Summary: Using web-based services InboundWriter and Scribe, you can refine your copy and get real-time results on the effect it will have on search engine optimization of your website content—making the process more fun!

Bloggers who are seriously about getting search engine traffic always make sure they include the right “phrases that pay” when they write. They understand the underlying principles behind content/search engine optimization or SEO: Create relevant, quality content that is indexed properly by Google and Bing, and as importantly (perhaps more so) get backlinks from other well ranked websites as “social proof” that your content is rank-worthy in the first place.

Optimizing your website content for search engine optimization purposes strikes many people as a huge (and often mind-numbingly boring) challenge. But it doesn’t have to be.

Fortunately, there are some very good, affordable tools to speed up the search engine optimization process and give you more peace of mind vs. guesswork.

InboundWriter: A Fun Way To Achieve Search Engine Optimization

A web-based SEO service that I really like is Inbound Writer (affiliate link). They recently launched a WordPress plugin, and I’m using the free version now for content optimization on this post.

With InboundWriter, you either go to their site and optimize your documents there (similar to Scribe), or install the WordPress plugin. Here’s a YouTube video that shows how the InboundWriter WordPress plugin works:

Using InboundWriter, the content optimization process starts with identifying a select number of “focus terms” (relevant keywords) you want to rank for. Once you pick these, InboundWrite will whir and hum, then offer a laundry list of terms to include in your copy for  ideal search engine optimization. As you refine the text, you see  real-time results on the effect it will have on search engine indexing. You get a Document Score gauge that updates in real time as you write, which really makes writing seem like a game!

Two Ways InboundWriter Optimizes Search Engine Content: By Search/Social Or Reader Targeting

InboundWriter has two built-in ways to help you optimize your content. Their Search & Social is called a “balanced” strategy or you can choose selective demographic/reader targeting. Depending on which strategy you select, it will affect your real-time results. I haven’t played around with these enough to know how much of an impact either has, though I’m more inclined to go for the “balanced” approach unless my content was super-specific to a niche.

The free, web-based version of InboundWriter limits you to optimizing eight documents per month. Their single paid level, the Professional Plan, is $19.95/month and includes content optimization for unlimited documents.

Click here to try out InboundWriter.

Using Scribe SEO For Web Content Optimization

Another solution, Scribe (affiliate link), is very good at analyzing your content and suggesting keywords and phrases you may have overlooked. Using a web-based version (for use on any website regardless of the content management system), or plugins for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, you use Scribe to create search-optimized content. Before you start to write, you can do keyword research to determine the best phrases to target for a particular article. Next, as you write the system prompts you to fill in proper information such as title tags, meta description on other “on page” factors relevant to search engines.

Scribe also has a neat feature that helps you build backlinks to your site, which are crucial to getting better search engine rankings. It will look for search engine optimization opportunities for you to cross link with other posts on your own site, external sites and even influential Twitter users you may want to share with.

Scribe’s “platform-agnostic” version is especially good if you are a writer providing content to multiple sites. You can use it to optimize your content before posting it elsewhere.

The system also lets you quickly create Content Optimization Reports to send to your clients. This is a fantastic way to demonstrate your value beyond simply writing “good” content.

Scribe has four packages ranging from $17 to $97 per month (with a 30-day, money back guarantee). Their pricing is based on how many “evaluations” and keyword searches you get in a month. In Scribe, each time you analyze your content using their algorithm, you use one evaluation. They claim it takes about 3-5 evaluations per page, so you can quickly burn through these.

Click here to try out Scribe.

My Initial Takeaways

Based on my preferences, I like the non-WordPress version of InboundWriter better than the WordPress plugin, which doesn’t offer all the bells and whistles. Plus, I hate writing directly in the WordPress editor.

I will say the process adds to the time I would normally spend in terms of worrying about search engine optimization. It also feels unnatural to me to keep repeating keywords just for the sake of moving the SEO needle. After several minutes piddling around with this post, for example, I settled for a 67 out of 100 score from InboundWriter—and I went with a crappier title and more repetition overall than I’d like. Sorry, Google, but I’m not gonna write like a machine just to appease your robots. My valued readers will likely abandon ship.

There’s also the issue of what you’re targeting in terms of keywords. Some phrases are just ridiculously competitive in terms of search engine indexing. I don’t care how many times I say search engine optimization here…the chances of this article ranking on page one of Google is very slim. However, if I’m going after a less competitive phrase, my chances are greatly increased by focusing on my word choices and placement in the title, URL, headers and body content.

I wouldn’t necessarily use either Scribe or InboundWriter every single time to massage my content. But certainly for “pillar” type content that I really, really want to rank for, I’d spend the time working with one of these tools. Both InboundWriter and Scribe make it more of a game and less drudgery to try to figure out how to appease Google and get your content better indexed.

For More Information

Click the links to learn more about InboundWriter and Scribe. Please note, I will make a small affiliate commission on these if you decide to buy through my links. If so, I thank you—and my wife and kids thank you!

One of my favorite new things is transcription.

For this article, I’m using my iPhone to make a brief recording that I will then translate into a blog post. What’s fascinating about this is the ability for me to quickly and easily put down my thoughts—in this case verbally—and then have them translated into written text that can go on my website or elsewhere. After I record this, I’m going to send this file to myself by email and use a program I purchased for my Mac called MacSpeech Scribe that will hopefully translate this very accurately so that I can have a blog post done in a fraction of the time that it would normally take.

I read somewhere recently that we as humans can talk about seven times faster than we can type. Imagine the possibilities for your own blog in terms of generating more ideas, saving yourself time in the process.

There are a lot of programs for both the Mac and the PC to do transcription, as well as services where you can upload a file and have it translated usually within a day or a couple of days depending on the price and they will send you the written transcription back out in short order. Recently, I did several interviews over Skype, and afterward I sent the sound files to a transcription service called Internet Transcribers. Within a few hours, they had translated these audio files into flawlessly written scripts of my Q&A sessions. One file was approximately 20 minutes long and another one was over 30 minutes long, and the process for me to sit down, re-listen to my audio recordings and translate that myself would’ve taken much longer than my time was worth (cost to me for transcription: about $1 per minute).
So take a look at some of these programs I’ve mentioned, as well as other web-based services like Audioboo or Cinch that will allow you to call a phone number,  do a recording, share it and also download a file that you can then translate on your own computer or through a service such as Internet Transcribers. There are great possibilities and it frees up your time to do a whole lot more!

The following is an excerpt from the new e-book, This Is Your Brain On Twitter: A Business User’s Guide To The Fast-Growing Microblogging Phenomenon, by Brandon Uttley. To get your free copy, simply sign up for the Web Business Freedom e-newsletter!

For those of you who are not yet familiar with Twitter, at first glance it can seem like a puzzling and pointless tool used by attention-deficient adults and prepubescent kids to flood the Web with a raging torrent of asinine announcements and useless updates.

But to those who have mastered the mysteries of this 140-characters-or-less juggernaut, the above perception is welcome news. These übergeeks secretly sneer as the unwashed masses come and go, leaving them to continue on their quest for world domination, as part of the Great Order of the Annointed Twitterati (GOATs).

That is a joke, of course—there is no secret society of Twitter acolytes (not yet anyway). However, some people who take Twitter way too seriously. And if you’re relatively new to Twitter and looking for advice, running into one of their ilk can be annoying and frustrating, as they may act impatient and morally indignant that you don’t get it.

Fortunately, between ignorance and idolatry of Twitter, there is a happy middle ground. With that in mind, I have written a new e-book with the goal of bridging the divide between the Twitter know-it-alls and the newbies. It will help you wrap your brain around the possibilities Twitter provides, once you get past all the noise. The e-book is yours free, by signing up to receive the Web Business Freedom newsletter.

Just as the Web itself started out as an arcane communications system for techies and academics and evolved into offering legitimate applications for business and personal use, Twitter has followed a similar trajectory. It’s no wonder that Twitter is experiencing a torrid pace of growth, and why you finally broke down and signed up. (The e-book assumes you already have an account and are looking to do more with it.)

I hope you will enjoy learning more about what makes Twitter tick. I look forward to connecting in Twitterville!

Connect On Twitter: @BrandonUttley

If you run a business, it would be nice to offer your employees, customers or vendors a convenient system for submitting ideas to improve the company, your products and your services. Better yet, it would be ideal to allow others to vote and comment on the ideas submitted, in order to gauge which ones are most popular. In addition to your business, perhaps you belong to a non-profit group, church or other organization that could benefit from a system for sharing ideas, ranking suggestions, approving the best ideas and putting them into action. Or you might be running an event and need a way to gather the resulting sparks that could lead to a bonfire of creativity.

This concept is not new—think about the old “Suggestion Box” sitting on the counter next to the cash register—but it’s been vastly improved thanks to the web. Big companies like Starbucks are getting tremendous value and buzz by enabling their customers to submit, comment and vote on ideas, through their MyStarbucks Idea site.

Fortunately, it is very easy and affordable to start your own idea management site. There are now hosted applications that can have you up and running in minutes.

I have been testing one site called Kindling. They were kind enough to set me up with a 30-day trial of their professional edition.

It’s a neat system, providing MyStarbucks-like functionality without having to hire a programmer and break the bank. Kindling’s Standard Edition is $49/month for up to 40 users, while their Pro Edition is $99/month for up to 100 users with additional features (like secure SSL, unlimited file attachments and usage reports and analytics). They also offer a Enterprise Edition for over 100 users (price not listed on their site.)

With the pro account, I was able to add a few test suggestions and rate them easily. I “volunteered” to take one of the tasks on, which assigned it to me. If I were using this in a bigger organization, I could set up email alerts, run reports on the most popular suggestions, view statistics, approve and assign ideas and more.

There are other similar products worth comparing (see a previous Kindling review by TechCrunch). Price would be one of my main considerations, and I wish Kindling had a lower pricing option (maybe $17-$27/month) for up to 10 users. At their current lowest price, I would want to be as close as possible to the 40 user limit to justify using it.

To sum up, Kindling is great way to quickly and efficiently gather, manage, rate and assign ideas.

Photo credit: Hashir