Here are some tips you should observe in order to deliver better online copy (writing) that will draw readers in and transmit a professional image:

1. Use short sentences

You don’t need to needlessly complicate things to make a point.

2. Formatting

Mix up the use of bold, italic, underlining, colours and font styles to emphasize points and draw in the reader’s eye more effectively.

3. Be positive, not negative

State something that is, instead of what is not. Studies on the psychology behind this show better absorption of the message by the reader for written material delivered in a positive frame.

4. Use space

Break up paragraphs and blocks of text with well-defined breaks, so that reading is more digestible and easier on the moving eye.

5. Use short first paragraphs

This applies to longer pieces of copy like articles and blog posts. These will bring the reader in to read and read on.

6. Take grammar, punctuation and spelling seriously

Try and keep this area in shape, even if it is not 100% accurate. This will transmit a professional image associated with you and your writing. All the small details like apostrophe use are important.

7. Keywords

Including a smattering of keywords that relate to your niche (for example, the word ‘vector’ if you write about digital illustration) in your copy is good for search engine rankings, and will bring more targeted visitors to your writing. Keywords are especially effective in titles and opening paragraphs.

8. Repetition

Without overdoing it, repetition will emphasize key points. Repetition is an important element in persuasive writing too. Be sure to express the same point in different ways to avoid monotony.

9. Lists

Bulleted and numbered lists have been shown to be a popular and very readable writing method.

10. No passive-voice

This is when the subject of a sentence is swapped with the object. For example: “The girl saw the cat,” is in the active voice. The passive voice would be: “The cat was seen by the girl.” Passive writing tends to add unnecessary words to an otherwise clearly written sentence.

What other writing tips to do have that you would like to contribute?

Whenever someone hears about you and the work you do, whether that be through a referral from someone else or seeing a mention of you on a website, there is a chance that they will want to find out more about you or want to contact you by Googling your name. It is a huge benefit to you if sites containing your name appear high up in the search results page, so that these people can find you, learn more about you and ultimately hire you.

One of the most important elements of self-promotion that I talk a lot about is your credibility. This means that people associate you, your name and your brand with professionalism, likability, trustworthiness and being knowledgeable on your niche. As such, having your name appear prominently and in multiple places in search engine results (for the right reasons!) will have a positive effect on your credibility as a freelancer.

Whenever your name appears on something like Google search results, you will want that link, when clicked, to lead to pages that put you in a positive light, and, wherever possible, showcase the work that you do. This list will address this too.

Here are some ways you can increase the visibility of your name on search engine results pages for self-promotional goodness!

1. Add your name to your site’s meta tags. Meta tags are the information inserted into the ‘head’ area of your web pages (it helps if you know HTML) to help get categorized and indexed on the web. If you use wordpress, you’ll find this in the header.php file in the ‘appearance’ section. Adding your name within the code here, will hopefully get picked up by web spiders and help get your site ranked highly when your name is run through a search engine.

2. Work your name as a keyword into your site and blog. Google and others will pick up these keywords as it indexes your site, but don’t over do it, as it will affect the quality of your writing.

3. Where possible, include your name in your site’s hyperlinks. This is the link text, not necessarily the link url itself. So, for example, instead of writing ‘contact me’ on your personal site, you can say ‘contact *your name*’. Again, this will get picked up by the search engines.

4. Add your name to the image alt tags you put on your site or blog. Whenever you place images on your site, there will be an option to incorporate ‘alt tags‘ into the image code. Keywords placed here should benefit your sites getting listed in results that match your name as a search term.

5. Contribute any new updates you might have to news portal sites that are suited to your industry (such as the Little Chimp Society), as well as on the growing number of sites that serve to promote the work of creatives, like Society6 for art or Last.fm for music. Make sure you incorporate your name into the posts or updates you provide, and use your name as your username if you are required to register to any site.

6. Sign up to social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. By simply setting up an account with these sites, your profile and name will get indexed well in search engines. The next step would be in uploading work to the social media platform, such as illustrations through Facebook photo albums, or providing a link to your portfolio through the site.

7. Send out a press release on something fairly major you have worked on or updated, such as a site re-design, and put your name in as a keyword (for example in the subject, main body and link at the end). You can submit your press release to multiple sites, which you can speed up through press release submission sites. When people click the link in the search results, having seen your name, they will be taken to the press release, which demonstrates your writing skills, adds credibility to you and provides solid information. This is also a very good way of driving traffic to your sites.

8. Use your name when you comment on blogs. As well as incorporating it into the comment text, you can use your name for the link that you provide to your site.

9. Write and submit an article and drop your name in. Submit an article that relates to your work for example and link it back to your site. Incorporate your name in the copy and make sure you submit to several of the popular article submission sites.

10. Incorporate your name into the text on forum message boards and discussions. Again, you can use your name as your user name, and it will tend to be indexed well in the search engines. Someone clicking on the link with your name highlighted in the search results will be taken to your discussions on these forums and hopefully see how and what you write (and hopefully it’s half good!).

11. Use your name as the author on blog posts. When writing blog posts, make sure that the author tag (usually under the post title) is active, and that your name is listed as the author. This will get picked up by search engines and take people straight to the blog post.

What are some other ways to get your name on the first page of Google people have come across?

Alex

If, for example, you specialise in logo design, you’ll want your site to come up high on the search rankings for whenever potential clients type in ‘logo designers’. The single most effective way to get ranked higher on somewhere like Google, is to have a large number of sites (with high Google page ranks themselves) linking to yours. Google loves this.

One way of attracting several links to your site or blog is by submitting it to a range of web directories. These are online databases that classify websites that have been submitted according to their content. Once a site has been added to the directory, it will attract links from category pages full of sites that are relevant to the niche of that site.

Here’s how you can submit your site to online directories:

• Create a word or text file containing two descriptions of your site. These will be one longer paragraph (70-80 words) and one short paragraph (30-40 words) containing a range of relevant keywords to the content of your site (keywords you want people who search with them, to find your site with). Use of either the long and short descriptions is determined by what is required by the directory.
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• Save the text file to your desktop, so that you can copy and paste when needed.
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• Some directories require a list of keywords, so create a list that directly relates to the content on your site and the work you do (if your site is about your work) and keep it with your descriptions text file.
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• Make sure you follow the style and submission guidelines of each directory, and tailor your descriptions and other elements appropriately.
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• Sign up to the directory site (if you need to) and submit your site.
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There are various options available to you when submitting your site to directories. They can be paid, submitted through reciprocals, and free. It is worth looking into paid directories if you have some spare cash, as sites take much quicker to be accepted. However, for those of you looking for free incoming links, here is a list of 10 directories you can submit to for free:

1. Dmoz – dmoz.org

2. Web World Index – webworldindex.com

3. Librarian’s Internet Index – lii.org

4. Jayde – jayde.com

5. Little Web Directory – littlewebdirectory.com

6. Simple Directory – simple-directory.net

7. Intestyle – intestyle.com

8. I Web Info – iwebinfo.com

9. Web Directory – bizdirects.com

10. Turnpike Directory – turnpike.net

Please be patient with using the free directories, as some can take some time for site approval. You should notice more incoming links to your site and an improved search engine page ranking for the keywords you specify over time.

You can check what links are pointing to your site by typing:

‘link:www.yourdomain.com’ into search engine search boxes.

More suggestions and comments are encouraged!