SEO Tips: Determining the Competitiveness of Your Keyword Phrase

Published June 15, 2009 Learn About SEO Leave a Comment
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Choosing the right keyword phrase is important in search engine optimization. There are a few questions that you will want to answer when it comes to selecting a keyword phrase:

1. How much search volume is there for your keyword phrase?
2. Does your keyword phrase convert?
3. How competitive is your keyword phrase?

In the video below, I will focus on the third question – “How competitive is your keyword phrase?”

Here are three searches that you can do on Google to give you a picture of the competiveness of your keyword phrase

1. Go to Google.com and search for your keyword phrase in quotes. This search will show you the number of pages that Google has indexed that include your keyword phrase. The higher the number the more competitive your phrase might be
2. Go to Google.com and search for allintitle: “your keyword phrase” This search will rank pages solely based on their titles. Title tags are important search engine factors
3. Go to Google.com and search for allinanchor:”your keyword phrase” This search will rank pages solely based on the anchor text pointing to those pages.
4. Compare the allintitle and allinanchor searches. If those two searches on Google are almost identical, then you have a highly competitive keyword phrase on your hands.

Competition does not mean that you should shy away from a keyword, but you should be prepared to work much harder and expect the results to take a long time. If time is not a luxury that you have, then you will want to target a different keyword phrase.

New Vancouver Reachd Instructor Dara Sklar

Published June 8, 2009 Reachd Training 2 Comments
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I’m excited to take this opportunity to introduce our new Vancouver instructor, Dara Sklar

Dara is the owner, founder and overall guru at Realty Support Services. She has been helping realtors maintain their websites and promote their listings online since 2005. You can read more about Dara’s happy Realty Support clients here. Beyond helping realtors Dara has recently started another business, which helps small business build and maintain their web presence called Real Websites.

What makes Dara a perfect person to teach the Reachd Courses?

  • She is a business owner and entrepeneur herself. She understands your struggles and the challenges of everyday demands of business owners. You wear multiple hats and have to keep an eye on customer service, marketing, sales on top of Twitter, Blogging and SEO.
  • Dara has attended all of the Reachd courses as well as consulted with a few of our students on their Adwords and social media efforts. She knows her stuff!
  • Dara has the perfect mix of Tech Geek and Business owner. A Reachd instructor has to have the right mix of experience and expertise. You don’t want to listen to someone teach that is always talking technical jargon that you don’t understand. Because of Dara’s experience, she knows how to take web marketing principles that are new to you and present them to you in a way that makes sense

Classes Dara will be teaching in June. I will be present for each of these courses but we will be using the dates below to give Dara experience in teaching the Reachd Courses. If you have attended Reachd training in the past and would like a re-fresher, drop me an email so that I can get you into one of these courses at a reduced rate.

Committed to Your Success
Rodney Bartlett
Lead Instructor – Reachd.com

Twitter Prinicples to Tweet By!

Published June 5, 2009 Learn About Social Media Leave a Comment
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These are the principles I Tweet by on Twitter.

First let me say there are no rules on Twitter, besides their terms of service, which I am sure you are all intimately familiar with (sarcasm intended!) Having said that their are no rules there are some principles that I think you should live by on Twitter. Depending on your purpose for using Twitter (assuming you have a specific purpose in mind) some of these principles may or may not apply. Enough of the pre-amble let’s get down to the principles.

1. Conversation – In my opinion Twitter is not just a place for broadcasting. If all you say on Twitter is “look at me” “buy my stuff”, then your followers will quickly tune you out. One exception. If you are a business offering deals on twitter, then it is okay to broadcast about your deals because people are following you to get the exclusive deals.

I approach twitter with the thought, “How can I say something on Twitter that will (1) help build Reachd (2) Help others succeed in their business”

2. The Follow Back Debate. I don’t follow everyone that follows me. Why? I don’t want to. Some of the people that follow me are spammers. When you follow me, I actually take the time to look at your profile and determine if you have anything of value to say.  If we form a “relationship on twitter” could it help your business or my business. Some people think this is an arrogant stance but that’s up for you to decide. If you are using a business account for Twitter, I think you should follow back everyone that follows you. In the case of your personal account I don’t think it is required.

3. Think before you Tweet. This tip comes courtesy of @Gillianshaw of the Vancouver Sun. She said, don’t say anything on Twitter that you do not want published on the front page of your local newspaper. Google is also indexing your Tweets, so think before you tweet.

4. Keep it Real. I love my business, I’m passionate about my business and about helping business owners. I also have personal interests and a family and when appropriate I allow some of those personal things to leak into my twitter posts. Twitter is a great way for people to get to know me and not just my business.

Those are a few Twitter principles that I tweet by. They are not really how to’s but more guiding principles. What would you add to the list?

Share this post on Twitter or share your comments on this blog

Committed to Your Success
Rodney Bartlett
Lead Instructor – Reachd.com

1 Day Web Marketing Bootcamp for Realtors

Published June 5, 2009 General Internet Marketing , Reachd Training Leave a Comment
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June 12th and 19th we are offering a brand new course at Reachd.

It is a 1 day web marketing Jumpstart. The idea for this course was spurred on by Vic Jang the owner of several Sutton real estate offices in Vancouver. We already have realtors from Vancouver as well as agents from Calgary flying in for the course.

The course is about learning as well as doing. There will be about a 70 – 30 split in the day. 70% information and 30% actually putting the information into practice.

What items will be covered?

  • Getting Started with Twitter and Facebook
  • Introduction to Search Engine Optimization
  • Basics of Blogging
  • Basics of using online Video

Two special bonuses

  • Free Flip Video Camera for all participants ($125.00 Value)
  • Free Ubertor Website for 6 months (Expires June 5th – TODAY)

Register for the 1 day bootcamp

Or drop your questions in the comments section of this blog!

My Website is Not On Google What should I do?

Published June 4, 2009 Learn About SEO Leave a Comment

Last week I showed you have you can check quickly to see if Google has your website indexed. If you find that a page or that your website is not indexed what should you do? Some might be asking this question: How do I submit my site to Google? I would suggest you don’t submit your site via their URL submit tool, but rather create a sitemap and submit your site that way.

Below is a Video that will talk about 3 ways you can get your pages indexed in Google.

In the Video we talk about 3 things.

1. Submit an XML sitemap

2. Write a blog post about your new page and link to that page

3. Have other write a post and link to that page on your website.

If you have questions or comments, let me know by commenting below.

Reachd Internet Marketing Courses – June 2009

Published June 1, 2009 Reachd Training Leave a Comment
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We have full slate of internet marketing courses for the month of June. Below is a list of all the courses that we have on the calendar for this month. I will list the online courses first and then the in person training will follow.

Reachd Online Courses for June. We’ve been holding our online courses for several months now. The courses are held in a private online meeting room using GoToMeeting. Each course lasts for 1 hour followed by 15 – 30 minutes of Q & A. In June we are organizing our online courses different. This month we are only teaching about Search Engine Optimization.

June 4th 8:30am PST
SEO Session 4: Tour of Google Webmaster Tools and Site Technical Issues

June 11th 8:30am PST
SEO Session 5: Overview of Inbound Linking Strategies (IBL)

June 12th 12:00pm PST
Reachd Question and Answer Session (Reachd Elite Members Only)

June 18th 8:30am PST
SEO Sessi0n 6: Linking – Directory Submissions and Link Exchanges

June 24th 8:30am PST
Ubertor SEO Training – Learn to Use the Ubertor SEO Enhancement

June 25th 8:30am PST
SEO Session 7: IBL – Article Marketing, Press Releases & Social Media

June 26th 12:00pm PST
Reachd Question and Answer Session (Reachd Elite Members Only)

That is our complete list of our online courses. If you’d like to take all of our online courses and participate in the group question and answer sessions then the register for the Reachd Elite. The cost is $100 dollars / month and gives you access to all our training online. Go to our online training page to find out more about the courses offered.

In person web marketing courses in Vancouver for the month of June
We are holding our courses several times this month because we are in the process of training a new instructor. If you are a past Reachd student and would like a re-fresher on the training this would be a great month to attend. We’d like to offer you a discount to the training if you will help us train our new teacher. Email me for more details.

June 2nd 2pm – 5pm
Market Like a Sniper with Google Adwords – 3 Hour Adwords Training

June 9th 2pm – 5pm
Explode Your Growth with a Blog – 3 Hour Blog Training

June 12th 8:30 – 5:30pm
1 Day Web Marketing Bootcamp for Realtors

June 16th 2pm – 5pm
Build a Website Google Loves – 3 Hour SEO Training

June 18th 2pm – 5pm
Market Like a Sniper with Google Adwords – 3 Hour Adwords Training

June 19th 2pm – 5pm
1 Day Web Marketing Bootcamp for Realtors

June 22nd 2pm – 5pm
Explode Your Growth with a Blog – 3 Hour Blog Training

June 23rd 2pm – 5pm
Broadcast Your Message with Online Video – 3 Hour Video Training

June 24th 2pm – 5pm
Build a Website Google Loves – 3 Hour SEO Training

June 25th 2pm – 5pm
Social Media Guided Tour – 3 Hour Social Media Marketing Course

If you made it through that entire list of training good for you. If you have questions, you can email me, or drop a comment on this post. Thanks!

Reachd is Growing

Published May 29, 2009 General Internet Marketing , Reachd Results Leave a Comment
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In July I will be moving with my family back to my home state of Kansas. Yes – Kansas, the place where Dorothy and Toto are from – Yellow Brick Road and all.

Today, Vancouver realtor Ian Watt let the cat out of the bag and I wanted to confirm the story for you. You can watch Ian’s Video here or view it below.

The move is actually exciting news for Reachd because with this change in my life it will allow us to grow our business further and begin setting up training centers all around North America and maybe even globally.

The training in Vancouver, BC will continue. We have already identified a new instructor for our Vancouver courses and will be announcing that information to you soon.

If you are in the Wichita area plan to join us for some of our upcoming training if you’d like to learn how to market your business online. You can view a full list of  Wichita internet marketing courses on our website.

I will be teaching our courses through the month of June and we’ve also added some additional June dates to help facilitate the training of our new instructor.

Still committed to your success and helping you learn to market your business online!
Rodney Bartlett
Lead Instructor – Reachd.com

How do I know my if my Website is on Google?

Published May 28, 2009 Learn About SEO 1 Comment
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This was a question I received from someone just yesterday. I actually think I made a video about it in the past but thought I’d take a minute and show you one more time.

You can go to google and use what is call the “site:” operator to see if your website is included in Google’s index.

If your site is listed you will see a list of all the pages that Google as indexed for you website – some thing like this.

Now if you want to know if Google as indexed a specific page on your site, you could search for this on Google site:www.yourwebsite.com/some/page.php

Replace the some/page.php with the actual address of a specific page and replace yourwebsite.com with your actual website.

Finally if you want to know if what pages on your website are about a certain topic in Google eyes, your can search for this site:www.yourwebsite.com “some topic”

This final search is important because you can use this to see which pages on your site have to do with “Condos” or “Baby Strollers” and make sure that all related pages are linking to your most important “condo” or “baby stroller” page with good link text.

In the next blog post I’ll answer this question – “I did a search on Google for site:www.mydomain.com and my site is not listed. What can I do?”

Talk to you soon.

Rodney Bartlett
Lead Instructor – Reachd.com

Google Squared Set to Launch end of May

Published May 25, 2009 Learn About SEO Leave a Comment
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In case you missed it at the Searchology event hosted by Google earlier in May a new look to Google search could be coming soon.

A quote from the google blog about what Google Squared is.

We also showed a preview of a new tool that we’re calling Google Squared. Unlike a normal search engine, Google Squared doesn’t find webpages about your topic — instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet. We’ll be opening it up to users later this month on Google Labs.

Below is an exclusive video from Techcrunch where you can see the new product called “Google Squared” demonstrated live. (if  you are reading this via email, then be sure to click through to the post to watch the video.)

What does this mean for you?

1. With Google squared search could become more and more personalized. It will become increasingly important for you to “know” your searcher and write content for them.

2. Comparison of products or search results on Google will become more robust. If I’m shopping or researching a person or product, I can lay out a very detailed matrix of what I find as the strengths and weaknesses of the search results.

Google is a little secretive about when Google Squared will be launched but did mention in the video that you should watch for it at the end of the month. It could possibly be released at their Google I/O event but no one knows for sure.

4 Phase Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Published May 22, 2009 Learn About SEO Leave a Comment
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In our seo bootcamp we spend two days going through some of the do’s and don’ts of search engine optimization.  Search engine optimization, often called SEO, is the process of optimizing your website so that Google, Yahoo! and MSN understand exactly what a page on your site is about and will show that page on their search engine for a determined keyword search.

I want to boil that definition down for you and give you a quick overview of how SEO works in this blog post.

My simple definition of SEO: “Making Google’s Job easy.” Building your site so it is easy for Google (and the other search engines) to find, crawl, and understand exactly what each page of your site is about.

How can you make Google’s job easier? Below are 4 phases of search engine optimization. They are not really steps because you are continually repeating these phases. It is important to understand that SEO is never complete. Your website is an organism and needs to be continually fed with content and updates.

Phase 1: Determining Your Keyword Phrase(s)

Often called keyword research, in this phase your are seeking to determine how your customers search for your products or services online. What exact words do they use and in what order. Do they call your product that same thing that you call it or do they have a different name for it. In my case, I’ve found that some people also call SEO, website optimization or google optimization. So I need to call my product what might customers might call it so that I can be certain that Google will find my website for the chosen keyword phrase. Here is one tool you can use for keyword research and another blog post I’ve written about this keyword tool

Phase 2: Writing content to address needs of your web searchers

In this phase you will take your keyword phrase and then write some content to address the needs, questions, or concerns that searchers might have when they are searching for this particular phrase. The search engines are not your primary concern at this point. You don’t even need a website to complete phase one and two. You goal is to take the keyword phrase that you’ve found and then address the concerns of your web visitor with content on your website. If you write for poeple first and not the search engines you will likely avoid getting into trouble with the search engines. Here is an article that gives you a few tips on laying out your content for people

Phase 3: Help Google Understand Your Webpages

This phase has actually has 2 parts. Part 1 deals with the content. Once you’ve written the content for your visitors, how do you go back and edit that content to ensure that Google understands what your page is about. This includes things like your meta description, title tag, link text, etc. Part 2 of this phase is geared towards the technical issues on your site. Do you have an XML sitemap? Is your menu structured properly? Do you use proper redirects? How are your URL’s structured? Did you get all that? Did that make perfect sense so far? :)

Phase 4: Help Google (and Yahoo! and MSN) Find your website

Besides submitting and XML sitemap, the search engines will also find your web pages through in bound links to your website. Each link is sort of like a vote for your website. Some votes count more than others. The more “votes” that you have the better, but also the more quality votes that you have for your website the better. You should always be working to get more and more links and more and more quality links back to your website. The search engines do want you to get links along what they determine are natural means. Stay away from sneaky leaking schemes or link farms.

If you follow those 4 phases for search engine optimization you will rank higher in the search engines and your traffic will increase.

SEO does take time and it does take effort. If you are looking for search engine exposure instantly – Google adwords is the way to go.

If you have questions leave a comment below or attend our upcoming seo training to learn how to execute your seo strategy.

We have seo courses in Vancouver as well as SEO courses in Wichita, KS

All the Best,
Rodney Bartlett
Lead Instructor – Reachd.com

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