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On Episode 11 of Wealth Nation, we talk about whether you should hire an SEO expert or consider doing it yourself, discuss the way Google looks at different languages on your site, writing copy for websites, and answer the question “What makes you wealthy”.

Show Notes

Languages and Website Rankings in Search Engines

I’ve seen websites out there written in other languages while their main and sub-headlines were in English. How does this effect search engine indexing, etc.? –Lasha

Well, lets put it this way… Google has individual language searches for many different languages. If you write a site in Spanish, it’s going to index higher in the Spanish version of the search engine. Especially because the words are a perfect match for search phrases. The word Hola does not appear in English for example.

However, the vast majority of searches are performed in English. So not having English on the page represents a problem because you are ignoring a large part of the market. I suppose English titles are a good compromise, especially since it seems most people speak English even if they have another primary language.

Search Engine Optimization

A Web Designer in the company I work for recently described the SEO industry as “Snake Oil for the 21st Century” on account of the huge amount of huge sums charged and paid for elementary advice (relevant copy and well structured HTML). How much of the advice given by ‘SEO Experts’ is genuinely useful in the medium to long term and how much is bogus? How credible are promises to ‘Get to the Top on Google’?  –Chris Reed

7 Simple SEO Tips

There are some things that you can do to generate more search traffic, and some things that you need others to do. But don’t listen to anyone who “promises” to get you to the top of the mountain, because nothing can be guaranteed.

• Build your site on a standard, open-source, CMS platform like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla.
• Routine content additions tell the search engines your site is fresh and tasty, so send visitors!
• Use friendly URL structures and Descriptive, Accurate Titles.
• Add Meta Descriptions to each page as a preview for search engine visitors.
• Use Headings inside the page content.
• Add images with English naming conventions, alternate text and titles.
• Social Media and backlinks from quality sites tell search engines that your site is an authority.

What Exactly is Wealth

What non-monetary items, subjects, or things make you guys wealthy? – Alasdair Carter

The broader sense of wealth as we define it here at Wealth Nation is highly individual. But between the three of us, some of the things we feel make us wealthy are:

• True friendship
• Faith (for some)
• Financial independence / security
• Education
• Loving families
• Freedom
• Security

I recently started my own little freelance business designing and developing websites and have had some clients ask me to take care of writing the copy on their ecommerce site i made. I am a geek who knows code and how to make things look good but not a writer. What are some good ways to help write copy? What books do you recommend reading on this subject? –Josh White

First of all, everyone can work on improving their writing skills. We touched on this in Episode 5, so you may want to go back and listen to that one as well. We previously recommended two different books which would still be beneficial:

• The Wizard of Ads: Turning Words into Magic and Dreamers into Millionaires
• Copywriting Secrets & Tactics by Herschell G. Lewis

But having said that, the real question is, shouldn’t you be outsourcing this work? I mean, if you are primarily a coder and your client wants copy written then why wouldn’t you just tell them Ok, go to ELance.com and get a bid, then mark it up by 50-100% and pass the cost along to the client?

If the role was reversed and a copywriter was asked to do code, that is what they would do…

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