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Yesterday I had the great pleasure to speak to the Montreal chapter of the Professional Organizers in Canada organization. Kathryn (of Zoonini Web Services) and I talked about the various elements that comprise an "optimized site."

Kathryn covered intuitive design and site architecture along with common design mistakes that can hurt a Web site's performance - with both the search engines and the site visitors. I tackled how to find your keywords, where to put them, and the final litmus test - does it sound natural to your potential clients? We also spoke about linking strategies - both on-site and off-site. It was a lot to cover in a short period of time, and we did our best to keep the talk jargon-free.

And that's no small feat. The search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) industries -- like all industries -- have their own lingo. SEO and SEM folks tend to babble about spiders, SERPs, keyword efficiency, Meta tags, alt tags, backlinking and on and on. I chat with colleagues about this sort of stuff day-in,-day-out and it becomes so easy to forget that the rest of the world doesn't talk this way.

And that's the thing that needs to be constantly at the forefront when writing any piece of marketing collateral - is the language that I am using match and connect with my clients?

Marketing people talk about staying on-message and on-brand, which is swell, but that "on-message" bit can't just be wrapped up in groovy buzzwords, marketing-speak or jargon that is a far cry from the lingua franca common language we all use.

And unfortunately it can come across like one of those people that you occasionally meet at a party. You know the ones: the "I do this and I do that, and anyway, as I was saying" people. All businesses, and especially SMEs, need to take a hard, cold look at their Web sites and marketing materials. Is it all about "our leading edge solutions" and "our commitment" and "we deliver premium service"? Where's the customer? We've all heard of the "What's In It For Me" approach, but is it truly there?

Kathy Sierra is a fascinating blogger, and last week I read a post that has stayed with me. I was instantly caught by the little drawing of the "loveocracy" It's this approach that needs to be applied to writing as well, not just keyword and SEO-optimized content, but all writing - what is best for my readers? What are they looking for? What questions need to be answered? What words resonate - do they instantly "get it"?

Look again at the words on your page - is it the language of your audience or your own industry talk?

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