SEO Writing Tips: 5 Blog Writing Do’s and Don’t’s

Writing for SEO is not all that different from writing well in general. You want to make it clear, compelling, and as concise as possible. But there are a few essential SEO writing tips you should know if you’re new to the world of blogging.

We’ll start with keywords, word count, and a few notes on style.

1. Keywords

Writing for SEO means choosing your words carefully. If a word or phrase reoccurs throughout a web page, the search engine algorithms are more likely to dig up that page when someone searches for that phrase. Those are your keywords: words and phrases that help to define what your blog post is about.

Do: Use Keywords Them Strategically in Each Blog Post.

An effective keyword is one that:

1. Accurately reflects what the blog post is about.
2. Is something your customers are searching for.
3. Does not have steep competition for the keyword.

We visit the topic of how to use effective keywords in greater depth here.

Don’t: Stuff Blog Posts Full of Keywords.

Search engine algorithms look at more than the number of times a keyword reoccurs in a blog post; they also consider its semantic value. Algorithms penalize sites that engage in ‘keyword-stuffing’, which means cramming a dense volume of keywords into a post to try and game the system. While the ideal keyword density is up for debate, writing for SEO means integrating strategically-chosen keywords into natural-sounding prose.

2. Post Length

Ironically, it often takes longer to write a concise piece than a lengthy one. But there is such a thing as being too concise when it comes to writing for SEO.

Do: Write At Least 500 Words.

Like your high school English teacher, search engine algorithms may take points off if your work is too short. There’s no strict word count for blog writing, but any page with fewer than 300 words may come under scrutiny for having thin content. We generally aim for 500 words at minimum.

Don’t: Pad It Out With Fluff.

Most readers are looking for fast, clear answers. Don’t bury key information beneath a lengthy introduction or sprinkle it among irrelevant tangents. If you are stretching to reach 500 words, consider broadening your chosen topic.

3. Active vs. Passive Voice

There are two ways to write action. One approach puts the force driving the action first; the second focuses on the person (or place, thing, etc.) at which the action is directed. That’s the simplest way to explain active and passive voice, a choice which can have a big effect on a blog post’s readability.

What does this have to do with SEO writing tips? It’s simple: the more people enjoy reading your post, the more likely they are to consume it in full, explore the rest of your site, and share it with others. Search engine algorithms take these as signals of a high-quality post that should rank well in the search engine results.

Do: Use Active Voice Whenever Possible.

With few exceptions active voice makes for clearer, more effective writing. Active voice is generally more concise and transparent than passive voice, and it flows naturally. Try reading some examples of examples of active and passive voice out loud: you’ll notice how active voice is smoother.

Don’t: Use Passive Voice Unless You Have To.

Passive voice, on the other hand, is often stiffer and less exciting compared to active writing. While most readers won’t nit-pick your post for passive voice, it will affect their reading experience. Switching from passive to active voice is a small change that has a big impact on the quality of your work.

4. Grade Level

Grade level is a way of measuring how easy a post is to read. The higher a post’s grade level, the more work it takes to read and comprehend its content. You can assess your post’s grade level using Microsoft Word’s built-in writing tools or a free tool like Hemingway Editor.

Do: Write for An Accessible Grade Level.

Don’t shut out potential readers by using long, complex paragraphs and unnecessary jargon. For a general audience, we recommend aiming for a grade level of six to eight. This limitation also has the benefit of encouraging you to write clearly and concisely.

Don’t: Make Errors.

Writing at a sixth-grade level doesn’t mean you should make sixth-grade spelling and grammar mistakes. The occasional typo is fine, but readers are unlikely to read through a post that is rifled with errors.

5. Be Connected

Your blog is not an island. There are many reasons to incorporate outbound links to other sites into your post. Chief among them is the fact that high-quality links gives your readers more value when they visit.

Do: Vet Your Sources.

Emphasis on high-quality. Search engine algorithms judge you by the company you keep, penalizing sites that link out to sub-par pages. If you wouldn’t put something on your own blog, don’t link to it, either!

Don’t: Forget to Give Credit.

There are times when backlinking is mandatory. Borrowing content from other sites without attribution is plagiarism, which can tank your search engine ranking as much as your reputation. Always take notes on the origin of your information while you’re researching your blog post.

Must-Know SEO Trends in 2018

Ok Google. What’s in store for SEO in 2018?

There are already clear SEO trends that will change how businesses approach digital marketing in 2018.

Voice search and mobile search are more important than ever, and the link-building strategies of yesteryear are due for an update. It’s also time to consider the growing impact of AI and machine learning on search.

Here’s what you need to know about some of the top SEO trends in 2018.

Mobile-First Index

Search has gone mobile. 57% of web traffic, including most Google searches, comes from mobile devices. But when it comes to generating search results, Google’s algorithm still looks at the desktop version of a page to decide if it’s relevant to the user.

That’s about to change.

Google has been experimenting with a mobile-first index since 2016. The mobile-first index is exactly what it sounds like: it looks primarily at the mobile version of a site’s content to understand its data and rank its pages in the results.

So, when does Google plan to deploy the mobile-first index in full? No one knows for sure, but many predict that the shift is coming in 2018.

The good news is, there’s still time to prepare for the mobile-search index. In addition to optimizing sites for mobile web browsing, businesses should start to consider how mobile search differs from the desktop.

Mobile searches are all about context; they’re usually made on-the-go, after all. That changes what kind of information searchers are looking for and how they go about finding it. Some keywords rank differently on mobile, and local SEO has a substantial impact on mobile results.

This also ties into the voice search trend, since voice queries often come from mobile devices.

Voice Search

Voice search is one the biggest SEO trends in 2018. According to Google, almost a quarter of searches made through the Google App on Android devices are voice queries, and the increasing adoption of digital home assistant devices is fuelling more voice searches every day.

Currently, most voice search queries fall into the category of ‘housekeeping’, like asking Siri or Alexa to play a voicemail, look up contact information, or set an alarm. But a growing number of voice searches relate to goods and services. The voice query app Hound found that 22% of voice searches relate to local information, like shopping and services; expect that to grow in 2018.

Voice searches are drastically different from the kinds of queries people type into a box. The phrases tend to be longer, often coming in the form of complete sentences. The tone of these queries is more conversational than a search you would type out.

Here’s an example. Say you want to know how late Starbucks is open next weekend. The typical Google search query is usually cold and efficient; something like, Starbucks Saturday hours. A voice search, on the other hand, would sound more like, Ok Google, how late is Starbucks open on Saturday?

The content of voice search is different as well. Voice searches are more likely to be about topics in-the-moment, like information about local businesses and services. On the other hand, people tend to avoid ‘sensitive subjects’, like social networking and health, when it comes to voice search.

The rise in voice search will have an enormous impact on the approach to SEO in 2018. Pages will not only need to target short keywords, but questions rich in long-tail keywords. More than ever, appealing to your audience will mean producing content that speaks their natural language.

It might seem daunting, but this trend opens a world of opportunity for local businesses to appeal to customers on-the-go.

Diverse Link-Building

Link-building is one of the pillars of powerful SEO. Search engine algorithms treat backlinks as endorsements, a thumbs-up to your relevance and quality of a site.

But not all backlinks are equal. The algorithm weighs the freshness, authority, and relevance of links, and poorly-sourced backlinks reflect back on your own site in the eyes of the search engine.

Last year, Google began looking at certain link-build strategies with greater scrutiny. Google now warns against leaning heavily on guest posts or syndicated posts for backlinks, especially those stuffed with keyword-rich links or penned by unreliable authors.

This trend emphasizes the importance of a diverse link-building strategy. Fortunately, there are more ways than ever to get your content out there.

Your backlink profile should consist of links from many different types of sites: HTML pages, blog posts, social posts, and more. Look for opportunities on Q&A sites like Quora, local news outlets, third-party review sites, and niche platforms that relate to your industry.

Think of it not only as link-building, but building relationships as well. These connections are critical to building a strong SEO strategy in 2018.

Featured Snippets

Featured snippets have only been around since 2014, but they’ve become such an integral part of Google search that it’s hard to imagine life without them. Almost 30% of results pages now display featured snippets, which pull quick bites of information from a web page relevant to the search query.

And people use them — a lot. Featured snippets have an average clickthrough rate of almost 33%.

More importantly, pages that land in the snippet box appear above the top-ranking result on the page. While the majority of snippets come from the top ten results for the query, only 30% come from page number one.

That means pages that optimize for snippets have a chance to draw traffic that would otherwise go to the top-ranking result.

So, how do pages earn a place in the featured snippet box? While sites can opt out of featured snippets, there’s no way to opt-in. The algorithm decides which pages to feature in much the same way it ranks results organically. However, it does favour content that offers quick, direct answers in language that matches the searcher’s intent. Lists, graphs, and Q&A-style content are also popular.

RankBrain AI

What is RankBrain? In short, it’s an artificial intelligence system Google uses to help sort search engine results. This AI is a part of Google’s overall search algorithm that picks through billions of web pages to find the ones that best answer a person’s search query.

RankBrain attempts to uncover the user’s intent behind their search. It looks at various signals, such as the searcher’s location, their previous searches, and what other people are searching at the time, to deliver more contextualized results.

As Google gets better at tailoring search engine results down to the individual user, businesses will have to be more aware of the steps in their audience’s buyer journey. That will determine the kind of questions they’re asking. Optimizing for RankBrain AI will mean delivering the right answers at the right time, using language that reflects the query.

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Advancements in Visual Search Mean Greater Convenience and Improved Accuracy

In the early days of the internet, search engines seemed like one of the greatest things ever. It’s hard to imagine an era of search engines before Google, but these initial versions still managed to get users to the information they needed.

As the web matured, so did search engines, offering even more accurate results in less time. However, when it comes to image search, it is not always easy to describe things with words in a manner that search engines will understand. If you enter as much data as possible, Google’s search engine has a pretty good idea of what you want and will find a picture. The results aren’t always on the money, but still useful.

Of course, if you are looking for a person, showing their picture around gets faster results than simply describing how they look. The same applies when doing a visual search on the web: showing the program exactly what you want narrows down the results considerably.

However, early versions of this technology could not compete with the degree of visual search offered by the human eye. Factors such as shape, size, and colour allow us to distinguish one object from another. Since science does not really understand how the human mind chooses which to emphasize, it is difficult to imbue a program with such knowledge.

Place the Face

One area where the technology has made great strides is facial recognition. Law enforcement regularly makes use of this to locate criminals with considerable success.

Consumers have also benefited—the iPhone X unlocks with nothing more than a glance from the user.  Apple’s version of this function improves upon the earlier equivalent from Samsung, and smartphone biometrics is an area where regular advancements are almost certain.

Facial recognition was a major goal for both industry and governments, so it received considerable emphasis. Other areas of visual recognition have not had the same degree of attention and are still in development, but visual search is maturing rapidly overall.

Google Lens

Entering a picture of something into Google ideally brings up a result that looks like the one you entered. The search engine’s neural networks analyze the image and locate its equivalent. The accuracy of these results continues to improve, and the company has announced another exciting addition for smartphones users: Google Lens.

Ever been fascinated by something, but did not know what it was? Google Lens allows you to point your smartphone at the object in question and the search engine will identify it. Love that red sports car parked across the street, but do not know the brand or year? This program can tell you.

Bing Visual Search

Google is not the only tech giant working in this area. Bing may not have the same “go-to” cachet, but Microsoft continues to improve its capabilities.

What’s exciting about Bing’s visual search is the way it allows users to choose a particular portion of the image to emphasize. Say you are looking at a shot of a home interior and a refrigerator catches your eye. Want to learn more about what make it is and who offers it? You can use Bing to hone in on just that section for a visual search. It can even connect directly to retailers offering that fridge for sale, allowing you to purchase.

Although currently restricted to a handful of categories, this aspect of visual search holds tremendous advantages for both consumers and retailers. Expect it to advance in sophistication quite quickly.

Pinterest Lens

Not to be outdone, Pinterest has announced Pinterest Lens, which also offers sophisticated visual search via an upgrade to its app. Once you choose an image, Pinterest analyzes it and searches for similar pins. The program also presents a series of keywords that you can select to help refine the search. 55% of those on the site use Pinterest for shopping, and the company plans to monetize Lens, so the e-commerce possibilities for this program could be considerable.

All of these developments offer exciting new ways to get accurate information in the blink of an eye. On the downside, it cannot help but further reduce the ability of brick and mortar retailers to compete with internet shopping. It was bad enough that people would go into stores to try items and then buy them online; now they will also be able to take a picture, price match, and order in a matter of seconds. As with most all technological advancements these days, there will be clear winners and losers.

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Why Google My Business is Important for Your Local Business

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a tool for website owners to manage their online presence across Google, including search and Map. It allows you to create, verify and edit listing information to help potential customers find your business.

So, how can Google My Business help your business?

Directly improves the SEO of your website and helps it rank better

Google My Business listings increase visibility in search results for branded searches. It also lets users find listing information and get directions directly from the search results — all without actually going to the website, which is perfect for mobile users! Google My Business is essential for local SEO as it enables your business listing to appear in local search results for queries specific to your products or services. Even broad queries with large volumes display local results, and this is something small business owners and organizations can capitalize on.

You own your information and can control your service offering

You can make sure your customers have access to accurate information such as operating hours, website, telephone number and street address when they find your business via Google Maps or Search. As such, it’s important to ensure your Google my Business page is fully optimized, accurate, and up to date to provide users with the best experience when searching for your products or services online.

In addition, Google My Business pages offer a range of tools to attract and inform local customers: details like menus, product lists, hours of operation, accepted payment types, and interactive features such as photos and reviews. You can also add coupons and special offers for your visitors.

Manage, showcase and respond to reviews

Google My Business allows you to interact with customers by responding to both positive and negative reviews about your business. Responding to reviews demonstrates that you value your customers and their feedback.

High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’ visibility. It also increases the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location. Do encourage customers to leave feedback by creating a link they can click on to write reviews on your website or email signature. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers personally to write reviews in-store, online or via email.

Learn more about customers

The Google My Business platform includes extra analytic data, enabling local businesses to learn even more about their customers. For instance, on Google Maps, you can access information on where requests for driving directions to your business originate from. This is something that can help you target new customers in the area, or even pick the right neighbourhood to expand to as your business grows.

Tips businesses can use to improve local visibility

• Be sure to select the most appropriate category/categories for your business. This way your business can appear for various product or service-based keyword searches.
• Add photos that showcase your business. Choose high-quality photos that highlight different areas of your business. These may include your company logo, interior and exterior images of your business, and product or service offerings.
• Encourage visitors to upload photos of your venue/business.
• Check the popular times of the day and use paid social or AdWords to drive more visitors to your business during slower hours.
• Encourage local reviews and social check-ins from your customers. Some businesses even offer an incentive to customers who do so.
  
  

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What Are Keywords and Why Do They Matter?

What are keywords? In short, keywords are relevant words or phrases that define the purpose of a web page. Optimizing content with well-researched keywords helps increase a page’s search ranking and drive traffic from the right audience.

We’ve written a brief explainer on what keywords are and why keywords matter for SEO.

What Are Keywords?

Say you’re in the middle of an intense work session when someone drops a multi-page document on your desk. You do not have time to read the whole thing, but you’d better find out what the paper’s about and whether it’s important.

So what do you do? You’ll probably look at the title first, then the headings, and quickly scan the body text to see if any words or phrases jump out at you.

Search engines work much in the same way.

When someone searches for something, Google aims to deliver results that are both useful and relevant to the user’s search query. Simply put, it tries to find a page that actually answers the person’s question or provides the content they were looking for.

To do this, Google’s search algorithm digs through its mountainous search index and pulls results that best relate to the word or phrase the user searched for.

When a keyword or phrase appears repeatedly throughout a page — in its title, main heading, and body text — it helps the search engine crawlers determine what the page is about, and increases the chance the page will rank when someone searches using that word or phrase. These are keywords.

Why Keywords are Important for SEO

Keywords define what a piece of content is about. They help search engines understand the purpose of a page and decide where and when it should show up in the search engine results.

When a page contains relevant keywords, and its content reflects what people are looking for when they search for that keyword, its ranking will increase.

Keywords also help human visitors (as opposed to Google’s crawlers) understand what a page is about. Think back to the above example. People often scan a page for keywords to decide if it’s worth their time. Relevant keywords improve a page’s readability, increasing the chance users will stick around and scoring more points for SEO.

Types of Keywords: Head, Body, and Long Tail

In the realm of SEO, we typically think about keywords in terms of specificity (how broad or specific a keyword is) and competition (how difficult it is to rank for a keyword).

Search volume refers to the number of people who search for a specific keyword over a period of time. The more people searching, the higher the search volume, and the more potential traffic the keyword can draw.

Highly specific keywords tend to have a lower search volume, but less competition; broad keywords with a very high search volume are much more competitive.

Based on these criteria, we can fit keywords into one of three categories:

1. Head keywords: Short, generic words or phrases with a high search volume.
   Example of head keywords:
   1. Women’s clothing
   2. Dogs
   3. Camping
      
      

1. Body keywords: Longer and more specific than body keywords, but still broad and competitive.
   Example of body keywords:
   1. Bridesmaid dress trends
   2. Organic dog food
   3. Back country camping
      
      

1. Long tail keywords: Long, specific phrases containing a head or body keyword, with clearer intent and a lower search volume.
   Example of long tail keywords:
   1. Fall 2017 bridesmaid dress trends
   2. Best organic dog food for poodles
   3. Back country camping near Toronto
      
      

Although head and body keywords have a higher search volume, their competitiveness makes it extremely difficult (and expensive) to rank for them. That’s why long tail keywords are important for SEO, especially when it comes to new or unoptimized sites yet to earn a solid place in the rankings.

Why Target Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are great for building a strong SEO foundation and driving traffic to new and smaller websites. They yield greater returns on investment in the short term while building the power to rank for more competitive keywords in the future.

Shorter head and body keywords encompass a broad range of search queries, while long tail keywords capture users with a specific intent. Long tail keywords bring in targeted traffic at a later stage in buyer’s journey — users who are more likely to make a purchase or inquiry. Using long tail keywords can result in more conversions.

Over time, ranking for long tail keywords can help a page rank for the head keyword contained within. For example, a page drawing traffic for “best family photography in Waterloo” can start to build power for “family photography” and “photography in Waterloo” as well.

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Why Page Speed Matters

Page speed is the time it takes to display all the content on a specific page of a website. In other words, it measures how long a visitor has to wait for a page to load.

Page speed can have a big impact on a site’s traffic and ranking in search engine results. Learn why page speed matters, how to measure it, and how to optimize your site and boost page speed

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Why Page Speed Matters

How often have you clicked a link that caught your attention, only to close it because the page took forever to load? Your site could have the best content around, but if it takes too long to load, many people will leave before they have a chance to see it.

One survey shows nearly half of web users will give up on a site that takes longer than three seconds to load. That’s barely enough time to start counting!

The same survey found that poor performance will keep 79% of online shoppers from becoming repeat customers, and 44% of them will air their grievances about the site with a friend.

Mobile users are slightly more forgiving, tolerating page speeds of six to 10 seconds on average. But as mobile browsing becomes more prevalent, people will increasingly expect an experience on par with desktop speeds.

That’s not the only reason page speed matters. Page speed has been a ranking factor in Google search engine results since 2010. Websites that load quickly get a boost in the rankings, while very slow sites can face penalties that drag them down.

How to Measure Page Speed

Google’s benchmark for page speed is five seconds. How does your site measure up?

You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to measure the speed of a page on your site. Available as a web tool or Google Chrome extension, PageSpeed Insights checks to see whether the page has applied best practices for performance and provides a score between 1 and 100. It also suggests fixes to improve your speed and boost your score.

How to Increase Page Speed

There could be a number of reasons why your page speed is not up to par. Common problems include inefficient code, oversized images, unnecessary redirects. Start with the following steps:

Use Browser Caching

When someone visits a page, their web browser has to download all the images, stylesheets, scripts, and other resources needed to display it. Reduce the time this takes by leveraging browser caching.

Caching stores the latest version of the page on the user’s computer so the browser doesn’t have to generate it each time they visit the page. If a resource can be cached, cache it! Google recommends a minimum cache time of one week, and preferably up to one year, for assets that change infrequently.

WordPress users can enable browser caching with plugins like WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, and WP Super Cache.

Minify Resources

Minifying means reducing the size of a website’s code without changing its functionality. It includes steps like removing code comments, trimming unused code, and using shortened variable and function names. Reduce the size of your resources to increase page speed.

Google suggests using tools like HTMLMinifier, CSSNano, and UgifyJS to minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript respectively.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Pages load faster when the server delivering the content is located close to the user. If you seek national or international traffic, invest in a content delivery network (CDN) to serve your files from an optimal location.

Optimize Images

Images are one of the biggest culprits when it comes to site slowdown. The more images the browser must download, and the bigger those image files are, the more competition for the user’s bandwidth.

Trimming down the size of your images is a simple but significant step in increasing page speed. Instead of forcing large images to display in a smaller resolution using HTML, save those images at the smaller resolution. Only use the PNG format for large, important images that must look sharp, and save less important images as JPGs and small images as GIFs.

Enable GZIP Compression

All modern browsers support GZIP compression, which reduces the time it takes to download resources and render a site. GZIP compression reduces file sizes by up to 70% without degrading image and video quality. Ask your web host to enable GZIP compression.

If you aren’t sure whether your site uses GZIP compression already, use this tool to find out.

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On-Page and Off-Page SEO: A Quick Guide

You have a website for your company, but is it performing as well as it should? Putting up content related to your business and creating an aesthetically pleasing look is essential in the beginning stages, but there are many factors beyond information and design that determine how a website will perform. You must incorporate both On-Page and Off-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  to gain traffic and success for your website.

The importance of SEO lies in the impact it has on your website’s appearance to Google. Google is constantly crawling websites to algorithmically rank their relevance, authority and usefulness, providing a status that will determine where your website shows up in the search engine.

At first glance, SEO can be complicated and technical, but as long as you follow a procedural and intentional approach, a few simple changes can significantly boost your ranking.

On-page and off-page SEO work together to improve both the user experience and the Google impression. One is not more important than the other, and both must be optimized to ensure the success of your page.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-Page SEO refers to improving and optimizing everything that a user can see on the web-page. This includes providing relevant and engaging content, properly coding HTML tags and meta-tags, optimizing system functions like page-load time and URL names, and editing CSS layout and tags.

All of these features will impact the user experience on your website and will encourage readers to either stay and explore your site, or cause them to leave. Think of the user experience on your website as an indicator of customer service for your brand. If a user experiences slow page loading or finds your content boring they are likely to be unsatisfied with their experience.

On-Page SEO is essential for user experience, which in the end will impact your ranking. The more people enjoy your content and are impressed by your website, the more likely it will be shared and engaged with, therefore increasing the visibility and social clout of your brand and website.

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-Page SEO deals in the “behind-the-scenes” of a website. It can be summarized in one word: links. The more that your website is linked to, the higher the authority of your domain will be.  If you have a great deal of valuable links pointing to your site, search engines can assume that you are providing good content.

Getting other websites to link to your website increases traffic and signals to Google that the content you are offering on your website is useful and relevant, and therefore should have a higher ranking.

Off-Page SEO tells Google what others think of your site.

This concept is often referred to as “backlinks”, and the better your backlinks are rated, the better your website will rank. Without backlinks pointing to your website, it is almost impossible for Google to figure out the usefulness of your page. Natural links from authoritative and relevant websites act as votes of confidence that help search engines trust your website.

However, it is important to note: link quality is much more important than link quantity.

In the past, the number of links you had was extremely important but as Google algorithms have become more complex, they have shifted to value quality links higher. At this point, On-Page SEO becomes relevant. High quality, fresh, and relevant content and positive user-experience make you more shareable. With awesome content, lots of social media shares, and support from bloggers and influencers,  you will build backlinks to your website.

Tips on improving SEO

Typically on-page SEO is taken care of first, then off-page follows. You don’t want to share a page that isn’t ready for users.

Here are some tips to make sure that your web page is ready for sharing.

• Organize your internal pages. Having a good flow and layout to the pages on your website ensures that the “SEO juice” will keep moving throughout your whole website. Make sure you create a homepage or landing page that has links to the other pages of your website through tools like drop-down menus. No internal page should stand alone, but rather be connected with seamless navigation.
• Keyword Target thematically. Do some research on Google Keyword Planner (hyperlink)  to figure out the best keywords for your company to try to rank for.  Avoid popular keywords that massive corporations are ranking for because you will never be able to compete.Don’t be afraid to brand your keywords for ultimate specificity.  Pick a few that are thematically related and this will signify to Google what you do and are all about.
• Place Keywords throughout your website.  Once you have your keywords, ensure they are present throughout your website, especially on the landing page. This will tell Google the most important and informative page of your site. Make sure your Keywords are in the title tag of your page. The closer the keywords are to the start of the title the better, as this has more weight with search engines.
• Don’t Overload Keywords. While it is tempting to put keywords everywhere, have restraint when making content for your webpage. Google penalizes websites who try to overload keywords; Remember, quality over quantity. Use tools like LSIgraphic.com for ideas on variations of keywords.
• For a list of 12 additional things you should do optimize on-page SEO click here. http://backlinko.com/on-page-seo.
  

So your website is ready to share, what now?

• Fix broken links: When links on a website are broken they lead to a 404 error page. This is unappealing to the user. These problems pop up over time as the result of hosting expiration, pages upset during file transfer, typos or URL changes. Check that all the links on your website are functioning, and replace or get rid of those that are broken. This will improve the speed and function of your website.
• Distribute Quality Content: Blogs, and other high-quality media like pictures, videos or infographics are great ways to engage users and are easy to share. Infographics tend to have a great deal of success online as they are visually appealing and can share a lot of information easily.
• Share content with bloggers and influencers. Get your content out to as many people as possible. The more eyes the better! If you can be shared on a website that has a pre-existing high authority domain, it will significantly increase your ranking.
  

The most important things to consider when it comes to SEO are user experience, user intent, and valuable content.  Optimize for users and create content that will be relevant to them and you will be sure to increase your ranking.

Be consistent and methodical and you will grow in Google’s rank system.

Image: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo

4 Ways to Connect With Your Audience Using Visuals

Storytelling can take on many forms. A blog post, a social media announcement, a website, an email blast, a presentation or a book. Whether your purpose is to inform, educate or entertain, adding visual content is core to how you can connect with your audience. People respond more to what they see than any other form of stimulation.

1. Break up text

In this age of “Big Data”, we are literally bombarded with information. Visual assets such as videos, photography, infographics and illustrations cut through all the noise and leave a powerful impact.

Are people just lazy readers?

Many readers will scan through large sections of text, picking out words, here and there, stopping at headlines, and maybe at an image or video that captures interest. It’s not that people are lazy readers or would not find your writing interesting. It’s just that there is such a large volume of available information, they have to move quickly to capture what is relevant to them. A reader will be more willing to read an article when colourful images are used.

2. Be more memorable

Blog posts with images and videos are more engaging to visitors.

• Web pages with more visual content rank better
• Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks and 150% more retweets

With 90% of information transmitted to the brain being visual, and a retention rate at 80%, it only makes sense to use visuals to their advantage.

Using visuals across all the major social platforms—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, increases the:

• Number of visitors,
• Level of participation, and the
• Reach of your post.

What makes an effective visual?

A good visual will reach out on an emotional level and leave a long-lasting impression. When you connect with your audience on an emotional level, they associate it with your brand and it nurtures a feeling of trust.

Effective visuals are relatable and sharable. The right infographic can transform a complex or large amount of data into a more manageable format.

3. Set a tone

Sketchy, trendy, artistic, dark or funny—the right image will set the tone or mood for your writing. Open the door and invite your reader in.

A brand’s values and unique personality can be defined by:

• Logos
• Use of colour
• Typography
• Use of icons and relatable imagery
  

4. Implement a visual content strategy

Keep in mind that competition for your audience’s attention is high. A strong visual content marketing strategy is key to attracting internet users and building brand credibility. Just as important as headlines, and calls to action, visual content deserves more than a second thought.

Remember to:

• Show, don’t tell
• Use testimonial videos
• Share feedback
• Show customer reviews as images
• Drive content production with polls

Engage employees

• Share behind-the-scenes activities
• Encourage sharing of staff picks
• Capture celebrations of your big moments

Increase reach and visibility

• Use social media cover images
• Design your call-to-action
• Offer downloadable white papers, or e-books
• Make your images sharable
• Use a feature box on your blog

Optimize

• Change your visual’s file name
• Add a text transcript of your visuals
• Optimize file size
• Watch your embed code strategy </>

Digital Housekeeping: Keeping Your Website Competitive

Keeping a clean house is one of the first lessons you learn from your parents. Unwanted creatures can invade and take residence, style can become outdated and structural problems can ensue, if you fail to maintain and update your home from time to time. Wait too long, and even your friends won’t want to visit.

A website is not so different. Much of the focus in digital marketing revolves around content creation: consistently generating articles and other materials of relevance to send a consumer to the client’s site. However, it is imperative to also maintain your website structure and update its look and functions as needed to make sure user experience is smooth and enjoyable.

A website is often the first way that a potential customer encounters a company. If it looks disorganized, outdated, or neglected, they will likely move on to a competitor instead. If the user experience suffers in any notable way (e.g. slow page load times or other issues that cause delays), your functions and layout almost certainly need a re-vamp.

Once you have decided that a redesign is in order, here are some things to keep in mind:

Stay Current

Make sure the information you have on your website is up-to-date, applicable, and correct. Customer loyalty manifests itself in confidence, so if you do not have appearance of accuracy and professionalism, the customer will not feel confident you can give them the best service for their money.

Check your content

If you are changing or updating content, be careful of drastic changes in site size.  A website that goes from full and informative to skeletal suggests to regular users that there are behind-the-scenes issues.

When making changes to site content, your keyword usage can suffer if you are not careful in your planning. Make sure your edits don’t remove high ranking keywords, as it can impact ranking you have worked hard to earn. That is the equivalent of throwing a grand re-opening party and only sending out a tiny number of invitations.

Test Your Pages

On top of content changes, it is also essential to maintain the back end structure of your website. Have you made sure there are no dead links? Do all your function buttons work properly and within a reasonable amount of time? Google Analytics Experiments is an excellent free tool to check these functions.

Another program to employ is SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor, which identifies technical issues that prevent the site from attaining your desired search ranking. Once your changes are completed, SEO PowerSuite also makes sure that your pages are fully available for indexing in search engines.

Your page load time should not increase as a result of any changes. If so, then additional reformatting is required.

Design Scheme

Aesthetic appearance is another facet of your website that can always be updated and experimented with. Keep up with the latest analysis on what sorts of design both attract casual surfers and cause them to continue investigating the site. Create two or three different design approaches and run tests. Ask participants to answer questions as to what did or did not appeal to them, what sorts of colours were inviting, etc. (Curious about what colours are the most effective for attracting an audience? Check out our blog on Colour Psychology.)

Always remember: not all pages are created equal. While each on your website pages deserve attention, your home page is key. If it fails in its mission, then the remaining pages will almost be inconsequential.

Preserve your URLs

Finally, the most important rule of website redesign – never, ever, never, ever change your website URL. URLS are part of your site and company identity. Past customers likely have you bookmarked and use that method to return. Changing your URL will result in dead links, consumer confusion and can lead to a hit to your ranking.

When your redesign is complete, you will likely see an improvement in your standing. SEO PowerSuite includes a Rank Tractor that makes it easy to keep tabs on the status of your numbers. Keep an eye on this tool to see what worked well, and what could still be improved.

Updating or improving a website is just good business sense. If you can accomplish both simultaneously, you are making excellent use of time and resources.

Image: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo

Lost in SEO? Local SEO vs. Organic SEO

Different types of SEO work for different people. Some businesses flourish with Organic SEO, while others benefit more from geographically-targeted Local SEO. Search engines are constantly evolving. If you want to keep traffic flowing, your website has to keep up with them.

Google’s search algorithm aims to get users the best results for their searches. Search engine optimization harnesses that algorithm to increase your traffic, provide the best user experience, and make you money.  This is a bit of a breakdown to help you figure out which kind of SEO can work best for you.

What is Organic SEO?

You’ve got a great website. Now, you need to get noticed.

That’s where Organic SEO comes in.

Organic SEO boosts your site’s ranking in the organic search engine results. This is done by making it clear to Google what your site is about. When you search for something, you get results based on quality and relevance. The algorithm picks out the highest-quality content relevant to your search terms. Only sites that have valuable, trusted content rank in organic search results.

In other words, to improve your site’s ranking, you have to show Google that your site:

1. Is relevant to the keyword.
2. Has good content.

Organic SEO optimization makes your site search engine-friendly. Trusted content, high quality links, and on and off-page optimization strategies work together to climb the rankings. When Google knows you’re the real deal, your rank improves. This opens the floodgates for traffic to flow onto your site. And as you build trust with your users, your ranking will last longer.

What is Local SEO?

You know your customers – it’s time for them to get to know you.

Local SEO helps you rise above the local competition.

Local SEO boosts your site’s ranking for geographically-related keywords. A geo-targeted search term is one that includes a location. When someone searches for a geo-targeted term, the results favor sites with trusted locations. In service industries many potential customers will include a location with their search. For example, someone might search “car repair in Toronto.” If you’re in Toronto and Google knows that, you’ll rank higher than a repair shop in Ottawa, and will even rank higher than other Toronto repair shops that Google can’t pin on a map.

To be a trusted location, you have to show Google that your business:

1. Is relevant to the keyword.
2. Exists at a specific geographical location.

As a trusted location, your site will organically rise to the top and stand out in local search results. Local SEO can make you the number one result for relevant searches in your area, bringing more traffic your site. And more traffic means more business.

Which One Is Right for Me?

Local and Organic SEO techniques both bolster your rank in organic search results so you can reach as many customers as possible. The best choice for you depends on your business and your target customers.

Local SEO gets you ranked in a specific location. It works best for small or local businesses. If you’re targeting customers in a specific area, Local SEO will get you top results.

Organic SEO is all about your website. You don’t need a physical, brick-and-mortar location to use Organic SEO. If getting traffic to your site is your primary goal, Organic SEO is the way to go. And for Internet-only businesses, Organic SEO is essential.

Are you ready to achieve your traffic goals? Drop us a line and start growing your customer base today.