Internet Marketing Toronto - Ignite!

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 4: Analytics Integration

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 4: Analytics Integration

In our previous post we talked about all of the on page optimizations you need to do in order for your site to be recognized as being locally relevant to Toronto (or any geography you’re targeting). Today we’re talking about integrating analytics and knowing what information you need to review.

Google Analytics Integration

There are quite a few analytics packages out there, some are free while others are not. For the time being we prefer to recommend Google Analytics  purely for it’s balance between simplicity, ease of integration and features. There are more powerful platforms and simpler ones too - this one just strikes a nice balance.

Here are the basic steps for obtaining an analytics account and integrating it into your site:

1. Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and sign up for a Google Account. If you have one already, skip this step.
2. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics and choose the SignUp Now button from the middle of the page.
3. Once your signed up you need insert the Google Analytics tracking code into each page of your website above the </body> tag.
4. Deploy your pages and you should see that Google Analytics has detected the code and data should start collecting - although you cannot see it until the next day.

Now that your analytics are being tracked you should do the following things:

1.  Set your default page (the page that displays when enter just your domain name into the browser). Do this by clicking the Analytics Setting link in the top left corner, and then editing the settings for the section titled “Main Website Profile Information”. The default page is usually something like index.html, .htm, .php, .asp, or default.html, .htm, .asp, .php. This causes your Google Analytics to consolidate pageviews for your domain represented as “/” and your home page (default page).
2. Setup a Goal to track conversions. Most of the time visitors to your site will contact you by filling out a contact form. If you don’t have one, set one up with a seperate thank you page. From your Analytics Settings page you can define a new “goal” by specifying the name of the thank you page and assigning a goal name. Now whenever anybody submits a contact form a goal will be recorded.
3. From within your analytics account you should always keep an eye on the keywords that are bringing you traffic and monitoring your bounce rate for them. If it’s a relevant term but with a high bounce rate you may need to improve the quality of content on the page that is ranking for that term.
4. Finally - you should have a look at the geographic locations where your drawing traffic from. Ideally if you’ve been doing your local search engine optimization properly you should start to see an increase in local traffic!

Up next: Post #5: Produce Local Based Content. Producing some local based content gives you the breadth of content needed to anchor your website in a specific geographic region. You don’t need tons of content - just some!

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 3: On Page Optimization

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 3: On Page Optimization

In our previous post we walked you through a complete review of your competition from a keyword perspective and showed you which key elements to keep track of. In this post we’re concentrating on the on page optimizations you’ll need to make to your website in order for the search engines to recognize your intent to rank locally.

You should pay particular attention to the following on page elements:

1. Flash
   If your site is in Flash have it taken out of Flash by a competent developer - and give them this information when they work on your site to ensure it’s constructed properly.
2. Titles
   Title tags are arguably the single most important on page factor for getting your website to rank for your chosen keyword. The title is displayed in the search engine results pages (SERPS) and the search engines first hint at what your web page (website) is about. You should write a compelling title tag for every page of your site and be sure to include the most important keyword for that page towards the beginning of the tag. In this case be sure to use Toronto as part of the title tag. I also like to include the phone number “… | 1 888 123-1234″ at the end. Why? sometimes when people are looking for you they just want to contact you - the fewer clicks the better and if that means they can dial you right of the SERPS - that’s OK!Now you have a title that contains your keyword, your local geographic qualifier “Toronto”, your phone number, and it needs to be compelling enough to cause searchers to click your link and visit your site.
3. Descriptions
   The description is possibly the second most important on page factor.  Be sure to write a compelling description - in most cases it’s what’s displayed right beneath your title in the SERPS and it should reinforce the message in your title by expanding on the keyword topic and geographic qualifier. It’s with this description that you have the best opportunity to write something to compel searchers to click on your link vs the other 10 on the page.
4. ALT Text
   ALT Text is the text which displays when an image is missing or images are turned off. Only add ALT Text to images which convey information to the end user.  Do not add ALT Text to images which are used to construct the graphical look and feel of your site. So, good images for ALT Text include navigation bars which use images - repeat the name of the image but expand on it to. For example “Contact Us” as an image could have an ALT Text of “Contact Our Toronto Chiropractic Clinic”. This gives you an opportunity to relay relevant information to your visitors which includes the search engines! Other candidate images include photographs in banners, before and after shots, logos, sponsors, suppliers, charts and graphs, etc.
5. Titles For Hyperlinks (Anchor Text)
   Text based hyperlinks cannot have ALT Text, but you can specify a title attribute. As such the same rule applies to text based links as it does to images with ALT Text. Write a compelling title tag for each link on your site and use it to explain what the user will find if they click the link.Anchor text in this case is any text in the body of a page which has a hyperlink on it. For our purposes here you should atleast have one anchor text link in the first paragraph of your page that is the most important keyword you are optimizing for including the geographic qualifier of “Toronto”. Link this to your product or service page that describes your product or service. Take the time to write the title tag so that it expands on your keyword and compells the user to click the link and visit that page in your site.
6. Contact Us Page (hcard)
   The purpose of ranking on the first page of the search engines is to get customers, leads, prospects etc. right? So make sure you have given your visitors every opportunity to contact you. For starters include your phone number in the top of every webpage in your site as HTML text  - people like to copy and paste it and they can’t if its an image.Now lets consider your contact page. You should include all of your points of contact including phone, toll free, fax and email addresses for relevant departments in your company. Now - be sure to format this information using the hcard syntax.  Each of your addresses should be marked up as a separate hCard and for our purposes here we’re assuming you have a Toronto based address. hCards are address marked up with a syntax that defines your address on a web page and eliminates the guess work for search engines - now they know exactly what your address is and they can give you the credit for it. Yahoo! announced support of the format recently and we can only assume that Google and MSN are adhering to it too. I’ve provided examples for syntax which you can cut and paste (and edit the contents) directly into your site. I’ve also included the CSS styles to format the address and contact information to suit your own site.Finally you should provide a contact form which emails the information to a designated person(s) in your company (follow up is crucial) for those people who a) don’t want to call and b) may not have an email client handy to send a regular email message. Keep it simple - name, email, phone and comments. Get their contact information and then collect the rest of the information you need! Keep the form validation simple so as to not frustrate visitors and filter HTML from the comments field (on the server side) to prevent scripting errors and to reduce spam.
7. Google Map on Contact Us Page
   The more Google knows about your website and business the better. Configure a Google Map of your location and embed it into your contact page using the HTML code provided by Google! It’s convenient for your visitors and Google knows about it too!
8. Contact Information (hcard) In Footer
   Now that you’re familiar with hCards - place one for your Toronto address in the footer of every page. Remember we want to make it simple for your visitors to contact you!

Download: Example hCard
Download: Example CSS for hCard

Here are three good links for more info on hCards:
hCard Authoring | hCard Generator | hCard Viewer (paste in http://www.sparkinternetmarketing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/contact.html to see the hCard extracted from the sample)

Up next: Post #4: Analytics Integration. You need the analytics to track the success of your search engine optimization efforts and we show you how to easily integrate it into your site.

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 2: Competition Review

Internet Marketing Toronto Post #2: Competition Review

In our previous post we walked you through identifying the best keywords you need for your business and how they relate to ranking for a geographic location - in our case Toronto. This week we’re reviewing your competitors - specifically what information you should be tracking about the people who rank for your most important terms. This information lays the foundation for your own search engine optimization - the end result of which is to rank on the first page, if not first place for your most important terms.

The Spreadsheet!

The spreadsheet you produce should have the following columns of information in it. You can also expand this to include other data as you see fit - but these are the ones we recommend at a minimum.

• Domain
• PR
  The PR is not as important these days - you’ll see low PR sites outrank high PR sites for certain terms. However, you do want to grow this over time.
• # of Backlinks
  The total number of links is not as important as the quality of the link, and the anchor text used on the link.The
• # of Pages Indexed (Google)
  You only need enough content on your site to rank for the terms you’re after. So you don’t need thousands of pages but rather just enough to cover your keywords. Make sure that Google is indexing as many if not all of your pages. Those that are not indexed you can try linking to them directly from your home page and submitting an XML sitemap to Google through webmaster tools.
• DMOZ (are they in the DMOZ directory?)
  DMOZ helps establish some authority for your site. It’s an old and well trusted directory.
• Dir.Yahoo! (are they in the Yahoo! Directory?)
  Indicates to the search engines that you are serious about your web presence and your willing to pay to direct people to it.
• BOTW (are they in the Best of the Web directory?)
  Same as Dir.Yahoo.
• Google Local (are they appearing in Google Local at the top of the SERPS?)
  This helps Google realize your serious about ranking for this particular term and being found by people in this specific Geography. You’re also willing to invest the time to configure your profile properly.
• Age of Domain
  The older the domain the better - but it’s not the only factor. You can make your domain miraculously older than some elses. Typically the older the domain the more trusted it is as it’s been around for a while.
• PPC (are they running PPC ads?)
  This too indicates to the search engines that your serious about your website and driving traffic to it. Google claims they do not influence the search engine results pages with data from PPC but we’re not convinced. It may only have a minor weighting but it could very well help you rank better - leave this as a last resort.

You can compile all of this information fairly quickly using tools such as SEO For Firefox and Yahoo! Site Explorer. Once you have all of this information you’ll see the profile of your competition and you’ll know what your up against.

I like to store this information in the same excel work book as the keyword research - just add it in as another sheet. For convenience we’ve included a link to the sample spreadsheet below.

Download: Internet Marketing Toronto - Keyword Research With Competition Sheet

Up next: Post #3: On Page Optimization. Find out what changes you need to make to your website in order to improve your rankings for geo targeted terms!

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 1: Keyword Research

Internet Marketing Toronto Post #1: Keyword Research

The first post in this series about ranking for terms in the Toronto area is about conducting proper keyword research to ensure your targeting the most important term(s)

In most cases there is a handful of terms that you need to rank for. These are usually terms that will result in traffic to your site and generate leads or sales. Finding out which terms these are is critically important. Here is a quick run down on a process to get this part of the job done.

1. Brainstorm your most obvious local terms in different combinations using the geographic qualifier “toronto”.
2. Do a manual search in Google to see which sites rank for that term.
3. Are the sites listed in the first 10 positions your competitors from a keyword perspective? Do they also compete with you on the same services as well?
4. Now, make a short list of the top terms where you see your local competitors
5. Have a look at the titles and H1 tags for each of your competitors on the first page - add the keywords they are targeting to your list
6. For your largest competitors run their site through www.spyfu.com to see what other terms they may be targeting and add those to the list if they make sense.
7. Set aside a list of the domains you are competing with. These are your “keyword competitors” and you’ll be keeping a very close eye on them over the next months.
8. Run your keyword list through a tool such as Wordze.com (an inexpensive and powerful keyword research tool) to get an idea of the estimated search volume. Don’t discard the term if there is no estimated search volume - you’ll make this decision from analytics data over time.

There you have it. A solid foundation for the beginning of your local search engine optimization efforts for Toronto based terms. You know who your competition is at the keyword level and service / product level and you’ve compiled a qualified list of terms to target.

Download: Keyword Tracking Excel Spreadsheet

Up next: Post #2: Competition Review. Find out what information you need to know about your competition and how to track and record it. With this information you can make educated decisions about your search engine optimization efforts to outrank them!

Internet Marketing Toronto Series - Overview of Upcoming Topics

Earlier we announced a blog series on how to rank your website for local Toronto keywords. We’ve prepared our notes and we’re going to begin releasing the posts one a week for the next 12 weeks starting June 2nd!

The series is outlined below and is designed to point people in the right direction if they want to tackle their own Search Engine Optimization around a specific Toronto geographic term or terms. If you find this information useful please let us know through comments on this blog or by spreading the word.

Series topics:

1. Keyword research
2. Competition Review
3. On Page Optimization
4. Analytics Integration
5. Produce Local Based Content
6. Blogging
7. Forums
8. Directories
9. Press Releases
10. Back Link Development
11. Google Local (and other local search)
12. Keyword tracking
13. Analytics Tracking

As the series progresses we may make updates to this list as we see fit. If you have suggestions to make please let us know and we’ll be happy to cover certain subjects in more detail as you desire, OK!

Where to Register Global Country Domain Names

I had a challanging request from one of my favourite clients reciently that proved to be nice fodder for our internet marketing blog. The client is growing and their product is beginning to develop a world-wide following. As such, they wanted us to research and develop a list of potential global domain names that they could register - For example companyabc.com, companyabc.eu, companyabc.tf… “Where in the World is Camen Sandiego is .TF?” .TF would be the country extention for the French Southern Territories in cozy Antarctica (for those wondering… Economic Activity - The territory’s natural resources are limited to fish and crustaceans; economic activity is limited to servicing meteorological and geophysical research stations and French and other fishing fleets. - special thanks to Wikipedia for that one.)

But I digress…

I couldn’t find a tool that would allow me to enter the desired domain name (companyabc) and check the various global extentions… so I decided to create the next best thing. First, I found this alphabetical domain list. I then decided it would be more valuable to me if the domains were organized by continant. This particluar client is experiencing most of its growth in Europe, and some countries in Asia thus, the first domains I checked were there.

The lists can be sorted by COUNTRY NAME or COUNTRY DOMAIN to help you find anything specific you are looking for. Each country name (with some exceptions) has links to the country registrar or a site where you can register a domain name in that particular country.

In addition to the continential organization, there is also a list of “specialty” domain listing, which include the popular .com, .net, .mobi and .aero (yep, for those aviation websites you have been looking for).

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Tags: country domains, domain extention, domain name, global domains, register a country domain name

Internet Marketing Toronto

We’re starting a small series of topics on how to rank well for terms in Toronto.

We’re doing this primarily because we live and work in Toronto. More importantly we love this city and we want to share our experience and expertise with local business who are attempting to get higher rankings and grow their Toronto businesses!

We won’t be focusing on any specific Internet marketing terms - rather we’re going to take a look at some broad strategies that you should follow in order to get your site ranking at the top of the Google SERPS.

It would be nice to make this a little interactive too - so if you have a particular term you want to try and rank for post a comment. We’ll do some research and get a specific on what you can do!

We don’t claim to know everything either and in the spirit of giving we don’t mind recieiving information too. So if you have something to add by all means post it in the comments!