University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies
Ron Foreman, EmpowerYou.ca, ron.foreman@empoweryou.ca, Guest Speaker, November 1, 2011

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO), art and science of publishing information that ranks well in search engines.
Top Google Result Gets 36.4% of Clicks [Study]

1. Market Research
2. Keyword Research
3. Site Structure
4. On Page Optimization
5. Local Search
6. Link Building
7. Brand Building
8. Viral Marketing
9. Measuring Results

Market Research
Can you complete?
Check the competition. Search major search engines; who ranks for your keywords.
SEO for Firefox extension excellent tool.

Keyword Research
What keywords are people searching for?
Research: Google Adwords Tool
Long Tail keywords: three and four keyword phrases very specific to what you’re selling: “children’s shoes toronto”.
Wordtracker

Site Structure
Choose best keywords and map pages for each important group. Make sure:

• your most important categories or pages are linked site wide
• you link to every page on your site from at least one other page on your site (site map)
• you use consistent anchor text in your navigation (anchor text “Click Here”)

On Page Optimization

• Domain name
• Page title and description appears in search results
• H Tags
• Keyword Density
• Anchor text (“Click Here”)
• View Source, CTRL U, Example
• Site Map

Write for humans, but use keywords.
Each page needs to be sufficiently unique from other pages on your site.

Local Search
Google Places, “iphone toronto”, “pizza toronto”

Link Building
Search engines view links as votes, some counting more than others.
Participate in the social aspects of your community and give away valuable unique content that people talk about and share with others.
Google is getting better at understanding link quality.

Link building tips

• try to link to your most relevant page when getting links (don’t point all the links at your home page)
• mix your anchor text
• use Yahoo! Site Explorer and other tools to analyze top competing backlinks
• don’t be afraid to link out to relevant high quality resources

Link building strategies

• submit your site to general directories like DMOZ, the Yahoo! Directory, and Business.com
• submit your site to relevant niche directories
• if you have a local site, submit to relevant local sites (like the local chamber of commerce)
• join trade organizations
• get links from industry hub sites
• create content people would want to link to

Link building single hardest and most time consuming part of SEO.

Brand Building
Brand related search queries are the most targeted, best converting, and most valuable keywords.
A high volume of brand -related search traffic may also be seen as a sign of quality by major search engines.
Example Sporting Life

Viral Marketing
Creating one popular compelling idea can lead to thousands of free quality links. Hotmail.com.
You can search social news or social bookmarking sites like Digg or Del.icio.us to see what stories related to your topic became popular.

Measuring Results
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half. – John Wanamaker

Effectiveness, the bottom line: more leads, higher quality leads, more sales? What keywords are working?
Google Analytics, free, track traffic trends and keywords leading to conversion.
Analytics_favouritequotations.ca_201110 (pdf)

New high quality unrequested links, Tipping Point, your marketing starts to build on itself.

Depending on competitiveness in your market, it may take weeks or years to establish a strong market position.
Rankings can be a moving target, since at any point in time,

• you are tweaking your marketing
• competitors are marketing and reinvesting profits in building their SEO strategy
• search engines may change their algorithms

References
Knol.Google.com
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) How to optimize your website for search engines
Search Engine Marketing Glossary

OpenMedia.ca has just released a thoroughly researched 150-page report that answers just that, and makes an indisputable case against closed, costly communications. Find it at http://openmedia.ca/plan.

What if Canadians payed twice as much for Internet as our global counterparts? Well, we’re nearly there. And it won’t be long before this becomes a reality if we leave our digital future in the hands of Big Telecom companies.

Arm yourself with information:
- Big phone and cable companies have wrongly claimed that online traffic has increased dramatically in recent years, but our research shows that the opposite is happening.
- These same companies boast about their investment in digital infrastructure, but we discovered that investment is increasingly out of step with revenues, and the infrastructure investments of their global counterparts.

It turns out that charging extra fees for “excessive” Internet use is gouging, pure and simple, and it’s holding us back.

**Canada Needs a Plan**

Titled Casting an Open Net: A leading-edge approach to Canada’s Digital Future, our report lays out a clear and concise plan to lead Canadians to a gouge-free, open, and affordable Internet.

We timed this report launch to coincide with the impending new parliament. Canadians have a unique opportunity to influence the next four years of digital policy, today.

Set the record straight. Send a copy of the report to your MP now, at http://openmedia.ca/plan

Here are several SEO tips to help you optimize your website for search engines. Generally, but not always, the tips listed first below are more important that the later SEO tips. These SEO tips are designed to improve your organic (unpaid) search engine rankings. This is a fairly comprehensive list of SEO tips however if you know of other SEO tips not listed here or if you see any errors please comment below.

Search Engine Optimization Special Offer: Keyword Rankings Report:
Send me your website address, an unlimited number of your keywords, and the domains of up to 10 of your competitors and I will send you a rankings report for your website and your competitors for all of your keywords. Request a Free Keyword Rankings Report!

Try to do as many as you can. I’ll use ‘North Toronto Cheeses’ as an example.

• SEO Tip 1. If you are just starting your business try to register a domain name and choose a company name that includes your keywords. Example: NorthTorontoCheeses.com and North Toronto Cheeses Inc.
• SEO Tip 2. Choose your keywords: the phrase(s) your prospective clients would use to search for you not knowing your company name in advance. Use a keyword tool to help you. Keyword example: ‘cheese shop in north toronto’.
• SEO TIP 3. If you have multiple products or services optimize your home page for your principal product or service. Optimize other web pages for other products and services. Example of (an) other website page(s) to be optimized: ‘roquefort cheese in north toronto’, ‘stilton cheese in north toronto’, ‘brie cheese in north toronto’. By using your geographic location you will attract clients in your target market and reduce the number of competitive web pages.
• SEO Tip 4. Place your keyword in your home page title: ‘North Toronto Cheeses – The Finest Cheese Shop in North Toronto’.
• SEO Tip 5. Include your keyword in your home page description: “The finest cheese shop in North Toronto, Roquefort, Stilton, Brie (add other keywords), Open 7 days a week on Mount Pleasant Avenue (416)-555-1212.” Your description is important because it displays along with your page title in the search results. The more often the searcher clicks on your listing the higher your click through rate (CTR) and the more often Google will display your listing for that keyword because the searchers agree you’re a good match for that keyword.
• SEO Tip 6. Include your keyword in the h1 tag on your home page: “North Toronto Cheeses – the finest cheese shop in North Toronto welcomes you”
• SEO Tip 7. Make sure there is only one h1 tag on each web page.
• SEO Tip 8. Include your keyword once in each short paragraph on your home page. Be careful not to overdo it. Your keyword should be 5-7% of the total number of words on the page and should be more frequent than other phrases.
• SEO Tip 9. When writing for your website don’t use obscure phrases, use terms that searchers would use to search for you.
• SEO Tip 10. In your footer place your company name, location and your keywords.

• SEO Tip 11. Submit your site to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• SEO Tip 12. Create a Google Analytics account and place their tracking code on every page of your website. This is very easy to do in WordPress and most Content Management Systems (CMS).
• SEO Tip 13. Obtain a free Google Places listing for your business. Include keywords in the title: “North Toronto Cheeses-Roquefort, Stilton, Brie Cheeses in North Toronto” and complete your listing to 100%. Include photos and even videos if possible.
• SEO Tip 14. Make sure all of your images are optimized for the web (72 dpi) and have ‘alt’ attributes with your keywords.
• SEO Tip 15. Add a blog to your website and blog regularly. Write on topics of interest and value to your clients and visitors. Demonstrate your vast knowledge of your topic and build your reputation as an expert.
• SEO Tip 16. Open a Twitter account and tweet regularly about your products linking back to your blog posts.
• SEO Tip 17. Create a Facebook page for your company and add content regularly.
• SEO Tip 18. Create a LinkedIn profile for yourself and your company and include keywords in your profile title.
• SEO Tip 19. Validate your website and correct any errors.
• SEO Tip 20. In your Google Webmaster Tools account make sure your geographic target is set to your target market. Country domains are set by default but dot COMS can be targeted.
• SEO Tip 21. Try to get other websites to link to yours. Offer to exchange links but only with relevant websites that offer value to your visitors and clients.
• SEO Tip 22. Add a Facebook Like button to all of your web pages.
• SEO Tip 23. Add Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn widgets to your website’s sidebars. These will display your updates and allow visitors to ‘follow’, ‘friend’ or ‘connect’ with you.
• SEO Tip 24. Run your site through the Functional Accessibility Evaluator and make the necessary changes to your site.
• SEO Tip 25. Run your home page through the Meta Tag Analyzer and make the necessary corrections.
• SEO Tip 26. Create a site map and submit it to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools. Make sure it updates automatically every time you add or update a page or post.
• SEO Tip 27. Create and upload a robots.txt file.
• SEO Tip 28. Open a YouTube account and post videos of your products and services.
• SEO Tip 29. Consider using WordPress for your website design. The WordPress content management system makes SEO easier.

Search Engine Optimization Special Offer: Keyword Rankings Report:
Send me your website address, an unlimited number of your keywords, and the domains of up to 10 of your competitors and I will send you a rankings report for your website and your competitors for all of your keywords. Request a Free Keyword Rankings Report!

Bookkeeping is a necessary evil for a small businesses. It’s got to be done but takes away from important face time with clients and prospects.

Wave Accounting is an online accounting tool for small business owners. Designed for non-accountants it’s easier than a spreadsheet and more powerful. You can work from anywhere; log on using any Internet connection. You can share and collaborate with your colleagues.

I’m using it and recommending it to my clients who have businesses to run and can’t waste time on bookkeeping. There’s a 30 day free trial and an account is reasonably priced and can be cancelled at anytime.

One of my clients no longer needs these domains and they are available for sale.
RedThreadRetreat.com | RedThreadRetreat.org | RedThreadRetreat.ca
If you are interested please contact me.

If you’re not on a network with a network administrator who backs up your data for you, and if you would find it very costly or inconvenient to lose the data on your computer such as your email archives, you should have a back procedure in place.

If you store all your files on your local ‘C’ drive and that drive is no longer accessible, it could be expensive or even impossible to retrieve that data. If you’re running a business, losing your data and email archives is like having a fire.

Here are two simple options to back up your data:
a. Purchase an external disk drive, available for less than $100 today, and use a software like Syncback, available as Freeware. Configure Syncback to automatically copy your important files to the external drive on a regular schedule.

b. Sign up with Carbonite, an online backup service that automatically backs up your files for US$50/year. If you use your computer to generate income, backing up your files is essential and this should be a deductible expense. I use Carbonite.

Backing up your Outlook email
If you use Outlook on a PC your email archive is ‘buried’ deep inside Windows in a PST file. The default location is: C:\Documents and Settings\User Profile\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.pst. If you have trouble locating it you can use this technique to find your Outlook PST file. Regardless how you backup your data, make sure you backup your email archive. This is not necessary if you use a webmail service like Gmail.

1. Search Engine Optimization: Become an expert in your field, add lots of good content to your site, blog, Twitter, make speeches, write a book. Monitor your website traffic with Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools and tweak your site based on what you learn. Consider registering a domain name that has your keywords in it, if available.

2. Search Engine Optimization and Google Adwords: Do all of the above and then buy your keywords and phrases from Google Adwords. You can offer to pay x cents per click (ppc) for your search phrase, you may have to outbid other sellers to get your listing up higher on the search results list. You can cap your cost with your budget. This should be done after number 1 is completed.

Recently I received an email from a close friend saying he was in the UK, had lost his wallet, and the hotel wouldn’t return his passport until he paid his bill. Would I wire him $2,000? My first reaction was to try to help because the email appeared legit just like all the other emails I had received from him over the years. Fortunately I checked with his brother first and didn’t send the money. But others have been victim of this scam. See “E-mail fraudster targets Torontonians”.

Here is a security tip to help prevent this from happening to you. Change your email password, and indeed all of your passwords, every 2-3 months. Here is a password generator to create random passwords for you: http://www.makepass.com/.

It’s impossible to remember all of our passwords especially if they are all different and randomly generated, which they should be. Here’s a way to store your passwords securely, Password Safe: http://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html.

Both Makepass and Password Safe are open-source, free programs.

Here’s how to make your email address ‘clickable’ on a web page. Just add a ‘mailto:’ to the tag, like this:

(Note email address is made up, use your email address.)
————————
or to show your email address:

————————
or to include a subject for the subject line of the email:

Change the ‘hello’ to whatever subject line you wish.