Worry-Free Internet Marketing
See how we can help

  • Ten Online Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading in 2010

    12 Jan
    Written by Lyal Avery
    Categorized in:

    Part of being an internet marketing professional is staying atop of industry trends and news. I spend at least an hour every day reading blogs, forums, whitepapers, and watching videos - all to keep up to date. For the average website owner, it would be impossible to sift through the silt to get to the real gold. I went through my GoogleReader account and pulled out a mixture of some of my favorite local internet marketing blogs and general all purpose must reads. While this isn't the definitive list of internet marketing resources, you can't go wrong following these RSS feeds!

    SEO Moz

    SEO Moz BlogAn internet marketing staple, SEOMoz offers a suite of tools alongside a very compelling community and staff written blog. From experiments to how-to guides, they have it all.

    6s Marketing

    6s Marketing Blog6s Marketing is a fellow Yaletown based internet marketing agency. They're constantly providing new information, from traditional SEO tactics to social media trends. I'm a big fan of their whitepapers. They've also been promoting New York-based Foursquare as a local advertising option, bringing a potential solution to a very thorny problem in the online world: how to move bodies in the "meat space."

    VKI Studios

    VKI Studios BlogVKI Studios has established itself as an absolute authority when it comes to analytics and conversion optimization. As one of the first companies invited into the authorized analytics consultant program from Google, they've had a front seat position from a widely used platform. Their educational seminars on conversion optimization are amazing - from offer positioning to landing page optimization, these guys are experts.

    Matt Cutts

    Matt Cutts BlogLove him or hate him, Matt Cutts is Google's Czar on all things search. From dispelling myths about the practice of search engine optimization, to calling out areas of the internet he dislikes, Mr. Cutts is never afraid of being controversial. His influence has resulted in groups of dedicated fans going to internet marketing conferences calling themselves "Cuttlets." How can you not read?

    Get Elastic from Elastic Path

    GetElastic BlogThe team at Elastic Path really gets ecommerce, and it shows in their award winning Get Elastic blog.

    Marketing Pilgrim

    MarketingPilgrim BlogA dumping ground of marketing related news, the Marketing Pilgrim often has great industry news that an internet marketer (or website owner) should be aware of.

    Hubspot

    Hubspot BlogAlthough I dislike their ranking tool (it's too easily gamed, and can lead to complacency from a webmaster when there are underlying issues preventing ranking that no script can interpret), their blog is top notch reading through and through.

    Closing Bigger

    Closing Bigger BlogLocal social media and sales consultant Shane Gibson is a fixture at meetups and events around town. An expert on all things sales, Shane can easily relate the process of social media outreach to cold calling, and he has a knack for being topics back down to the bottom line.

    John Chow

    John Chow BlogAnother huge presence here in Vancouver, John Chow has made a living telling people how much money he makes online. Affiliate marketers take note - the man is an authority..

    MailChimp

    MailChimp BlogAn email solution provider, Mailchimp is my favorite mailing platform of choice. Their blog is excellent, spanning topics in email marketing far outside the scope of their product.

    While by no stretch of the imagination was this an exhaustive list (I have another 150 or so IM related feeds that I check regularly), I'd love to hear from you what your "Must Reads" are. Please let me know!

  • How to use meta and html tags for SEO

    10 Sep
    Written by Michael Brynjolfson
    Categorized in:
    Outcome3 as a tag graph

    What do meta and html tags do?

    Meta and html tags can be used to help improve your websites visibility to search engines and visitors to your website. Let’s look at some different meta and html tags: H1 tags, strong tags, emphasis tags, meta keywords and meta description.

    Header tags h1 to h6 are used to create headings of different visual sizes and also tell search engines which headings are most important. H1 tags are seen as the most important to search engines and produce the largest visual text. H2 to h6 tags are seen in declining order of importance to search engines and declining visual size on a webpage. Note that heading tags should only be used for headings and not just to make word big or bold.

    What are strong tags?

    Strong tags are used to create text that stands out with a strong emphasis. Use strong tags to help search engines recognize the key content on a web page.

    What are emphasis tags?

    Emphasis tags, you guessed it, are used to place emphasis on text to readers and search engines. Use emphasis tags to help search engines recognize the key content on a web page

    What are Meta-tags (keywords and description)?

    Meta keyword tags provide a list of the content of a document to search engines. Often meta keywords are used to provide keywords to search engines and to help them determine what is on the page. Use meta tags to accurately sum-up content to search engines.

    Description tags are used to provide search engines with descriptions of web pages. These description tags are the visible summary found below a link in search results. These descriptions should be short and to the point so anyone using a search engine can quickly and easily understand what content is on a specific webpage.

    What are title tags?

    Title tags define the title of a document, such as a webpage. A Title tag is displayed in browser tool bars, search engine results, and give a title to a page when added as a bookmark. Title tags are key for SEO as they help search engines to find your specific web pages.

    How long should these tags be?

    • Header Tags- h1, h2 ..etc. to help label the page Should be 4-8 words long
    • Strong Tags- Only a few words in length
    • Emphasis Tags- Only a few words in length
    • Meta Keyword Tags- 20-25 words
    • Meta Description Tags- two word keywords at least and use 5-7 sets
    • Title Tags- around 70 Characters

  • Internet Marketing Legends - Seth Godin

    03 Sep
    Seth Godin- Master of Internet Marketing

    What does Seth Godin know about Internet Marketing?

    Seth, the founder of Squidoo, is a regular speaker at notable events like TED, has written many books about marketing and has also popularized the term "permission marketing". Opposite of interruption marketing, permission marketing is where a business has asked if the customer might be interested and is then "allowed" by that customer to further the sales cycle. A great example is e-mail marketing: a company has to get permission from a potential customer before sending them any sort of correspondence.

    The best form of permission marketing is by using search engine optimization to get to the top of search engines. If someone has a query on Google, they are looking for business or information on something you may know a little about and may have a site dedicated to. For instance, if someone searches for "internet marketing services" and they clicked on the results of an Internet Marketing Company, that company is given permission by the user to show him/her what they are offering.

    With permission marketing, business is built more on relationships and a one to one basis rather than a marketing segment or target market. The individual is looking for your product and with search engine optimization, you can make sure your product is found.

  • You Can Leave Your Hat On? Black Hat SEO, White Hat SEO, and Gray Hat SEO discussed

    03 Sep
    Written by Michael Brynjolfson
    Categorized in:
    black hat seo, white hat seo, gray hat seo

    White Hat Search Engines Optimization Practices

    White hat SEO is the safest and most recommended (at least by us) way to go about your search engine optimization practices. These are the safest search engine approved ways of getting to the top of the rankings. Labeling your site properly, making it accessible, creating good webpage design and having a lot of content can be a great and organic boost to becoming an authority on a subject. In creating your content in natural and approved ways, you are ensuring that your site will stick around and not be banned for a long time.


    White Hat SEO Techniques


    Black Hat Search Engines Optimization Practices

    Black hat SEO is the opposite. These are all the things you can do to try and fool the search engines. A black hatter takes what he knows about the search engine algorithms and tries to utilize various effects to work their site to the top. A black hatter could probably get an online shoe store to pass Nike and Reebok for the top spots...for maybe four hours. Some do it quite well but when they get caught, POOF goes the site never to be seen in the results on that engine again.


    Black Hat SEO Techniques (not recommended)

    • Invisible Text- hiding keywords on the page by having your text the same color as its background
    • Keyword Stuffing- into alt text on images or having way too much density
    • Cloaking- sending the search engines to view one thing and the user to view another
    • Spinning- having a script that gives you a ton of different looking content from a few re-arrangeable sentences
    • Spamming- sending scripts to blog posts and filling them up with links trying to get link juice back to the original site

    Gray Hat Search Engines Optimization Practices

    Gray hat SEO involves a mixture of the two. Someone in the gray will be using mostly white hat techniques while incorporating small amounts of black hat that the search engines might not penalize and usually don't ban for. For example, a site using a large amount of keywords on a page might make it read a little unnatural. This could be considered to have a high keyword density but not black hat keyword stuffing. This gray hat technique will probably get you higher in the ranks without the worry of a ban. But, you get a human viewer from Google on a bad day could result in a penalty for the site.


    Some cloaking conditions may be a little more on the gray area, too. This is when you have a site dedicated to a lot of Flash or images and you are using keywords to describe what is in the flash so you can rank higher (without having too much text on your screen). Some cloaking is starting to be allowed for making mobile searching easier for phones and PDAs

  • How is Your Call to Action? Get Better Conversion Rates

    20 Aug
    Written by Michael Brynjolfson
    Categorized in:
    Call to Action - Conversion rates depend on it

    Tips to Get Better Conversion Rates

    Your call to action should be prominently displayed on every page of your site. If you don't know where you want you users ending up, then you haven't put enough thought into your site. If you do know what paths you want a visitor to take, then are those paths standing out and enticing to click? First you have to figure out where you want them to go and then you need to get them to go there. When you get them to go to these places, this is called a conversion and the metric you are trying to work is your conversion rates. But explaining these fully is a whole other blog altogether.

    So back to our call to action...there are many ways to make them more appealing and clickable. Out off all the suggestions I have seen, there are 6 tips on call to action that stand out the best to gain conversions and lure people away from that wretched "back" button. So here are your...

    6 Tips on Improving Your Calls to Action

    • Put your call to action in the right spot- make sure you are asking for the sale at the right spot on the page. Too early and you might have missed some valuable information that a potential user wants and then doesn't have. Too late and that "back" button looks much more important.
    • Not too many CTAs- if you have too many then a person doesn't know where to go and, once again, will want to press the "back" button. Too many things to click also causes a mental tension which comes from not completing a task (not clicking a link). This is called the Zeigarnik Effect (I would need another 10 blogs to fully talk about this subject) which causes the readers attention to be short and move onto the next place without fully getting the value of your page.
    • Make your CTA a command- Tell them to do something and then have the Call to Action surround it. Don't just say where they are going. Instead of putting "Free SEO Advice" you should be putting "Get Free SEO Advice"
    • Get specific with your CTA- we have all seen "click here" or "hit this button" but why not get more specific which in turn will be more enticing? "Get your Free Quote Here", "Look At Our Convenient Packages"
    • Make your CTA stand out- You want it to be a color very different from the site. Usually bold red, yellow or orange are the best. Red increases heart rate when seen, yellow is the first color a person sees and orange is a mix of the two.
    • CTA's on Big Buttons- It is much better to have buttons instead of links as people like to click buttons. Links don't always show up as something that is handy to click.

Looking for more to read?

Here are some more topics...

top seo tips
search engine optimization exhibit
sales
guarantees
social networking

Interested in reading more?

Check out our clients
Or read our about our Internet Marketing Services!

Design and Drupal theme by Outcome3.com

About Us | Contact Us