Category: SEO

Top Effective Tools

Looking for tools that will help you improve your SEO process? Here are some of the best tools that help you identify the issues, optimize the website, and help you get ahead of your competitors.

1. Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is perhaps the most important tool for search engine optimization experts analysts. It is a data source that offers high-quality and detailed information. We are like in a Google-dominated age; it is what works for all of us. Besides, most of the other data tools just sponge off on the data provided by Google using the API. All the important and actionable information about the visitors of the sites comes from this significant tool.

2. Google Webmaster Tools:

After Google Analytics, let us learn about the Google Webmaster tools which are another critical source for online marketers. The tool is not just for webmaster; it highly helps SEO analysts as well. The tools have everything to do with local searching engine optimization.

Some of the best inputs from the Google Webmaster tools come from looking at the dashboard. SEO marketers need to be up-to-date with the dashboard of the webmaster tool. The tool offers the information similar to the Google Analytics, however in a simpler and less complicated manner. You have easier access to the number with lesser tweaking. One of the most important information provided by the Webmaster Tool is the link data. Keeping track of harmful backlinks is one of the best protective action that you can take to maintain the quality of your site.

3. Keyword Planner:

The keyword tool has now been replaced with keyword planner, and it is the best way to research keywords. You can access keyword planner by logging in to AdWords => Tools => Keyword Planner. Keyword Planner is the way to reach out for when you want to do keyword research. The Keyword Planner offers better functionalities than other keyword tools available. However, the Keyword Planner aims at AdWords generation instead of offering organic keyword research.

4. MozBar:

MozBar is a powerhouse of providing information and local SEO services has everything to do with having the right knowledge about stuff. The MozBar helps you in finding out the right stuff with just simple clicks. Just click on the MozBar button, and you will get all the report of the website. The tool has three categories- Page Attributes, Page Elements, and Link Data.

5. SEOWorkers Analysis Tool:

This tool allows you to plug into a URL of the website, even if the website that is not yours and helps you generate information. While SEOWorkers don’t offer anything new or unique, it surely does save a lot of time that goes into the analysis. Additionally, it offers background information as well. You will find some of the information like under-the-hood things that people generally don’t think about checking. Other helpful features show whether you are going in the right direction or need to work on some points.

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How using Longtail keywords benefit your Do it yourself SEO

Longtail keywords are perhaps better thought of as a phrase or a short sentence rather than a keyword. Longtail keyword are over three words in length and can even be as much as five.

These keywords give a much more specific search pertaining to the website they are used on, this is because the combination of the words together is less likely to appear elsewhere on the internet. If you think about this in the way in which a code with more characters is harder to crack, so will a combination of words be more specific to that particular website.

Longtail keywords also provide the searcher with much more relevant content for their search. If an individual was to search the keywords “car rental” they may get a car rental service which doesn’t operate in the area they are visiting, if however the same individual was to search “car rental in Iceland” which is a Longtail keyword, they are more or less guaranteed to get what they were looking for.

In this way, the use of Longtail keyword can lead to both an increase in traffic and an increase in revenue.

Your traffic will be increased because it will give you a lower amount of competition for that specific phrase. The competition for the term “car rental” is very high, however the competition for the keywords “car rental” followed by your location is likely to be lower and will drive traffic to you. Your ranking in a search engine is much more likely to be increased if you use search terms which are specific to you.

The traffic you will also drive to your website will be of a much higher quality; this is because the people who have entered that search term want the specific service you provide, that’s why they have entered it into a search engine. These people are much more likely to be pleased with the results of the search and are far more likely to actually want to spend money with you.

Don’t  Obsess about  driving in Traffic
It’s no good for a person to be directed towards your site, only to find what they were presented with when they got there was not what they were expecting. This is just a waste of the potential customers time, your time and a waste of bandwidth. It also makes the internet harder to navigate and may even damage the business prospects of companies who are not in direct competition with you. In other words, nobody benefits. It might leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that your web traffic is up, but that’s all it is, it hasn’t led to a sale or any benefit to your business. All you have done by attracting someone to your site who doesn’t want to be there is successfully annoy someone.

For this reason, Longtail keywords just make the internet a more pleasant place for everyone who uses it. You manage to attract someone to your site who is likely to want to spend money with you. The customer is also happy because they have found what they were looking for in a timely manner.

The key to using Longtail keywords is the exact same principle as any keyword, You should thoroughly research the term first and take into account how much competition these keywords have.

You should not be too obsessed with how many searches that term receives. What you are looking for the most, is searches with a very low competition. If this search term applies directly to your business, these people searching that term and finding you will be far more valuable than using other keywords.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t aim for the term to be well searched, but don’t get too caught up in how many searches the term has received. Concentrate instead on how relevant the search is to the services you offer the customer.

To do this, think of terms that a person may be looking for if they would wish to find your business. In cases where you offer a niche product or service then this may mean that you will find it very easy. It will be very straight forward for you to find terms not often used by other website.

In the case where you offer a common product

For example:

You are a web design company and the internet is obviously not an unusual place to find a web design company.

you will have to put more thought into separating yourself from the competition. What you could do in this case is to think of services you offer which may be more uncommon.

If you specialize in web design for small business, then “web design for small companies” may be a fantastic and relevant search term, with low competition for you.

Adding your location is always a good thing to do, there are many web design companies on the internet, there may not be many in your local area for example “web design companies  in red Deer” as a longtail Keyword .

You may also want to combine services you offer.

 

For example:

“Web design and SEO”. This term is likely to have far less competition for searches for the individual services alone.

If you are smart, with a little bit of luck and you do your research, you could by chance happen upon a phrase which will massively increase your revenue and even make you head and shoulders above all of your competitors.

To sum it up, Longtail keywords have the potential to bring in more people who actually wanted to find you, if you offer niche services, or services in a specific location, you could benefit from using them a great deal over using traditional terms. What’s more, every extra hit you get on your website is far more likely to translate into increased revenue.

12 Reasons Why Good Content Is Necessary For The Success Of Your Internet Marketing Efforts

 

To be competitive in today’s commercial landscape, a strong online presence is necessary for every type of business. And to build the strongest online presence possible, internet marketing techniques must be implemented to ensure web visibility, continuous traffic-generation, lead conversion, and ultimately, a sustainable increase in sales.

Central to most internet marketing methods is original, high quality content.

 

Good Content Is The Engine That Drives Every Internet Marketing Endeavor

 

Simply put, writing original, high quality content is always the first step for every successful internet marketing strategy. Internet marketing is all about driving visitors to your website and converting them into customers. To lure them in, you need good content that will pique their interest and compel them to want to know more about your business. To transform them into sales, you need good content to inform them of the benefits that can be derived from your products or services and convince them that your business is the right one for their needs.

The internet is also known as the information superhighway. The conveyance of information in the online world is primarily a text-driven process. People use the web to look for the information they need. If you have the information they need, the main manner by which you can relay the same is via good content.

Internet marketing uses this very simple formula to generate leads for your website. With every online marketing method – like search engine optimization (SEO), article marketing, press release distribution, social media marketing, backlinking, and others – the end goal is always the same: to tell people that your website has the content that they’re looking for.

If an internet marketing campaign is successful in leading a person to your website, and that person discovers that your content is of poor quality, then the internet marketing method you implemented will be for naught. It’s virtually useless as the visitor will leave as quickly as he arrived.

Every online undertaking should start with good content. This is the cardinal rule, and there are no exceptions.

 

The Benefits Of Good Content For Your Business

 

Why is good content necessary for your business in its quest to establish a strong online presence for itself? Here are 12 reasons that firmly validate the essential nature of amazing content for your business’ website:

1. Ability to communicate your message to your visitors. Words are the best way to tell your visitors what they need to know. Succeeding in the commercial world is all about conveying your business message to your audience and converting them into customers. Your content is chiefly responsible for this. Poor content is much akin to a poorly skilled salesman who won’t be able to sell anything no matter how hard he tries. On the other end of the spectrum, good content is much like a successful real estate broker who has reached superstardom in his field, one who can sell any house by merely saying a few select words.

2. Ability to pre-sell your product or service to your visitors. Only 1 out of every 530 visitors, at the average, will buy your product immediately after reading your sales page. This is because even the most well-written sales page won’t be able to sway the purchasing decision of most leads at first contact. These leads must first be warmed up to your sales pitch. Good content – in the form of articles, informative expositions, or a collection of useful statistics – can pre-sell your product or service to your target audience. This way, once they arrive at your sales page, their minds will be better conditioned to buying what you have to offer.

3. Ability to convert your visitors into sales. On the internet, words sell. This is because written texts are the primary mode of communication in the World Wide Web. Once you’re generating visitors to your website, you will need to tell them what you want them to do. This is called the “call to action.” A “call to action” is always supported by good content. Without good content, your “call to action” will seem like a poorly placed advert.

4. A way to guarantee repeat visitors. If your website is filled with great content, then your visitors will remember your URL and come back in the future. This is a great way to generate additional traffic without having to resort to other internet marketing methods.

5. Greater weight to your web pages for search engine placement. Your website needs to target the first page of search engine results for relevant queries. This is because 5 out of every 7 adults use the search engines to find the products and services they need, and 53% of them never bother to read beyond the first page of these results. Hence, if your website doesn’t place on the first page of search engine results, then it’s missing out on 67% of its potential sales. Now, good content is critical in winning the favor of search engines, mainly because search engines don’t read videos or images… search engines read texts, namely, your content. Google is the most used search engine today, and with its newest set of algorithms (collectively labeled as the Panda update), much weight has been given to web pages with original, high quality content. The “dupe content penalty” is no longer a myth… it has become a fact. For your website to get to the first page, you need well-written, highly informative content that is unique to your website.

6. The prime requirement in making your website an authority resource on the internet. Becoming an authority site is the goal of most website owners today. Being an authority site not only increases the market value of your virtual real estate, it will also increase your search engine ranking and generate more visitors for your website. The key to becoming an authority site is good content – specifically exclusive, well-written, highly informative content pieces that are published on a very regular basis.

7. More traffic and potential leads generated from your article marketing campaigns. Article marketing is still one of the best internet marketing techniques today. If your business is adopting this strategy to build backlinks – if not generate direct traffic – for your website, then do bear in mind that your business will be judged by the articles you distribute. Poorly written articles will not only turn potential leads away, they will also give them the impression that your business is of the same substandard quality as your articles.

8. Better traffic generation from your press releases. Press release distribution is one of the best, though often overlooked, internet marketing practices today. Press releases shine because of their ability to generate direct traffic to your website, to significantly increase the number of backlinks pointing to your URL, and to advertise your website in the offline world if ever your press release will be picked up by print publications. Again, just like articles, your business will be judged based on the quality of your press releases. Marvelously written press releases will immediately give readers the impression that your business is reliable, credible, and very much worth their consideration.

9. Higher possibility of enjoying an exponential growth in lead generation courtesy of electronic word of mouth (eWOM). Because of the sheer popularity of social media – like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and similar websites – in this day and age, word of mouth has gone digital. Electronic word of mouth, or eWOM, is a relatively new phenomenon that can make a significant impact on your business. If your website provides good content, people will talk about it. Social media channels make it easy for them to share how they feel about your web pages’ content. If they like your content, they’ll recommend it to the members of their respective networks. The results are simply amazing – an exponential boost in traffic that will just keep growing and growing with each passing day.

10. Good content will make other websites link to your web pages, thus increasing your own website’s page rank and significantly contributing to its higher placement in relevant search engine results. If you publish original, high quality content with cutting edge information, other websites will naturally link to your web pages to bolster their own content by using yours as reference. This will increase the number of your backlinks tremendously. The best part of it is that this is a type of passive internet marketing, meaning, once your good content is live, you won’t have to do anything to garner backlinks leading visitors to that particular web page.

11. Long lasting benefits. One other important aspect of original, high quality content is that all of its benefits can be enjoyed longterm. One piece of good content will literally serve you for years. This is very much unlike paid online marketing models – such as Pay Per Click (PPC), Pay Per Action (PPA), and Pay Per View (PPV) – that can indeed generate a large volume of traffic quickly, but the influx of visitors will cease once your allotted marketing budget runs dry. Good content will provide organic traffic that is free and highly targeted, in a manner that is more sustainable and can last for many, many years.

12. A more affordable investment. Publishing good content can produce long lasting results, as we have mentioned above. Unlike PPC, PPA, and PPV, you won’t have to pay for every visitor garnered by your website. Basically, you will only have to pay a good writer once to produce the original, high quality content that you need, and your content will work its magic from there.

Good content should always be the priority of your business. Good content is the engine that powers every internet marketing campaign, one that greatly determines the level of success your enterprise will get to enjoy in the world of electronic commerce.

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You have a problem. You need to hire a quality SEO agency to provide your company with reliable online marketing services. When you try searching for a suitable agency on Google, Bing or Yahoo, you get a list of hundreds of SEO companies which all claim to provide excellent services. As a result, you’re faced with a dilemma on which agency to hire.

If you’re currently having this challenge, the information in this article will give you insights on how to hire the right SEO Company.

1. Does the SEO Agency have testimonials and referees?

A quality SEO agency should be willing and able to provide credible testimonials as well as a list of former and current clients (referees). Their contact information should also be provided so that, if need arises, you can call or send emails to ascertain if the information provided is true.

The list of referees and testimonials can help you to determine effectiveness of the candidate and also verify if the agency did indeed work on particular SEO campaigns. Find out if they recorded positive impact in their search engine ranking, particularly in gaining audiences and conversions, due to the agency’s efforts.

2. Is the SEO agency capable of enhancing local search results?

Appearing among the first 10 search engine results is very important if your intention is to attract and retain nearby customers in a certain geographical area. Choose a candidate with expertise and experience in local Search Engine Optimization techniques.

When a good agency optimizes your website for local SEO, it (website) instantly appears when someone within the area is conducting a search for keywords which are related to your business. Choose an agency that will remember to add your enterprise’s state and city to your site’s Meta descriptions and title tags. Seek the services of a candidate that won’t forget to list your website on local listings in Bing, Yahoo and Google (local listings are basically online directories of enterprises in a particular geographical area). One Key factor to Look for is does the agency rank itself for there keywords? For example you are looking for someone to help with SEO in Calgary do they rank for terms like Calgary SEO, Calgary internet marketing , SEO Calagry ? if they cant rank themselves what makes you think they can help your business rank?

3. How does the agency intend to enhance your ranking on search engines?

Avoid SEO agencies that aren’t willing or able to freely share methods they intend to use. Choose one that can extensively explain the strategies it intends to use to improve your websites ranking on search engines. It should have the ability of giving you a realistic estimate of how long it could take to attain the SEO campaign objectives you agree on.

Pick a candidate whose proposal contains a preliminary technical appraisal of your website. This will enable you to get rid of any problems that may lower your ranking on search engines (e.g. error pages and broken links).

The successful candidate should be capable of providing on-page optimization by improving the websites’ internal linking structure and URL, as well as developing titles, tags and headings of web pages. On-page optimization plays a significant role in making a website as friendly as possible to search engines.

Find out if the SEO agency has the capacity of providing off page Search Engine Optimization strategies to increase awareness of your website’s content on other sites, often through blogs, press releases and/or social media.

4. Can the SEO agency guarantee that your website will rank highly on Google, Yahoo and Bing?

The SEO agency should have effective strategies in place to ensure your website appears as high as possible on search engines. Favorable ranking directly translate to high traffic because of good visibility.

If the candidate claims that it’s capable of making sure that your website is ranked first on search engines, you should completely avoid any further engagements. This is because it is impossible to give guarantee of a number one ranking on search engines.

If the agency gives claims of having insider relationships with search engines that will give you priority on search engine results, consider that as a red flag. Google, Yahoo and Bing are the only parties that are capable of controlling how low or high sites appear in search results.

5. Does is adhere to webmaster guidelines of search engines?

It’s important to seek the services of an SEO agency that strictly obeys Google’s webmaster best practices. These guidelines specifically prohibit twelve SEO tricks that are commonly used, e.g. automatic generation of spam as well as addition of false links and hidden text. See our Digital marketing page 

If you choose an agency which disregards these guidelines, your website will, most probably, have extremely low ranking. Google may even prevent it from appearing on search results completely.

The candidate should also be familiar with webmaster best practices prescribed by Yahoo and Bing.

Additional factors to consider before hiring an SEO agency

a. Is the SEO agency willing to share all changes made to your website with you?

SEO campaigns generally entail making significant changes to existing website-page coding. The candidate should be willing to share the nature and extent of intended adjustments. Ideally, your permission should be sought before the website’s code is accessed and altered.

Does it have the intention of adding new title tags to already existing HTML code, or it only intends to modify them? Does the SEO agency have the intention of providing extra copyrighting content emphasizing your services/ products to improve the number of on-page and visible keywords that will be of relevance to your prospective customers?

Is the candidate planning to re-design all or some of your website’s navigation? Is it planning to add any new pages?

b. How does the SEO agency intend to gauge the success of SEO campaigns?

The prospective candidate should have the ability of measuring the success of efforts made in SEO campaigns by tracking the volume of traffic that your website receives, and also where the traffic is originates from.

Its employees should have the required experience and skills needed to use Google Analytics to establish development in your website’s ranking on search engines, number of links originating from other websites that are driving traffic your website and the type of keywords people use when looking for your website, among others.

Find out how often they intend to share this information with you, and how they intend to use it to constantly improve your website traffic as well as search engine ranking.

c. What communication channels does the agency use, and how reliable are they?

d. Is the candidate familiar with the latest changes in algorithms?

e. Are the payment terms and fees reasonable?

f. Is it capable of working with sites that have been previously penalized, and how does it fix such problems?

g. Will I still own all the optimized content that I paid the SEO agency to provide if I terminate the contract or when it expires?

h. Will the agency’s SEO campaign have any effect on marketing efforts?

i. What type of reporting, link building, technical and research tools does the agency use, and how effective and efficient are they?

j. What kind of SEO work does it specialize in?

 

I have Answers to these questions and YesI rank in the top for the terms that affect our business ! I put my money where my mouth is .

MRC SEO Consulting
4911 30 Avenue Southwest Calgary, Alberta T3E0V4
Phone: +1 403-386-7427

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