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February 15, 2011
As a follow up to last weeks, Rise to the Top, here are a few more SEO best practices to take your site to the next level. You may have heard, “looks aren’t everything” which is true to some degree. Yes, it’s great to have plenty of aesthetically pleasing photos on your website but without naming images correctly, it’s a loss opportunity to use keywords from your photos to drive traffic to your site. For example, if you sell toys, one image on your site may be of a fire engine you sell. Instead of naming this image “redtruck1.jpg” use a more descriptive title such as “Red_toy_fire_engine.jpg.”
Linking to your site is another way to increase your web presence. This can be done by getting involved in forums and discussion boards and linking back to your site. But beware of partaking in this activity for your friends or requesting your friends do the same for your site as search engines are wise to this tactic and disregard it.
You may have heard of Meta tags being used for descriptions, keywords and titles but it’s important to know how to use the Meta tags correctly. Meta tags are unseen when visiting a website because they are HTML coding elements that are embedded within the code. Essentially a meta description is a smoke signal for search engines to find your page and determine the relevancy of search phrases. Meta descriptions should be short and sweet, but remember that each page of your website can – and should – have a separate description.
In addition to the Meta tags, headlines are visible on your website and are also important for search engines so make them relevant, better still; make them feature your site’s keywords.
Contact Matt Ricca today at 480-699-1524 to learn more about increasing your web presence and driving traffic to your site.
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February 2, 2011
We all know how important it is to have a web presence, but nowadays it’s not just about being on the web, it’s about being found on the web. No matter how good your site looks, it’s wasted if your online audience is too small. FireDrum can help you gain exposure with a few SEO best practices that are implemented with each website we design.
Here are some ways that FireDrum can get your website ranked higher with search engines:
Upon completion of a site, FireDrum submits your site to the “big three”: Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Next steps include submitting to directories such as DMOZ and creating a site map which also needs to be submitted to the big three.
It’s been said over the years that content is king and it still holds true today. When thinking about content for your site, place yourself in the shoes of potential customers and build content around what you think your target audience may be searching for within search engines. This keyword-rich content, when used correctly, can help drive traffic to your site. And speaking of keywords – keywords are hidden within the code of your website and they should cover search terms that your customers might use.
Stay tuned for other helpful SEO tips to optimize your web presence.
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October 27, 2010
Is your website ready for the future?
If your website was designed over a year ago, it’s most likely due for a makeover. Recent updates in how search engines crawl web data, improved technologies, and new trends in social media may have caused your site to become outdated and stale. An outdated website may be costing you more than you think.
How to evaluate your current website and decide if a change is in order:
Content
If your website doesn’t meet your current goals and motivate consumers to do business with you moving forward, you may need to update your content. If you’ve had multiple developers work on your site, you could have bad code written over bad code, which can cause breaks, errors and performance issues. You’ve probably made changes to your company’s outlook, goals and target audience in the past year which should be represented on your website. You should also have clear, effective calls-to-action which encourage consumers to interact with your site and don’t require an additional login.
Design
If your website was designed using tables, it may be hard to read and harder still to find in search engines because of it. The same goes for sites built using templates or “site builder” programs. A custom-designed website can do wonders for your ability to be found online and can be built to fit any budget.
Landing Page
Are visitors welcomed to your site by a Flash intro or “Loading” page? These pages can cause slow load times, incompatibility issues and hinder your ranking in search engines. You want to avoid technical issues that keep prospective customers from seeing your site’s true message. Just because it looks “cool” doesn’t mean it serves a purpose and may actually be hurting your web presence.
Social Media
With all the hype, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the social media whirlwind. Don’t let that stop you from reaping the benefits. Your site will appear outdated if it doesn’t include social media links. Consumers talk about everything from art and construction to banking, health care and restaurants on social sites, and if your website isn’t represented there, your company is out of the loop.
Mobile Devices
More and more consumers are using mobile devices to search the web, locate businesses and make purchases. If your site hasn’t been updated recently you may be losing business because mobile viewers can’t find it, view it or interact with it. We can design a mobile web app based on your current or newly redesigned site.
Regular Updates
Does your business require that you regularly update your website? If you rely on a programmer to make these updates you could benefit from a site that uses Content Management software. These solutions allow your site to be updated by just about anyone, with very little technical training.
Ask your FireDrum Account Rep if your website could benefit from a makeover today, before the rush of the holiday season forces you to put if off until 2011.
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August 27, 2010
Who Cares if you have Backlinks?
Well, no one…except search engines! If you want to people to read your page on the web, you need to have plenty of incoming links pointing right at your site. Search engines value the quantity, quality, and relevance of these links.
How Search Engines Works and how they determine the “value” of your site.
Search engines are complicated, and have convoluted formulas to determine a website’s page rank. To find sites on the web, search engines have “web crawlers” to crawl the web through every link it finds. The search engines then apply their algorithm to the site and determine the page rank. Backlinks(or inward links) are always a part of this equation. To search engines, the number and quality of backlinks are an indicator of the importance and popularity of a site.
There are many other factors search engines consider, like the age of the site, URL name, image or filenames on the site, anchor text, and keywords in the content.
How do we create Backlinks
We do this by building links in relevant directories, submitting article and press releases.
By creating something that is a valuable resource for people. If you can create something that is the go-to place for information on a certain topic, the traffic will come.
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June 15, 2010
Lately we seem to have a few clients step aboard who have received websites and SEO from some shady places. You know those places on the internet – give us $1 to get you on the front page of Google or better yet for $29.95 a month we will build you a website and make your profits grow with SEO. Well, these snake oil salesmen have other intentions for your website and unfortunately you are going to get burned.
 If the offer is too good to be true....well....you know the rest It is unfortunate because these business have made sound decisions in running the enterprise however when it came to websites, SEO, online presence and brand they just wanted one result.
Get my business to the top spot…NOW!
A shortcut in web design, web presence, SEO or any other area is not a viable solution for any business and just plain-old, flat-out, any day of the week DOES NOT work. If you are in a rush to build your web, get rankings and visibility because you believe this translates to dollars – you are 5% correct – 95% wrong. The 5% correct is true. Visibility can translate to dollars, however there are more factors involved than just putting up a cheap website and paying $1 to climbing online rankings to get the $$/leads to come in through your web and business.
I am talking about your brand.
Establishing a brand is a long term commitment that translates into other areas of your business. Branding is a process which creates a unique name and image for a product or service in your customers” mind. Using websites, logos, advertising campaigns and other marketing media you will begin to establish a consistent theme that resonates with your customers.
The mistake of purchasing the snake oil from the salesmen is it does not establish trust, resonate your message or really even make a long term commitment to establishing your website (your online identity- your online brand).
Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. A dollar cannot get me listed on Google let alone get me on the bus or get a cup of coffee (Bus Fare in Phoenix – $1.75 one way — Cuppa Joe – $1.95 ($2.07 with tax) I have the receipt to prove it  )
So lets look at a few things about your company that can really translate well online and in daily business life.
- Brand Relationship with your customers – How do they see you? Are you a quick stop or do you have a relationship with them?
- Company wide branding and marketing strategies – What is your voice and how well do you communicate it out to the business world?
- Reputations and buzz-worthiness – Do you have a buzz worthy product? This is great for PR, Search, Media Channels and Blogs!
- Creativity and market relevance - How does your creative stack up against your competitors? The more knowledge you have, the more creative you can be.
Review your online and company brand identity and understand how it resonates with your customer segment and how it ranks with your competitors. It takes the right marketing mix to effectively communicate, brand and market your message to the business world. Remember brand, marketing, reputation, SEO and creativity are intertwined with one another. Their relevance to the web, interpersonal relationships and customer relations do get you that visibility which translates into dollars.
So, moving forward what do you need to do next?
- Take a look at our brand identity and web services:
- Answer the above questions and think about the changes you would like to see in your business brand and online presence.
- Come in to our office…..ask for our seo expert Max Sandoval or Jacob Lebo and lets start building and branding
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May 12, 2010
Earlier today I was asked by a FireDrum client about the the difference of singular versus the plural of a keyword in SEO/Google Adwords. It was a simple question with a “somewhat” straightforward answer, however the answer does not apply to all singular versus plural keywords.
Does singular vs. plural make a difference?
Is one better than another or are they the same? Does it really even matter? It is a good question that so often people look over who are not experienced with keywords/adwords. So, I thought I would investigate further and write about it.
For example purposes only, lets take a look at some keywords, “dental bur” and “dental burs”. For those of you who do not know what a “bur” is – do not feel bad, not a lot of us do. As my Economics teacher once said, “It could be widgets or butter – it really does not matter, your job is to figure out a solution to the problem.” So, with that said let’s jump over to Google Keyword tools to help determine which one is going to be the best performer as well as figuring out the difference of singular and plural versions.
 Keywords and SEO local and global search As you can see, there is a difference in the local and global search volume as well as advertising competition for each keywords. One thing to keep in mind as well is how this affects the SEO of your website. Since the plural version outperforms the singular version this is something to keep in mind down the road.
Lets head over to Google Insights for Search and see what is happening. Google Insights is a tool SEO’ers use to compare search volume patterns across a section of where you are looking to advertise. This is a great tool for SEM because …well it gives great insight into what terms people are using to search.
As you can see “dental burs” is searched considerably more that the singular across the US and the world. With Google insights you are also able to pick a region and take a look at what activity was happening in your section of the world.
 Google Insights for Keywords Another thing to keep in mind is how the people purchase the product, online and in a store. Dental burs are bought in groups, so the plural version is more applicable, however consumers search for ”individual” items they are looking to purchase in singular terms, ”Apple Computer” or ”iPod Shuffle”. These products also have singular naming conventions so this makes it more straightforward as well. Normally people do not surf the plurals of these terms.
So, I hope I have given you some insight into what Keywords to keep an eye out for when you are looking at some of the tools/products Google offers. As always we are here to help.
Come in to our office…..ask for our seo expert Max Sandoval or Jacob Lebo and lets start building and branding
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November 10, 2009
This is something I have been saying for months. Finally the disillusionment small business owners have been feeling towards social media has been quantified into terms I think we all can appreciate.
In today’s eMarketer it was reported a full 63% of small business owners claimed social media was not helpful at all.
And to me this only makes perfect sense.
Why?
Because most small business owners are not following the natural progression of building an online marketing presence and are just diving into and allocating resources to the “Hot and Now”
The natural progression starts with a website that DRIVES CONVERSIONS. Write that down, remember that… CONVERT
Step 2 is Email Marketing. Or in other words; building a qualified database of current and future customers that you can cost effectively target, which at the end of the day is really what email marketing is all about.
Step 3 is Search Engine Optimization, appearing high on search engines.
Step 4a and 4b. Now we can start to discuss Social Media strategy / presence, and possibly Pay-per-click
Successes abound in social media marketing, that much is true. However when you look at companies who are performing in the social mediasphere they have this frame work already in place.
Interested in seeing how we can help create that frame work?
Do you have a company or example that is killin’ it in the social aspect to prove me wrong?
Give me a shout.
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September 10, 2009
Join Jacob Lebo of FireDrum on September 22nd for a seminar: Blogging for Business and Search Engine Optimization. Enjoy networking before and after the event. Wireless Internet will be available so bring your laptops.
The event will be hosted at Entrust Arizona. Networking will begin at 5:30 p.m. followed by the seminar at 6:00 p.m. The cost for this event is only $15.00 and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Hands on Phoenix. Please contact Jacob Lebo for further information, questions, and to register.
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September 2, 2009
Search engine optimization is a practice that is constantly growing and evolving. With the release of Microsoft Bing and soon to be released Google Caffeine, we’re seeing a few of the rules and methods changing, but one thing is still certain – fresh, relevant content remains king. How can you keep your site fresh without having to constantly tweak and change the content on your site? This can easily be accomplished by implementing a blog on your website.
A blog is not just a communication tool, or an outlet to talk about your company’s business, niche, or chatting about your latest company picnic – it’s a way to increase your organic search rankings, that’s right, blogging is a powerful SEO tool when used correctly.
A critical mistake many companies make is hosting their blogs someplace else. While the blog can still hold great information, and maybe even rank well on its own, it provides virtually no help to your main website. Great blog posts attract traffic, links, and comments – all of which can help your organic search rankings. If your blog is hosted elsewhere, the hosting platform or URL will reap the benefits, while hosting on your main site makes sure that valuable link “juice” is directed to the right place.
Have a clear goal in mind when you start your company blog, know your audience, write consistent insightful posts, update frequently and optimize for the search engines.
Don’t be afraid to have personality in your writing, but make sure you stay within the guidelines your business has outlined. Having multiple authors on your blog is a way to keep your readers interested. If your blog is too serious and dry, you’ll lose visitors to sheer boredom.
A helpful and enriching thing to do is to invite guest bloggers to post on your blog. Find an expert within your niche and ask if they would be willing to write a post for you. You would be surprised at how eager they can be – it increases their exposure, your exposure and will bring traffic and can drive valuable links to your site.
In addition to having guest blogs on your site, you should offer to guest blog on other sites. Finding blogs in your niche, taking the time to comment on relevant posts builds invaluable relationships which lead to potential links. A good natural link from another site in your niche is key in optimization. Google values these links and the more of them you have – the more you look like an authority in your field.
Another question that is often scrutinized is whether or not you should open up your blog for comments. The general consensus on this is yes…eventually. Close comments on your blog until you have a few posts and start seeing an increase in traffic, then open them up. Comments can be a valuable way for you to interact with your clients, hear what you are doing right, what could be done better and what your perspectives are interested in hearing about. However, if you have very few comments it can be detrimental to your blogs appearance of authority.
Link smart: Occasionally deep link your posts to other relevant pages or posts on your site – don’t forget to use keyword centric anchor tags and set any links to open in a new window – you don’t want your readers leaving your site. Don’t be afraid to link to other sites and relevant articles. Writing a post that naturally includes links to relevant sites can be a useful relationship building tool – and hey, they just might return the favor.
Blogs also allow you to get a little more creative – they can be a home for viral link bait (that may not be appropriate or direct to your company’s vision)…not sure what link bait is? You’ve seen it, you’ve most likely linked to it. Create funny top ten lists, funny videos, or creative photo sets that will attract links back to your site.
Social Media should also be incorporated into your blogging efforts: Social Media sites are key for promoting the content on your blog and creating a more dynamic, interactive forum for your business. By adding social sharing tools to your blog – you can increase your exposure and allow your readers to share your blog with their friends and followers.
Be rewarded for consistent, natural and continuous growth – don’t take shortcuts and stay away from shady, black hat tactics – because at some point, you’re most likely to be penalized and your rankings will drop.
Let’s Get Technical:
A blog isn’t that different from other web pages on your site when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it. Here are some important technical aspects to consider when optimizing your blog.
- Location, Location, Location: When deciding where on your site to place your blog consider you may see businesses who use a separate sub domain – www.blog.yoursite.com however the recommended format by Google is to set up your blog as a separate folder on your site – www.yoursite.com/blog.
- Permalink/URL structure: Set up your blogs URL structure to include category or blog posts. Instead of yoursite.com/blog/p?133 you can set up permalinks to rewrite the URL to yoursite.com/blog/email-marketing-tips. Be sure to use dashes for spaces in your URLs.
- Optimizing Title Tags: Optimizing your posts title tags is of utmost importance. Many times the title of your actual post is not optimal for Google – take out a few words and naturally integrating a keyword or two into your title tag.
Meta Descriptions: Optimize your meta descriptions for each blog post – most search engines will read 150-160 characters, so make the most of it.
- Don’t forget about your images: Just like on any page of your site, your images should have alt tags so the search engines have something to read. Alt tags should be relevant to the actual image and again this is a place where you can naturally incorporate a keyword – I said naturally, do not keyword stuff.
- Header Formatting: Just like any page on your site your posts should have one H1 and should use H2’s and H’3s for subtitles. The H1 is your post title.
- RSS Feeds: Make sure you set up an RSS feed to your blog.
- Sitemap: Create a blog sitemap.
I could go on about navigation, canonical URL’s, blog analytics …etc. but will spare you for now – Just remember this:
If you blog consistently, optimize your posts and participate in your niche’s blogosphere you will see the rewards in your search rankings, site conversions and client communications. So what are you waiting for?
If you would like to get started with a company blog, or need help optimizing a current blog please contact us for a free analysis and proposal.
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August 12, 2009
Next week Tuesday August 18th FireDrum and I will be hosting a seminar on the Importance of Calls to Action. The seminar will be located at Entrust Arizona 20860 N Tatum Blvd Suite 240 Phoenix, AZ 85050.
The event will cost $15.00 dollars to attend and we will be accepting the fee at the door. A part of the proceeds to this event will go to my favorite local charity Hands On Phoenix.
Networking will start at 5:30PM and the seminar will begin at 6PM. If you need further information please feel free to drop me a line.
I wanted to do this “Importance of Calls to Action” seminar for two reasons. One because everyday I educate business owners who are currently doing Search Engine Optimization that they are wasting resources by not having a compelling call to action to prompt that highly qualified lead to leave an email address to market back to them…
If you are optimizing for search engines, take that extra step with a conversion optimization analysis!
I also wanted to conduct this seminar for marketing professionals and business owners on how to have a more compelling call to action in their email marketing efforts. A few topics we will be covering on that end include, optimized subject lines, placement of calls to action, and when to announce that sale…
I am really look forward to this seminar, and I look forward to seeing you there.
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