Google Webmaster Tools Can Improve Your SEO Strategy

Most search experts rely on Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) to analyze the technical aspects of a website. These experts focus on data like crawl stats, page errors and rich snippets.

In addition to technical analysis, I recommend using GWT for basic on-page SEO improvements. Here are 6 easy ways to use Webmaster Tools to improve your on-page SEO.

1. HTML Improvements

Under Search Appearance, you will find HTML Improvements. This report provides a snapshot of any issues with your site’s meta descriptions and title tags, along with a record of any content that isn’t indexable.

In the SEO world, we know that it’s important to have unique meta descriptions and optimized title tags. This report allows you to easily identify title tag/meta description issues and prioritize your efforts.

For example, in the screenshot above, you can see that 634 pages have a duplicate title tag. If I were to click on the “Duplicate title tags” link, I’d be taken to a screen listing all 634 pages, giving me a quick and easy way to identify page titles that need to be updated.

2. Content Keywords

Under Google Index, you’ll find Content Keywords. This tool allows you to determine not what youthink your site is about, but how Google sees it.

It shows the keywords that are used on your site, along with keyword variations and significance. These data help you quickly determine if you need more content created around certain keywords, themes and topics. It also shows which pages the keywords appear on. Very helpful! (See the examples below; keywords were shaded out due to confidentiality.)

3. Structured Data

Structured data is a helpful way to explain the content of your website to the search engines — which can, in some cases, can help with rankings and traffic. If you have structured data on your site, GWT has a feature that shows the type of structured data that Google was able to detect on your site, along with the URLs containing each type. You can find this report under Search Appearance > Structured Data.

4. Data Markup Helper

Under Other Resources, the Structured Data Markup Helper allows you to tag the data fields for events, products and more on your site.

If you aren’t sure where to begin with structured markup, this is an easy to use point-and-click tool. The nice part about this is that HTML changes are not required. Your mouse highlights and tags each key piece of data on the appropriate page of your website.

5. Sitemaps

The Sitemaps section allows you to view all the sitemaps that you’ve added (or Google found) along with statistics such as the last date it was processed and the number of pages submitted and indexed.  These stats can be viewed by content-type, meaning Web, video, images and news.

Another great feature is the sitemap test option; you provide the URL of a sitemap, and Google scans it, quickly detecting any errors that need to be fixed.

6. Removing URLs

If you need to remove a URL from Google’s index, you can use the Remove URLs feature in Webmaster Tools. This can be a very powerful tool, but use with caution! Only use this tool if you want to permanently remove a URL (as opposed to redirecting it).

Google gives a great example in their help section — if you have accidentally displayed confidential information such as a credit card number and you need to have a page removed, you can request expedited removal of the URLs. You will find this tool under “Google Index” in the left-hand navigation.

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10 Marketing Tips for Start-Ups

The reality is, most start-ups are bootstrapping their way toward growth. With limited funds entrepreneurs are forced to get creative in their problem solving. Marketing lends itself perfectly to this way of thinking, with savvy practitioners capable of making a big splash without breaking the bank.

Unfortunately, you will encounter some challenges along the way. How do you decide where to focus your marketing efforts? Where do you allocate your limited budget? Who do you market to? No matter how good a marketer you are, there’s always going to be a certain amount of guess work involved in answering these questions. Put yourself on solid ground by following these 10 marketing tips for start-ups.

What’s Your Budget?

In a recent study, BDC highlighted that 30% of Canadian small and medium enterprises have a marketing budget of less than $5,000 per year. Avoid the temptation to get caught up on the total dollar amount you’re spending. Instead, budget on a figure you can comfortably afford. How effectively you spend these dollars is more important than trying to break the bank on your marketing budget.

Make Use of Different Platforms

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. With the plethora of channels out there, marketers have never had it better. Start off by experimenting with different strategies. Craft an elevator pitch; Invest in online display ads and make use of email marketing software like MailChimp. Keep trying different ways to spread the word until you find one that works for your business.

Find Your Niche

A common pitfall for new entrepreneurs is the belief that everyone is their target market. If you’re trying to sell to everyone, you’ll fail to create any connections with potential customers. Establish who your target market is and tailor your advertising effort toward them. Speak to these potential customers, understand their lifestyles, concerns and needs. The better you know them, the more effectively you can sell to them.

Make Use of Social

Social media is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. Find out what platform your target market uses and engage with them. For example, you won’t find many male tech enthusiasts on Pinterest, so it’s not essential for you to be on every platform. Join in the discussion on social, talk to potential customers without giving them the hard sell. Ensure your personal profiles are also up to date. Customers will be curious who you are and some may want to follow you.

Ensure Quality Content

Content Marketing isn’t just a buzz word. It’s one of the most effective ways to get people talking about your products. Create a blog and link to it on your social channels. People love reading lists (after all, you’re reading one right now), try to think of lists that provide a jumping off point for conversations. Note what topics are trending in your industry, or local area, and use them for content. If you’re creating the content the only investment you’re making is your own time.

Identify Allies

No matter what industry you’re in there will be key figures and influencers in positions of power. Work toward building a relationship with these people by sharing their content, interacting with them and even introducing yourself to them at events. If they can be convinced to share your content it will give your marketing and legitimacy a massive boost.

Attend Events

Though we live in an increasingly digital age, networking events still serve an important purpose in the business world. Identify events in your industry and attend. Take the time to introduce yourself to people and ask questions. Grow your network of potential customers by speaking to them face-to-face.

Use SEO to Grow

An entire cottage industry has popped up around search engine optimization but it’s an area you can tackle yourself. Make use of Google Analytics and Search Console to see which pages on your site are performing well. If your site runs off a platform like WordPress, the Yoast plug-in can point out tweaks and improvements you can make to aid your SEO ranking. If your content is well written, lacking in errors, and hits the keywords you want, you’re already doing well.

Follow Up

Customers have never been more empowered to provide feedback. Go above and beyond to ensure the feedback you receive is positive. These testimonials are worth their weight in gold as a marketing tool. Reach out to your customers and ask them how you can improve your product and service. A satisfied and engaged customer has the potential to do your advertising work for you.

Market Yourself

As the owner, you are the public face of your company. Take the necessary steps to always appear professional in the eyes of your peers. Present yourself well, say the right things (avoid divisive topics on social media) and show up at all your industry’s major events. If you turn yourself into a trusted figure in your field, it will have a tremendous effect on your business.

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Online Reputation Management Part - 2

“Online reputation management.” Even if you’ve never heard this phrase before, you probably have a good sense of what it means. The first part (“online reputation”) is easier than ever for you or anyone else to find — just search for your camp’s name in Google.

Finding your online reputation is easy due to two main factors:

Google is smarter than ever before. It features search results based on local factors, can autocomplete user’s searches while they type (called “Google Instant”), and tirelessly crawls the massive number of social networking sites now available.

Local review pages and social networking sites have made it easier than ever for customers and staff (current or former) to rant or rave about your camp online.

The first step in managing your reputation is to be proactive and put your name out there first: “If you don’t have a Web presence, it’s much more likely that if someone posts something negative about their experience with your business, that review is actually going outrank you for your business name. And everybody loves to click on something that’s negative, so it’s much more likely that your customers will see that. Through repeat clicks and searches, it will actually cause that negative review to rank even higher.”

Claim your business on sites like Google Places. That way, your camp’s name appears in the results if someone searches for camps in your area.

he next step is to register the domain name of your Web site. “Even if you don’t have a big site with a whole lot of moving parts and lots of pages or any other flashy features, as long as you have one page with accurate contact information, as well as accurate hours, and an accurate description of your [camp], that’s going to help,”

After claiming your username, fill out your profile on each network. And just like your Web site, make sure you’ve included accurate contact information. “A lot of problems online are caused when someone doesn’t have the means to contact you — the phone number is out of date on your Web site, or the Web site is broken, or something else. And that’s when they turn to other sites to make a complaint, because they weren’t able to get ahold of you,”

Consider linking your social network accounts to your Web site, and vice versa. This practice is called cross-linking. Linking to your Web site in your Twitter bio, for example, allows a follower to seamlessly find more in-depth information about you; and linking to your Twitter account from your Web site allows customers to easily find and follow your witty tweets.

Another way to be proactive about your online reputation is to create positive content. For example, press releases are a great way to get your name out there. Just keep in mind that, lately, Google has been favoring fresh results. That means something that has a date attached to it — a press release or a news result —will typically show up in the search results when it is new. As the news dies down, however, it will actually fall out of the search results. So also try to create long-term, static content that does not have a date associated with it.

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HTML vs CSS

CSS is not really taking the place of HTML. It is generally used as an enhancement, not a substitute. HTML is still the perfect type of coding for the main structure of a site.

CSS excels when it comes to how a webpage will look. The outward appearance including backgrounds, colors, content and image placement can all be handled by CSS. Anyone who is familiar with the Microsoft Office version of style sheets has a good handle on the purpose of CSS.

While a webpage can certainly be accomplished still only using HTML, CSS allows designers to do things like set different page margins for all sides of a page, overlap words, better position page elements, and set a font for a whole table instead of just pieces. These make all seem like minor adjustments but these CSS tricks free up time for designers to worry more about overall layout, design and navigation.

The Role of HTML & CSS in Web Design

If you are thinking about pursuing web design as either a career or a hobby, you must be able to do more than simply design a pretty page. Professional web designers are experts in programming and coding as well. The most talented web designers are those that can adequately balance both their creative and artistic sides with their love of technical coding.

As a web designer, there are plenty of different web design standards one must master. The two most important in the industry today are HTML and CSS. What are these methods all about and how much time and money will you need to invest in order to learn them?

What is HTML?

Since the early days of web design, HTML has been the standard for professional websites. It stands for Hypertext Markup Language and can be quite confusing to someone who has no experience using it. HTML is the language, or code, used to edit and position the text, images, frames and other web page elements. If you go to your web browser and select View and then Source — the code used to design that website is available for anyone to see.

Those who have used HTML will tell you that it is not difficult to learn. There are a few basic tags (codes) a designer has to learn and a simple webpage is at their fingertips. The more complex the HTML, the more you can do with a site.

Efforts have been made to dumb down the process even further so that anyone, even those who have no knowledge of HTML, can create their own website. These are typically called WYSIWYG (What you see if what you get) editors. They allow you to create a webpage without using code and the editor assumes what HTML you need and does the work for you. Some software programs now include an option to convert your document to HTML. These are great tools for newbies. Unfortunately, the processes of guessing what code you need breed mistakes and errors in design that can lead to further frustration.

What is CSS

CSS is a newer animal and is not as familiar to beginning web designers as HTML. CSS was created to allow designers to have even more creativity and control over their designs. Today there is more than just one type of Internet browser to design for and this can be tricky and time consuming for HTML designers. These saves users time, effort and most likely money when they are creating sites. Also, CSS encourages less effort by allowing designers to create style sheets. This means when an edit is made to one page, all other affected changes are automatically made. This keeps designers from having to make multiple edits for large, detailed websites.