Posted by Christine Herrington on Thu, Jul 12, 2012 @ 01:01 PM
A solid, well-rounded, marketing strategy includes both online and offline strategies. For purposes of this series, we’re going to focus only on the important aspects of your online strategy. The pieces we discuss below, and in the upcoming articles are key to your online marketing success. However SeoSkye understands some companies have budget limitations, what are we saying, all companies have budget limitations… You should, along with your marketing leader, decide which pieces are best for you and fit into your budget guidelines.
A well-optimized site that has good positioning in search results is a great way to build brand visibility and generate traffic to your site. Given the online nature of our marketing world right now SEO is the foundation of any effective online marketing campaign, but it’s not the only piece.
An effective PPC campaign, is a great way to generate traffic however can get very expensive if not managed well. SeoSkye recommends use of PPC when launching a new product or service and when you’re wanting to come up on page 1 and don’t have the time to wait for your SEO efforts to start yielding results.
Mobile remains one of the fast growing / evolving channels out there today. Mobile marketing encompasses everything from text messaging, mobile website, mobile advertising, to applications. Mobile marketing, similar to your website, should be all about customer experience. Does your customer text message or they paying for the messages you send? Do you have enough content, user interaction and budget to build an application for your customers? In all cases, we recommend a mobile website.
Email Marketing
We often refer to your customer database as the “holy grail” of online marketing. Often over looked, email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your audience. You can promote your social media campaign, your blog, any specials your offering, etc.
Social Media is a great way to create brand awareness, manage customer interaction and promote your products. However, social media is often misused. It’s important to create a strategy that makes sense for your brand and tells YOUR story. Not every social media channel is right for every brand.
Content Creation
Content creation via new product information or blogging is a hugely important aspect of online marketing. Especially with the Google’s Panda update which rewards new, fresh, relevant content.
We’ll focus the next several posts expanding on the above aspects of online marketing.
Contact SeoSkye today to discuss all of your online marketing needs, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Tue, Jun 26, 2012 @ 01:56 PM
Alexa is a ranking tool used to quantify the value of your site in dollars and therefore its earning potential. If you’re intent is to earn dollars through advertising on your site, Alexa is extremely important to you. However, if you’re advertising is not the soul purpose of your site Alexa is the one of the most accurate ways of depicting the popularity of your site and the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns, such as SEO, PPC or social media.
What is a Good Alexa Score?
In short, the lower the Alexa score number, the more popular your site. According to Alexa, if a site is ranked lower than 100,000, it is considered somewhat well traveled; lower than 50,000 is popular; lower than 10,000 is above the upper echelon of popular sites; and less than 1,000 is the cream of the crop. SeoSkye understands what it takes to increase your Alexa score and most importantly your traffic.
How Do I Increase My Alexa Rank?
Below are some of the basic ways to have a quick and necessary impact on increasing your Alexa rank.
- Understand where you currently rank?
- Download the Alexa tool bar (it works with most browsers)
- Create great content, as with most online marketing efforts, Content and Quality content remains king!
- Purchase Banner Ads on sites with a high Alex
- a Rank
- Get Social (social networks like Reddit, Digg, Facebook and Stumble Upon). Use these to repost your blogs and widen your online reach
- Consider using an SEO / Online Marketing expert to increase your Alexa ranking
Contact SeoSkye today, to start focusing on increasing your website’s value and your Alexa Ranking, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Wed, Jun 20, 2012 @ 03:03 PM
As Google is constantly changing algorithms and the "rules" associated with SEO it is important to understand what they are and are not looking for. Coincidentally, if you stay in line with Google's tactics you should be confident in knowing that you're also in line with Bing and Yahoo. A great resource is always Google's Webmaster Guidelines. I've recapped some of their SEO basics below:
Don't Use Irrelevant Keywords
Don't load keywords that are not included in your content. If you use a keyword in your meta data that has 50,000 hits but has nothing to do with the content on your page, you'll never rank. Focus on what you're trying to communicate to your customers, the content associated with that goal and choose your keywords appropriately.
It also important to avoid keyword stuffing. To my point above, once you've chose your keywords and included them in your content make sure they flow with your content. Using 20 keywords in your meta data would likely be an indication that you should create a new page with fewer keywords and more targeted content.
Don't Create Duplicate Content
To my point above, if you're page is as long as my arm and you're legtimately targeting 20 keywords (using this as a reference) this is an indication to break out your content into multiple pages and more targeted content. However, if you're creating pages for the sake of creating pages whether its on the same domain or on a subdomain, with a great deal of like content, you're creating an issue for yourself. According to Google "deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results."
Avoid the Scam...
Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as installing viruses or trojans. Do we really need to go here????
Don't Use Hidden Text
Adding text or links the same color as your background is essentially considered a black hat technique. I've seen many developers do it with the best intentions, the content or link is important but seems redundant. It doesn't matter the reason, don't do it. A good way to tell if you're doing this intentionally or unintentionally is to check your color schemes, ensure your text is a different color than your background.
Affiliate Programs
If you participate in an affiliate program, ensure your site is adding value and you continue to deliver unique, quality content. According to Google, "There is no problem in being an an affiliate as long as you create some added value for your users and produce valuable content that gives a user reason to visit your site".
Contact SeoSkye today to bring your SEO efforts up to Google standards. Its time for you to start getting traffic today, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Tue, Jun 05, 2012 @ 02:58 PM
As Google and the other main search engines begin to refine their search results to YOU, the consumer, local SEO becomes increasingly important when it comes to attracting your target market. As a result, it’s important for businesses to have a local search presence, especially if the business that operates solely in their local market.
Below are few or our favorite Local SEO Tips and Tricks
Understand Your Target Audience
Common sense tip here but you’d be surprised… you need to understand who it is your trying to target or your SEO efforts whether locally or not are worthless. What words are your customers using to find you or your products? Are they buyers or researchers? What kind of budget are they searching with? Will they be ready to convert?
Optimize for Local Keywords
You’ve discovered what and who you want to target. You’ve figured out how they’re searching (i.e. which keywords). Now what? When focusing on local search you need to take the national implications out of your search terms. For instance, if I want to rank for SEO nationally my keyword would be SEO or search engine optimization. If I want to compete locally I would add Denver to those terms. SEO Denver, Denver SEO or Denver search engine optimization. This tells the search engine that I’m focused on the Denver market for my target audience. You can make this as broad or specific as you like. For instance using Colorado instead of Denver or adding a local area such as Cherry Creek SEO. Its all about who YOU are trying to target.
Update Page Titles
Once you’ve completed above be sure to incorporate those “long tailed keywords” into your page titles to tell the search engines how relevant your pages are to those searching for Denver SEO or whatever widget you’re trying to promote.
Include Contact Information on Every Page
Include a physical address, a mailing address, and a phone number on every page of the site and make sure that this text is visible to the search engines, we always recommend the footer of your website.
Submit to Local Directories and Create Local Search Profiles
Crucial that you submit your local profile to each of the main search engines. These local search profiles are featured prominently on a search engine results page for a local search. Basic listings are free, but paid “Enhanced Listings” offer more options like photos, logos, and a more detailed business description. Don’t forget about local directories like Yelp and local.com if they make sense for your product.
Have a Mobile Friendly Website
A large percentage of searches for local establishments are conducted on a mobile device. As more and more people use smart phones and tablets. If a visitor can’t view your website via their mobile device, they obviously won’t purchase or do business with you.
Optimized Social Profiles
Social media is no longer only a place to connect with friends and family. It’s also a place for consumers to connect with brands. Take the time to optimize social media brand pages just as you would optimize your website and incorporate local keywords. For our company, this would include Denver SEO as previously mentioned.
Contact SeoSkye to start optimizing your local marketing efforts, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Thu, May 31, 2012 @ 01:08 PM
As the world of SEO continues to gravitate torwards social media, website owners need to keep an eye on the basics. Google’s latest Penguin update was clear this was key as is the use of Google+. Embrace it, its not going anywhere. However, even as the change of focus continues to evolve basic white hat SEO techniques are still the foundation of any effective online marketing campaign.
Below are some of the basics we focus our efforts on:
Link Building
Search engines view inbound links pointing to your website as an indication of your site’s value. Of course, all links are not created equal. It’s simple to build links with no value but it takes a great deal more time and effort to build links from quality sites. To ensure your link building campaign is in place and effective SeoSkye recommends use of an SEO firm who has a experience with effective link building campaigns.
If you choose to go it alone there are a number of free link building tools out there such as HubSpot’s website grader that will give you an indication of your link value and where you should focus.
Meta Tags
While the value of meta data for SEO (search engine optimization) continues to change with each Google update the basics still apply; keep your meta tags updated with relevant information, avoid company lingo that your customer base may not understand, and avoid focusing solely on meta keywords.
On Page Optimization
Once you’ve updated your meta tags and decided which keywords are important to you, take a look at which pages are working for you. According to your analytics tool which pages are your most popular? Which are not working? Do they align with your company goals? Yes. Great! No? Review the content on those pages. Does the content include the keywords included in your meta tags? Is the information current? Is it relevant to your company goals? Many times we find client’s are trying to rank for keywords / content that isn’t included on their site or has content that doesn’t align with their meta tags and page titles.
Submit Your Sitemaps
Always, always, always submit your sitemaps and RSS feed information, if available, to the various search engines (Bing, Google and Yahoo). Google Webmaster Tools is very straightforward. Bing and Yahoo take a little extra effort but one conversion from these channels will make the time worth it.
Contact Denver based, SeoSkye, today to start make the most of your SEO campaign, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Tue, May 22, 2012 @ 04:03 PM
In today's world, consumers rely on the internet for just about everything. As a result, there cannot be enough emphasis on the importance of superior website design. Denver based companies and companies outside of Denver must work diligently to achieve a user-friendly and professional representation of themselves online. Essentially, your website is your business card to the online community. To make sure that your business' website effectively reaches your target audience, here are six design strategies to consider.
1. Send a Clear Message
A sharp, professional logo and tagline should always be included in website design. Denver businesses must send a clear message to their clients of who they are and what they have to offer. You need to reach your target audience quickly with the assurance that you can provide them with the services that they are seeking.
2. Guide Your Visitors
Nothing makes a visitor more frustrated than a website that is not easily navigable. As you design each page, carefully consider the needs of your client base and build the site around those needs. Place a visible and attention grabbing call-to-action in a prominent place on each page to inspire visitors. Any links or subsequent pages should be listed from top-priority down. Be clear in your link text as to what each additional page is about so that it is simple for your visitors to find what they need.
3. Keep it Fresh
It is important to regularly update your home page's website design. Businesses should be sure to frequently change their calls-to-action and consider adding elements like a blog feed which refreshes on a daily basis. Even subtle updates send a message to your clients that your company cares and is on the move. Show the world how successful your business is through a blog feed on the home page.
4. Be Easy to Reach
Don't make your clients search high and low for your contact information. Place your company phone number and e-mail address in a prominent place on the website. The "contact us" link should be easy to find. Additionally, if you are a part of any social networking websites, make it simple for your page's visitors to find you. Too often, businesses bury their contact information and links in the footer of the text. Remember, you want to be contacted. Your information should be more than an afterthought.
5. Easy on the Eyes
Your company website should be attractive to the eyes of your viewer. Any logos that you use should be professional and relevant. Choose fonts and colors that "pop", but that are not difficult to read. Working with a Denver website design firm will enable you to find an aesthetically pleasing website layout that will send a message of success to your clientele.
6. Toot Your Own Horn
It's OK to brag a little about the success of your business if you are classy about it. If you have any well-known clients, ask for their permission to place their logos on your site. Seeing your affiliation with other known businesses will give you instant credibility. You can also ask your client's for positive quotes and testimonials. There's no need to overdo it, however; keep in mind that a few well placed client logos will go a long way.
What it all really boils down to is that you must make your clients the top priority while designing your website. Any well designed website is built with the customer experience in mind. Denver businesses will thrive when they make it clear to their customers exactly what they offer, how to find the information that they need and once you've found the information how to get the product. When you keep your website content user-friendly, concise and relevant, both yourself and your clients will be happy with the results.
Contact, Denver based, SeoSkye to create your online presence today, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Fri, May 11, 2012 @ 12:13 PM
The answer I give most often is… it depends. And this is a question every prospect or client should be asking. There are so many factors that go into SEO both nationally and for any Denver SEO efforts. If you have never done Denver SEO or SEO at all, you could see results as early as 30 days. If you’re doing SEO and now getting into other avenues, it could take upwards of 6 months to a year. In short, not all Denver SEO was created equal, and some elements of your SEO campaign may have a more immediate effect on your website than others. For instance, trusted e-commerce site that is targeting more visitors around the holidays could target long-tail keywords and would probably see an uptick in visitors for those keywords. Since the site has a good trust factor with the search engines, those small changes will have a big impact. If it’s a brand new e-commerce website, chances are none of their onsite optimization would have an immediate substantial difference.
SEO Ranking Factors
The truth of the matter is that there are billions upon billions of web pages, images, videos and other forms on content online. Yes, if you publish a blog post it immediately goes live, but that doesn’t mean that the search engines find and index it the moment publish it. The search engines have a process when it comes to “crawling” your site. Sometimes it can take a couple of days and other it’s a few weeks to a few months. This is why, after fixing their site, many website owners that have been hit by the Google Panda and Penguin updates hit by did not recover immediately.
There are so many factors going into a site with good Denver SEO or SEO nationally including:
- age of your site
- amount of content
- SEO of your competitors
- Amount of relevant content
- Number of links and quality of those links
So back to the original question…How long will it take for my Denver SEO efforts to take effect? In general we say at least 90 days and often longer depending on the above factors. Denver SEO or SEO nationally takes time and commitment. Too often we see people focus for a few months, see results but not the earth shattering results they were expecting and then abandon their efforts. If you want your site to be competitive a solid, consistent Denver SEO campaign is mandatory.
Contact SeoSkye today to start your Denver SEO Campaign, 720.328.0415
Posted by Christine Herrington on Wed, May 02, 2012 @ 03:21 PM
When running a company in and around Denver, simply creating a website isn't going to do much to drive traffic. If you’re in a competitive environment, it is easy for a site to become lost among all sites vying for the same Denver based business. In order to ensure a heavy dose of traffic reaches your site, it is important to utilize a Denver SEO firm. There are a number of firms out there both nationally and Denver based. The advantage of selecting a Denver SEO firm is they know the market, likely heard of you and or your competition and can give you the competitive advantage critical to drive traffic to your site.
So we agree a Denver SEO firm is the way to go. What do I have to do next? SeoSkye’s team of Denver SEO specialists help you identify what keywords are critical to your site’s success. Keywords while no longer the search engine currency they used to be they are still critical when incorporated with metadata, page titles, alt-tags and the content included on your site. After we determine which keywords are best we look first at your content, are they included in your content. For instance, are you trying to rank for Denver SEO but none of the pages or content on your site include the phrase Denver SEO. At this point, we have a problem…. If they do, you’re in great shape. If they don’t we help you create content that does or help you select a more beneficial keyword. One item that made not be obvious here is if you want to focus on Denver it is crucial to include Denver in your content, keywords and metadata. For example, in the above example if I included only SEO in my content I would not only be competing with companies in Denver but all websites out there that use SEO in their keywords. That’s is going to be tough. By adding Denver I’ve told the various search engines that I’d like to focus on a more targeted market and eliminated a great deal of my competition.
Of course, keywords are not the only aspect of optimizing your website. To maximize use of a Denver SEO service, you need to go a step farther and integrate the keywords into different areas of the site. As mentioned above, including in the title page, headers, footers and body text is very crucial to your success. Words inside titles and headers are weighed heavier in a search engine's algorithm for determining search results than any other area of the website, so it is important to have the words placed into these areas of the site. Also important is ensuring you’ve integrated your keywords but you’re not being obnocious about it. You text should always flow smoothly and it is not enticing to your targeted audience.
Other aspects to consider are pictures and videos. These videos can be tagged with keywords, giving you a greater weight in search results, pushing your website to the top.
Contact SeoSkye today to starting making the most of your Denver SEO efforts, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Thu, Apr 12, 2012 @ 11:51 AM
With the growing use of internet throughout the world, internet traffic is increasing everyday, and more people are using their desktops and smartphones for research shopping, buying insurance etc. This trend continues to create opportunities for businesses to market their products and services to billions of online customers.
However, marketing products and services on internet can be overwhelming with the number of options available. Is it best for me to use pay per click (PPC), Google adwords, mobile marketing, social media, local marketing or search engine optimization. What is all of this stuff? Is there overlap? Where do I start? This is a question business owners should be asking themselves if they want to give their business a competitive advantage. So, what is the solution? The answer is, it depends... What are your goals? What is your budget? Who are you targeting? However, regardless of the answers to the above, the first and most important foundation of any online strategy is SEO. Without a quality SEO campaign your chances of getting found diminish quickly.
So what is SEO? First, SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is an internet marketing strategy aimed at improving the search ranking of a business website on internet so that it is visited by potential customers. Without proper promotion, the your pages will get lost in cyberspace. Wait did they just say pages? What about my site? Very important to note, Google ranks pages not websites. Meaning each page needs to be treated as its own individual "mini-website" Don't take this to literally... In short, what I'm saying is each page needs unique, interesting content for your users to review and unique relevant data within the code, aka SEO, to ensure Google is picking up what you want them to.
For example, if a local business in Denver is engaged in providing car repair services to local customers, it will naturally want to attract customers in Denver. What does this mean for SEO? First, does your home page say anything about car repair or Denver? Yes. Good. Next, does your page title say anything about car repair or Denver? No. Houston, we have a problem. SeoSkye, based in Denver, experts will use effective SEO tools and local search techniques in order to get top ranking for the website in search results. These experts will incorporate your keywords into page titles, metadescriptions, content into your website to ensure you achieve top ranking results. We then continue to monitor this information for success and necessary tweaking.
Regardless of the firm you go with or you try to do it yourself, after you have your website focus on SEO as the foundation of your online marketing efforts. SEO (search engine optimization) is absolutely necessary for any business, small or big, to survive and succeed on internet.
Contact SeoSkye today to start utilizing SEO to your advantage, 720.328.0415.
Posted by Christine Herrington on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 @ 11:10 AM
Businesses must prepare themselves for a new type of social media, Pinterest. With Pinterest for business, users utilize content found on the internet to share and connect with members who share similar interests. This is the new social media management tool that allows sharing of interesting things with the use of virtual pinboards which includes pictures, as well as other content for sharing.
How Does Pinterest for Business Work?
Social media management strategies that include Pinterest are about finding people thatshare similar tastes and connecting them to each other. Just like with traditional pinboards, or bulletin boards, Pinterest for business allows users to share what they like by “pinning” them up on their boards. The only difference here is that the pins and the boards are virtual.
Pinterest for business gives companies a new, innovative way to organize and share all the great things they come across online. Allowing you to share a variety of content for your business ranging from pics, videos, messages, articles and other content to your pinboard.
Tips for Using Pinterest for Business
Businesses have been using social media management to gain more traffic for years now. But, as Pinterest for business becomes more popular, companies are finding that there are many benefits to this new social media network. Here are just some of the benefits that are making business owners add Pinterest to their social media toolbox:
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Many companies have reported that Pinterest now generates almost as much traffic as using Twitter and Facebook alone in their social media management.
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Businesses are using Pinterest as an online sales catalog. The easy to use pinning feature allows them to pin up pictures of products on the virtual pinboard. Then, those images are linked directly to the product listings on the company's website.
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Service companies that don't sell products using glamorous pictures are finding other creative ways to use Pinterest for business marketing. For example, HubSpot uses Pinterest to promote their logo with a pinboard entitled, “Fun Orange Things.” This pinboard is creating interest among loyal followers.
How to Start Using Pinterest for Business
If you're interested in adding this new, interesting social media to your marketing strategy, here are some of the basic steps to get your started:
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Take multiple pictures and place them together so they look like one picture.
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Include links to your videos so others can pin them to their pinboards.
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Include URLs that link to the sites where your videos are located.
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Include pictures of your business products or the services your company provides.
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Include short descriptions to go along with product and service pics.
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Link to audios that give instructions on how to use your products or tips for your services.
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Create pins, which are web pages, that include linkbacks to your business website or blog.
Increase Traffic to Your Business Website
As the social media world continues to evolve, businesses must keep up with the constant innovations. Pinterest may be fairly new, but it has already been proven to be a valuable traffic source that needs to be added to every business social media management strategy. Increase your company's online presence with the latest innovation.
Promote your business brand using Pinterest for business today.
