I've heard a couple people say that they'd never allow SEO copywriters to choose campaign keyphrases. My first question was, "Why not?" And then I got to thinking. It's true that not all SEO copywriters are considered equal. Some SEO copywriters are brand-new to the field and don't, as my father used to say, "Know their butt from third base" )actually, he used a different word than "butt" - but you get the idea.( Green,

Just one week ago, I was returning home from an Amsterdam holiday. I flew into Heathrow's brand-new Terminal 5 and happily boarded my plane. My luggage did not. If you've been tracking the Terminal 5-blues news, you'd know that it's been estimated that 20,000 bags were stuck in Heathrow. Volunteer British Airways staff are manually hand-sorting them as I type. Reputation-management wise, British Airways is in deep doo-doo, with calls for the CEO's resignation.

Years ago, I had the not-fun feeling of seeing an article I had written sitting on a competing SEO company's site )which will remain nameless.( The article was posted as if the SEO company wrote it. There was no byline, no link back to my site, no nothing. I was pissed. What's worse is that the aforementioned scammy SEO argued that they owned the copyright!

During every conference, someone comes up to me and says, "I've heard that you can'" - and proceeds to tell me about a spammy technique that they "just learned" or a brilliant idea that their IT department "just thought of." There are a lot of SEO copywriting myths out there. It's scary, actually. During SMX West, Jill Whalen discussed some common SEO copywriting myths - which was a brilliant idea. I've included some of Jill's myths and added my own.

Jakob Nielsen wrote an interesting article about where the company name should appear in the Title. Prior to this, Nielsen believed that the company name should never be frontloaded. Now, he says to analyze the top five SERP results for your main keyterms and consider: Are competitor Titles "junk" )as he calls them.( If so, put your company name at the beginning. A well-known brand name has build-in trust - and can encourage click-through.

It's true that customers don't want to read your B.S. But they do expect good copywriting. In Tim's latest article, Cut Out the B.S. to Increase Conversions ," Tim discusses "marketease," saying, "Unfortunately, your landing page was probably written in this kind of over-the-top promotional style. It usually involves a lot of boasting and unsubstantiated claims. If your company is the "world's leading provider" of something, you are in good company.

Whew! I just put the finishing touches on my new SEO copywriting presentation for SMX West. I'll be speaking at 1:15 today )February 26( on "Copywriting for Search Success" with Jill Whalen . Stop by and say "hi!

Rachelle Money, WordTracker's "newly appointed journalist" interviewed marketing guru Seth Godin. Read what he has to say about the future of newspapers, how he feels about SEO consultants )and their clients ( and what he says about the power of content.

Bob Bly, copywriting guru, asks if small businesses can really compete in SEO. He says: A bigger company can afford to dedicate one or more employees full-time to each of these major tasks. For instance, I know a company with a full-time staff person who does nothing but seek incoming links, one of the steps in SEO. And my answer is, "Hell yes, small businesses can compete'depending.

Creating the meta description tag can be a big bummer to SEO copywriters and marketers. On one hand, the meta description is the place for a marketing statement. It's the verbiage that's supposed to make your site stand out on the search engine results page. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. More often than not, instead of the submitted description, Google displays a "snippet" of text that appears around the search term. Yes,