Juice Plus Review. Is Juice Plus a Scam?

Juice Plus business is all about networking, getting on the phone, meeting people, building relationships and spreading the goodness. This process is fueled on the front end by effective marketing and lead generation. The problem is that 99% of juice plus entrepreneurs don’t do it right, because they don’t know how to market.

Five Areas to Focus On for Effective SEO Copywriting

image of Simple SEO Copywriting

When I first started Copyblogger in 2006, I was almost militantly against on-page search optimization. Seems strange, since I’d been a successful student of SEO since 2000.

It was because I saw all these people fretting over keywords like it’s 1999, and yet they had no links. Their content was weak. Their sites weren’t trusted.

You can’t optimize something that’s dead in the water. So my initial goal was to get people to focus on content that attracted attention and links first. Only then do you have something you can make better (that’s what optimize means, naturally).

Fours years later, it seems things have swung in the opposite direction for some. Social media “experts” maintain that SEO doesn’t matter because search traffic just “happens.”

Yes, search traffic “happens” if you produce unique content and don’t make it impossible to find. But the “right” search traffic doesn’t just happen, not unless you’re lucky (which simply means you don’t know what you’re doing).

This article is designed to help you know how to tell search engines what you’re talking about is the same as what people are looking for. That’s all SEO really is.

And yet . . .

I feel compelled to quickly discuss the things you need to focus on first. Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz gives us a quick list of the stuff that must come prior to on-page optimization, so I’ll repeat those here with my own commentary:

Accessibility – If search engines can’t see your content within the code, your page can’t be indexed and ranked. This is why Chris Pearson created the Thesis Theme for WordPress, and why he obsesses over making it better. Code matters.

Content – Now that the code structure is right, we come to what people actually want. Create great content and the people, sharing, and links will follow. And then you hit the bonus round: Google gives you even more goodness.

User Experience – The easier your site makes it to consume and share your content, the better you’ll end up doing SEO-wise. People don’t consume or share content that creates barriers, sometimes even if only a little.

Marketing – To paraphrase Rand on this one, spreading the word is often more important than being right, being honest, or being valuable. I like to say promoting your content is a virtuous necessity. Whatever works for you, but do get the word out.

Okay, now let’s move on to the five areas to focus on with your web page, blog post, online press release, whatever . . . they’re all the same in the eyes of Google.

Five SEO copywriting elements that matter

Before we get into this, let me share a few strategic considerations.

When I’m building an authority site, I don’t care about optimizing everything I write. I use a lot of metaphors and pop culture references instead of keywords to get people reading and linking to build the overall trust of the domain. Then when I want to rank well for something, like copywriting, or seo copywriting, or landing pages, my job is much easier.

If you’re a news blogger (or newspaper), things are different. You want to optimize everything as best as possible up front, then move on. Different strokes for different folks.

That said, here we go.

1. Title

Whether you optimize up-front or later, you at minimum need to know what keywords you’re targeting and include them in the title of your content. It’s generally accepted that the closer to the front of the title your keywords are, the better. But the key is that they appear in the title somewhere.

You’ll notice that the title of this post contains the keyword phrase “SEO copywriting,” but it’s positioned at the end of the title. That’s because I go with the more compelling headline first and foremost. But I can serve an alternate title in the title tag (which is the snippet of code Google actually pulls the title from) thanks to a post feature in Thesis (also available with the All in One SEO plugin for WordPress).

So, I can always enter a more search-optimized alternate title later, such as:

SEO Copywriting: The 5 Essential Elements

The emphasis on keywords in the title makes practical sense from a search engine standpoint. When people search for something, they’re going to want to see the language they used reflected back at them in the results. Nothing mysterious about that.

Having keywords in your title is also important when people link to you. When your keywords are there, people are more likely to link to you with the keywords in the anchor text. This is an important factor for Google to determine that a particular page is in fact about a particular subject.

You should try to keep the length of your title under 72 characters for search purposes. This will ensure the full title is visible in a search result, increasing the likelihood of a click-through.

2. Meta Description

SEO copywriting is not just about ranking. It’s also about the presentation of your content in a search engine. The meta description of your content will generally be the “snippet” copy for the search result below the title, which influences whether or not you get the click.

It’s debatable whether keywords in your meta description influence rank, but it doesn’t matter if they do or don’t. You want to lead off your meta description with the keyword phrase and succinctly summarize the page as a reassurance to the searcher that your content will satisfy what they’re looking for.

Try to keep the meta description under 165 characters so the full description is visible in the search result. Again, you can create a meta description in WordPress right in the posting area with Thesis or All in One SEO.

3. Content

Unique and frequently updated content makes search engines happy. But you know that part. For search optimization purposes (and just general reader-friendliness) your content should be tightly on-topic and centered on the subject matter of the desired keyword phrases.

It’s generally accepted that very brief content may have a harder time ranking over a page with more substantial content. So you’ll want to have a content body length of at least 300 words.

It might also help to bold the first occurrence of a keyword phrase, or include it in a bulleted list, but I usually don’t get hung up on that. It’s also debatable whether including keywords in subheads helps with ranking, but again, it doesn’t matter – subheads are simply a smart and natural place to include your keyword phrase, since that’s what the page is about.

Which brings us to . . .

4. Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is the number of times your targeted keywords appear on the page. Keyword density is the ratio of those keywords to the rest of the words on the page.

It’s generally accepted that keyword frequency impacts ranking (and that makes logical sense). Keyword density, as some sort of “golden” ratio, likely does not. But the only way to make sense of an appropriate frequency is via the ratio of those keywords to the rest of the content, so density is still a metric you need.

In other words, the only way to tell if your repetition of keywords is super or spammy is to measure that frequency against the overall length of the content. A keyword density greater than 5.5% could find you guilty of keyword stuffing, and your page could be penalized by Google.

You don’t need to mindlessly repeat keywords to optimize. In fact, if you do, you’re likely to achieve the opposite result.

5. Page Links

Linking is the fundamental basis of the web. Search engines want to know you’re sufficiently “connected” with other pages and content, so linking out to other pages matters when it comes to search engine optimization.

Here are some “rules of thumb” for linking based on generally accepted best practices:

Link to relevant content fairly early in the body copy
Link to relevant pages approximately every 120 words of content
Link to relevant interior pages of your site or other sites
Link with naturally relevant anchor text

Again, these are guidelines related to current best practices. Don’t get hung up on rules; focus on the intent behind what search engines are looking for – quality search results for people.

Yes, there’s other stuff . . .

There are other elements as well, such as URL structure and keywords, keywords in image alt files, tags and categories, and various other minutia (here’s a list of on-page elements and their varied importance). If you focus on the five areas above, however, you’re covering the vital elements of effective on-page optimization.

I know there are a lot of SEO ninjas out there who might be reading. What would you add as a vital on-page optimization element? Let us know in the comments.

Up next: Does Writing for People Equal Good SEO?

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Unglued Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Copywriting Success Summit 2009 (Plus a Generous Gift)

Copywriting Success Summit

So last year I screwed up.

I was one of the presenters at Copywriting Success Summit in 2008, and did a bit about using social media to build a freelance copywriting business.

It was such a broad topic, and I tried to cram it all in within a limited time frame. So naturally it ended up an overview instead of a drill-down discussion of the nuts and bolts of using social media to build a lucrative copywriting enterprise.

That presentation ended up becoming Freelance X Factor… over 4 hours of instruction and a 35-page workbook that helps put the ideas into action.

Get Freelance X Factor for Free

Everyone who jumps on a spot in Copywriting Success Summit gets Freelance X Factor for free. And today is the last day to save $200 off the admission price to the Summit… so moving fast will make your wallet happy.

Like I said, Freelance X Factor is a full-blown explanation of how to use social media to build a lucrative freelance copywriting business. And that means without spending cash on advertising, and without caving in to the natural demands of clients who want to pay you way less than you’re worth.

But don’t listen to me. It’s clear I’ve got an obvious motive here.

Listen to Chris Johnson, a guy who took our course and in the same week landed a $20,000 gig:

Thanks for making “The Freelance X Factor.” I studied it, and learned what it is that persuades clients to choose me.

I listened right before I went into a big appointment with a client, and was able to stand my ground and get–by far–my biggest deal ever, a $20,000 contract that paid up front! I didn’t have to deal with competition or negotiation because my client understood the benefit of acting fast, so they couldn’t wait to get started.

You can lift exact phrases from Brian and Sonia any time from the audio. When you can persuade a client that your marketing is working on them, it’s all it takes for you to persuade them to use you to market to others.

Buy this course. Nothing that Brian’s ever done has been a disappointment. This might be the best value of all of the stuff he’s put out there.

Chris Johnson

Chris later told Sonia that he had a $55,000 month, simply by repeating the stuff we said in Freelance X Factor to his prospective clients. I couldn’t be happier with that, seriously… because stories like this are why I distract myself from other projects to teach in the first place.

Look, Copywriting Success Summit plus Freelance X Factor will get you where you want to be. Check it out and simply email me your confirmation when you decide to get on board… and I’ll make sure you get full access to Freelance X Factor right away.

Check out the Copywriting Success Summit here and save $200 (today only).

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

The Strategy Behind the Authority Rules Report

Authority Rules

At the beginning of the month, I released a free report called Authority Rules: The 10 Rock Solid Elements of Effective Online Marketing. People seemed to really appreciate it, especially since:

No email address is required
You can read via PDF or the web
There are no affiliate links
There’s no pitch (other than subscribe to Copyblogger)

This led to a lot of speculation. Why did I do it this way? What was the strategy behind this approach? Has Brian finally lost it?

While that last point is debatable, there was indeed a plan. This post will share what I was thinking, because you may find that my motivations combined with the information in the report itself can help you build your own authority site.

The Background:

I’d wanted to write this report for quite a while, simply to help tie together a lot of the stuff we talk about on Copyblogger. I started in early spring, and then dropped it for a bit.

Surprisingly, I started writing again at a beachside bar in Puerto Rico while sipping tequila (remember Hemingway’s advice on this… write drunk, edit sober). After pausing again for a month or so, I finished the report mid-summer in Durango, and handed it over to Chris Pearson for design goodness.

That’s when things got interesting.

I had originally intended to make the report your normal “ethical bribe” for people who subscribed to Copyblogger. That’s a tried and true method for increasing your subscription numbers.

I checked back in with Chris on a Saturday morning, and discovered he had just started building a website at authorityrules.com on Thesis. This led to a change in approach that Chris completed that weekend.

We decided to offer the report without requiring an opt-in. Better yet, we created a web version for those who didn’t want to read a PDF, while still keeping the printable option.

Here’s why.

1. Demonstration

Long-time Copyblogger readers know we like to teach by demonstration. In other words, many of our posts are doing what we’re telling you to do.

Authority Rules followed the same approach. It told you how to build an authority website, while demonstrating how to launch one.

Think about it: you build authority websites by creating exceptional content that gets you noticed, promotes social media sharing, and attracts links that builds your authority with Google.

By making the report into a website, we did all of that. Maybe you should too.

Now, the obvious objection is “Sure Brian, that’s easy for you. You have an authority site to launch off of and powerful friends.” Fair enough, but consider this.

When I launched Copyblogger in 2006, I was completely unknown. I first created Copywriting 101 as my cornerstone content, and then a couple months later, released the Viral Copy report.

I then worked to get the word out. I emailed every relevant blogger around, and it worked. (I accidently annoyed Steve Rubel in the process, but we made up later).

The point is, that approach worked for me as an unknown back then. If I were in the same position today, I’d launch my site just like I launched Authority Rules… because things change and this latest approach seems to work well.

With this approach, the report is the cornerstone content, and for a time, the entire website. You then start adding content and growing your subscriber base even further from there.

2. Sharing

This ties in to the previous point, but it’s a major consideration. I broke from conventional wisdom back when I released Viral Copy without asking for an email address, and it was the right move for the 2006 blogosphere.

I almost second-guessed that success with Authority Rules, but realized how important Twitter had become to our marketing mix. People share openly-available content much more than “gated” content.

I went with open to encourage maximum sharing.

3. Quality

Having a bunch of subscribers is great for the ego. Having any amount of quality subscribers is great for the wallet.

It’s tough sometimes, but the smarter choice is to focus on attracting quality subscribers. That means people who really want to hear from you on a regular basis.

So, if people are given the Authority Rules report without restriction and don’t bother reading it, they’re probably not a good fit. And if they do read the report and don’t feel compelled to subscribe to Copyblogger, they’re definitely not a good fit.

Stick with the quality people. They’re the ones who become part of your fan club.

4. Reciprocity

So let’s go ahead and challenge conventional “internet marketing wisdom” head on. Is it really smart to require an email address before you deliver the promised content?

Turns out studies show that twice as many people will take the action you desire if you ask after the promised content has been delivered. Let me explain that a bit.

The whole idea of promising content in exchange for an email address or RSS reader addition is based on reward – essentially I’ll give you this stuff if you do what I want.

Reciprocity is a much stronger psychological motivator. If you deliver great content and then ask for the subscription, the research shows that twice as many people will go ahead and subscribe at that point.

I don’t know how much better it worked in this case because I didn’t split test it. But I’ve never been let down by following the results of actual psychological research rather than “conventional wisdom.”

5. Teaching Sells

As far as free reports go, I haven’t written one better than the Teaching Sells Report. I think that’s because I wrote it for myself as much as for you.

It was mainly a happy accident, because Authority Rules should have been completed months earlier. But due to my procrastination, the report became a valuable indicator that helped with the pending reopening of Teaching Sells.

Essentially, if you were previously unfamiliar with my work, Authority Rules demonstrates that I give away valuable free content. Since our entire approach to “selling” Teaching Sells is also by giving away valuable free content, perhaps that explains why we’ve never had so many people interested in finding out more.

“Wait a minute,” you may be saying. “Why do you require an email address to get the Teaching Sells report?”

Here are two distinctions:

The new Teaching Sells video is designed to be informative and entertaining. Essentially, the idea is to invoke reciprocity while promising reward all at once.
Teaching Sells is a paid program tied to Copyblogger. So we actually give you hundreds of free articles in advance of ever asking you to opt-in for anything… which is another major benefit of building an authority site.

But who knows? Maybe after a year of updating and expanding Teaching Sells for our members (everyone has a lifetime membership and gets all the new stuff free), I’ll take a different approach. I’ve already got some ideas.

The point is to keep learning, testing, and experimenting. What worked previously might not work as well now.

What’s Next for Authority Rules?

This is the part I have no clue about. At the moment, the report is doing what I intended — organizing many of the topics we write about and introducing new people to Copyblogger.

Due to the way we launched, it’s nicely positioned for something else. Or maybe not… we’ll see.

Anyway, I hope this helped clear up the speculation and confusion. So now I’ll shut up and let you get back to building your own authority site.

Forget Everything You Know About Making Money Online… And Start Making Some

It’s that time of year again…

Summer’s just about over, the kids are heading back to school, and Teaching Sells is opening up for the Fall semester.

Many of you might not be familiar with Teaching Sells, and that’s perfectly fine.

Here’s what we’ve got to introduce you:

For starters, a 22-page PDF report (or audio version) called Forget Everything You Know About Making Money Online (And Start Making Some). You’ll discover why you need to forget all the “get rich quick” crap and start building a real online business.

Plus, we’ve got three case studies for you that demonstrate three different ways Teaching Sells members have taken advantage of the online training opportunity we provide. You’ll also see why being an “expert” at the training you sell is completely optional.

Plus, we’ll also send you:

A bonus report about building quick and easy membership sites.
A 20-Step Process Map to building an online training business.
An instructional video that reveals the solution to the “traffic problem” every online entrepreneur faces.
And a complete course listing of the entire Teaching Sells program.

But hey, why read this?

We put together a brand new video that explains all of the above to you in wonderful Technicolor Teaching Sells style (and yes… we teach you how to create videos like this in the course).

You’ll notice the video is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek play on the typical “make money online” promotion. We had a lot of fun making it, so hopefully you’ll be entertained as well as informed.

Watch the Teaching Sells video here and sign up of all the free goodness.