3 Ways To Keep MS Word From Killing Your SEO Strategy

Most of us type our content in Microsoft Word before publishing our articles, blog posts, and web content.But did you know that Microsoft Word can actually hurt the SEO strategy of your site?

If Microsoft Word is set up incorrectly, it can cause major issues when transferring the content to the web.Before writing any document, it is important to make a few changes to your Word settings to eliminate these issues.

Smart Quotes, Apostrophes, and Dashes

Microsoft Word automatically converts straight quotation marks and apostrophes into "smart" quotes and apostrophes for a more pleasant look.

It will also automatically convert single and double dashes into an elongated dash.While these might look nice on the Microsoft Word document, these modified characters cause a lot of trouble on the web.If you've ever seen something on the web with "??" where quotes should be or strange jargon in place of a dash, you've seen the embarrassment these can cause.

The good news is that it only takes changing a few settings once to eliminate this problem for every future document you write.This is important because your SEO strategy is only good if your content is good as well.

1.Go the "Tools" menu and select "Auto Correct"
2.
Select the "Format as You Type" Tab.
3.Under the "Replace As You Type" heading uncheck: "Straight Quotes" with "Smart Quotes" and "Symbol Characters (--) with symbols"

Style Formatting

The style formatting toolbar looks innocent enough - but choosing certain settings here can cause hours of additional work over time for the person who is converting your text to the web.

Always choose NORMAL when using Word!

I've noticed that many freelance writers choose something other than normal - or add additional spaces after lines, or double spaces after single returns.While this might look good in Word, all of that formatting disappears once it is put into an HTML editor and then must be completely reformatted in order for your SEO strategy to be effective.If you highlight the text and see extra spaces around the line breaks, then there is something off with the settings.

To ensure that your document does not have any extra Word Doc formatting:
1.
Select "Format" and "Paragraph" from your toolbar:
2.
The "Indents and Spacing" tab should be set to single spacing with 0 spacing before and after lines.
3.The "Line and Page Breaks" tab should have nothing checked other than "window/orphan control"

Pasting Content into Your Website Software from Word

When pasting content into your website software such as Wordpress, Joomla, or other type of website software with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, it's important to paste the content into the HTML tab - NOT the visual editor.

The reason is that Microsoft Word adds a ton of HTML code "behind the scenes" when you paste directly into the editor.

Pasting into the HTML tab eliminates all of this sloppy extra code that can severely dilute your keyword density and make it more difficult for search engine spiders to crawl your content and decipher the primary topic of the article.And if the search engines cannot determine the focus of your content, your SEO strategy is not efficient.

Taking these few extra steps before you start typing, can eliminate hours of reformatting and ensure that your content is properly read and ranked by search engines.Creating an effective SEO marketing campaign means that you sometimes have to take into consideration all of the small changes you can make as well as the big ones -- every bit counts towards higher rankings!

About the Author

Christine O'Kelly is co-owner of SEO Content Solutions, a leading SEO copywriting firm.

The company provides SEO press releases, articles, blog content and web content to resellers and end users alike.

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Teleseminars: The Perfect Communication and Marketing Solution for the iPod Generation

With advances in technology, teleseminars are being used in ever more creative ways by individuals and companies to expand their client base and dramatically increase revenue.Part of the massive appeal of a teleseminar is that while it is possible to listen to event live, it can also be recorded and made available as a podcast that can be downloaded to an iPod and listened to at the convenience of the listener.

Podcasts can be ready in mere minutes after the completion of the live teleseminar.It is a question of how much editing you want to do.The fortunate thing is that Internet audiences tend to be more forgiving regarding teleseminars.They are hungry for great content rather than a studio quality recording.

Teleseminars are highly versatile.Regardless of the business you are in you can leverage the value of teleseminars.Just think of them as a means of delivering an audio message to your staff and or clients.Then decide what information you are going to share with them.

Some examples of the many uses of teleseminars include:

1.

Announcing product launches,

2.

selling products,

3.

Publicising events,

4.

Promoting books,

5.

Training staff,

6.

Training affiliates, and

7.

Fundraising.

Plus, with teleseminars you have the benefit of being able to deliver your message to a global rather than local audience.

Podcasting is an ideal solution for long teleseminars.Jay Abraham and Alex Mandossian are examples of Internet marketers who sometimes host long teleseminars.It is a challenge for individuals to maintain focused concentration for hours on end, irrespective of how riveting the material is.Also, some people cannot afford to put their life on hold or take the time off work to listen to a live teleseminar that is over two hours or even over 4 hours long.However, if you save your teleseminar as a podcast that subscribers can download to their iPod, then people can listen to your material in bite-sized chunks.

And there is another advantage to podcasting your teleseminars.You can create a single podcast for the entire presentation or you can divide the teleseminar into segments.This can make it easier to download and easier to listen to especially if a presentation is over an hour.The teleseminar can be simply divided at logical or natural breaks in the presentation so that when played sequentially it flows seamlessly.

Alternatively, the podcasts can be branded separately and you can do a recap of the material in the former podcast so that each mini-podcast is a stand-alone product.This can then be used as a teaser especially if you want to sell the teleseminar rather than offer it as a free download.

Many presenters have products consisting of numerous CDs but they are relatively bulky and can become scratched.Avid learners soon start to run out of room to store the many programs they have purchased.Making your teleseminars available as downloadable as MP3 and MP4s which can be downloaded onto a device that can fit into the palm of your hand or your pocket saves space and makes your content easy to consume.

Nightingale Conant, the world's leading producer of personal development audio programs, now gives its customers the option of purchasing a CD version or an MP3 version.With the MP3s customers can download them to their iPod and be listening to life-enhancing material in minutes rather than waiting days for the program they ordered to arrive.And, in an age where 'speed to market' is becoming increasingly important; offering your material in MP3 format which your customers can immediately download to their iPod gives you a competitive advantage.

About the Author

Expert Tip: When selling high ticket items which include teleseminar recordings, offer them to your customers on a pre-loaded iPod.

Learn how you can become an expert teleseminar host and earn thousands of dollars.Click HEREto access FREE 2+hours special tele-training onhow to use teleseminars to grow your business.And for details on the most comprehensive teleseminar training available visit Successful Teleseminars.

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Celebrity Branding You! - Typing Your Way to Fame!

Over the last few years, there is no denying that the online community has started harnessing the power of the Internet for more than just "surfing" the web to look for information.We have now started using it as a networking tool that allows us to connect with others to share ideas, opinions and videos of ourselves looking like fools.Okay, so hopefully we don't have too many of those videos; but having some video online, and at the major video sharing sites, is a great search engine traffic strategy that we should all be employing.

One of the online tools that has been around for the longest, but is often neglected or overlooked, is that of message boards and email-based discussion groups.Yahoo and Google offer the two most popular email groups and they are free for anyone to set up.You can host your own group or you can join existing groups.There are groups for everything you can possibly think of; some are private and require the moderator of the group to approve you, and some you can get started with right away.

You can find these groups by going to the following URLs:
Yahoo - groups.
yahoo
Google - groups.
google

(don't forget to add the "dot com" at the end!

)

The way these groups are set up is that you are given an email address to which you can send a message if you want to send a message to an entire group.

When you send a message to that address, everyone in the group gets it, and when they reply their response goes back to the whole group.On a side note, this has gotten more than one person I know into a bit of a trouble; because by habit you might think you are only responding to the person who sent the message, but since it was sent to the group, when you reply it automatically responds to the entire group!BE CAREFUL!It can be mighty embarrassing to send a private message to someone that ends up going to the whole group!

So, how can this help you build your celebrity status?

In most groups, there are many members who join to get information, but do not send messages.Let me give you an example: I am a member of a group for entertainment lawyers in the state of Florida.When I joined, I did what I would recommend that anyone should do when you are first joining an existing group -- I watch how people post and respond for at least a few days to learn the tone of the group.After a month or two, I saw a message asking about a subject I know a lot about, so I responded to it.As time went on, I got involved in the discussion and I sent about 10 to 15 messages over the course of a few months.

As I was following the messages, it seemed like there were about 10 people who posted fairly regularly with about five others who would chime in every now and then.So by my estimation there were probably 20 to 30 people in the group.

Well, after about six months, I went to a convention where these entertainment lawyers gathered for an annual meeting.As usual, I met some new people and learned more about them, but something funny happened.When I introduced myself to people I had never met before, most of them said, "Oh, you're Nick from the message board." I would politely respond yes, but I had no idea how they knew that since I had never seen them send any messages.That's when I asked the question.

I walked up to the person who moderated the group and asked him, "About how many people are in our online group?I keep meeting people who say they know me from the message board, but I have only sent a handful of messages and have never seen these people send anything."

That's when he responded "a little over 500 people.

"

500 PEOPLE!

As you can see, I was drastically wrong in my calculation of 20 to 30 people in the group.There were actually hundreds, but only a few of us actually communicated through the group.And I have come to find out that this is fairly common in many groups.So, even though I had only sent a few messages, I had become a celebrity among the entire group.Everyone knew who I was, and before long I made a lot of new friends and was referred to a bunch of businesses because I was seen by the members of that group as an expert because of my prompt and accurate responses.

You really can find celebrity status in more places than you'd ever imagine; and sometimes, as in this instance, it smacked me in the face when I was completely oblivious!So go browse around online for groups of people that you would like to learn from, and that you think would be a good place for you to display your expertise and possibly even get some new business.Just remember the rules of the road!When you are in any new environment, watch how others behave first, before you start adding in your two cents!

Now, go out and join some groups!

About the Author

Nick Nanton, from TheBusinessGrowthLawyers.

com, publish the Business Growth ezine covering topics that every business needs to know.Get FREE business growth tips now at http://www.TheBusinessGrowthLawyers.com

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