The SEO Scout

Use Social Media to Manage a Brand

HERE are 4 great start up tips for using social networks to brand your company!

1. Choosing an avatar – This is like a social “face” for your company. Don’t use anything to playful if you have a serious business. Use something classy and professional that reflects the nature of your brand.
2. Use consistent profile images – Be consistent with the profile picture, logo or avatar image that you implement. You want to be recognizable.
3. Be topical and timely – Keep an eye on the social market and what your industry buzz is. You want to be topical and relevant at all times with your post or status updates.
4. Have a mission – Don’t be a wanderer! Before you begin your social marketing or branding campaign, you should have a clearly defined mission and message you are trying to convey. 

Implement these basic steps and you’ll have a more effective and productive social marketing campaign. But remember that consistency is everything. If you don’t put the time in to nurture your social profiles and accounts, they will not be followed.

The SEO Scout

EverDream Web is a Denver SEO Company

How to Research Keywords for SEO.

I find that when I consult with clients a big part of the conversation assumes they know two really important things.

1. that they know where to go to research keywords to optimize on their site. 
2. that they know what to research

I might say something like, “Just look into that keyword and see if it gets many searches or has a lot of competition.” And then go on my merry way in the conversation.

I’m going to explain those two things today in a bit more detail.

WHERE TO RESEARCH KEYWORDS

If you do not have a Google account, go to this link to access Google’s amazing keyword research tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Type in the keyword or phrase that you would like to optimize. Or, for practice, type in “dog collars”. Enter the captcha code and hit “search”. Search results will appear that tell you three very important things:

1. The competition the keyword or phrase has. This shows you how many people are optimizing the word basically. The higher the competition for a keyword or phrase, the harder it’s going to be to get on the first page of Google’s search results with that phrase.
2. Global Monthly Searches: The average monthly searches over a period of 12 months for a keyword entered from anywhere in the world but on the google.co.uk website
3. Local monthly searches: The average monthly searches over a period of 12 months for a keyword entered on google.co.uk for the countries specified within the adword campaign settings

To Change the “Local” monthly search results, you can open the “Advanced Options and Filters” located just below the “Find Keywords” box. It will allow you to change the Location or languages you are researching. 

(Source: howtoresearchkeywords)

SEO Tricks ~ How to Rip Your “SEO Muscles” in 5 Minutes!

SEO Tricks ~ WHITE HAT ONLY!

If you have a website and you have access to the code, try this 5 minute solution to ripping your site’s “SEO muscles” for maximum performance.

• Pick one SEO Phrase. I’ll use “Dog Collars” as the example keyword phrase and I’ll put “Other Keywords” after it where you might be putting other keywords. So don’t type the phrase “Other Keywords” on your page. Duh, I know, but I had to say it or sure enough some one would do it:) 
• Only optimize one or two phrases per page using this system.
• Put the Phrase in the Title Tags, put them at the very beginning of the title tag and keep the title tags short, no more than 75 letter characters total. It will look like this - [title] Dog Collars, Other Keywords [/title]
• In the meta tag description, put the keyword phrase first. It will look like this: [META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”“Dog Collars, other keywords…”]
• In the meta Keywords tag, do the same. It will look like this: [META NAME=”Keywords” CONTENT=”“Dog Collars, other keywords…”]
• In the body, put your keyword in the heading tags: [h1] Dog Collars [/h1]
• You can also do this for the other heading tags, h2, h3 and so on… but don’t do too many. Two appearances in header tags is plenty.
• At the bottom of the page, after everything in the footer, type your keyword phrase one last time

This will do the trick! The only way you won’t show up on page one of Google after this will be because the keyword phrase you have chosen has just too much competition for on-page SEO like this to do the trick. For this reason, it’s wise to research your keyword phrase in Google Adwords Keyword Tool so you will know the level of competition you are up against. 

If you choose a word that is up against some big competition, like “Dog Collars” surely would be, you’ll need to really push the off-page SEO work you do. If you aren’t sure how to do that, contact an SEO Company like EverDream Web for a free consultation about how to handle off-page SEO work.

The SEO Scout

SEO Company

What SEO and Bigfoot Have In Common

Is perfect SEO possible?

In a word, no. But effective and lucrative business CAN be driven up dramatically by good SEO. You see, like Bigfoot, SEO is illusive and mysterious and requires constant tracking. Every search engine has its own system (or algorithm) for determining the ranking factors of a website, and they are all secretive about it. 

Enter “Black Hat” SEO. Search engine’s are always trying to make things hard for the SEO companies that try to cheat… which is great. But it also makes things difficult for those of us who don’t cheat.

More about “Black Hat” SEO companies. There’s a good deal of companies out there who promise their clients the moon when they are selling SEO services to them. The problem is that these black hat companies really CAN deliver the moon. (the moon being “traffic” to the client’s website).. for a little while anyway. They do this by using cheap, shortcut tactics that trick the search engines into thinking a site has erupted on the scene and it tremendously relevant to certain keywords. They use tactics like “link farming”, which work at first but then the search engine gets wise to it and the websites on the link farms get hit hard with ranking penalties. Then the traffic goes down and the SEO company charges even more money to get them back up again by way of… you guessed it, more black hat SEO. 

The only way that SEO can be close to perfect is if it’s “White Hat” (meaning, very ethical) and if it’s ongoing. The SEO must evolve with and adhere to the current standards of the different Search Engines.

EverDream Web does this by executing on-page SEO that is beautiful and effective. Then we do off-page SEO. That’s where we build back links with article writing, blogging and Social Websites. Then… we monitor and monitor and monitor the search engine rankings and traffic of our client’s websites. In this way, we can know what’s working, what isn’t ,and what we need to do to keep our clients on top of the rankings!

For more on this, call to get your FREE SEO Consutation. There’s no charge and it’s 10 minutes that will change the way you view SEO and your websites potential!

Call 877-586-4736 now and start down the road to website traffic and a better online business!

The SEO Scout

SEO Company

Domain Name Games

If you are interested in doing business on the Internet, having a good domain name obviously helps. Unfortunately, getting a good domain name is harder these days due to large companies and domain “squatters” buying up everything they can think of and reselling it at scalpers prices.

While the “.com” suffix is the best, you could find an ideal domain name that ends with one of the less popular suffixes like “.biz” or “.net”. There are two problems I see here. First, the “.com” suffix is the default for every browser, so if shoppers type in part of the domain name, they will likely be shuttled to the domain that ends in “.com.” Second, the bigger search engines like Google and Yahoo! give priority to “.com” domains over any others.

Since the other suffixes just don’t pull the weight that a “.com” pulls, you should go with the .com. In order to do this and get the keywords in the domain name that you want in there, you might need to get creative. Fortunately, domain registrar’s like www.everdreamdomains.com will offer up suggestions to you if the domain you want is already taken. They will offer variations that you can buy that contain the keywords along with some other popular word. I.E. If you want realestate.com, it’s taken, but when I just did the search, everdreamdomains suggested “group-realestate.com” While that’s not optimal, it will help drive the traffic I want.

Try this out now, go to http://www.everdreamdomains.com and type in your dream domain name and see if it’s taken, if so, see what the registrar suggest!

The SEO Scout

SEO Company

Beginner’s SEO - Can you find me now? Can you find me now?

Beginner’s SEO

There’s a really strange syndrome that comes over someone when they decide to commit themselves to buying or building a website. They think, “This is so great! There’s hundreds of millions of people on the web every hour, I’m going to get visitors and they will want to give me money!”. Or something similar… To me, this is sort of like the lottery ticket syndrome. When you buy a ticket and inadvertently start dreaming about what you’ll do with the money.

The problem is, the site goes live and the phone never rings. And this is most disheartening to a new Internet business. Especially when you consider that starting up a website is NOT cheap. Or if you take the true entrepreneurship road and build your own website, it’s NOT easy! 

If you are one of these good people who have invested in your new website and put a lot of time into writing the content and dreaming up your business model, you should know that there are NO BAD WEBSITES, only broken ones. And websites can ALL be fixed or replaced. Usually for a good deal less than they originally cost.

But the thing you really need is SEO.

Let’s say that you have a website that looks OK, so a makeover isn’t totally necessary, but you have no traffic. A small infusion of funds can alert the search engines to your presence. But this small infusion of funds has to be done by a real pro, or else it might just fall short of its goal to drive traffic. It might then lead to more and more small infusions of funds that also fall short of their goals to drive customers to your site.

Good news… bad news.

The bad news is that you really should hire a pro if you are considering SEO. There’s just too many variables and if they aren’t all done right you might not see any success. A little money spent on the right company will go a LONG way.

The good news is that someone who knows what they are doing, can do this relatively quick and inexpensively and the ROI on something like that is invaluable. 

Note: every industry is different and not everyone can get mountains of traffic with a small SEO program, but everyone who does SEO the right way WILL get more traffic. Period. 

Call 877-586-4736 for free consultations if you need more info, or email to info@everdreamweb.com

The SEO Scout

SEO Company

(Source: canyoufindmenow)

Top 3 Keyword Factors to Know When Making A Web Page

1. Keywords should be researched in Google’s keyword tool. This way you know whether or not people are searching for the keywords. Often, a keyword phrase we think would be good, is actually not. And when we look into it we see that people just aren’t searching for it like we thought. The good thing about Google’s Keyword tool is that it will recommend similar words that you can use and tell you how many searches are being done for it. Example:

I did a keyword tool search on “Screw driver kit”. It sounds like a good keyword to optimize if I sell sets of screw drivers. When researched, we see that it gets 3,600 searches a month globally.

Google Keywords recommended “screwdriver set” which gets over 33,000 searches. Not only was I using “kit” when I should have used “set”, but I was separating the word “screwdriver” into two words “screw driver”… which was hurting the results.  

Based on my findings in Google’s Keyword Tool, I will Optimize “screwdriver set”. Exactly as it appears in the results… any variations will change the keyword and therefore affect the results of my seo. So, I won’t do “sets” plural or anything like that.

2. On-page placement in the code. 

This is the web person’s job, but if you want to supervise them I’ll tell you what they should do. The keywords should go in the following places at the very least:

1. The title tags <title>Keywords here</title>
2. The Description meta tags. The keywords should be at the beginning of the description and the description should be kept to only one or two reasonably sized sentences.
3. The Keywords meta tags. Again, put the most important keywords at the beginning. Don’t try to put too many keywords in these meta tags. Keep it to under 10 keywords or keyword phrases if you can.
4. The Alt tags inside of an images code.

3. On-page placement in the content.

1. Header tags. These look like this <h1>Keywords here</h1> and are usually at the beginning of each section of the page. There are also<h2>, <h3> and so on. Don’t use the keyword phrase you are optimizing in all of them. Just one or two of the headings will do.
2. In about 2% of the content. So, for every 100 words, two should be the keyword phrase (assuming the keyword phrase consist of two words…)
3. At the footer of the page, after everything else, put the keyword on the page one last time to really drive home to the search engine that the page is really about the what the keyword is.
4. Somewhere in the content where you have worked your keyword phrase in, make it bold! Just once, and try not to make anything else bold if you can. This is super minor, but it could be the little thing that pushes you ahead of a competitor.

The SEO Scout

SEO Company

Talking to Search Engines is Like Talking To A 3 Year Old

Website SEO is like talking to a 3 year old. A Quick Analogy.

Let’s use the example of teaching a three year old NOT to touch fire. But let’s do it in terms of SEO. 

THE THREE YEAR OLD:

When you are trying to convey a lesson to a three year old you have to be very, very clear. You have got to stay on topic and remember that too many words will only befuddle and irritate them.

You start with the most important message, “Don’t Touch!!!” Then you might explain that fire is hot. Then reiterate, “don’t touch”. blah blah blah… “don’t touch”. When it’s all said and done, you close strong with… “So don’t touch!”

OK, search engines are EXACTLY THE SAME!

SEARCH ENGINES:

When you are talking to search engines, you use Keywords to get traffic. You tell the search engines what you are about with them… “Coffee shop”. You have to be very clear about what your page is about and not get distracted by talking about too many other things.

So, you take those keywords, “coffee shop”, and put them throughout your site, just like the conversation with the three year old. You open with them, as a header for a section of your content… and then you use them frequently in the content itself.

You do this so that the search engines will see the keywords and know what you’re about. Search engines are easily confused, so be clear with them! And whatever you do, finish strong! “Coffee Shop”! Put it at the end of your content and even at the very bottom of the page. 

If you have a good SEO guy, he’ll do the same thing with your code that you have done with your content!

Ciao

The SEO Scout

(Source: everdreamweb.com)

A Website Name - .COM, .NET, What Should You Get

There are SO MANY Domain Name extensions on the internet. How can you know which one to get!

First Choice: Buy a .COM. Even if you can’t get the exact domain name you want and have to settle for a slight variation, as long as it still makes sense a .COM is best. Why? Because if you tell someone to go to terribletigers.us and they don’t do it for a few days, the odds are good that if they remember the domain name at all they will type it in as terribletigers.COM.

Price: .COM domains should be about $11 or $12 per year. If you are at a domain registrar (a website that sells domains) and it is MORE than that, you should just close the browser window and go to a GoDaddy reseller like http://everdreamdomains.com. You will never pay inflated prices at a Godaddy reseller site.

Second Choice: .NET or .ORG work as good back ups if you can’t get a .COM. If you don’t want to settle for a variation of the domain name you want and it is already taken in the .com’s… These extensions are solid and preferred over the rest of the pack.

Price: These extensions vary in price but again, they average about $11 or $12  per year. 

Third Choice: If you are not a government agency or a non-profit and you plan to drive traffic to your website with ads or by spreading your websites hyperlink around blogs and forums, it really doesn’t matter what extension you buy. .US, .CO, .INFO or any other extension will do fine. I recommend that if you can’t get a .COM, a .NET or a .ORG, try to get a .INFO.

Price: They can be purchased for the least money. Right now, at our domain registrar EVERDREAMDOMAINS.COM we are selling .US Domains for $3.99 per year, and .INFO Domains are $2.99 per year.

The SEO Scout