Archive for the ‘Ottawa SEO’ Category
by Ryan Grassie - Dec. 4, 2012 at 2:33pm
There are many things you can be doing with your website to help you gain more traction in your local search results. For example, we always want to be first in the “Ottawa Website Design”, “Kanata Web Design”, “Stittsville Web Design”, etc. Here are some great tips on how you can make this happen.
Make sure that you have a crawler friendly web site
The very first step in improving your performance in local search engines is to make sure that the search engines can easily crawl your site. Minimize the use of tables, and avoid deeply nested tables. Make sure that your business name, address, and contact information is featured prominently on the page as text, and not hidden from the crawlers in an image file. Your homepage title should include your business name, address and key words. Place a “H1″ header near the top of the page that also has your business name, address, and local keywords in it.
Include your business address twice on the page
In addition to placing your business address prominently on the page, also include it in the footer. Abbreviate the business province in one of the addresses, and spell it out in the second iteration. Abbreviated provinces are sometimes misinterpreted by the crawlers.
Local blog articles
Write blog articles that include content that is written for your local followers. Using local keywords will be adding valuable content to your site.
Check out your business listing on the major search engines
Check out your business listings on Google, Yahoo Local, and MSN Live Search. If your business is not found, you should submit a listing at Google, Yahoo, and Superpages (for Microsoft Live Search).
For each listing, make sure that your contact info is correct, your business description is complete, and that it uses the same keywords that you are using on your web site. Make sure that your description has all the info that your potential customers will need to contact you. Include the county in addition to the city on your business listing. Finally, check out any photos of your business on the business directories, and provide better photos when you can.
Get your business rated
Ask your satisfied customers to write reviews and rate your business at Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Ask them to use the same keywords that you use in the business description and on your web site as part of their review. Don’t add too many reviews over a short period of time, and make sure that the reviews are very unique.
Solicit local links
Find a bunch of web directories that are local to your area, and ask them to link to your web site. Contact your local chambers of commerce (there are 2 in Ottawa) and ask them to link to your business from their web site.
Check out your competition
Do a local search for your business keywords (i.e. Web Design, Ottawa, ON) and see who your competition is. Find out who is linking to your competitors and investigate whether you can get the same sites to link to your business website. The links can be determined by going to Yahoo and typing “linkdomain:” and then your competitor’s web site (i.e. linkdomain:www.yourcompetitorssite.com). Click on “inlinks” in the results page.
Check inlinks for your site as well, and see who is linking to you. Make sure that the information on those sites is correct, and contact them if it isn’t.
Verify directory information
Check out your business listing on your local phone company site and other local phone directory sites. Make sure that your business information and description are what you want. Also, make sure that your information is correct at InfoUSA, Amacai, and Acxiom, which are major sources of local business data licensed by many directories.
Create separate web pages for different cities/regions
If your business serves multiple cities or regions, consider creating separate web pages for the different locals. It will take some time, but can really pay off in the end. To avoid duplicate content issues, be sure to have very unique, relevant content on each of the local specific pages. You can use online plagiarism tools to be sure your not content stealing. Be sure to include the county in addition to the city in describing your business.
by Ryan Grassie - Aug. 8, 2012 at 2:03pm
eMarketer reports this week that the corporate website is second only to referrals in terms of lead generation for B2B firms. Yet more than 4 out of 5 (84%) said that their website was not performing to their expectations in terms of generating leads. And not just leads, but quality leads.
Well, what do we expect? As B2B organizations, we typically take our website for granted. We build it, make updates every once in a while… maybe when Bob quits or Jane joins the company we update it, or maybe even throw up a press release.
What do you WANT your website to be? If it is simply a brochure on the Internet, then you can leave it alone, wait for your sales reps to point people to the site… and cross your fingers that it supports your efforts.
OR you can look at a website as what it should be – a lead generation engine. This takes time and investment. The type of time that I am taking to write this blog for example. Writing blogs, creating content is the number one way to drive traffic to your site. And not just traffic – qualified leads. Individuals who are searching on the topic that you are writing about.
In this case, ForceFive builds websites, and ensures their high performance and ROI over time by regularly “ghost” blogging for our clients – creating thought leadership and more importantly, incoming leads. A website should be delivering sales opportunities. If yours isn’t, you have work to do. And I get it – no one wants more work… but we want and NEED sales. You work at getting sales… right?
This requires offering compelling, free content in the form of blogs, white papers, and e-newsletters – and sometimes requiring registration for access.
If you’re interested in learning more about how your website can drive sales, please drop me an email and I’ll share more with you about how ForceFive Media can turn a small investment into big business.
by Ryan Grassie - Jun. 27, 2012 at 1:21am
At first, this tool is going to be used for approving search results – a great way for Google to continue tweaking their rankings. But, that’s not all. Check out what the narrator says about the future of the Plus One button:
“…and soon you’ll be able to Plus One more than just search results. You’ll also find Plus One buttons on sites across the web, making it easy to Plus One pages after you have visited them.”
Right now, the +1 button is used just for search. If you search for “Ottawa Website Design” and decide the fourth or fifth page in the search results is better than the first, you can +1 that ranking, basically telling Google “this search result is the best for this keyword”. That’s powerful and Google will gladly integrate those results into their search rankings.
But, that’s only the start. With +1 in search results, webmasters have very little control over who votes for their site. However, Google is going a little further and this is where things get truly interesting. Imagine what happens when someone clicks the +1 button on a page of your website. Google now knows that someone thinks your content is useful. It’s the same as getting a backlink from another site – someone says “this guy knows his stuff”.
Of course, we won’t know for a little while how much of an impact the +1 button has on search rankings, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume Google will take it into account.
In fact, the head of the Web Spam division at Google – Matt Cutts- has said in the past that they want to integrate social interaction into determining content quality. Now that the +1 button has been rolled out, it’s only a matter of time before this very social tool becomes an important part of their algorithm. After all, they track, monitor, and gather all the results from those clicks. You can bet they’ll use the data.
Further supporting this is a quote from the Webmaster Central blog:
“We expect that these personalized annotations will help sites stand out by showing users which search results are personally relevant to them. As a result, +1’s could increase both the quality and quantity of traffic to the sites people care about.
But the +1 button isn’t just for search results. We’re working on a +1 button that you can put on your pages too, making it easy for people to recommend your content on Google search without leaving your site.”
If there’s anything we know for sure, guessing Google’s intentions is tricky. But, with so much evidence pointing toward social integration into search and the +1 button finally rolled out, I can safely say that a smart webmaster and Internet marketer will keep a close eye on these tools. Soon enough, I believe this tool will become a fantastic resource to better connect with readers while improving rankings in Google.
For more details about the +1 button and Google’s plan for it, here is a useful link:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/03/introducing-1-button.html
by Ryan Grassie - May. 16, 2012 at 4:21pm
Local search engine marketing is a big key to the success of many local businesses.
There are many local SEO techniques that can be used to achieve positive results from local marketing, but one major thing that some business owners often overlook is the concept of local search marketing.
Using the proper search engine marketing techniques will enable you to increase your business with local traffic. For example instead of targeting “Nike Shoes” instead target “Ottawa Nike Shoes” and because the term is local you have a much higher chance of success. We will get into the details of this more below.
Local Search Engine Optimization in Ottawa (or anywhere)
Local search engine optimization can be a little tricky, but by incorporating it into your marketing plan you can see an increase in sales that would not have been possible without this marketing technique.
Local search optimization can be achieved in a number of ways and can be especially important for small businesses.
Many people will perform a local search when looking for a particular product or service. This can be especially important for small business owners as most, if not all, of their business comes from within their local community.
This is why it is important to be sure your website is optimized for your location as well as your business.
Making sure your city or town and the surrounding areas are part of your local search engine optimization tactics is a key in being able to increase your business with local traffic.
If you do business in Ottawa, Ontario then you will want people in Ottawa to be able to find your business quickly and easily when doing a search for the products or services you offer.
By using local search optimization methods, not only will people in Ottawa be able to find your company when doing a search, but you can also get more traffic from people in surrounding areas like Kanata, Stittsville, Orleans, etc by optimizing results for those areas.
Optimizing for Local Ottawa Searches
Optimizing your website for local search results can be especially profitable due to the fact that people searching for something are more than likely interested in buying it.
There is a need or a want for the product or service, and by being able to find your product or service easily it will not only result in an increase in traffic, but an increase in sales as well.
If you would like to increase your business with local traffic by using local search engine optimization, you basically have three choices.
You can learn local search optimization techniques by educating yourself through the wealth of information available on the Internet, taking classes or courses in search engine optimization, or hiring a local search optimization company (ahem 
to do the work for you.
Whatever avenue you decide to take, increasing your business with local traffic is something that every business owner can achieve with the proper techniques.
