Awkward Keyword Phrases And Headlines

Optimizing your content for the search engines can be tricky sometimes. Actually, it can be downright frustrating.  Who comes up with these keyword phrases anyway? 

Misspellings, plurals, and words that are out of any logical order, it’s enough to make your head spin yet these are the keywords people are using to find products and services like yours so you have to find a way to make them work.   

For example, the subject of wedding photography may generate the following keywords:

 Wedding photos family, wedding invitations photos, wedding photos ideas – they probably made sense when plugged into a search engine however, in the form of content, well….Fortunately they’re all good topics for content the trick is fitting them into a sensible and catchy headline.     

While search engines spiders look to find keywords in your subheadings and in the first and last paragraph of your content for your keywords.  They’re also sophisticated enough now that they look for relevant words throughout your copy. 

However, the first and most important place they look is in your headline, so how do you fit the keyword phrase Wedding Photos Family into your headline? When all else fails, here’s a good trick.  Place your keyword phrase in your headline and separate it with a hyphen from the rest of your catchy and attention getting headline.   

For example, Wedding Photos Family – 10 Tips to Capture Your Special Day.   Or  Wedding Invitations Photos – Setting The Right Tone For Your Perfect Day. 

This structure keeps your awkward keyword phrase in your headline so that you get the benefits of search engine optimization and it enables you to offer a compelling headline at the same time.

This type of headline structure works great for article submission sites, blog posts, and SEO optimized web content.  Next time you have an awkward keyword phrase, don’t pull your hair out – hyphenate it.

Are You Carrying A Secret?

Hi Everyone!

I just returned from a week and a half conference with the leaders of one of the top companies I work with – whew!  I love the chance to connect with my clients “live” and put faces with names and voices that I hear and see all throughout the year.

I also love connecting with them in a more intimate way.  Somehow I’ve become not only a coach and strategist, but also part therapist, part confessor. My clients tell me their “secrets”, the things they aren’t supposed to talk about with their upline, downline, crossline – any line. 

These secrets usually follow along the themes of struggle and disappointment.  Unfortunately there is a trend out there in the direct selling world that says “don’t talk about anything negative, don’t admit that you are struggling.  Put on the face of success because no one is attracted to anything less than that.” 

While I understand the “attraction” theory behind this trend (you attract what you put out), I find that it can produce some alarming results.  For example, one of my clients got shunned by her roommates at this event (I mean literally – she had to find another room to stay in!) because she dared admit she was struggling in her business.  I wish this kind of stuff were exceptional, but my experience tells me it is not.

Women lined up after my workshop to tell me – often with accompanying tears – that they ARE struggling and that something must be wrong with them because their business isn’t flourishing like everyone else’s.  That just made my heart hurt.  I assured them that, at times, everyone struggles in their business – I mean isn’t that true?  And that they are not flawed in some way because they admit to it.

Please hear me – this trend is not confined to this one company.  I hear about it every single week from people from many different companies who call me or email me for help.

So, if you are a direct seller who is carrying the secret of struggle and/or disappointment, I want you to hear my words of support and encouragement.

Anyone who operates her own business struggles at sometime or another.  Heck, even I entertain fantasies of quiting sometimes.  This does not make you or me weak or unsuccessful.  It makes us real and authentic and human.  And to me, those are the ingredients for success I am after.  I don’t want anything less in my life. 

Find someone you trust (even if they are outside of your company) to talk to about what is going on.  Sharing your burden will make it all the lighter, I promise.

If you know someone in your organization who is secretly struggling, I encourage you to find a way to lift her up and support her through the hard times.  Encourage her to share her burdens so she does not feel alone. 

Isn’t Direct Selling based on achieving success through teamwork?  In my experience, painful secrets and looking down on those who struggle are not part of any teamwork model that I know of. True teamwork cannot exist without open, honest, authentic communication.  Initiate it. Encourage it. Foster it.  Then you can watch your success soar.

I’ll get off my soapbox now:)

Love & Success!
Sarah

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