Why Come To Calgary:

This is a little known fact but Toronto is not the only major city in Canada. Infact, Calgary, Alberta is home to one of the largest online marketing communities in the world. Our city of just over 1,000,000 hockey-loving, beer-drinking, cattle-rustling residents is also the home of Critical Mass (one of the largest web development companies in the world), Anduro Marketing (Co-developer of the SEO Browser), Media Dog (probably the most talented web design agency I’ve ever seen), and Calin Daniel Creative (my Calgary online marketing company “insert shameless plug here”).

Our city is awash in online marketing meet-ups, social networking breakfasts, and Digital Alberta events, however, the SEO community could use a kick start.

What the SEO MozCation Could Do For Calgary:

• Build awareness of the importance of professional SEO services.
• Inspire the SEO community to be more active.
• Create networking opportunities between companies both large and small.

Fun Reasons To Come To Calgary:

• Tubbydog – The greatest gourmet hotdogs on the planet (I recommend the A-Bomb).
• Stay for a week and take in the Calgary Stampede, Yee Haw!
• BigRock Beer – Once you’ve tried it no other beer will do.

P.S. Roger has a message for you.

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For anyone interested in promoting their small business online I think you will find this post valuable. For people who aren’t familiar with the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) let me explain. SEO is the process of increasing a website’s visibility within major search engines. So for example a website that has utilized SEO effectively will rank higher within Google, causing it to display on say the first page of search results opposed to the 9th page. Many techniques go into a comprehensive SEO campaign such as:

- Link Building
- Social Networking
- Social Bookmarking
- On-site Optimization
- Article submissions
- Ect.

The list goes on and on. However, I am going to show you a practical example of how using a blog can greatly increase your SEO efforts.

The Blog Details:

One of my clients is Ace Custom Fabrication a Calgary welding company that specializing in oil field equipment fabrication. Over the last few months I have been working closely with them to build their search engine rankings using some of the techniques I described above. In the last two months, however, we have shifted our focus to article creation and syndication, which has had amazing results.

In February, 2011 we developed a blog titled Five Ways To Select A Calgary Welding Company. The blog is about 450 words in length and contains useful information for the average business owner looking to hiring a welding company. The blog is posted on the Ace Custom Fabrication website under the News section (the news page on a website is really a “blog” in disguise). And some clever content structuring has been used to make the blog more search engine friendly.

The Result:

In less than two weeks the blog post has gone from not ranking for the keyword phrase “Calgary Welding Companies” to ranking on the first page in Google. Not bad for less than two weeks of work.

How and Why It Was Successful

There are a few major contributing factors to this particular blog’s success.

WordPress:

For starters the website was built using WordPress which allows for key SEO characteristics. For anyone not familiar with WordPress it is an open source Content Management System (CMS) that allows the average person or business to manage a website. This includes adding images, content, blogs, photo galleries, ect.

Keywords and Writing Content:

Selecting the keywords is a step we completed at the beginning of the SEO process. We decided to target the phrase “Calgary Welding Companies” because it is a highly searched term and is also relevant to the content on our client’s website. Therefore the first step was to create a blog title that encapsulated these keywords.

The second step was to insert references to the keywords throughout the blog. This is often the biggest challenge because keyword stuffing can make a blog choppy and difficult to read. Plus stuffing keywords in a blog for SEO doesn’t work like it used to, today search engines are more finely tuned to identify when you are trying to outsmart them.

Title Tag:

The title tag is metadata that tells the Search Engines what your web page is about. WordPress auto-populates the title tag with the name of the blog making it extremely relevant to any search results relating to Calgary Welding Companies (remember our title was “Five Ways to Select A Calgary Welding Company”). That is why selecting a keyword rich title is extremely important to ranking for related keywords.

The URL

Once again it’s WordPress to the rescue. WordPress now grabs the title of the blog and creates a URL with the keywords. Now we have references to our keywords in the title, the URL, and the body content.

Article Syndication

Now that you have your amazing, keyword rich article posted on your website what do you do with it? Well now is the time to let the world know about your greatness. The web is literally littered with article directory websites which provide one way backlinks when you submit content. You’ll notice at the bottom of the article we inserted a few links back to our website. Although it may look as though we are simply inserting our contact information, the links we inserted have much greater value.

For starters the blogs will be published on the article directories, providing backlinks to the Ace website. Secondly, the web contains some unscrupulous webmasters referred to as scrappers. Scrappers basically steal content from one website and republish it on their own website in an attempt to rank for your keywords. Now in some cases this can be bad because it leads to duplicate content issues (a problem that forces Google to choose which article was created first, then attribute negative rankings to duplicate versions of the content) but in many cases, since we embedded a link in the article, we will now have a one way link pointed to our website. Awesomeness!

Here is a really awesome list of 50 article directories that you can submit your website to.

Conclusion:

So those are a few simple techniques that can be used to increase your business blog’s ranking. The positive effects of blogging, however, go far beyond just link building and search engine ranking. A blog can also help to position you, or your company as the authority on any given topic. This traditionally leads to free PR opportunities, media coverage, and more juicy links.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing a website’s PageRank within popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. SEO is a good idea for any business, large or small, because it allows you to drive traffic to your website via organic search results.

There are two factors that determine a website’s SEO, those factors are Relevance and Importance. Relevance is exactly what you would assume, if my search query is “Calgary Flower Shop” you can bet I’m not searching for used tires. Therefore, ensuring the content on your website is Relevant to the most popular search queries increases your website’s chances of ranking for popular keywords.

A website’s Importance is similar to a high school SRC election, the most popular person (or in this case website) will win every time. But unlike a high school election, popularity on the web is determined by links not votes. In short, the more websites that link to you, the more popular you are (and you thought high school antics were far behind you).

2. Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is the use of paid “sponsour” links to promote your business in Google. Have you ever noticed the links that flow down the right hand side of the Google search results? They aren’t “organic search results” as you see in SEO, they are actually paid links using Google’s advertising platform Adwords.

Adwords is an effective way to market your business for multiple reasons. The first is that it takes time, money and serious effort to have your website displayed on the home page for high ranking keywords such as “Calgary Realtor”, “Calgary Insurance”, “Calgary… (insert industry here)”. However, with the use of Adwords campaigns you can guarantee that your business will appear on the home page for your selected keywords. Adwords campaigns are also relatively inexpensive. The ads feature a headline, and two lines of text… that’s it! So the fees associated with the design and production of newspaper, radio, or television campaigns disappear! However, the most beneficial feature of SEM is the ability to precisely track the success of your campaign. Adwords campaigns can be integrated into Analytics programs providing you with statistical information on your visitors and their actions.

In short, no other traditional advertising medium has tracking metrics that come anywhere near SEM campaigns.

3. Newsletter Distribution Systems

For most of you that are reading this post you’ve been directed to it via my newsletter, so I don’t have to explain that Newsletter Distribution Systems work. However, I would like to explain how a newsletter can benefit a business in multiple ways.

For starters newsletters are an environmentally friendly solution for marketing your business. I don’t mean to play the “Green Card” but environmental sustainability should, at the very least, be a small consideration in running your business. Secondly, newsletters are an inexpensive way to advertise because there are no printing fees involved. Today the fees associated with the design, development, and distribution of a direct mail piece is more than quadruple the price of a digital newsletter. That’s a potential saving of $1,000 – $3,000! Lastly, as I’ve mentioned before, online marketing’s biggest strength is its ability to track and measure campaigns, and newsletters are no exception. Newsletter distribution systems provide data regarding who received the newsletter, who opened it, who clicked internal links, and much, much more.

4. Social Network Marketing

Some people are very skeptical of Social Network Marketing, calling it a fad, or ignoring it all together because of the lack of control regarding what people post, tag, or comment. And while these are valid concerns, I strongly believe that the benefits far out-weigh the risks.

As an introduction to Social Network Marketing I should first define what it is. SNM is the process of leveraging personal relationships with friends, co-workers, contacts and family members in an effort to grow your business. Now that may sound nefarious but it shouldn’t; social networking at its root level is about communicating with people who share common interests. Therefore, informing people about your career or business is no different than sharing information on your Thanks Giving dinner, new nephew, or crazy weekend in Las Vegas. Social Network Marketing works because people care about people and people want their friends to succeed. That is why I believe SNM should be focused on sharing information and communicating in an informal manner.

This isn’t restricted to Facebook, as SNM campaigns are designed to leverage contacts within Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

5. Tracking & Analytics Software

I’ve alluded to tracking software throughout this blog, and although it isn’t exactly an online marketing technique, I would still like to expand on its value. Tracking & Analytics Software comes in a variety of different flavours. There are analytics programs developed specifically for passing sales leads; there are analytics programs designed specifically for tracking visitors and their actions on a website; and there are analytics programs designed specifically for tracking the success of Social Network Marketing campaigns.

I’ve developed two videos which explain some of the inner workings of the web’s most popular analytics program, Google Analytics.

An Introduction to Google Analytics

Google Analytics Tools

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed my blog on how to market your business online. If you have any questions or comments regarding the information provided above please leave a comment below or email me at hello@calindaniel.com. Thanks again for stopping by.

The CMS we use most frequently at Calin Daniel Creative is called WordPress. WordPress is an open-source CMS know for its easy to use interface and blogging capabilities. Below are a few videos I’ve created to highlight the WordPress interface.

I’ve also included two videos on Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a powerful online tracking tool that enables one to track a website’s visitors and the visitor’s actions.

If anyone has further questions don’t hesitate to contact me at calin@calindaniel.com.

1. How To Log In To WordPress

2. Add A Post In WordPress

3. Add A Page In WordPress

4. Editing A Page & Post In WordPress

5. Approve and Unapprove Comments In WordPress

6. An Introduction To Google Analytics

7. An Introduction To Google Analytics

I hope that this information will be beneficial not only to my network but to any entrepreneur that would like to learn more about online marketing.

1. Google Keyword Tool

Google to the rescue once again. Google has a keyword generation tool which you can access here (Google Keyword Tool). By searching keywords related to your business you are able to retrieve a number of related keywords. For this example I typed in “Web Design” and I received a result that looked something like this.

This search identifies the most searched keywords within my industry, giving me a solid foundation from which to start making my keyword list. By clicking the “Add’ button on the right side of the interface you are able to compile a list of keywords to use later.

Before we leave this interface I’d like to talk about a few other parameters you can search relating to keywords.

You are also able to filter the results to show:

Show Estimated Ad Position

Show Estimated Avg. Cost Per Click

Show Search Volume Trends

Show Highest Volume Occurred In

This information will further strengthen your list of keywords, providing you with quantitative data. This is truly the start of building a successful online advertising campaign.

2. Competitive Analysis

So you have a started a list of keywords, now what? Well the next step is seeing what your competition are up to. By typing your keywords into a search engine like Google you can find out which companies rank the highest. Websites that control the first, second, or third positions in any search results usually have a few things going for them like high ranking back links, and excellent meta data. The great thing is, is that you can view what keywords and meta data information they are using, and you can apply it to your newly formed list.

So once again I’ve search web design, and this is what displayed:

I’ve got some steep competition to say the least, but let’s take a look at what these websites are using for keywords, and find a way to capitalize on what is working for them. Usually the first three results will give you a sufficient keyword sample to draw from.

Once you are on your competitors website you need to view the source code. To do that, click “View” in your browser, from the drop down list select “View Source”. A plain text window will open that looks like this:

The information highlighted in yellow is what we are after, the keyword meta data, and the description meta data. So from this quick review of my competition I know that this particular web design company is using the following keywords:

Calgary web design, web design Calgary, Calgary web designers, Calgary website promotion, Calgary web company, Calgary web companies, Alberta web design, Alberta web designers, web designers in Calgary, Calgary web designers, website design, website promotion, Calgary web design specialists

From this info I can further strengthen my keyword list.

3. I’ve Made My Keyword List, Now What?

This is where online marketing becomes fun. You now get to fine-tune your website with the keyword list you’ve created. You will want to start by adding your keyword list to the meta data information on your site (this includes the title tags, keyword meta data and description meta data). This will help search engines properly index your website, and because you’ve created such a solid list of keywords based on quantitative information, you know they will be successful.

We aren’t done quite yet. Keywords should also be scattered throughout the content on your website. Don’t overdue it but use the keywords as consistently as possible without degrading the readability of your content. Keywords used on your site should also be bolded, italicized, or linked to other sections of your website. Giving more weight to keywords tells the search engines that this is important information to your website, and you will be ranked more highly because of it.

4. Google Adwords

Creating a Google Adwords campaign is all about knowing which keywords will be the most successful. Although I won’t go into detail about how to create an Adwords campaign in this post, I would like to mention a few key points.

Google will compare the keywords you have in your Adwords ads, against the content you have on your landing page. So if your ad reads something like this “Calgary Website Design – Calgary’s premier source for website design and development” and the same keywords are located on your landing page, Google will give your ad a more positive ranking. There are other factors that come into play when creating Adwords campaigns, such as CPC (Cost-Per-Click) but every little bit of optimization helps.

5. Conclusion

There are many other ways to optimize your keywords to improve your SEO, however, this is an excellent starting point for any company interested in building a successful keyword list for their online marketing campaign.

Signing-up to these directories won’t cause your phone to ring off the hook with customers eager to hand over their money but signing up to these directories will make your information available to a much wider range of users.

So enough chitchat lets begin.

Google Places

Google is a great place to start because it is the largest of the search engines, controlling roughly 60% of the total search engine market. Google is also a world leader in “local search”, an emerging technology that calculates a user’s location; returning results for businesses in close proximity to the user.

To create a business listing within Google Places you first need to create a Gmail account. Once you have created your account you will be eligible to post your listing.

• Gmail Account Sign-up
• Google’s Places Registration

Canpages

Canpages is a Vancouver-based Canadian Directory. Canpages currently controls about 10% of the Canadian directory market share, generating roughly 3.5 million unique visitors per month.

Canpages will force you to do a telephone number search prior to listing your business. The search is required to avoid duplicate numbers being added to their system.

Canpages Business Sign-up

If your number is not found (mine wasn’t), click add this number and you will be kindly escorted to a page where you can imput your info.

Craigslist

Craigslist is another company that provides free listings and a whole lot of exposure. Easier to use and search because of it’s no frills design, craigslist is an excellent way to promote, and sell business services.

One thing I should note about Craigslist, however, is that is does tend to get attacked by spammers. So posting your email address in your listing will bring an inbox full of unwanted emails. Sometimes it is a matter of taking the good with the bad.

Craigslist Business Sign-up

Kijiji

Kijiji is classifieds website where users can post free ads on everything from slightly used 17” chrome rimes, to professional services. The provided link will get you a basic listing for free, however, prices for preferred placement, or linking to your website will cost you a few dollars.

Kijiji Business Sign-up

Calgary Economic Development

Calgary Economic Development is Calgary’s business link. You can find info on your industry, news and events happening in the city, and submit your business listing to their extensive directory.

It’s difficult to determine the success rate of a directory such as this but the one golden rule stands strong, you can’t win if you don’t play.

Calgary Business Sign-up

Hot Frog

Hot Frog is a lesser-known online directory that generates about 1,500,000 page views per month. However, the online registration your free business listing is quick and easy.

Hot Frog Business Sign-up

Canada One

Canada One is an excellent resource for Canadian Business information. It also has one of the most pain-free directory sign-ups. This is one website I highly recommend you browse after adding your free listing.

Canada One Business Sign-up

Conclusion

So that’s my list! I’m sure a few of you are thinking to yourself, what about Yahoo, and Bing, I know they have business listings. The truth is that Canada is considered a foreign country even though we border the US, so much for continental brotherhood. However, in a few short years, as local search continues to grow, I’m confident that businesses will be able to register online to all of the major search engines.