We are now looking for experienced Content Writers to complement our existing workforce. In addition, due to our European client base, we are also keen to embrace bilingual expertise. This is a fabulous time to join the business where you will have the opportunity to demonstrate your skills and be an influential part of our future growth plans.

Our employees are passionate and dedicated to being part of the business’s success in the European Internet Marketing sector. As such, we are committed to our employees’ career aspirations where we value and reward their contribution and effort.

Should you be interested in discussing these opportunities or wish to find out more about Just Search please contact:

HR@justsearch.co.uk

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Just one mention of the phrase ‘going forward’ and you could be losing readers within seconds. And don’t even think about discussing ‘idea showers’.

Business speak is one of those things that people seem to easily get dragged into. Just one week in an office and people are blurting out sentences such as ‘could you action this by close of play tomorrow?’ But even if you feel as though you have to use it in the office (which is bad enough), you should never use it in your content.

When writing content, the key is to keep things simple. Open your content article with the main point of the article – a summary sentence. Then work through your ideas systematically, with the most important ones first and finally, end with a conclusion which will bring them all together. But write it in a relaxed and welcoming tone; keep sentences short and only discuss one idea per paragraph. This way, readers will easily be able to understand your points and not become confused by any of them.

But if your readers become overloaded with your ideas and thoughts, they will simply stop reading and they may never return to your site again; after all, they haven’t got anything from it. And one of the biggest turn offs for any visitor is business speak.

The BBC recently published the top 50 office speak phrases we love to hate and it really was eye opening. You may have thought that ‘I’ve got you in my radar’ was just an annoying phrase that guy on the fifth floor likes to use, but the BBC’s article confirmed that the office speak epidemic really has spread right across the world.

Alongside old classics such as ‘let’s touch base’ we have newcomers on the scene including the infuriating ‘not enough bandwidth’ phrase, which seems to be a favourite. It’s confusing enough trying to work out what is meant by this phrase, but once you establish that ‘bandwidth’ means ‘time’, your mind is completely taken over by the question of why the person couldn’t have just said ‘time’. The word is perfectly acceptable and concise; who decided it needed an obscure replacement?

Office speak is aggravating enough when you hear your colleagues sprinkling it into their everyday conversations. Don’t they realise that there is a much simpler way of saying things like: ‘my door is open on this issue’ or ‘360-degree thinking’? But if we can restrict it to the spoken word, we can at least salvage our content from the damage it can cause.

No matter what you write on your website; never use business speak. It’s not big, it’s not clever and, let’s face it, it doesn’t make any sense.

Victoria Jones
Content Writer

This SEO news has been brought to you by Just Search; Experts in internet marketing and PPC

If your website is one of the many thousands that have outdated content, you will not only be putting people off your site, you will also be damaging your reputation and affecting your brand image.

Make sure your audience doesn’t click ‘back’

If you have a website that sells products or offers a service, you may not need to change the way your homepage looks, but you may have to change the inner pages to keep readers interested. If a user clicks on a product page and the information is outdated or the latest deals section is displaying information that is months old, the user will click the ‘back’ button almost straight away. If you make sure your content is up to date and you display the information that the user is looking for, there is a good chance that the visitor will stay on the site and you may make a sale.

Makes waves amongst the competition

If your website is regularly updated with the latest information in your field, you will quickly become an authority on your subject matter. Whether it is selling the latest pair of designer trainers or offering business services, it doesn’t matter. If you are ahead of the game and your website shows you are, visitors will come to you before frequenting any of your competitors.

Regular content improves reputation

Any content that is out of date on your site or misleading will not only turn visitors away, it may also harm your reputation. In a market place where brand image is everything, having the reputation of being behind the times will not make you any friends or help your sales figures. If your website is up to date, potential customers will think that the products you sell are the latest products available and will trust your authority on your subject matter.

Search engines love regularly updated content

We know that regularly updating your website keeps your audience interested, improves brand image and can make you an authority on your subject matter, but it can also do something equally as important. Search engines such as Google love websites that regularly update their pages to keep their content fresh. The more frequently your pages are updated or new pages are added the more frequently Google will index your site.

Google regards sites that are regularly updated as potentially more accurate and hence more up to date than those that aren’t added to regularly. And consequentially the more new pages you add to your site the more potential routes there are into your site from those all important search engines.

David Smith
Senior Content Writer

This SEO news has been brought to you by Just Search; Experts in internet marketing and PPC

For starters, you need to keep the principles of search engine optimisation a priority. This means writing SEO-friendly articles that are concise, easy to read and relevant to your website, as well as featuring those all-important keywords.

With this in mind, you can choose from any of the following article types.

The news article

News articles are basically write-ups of relevant, current or breaking news stories that visitors may be interested to read. They are more factually-based, so content writers will need to be objective and focus on reporting the five W’s – who, what, where, when and why. To put it another way, stick to the facts unless you are aiming to be deliberately controversial.

News stories are a great way of getting traffic to your site, especially if found through Google News. Most companies feature industry news on their blogs, ensuring that content is always fresh and relevant.

The list article

Quite simply, these articles list several related pieces of information such as ‘The top ten places to visit in the US’ or ‘Five ways to improve your credit score’. Although quicker to write than other types of content, these articles often advise the reader and provide useful information.

The ‘how-to’ guide

This is a very popular type of article, where the writer basically gives the reader advice on a particular subject. Topics can range from something small, such as ‘How to put up a shelf’, to larger questions such as ‘How to buy a house’.

As a writer, you will guide the reader through the process or system they will need to follow to achieve their goal. You need to make these instructions clear and easy-to-follow, making good use of lists and ‘things you will need’ checklists.

The best content writers will base these articles around commonly searched-for questions, although it can also be a good idea to advise on topics that have not really been addressed elsewhere. As long as they provide accurate and useful advice, these articles can make your website more of an authority on a particular subject.

The opinion piece

This is a more informal piece, written from a personal perspective. Although not necessarily suitable for a professional blog unless you happen to be a qualified expert in a certain field, a personal blog regularly updated with thoughts and opinions (as long as you steer clear of libellous comments) can be interesting for followers to read.

The review

This type of article presents a fair and balanced view of the pros and cons of a particular product, service or other related topic. These sorts of reviews can prove useful to readers, making them likely to return to your site.

The informative article

Informative articles are similar to ‘how to’ articles and lists, except they give more general information on a particular subject. Examples of informative article titles could include ‘Internet jargon explained’ or ‘What is an electron?’

As long as they are relevant to your site and its target audience, you can use a mix of these article types to produce varied content for your website.

Christine Felton
Content Writer

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Whatever sector you operate in, ensuring that your company a) actually has a website, and b) has a website which portrays your business in the best light possible, is vital and will go a very long way in ensuring that your online presence is one worth shouting about.

Whilst the products or services which your company offers will play a huge part in the overall look and feel of your site, the quality of its written content simply can’t be rushed or overlooked.

Many companies find themselves struggling when writing copy for their site, and one of the most common mistakes which many businesses make is failing to strike the correct balance between professional yet compelling written content.

The content on any website can make all the difference between a site which suffers from a high bounce rate and one which effortlessly achieves its goals, and it’s a certainty that you will be aiming to enjoy the latter rather than the former.

However tempting it may be, and as much of a good idea it may seem at the time, when writing content for your company’s website, it’s important to remember that you’re not writing on your personal blog or your social networking page, and not every visitor may appreciate an overly colloquial tone. Remember, there is a very fine line between making visitors feel welcome and making your company look unprofessional- and an unprofessional reputation is likely to prove very hard to shake.

This isn’t to say that your website has to be boring though, and you can lighten things up a little in a number of different ways- such as through the use of shorter, snappier blocks of text, bullet points and sub headings. However, ensure that any product descriptions or descriptions of your services are precise, to the point and don’t leave readers feeling confused- this is one area in which you can’t afford to take any risks.

The industry in which your company operates will play a significant role in the way in which your written content is constructed. If your company deals with more formal matters, writing colloquially is likely to be highly inappropriate, although if your company is a little more light-hearted, you can get away with taking a more casual tone.

Bearing the target audience of your website in mind whilst writing content will help to put you on the right track to achieving the most appropriate tone, and will go a very long way in helping your site to achieve its goals and helping your company cement a favourable online reputation.

Striking the right balance between content which helps to maintain your company’s professional image yet which doesn’t send your visitors to sleep doesn’t have to be a time-consuming or overly tricky, and provided you carefully consider your reader’s needs, your site will stand out amongst your competitors for all of the right reasons.

Nicola Sampson
Content Writer

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By this I mean that your blog is written in a unique way that is nothing like your home page which is the landing page for most of your site’s visitors. The blog is written with a broader scope in mind as opposed to the incredibly focused home page. Then there are also category and product pages which are different yet again.

Writing relevant content

The overall aim of your site should be to build up pages that will draw people towards your site and appear higher in the search engine rankings. And if you want to ensure your site becomes an authority in its field, you need to ensure that all content is relevant to your particular industry.

This means that those who search through the rankings are able to find what they are looking for and if your site is relevant to their query then it should naturally build up a presence over time.

When you start to write your web content you need to bear the relevancy factor in mind, yet you also need to consider the purpose for the different areas of your website very carefully.

Writing blog posts and news articles

These blogs, when used in the correct manner, can bring in the traffic you are hoping to draw towards your site. However, you need to try and maintain a balance between writing content related to your products and services, while still managing to come up with informative and interesting articles for those looking to find out more about your industry.

It is fine to write on broader topic areas than you would on your home page or product / category pages but you still need to ensure the relevancy of the news you are publishing or the advice you are offering on the blog.

How writing product and category pages differs

As we have been explaining above, while you may be able to get away with writing copy on a broader scale for a blog or news section of the site, when it comes to your product pages you really need to ensure it is highly focused and informs the users what is contained on each specific page.

While proving to be useful for those who are scouring your site looking for what they need, this approach is also important in informing the search engines what products the page is specifically about. Therefore, get to the point and provide all the information a person would require to be persuaded the product is for them.

When writing category pages for the site you need to link a common theme between the products and items within this particular section. This should still be written while avoiding anything that is not relevant to the page in question.

Conclusion

Always remember, whatever you do, to make sure the content is written in a natural manner. Let the keywords be inserted into text on pages of the site without it looking like spam. You can still write relevant content which has a focus on the products and services you offer, but do it so it is easy for the user to read.

Daniel Higginbotham
Content Writer

This SEO news has been brought to you by Just Search; Experts in internet marketing and PPC

To start with, you will have to learn about what people actually look for when they search for news. This can sometimes be an exercise in trial and error, especially if the news you are after is very industry-specific.

If you simply want to be able to engage with a wide audience then you can do so by blogging about events that are currently top of the trend lists on Google. You can access trends very easily through Google’s homepage and that will give you a few clues about topics. Gradually, it will become instinct for you to pick out the more popular stories to focus on.

Putting a relevant spin on the news

Lots of news stories at the top of the trend lists won’t immediately feel relevant to your industry. For instance, if the top ranking search term involves a celebrity scandal of some kind and your company deals with motor insurance, then including it in your blog will only serve to show readers that you are up-to-date – it certainly won’t offer anything in the way of interesting material.

However, some news stories are perfect for putting an industry-specific spin on them. Using motor insurance again as an example, any controversy to do with a celebrity and their road habits is something you can use to talk about your trade and fit your keywords in very naturally.

The more niche an industry happens to be, the more difficult it is to manipulate the news to include your keywords. Just be wary that dropping keywords into completely irrelevant news stories will undermine the integrity of your blog. However, there is always some area of the news that will be relevant and it doesn’t take long to find it thanks to facilities like Google News.

Encouraging discussion

News stories that encourage discussion are the best to include in your blog. It is possible for you to post articles on your blog that invite comments and debate from your readers. This is a great way of creating a community atmosphere around your blog and readers may well get involved in lengthy discussions surrounding the news items you have chosen to cover.

If, through clever use of news in your blog, you can create a platform for discussion that industry insiders are prepared to contribute to and pass comment on, then you will be able to establish your site as more of an authority. You may even be able to secure links back to your site from reposts in this manner.

Keeping abreast of developments

The chief concern when it comes to the news is to demonstrate that your site is constantly updated and isn’t stagnating. If you struggle to keep on top of current affairs on your blog, then it is always possible to seek the help of professional content providers to do it for you.

John Rosser
Content Writer

This SEO news has been brought to you by Just Search; Experts in internet marketing and PPC

• A unique excerpt
• An automatic excerpt
• Full post content

A unique post excerpt occurs when the author writes an optional summary to go with the post when publishing it. This is the ideal option as it adds even more content to your site, even if it is only a few words for every post.

The automatic excerpt is one that is generated by WordPress itself – it usually consists of the first 55 words and is ended with “[..]” to signify a continuation of the writing on the single post page. The word count and post-text identifier can be customised if needed, but this requires a bit of coding and isn’t covered in this article.

The last, and probably most common, variant of post display is the full post. Most people go for this option because they are either unaware of excerpts or prefer not to have them. The thing is, excerpts make it easier for readers to quickly skim through your posts to find ones of interest. This is more relevant on archive and search result pages, where a user is presumably looking for a certain piece of information.

If you want to add post excerpts to your WordPress blog, there are a couple of methods to do so:

• Use the ‘more’ tag
  This is the simplest option, which should involve no coding if the theme is designed properly. When writing the post, simply click the ‘more’ button on the toolbar or switch to the HTML editor and enter the code ‘<!--more-->’ where you want the summary to end. WordPress will automatically cut off your post at a more tag on list pages (home, archives etc.).
• Use ‘the_excerpt’ in your theme
  If you know some basic PHP programming this is a basic option. Simply go to your theme’s folder and edit any of the pages you want to display excerpts on, replacing the piece of code ‘the_content’ with ‘the_excerpt’. The following files are recommended; home.php, index.php, search.php and archives.php – thought there may be others depending on your theme.
• Create a function
  The final option is to write a function that automatically replaces the full post content with an excerpt on anything but single posts and single pages. This is technically the most advanced option as it involves the most programming code. However, to save your time below is a ready-written function for you to use. Simply place this in your functions.php file in the theme folder. If you don’t have one yet, create one and add the code below with <?php and ?> above and below the code respectively.

The function below will replace any full posts with their excerpts on non-singular pages – the homepage, search results and so on. It also checks whether you have written a custom summary for the post, if not it will automatically generate one for you from the first 252 characters and append ‘[..]’ afterwards.

function show_excerpt() {

	if( !is_singular() ) :

		global $post;
		$content = $post->post_excerpt;

		if( $content ) {
			$content = apply_filters('the_excerpt', $content);
		} else {
			$content = apply_filters('the_excerpt', $post->post_content);
			$content = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $content);
			$content = '<p>'.wp_html_excerpt($content, 252).'[...]</p>';
		}

	endif;

	return $content;
}

Stefan Crowe
Content Developer

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That concept of relevance needs to be kept in mind when writing all of your web content. However, different parts of your website need to be treated in slightly different ways.

Category and product pages

The copy on both category and product pages fulfils much the same purpose. It is there to inform the users (and the search engines) what that particular page is about.

Pages such as these are no place for flights of fancy. They should be informative, to the point and above all relevant. If it is a page selling a particular product, describe that product.

Give all the relevant specifications and any other information that might be of use to someone who might be in two minds about purchasing the item in question. Describe how it differs from other products on the site. What are its unique selling points?

Category pages should be treated similarly, only instead of highlighting differences, you need to establish what all the items in that category have in common, as well as listing what falls under that category. If the category is “men’s trousers” you will need to establish what that covers – jeans, cords, casual trousers etc.

Blogs and news sections

While category and product pages demand highly focused copy, blogs and news sections allow you to broaden the scope of your website somewhat. This is both an advantage and a potential trap.

Whether you are writing informative articles offering hints and tips about your topic or covering related news, it is still important to consider relevance at all times. The content you produce should be related to the products or services you offer.

A lot of people have a tendency to write personal thoughts and opinions on their business blogs which are totally off topic when you consider their site as a whole. Yes, you are expanding the site when you do this, creating more pages that could potentially rank for different search terms, but you are also diluting the focus. Search engines build an overall picture of your site, based on the words you use. By adding hundreds of pages about this, that and the other, they no longer know what your site is truly about.

The flipside of this is that you can be too focused with your blog. Make this mistake and your site will start to look like spam. If you’re repeatedly rehashing the same article, overloading your blog with the same keywords, you’re not offering readers anything of value and this is what the search engines are looking for. You’re also missing an opportunity to broaden the scope of your site, picking up traffic through a wider range of keywords. These keywords and key phrases might each bring you a relatively small volume of traffic, but if it is relevant traffic – it is still of value to you.

So how do you gauge whether your articles are sufficiently relevant to be of value? My advice would be to write on topics where your products or services might naturally crop up.

For example, if your business is selling car insurance, writing about burglaries is of little use to you. Adding a line at the end saying “oh and maybe get some car insurance” is not really relevant. However, if you cover news about car theft or road accidents, you can quite justifiably advise people about different policies.

So, whichever part of your site needs some content, keep your words relevant.

Alex Bowden
Senior writer

This SEO news has been brought to you by Just Search; Experts in internet marketing and PPC

This refers to the number of times that you get a certain phrase into the text. So if you run a sports shop and you want to be found in the search engines for phrases such as ‘sports equipment’, then you will need to ensure that you include this phrase in the text. But don’t get too carried away; always ensure that you insert the key phrases in naturally to avoid repetitive sentences that are not easy to read.

When it comes to writing content for your site, you should get into the habit of writing it in a natural and conversational way. Of course, this is largely dependent on the type of business that you run, but don’t be too formal as this may put readers off and this tone also makes it more difficult to engage with your audience.

It can be hard to find inspiration when it comes to writing your content. Try using various resources to get your thoughts going. For example, you could choose to look at Flickr and get inspiration from the thousands of amazing images that are right at your fingertips. There are plenty of places to get inspiration in order to write something a little different; something that might encourage discussion amongst your readers.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you should refresh your content as often as possible. So don’t leave old out-of-date news or discussions at the top of your page; make sure you update it.

By keeping the fresh content coming, you can really establish yourself as a reliable source when it comes to your industry. Comment on any relevant industry topics or stories in the news and you will soon be seen as an authoritative voice for the industry.

When writing your content though, you must always ensure that you’re writing to a high standard. So ensure that the spelling and the grammar is correct. If you struggle with apostrophes or commas, then make sure you get this sorted before you start writing for your site. No one will respect your words and your opinions if your content is littered with errors.

Overall, content writing can be fun. It allows you to share your ideas with your audience and it also allows you to engage with them. With effective content writing, you can start discussions and really connect with your audience. You can establish yourself as a respected voice of the industry and you can also help your business to become more recognised and established.

So find some inspiration that will really make your blog stand out and get writing. Because adding fresh and exciting content to your site every single day can make a huge difference to you and your business.

This SEO news has been brought to you by Just Search; Experts in internet marketing and PPC