmarts

***** 5 stars
Susan Fantle lists the top 10 marketing motivators in the b2b world (e.g. make money, save money, save time), plus a very powerful bonus 11th motivator.

Get Maximum Exposure for Your Content through Syndication by Internet Marketing for Business Owners

Jarom Adair discusses various applications for spreading content automatically through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Any type of marketing copywriting is a blend of art and science. Writing for the web involves requires as much art as any other form, plus another level of science.

Here are some tools, tips and guidance for crafting more effective and compelling web copy, from among the best articles and blog posts on web and SEO copywriting from last year.

12 Tips for Writing Effective Internet Marketing Copy (Keywords are King) by Internet Marketing Post

Jennifer Norene provides an excellent set of tips for newbies and reminders for experienced copywriters for writing effective web copy, such as focusing on 2-3 keywords per page, using your customers’ language, breaking up long blocks of copy with subheads, and aiming for about 500 words per page.

Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Keyword Balance by WebProNews

Doug Caverly provides some brief but helpful reminders about effective web copywriting from Heather Lloyd-Martin at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference, like don’t overdo keyword stuffing; write with the buying cycle in mind (awareness, research, purchase); and using FAQ pages, how-to articles, blog posts and archived newsletters to extend your SEO potential.

Ten Copywriting Tips for B2B SEO by Search Engine Land

Galen DeYoung offers tips for meeting the unique challenges faced by B2B copywriters, such as watch the lingo, don’t be afraid of long copy, and use image “captions as another opportunity to sell to the prospect and another opportunity to influence search results.”

SEO Copywriting Tools and Resources by Internet Marketing Blog

Following up on his earlier post about 10 favorite free keyword tools, Frank Levert presents eight “free online SEO copywriting tools and resources that can help you write content with more style and vocabulary,” including Readability Test (a tool to help determine if you’ve written at the right level for your intended audience), Synonym.com (free online thesaurus) and Rhymer (a rhyming dictionary).

Discover The Top 3 Crucial Tips You Must Know To Create Powerful Headlines and Stop Losing Sales by SiteProNews

Noting that “With only a few seconds to grab the attention of your site visitor and pull them into your site, your headline is the most important element of your website,” Jennifer Horowitz lays out a three-step process to produce headlines that grab readers’ attention and compel them to read your body copy.

Master the 4 Cs of Quality Content to Create Sparkling Results by Copyblogger

Sonia Simone has written a beautifully crafted piece correlating the 4Cs “that differentiate a fabulously expensive, brilliant diamond from an industrial-grade one” with great writing: clarity (content must be clear in order to be persuasive), cut (judicious editing is critical), color (use stories and details to add life to writing) and carat (real value, not lightweigth fluff).

Seven Building Blocks of a Destination Website: #6 Voice by Search Engine Guide

The prolofic Stoney deGeyter explains how voice gives your website a unique personality, the different types of voice and examples of each: humorous, thoughtful, down-to-earth and others.

25 Random Points about Copywriting by Conversation Marketing

And finally, in possibly one of the most useful and certainly one of the most entertaining posts written about writing last year, Ian Lurie supplies both guidance and inspiration with tips and observations such as:

• Great internet marketing starts with copy that’s concise.
• You can make great stuff happen with great writing and a lousy web site. Try the opposite, though. I dare ya.
• The best way to cultivate that skill, next to writing for 3 hours a day, is to read. Watching TV with subtitles does not count.

There you have it, the best writing on writing from 2008.

Want to know how to write more effective marketing and sales copy? Avoid common grammar and usage mistakes that diminish the impact of your writing? Craft more compelling headlines and ads? Combat dreaded “writer’s block”?

Then read on—you’ll discover these answers and more in the blog posts reviewed here, some of the best of 2008 on writing great sales and marketing copy.

Copywriting: 7 Ways To Trigger Emotions by Self SEO

After stating “all human beings buy on emotion. With that in mind, here are 7 ways to trigger emotions in your copy,” Lisa Packer shows how to effectively add emotional appear to B2B or B2C writing in this brief but insightful post.

See Like An Outsider In 3 Not-So-Easy (But Worth It) Steps by GrokDotCom

“Insiders” in any business or industry develop their own jargon over time. While this can serve as useful shorthand for communication within the organization or community, it also creates a barrier between that group and the rest of the world (e.g., does anyone who’s not immersed in SEO know or care what “canonicalization” means?). Marketers need to be able to shed this jargon in order to be able to communicate effectively with customers and prospects who don’t use this insider language, don’t know what it means, and couldn’t care less. Jeff Sexton provides three helpful techniques to help anyone who’s been “inside” for a while to take an outsider’s perspective in order to produce more effective, relevant copy.

Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When You Write? by Copyblogger

Brian Clark tells you how to avoid common grammatical and language usage errors that can ruin the impact of your writing by making people “assume you’re dumb” (though I’m sure he meant “stupid” rather than “unable to speak”). He sounds a bit like your 8th-grade English teacher, but with a much more entertaining style. Many more examples of common mistakes are provided within the 237 (or so) comments to this post, including one from Ford’s Scott Monty. Another of Brian’s most entertainingly educational posts of last year was The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words.

Rocket Skates or Running Shoes, Just Make It Interesting by StraightUpSearch

Marketing writers are often tasked with writing something interesting about a topic they know little or nothing about; this post provides some guidance in how to accomplish that, such as “Instead of saying ‘driving fast is dangerous‘ in four or five different ways, show the reader why it’s dangerous; give them broken glass, emergency rooms, and sedans wrapped around telephone poles.”

Power Headlines To Increase Conversion by Marketing Tips Blog

Jenn Blanchard contends that, when crafting headlines that compel readers to want to learn more about your topic, “Certain ‘power’ words and phrases consistently outshine other words.” She then provides a list of 57 such phrases such as “7 Sure-Fire Tips For… ” and “Do You Wish There Was An Easier Way to…” Although targeted at writing sales letters, the phrases in this post can serve as an inspiration when writing blog posts, ad copy, white papers and other types of collateral as well.

Six Ways to Instantly Find the Right Words by Copyblogger

Chris Garrett shares “tips for producing great copy even when your brain is not cooperating,” such as starting in the middle, taking a short break to refresh your mind, and “rubberducking.”

Copywriting – Write Ads That Get Customers and Cash Fast by Angela Booth’s Creativity Factor

Copywriting expert Angela Booth explains how to write compelling ad copy using “a simple formula: HPSA. It’s an acronym for Headline, Pain, Solution, Action. HPSA works for any kind of ad, from a simple classified ad to a long direct response sales letter, whether for the Web or print.” She advises starting by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and understanding their pains, then clearly describing how your product/service alleviates that pain and the next steps to take.