SEO Tipswhen it comes to Keywords!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques related to keywords, and how they can help your business get found online.

Keywords are words and phrases people type into the search engine (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.), to find what they’re looking for. This is the verbiage that drives the web; triggering advertising and marketing initiatives. Effective use of keywords means inserting them into appropriate website content, which search engines use to “find” content online and index it according to specific search terms.

This process works exactly the way traditional book indexing does, in that the system identifies the location of words of interest and enables users searching for the words to know where to go to find them. The only difference is that the medium is digital instead of print, and the words are accessed by clicking “search,” as opposed to looking them up in an alphabetical list

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Researching Keywords 

All this only works if the keywords used in your content are the right ones. There’s no point, for example, in using keywords relating to your brand, unless people are likely to use your brand name to search. For example, if users search for “facial tissues” and your keyword is “Kleenex,” they aren’t going to find you, so you need to know which specific terms they are using when they search. “Tissues,” “facial tissues” and even“soft facial tissues” might do it, but if what they are really searching for is “extra thick soft facial tissues,” some research using Google’s keyword tool will demonstrate this fact. 

Long-Tail Keywords

The more specific the keywords are that you use, the fewer the results will be and the better your chances of appearing in them. So, while millions of people search for “tissues,” only a small percentage may be looking for your product. However, if you sell only extra thick soft facial tissues in pink, you want to use keywords that say just that. This is called a long-tail keyword, and it’s far more targeted and specific, so only users who type in the full phrase will arrive at your search result. However, given that those who do are more likely to buy your product than, say – someone searching for green tissues, it’s a worthwhile effort to make. 

Keyword Density

Gone are the days when you could publish content jam-packed with keywords. At one time, a keyword density of 7 % was considered optimal. That means using the keyword seven times in every 100 words, and it was called keyword stuffing at one time.

Now, that might be doable if you’re using a generic term like “marketing,” but for a long-tail keyword like “extra thick pink facial tissues,” it’s a little more difficult.

When Google realized that too many websites contained text that read like gibberish, just for the sake of getting keywords in the text, and/or used a higher density than 2% or 3%, their Panda and Penguin algorithm updates of 2011 and 2012 penalized those sites. Now sites are also checked for quality grammar and spelling, as well as duplicate content. Today, keyword density is down to between 0.5% and 1.5% tops! 

Keyword Ranking

This is the effective use of keywords everyone wants to achieve – high keyword ranking on their main keywords. “High” ranking means your website is ranked in the top 100 sites for use of a specific keyword. After 100, they stop counting. The level of difficulty of the keyword, as determined by its competitiveness, also has bearing on this, because it helps to balance the equation. For example, the lower the number of searches on a keyword, the less competitive it is, and the more likely you are to be in the top 10 or 100 with that keyword. So it might be easy to rank highly for “extra thick soft pink facial tissues” because nobody else is using it, than it is for simply “tissues,” which might have 100,000 monthly searches, but is also being used on countless unrelated websites.

Understanding the effective use of keywords is a critical “get found” online marketing strategy. Using it to your advantage can be a difference maker in your online marketing success.

Are you ready to schedule an appointment for: web. print. training. IT or to learn more about one of our community improvement programs?  Call us at 386-734-9600 or visit at bouncemarketing.org.

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Are you in the right career or not?

All the professional development programs, time management techniques and goal setting won’t assist and support you if you are not engaged at work.

Ask yourself, “Am I in the right job?”

• Do I look forward to work?
• Can I attach personal importance to the work I do?
• Can I see myself in this profession in the medium to long term?
• Is this job a short-term step to a greater long-term plan?
• Are you making a good living wage?

There are many stories of people who have worked in a particular industry or location for a long time and eventually realize that it’s no longer for them. Bounce!., can help you!

Signs that you could watch out for which can let you know that you might be disengaged at work:

• Frequent colds
• Headaches
• Forgetfulness
• Tiredness
• Poor sleep
• Loss of sense of humor
• Bad tempered with family, work colleagues and friends
• Drinking
• Job Hunting online or in the newspaper

Of course there are a lot more signs but these are just a few.

If you are disengaging at work, ask yourself why are you there?  Some people find themselves in a particular profession because:

• Your parents wanted you to
• Your partner wanted you to
• You made a mistake
• You had financial pressures and this was an option at that time
• The work was attractive but it has now changed
• You thought you could grow in the job
• It was the easy option
• It was the first option

You may have disengaged from work not because of the actual job; it may be because of the environment.  We spend a lot of time at work and the environment is important.

It is time you started to ask yourself some questions.  We spend a lot of time at work, so it is important to be engaged and enjoy what you do.

• Think about what aspects of your work you enjoy.
• Think about what aspects of your work you don’t enjoy.
• What could you do differently at your current workplace?
• Are you still at the same workplace because of the pay?
• Are you at the same workplace because of the benefits – sick leave, long service leave, easy job?
• Do you see yourself in this industry for many years or not?

When you have taken time to evaluate and answer these and other questions honestly, then you can either make some changes to your current work position and profession or change?  It’s always your choice!

Bounce Marketing Institute is available with training courses to help you!

Visit us at bouncemarketing.org

5 reasons why you need a responsive website design,

5 reasons why you need a responsive website design, including expanded reach, SEO benefits, reduced cost, content more readable, etc. 

At one time, all you needed was to have a single-platform website. Then along came mobile browsing, and the stats available indicated that you needed a mobile (.mobi) site. With the arrival of the iPad and other tablets, responsive website design is the go-to option to have. Responsive website design automatically adapts to the screen shape, size and other parameters of all web-enabled devices, and there are a number of reasons why you need this for your small business, church or ministry website. 

Reason #1: Mobile is Huge – and Getting Bigger

Between 2010 and 2012, the share of web traffic coming from mobile devices (smart phones and tablets) grew by 163%, and a mobile data forecast from Cisco predicts that by the end of 2013 there will be more mobile devices on earth than people. Mobile now accounts for 12% of U.S. users’ online content consumption, and the numbers are growing.

According to Google trainer, Ty Schlegel, “Google searches on mobile devices are on pace to overtake searches on desktop computers in the next 18 months.”

This means that if you want to reach people with your message, your website needs to be available on mobile devices without the typical problems associated with loading and viewing of regular web pages on a small screen. These include:

• Difficulty reading the text
• Image display issues, and
• Eternal scrolling to reach the navigation buttons 

Reason #2: Your Content is More Easily Readable

If you’ve ever tried to read a non-responsive blog post or web page on your smart phone, you’ll know how difficult it can be. If the page is static, you’re able to view a couple words at a time, and end up scrolling from side to side just to view a line of text. On the old .mobi sites, the text would typically display at what the device felt was a readable size, but you still had to scroll down forever to view it all, and images were often reduced to one or two to resolve loading issues.

With responsive website design, however, tapping the screen optimizes the content for the device, and you can “pinch” or “unpinch” a section of the view to zoom in or out. These options make the website eminently more readable than either the computer-based site, or the old mobile site was able to be. 

Reason #3: One Site Costs Less than Several

Few websites are designed for mobile only, which means you either have to forfeit the mobile traffic, or you need to design two (or more!) different sites. Sure, most web design platforms have offered auto-creation of mobile sites for some time, but they still require a fair bit of work to make them look right.

The biggest drawback to having separate sites is remembering (and finding the time) to update both every time you add content to the site. By having a single, responsive website design, you can:

• Create the site once
• Perform each update once only, and
• Don’t need to worry about the growing variety of devices used to access it 

Reason #4: There are SEO Benefits

You know from one of our former posts that search engine optimization (SEO) is an important outreach strategy, and that it’s critical for driving traffic to your site. Responsive website design helps improve your searchability for a variety of reasons:

• Search engines like Google want to send users to sites they want to view. Stats show that if the performance of a website on mobile devices frustrates users, 61% will return to search for another site. The engines will take note that there could be a usability problem and stop sending them to that site.
• Duplication of content, as you know by now, is a big no-no for search. Having one or more mobile sites, as well as your regular site, means either you publish the same content in more than one place, which lowers your ranking, or you change the content for each of the sites – which increases your costs and effort.
• Mobile ranking – Google has said that it gives sites that are optimized for mobile higher rankings in search.

Reason #5: You Reach More Users

See Reason #1 – as mobile usage continues to grow, without a site optimized for the plethora of devices in the market, you simply won’t have the same reach as you would if you have just one that’s optimized and uses a responsive website design. And this doesn’t only apply to a youthful target market, although three-quarters of Americans under the age of 43 use smartphones to access the web. Seniors are joining the ranks of mobile users in droves, with 69% of Americans over the age of 65 years now owning a mobile device, while 53% of them now use the Internet. These stats indicate that regardless of your target audience demographic characteristics, if you want to reach them you must be available on mobile.

Technology continues to change. Going forward, responsive website design is an important part of your online strategy. 

Learn More at: www.bouncemarketing.org