Amateurs' Guide to Improve Google Search Engine Rankings in Canada

You try everything from content posting to increasing Facebook likes but nothing seems to work. It looks like Google is a permanent enemy, who will keep focusing on your competitor’s and fail to notice everything about your website.

Six out of every ten local businesses in Canada feel the same way about search engine optimization. They believe that money spent in boosting the Google Page Rankings is futile.

Is it happening with you too? Do you think that page ranks are never going to improve? I might be able to help you. But what exactly makes me eligible to for this advice? Years of experience in Canada SEO.

Cheat Tip 1: Change Your Title and Meta Descriptions

When was the last time when you actually looked into title and meta descriptions? Do they cover the important keywords? Do they deliver the message? Do they collectively promote click through rates?

Believe me or not, simple changes here can increase traffic and make search engines like you more. Title and meta help search engines like Google understand your page better.

Cheat Tip 2: Add Some Content

Are most of the pages on your website blank? When it comes to Google search engine rankings in Canada, written content is still the best way to perform better. Although images and videos are getting highly recognized, bots still love to read content.

Work on optimum number of words and keep them at right location. Of course you can add the call to action and even inform visitors about the page. Just make sure that the content is original and informative.

Cheat Tip 3: Image Alt Tags

Last year I was working on an amazing project for personalized gift collection and noticed that nothing seemed to work for the website. That’s when I realized that there are just too many images without alt tags and descriptions.

Within 2 dates, I completed these details for over two thousand images and saw improvements in less than a week. It was a huge boost for me to keep working on the project.

Get Popular

The search engine rankings in Canada are also influenced by back links. In fact, it is one of the most important aspects for seo. Now the problem is that there aren’t many legitimate ways to get back links, but I have discovered some ways to set things right and grab some eyeballs at the same time.

Option 1: Yp.ca

Have you registered for yellow pages? While the idea might seem clichéd, a lot of people look for local businesses on digital platforms like YP.ca. It is in fact one of the most advanced websites that I have come across in recent times. With classic yellow shades, it’s a pleasant thing to look at too.

Option 2: Ziplocal.ca

Just like yellow pages, Zip Local allows you to find the most relevant businesses in the locality with Canadian business listings. With over 1.3 registered businesses, you will still find the spot.

Option 3: 411.ca

Adding your business to 411.ca is completely free. With thousands of visitors every day, you get a lot of opportunity to reach the target audience along with quality back links.     

Eat24’s Breakup Letter to Facebook- Read It Here

Of lately, a lot of people have been talking about how businesses can survive without social media marketing. There is absolutely nothing to fear if your strategists have a backup plan. Take a look at Eat24’s example.   

Dear Facebook,

Hey. It’s Eat24. Look, we need to talk. This isn’t easy to say since we’ve been together so long, but we need to break up.  We’d love to say “It’s not you, it’s us” but it’s totally you. Not to be rude, but you aren’t the smart, funny social network we fell in love with several years back. You’ve changed. A lot.

When we first met, you made us feel special. We’d tell you a super funny joke about Sriracha and you’d tell all our friends and then everyone would laugh together. But now? Now you want us to give you money if we want to talk to our friends. Now when we show you a photo of a taco wrapped with bacon, you’re all like “PROMOTE THIS POST! GET MORE FRIENDS!” instead of just liking us for who we are. That’s hella messed up.

Read full letter on http://www.searchenginejournal.com/breakup-letter-facebook-eat24/105611/

Easy Public Relation Management Tips for Small Businesses

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The recipe of success has a very important ingredient called PR. Although most of people in marketing use this term very loosely, few understand that maintaining public relation is incredibly important. It is precisely why businesses pay thousands of dollars to PR managers and agents.

Obviously start-ups cannot afford such marketing costs, but that does not mean that they have to suffer against the huge competition. With right kind of efforts, the results will be positive. Here are some of the latest trends that can help you.

1.     Don’t take your business too seriously

We are incredibly proud of what we do and it might mean the world to us, but, unfortunately people are not really interested in it. You are just any other company to them and they do not like bragging. Try not to get serious with press releases and public interactions trying to make a point that does not exist.

Take-home tip: Use more ‘you’ than ‘we’.

2.  Tailor the pitches with research

You might have the best copywriter or PR spokesperson and it will not make any difference till you know about the customers. Reach out to their lives and try to understand what can get them interested. It is the best way to get noticed. After all, we all love a bit of personalized.

Take-home tip: Know what they want.

3.  Do not waste their time

Do not try to fill the white space on papers, emails and videos. Long is not at all cool if it does not make any sense or provides any value to the audience. Rather than starting with an unrelated story or idiom, come to the point. Your audience will certainly respect you for that. No body really has time anyway.

Take-home tip: Jump to the point.

4.  They got to trust you

A large part of public relations and marketing is about making people respect and trust you. And unfortunately it is the most difficult part too. It takes years of efforts and pure dedication to serve and communicate. Make sure that you are at least on the right path.

Take-home tip: Be positive and helpful to start with.

5.  It is a long-term investment

In any case if you are expecting PR results in few weeks, it is only going to disappoint you. Public Relations should only be seen as a long-term investment that will yield results after a while. Anything else will be just too demanding.

Take-home tip: Be patient.

Find some more ways on the interesting article to promote business and maintain relationships.  

5 Tried Tested and Free SEO Tricks to Make Visitors Come Back for More

What's your big SEO tip?

Do search engines really use bounce rate as a factor for rankings? Does the traffic you currently bring boost SERP?

While we do not know the answers for sure, search engine optimization experts in Canada have often talked about it. Nevertheless, everyone will like to add page and website visits with whatever ways possible.

I have often believed that SERPs are a lot about traffic and that’s precisely why I bring some really interested tried and tested ways to boost traffic and make people coming back for more, always.  

1)     Offer value, in whatever way possible

You got to have a trump card. And mine is crafting solutions. I help people find answers to SEO questions in the simplest possible ways. It might not be easy, but my readers know that they will definitely find something here.

Let’s assume that you sell shoes, so rather than telling the world why your shoes are great, tell them what problems your shoes solve. Are they sturdy? Tell a story how. Search engines love it.

2)    Spend time with your title, a lot of time

What do you feel about the article title that you created just now? Is your video heading great? Well I will suggest taking another look in the morning. People decide whether they want to watch or read something just by the title. That is why I work very tirelessly on them.

I would also like to add that you shouldn't make title controversial for the sake of it and offer nothing in the content. It will ruin your image and credentials badly. It’s the best Canada SEO tip or tricks in 2014, believe me.

3)     Show visitors something great, but great is subjective

It easy, isn't it? You have to find some really good-looking girls, click their pictures and post them, except that won’t work. Creating interesting stuff means working on things that your target audience can enjoy. It is more of an extension of offering value. Your images and info graphs should solve problems and offer solutions.

I have never learned of ways that can spare me research work. It is long, tedious and tiring. But, in the end, it is the only thing that separates my SEO tip blog from thousands others here.

4)    Don’t try to be great, they don’t like it

I am trying to work with the ways of simplicity. It’s complex and distinct in many ways. I find it amusing that people spend a lot of time chasing greatness but it usually comes down to simplicity.

I like to eat at McDonald’s. It’s simple for me. I might complain about how bad the food it but I’ll eat their again. I have spent thousands of dollars at this franchise because it’s something I know, something that is simple enough to be criticized. Just like Google I guess.

5)     Don’t pitch too hard, they know you’re desperate

Why is to so difficult to control that sales pitch? Why everything that we do comes down to asking for one thing ‘BUY from US’? Because nobody likes to share information for free. There has to be an underlying benefit and visitors know that too, but, they still use Google or any other service offering value.

The most important thing here is to control selling desperation and blend it meticulously with valuable content. And of course, you can always add CTA in the last part of the content, unless it’s not an e commerce site.     

Engagement and Interaction May Change the Ways of Business

Do you find it difficult to engage visitors? Some of the latest study finding may be helpful. Here is a brief look at how simple things can increase conversion

It is very difficult to predict eCommerce trends.  It is almost impossible to find out what exactly works and how user preferences will define the revenue stream. Still some researchers and e-com website experts are keen to study changing patterns and they believe that there is a definitive answer to what will exactly work in 2014 and years to come.

Heat map is definitely one of the things to consider. According to 12 Heat map Findings: Your Roadmap to Conversions published in Search Engine Journal, subconscious brain can help understand what human users are looking into. The study can definitely help is useful in terms of where one can place the important content.

This study also highlights search engine engagement and what users actually see while looking at the result. Surprisingly, most people ignore banners and simply concentrate on the first few results to the query.  Banner blind is prevalent and affect most of the users on internet.

Paid promotion is obviously one of the better ways to increase earnings but severe competition is posing threat to many industries. How can one overcome such issues? Industry experts believe that writing ads that stand-out can help you. PPC copywriting is an evolving filed that can increase click-through rates. And once that feat is achieved, it is important to decrease bounce rate by optimizing landing page.  

Another surprising fact comes from website designing. While people go gaga over responsive designs and how beautiful they look, there are others who are not really impressed. Apparently, responsive websites take more time to load. That’s why the giants of ecommerce prefer getting a dedicated mobile version.

Finally, definition of content is also changing. Text is certainly search engine friendly but real users will like more of images and videos that can help. Info graphs, how to videos, rich product images, zoom and similar things that help visitors derive value off the page.  

This might be an early time to shift gears completely but you should definitely be aware of what’s going around. Search engines and users are getting choosy on what they want to see.

Conclusion

It is difficult to say what exactly will work in the favor but keeping an eye on trends is important. Gone are the days when you could simply use keyword rich content and trick search engine. Today, traffic is certainly important but businesses should also look into engagement, satisfaction and exclusivity. In the longer run, these are the only things that will matter.

Do you find it difficult to engage visitors? Increasing sales is now a matter of achieving user interest in less than 30 seconds, and some of the latest findings on user engagement and behavior on websites and search engines can help. Here is a brief look at some of conclusion and facts that matter.

Why You Do Not Generate Enough Traffic?

Who wouldn’t like more traffic to the website? Engaging customers often comes as a mirage. Businesses spend thousands of dollars to make things right but often it comes down to simpler things.

Some of the user experience researchers claim that offering what visitors are looking for upfront is the best way to keep them engaged. There might be some of the other things that can help.

Chances are that your meta tags and descriptions are tailored according to search engine. It might offer great rankings, but do you have any plan for actual readers too? That is exactly where SEO copywriting comes in. This field caters to satisfying both search engines and human readers.

Of lately, there has been a lot of talk about effect of bounce rate and rankings. Although Google does not accept it, there have been few studies and surveys that point towards the possibility. You shouldn’t take a risk and try to work on pages with highest bounce rate. Change things and see if something works for you.

Responsive designs seem to be a thing of the future; that’s what everyone believes. However, top 50 ecommerce websites are still not responsive. In fact there have been concerns about how responsive websites are slower on mobile phones. Considering that portable is the new way of ecommerce, you might want to get a real mobile site.

Finally, all content idea is a little all fashioned. While it will surely please the search engines, ‘real people’ will like a few images or videos that explain things quickly and easily. That’s just another reason to find some designers. Info graphs, icons and other tools to increase engagement will certainly be the difference that you require. 

A single idea might not offer substantial result. So, you should rather combine things and see what actually works for the business.

Take a look at some ways to increase web traffic. 

Beginners Guide: What Exactly Are Affordable SEO Packages?

Will this happen to you too?

Search engine optimization is a source of living for many. For them, it is the most important thing on the planet and they believe it to be true for the rest of world too.

However, the truth is different. Most business owners, with or without a proper website, do not understand SEO thoroughly. To them, it is just a part of business continuously being hyped by the media and self appointed experts.

Search Engine Optimization Basics

Before you start at any level whatsoever, it is important to understand what SEO services in USA and Canada is all about and whether your business really needs to spend on something like this.

Simply put, search engine optimization is the process of pulling your website result up in Google search query. So if someone types ‘shoes online’, your shoe business website should be there in the results.

The results will depend on many factors including competition in the category, your budget, efforts and keyword placement. Ideally, you should know of these things in brief before approaching any SEO service provider in Canada.

Affordable SEO Packages or Services

If you have ever thought of hiring agency or an individual to work on rankings, the search would have been exhausting. Competition is huge, with everyone trying to tell how they are better than others.               

Without any doubt, business owners are a bit watchful weaving the SEO budget and affordable packages seem to be the best available option. But with everyone shouting AFFORDABLE, what exactly a good deal?

Well, It Depends.

One man’s affordable is other man’s expensive.

Along with this, not all affordable SEO companies offer good services. My experience tells that affordable is the matter of perception and not what service provider advertises. No matter what they have to say, you should have the goals clear in you mind.

It is all about spending your money wisely. Like explained in the article called ‘Investing in Big Content Assets for Big Returns’ it is important to develop assets that will stay with you and offer huge returns.