I love writing about destinations and things to do and see. I’ve worked for a travel magazine before and been involved in travel websites for more than a decade. In my current job, I’m lucky to regularly get copywriting jobs for tourism destinations, attractions and places to stay.

There’s no destination I know better and have written more about than Coffs Harbour and the surrounding Coffs Coast on the beautiful North Coast of New South Wales. This is where I’ve lived since 2005 and it’s a wonderful part of the world.

The Coffs Harbour Jetty is the city’s most popular suburb and encompasses the harbour, marina and the historic jetty (pier) it’s named after.

This suburb is currently being rebranded as an urban village with the name “Jetty Harbourside”. It really is like a seaside village but it has everything you need plus it’s just 3 minutes by car from the Coffs Harbour City Centre and 5 minutes from the airport.

I love “my” Jetty suburb and I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to write the copy for a new brochure promoting the Jetty Harbourside village to both visitors and locals.

My personal top 3 of favourite things about the Jetty Harbourside: Great walks, gorgeous views and plenty of cafés.

The brochure/guide will be made available at shops, businesses, hotels and tourist attractions around Coffs Harbour, but I’ve uploaded the PDF of the brochure here for you to have a look.

• Coffs Harbour Jetty Harbourside brochure (guide/map/directory)

For more information about the destination, visit CoffsCoast.com.au, the official Coffs Harbour visitor information website.

If you need a professional copywriter for your project (e.g. brochure or website, not just travel-related!), check out my print copywriting and web copwriting services and contact me, Micky Stuivenberg, for a quote.

The 8th of the 8th marks the anniversary of my business: I officially started my SEO copywriting & web consultancy business on 08/08/2008. So today is Content Writer’s 3rd birthday.

My business has enjoyed steady success right from the start and I’m still really happy doing what I do. There has never been a moment that I have been without work – but luckily enough I have been able to take a few short breaks while putting new projects on hold for a while.

I have however also sacrificed quite a few evenings and weekends to work and my goal for year 4 is to plan my work better and not to agree to deadlines that are too tight, so that there is enough time to finish work during normal business hours.

Because my website continues to perform very well in search engines, more clients than I can take on find me via Google and I have never needed to advertise my business.

Some quick stats about Content Writer’s 3rd year in business:

• Total number of clients I worked for between August 2010 and August 2011: 54

• Breakdown of clients:
  • 30% local (Coffs Coast NSW)
  • 50% rest of Australia (Mostly NSW, VIC, QLD)
  • 20% overseas (6 different countries)

Projects I’ve worked on over the last year include:

• researching and writing the complete content for new websites
• writing persuasive and optimised content for individual pages (often homepages)
• rewriting and optimising existing web content that didn’t perform
• creating effective small business websites (WordPress and HTML sites)
• setting up social media profiles and managing Facebook and Twitter accounts
• regular updating and maintaining of client websites
• consulting clients about their websites, usability and SEO
• grading SEO students’ assignments for Search Engine College
• rewriting and editing printed marketing materials.

Here’s to going after what you want, doing what you love, and never stopping the learning process.

Cheers – and bring on year 4, I’m ready for it!

NB – Want to know more about what I do? Check out my Content Writer website.

My main occupation is web copywriter. Sometimes clients like me to do everything for them: create the website and do copywriting and SEO for it. I love doing those projects.

However, for this particular project, the brief was the other way around – all the content would be supplied, but could I create the website around it? Well, yes, I could. So I did.

I’ve found that WordPress has made the process of creating a good, user-friendly and search engine optimised website a whole lot easier. And I love handing a WordPress website over to clients because I know they’ll be able to add and change their content quite easily with WordPress as the CMS.

Anyway, I’ve just finished creating this website for a self-contained luxury accommodation in Bellingen, NSW.

Claremont Homestead is an architect-designed country home on a huge property on the Bellinger River, just half an hour inland from Coffs Harbour. With 3 double bedrooms, it can accommodate up to 6 people, so it’s great for families and groups of friends for a quiet rural getaway.

I did not write the copy for this website, I only designed and built the site and did the SEO.

I received a disc with so many fabulous, professional images that I decided to split the planned photo gallery into 3 separate photo albums – one with photos of the homestead’s interior (most of the rooms), one of the exterior (including the facilities outside) and one of the garden, the rural surroundings and the magnificent views.

Want to take a peek? Here’s the Claremont Homestead Photo Gallery page with the 3 album covers. Just click on the one you want to open.

Claremont Homestead has only just opened for business and with holiday accommodation being a competitive industry, there’s quite a bit of work to be done still on getting the site listed on important websites and directories. People have to be aware that it exists, and I’ll be involved with some of these initial SEO and listing efforts. I can’t wait to see the website turn up on the 1st page of Google Australia for some of its keyword phrases. Hopefully, this blog post will help a little bit with that too.

Are you interested in an optimised website with WordPress CMS?

• I don’t build very large or technically complex sites, but I can make you a straightforward, attractive, user-friendly and search engine-friendly website. See my web design page for more information.
• I would also love to help you with content writing or content editing to ensure it presents your business and products or services in the best possible way to your visitors/potential customers.
• Wondering about SEO? I integrate SEO in my web design and content writing work. Check out my SEO services page for details.

Or just contact me, Content Writer Micky Stuivenberg, to discuss your needs.

Sometimes, website owners want their website (read: their homepage) to rank well for so many different SEO keyword phrases that there is no focus and in the end, the website doesn’t rank well for any of them.

My tips for focusing your SEO keywords so they’re more effective:

• Start out with a long list of all possible keyword phrases and combinations you think are relevant for your website.
• Do your keyword research so you can put them in order of the best ones to target and delete the ones that won’t be worth your trouble.
• Don’t forget to check out the competition. If your desired keyword is very generic and very popular, there will be millions of sites you’ll be competing with, so choose your keywords wisely – often keyword phrases of 2, 3 or even 4 words are most effective.
• Choose no more than about 3  keyword phrases per web page to really focus on – different ones for each page. If you target the exact same keyword phrase with different pages, you’ll dilute the strength of each of them. (OK, 3 is an average – sometimes it will be just 2 and sometimes there can be 4 short keyword phrases.)
• Reserve the most important keywords for your Homepage. These should cover your main or most popular products/services and if you’re a local business, your general location as well (using the location terms people tend to use for a local search in your area).
• Keep a list of all your targeted keyword phrases and the corresponding pages on your site you have optimised for those keywords.
• Optimise each of your pages for their different targeted keyword phrases.
• Get quality backlinks to your most important pages (not just your homepage), with the SEO keywords in the text link matching the targeted keywords of the page it links to.

One example of a website that I’ve recently helped by creating more focused website content for the homepage is a Phoenix real estate company in the US that lists lots of Arizona homes for sale. In a market that is incredibly competitive, it’s important to really focus your keywords. With Phoenix and Tucson real estate being the company’s major offerings, these are the phrases the homepage has been optimised for. Other keywords and real estate locations can be left to the site’s inside pages.

Bottom line: it’s important not to try to optimise one web page for too many different keywords. Because Title tags are so important and they can’t be long, it’s impossible to include too many exact keyword phrases anyway.

So focus on about 3 SEO keyword phases per page and then really optimise each page for their targeted terms (but don’t OVER-optimise it either - keyword spamming is an absolute no-no!)

I can help you if you’ve lost focus – or if you’re just not sure about the SEO keywords to target, or how to best optimise your website for your keywords. Find out more on my SEO content page of my website or contact me with your enquiry.

I realised I haven’t blogged about a work project for quite some time – probably because I’ve been so busy trying to meet deadlines that I simply haven’t allowed myself the time for it.

One interesting project I recently finished was rewriting an Ebook for Kylie Hammond Executive Search & Coaching Group.

The Australian-based but internationally operating firm helps top executives find and secure suitable employment and places top talent with blue-chip and other reputable companies in Australia and overseas.

Kylie Hammond engaged my services to restructure and rewrite a complimentary Ebook the fim has been giving away on its site for free for a while: The Executive Candidate Survival Guide.

The brief was to combine the content from this Ebook with the content from another one (Interview Preparation for Executives), restructure the content into clearer and more logical sections, remove repetition, elaborate on parts that were too brief, add some new information to it and rewrite/edit the copy in order to use one consistent voice and writing style throughout the Ebook.

I also made the tone a bit more casual than the previous version of the Ebook, which was written in more of a corporate writing style.

I really enjoyed being able to improve the document and giving it a logical structure as well as adding meaningful headings and subheadings to the relevant sections.

Scannability (making sure the structure and layout of the document enables readers to quickly scan the pages to find out what they’re about and if they want, skip to the section that’s most relevant to them) is something that is equally important with web content as it is with the copy in Ebooks. That’s also why I added a Contents page with clickable section titles – to make things as quick and easy as possible for busy readers.

The new Ebook, which has expanded to about 40 pages, contains valuable tips and suggestions by top executive search consultant Kylie Hammond and résumé writing expert Tom Hannemann on résumé writing, job interviews and salary negotiations. The Ebook is targeted at executive-level job candidates but many of the tips are equally valuable to other job searchers in the professional job market.

Kylie Hammond offers a wide range of professional career management services and of course the Ebook also contains explanations about and links to some of those services, such as hiring a professional résumé writer or getting interview coaching, to help executive canditates get a competitive edge and secure the position they are applying for.

If you’re interested, you can get a copy of the Executive Candidate Survival Guide Ebook from Kylie Hammond’s website.

So should you be wondering whether I can help you write your Ebook, the answer is yes, I most definitely can. I have worked on a few Ebooks for clients in the past year or so and would be happy to help you with yours. Just contact me, Micky Stuivenberg of Triple W Communications, via my Content Writer website and we’ll take it from there.

Keyword research can be vital to the success of your website.

If you operate in a market with no or few competitors, it doesn’t really matter. People should be able to find your site if you just use common sense and let your website describe what you do.

However, in more competitive markets, it can be incredibly difficult to rank well for the keywords you think describe your products or services best – particularly if your website is still new.

You could be competing against hundreds, if not thousands, of other websites that are targeting the exact same keyword phrases as you. And it will be hard to outrank your competitors, because they may have many advantages over yours, such as:

• those websites may have been up for years and have ‘proven’ their worth;
• they may have many more pages of content than you do;
• they probably have a lot more incoming links to their site than you do.

Google and other search engines are bound to rank those websites higher than yours, which is only new, doesn’t have a lot of content yet and no or few incoming links – no matter how good your content is or how well you have optimised your site for those keywords.

If you start a new website, you have to be realistic with your expectations of SEO.

• The more general and popular a search term, the harder it will be to be able to rank for that phrase.
• Single keywords are way harder to rank for than keyword combinations of 2, 3 or 4 words.

What can you do to still get your website found?

1. Find out what people type into search engines. Do keyword research (or have someone do the research for you) using a keyword research tool, so it’s not a guessing game but you actually KNOW what people are searching for. You can also ask people you know what they would type into a search engine if they were looking for your kinds of products or services.
2. Check out the competition. Type some of the relevant search phrases you have found into Google (within Australia, Google accounts for about 95% of all online searches) and see how many results you get. Decide whether it’s worth it or even possible to compete on those phrases.
3. Think of alternative keyword phrases. Many keyword research tools give suggestions for related words. You may hit upon a slightly different description that people use as well, but not many other websites are targeting. That’s your opportunity to optimise your site for that phrase and rank well for it.
4. Target so-called ’long tail keywords’. These are longer and quite specific keyword phrases that maybe only a handful of people search for each month but have very little competition because nobody else has thought of targeting them. Blogs are great for targeting long tail keywords because you can keep adding new pages that each target a different long tail keyword phrase. The good thing is that because the keyword phrases are more specific, they often attract very targeted traffic so your conversion rate will be higher.
5. Start small: Go local. Rather than immediately trying to capture the market in the entire country or world, consider starting small. Focus on your town, city, region or state. You’d be surprised how many people type in their location after a search phrase because they are looking for a business in their area. Targeting “web designer Newcastle”, for example, may get you more traffic than trying to rank well for just “web designer”, which has way too much competition. Remember to claim your Google Local Business Centre listing and submit your site to local and regional directories. Once you are successful locally, it’s a natural progression to target a wider audience. Of course, this option may depend on the type of products or services you offer, but it’s often a good way to start.

So don’t despair if you can’t seem to outrank your competitors in the search results. Think of alternative ways to attract traffic. Add more pages (a blog is useful in that regard) and target more specific keyword combinations with each of them.

Need help optimising your website? I can do keyword research for you and help you target the most effective SEO keyword combinations. I can then optimise your pages for you. You should also consider these SEO ranking factors in addition to optimising your page content.

Visit my SEO Content Writer website for further information about my services and feel free to contact me to discuss your web content & SEO needs.

I have recently completed a new website for Sawtell Framing & Beachscapes Gallery, using WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS). I have created the design, installed the CMS, created all the pages, optimised the site for search engines and edited the content as supplied by the client for usability and SEO purposes.

With the CMS, the client can now easily make any changes to the content he wants and add or delete images to the photo gallery or other pages.

WordPress (WP) is best known as a blogging software, but because it allows you to add both “posts” and “pages”, and you can set the homepage to be a static page rather than the usual summary of latest blog posts, it’s easy to use WP as the CMS for a website.

Sawtell Framing had a website before but it was on a very buggy, inflexible and difficult to use system. Pages didn’t display properly, some images weren’t showing, the website just wasn’t all that attractive either and received little traffic – and the company hardly ever got enquiries through the site.

So I designed a fresh looking site – showcasing some of Ryan Webber’s great photos of Sawtell & Coffs Harbour beaches on the homepage and photo gallery page. Other pages show the professional Coffs Harbour picture framing workshop in Toormina and examples of what Sawtell Framing can frame for you (virtually anything).

The company has a gallery on site in Toormina and a photo gallery on the website to show some of the spectacular Coffs Coast beach and coastal scenes. All photos are for sale in various sizes – as a framed print or a canvas print. The Coffs Coast canvas prints make great gifts and look fantastic on the walls of homes and offices.

For this website, I have created a custom WP theme (design) and have used two WP plugins: All-in-One SEO Pack and Google Analyticator. Two possible future extensions to the current basic websites are a blog and an online shop, both of which are not difficult to add, with a number of WordPress plugins to choose from for the e-commerce facility.

Visit the Sawtell Framing & Beachscapes Gallery website to check it out. 

If you would like to talk to me about getting an attractive and effective website for your business with optimised and interesting content, contact me, Micky Stuivenberg of Triple W Communications, via my Content Writer website.

I specialise in persuasive and search engine optimised content (writing/editing) and SEO web design. My rates are very reasonable and with my marketing, PR, copywriting, journalism and SEO background & experience, I am able to really think along with you to come up with the best and most effective solution for your business.

August 8 2009 marks exactly one year since I officially started working full time for myself as an SEO Web Copywriter (on the auspicious date of 08/08/08). Yes, it’s my ‘business birthday’!

I’m very happy to report that it’s been a huge success! I’ve been consistently busy with a steady stream of new projects and clients, particularly since January this year.

Some of my achievements over the past year

Between 08/08/08 and 08/08/09 I have:

• worked on hundreds of projects for 56 different clients in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada (see some examples of my content writing, copywriting, SEO and web design projects in my portfolio);
• secured repeat business from 19 of these clients;
• been (and still am) the ongoing freelance webmaster for up to 10 different websites, updating the content whenever required;
• written and rewritten many hundreds of pages of professional and search engine optimised website content that made my clients very happy (see testimonials);
• created 5 complete websites (web design, SEO and content writing) – with 3 more under development at the moment (see portfolio);
• carried out website evaluations and written reports regarding design, usability, accessibility, content and SEO;
• written marketing copy for about a dozen brochures and flyers;
• written an entire 8-page newspaper supplement with 16 stories as a freelance journalist (see PDF of this Airport Supplement);
• written stories for a number of local and regional magazines (including Coffs Harbour Airport Magazine, RedInflight Magazine);
• become a part-time online tutor for Search Engine College;
• joined Twitter – after resisting for some time - and staying up to date with industry news and connecting with interesting SEOs, writers and web designers (but I’m still trying not to spend too much time on it!);
• turned down at least around 20 potential clients because the project was too vague, would have demanded too much of my time or didn’t really fit in with my focus (e.g. I don’t do book editing or design complex websites with huge product databases);
• ignored or sent very brief replies to what feels like hundreds of emails from budding content writers and SEO specialists from around the world (well, yes… mostly India) who wanted me to outsource work to them (I don’t do this. Ever. Not even to those who are good);
• increased my rates by 20% in May (but they’re still very reasonable compared to big-city/big-company copywriters, SEO specialists and web designers);
• NOT spent ANY money on marketing or advertising of any kind – clients have always found me via search engines (yes, my SEO for my own website is good!) or word of mouth;
• and given many of my clients free advice regarding their website, content, design, layout, usability, SEO or marketing strategy, which they all seemed to appreciate very much.

OK, there you have it. I’m sure I’ve done more but that’s really the gist of it. And that was in the middle of an economic downturn (or even more dramatically, the Global Financial Crisis) – so I can’t wait to see what the 2nd year will turn out to be like!

The good thing – I’m doing something that I really like and I’m good at. The only downside – all the free time that I had hoped to have once I started working for myself, from home… yeah, that hasn’t happened. Maybe in the first couple of months but not anymore. Oh well. I suppose that’s a good thing!

Check out my Content Writer website if you want to read more about me and what I do.

I recently created a new website for Roofing Matters, a reroofing and roof repair company based in Coffs Harbour and doing roof replacements throughout the NSW North and Mid North Coast.

Roofing Matters did have a very basic website but there was no real design in place nor any content explaining what the company does. Hardly anyone could find the previous site and if they did, there wasn’t much information there for them.

I designed the website and wrote all the content for the site based on various conversations I had with the client. It’s a small but clean, lean and effective website.

I also did the SEO for the site so it is optimised for a number of keywords and combinations of related keywords, such as re-roofing Coffs Harbour, Coffs Harbour roof repairs, Coffs Harbour roof replacement and other similar keyword phrases.

Check out the site by clicking on the screenshot image on the right.

Do you need a business website?

A new website doesn’t need to cost you several thousands of dollars. If you’re a small business owner or operator and don’t have a website yet or one that isn’t performing as well as it should, just get in touch with me, Content Writer Micky Stuivenberg of Triple W Communications Pty Ltd.

We can discuss the possibilities for your site and I will give you a quote that will compare favourably with the competition. Most other web design companies do just that – design – and give you an empty shell of a site, leaving it up to you to do the rest (think about, create, write and upload content, not to mention search engine optimisation).

As a content and SEO specialist, I can work with you on that aspect as well and make sure your website will be attractive, easy to find and a pleasure to use, giving visitors the information they are looking for and increasing not just your traffic but also your conversion rate (turning visitors into customers).

Read more about my web design, SEO and content services on my Content Writer website. I can offer a full service package (web design, domain name, hosting, content writing, SEO) or just the elements that you need.

In addition to being a web copywriter and SEO specialist, I am also a freelance journalist. One project that I’ve worked on in that capacity in recent weeks has just been published, and it looks great!

The project involved me writing 16 articles for an 8-page sponsored newspaper supplement about the Coffs Harbour Regional Airport. The supplement was delivered as a wrap-around to today’s Coffs Coast Independent newspaper which is delivered door to door in the Coffs Coast area.

For this project, I’ve worked closely with the Airport Manager and have interviewed more than a dozen people, done a lot of research and spent many mornings and afternoons touring and hanging around the Coffs Harbour Airport.

Click on the image on the right to open the PDF and read the stories. I have written everything in the supplement except the Mayor’s and GM’s forewords.

Please note that I have reduced the quality of the images to reduce the file size from 13MB to 1.4MB, but it’s the text that I want to show here anyway.

I have learned a lot about our airport and I hope the supplement gets read by a lot of locals who may not be fully aware of all the great facilities we have here.

I have tried to write it in a friendly, casual way with some personal stories rather than a boring corporate spiel with lots of facts and figures. This way it’s easier to read and hopefully gets through to more people.

If you are interested in my services as a freelance journalist, please contact me via my Content Writer website.