by Ashley Faulkes | Mar 5, 2015 | SEO
Getting on the first page of Google is the holy grail of SEO and online marketing. But you probably already know that doing that is very hard work. You need to do all of the following and more: keyword research to find keywords that are not overly competitive write content that rocks get that content promoted (social media, email list, outreach) try to build links to that content to get the post ranked on Google It can all take months or more and in many cases you never had a chance to begin with. But there is a little trick which many people are not aware of called Youtube. The Power Of Youtube Infographic courtesy of Searchmetrics You might have heard of this little video website called Youtube. They are one of the biggest websites online and dominate the video space. Sure there are other options like Vimeo, which the professional video marketers are using but when it comes to reach Youtube wins hands down. In fact Youtube has about 1 billion daily video views, so you can’t beat those numbers no matter where you look. However, it is not just numbers and popularity that make the difference. And that is not why I am talking to you about Youtube here. Google Loves Youtube Videos In reality the biggest card that Youtube has in its poker hand is that it is owned by Google So when it comes to search Google favors Youtube videos full stop. Search Engine Land have shown a study which found that 8 out of 10 videos shown in search results are from Youtube Have you ever done a...
by Ashley Faulkes | Jan 13, 2015 | SEO
Getting on page one of Google for the right keywords is the key to getting the right customers to your website. But there are quite a few steps to doing this right, which I will go through in detail below. The following is an example of how I helped a client of mine rank her small business almost on page one of Google in under one 3 weeks! She went from almost nowhere (position 83) to the top 11 for the main keyword in her industry. It has only taken about 2 and 1/2 weeks to achieve these results and it is something that is within the reach of almost any small business. One of the biggest things that made the difference is doing the right keyword research. How To Rank a Small Business Highly on Google When you are running a small business and there is so much to do just to keep things going, ranking on Google is the last thing on your mind. Not only that, but for many non-techies out there getting ranked on Google is a complete mystery. So in this quick post I want to show you the steps I took to help rank this small business in just 3 weeks. (Yes, this will vary from business to business,) The following is a chart from a tool I use called SERP Book, which tracks the ranking of sites or pages for search engines over time. It’s a great tool for tracking your rankings, or your clients (in my case). This is something you always have to watch, as it constantly changes, and shows you when you have to tweak or change...
by Ashley Faulkes | Jan 6, 2015 | SEO
In this post you will learn what kinds of tools the pros use to do amazing SEO, push websites to the top of Google and beat the competition. A lot of people ask us what kinds of tools we use here at Entice to help our clients reach the top of Google. SEO is awash in a sea of tools, like most areas of online marketing, so it can be a tough battle to find tools that actually work. So I have highlighted some of the best tools we use to carry out amazing SEO for ourselves and our clients. Image SEO One thing that people often forget about when it comes to SEO is their images. Google has a specific search for the web, maps, news and yes, images. So why not take advantage of that. Instead of just letting your images go to waste, why not optimize them for SEO by doing a few simple things. Firstly, make sure you optimize the file name. This should include keywords, or the words you want the image to get found for. Like: blue-boat-sunset.jpg make sure you use dashes between the words. And another important thing is to fill out the alt tag on the image html, which is easy in WordPress as they have a field for it – just look for “alt text”. Add in a description of your image here and be careful to again include important keywords. If you want an even more detailed post on SEO image optimization, then head over to a post I wrote on Mad Lemmings. BackLink & SEO Analysis Of course backlinks are...
by Ashley Faulkes | Nov 10, 2014 | SEO
In this post I want to share with you how simple SEO can get results for your website. Google is scaring people away from SEO. Don’t pay any attention to them. SEO still works. In fact, I want to share with you a recent experience with a client of ours to show how some simple SEO tweaks can a big difference. SEO Gets Results When we start working with a client on SEO, one of the first things we look at is how their On Page SEO is set up. This is one of the most important things you have to have in place in order to rank on search engines like Google. What Can You Achieve To start off, we investigated what keywords our client was ranking for, and improved the On Page SEO for those blog posts. Within one month of making those changes, there was a 20% increase in Search Engine traffic. You can see in the Google Analytics chart below, that the Search Engine Traffic was pretty consistent and flat. Then, the month where our changes started rolling out, the traffic started moving up quite fast. So just by tweaking your on page SEO, you can already improve your Google traffic. What is On Page SEO? For those of you who are not familiar with all these SEO terms, let me explain. On Page SEO is the things you can set on your website that tell search engines what your site and pages/posts are about. Without giving you a complete SEO lesson, here are a few of the things you need to look at: Post Title...
by Brandon Schaefer | Sep 29, 2014 | SEO, Social Media
In this blog post you will learn why it’s important to have your SEO and social media marketing plans synced up for maximum impact! It is super important to have your SEO and social media marketing plans synced up. That means using the identical keywords in both your blog content, and your social media updates. That way, you’ll be sending a clearly defined keyword signal to Google. How SEO Works on Social Media On your social media channels, you’ll use your top level keywords as actual hashtags. This will help your content get found when people are searching for posts that are related to your keywords. So for example, if you are targeting keywords like SEO, Social Media, Blogging Tips (as we are) then these are the top level words that you will be using in all your content. Although it is hard to actually rank for these specific terms with such high levels of competition, they still appear all over your content and social media. They will also be the basis of your long tail keywords too. Note: If you need help finding keywords, check out this post from Ashley @ Madlemmings.com Benefits of SEO and Social Media Working Together The benefit of syncing your keywords with your blog content and with hashtags in your social updates, is that it tells Google: Hey, look at me… this is what I’m about, what my posts are about, what my blog is about. Got it! and it will get you some extra search juice. Although Google might not use social signals as a main driver, but they are watching them all the time. So having your key categories...
by Ashley Faulkes | Sep 21, 2014 | SEO
There is a difference between your standard website visitor, and a visitor who is ready to buy. The main one is money, but we are going to get a little deeper than that in this blog post! Many of your average website visitors will come back one day and buy from you, but a lot of them will not. Because some of them are just browsing! But one way you can get more actual buyers (visitors ready to pull out their credit card) to your site is to use the right keywords. So what are these fabled “right keywords”? you ask. Why Specific Keywords = Buyers (Not Browsers) As you move through the various stages of buying, your searches on Google become more specific. Not only that, but there are phrases that you use that signal your intention to buy. Sounds a little difficult to get a handle on, I know. So let’s take a look at an example to show you what I mean. Buying a New Car Say you want to buy a new car. We all do sooner or later, right? When you start searching for information online, you might use the following kinds of words: four door 4WD family car best fast coupe 2014 and other more general phrases. When you start your research, you do not know what you want exactly or what is available. So you are fishing. It helps you find out what is available, and teaches you what to search for next. Then, as you start to know what your choices are, your research becomes more specific: 2014 VW Golf review Once you know...
