15 is one of the most awkward ages in human existence. It’s a year full of braces, hormones, ill-fitting clothes, and unfortunate phases. See Exhibit A.
Exhibit A. Thank you Katy Perry, for creating such an evocative image of how we feel our teenage years went.
Luckily for us, 15 years in the Salt Lake City web design world is a much more positive experience full of satisfying work and delightful clients. In this day and age, having a thriving business in Utah or any other state is an accomplishment. So it left us with only one possible choice: we had to celebrate!
All of us at Infogenix hauled out to Sizzler for lunch and gathered in a banquet room for food, conversation, and games all centered on our history as a strong presence in the Utah web design scene. Since our departments are pretty tight knit, it resulted in some banter-filled amusement as we competed against each other. We also had a grand ole time talking about how we have grown since 1998 and the thousands of clients we have been able to build lovely websites for. We are genuinely looking forward to continued growth as we keep working for all of you wonderful people. We couldn’t have done it without you! To top off a thoroughly enjoyable party, we happily concluded with scrumptious birthday cake. After all, there is nothing quite like excessive amounts of sugar to commemorate a splendid career of web design in Utah.
The Sizzler Logo: Because having more pictures makes people happy.
We honestly appreciate having such exceptional clients like yourself. Thank you for letting us serve your web design and marketing needs for 15 really great years! Cheers.
Beware of the Content Bandwagon – [How to Write Effective Web Content]
I can’t go anywhere without hearing about how content is king and your content strategy is the future. With the content bandwagon moving at high speeds, it amazes me to see how little useful content is actually being produced. I currently work on sites with high bounce rates and very low time on site metrics. My issue is not with content in general but with the interpretation of content in the form of boring and less than insightful web articles, infographics, videos, and more. So what do I propose you ask? I propose all our content go through an quality control boot camp where we can surpass the threshold of being just “content” and into the realm of information.
Content vs. Information
All information is content but not all content is information. In a practical phrase, content is really good at filling space but information will fill the mind. Information solves problems. Think of content as content candy and information as a steak. One provides the proper nourishment for sustainable life while the other, though one could argue does, does not.
Content Vs. Information Analogy:
Imagine you are a detective trying to solve a burglary. The better clues we have the better chance we are going to have at solving the mystery.
Here are some clues based on what we have learned about content and information.
Content Clues:
– The burglary happened on a sunny day. – The burglary happened at a 149 west elm street. – There is a fire hydrant in front of the burglary location.
Information Clues:
– A witness saw a heavy set man about 6ft tall leaving the building in a ski mask. – The burglary happened at 5:49 p.m. according to the silent alarm. – An unidentified fingerprint was recovered from the broken glass.
Which set of clues would you rather have as a detective. Technically both set of clues pertain to burglary however one set of clues moves myself, the detective, closer to solving the case.
Every visitor to your site in one way or another is trying to solve a case of their own. You should make sure the information you are providing is helping them do this. We do this with a proper evaluating criteria.
Content vs. Information Practical Example
The follow example is one I have seen many times. It involves pages on their site that deal with the cost of a product or service, mainly in the medical or law industries. If i click on the “cost of dental implants” link I want to see costs. It is not rocket science. I understand that some costs may vary but at least help me break it down. Is $1000 an average price for these services? What should I get for $500? What makes a cost higher? Lower? Give me substance! Teach me! If not, more than likely you have missed out on an opportunity to build a relationship with prospective customers. Good content builds trust with what I call actionable intelligence.
How to find good Information for your content
Make your claims concrete. We do x,y, and z.
Use real experiences that support your claims.
A new approach to solving a common problem using your services.
Review white papers and reports with factual data in enhance and support your position.
Answer specific questions in your content.
Now that you have added some substance lets find out if it worked.
How to check if you published information or just basic web content
Now that we have created some good information lets see if our audience feels the same way. Remember, the goal is to find content that resonates with your audience.
The simplest way to do this is to go to your analytics and check which pages resonate the most with people. The steps are a little out of order so pay close attention to the image.
After we know a little more about what are visitors are attracted to we can continue to develop more information based content to help resonate more and more with our audience.
If you haven’t heard that keyword research is one of the most important steps for an effective SEO foundation, now you have. It is the foundation of all other SEO activities. Finding and targeting good SEO keywords will guide the content on your site, help find relevant links, and target the most relevant group of people who want your business.
What are keywords?
Keywords are the words and phrases that a typical customer might type into a search engine to find your business. In the most basic form, if I sell running shoes, then my goal would be to show up in the top position when someone types “running shoes” into a search engine.
Keyword Research
In order to find the right keywords we recommend getting a birdseye view of your business and the current SEO landscape for your industry. Here are the steps we take when starting our research: STEP 1: Keyword Difficulty Research
Paid and organic search results.
Write down some keywords you think are appropriate for your business.
Go to Google and type in your keywords in the search bar.
Look for who/what shows up as the top results in the Paid and Organic section
Typically if there are a lot of ads on the results page then the SEO competition is typically equally as competitive.
If the majority of the organic results are competitors then we are on the right track.
Do this for all your products and services and take notes of who the common competitors are.
STEP 2: Keyword Expansion and Search Volume Now that you have some keywords go to: https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool and put your keywords in where it says “keywords or phrase” and search.
Snapshot of the Google’s keyword tool.
Google will then spit out some more related keywords for you to review with their associated search volume. Select all the keywords that seem relevant for your business and export them into a csv file to open and manage in excel.
Another way to expand your keywords is to check your analytics data for the non-branded keywords that are currently driving traffic for your site.
STEP 3: Finalizing keywords
Take your keyword list and review if for all relevant keywords with any search volume. Organize them according to topical relevance. This will help you organize other SEO activities such as title tags, meta, tags, inbound links, and content optimization.
Click to enlarge.
WARNING: Do not go after the keywords with high search volume. If the search term “brown shoes” gets 50,000 monthly searched and “shoes” gets 1,000,000 resist the urge to try and justify including it as a keyword. This is because the shorter the keyword the more difficult it will be to rank and typically the less conversions you will get from it. An ideal keyword for your SEO campaigns will have 2 to 3 words in it.
TIP: Relevancy is your best friend.
STEP 4: Ongoing Keyword Maintenance A great way to follow up on the progress of your campaign is to review your analytics data. When review keywords look for questions people are asking and new keywords that you can implement into campaign that would be helpful for users. For example, if during your keyword review you find visiting originating from the keyword “what dresses can I wear with running shoes.” Write a blog post about it and address the concern head on. This will be a great source of finding these new content ideas and scooping up some nice traffic.
TIP: You should frequently review your keyword strategy and adjust where necessary.
Miscellaneous: Tips and Tricks for Keyword Ideas:
Example keyword org chart
If you still feel like you do not have a good handle on your keywords a shortcut would be to go to your competitors websites and look at the title tags on their homepage. This should give you an idea of their most important keywords. Use these as a starting point and see if you should be targeting these as well.
Long Tail vs Short Tail Keywords
Example of an effective branded search
Long tail and short tail are words that describe the type of search query. It can be easily be understood by the number of words used in the query as well as how broad or specific the query is. A good illustration would be:
No Tail = “shoes”
Short Tail = “running shoes” or “cheap running shoes”
Long Tail = “cheap air max nike running shoes”
We recommend targeting short tail keywords that are relevant to your business. The deeper you get into your site the specific the content usually becomes and the longer the tail of the keywords.
Don’t Forget Your Branded Keywords
Here is a little secret. Google does not distinguish between brands. What I mean is, there is not a special branded algorithm that identifies your brand and then gives it special treatment. The algorithm does not know how “cool” your company is. It can only gauge the relevance, trust, and authority for a specific query as it relates to your site.
To the right is an example for a local dental office in Orlando. See how they control the majority of the real estate on the SERPS (search engine results page) for their brand name. This is a good example that shows Google is very confident about your brand. Also, notice the sitelinks underneath the first result. Sitelinks are a good indicator that Google understands specifically what users want when searching for your brand name. This is because Google only shows sitelinks for results they are confident will be useful to the user.
Why Are Branded Keywords Important? 1. Branded keywords will almost always have a higher conversion rate for eCommerce sites and for most others as well. There is a certain level of trust with visitors who searches for your brand. Wouldn’t it be nice if every visitor trusted you or was familiar with your brand. 2. Branded keywords boost traffic 3.Will show you growth and awareness for your brand
Keyword Research Tools
Here are some really helpful tools that I use when doing some more advanced keyword research. Discovery Ubersuggest.org If you need help expanding your keyword list then this tool is a winner.
Keyword Competition SEO Moz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool This tool is the best that I have seen in determining a difficulty level for organic search terms.
Competitor Research Sem Rush If you have ever wondered what keywords your competitors are ranking for then look no further. This is a very powerful tool
It’s not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors. The usefulness of keyword research cannot be emphasized enough. The tidal waves are coming and in this case you want to make sure you are right in front when they come crashing down. The stronger your keyword foundation is, the easier it will be for your business to adapt to the ever changing demands of search engines and customers.
![Beware of the Content Bandwagon – [How to Write Effective Web Content]](https://infogenix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/bandwagon.jpg)
