Category Archives: SEO

Great SEO Content rules for Calgary Businesses

So you created some killer content using that any SEO expert in Calgary would be proud of. You just know that once you put it up, it is going to be a huge hit. However, instead of getting thousands of hits and dozens of high authority links, your killer content just ends up sitting there collecting dust like an forgotten board game tucked away in the closet. This, sadly, is a very common problem out there. Killer Content that deserves attention gets ignored simply because its creator failed to follow a few simple rules that helps turn good SEO content into great SEO content.

It All Starts with a Title
You cannot judge a book by its cover; however, people and search engines tend to judge an article by its headline. You can have the best SEO Content in Calgary, yet if you have a bad title; it is going to go nowhere. In order to please the Search Engines, you need to include your important keywords in your title.  In order to get people to click on your content, you also need to make the title browser friendly. This is an online article, not a thesis, so make the title brief and easy to understand. Also, it is important to make it interesting, yet do not promise anything in your title that you cannot deliver in your content.

Know Your Target Audience
The article that you wrote could be your magna opus, but if is not relatable to your target audience you might as well put it in the same desk drawer that you keep you unfinished novel in.  First, do some research and try to discover the type of content your target audience is looking for. Comments and reviews are a great place to start and looking on another highly ranked site can also give you some great ideas.

Let Your People Know
Before you publish, make sure that your people know to check out your new post. Get in touch with your other business contacts via email and instant messaging, letting them know you are about to go live. Once you go live, be sure to share the link on your businesses various social networking sites.

Timing
Timing is a heavily underrated SEO Strategy Calgary businesses need to know about. Be sure to publish your content at time when it is guaranteed to get the most views and shares. For example, if your article is targeted towards business people, publish it during business hours and not on the weekends when your target audience is more apt to be barbequing than checking out their blackberries.

Piggyback
Sure, it is great SEO Content, too bad your Calgary business site is ranked on the fourth page. That is why you turn it into a guest post on a more influential site. While it might sting a bit to turn something you wrote over to another, more popular site, this is really a great move in a longitudinal sense. The high traffic on the other site increases the chances of your content being read which will then lead to more links to your site and gain you more of a reputation as an authority in your particular industry.

Posted in SEO

Organic SEO Services Calgary for Increasing Business Visibility

Content is key when it comes to finding ways to improve your businesses organic online visibility. However, not just any content will do. Simply throwing up any content might get you on page 9 or 10, but creating good content using natural SEO techniques, Calgary businesses can put themselves on top of the search engine heap, assuring a steady stream of new traffic and potential customers. Coming up with all this killer content can be hard, even painful, unless, of course, you some of the same tricks that organic SEO services in Calgary use to get their clients noticed.

Here are some SEO Techniques Calgary businesses can use to increase organic search engine visibility…

Indirect Content
While it is important to get that industry keyword related content out there, but sometimes it pays to think outside of the typical search engine optimization box by including content that is indirectly related to your business. For example, a hotel in Calgary might want to include articles about events taking place in the city. This way, travelers looking for what might be going on in the city during their visit might end up reading your article and then finding out about your hotel.

FAQs
FAQ pages are tried and true SEO techniques Calgary business can use to draw in traffic.  A simple keyword search will bring up the general online queries that people are asking about your particular industry. Gather up all these questions and then create articles and FAQ pages that people can link to in order to find the answers that they are looking for.

Glossary
An industry related glossary that explains all your businesses unique terminology is another effective SEO tool that Calgary businesses can use to heighten their organic online presence. Be sure to insert your glossary in several different pages of your business site to ensure a better chance of getting ranked for your target keyword terms.

Top Ten Lists
Top Ten lists have been working for Letterman for years and it can also work for your business.  There are multiple industry top ten lists that you can come up with such as “Top Ten SEO Content Providers in Calgary” or the “Top Ten Industry Leaders in Canada”. In fact, creating top ten lists of other companies and sites can also be a great way to get a high quality link to your site.

“How to” Content
If your business sells products or merchandise, it might be a good idea to put up “how to” content on your site. Manuals, Instructions, FAQs, Guides are all great ideas that will improve the SEO quality of your site. Instructional videos are also a great way to increase traffic and help convert traffic into paying customers.

Posted in SEO

Guest Blogging Tips from Top Notch SEO Calgary Companies

As we have alluded to in other articles, guest blogging is essential when it comes to building your brand online and creating a flow of lucrative traffic to your site. What many SEO Firms in Calgary will tell you, however, is that guest blogging is not as easy as it sounds. Many business owners do not participate in nearly enough guest blogging as they should. Mainly because they do not have the time to churn out guest blogs nor do they know what to write about. Many more new guest bloggers make the mistake of writing content that sounds more like advertising than valuable content that the host blogs readers will appreciate and want to explore further by checking out your site.

Here are some valuable Guest blogging tips that SEO Agencies in Calgary suggest in order to get the most out of your posts…

Explore the Archives First
In order to find out what type of posts that the host blog likes to post, it is always a good idea to first check out their archive in order to determine what sort of topics that are popular and the general style of the content. For example, if most of the posts that get a lot of buzz on the host site are written in an informal tone, you do not want to submit a post that reads like a B2B white paper. It is also a great idea to check out the site’s FAQ page in order to find out what type of answers the readers are looking for so that you can gear your own posts towards answering these same types of queries. Also, as you explore the archives, you can also try to become part of the conversation by taking an idea that someone else wrote about and expanding it by telling your own side of the story. You do not necessarily need to have anything groundbreaking to say in order to write a guest article, you just need to be able to pick a relevant topic that someone else is going to want to read about.

Check Out the Comments
Sometimes an article will only tell you half of the story. Checking out the comments left by other people might end up taking the subject into a whole other arena of discussion.  By reading the comments left by other readers, you might find yourself coming up with a whole other angle on the story on which you can write about. Also checking out which posts have the most comments is a good way to determine which subjects are best to write about.

Outsource Your Posts
There are only so many hours in a day and let’s face it, not all of us are great at writing articles. Thankfully, in this day and age, finding a good writer in which to outsource your writing needs to is relatively easy if you know where to look. There are numerous websites where you can find affordable writers who will give you high quality content. When looking for a writer, it is important to find one that is a natural English speaker even if it may cost a little more than someone from overseas in which English is a second or third language for them. This way, you will have a better chance of getting content that flows well and is not just a hodge podge of nonsensical content stuffed with keywords. Also, if you do not feel like scouring through the various bidding sites, social networks and online classifieds to find a good writer, you can probably find an SEO Company in Calgary that specializes in these types of writing services.

Recycle Old Content
In order to enjoy the lasting benefits of guest blogging, you cannot simply stop after you successfully manage to get one of your articles posted on a high authority site.  You need to continue to pursue guest blogging opportunities and get your content published on numerous sites of high quality. Thankfully, there is no need to sit down and write a brand new article or pay someone to write a new post every time you have an opportunity to be a guest blogger. You can simply take some older content that you wrote and recycle it as new content for the next site. Better yet, you can take the content that you have written and expand upon it in order to create brand new content for the next site.

Guest Blogging is an important way to gain new links and increase your online exposure. It takes a bit of hard work and diligence but the pay off makes it all worth it. If you do not have the time or the writing know how to do it yourself, hiring a top notch SEO Calgary company is the surest way to get great content and share it with others.

Posted in SEO

Link Potential and SEO in Calgary

One of the toughest aspects of SEO Calgary companies need to figure out is how to build a substainable web of links to their site. A good organic link building campaign takes a ton of hard work, persistence and, most importantly, creativity, in order to keep coming up with unique and effective ways in which to build links.

Here are a number of link building strategies for Search Engine Optimization Calgary Companies can use to help increase their online presence.

Blog Rolls
A blog roll is a widget that a blog can use in order to show readers other sites that are affiliated with their own. Another site’s blog roll might be great place to find other great sites that can become potential link building partners for your Calgary based company. Once you find that first good site on which you can share comments and links on, you can take it a step further by explorer their blogroll for similar sites which might be valuable resources for content and guest posts.

Lists
Everybody loves a good top ten list, and for those Calgary companies looking for more internet marketing opportunities, and potential links, these lists are something to look into. For example, if you have a site that sells custom printed shirts, and want to link up with other customer print sites, looking online for lists of the “top ten” custom printing sites might help you find valuable resources in which to link up to in order to increase your own exposure.

Guest Blogging
Guest Blogging is great way to have your voice be heard and build a link to potentially lucrative traffic to your site. There are certain guest blogging communities that you can join that specialize in matching guest posts to the relevant blog. Joining one of these sites can save you time and effort and help jump start your SEO Campaign for your Calgary business. Just be sure to join a blogging community with a good reputation for link building or it might end up impacting your own site in a negative fashion.

Find out what people “like”
Knowing all about the current trends in your niche is vital when it comes to building links and Internet Marketing. One simple and effective way to find out about the next big thing to write about is to check out what other  sites and individuals are currently liking and talking about in the social media circles of Facebook and Twitter. Doing so will give you indicator of what topics you need to be writing about and what sites you should be trying to connect with.  Using tools such as Google trends or Tweet Adder are good strategies for Search Engine Optimization Calgary companies should look into.

Posted in SEO

Links for SEO in Calgary

Big businesses with popular websites barely have to waggle a finger in order to get their content seen by thousands of people. Every new article that they post and every new product that they introduce is certain to find links thanks to a well established following. For the rest of the Calgary  based  businesses that are still trying to get their toe in the online door, some good old fashioned link building is going to be needed before they can start counting their own internet minions who would willing to help them get some attention and drive traffic to their website.

Here are some link building services Calgary business secrets …

Start Offline
Building links with your offline associates is truly the most organic SEO Services a Calgary business can engage in. Who better to connect to first, than the people who already know and trust you offline? Clients and associates with whom you already had face time with will be more likely to share or add your link than a total stranger would. By connected with them via the various social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Goggle Plus, Linked In) or even simply sending the a link via email, you can quickly establish a small online following that will help increase your overall online exposure.

Free Stuff
Another great link building strategies Calgary Companies can utilize in order to increase their SEO ranking is to host a giveaway or contest on their website. However, the trick to a successful link building campaign is to give away something that is related to your business. For example, an App Design company might want to give away an Android Tablet , since this type of device is related to Apps, while a Ski Equipment company would be better off giving away a ski package. While giving away something popular that has nothing to with your business might help to temporarily increase visits to your site, only a small percentage of the people you attract will actually end up becoming your customers.

Use the Local Press
While it might be easy for companies to dismiss the local press, they are precisely the people you want to connect with in order to attract attention from your local clients. Local journalists are always looking for a good story and love to highlight local businesses. By holding a newsworthy event such as a charity dinner or some other community service, you can get your business in the news which can then translate into more SEO Link Building within Calgary.

Guest Posts
When are first starting out and looking to gain some valuable link juice, a SEO Calgary Company will suggest that you guest post on other popular sites. Guest posting is a great way to build your online reputation and generate very valuable backlinks. Choosing the right relevant sites on which to post will also help you create brand awareness and can also lead to more conversions and sales.

Online Communities
When you are first starting out, the people are not just going to come to you without first knowing a something about you.  You need to go to where your potential online customers are and this means joining an online community in order to find your target audience. Online communities are ideal for Link Building and for Calgary based businesses to gain better SEO ranking, but only if you are an active participant.  Simple showing up and dropping a link to your site and then vanaishing is not a great way to build trust with an online community. You need to put some time into the site, participating in forums and answering questions. This way, you will build trust with your audience and also get them to start having more online conversations about your business.

Posted in SEO

8 Tips for Effective Link Building

8 Tips to Remember for Link Building & SEO

You can never ignore links. They drive traffic and definitely boost your page rankings in search engines. But you also need to perform link building right. You can start with the following tips:

1. Make sure your links are worth it.
Pay attention to your content. Is it something a lot of people will be interested reading and, most of all, sharing to their friends and family? Are they original enough? Do they make you appear credible and authoritative in your chosen niche?

2. Strengthen one-way links.
The best form of link development is actually one-way linking. You don’t have need to be tied to any partnership, and inbound links are the most valuable. However, you also don’t need to wait for people to link back to you. You can also create your own inbound links by posting sensible comments in other people’s blogs, participating in forums and adding your link in your signature, publishing your links in social media and networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as using bookmarking websites.

3. Consider other forms of linking.
Though one-way link development is the best strategy, you should also not put the other methods aside. They can speed up the popularity of your link in no time. We’re talking about reciprocal linking and three-way linking. Normally, you’ll be asked to put up their links in your website in exchange of placing your link in theirs.

4. Know where you should place your link.
If you’re doing reciprocal or three-way linking, always scrutinize the websites you’re dealing with. If they are spammy, you can also be penalized by Google, since you’re linked to them. Moreover, you should also know if their webmasters are trustworthy. Some are actually cunning, removing your link without your prior permission or knowledge.

5. Perform internal linking.
Internal linking simply means linking your different web pages. Many new SEO specialists don’t know that having a lot of links pointing to the homepage is considered unnatural by search engines. Besides, if you want to enhance your chances of being visited by your targeted audience, you need to have a couple of links on top positions.

6. Remember: Quality Matters.
If you’re torn between quantity and quality, don’t. When it comes to major search engines, it’s the quality that’s given utmost importance. That’s why it’s a lot better to have 30 to 50 quality links than thousands of bad ones. The latter can only pull your website down. Worse, your domain may be banned by search engines.

7. Don’t Focus Too Much on Texts.
People are becoming more visual. If you haven’t noticed it yet, majority of content shared online are videos and photos. That doesn’t mean text is already out of the picture. It only means you can attract their attention with only a few words. Besides, multimedia files add some dynamism in your content.

8. Update Your Regularly
Give your audience more reason to come back and link back often. Make sure you can update your site’s content regularly, most especially if you’re maintaining a blog.

9 Tried-and-Tested Beginner Tips for Killer SEO

9 Tried-and-Tested Beginner Tips for Killer SEO | Calgary

Starting out with search engine optimization but are not so sure where to begin? We have compiled 9 of great tips for you:

1. Set up a blog.
Millions of people around the world read blogs. They also give you a perfect excuse to update your website regularly, and you can be more engaged with your potential customers in the blogging arena.

2. Create text links.
Rather than simply displaying your URL, produce a text link. It is a keyword that is hyperlinked. When clicked, it directs readers to your preferred webpage. Your link has more weight when it is connected to any of your related or targeted keywords.

3. Combine organic and inorganic strategies.
You do not have to be too conservative with your SEO strategies. There is nothing really unethical about inorganic SEO. In fact, it supports your entire campaign. Paid tactics can provide you a huge amount of traffic, which you need for faster promotion. Needless to say, sustain such traffic and continue to increase your page rank by doing organic SEO.

4. Pay attention to your domain name. As much as possible, incorporate keywords in your domain name. See to it you can get the dot com before you even consider other extensions. Before you pay for your domain, make sure you have spelled it correctly. If possible, avoid adding hyphens. Normally, Internet users type domain names without them.

5. Go to Facebook and Twitter. Conquer social media and networking websites. Use them to build your network as well as foster relationships with both your regular and potential clients. Find time to share some of your links and posts, but beware of flooding your own or their page.

6. Include your keywords whenever you can. There are actually a lot of places where you can add your keywords: title, domain name, meta description, meta keyword, and all the pages of your website. Just do not forget you are not allowed to stuff these places with so many keywords. In fact, try to vary your keywords or have a targeted as well as related phrases and words. This way, you can make your copies sound as natural as possible.

7. Add a sitemap. A sitemap can be a huge help for your website. It sort of tells search engine spiders to come back because you have new pages. If you already have hundreds or thousands of pages, your sitemap can then work as a mega directory. If they can’t find the link they are looking for using the Search tab, they may be able to do so in the sitemap.

8. Avoid too many media files. Media files are a great addition to any webpage. They add diversity and enhance the overall message. However, so many of them can also be detrimental. They can definitely slow down your website’s speed, which means your website will not be crawled as frequently by Google & Bing spiders.

9. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Keep SEO in your mind, but always put your readers’ needs first. Write for them, not for yourself or even for search engine spiders.

Building Website Traffic: Your Company Blog & SEO

Building Website Traffic: Your Company Blog & SEO

One of the primary reasons why it’s so important for websites to maintain a blog is search engine optimization. A blog is an effective way to add keyword-rich content in your website. There are millions of blog readers all over the world. You also have the perfect excuse to be fun and include multimedia files such as podcasts, videos, and images—something you can’t conveniently do if you’re running a professional website.

But before you can relish the benefits of a blog, you should first work your way in making sure it attracts a good amount of traffic from your targeted niche, and the pages are optimized properly. The following ideas can be great starters:

Participate in a blog network. As its name implies, a blog network contains a list of blogs all over the World Wide Web. Becoming a part of one allows you to promote your blog to people who also love to read entries. A lot of them also permit you to add their badge into your page, boosting your credibility or authority.

Update your content often. Make it a habit to have at least 3 blog posts a week, enough for your readers to keep on coming back to your blog. Don’t forget to provide them quality and, as much as possible, unique content. Most of all, be very consistent. For example, if they’re used to seeing a new post every Monday, ensure you can do so all the time.

Add some keywords. Like websites, blogs still depend on keywords to be seen in search engines, especially Google. Nevertheless, see to it you don’t overdo it. In fact, include keywords only when they would appear natural or very important. Your main priority should be the interest of your readers. If they’re happy with what they’re reading, they’ll be more than willing to share your link with others.

Include buttons. Many readers may want to share your post, but they don’t like the time-consuming process of doing so. Give them no excuse by adding buttons on your every post. These buttons may point to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and other social media and networking websites.

Make your page dynamic. Just because we tell you to give quality content, you’ll settle for texts all the time. It’s like reading a physics book. Unless you’re absolutely interested in the subject, it gets pretty boring in the long run. There are many ways to liven up your blog. You can add videos and photos. Many have also tried podcasting and are successful.

Add the subscription button. Don’t let those occasional readers get away from your blog for good. Include a Subscribe button on your blog. It should be added along with your first blog post.

Keep track of your statistics. With tools such as Google Analytics, this shouldn’t be extremely hard for you to do. Tracking allows you to measure the success or lack of effectiveness of your efforts. You’ll know which keywords work very well and which you should concentrate on as well as understand your visitors a lot better.

Credit: An article on internet marketing tactics by the SEO experts at SkySpark Marketing in Calgary.

The Do’s and Don’ts List for Blogging: Brainy SEO Tips

The Do’s and Don’ts List for Blogging: Brainy SEO
It’s true. Blogging is one of the most effective search engine optimization tactics you can implement. Moreover, once you get the hang of it, it isn’t difficult to do at all. But no matter how easy it sounds, you may still end up not getting the most of it simply because you aren’t completely aware of its dos and don’ts.

Avoid getting yourself in such situation by remembering these do’s & don’ts:

Do: Add keywords in your blog post, but don’t spam.
Keywords still remain the lifeblood of both blogs and websites. Without them, it will be so difficult for you potential audience to find you, especially in search engines. However, you should also learn to put some limits. Keyword spamming happens when a key phrase or word is repeated multiple times in a blog post. You can think about keyword density and prominence, but here’s our friendly advice: write for your audience. Keep those keywords in mind, but make your audience’s interest and potential reaction your utmost priority.

Do: Give your posts a great title.
It’s like trying to pick a nice book in a shop. Unless you have a subject or an author in mind, your possible choice is the one with the catchiest, intriguing title. It’s the same thing with blog posts. You can’t get into first base with your audience if you have a lousy title. It’s okay to be quite mysterious, but make sure it doesn’t border on vagueness. Of course, it helps if you can also pepper keywords right in your title.

Don’t: Be lazy.
Blogging requires a good amount of commitment from you. You have to be consistent. Otherwise, your readers will not appreciate your randomness and settle for other blogs. It doesn’t matter if you post 3 to 5 blogs a week. The most important thing is you can produce almost the same number of posts every time. It may help you, though, if you can come up with themes. For instance, if you have a food recipe blog, Monday may be about meatless dishes; Tuesdays, seafood; Wednesday, poultry; etc.

Do: Allow people to interact with you.
The dynamism of blogging doesn’t stop once you include pictures, audio files, and videos in your posts. It should also extend to your readers’ involvement. In fact, they love to be very engaged with you. So turn off your comments, add some polls, create posts with questions in the end, encourage feedback, and be open to possible guest post.

Needless to say, as the owner of the blog, you should maintain peace and order among your audience. It’s always better to simply turn on your comment moderation tool (just make sure you check comments regularly) and emphasize you don’t tolerate spamming and flamebaiting.

Don’t: be spammy.
There’s really nothing wrong with adding ads, banners, and even Google AdSense in your blog. But too much of them can be so annoying and greatly reduce the power of your blog. Make sure nothing blocks the reading view, menus still remain accessible, and audience doesn’t feel forced to click on your ads.

The The Do’s and Don’ts List for Blogging: Brainy SEO Tips was written by the SEO experts with SkySpark marketing

E-mail Marketing: Etiquette for SEO Practitioners

E-mail Marketing Etiquette for SEO Practitioners
E-mail marketing should be part of your search engine optimization efforts. It is a way of introducing your potential customers into the sales funnel. It is in e-mails you are going to strongly promote your business so you can persuade them to buy your products and remain loyal customers. You can also advertise your keywords and links, as well as increase your traffic through e-mails.

But since e-mail marketing is like going door to door with your goods, you have to remain polite and ethical. You have to know the etiquette in the business, such as the following:

Do not spam.
It is already too much if you are sending two to three e-mails a day. In fact, the best technique is to properly space your e-mails. You can limit your company newsletters to perhaps twice a month. Your regular e-mails may be delivered at least 3 to 5 times a week. If you promised to send an e-mail daily, ensure you only limit it to one.

There are two main reasons. One, you do not want to overwhelm them with a lot of information. Second, you want them to look forward to your e-mails.

Stop hard-selling.
Would you like salespeople begging you to buy their appliances right at your own doorstep? Most definitely, you will shudder with the idea. You already have your first base by being given the chance to e-mail them. Do not let it go by hard selling.

Help your customers make the right decision when it comes to purchasing. Let them know why your products and services are better and, most of all, badly needed. Focus on the benefits rather than the features. Include studies, statistics, and testimonials. Get them through a mini course that will help them understand not only your business but also your niche.

Emphasize this: add your address to your white list.
Immediately after a person subscribes to your mailing list, inform him that he needs to add your address to his white list. This way, your newsletters and e-mails do not end up in the Junk Mail or SPAM folder. It also helps to let him notify his subscription. If he doesn’t receive any notification from you, you can then immediately tell him to check his Junk Mail folder.

Keep your e-mails short.
People don’t have all the time to read lengthy e-mails. Usually they’ll just scan the page looking for something very interesting. If you have to elaborate on something, you can create a page for that and add the link to your e-mail.

Create a good subject line.
Avoid very vague or spam-sounding subjects. You can’t expect them to open your page. Be specific without getting the mystery out of your content.

As much as possible, don’t send attachments.
Many e-mail users are apprehensive about opening attachments, thinking they could be viruses or malware. It’s better if you can already embed the photos directly in your e-mail. If not you can just add a link that points the main location of your supposed attachments.

E-mail Marketing Etiquette for SEO Practitioners | Tips by SkySpark Marketing in Calgary