SEO Done Right – Some Advice

You know you need to integrate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) into your website, your content, and your social media but this doesn’t mean you can simply rush out and drop in some keywords and post random blog posts. Nope, rather just like you use a business plan, sales strategy and market evaluation to ensure your company has a viable place in the market – you must apply similar strategies to your SEO. With some planning, a bit of work and the help of professionals, you can reap the rewards of intelligent SEO.

As you know, we are in the SEO business – and in fact we’re darn good at it. We provide clients with well-researched and written content. We don’t make up keywords and phrases – we do research to make sure you’re getting the right terms and keywords in your content. In other words we’re professionals. With this in mind, here is some advice that can help you consider if your SEO is working for you.

Do the Research

Using the wrong keywords can do more damage to your online traffic than you realize. You need to know how people are searching online and you can’t guess or predict how people search for information. With the right keywords you can create intelligent links and this allows search engines to find your content and website online. With the wrong our outdated keywords you will miss out on online traffic and your website simply won’t get found.

Content Is King

There is nothing worse than reading a poorly written article or blog post. Often these pieces of content are simply jam-packed full of keywords and phrases. This strategy doesn’t work. You’ll lose savvy clients and customers who see past the vapor-like content. Quality content that adds value to the reader is still the only way to go – search engines are smart and can spot the quality over the poorly written.

Be Link Smart

Yes outbound links are critical to your website’s success in the search engine rankings. But this doesn’t mean you should link to each and every website out there. Pay attention to the quality of your links. Remember that these links are in a sense your online business connections – would you want to be connected to this company or website owner away from the Internet? As is the case with so many things in life: quality trumps quantity.

Get Social

Social media is critical in getting your SEO working. People are using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest to learn about and discover new products and services. A Re-Tweet or +1 can make a big difference in your SEO success. Social media is not just for high school kids – big business and brands are using it and are spending money on an engaging and personalized social media presence.

Your Website

Without a well-designed and effective website there is no point in driving traffic to your website. When someone does visit your site as a result of well-written article or search engine result but can’t find what he or she is looking for – they won’t stick around. Users spend about 3 seconds looking for the content they want. If your website is a disjointed collection of content that is out-of-date and hard to read, there is no point in spending the time on SEO. Start with your website – get it looking good and providing the content your clients want – then focus on the SEO.

This may all sound a bit harsh – but it is the truth. Feel free to drop us an email so we can help you get your SEO up-to-speed. We can do an analysis of your website and help you get this fixed and then build a proven and successful SEO strategy. SEO works but it has to be done right.

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You’ve likely heard by now that Facebook has released changes to the format and display of business pages. In keeping with the Facebook Timeline format that applies to personal pages, Facebook has done the same for business pages – creating Facebook Pages.

The announcement about this change was made a few weeks ago and in the first week after the announcement, 8 million companies/brands/businesses had made the switch! While the Timeline for Business page format doesn’t officially come into effect until March 30, it does make a lot of sense to learn all you can about these changes and make the switch before the March 30 deadline.

By making the switch before this deadline you can get feedback from your Facebook Pages visitors on how they like the new lay-out and “play” around with the lay-out and new features of the Timeline format.

In this post we’ll take a look at the key changes and show you how simple it is to switch to Brand Timelines in little to-no-time.

Cover Photo and Profile Photo

These two photos allow you to really show off your brand or business. The Cover Photo is displayed across the top of your page and can really be anything you want. Because this photo can be easily changed you can switch it out easily in accordance with product launches or different themes. The ideal size for this banner photo is 850 x 315 pixels.

The Profile Photo is just like the profile picture you’re currently using on your business page. The change is that this photo is now displayed on top of the cover photo. This is a good opportunity to use your company or product logo. Ensure this photo is at least 180 pixels wide.

Feature Stories

With the new “pin it” option you can easily feature and highlight posts and stories on your page. If there is a story for example that really conveys your company message or is a link to an article that promotes your company well, you can choose to pin this and ensure it always displays on your page.

Conversely if there are stories or posts that you really don’t want to feature and would prefer aren’t displayed on your Timeline, you can simply choose to Hide them. Remember this Facebook page is all about marketing and promoting your business so you can choose to feature or hide whatever you want.

History and Milestones

This area on the right-side of your page really is your company’s digital online history on Facebook. Users can hover over a date or month and see what you posted on your Facebook page. You can edit this to highlight key moments, product launches, and dates in your company’s history.

Views, Apps and Likes

Every marketing manager wants to know how many people are viewing the Facebook page and how many people “Like” it. This information used to be displayed on the left-side of the page and with Facebook Pages Timeline has moved to just under your cover photo. The Apps you are using are also now displayed in this area.

While there are some folks out there who really don’t like change and aren’t fans of the new Facebook Pages Timeline lay-out, in the long-run the changes are ones that you can use to your advantage. It is now easier to really create the page and lay-out that conveys your company message.

It is a good idea to make use of the Preview functionality within Facebook so you can see what your new page will look out. Don’t wait until March 30 for the forced change-over – now is the perfect time to make the change and set-up a page that gets the message across that you want.

For more reading on these changes, read the official Facebook Pages overview and this article from the Business 2 Community website.

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Earlier in the week we wrote about Pinterest and provided you with the basics on this social channel. Today we’re looking at how you can use Pinterest to help market, promote and increase sales for your business.

To quickly refresh, Pinterest is a virtual pinboard site that allows users to post photos and links to products/items/brands/images that they find online. Using a board system, Pinterest users create boards based on themes and pin items to the appropriate board. People follow one another on Pinterest to stay up-to-date with the latest finds on the Internet. This becomes a social and community-building experience when others repin your pins or comment on a pin.

For businesses the benefit comes when your brand/product/service is pinned to the site. Keep in mind that Pinterest had 7.2 million unique visitors in December 2011. That is some serious traffic – primarily all of this traffic is in the 18-34 year-old female demographic (more men are turning to Pinterest as it grows).

Pinterest makes sense for your business if you have a product or image that lends itself to being pinned. Even if you don’t sell “hard goods” but instead sell/offer a service, you can create Pinterest boards to reflect your niche.

Using Pinterest to Market Your Business

Here are some ideas on how you can use Pinterest to market and promote your business.

Think Social

Remember that at its core, Pinterest is a social channel. People follow others who have similar interests to them and repin items that fit into their interests. For a business to succeed, you must follow others who fit into your market space – think of your customer base, follow other companies in your space (so you can see what they’re doing), follow media companies that are related to your industry.

Repin items that you find are interesting. Comment on pins that fit into your market space. Follow others and they will likely follow you back.

Get Creative

There are so many companies on Pinterest now so to stand out on this site, you need to put your thinking cap on and figure out how you can make your Pinterest account different from others in your market.

Pinterest users are savvy and they will see through a company who is only pinning its products and services. You can use Pinterest to create a community around your business if you think strategically and creatively.

For example, if you’re a company that creates environmentally-friendly products, you could create the following boards: Green Travel (pins to green travel sites, articles, gear), Green Energy (pins to environmentally-friendly energy products, hybrid cars), Inspiration (pins to articles/images about green living), Enlightening Movies (pins to movies in the green space), Stores (pins to stores that sell your products), Pics (photos of people using your products), and Green Food (this is a for fun board – recipes are hugely popular on Pinterest – so you could have pins that show only green-colored food).

As you can see there is really no limit on what you can do with Pinterest and your boards – it takes some work to think about the image you want to portray. As with anything online, it is important to be active and connected with your followers.

Managing Your Pinterest Account

To make it easy for Pinterest users to pin your products/services/brand, make sure you add the Pin It button where applicable on your website. Also keep track of who is pinning items from your website – follow-up with these people and engage with them.

You want followers to repin your pins so you also need to be active and do the same. If done well, you can use Pinterest to establish expertise in your market.

It is useful to understand that just as many companies use external social media consultants to manage Twitter and Facebook posts, the same is happening with Pinterest.

To help you really understand how useful Pinterest can be to your business, take a look at this infographic from Monetate. Just like Google+, Facebook, and Twitter – Pinterest is as useful and as powerful as you make it.

If you have questions about Pinterest and how we can help you use this powerful social channel and marketing tool, drop us an email.

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Understanding Pinterest

Pinterest is super popular right now. This website and social channel is getting lots of coverage on online media sites and in printed newspapers and magazines. You may have visited the Pinterest website or read an article about this phenomenon but are still wondering what the excitement is all about.

Basic Facts on Pinterest

• Virtual pinboard site
• Access is by invite only
• Site was in beta status in March 2010
• In August 2011, Time magazine listed it as one of the top 50 websites of 2011

Who Uses Pinterest and Why

• Primarily women in the 18-34 age group
• Men are gradually starting to use the site
• Most popular in North America
• Lets users keep track of and show others the items/ideas/objects they find online that they think are inspiring, cool, and unique
• Just as people follow others on Twitter, the same happens on Pinterest
• You can use Pinterest to show your followers the things you like online
• Create boards to organize the things you like, for example: favorite books, top movies, craft ideas, jewelry, Easter decorating ideas, home decorating ideas, recipes, etc.

How You Can Get Started with Pinterest

• Because it is invite only you need a friend to invite you to the site
• Use Pinterest to instantly connect with your Facebook friends and Twitter followers

How Does Pinterest Generate Revenue?

• Each item “pinned” on Pinterest is a link to the original website. Depending on the item pinned, this takes users who click on the item to a website that has an online store. By using SkimLink, Pinterest tracks the number of click-throughs to these retail sites and each time a sale is made on one of these sites due to a pinned item, Pinterest collects a royalty.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Pinterest

• If you sell items online, you definitely want your items to be pinned on Pinterest. To help facilitate this, add a Pin It button to your online catalog and product descriptions. When a website user sees an item on your site that they like, they can simply click Pin It and it will be added to the user’s Pinterest board.
• It helps to think of Pinterest as a collection of links to items that can be bought – so think of how you can get others to pin your products on this site.
• Pins to items on your website can generate click-throughs to your website – helping to boost online traffic and exposure.
• A large number of companies are using Pinterest to build communities around their products/services/brand. Take a look at this article to see how companies are using Pinterest: 250+ Brands on Pinterest.

Stay tuned for another post on how you can use Pinterest for your business. We’ll provide some examples of what you can do with Pinterest and how it can become a useful marketing and branding tool.

To learn more about Pinterest, visit the Pinterest website and read this article from Mashable. If you’re using Pinterest, tell us how you’re using it. What are your thoughts on this social channel – fad or here to stay?

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In our ongoing effort to keep you up-to-date with the latest Google updates, here is our look at the key changes to Google in February. Be sure to read our blog post about the new Google Privacy Policy as well!

In February, Google made 40 changes to how it handles search… Google says that the bulk of these changes relate to improving existing systems, such as: including related searches, sitelinks, autocomplete, UI elements, indexing, synonyms, and SafeSearch.

Here are the changes that likely will stand out most for you in midst of the 40 changes:

Better Related Searches

This is good for your business and for your daily Google searches – this means that Google is making better recommendations with its “Searches related to” section. This feature will now be displaying for more searches than it did in the past. So if your SEO is well-done and up-to-date your website will benefit from this improvement.

More Relevant Sitelinks

The algorithm that Google was using really wasn’t working that well, so this change means that the relevant sitelinks returned during searches will actually be more purposeful and useful – to both you and your clients.

Better Snippet Display

For those of you using Google on your mobile device such as iPad, tablet, or smartphone, the size of snippets returned in Google searches could be troublesome. Google has tweaked this functionality to now provide better-sized snippets – so you will be better able to find the content you want. For your business this means you can be confident that your website snippet will be the same size as those returned for your competitors.

Locally Specific YouTube Results

It used to be that doing a search in YouTube could result in a very wide mix of search results with many of these not being relevant to your location. Now Google is doing a better job of controlling how the YouTube search results are considered local to you. To use Google’s example, for the query [lady gaga in ] performed on the US version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in times square], but for the same search performed on the Indian version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in India].

Panda Update

This is a big one and it means that the search algorithm is more accurate and in-tune to recent changes on the web. In other words, when you make a change to your website, SEO, or blog – it will be noticed and captured by Google.

SafeSearch Improvements

Google is working hard to ensure that adult content does not display in your search results. As well, Google has updated how it looks for adult images – ensuring that these will not be displayed in your search results.

This is just a summary of the key changes that Google has made in February. Definitely visit the Google blog to get a complete update on its changes for the month. As always if you have questions on how you can optimize your website and get better search results, drop us an email or give us a call!

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Today is a big day for all of us who use Google in our daily Internet practices. You may remember some news flashes and likely emails way back in January about the changes Google had planned for its privacy policy. Well, today is the big day.

Today on March 1, Google’s new privacy policy comes into effect. We thought that it would be a good idea to take a look at this new privacy policy and explain to you how this new privacy policy will impact you.

Google being Google, it has been very upfront about the changes and has of course written a number of informative blog posts on the topic.

The Basics

But, we assume you just really want to know how this new privacy policy impacts you.

• Before today there were more than 70 privacy policies and document for the more than 60 Google products.
• 60 of Google’s products are now using one cohesive privacy policy.
• Based on the new privacy policy, Google can now more easily direct content, advertisements, and other suggestions to you.
• Google Chrome, Google Books and Google Wallet are not included in this change.

How The New Google Privacy Policy Impacts You

Really, not much has really changed. Google has always used very powerful and intelligent algorithms to tailor content to you. Think of the auto-complete, targeted ads that might appear in on your Google search page, and even suggestions to follow people or brands in Google+.

What the policy does do is allows Google to build a complete history and profile of your online habits. With this information, Google can then target specific content towards you. Google says that by doing this, you will have a better experience and will no longer be seeing irrelevant advertisements or links that really don’t suit your needs and wants.

So does this change in the privacy policy really make a difference to you? Not really. In fact it might actually make your experience better – no more junky advertisements, irrelevant auto-complete suggestions or strange Google+ suggestions. What Google is doing is really no different from what Facebook already does.

If you don’t like this new policy, you can choose to stop using Google products that require to have a Google account (this will limit some of the profile building) – such as Gmail.

To Learn More

Read what Google has to say about its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. As well there is lots of information about this online right now:

• Google’s New Privacy Policy Goes Live Today, Do You Care?
• Google’s New Privacy Policy Goes Into Effect Today

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Maybe you’re in the process of choosing a website template or perhaps your website is already live – and you’re trying to determine if you need a blog… Blogging started way back in the late 1990s primarily by keen techies who wanted to share their writing, art, photography, etc.

Well, fast forward 10 years or so and it seems as though everyone you know has at least one blog and most businesses are hosting blogs on their corporate websites. So you know that blogging has truly gone mainstream – but why does your business website need a blog?

Expertise

A blog allows you to emphasize your areas of expertise. You can use your blog to write regularly about topics that concern your business niche. For example, you can provide “how to” or “tip” blog posts that provide information on how to use your products/services or those that impact your business area (such as Google+, WordPress, or Twitter – in our case). You can provide commentary on the latest innovations that impact your business. You can use your blog to highlight how your business has benefited customers/clients and emphasize your products and service.

Thanks to the power of RSS feeds and RSS readers, people now subscribe to blogs. Using an RSS reader, folks can organize their blog feeds based on interest and category. For example, our RSS reader has the following categories: Social Media, Technology, Environment, News, Knitting, Travel, and Reading – we use this to keep track of our favorite blogs and stay up-to-date on the latest news from our clients, suppliers and competitors.

Hear From Others

People always have something to say – a blog lets your readers, clients, and partners provide you with instant feedback. Passionate and interested people will post comments on your blog – this feedback is invaluable when understanding what your niche wants to know more about. In fact depending on how you write your blog posts, you can soon develop a community of people who interact and respond to your blog posts – providing feedback, posting comments, and asking you for more information.

Get Personal

Now we’re not suggesting you need to bare your soul on your business blog. But your blog can be a way for you to show off your personality a bit. If you or your company are involved in community or charitable events – write about these. Maybe you’re passionate about travel – share some photos and stories of your recent trip. Or maybe you’re involved in animal rescue – write a post about how you got involved with this. These days people want to know who they’re working with so it helps to show your other side as well.

Be Found

Search engine algorithms love websites that are updated regularly and your blog is a great way to do this. Your blog helps your searchability. You can even take things a step further by integrating inbound links to your website, SEO terms/keywords and outbound links. Add some photos as well and your ranking in search engines will go up. As well, if you’re using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ – you can easily have your latest blog post URL posted to these social media platforms.

Of course, the key to blogging is that it shouldn’t be a chore. You don’t need to blog each and everyday (frankly, you likely won’t have something new and interesting to post everyday!). Think about length as well – don’t go over 800 words and try to break up the text with bold text, photos, and lists. And don’t forget that your blog posts need to be simply text-based – post videos of product demonstrations, photos of office functions, etc. At the end of the day – a blog can help your business stand out in the crowd.

In an effort to be more transparent and upfront with website owners, writers, marketers and users of it search engine, Google is now providing monthly updates on its latest tweaks, changes and improvements.

In a new series on our blog, we’ll take a look at the latest news from Google on its changes to its popular search engine. So far for 2012, some of the notable changes that you’ll likely find interesting are:

• Updates to health-related searches

Lots of people use Google to search on symptoms or a set of symptoms. Now with the recent changes to its algorithms, a search on a symptom will return or show a list of possible related health conditions.

Autocomplete improvements

For some users autocomplete is annoying and for others, it is a useful feature. In efforts to make autocomplete more user-friendly, Google has updated this feature to provide you with the predicted queries as quickly as possible.

•  Spelling corrections

There has been a lot of work behind-the-scenes to adjust searches and search results based on spelling. Now Google shows you results for a corrected query as well as a link to the result for the original misspelled query. In addition, Google has improved its dictionary/spelling function to correct spelling errors more accurately.

• Panda algorithm changes

This update is a bit frustrating for website owners who have sites that are heavy on ads. In an effort to reduce the number of ad-focused search results, the Panda algorithm will return more high quality websites by filtering out websites that include too many ads. This means you may need to take a look at your website design and consider any or all ad placements.

• Social Search

Google is all about integrating all of its online sites – including Google+. You likely know how useful it is to your business to have a Google+ page since it does improve your search engine results in user searches. Now with three new features: personal results, profiles in search, and people and pages – search algorithms will mine Google+ to find relevant Google+ people, posts, and photos.

As you can see the Google team is constantly working to improve its search results and ensure that the most relevant and appropriate data is returned. This means that your content must always be clean, well-structured and focused on its key message. The business world uses Google to get found – make sure your website and content is optimized to stand out from your competitors.

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As a regular reader of this blog, you are likely aware of how important it is to have an online presence.

Regardless of the question or problem – making restaurant reservations, finding a mechanic, planning a night out at the movies, buying birthday presents, or looking for a recipe – more and more people are turning to the Internet.

The days of the Yellow Pages and maps are long-gone.

This is why it is critical for small businesses of all kinds to have a solid online presence. Now, while it would be nice for you to be active on Twitter and Facebook – what is really important is that your business website is well-structured with SEO content, a regularly updated blog and a clear contact page with an address, phone number and email address.

All of this will help your business get found when someone opens up Google and searches for your business niche or even your specific business name. Google is the most popular search engine and with its additional websites such as Google Maps, Google+ and Google Translate there really isn’t anything that Google can’t help you with.

For your business one other Google website/service can really extend your chances of getting found and located: Google Places. Google Places is a free service that allows you to simply upload your business location information into a Google database of businesses and services.

When clients search for your business name, the search results will return a link to your website and your company location and address. With Google Places you can even add extra features to the search results such as a photo of your building (helps people recognize it when they’re looking for it), coupons and current sales offers (helps to entice clients and customers to visit your retail location), and even recent reviews of your products and services.

In turn with a listing in Google Places you can start collecting valuable data about your business and its online presence. Google Places will provide you with useful information about the search terms used to find your business, what people clicked on when they found your website, and you can even find out where your customers are coming from (this helps you with your market research and promotion campaigns). This is still a great idea even if you don’t have a storefront or work from a home office – people still like to have an idea of where you are located.

Keep in mind that 97% of people are using the Internet to find local businesses. This includes those in their own city and in cities/towns to which they plan to visit. Being listed in Google Places only makes sense – more people can find you and you can collect valuable user data about who is interested in your business.

Don’t be shy to drop us an email about Google Places and how we can help you build your online profile. We’ve got lots of great ideas of how you can incorporate Google Places into your online presence. During your research about Google Places you’ll likely read about Google Adwords – well we can help you with this as well! Remember that your online presence is only as strong and profitable as you make it.

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By now you’ve likely heard of Google+ and read a range of articles about the pros and cons for business involvement in this latest social media platform. In our opinion, Google+ just like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and Pinterest can be useful for your business.

The key to success with Google+ for business though is how you use it. It takes more than setting up an account and making a few connections. You need to be active on it and use Google+ for business to its potential.

Here are some of the key reasons why Google+ for business is useful for your business – regardless of its size and focus.

Marketing
As you know, Google has cornered the market in search engines. When people think of search engines, the first word and company that comes to mind is Google. In fact, a common phrase heard around our office is “Good question – I’ll Google it”.

Because Google is the leader in search engines and because your updates and activity on Google+ are searchable and indexable by Google – any activity you do on this social networking tool will positively impact your search results. (Be sure to mark your updates as Public – this way they’ll always be indexed by Google.)

A high ranking on the search results page results to more click-throughs which can result in more sales. So it only makes sense that your activity on Google+ will be good for business. To help further your reach and promotion, add the +1 button to your products and services pages – this gives you free promotion from people who like your products and services.

Connecting
Google+ is a social network. Social network success all comes down to engagement and communication. Using integrated Google+ features/tool such as Hangouts you can take your customer and client engagement to a new level.

Many businesses using Hangout to hold virtual meetings, to share Google docs, and to hold brainstorming session. Well, taking this one step further, you can use Hangout to connect and engage with your clients, customers, investors, and others interested in your products and services. Take engagement to the next level and make it personal by using Hangout to hear from your fans and customers.

The Circle method of organizing your contacts and connections is a great way to discover others out there who share similar interests. The beauty of Circles is that they all overlap and there is a trickle-down effect to meeting and connecting with others.

Managing
Just as you use Circles to organize your contacts – you can also use it to manage and organize your company and employees. Use Circles to group and connect folks based on their department, project, role, etc.

In turn your employees and team members can easily use your Google+ for business page to see who in the company is working on what project and easily connect and communicate with them.

Take a look around at the Google+ for business website and read the examples and testimonials from businesses making use of it. Be sure to spend some time reading about Ripples – this Google+ tool “shows you how a post has rippled through the network and help you discover new and interesting people to follow”.

Of course, if you’d like to learn more about how we can help you get started on Google+ for business – don’t hesitate to contact us or comment on this blog post.

Oh and to answer the question posed in our title… Yes you should create a Google+ for business page!

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