I get asked questions about SEO on Quora every day, so I try to answer the ones most relevant to keyword research or on-page SEO, since those are my areas of focus. Since it’s a common one, I thought this one in particular might be helpful to share. “Is it okay to copy and paste the first sentence of my blog post or page, or the first paragraph, and use it as my meta description?”
Yes, but only if you keep certain things in mind.
Don’t do it as a lazy way to get around writing it, but instead, use it as a starting point.
Companies are spending 3002% more per month on content creation than SEO, yet both focus on content… Why is this happening, and how can SEO agencies close the massive gap?
There are three basic types of search engine optimization services, and anyone spending money on SEO should be familiar with these differences.
Understanding them helps you know how to hire the right kind of SEO talent, be it agency, freelance or employee. It also helps you more accurately define their true level of experience, and identify what kind of conversion and ROI to expect from the dollars you spend.
It also might help you avoid joining the discouragingly high percent of companies dissatisfied with their SEO, bouncing from one provider to another.
Did you take my 2019 survey to determine how SEO-savvy public relations professionals are, and if their professional priorities align with brand priorities? Keep reading. The results are in.
Are you in public relations? If so, please take a moment to help me explore how our PR industry feels about SEO and our ability to integrate SEO with the content we create.
(Nerd post alert. Endorsed and paid for by Carrie’s Inner Geek.)
Well, this is rather interesting!! I thought I’d take a quick look at Google Trends to come up with new keywords (blog inspiration!).
First, I searched trends on content marketing.
Looks promising, right? The growth is a bit obvious, since everyone is buzzing about content marketing like it’s Columbus arriving at the New World. Add in the projected explosion in content creation over the next five-plus years, it’s no surprise to see an upward trend.
But then I added in public relations, social media and search engine optimization (SEO) – the other three key components of digital PR – just for comparison purposes.
Which areas are generating the most online search activity? The results surprised me.
The trouble with reading blog posts about SEO is that everyone believes they know what they’re doing. Argumentative about it, even, as we all fiercely defend our little podium of truth.
But like many things in life – which we conveniently forget – everyone’s truth is different, especially when it comes to SEO. It’s deeply intertwined with levels of experience in an infinitely complicated field. It’s also a matter of semantics and context – something often lost in translation when we write.
“Truth” is actually opinion and perspective.
If you have two years of experience in SEO, your truths look very different from someone with ten years of experience. If you are a writer who wraps basic SEO into content, your SEO truths look very different from that of a programmer concerned with technical aspects.
Here are a few things that I know to be true, based on my own experience.
The Differences in Pitch Style & Purpose Are Helpful to Understand
I love PR, I love SEO and I really love how well they intersect to grow client reach and conversion.
So when pitch samples hit my desk for my bad pitch column, Rock The Pitch, or I get pitched myself as a blogger, I know instantly where it’s coming from: a PR professional, a business owner/entrepreneur or someone trying to get an SEO backlink.
How that pitch is written can be VERY revealing. Motives are similar – a chance to publish a guest post or article – but many tend to follow an all-too-common, copy and paste template that reveals their true purpose behind the pitch.
[Tweet “Sadly, it’s rare to get a pitch that is specific, interesting and relevant.”]
I believe this is less about PR pros and more about WHO ELSE sends pitches. It’s not a practice exclusive to public relations specialists like it used to be.
Why do I write about backlink pitches in a PR blog? Because journalists complain about the quality of a pitch and attribute it to lazy PR pros when it isn’t actually coming from a PR professional (not that we don’t screw up, too), and PR pros scorn pitches on their client blogs mentioning money or compensation.
Both criticize or laugh about how bad the pitch is, without realizing where it’s coming from or the motivator behind it.
New client relationships usually start off all rosy and pink-cheeked, like a new bride walking down the isle, full of joy and excitement about what lies ahead once she slips that ring on her finger.
Then, like a couple married in Vegas by an Elvis wanna-be, sometimes the ink isn’t even dry on the certificate before those emotions turn into something darker.
I fired a brand new client last night. Like most relationships that turn sour, the problem was rooted in communication issues. He either didn’t listen to what I was saying, didn’t believe it, or didn’t understand it – but failed to tell me any of those things and I didn’t notice it was happening.
DO A SITUATION AUTOPSY. Some client relationships are bound to go sour – it’s inevitable. Was it the client? The agency? Both? Was someone at fault and could it have been prevented?
Thinking through and understanding exactly what happened can give you the street-smarts to prevent it from happening again.
So what happened? He hired me to handle his online digital presence, starting with organic SEO for his website to boost visibility and website traffic.
It was a very small budget for what he wanted to accomplish, and my minimum retainer size, but enough to accommodate some very solid results, if given a little time. We had a good positive status meeting just that morning, but he called me later in the day practically foaming at the mouth. Someone searched for his business name on Google, and told him they couldn’t find him.
