There are many good sources of advice on writing for the web, but when you're knocking out copy for your site, it's not practical to keep referring to checklists. You need the right way of doing things to be second nature. Sadly, the only way this is going to happen will be if you regularly read articles on online copywriting, so I shall regularly point out good ones here, in the hope that you'll have time to read them and the suggestions will begin to sink in. Ten Copywriting Tips for B2B SEO on Search Engine Land is a great example, well worth a read. You'll notice that a natural knowledge of the primary search terms for your site is a prerequisite for web copywriting, which is why we spend much of the very first month of the Insider Programme covering the topic, despite it not being a glamorous one.

Following on from my discussion about Google AdWords advertising, the inevitable follow up from one or two readers was "Can you recommend a company which can do our AdWords advertising then?"

The answer is (in the UK at least), no. If you'd like a recommendation for a search engine optimisation consultancy, or someone to write online content, I know some great people. I know a great web design company. But someone to manage AdWords (sometimes known as Search Engine Marketing agencies)? I work on recommendations, and nobody's ever told me they're using such an agency in the UK and would recommend them. Which is odd. However, if you are a client and you would like to say a good word about an agency you're using, please let me know. Don't get in touch if you are an agency, please, because I don't have the spare cash to try you out.

Let's suppose you can track down some decent-sounding people though. What do you ask them in their pitch? Well, the good news is that someone's already done the job – and how. In The SEM RFP: Questions You Must Ask on Search Engine Land, there's a list which would put off all but the most determined suitor for your business. I suggest you pick out the most appealing questions, but it's certainly a great resource. And I'd love to know how you get on.

If you hadn't heard, Google introduced a highly significant enhancement to its service a week or so back, called SearchWiki. This enables users to edit their search results – that is, reorder, remove, or add web pages to the results for any query. You can add notes to listings too. There's a good summary of the implications of this in Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide on Search Engine Land which you might like to read.

If that looks daunting, I'll highlight the bits you need to know, before any myths start to spring up. Firstly, changes you make by "voting up" sites won't have any effect generally. Only you will see the impact of what you've done. However, notes you make on a page will be available for public perusal. But might the "votes of confidence" in a page be taken into consideration by Google one day when ranking a page? Maybe. For now though, don't start any massive exercise of "voting up" all your pages for marketing purposes, you'll be wasting your time.

This is quite an advanced article today, but it's the sort of thing you'll be taking in your stride after you've been on our Insider Programme for a while (and please think about joining, it's a genuinely great investment). In Six Mistakes B2B Marketers Continue To Make With Organic Search, Search Engine Land takes you past elementary "optimisation" of a website for search engines, and looks at the things many people continue to get wrong even after they think they've got their site all sorted. Likely errors include not having tailored landing pages for important search terms, and slapping printed material up on the web rather than rewriting it for online consumption. This is a very good set of tips.

A good article on Search Engine Land, called Why You Need To Know SEO Basics, Even If You Outsource, is something you should read if you're planning to improve your company's web site performance but know you'll be subcontracting the task. SEO is the specific science of "search engine optimisation", but the principles in the article apply to other aspects of web site and online marketing development. You can only give a task to someone else if you actually understand what the task involves – we all know that – so education should be your priority at the moment.

AND IF YOU'VE GOT TIME FOR ANOTHER ONE…

From Search Engine Journal: Tools for Tracking Where Your Site is Mentioned – "If you do your homework well, you will soon see your readers and fans promote your content for you…"