Five Effective Strategies on How to Optimize Your Power Site 

New to Power Site? Here's five ways you can optimize your website on your own.

5 Effective Strategies to Optimize Your Website

Building your online business using Power Site is the most convenient way of putting your brand out there. Leaving the coding part to Power Site's web developers frees you from doing such meticulous task. So you can focus on other important aspects of your business.

By taking a look at the features of your Power Site, you will be able to determine which areas can be easily optimized on your own. Optimizing your site increases its Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP). Ranking high usually means more visibility online, and thus, bigger chances of gaining more leads.

Here are a few ways to optimize your Power Site:

(1) On-page Optimization

Your Power Site's on-page content optimization may include the following strategies:

  • Proper keyword optimization without keyword stuffing - Your primary keywords should be used on page titles, headings, sub-headings, page body/content, product descriptions and tags, image file names and alt texts, meta title and description , page URLs.
  • Improve internal link building - You can link your most-linked web pages to your homepage and new SEO-targeted pages to harness link equity.
  • Video sitemap - Create a video sitemap if you have numerous video promotions.
  • User friendly landing pages - Improve user experience by having clear calls to action, properly constructed website navigation, and properly tagged product images.
  • Mobile device compatibility - Make sure that you have a mobile version of your website for customers who use mobile devices when browsing the internet.
  • Social media integration - Integrate social media to allow sharing of your content, highlight customer feedback, use as social-based commenting, show trending products/services to your social media followers.

(2) Blogging

Power Site's content management system allows you to easily manage your site's blog. Maximize these blogging features which will enable you to create properly optimized posts:

  • Set up categories to organize blog content to help visitors find the topics they are looking for.
  • Use primary and long tail keywords on your posts.
  • Include related images and links to reliable resources on your posts.
  • Include shareable images  you own. Make sure their file names are relevant to the content. Add alt tags when you insert the images on your posts.

(3) Link Building

  • Build relationships with other website/blog owners and get backlinks through guest posting.
  • Send request letters to manufacturers/suppliers for backlinks on their websites.
  • Find and interview influencers in your industry.
  • Create shareable infographics.
  • Write how-to guides for your target audience.
  • Answer questions on platforms like Quora, Yahoo Answers, and other Q&A sites.
  • Curate a 'weekly roundup' of best posts within your industry.

(4) Enlisting your Power Site to local directories

  • List down all of your business information such as website URL, physical address, telephone number/s, email address, as well as several product images you use on your website. These are required by local directory listings and will appear on a page once your account/submission is approved.
  • To find where your competitors are listed, you can use Whitespark's Local Citation Finder.
  • Submit your Power Site's URL to all relevant local directories.

(5) Other Best Practices

  • Always stick with high quality content for your website and/or blog posts. Apply the same principle in writing services or product descriptions.
  • If you do sell products on your Power Site, do not copy the manufacturer's description. Instead, write your own optimized product descriptions your customers can relate to.
  • Write long form blog posts particularly for new products you are promoting.
  • Many free PR sites are quite dubious. Have a budget set for press releases and make sure the site/s you will choose are highly reputable and known to produce good results.
  • Avoid mass submissions to various directories. Pick only relevant authority directories to submit to.
  •  Do not submit your website to Google using submission sites and tools. Use Google URL submission page.

The ease of having a Power Site for your business does not stop at the completed website itself. There is always room for improvement and there are basic steps you can take as website owner in order to optimize your website further.

View User Profile for Crista McCandless Crista is a self-proclaimed geek who loves fiction, data analysis, growth hacking and everything Tolkien. At Fast Track, she helps businesses identify areas to improve and grow online with her ninja moves. She manages the digital strategy, including online marketing and search engine optimization. Follow her musings about world domination in Twitter as @crista_mcc.
Posted by Crista McCandless Wednesday, August 12, 2015 10:18:00 PM Categories: SEO small business tips SMB web trends website

The Ultimate On-Page Optimization Checklist 

Here is a check list to help you optimize the pages within your site.

Getting noticed on the internet is no small feat.   

We’re happy to say that it’s not rocket science and we’ve found some things that will help to put some method to the madness. 

Basically, here’s a check list to help you optimize the pages within your site.  Go through this for all your pages and you will be golden.

Accessible

 

 The content is unique to the URL (many search engines discount duplicated content)

 

 Content loads in HTML and not java or other code

 

 Page is included in an RSS feed

 

 Robots.txt does not block the web crawlers

 

 Title – 75 characters (with spaces)

 

 URL – 90 characters

 

 Meta description < 160 characters

 

 URL is included in sites XML file

Available

 

 Do you use 301 redirects from old content/pages to new pages

 

 Does the host server does not restrict search crawler IPs

 

 Does the page loads in less than 3 seconds

 

 Is the pages are multi-device ready.

 

 Is the page social network ready -including the appropriate social media icons and links

 

 If unavailable, is a status 503 code is returned by the server

Marketing

 

 Is there an overall topic for each page and determine the associated key word search phrases associated with that page?

 

 Do you have a call to action button on the page, such as a ‘subscribe’ button?

 

 Have you used headlines and subheads prior to each paragraph, making sure you’ve used H1 and H2 tags?

 

 Have you tried to use your key word phrase in the URL of the site?

 

 Are your primary key words found in the copy at least twice?

 

 Do your images should have descriptive, key word alt attributes?

 

 Do you have a blog?

 

 Have you used alt tags on all images on your site

 

Performance

 

 Have the images on the page been optimized for the web?

 

 Is there unnecessary code on the site?

 

 Have the graphics on the page been optimized for the web?

Security

 

 Do you limit administrative access to your site?

 

 How secure are your passwords?  Do you follow best practices?

 

 Do you update your passwords frequently?

 

 If you are using a hosting provider, what kind of server security are they providing?

SEO

 

 Is there an overall topic for each page and determine the associated key word search phrases associated with that page?

 

 Have you researched and used your key words and phrases in headlines and subheads?

 

 Have you used headlines and subheads prior to each paragraph, making sure you’ve used H1 and H2 tags?

 

 Try to use your key word phrase in the URL of the site

 

 Are your primary key words found in the copy at least twice?

 

 Do your images should have descriptive, key word alt attributes?

 

 Are there links to your relevant social media accounts on the page?

Social

 

 Are you using social networking sites to promote your product or service?

 

 Are all of the links to your social networking sites active and working?

 

 Are your social media accounts up to date?

 

 Is your or your company information complete on the social media account?  Does it provide links to your    site and does it provide your contact information?

Support

 

 Do you have a contact method of some kind on the page, such as a phone number, email address or form?

 

 If you offer chat support, how quickly do support staff respond to customers?

 

 Do you offer a toll free number?

 

 How long does it take for a current or new customer to receive a response?

Usability

 

 Is the information is presented in an easy to find, easy to use format?

 

 Does the page use great design that accurately reflects your brand?

 

 Is the page is easy to scan, and are key elements highlighted?

 

 Is the content and the navigation easy to understand?

 

 Does design look polished?  Does it represent your brand?

 

 Is the page responsive?

 

 Does the page have a search function?

 

 Is there a link to the site map on the page, such as in the footer?

 

 Are there broken links on the page?

If you'd like to try a free website evaluation tool, get in touch with us. Or better yet, click here to get started.

View User Profile for Crista McCandless Crista is a self-proclaimed geek who loves fiction, data analysis, growth hacking and everything Tolkien. At Fast Track, she helps businesses identify areas to improve and grow online with her ninja moves. She manages the digital strategy, including online marketing and search engine optimization. Follow her musings about world domination in Twitter as @crista_mcc.
Posted by Crista McCandless Friday, May 29, 2015 6:39:00 AM Categories: SEO Site Evaluator SMB web trends

5 Best Web Analytics Tools for Tracking Your Website's Stats 

These website analytics tools allow you to know these crucial data in order for you to improve your  website.

As a business owner, it is crucial to track the number of people visiting your site each month. By using one or a couple of website analytics tools, you'll be able to know where these people are coming from, they time they spend on each of your site's page, and so on.

You'll also be able to track whether they've engaged via social media. You'll be able to find out if they were able to read a specific post after reading your tweet. You'll also be able to know if they visit your website's products page after seeing your Facebook update with a link on it.

Website analytics tools allow you to know these crucial data in order for you to improve your website, your products or services, and they also aid in website SEO audit.

Marketing and doing business online would be futile without tracking, so now's the time to look for the best web analytics tool if you haven't done so. Here's a short list of the 5 best website analytics tools you can look into:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most widely used free website evaluation tool by online marketers and business owners. It offers so many features which could be overwhelming for a first-time user. It may take time, usually a few hours, if you will peruse your stats.

You can get quite a lot of data including: your audience's age and gender; their geographical locations and primary language; the number of daily visits your website receives; your website's bounce rate; the number of returning visitors; and so on.

If you want to get started with Google Analytics, just sign up here.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is a paid analytics tool that offers a 30-day free trial. It differs from other similar tools as it shows a visual graphic of where people click on your website. You can use this helpful data particularly if you want to determine which of your site's pages will work best for advertisements and promos.

If you wish to try this tool just to see if it fits your business needs, you can sign up for the 30-day free trial.

Qualaroo

Qualaroo is a paid analytics tool that allows you to insert survey questions (for visitors to answer) on pages within your website. This provides you more useful insights that come from real-time feedback. This also lets you give a more personal approach to engaging with your visitors as they continually provide answers to questions that will help improve your business.

Try their 14-day trial here before deciding on the paid plans.

Mouseflow

Mouseflow works like a surveillance camera because you can watch as visitors peruse your website. You can see where their mouse pointer goes as they do so. This may seem creepy, but it's quite helpful since you'll see first-hand your visitors' behavior.

This is a paid tool, but you can get started with a free plan. You can sign up here and get started.

Optimizely

Optimizely is an ideal analytics tool for A/B testing. You can test specific pages on your site and features, and compare them with other design or pages that you have. This tool will identify which version works better. So if you're trying new features on your website and can't decide on which direction to go, this tool can help you out.

You can sign up for a free starter plan and start running your A/B tests right away.

Trying out these best web analytics tools will help you decide on which ones to use in the long term. There's no single tool that can deliver every bit of data you need. Instead, go for complementary analytics tools/apps that will help you meet the demands of your business marketing needs.

If you'd like to try a free website evaluation tool, get in touch with us. Or better yet, click here to get started.

View User Profile for Crista McCandless Crista is a self-proclaimed geek who loves fiction, data analysis, growth hacking and everything Tolkien. At Fast Track, she helps businesses identify areas to improve and grow online with her ninja moves. She manages the digital strategy, including online marketing and search engine optimization. Follow her musings about world domination in Twitter as @crista_mcc.
Posted by Crista McCandless Friday, May 22, 2015 9:40:00 PM Categories: Google Analytics SEO SMB web analytics

15 Do-It-Yourself SEO Tricks That Can Increase Website Traffic 

15 SEO Tricks that can increase website traffic.

The primary aim of every online business owner is to get on the first page of the search engine results. However, not every business owner can afford an SEO consultant, especially if the business is new.

For now, here are 15 do-it-yourself SEO tricks you can start with:

(1) Commit to a long-term strategy

First off, understand that it takes time (usually months) to double your traffic using search engine optimization since search engine algorithms continuously change. There is no magic trick or instant solution that can accommodate each and every website's SEO requirement. Search Engine Optimization takes time, commitment, and a long-term outlook.
 
(2) Learn SEO

There are numerous guides that will help you to learn SEO in-depth, and you can apply the simplest and easiest strategies to increase site traffic.  Many of these these guides can be found online for free from many SEO authority sites.

(3) Have a good domain name

Select a domain name which contains your main target keyword. Shorter domain names are ideal since they're easier to remember. And of course, use a .com for the extension since it is globally appropriate.

(4) Do keyword research

Research relevant keywords that your target market might be searching on the web. Choose both popular and competitive keywords to have a balanced list. Ideally, it should be a balance between low competition and high monthly search volume.

You can use free keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner as well as free versions of WordTracker or Keyword Discovery, especially if you're on a tight budget.  

(5) Build an awesome website

If your goal is to dominate a certain niche, ask yourself if your website is as good, if not better, than the top 10 websites in that niche.

The truth is that there will always be competition among websites and businesses. But it’s important to make sure that there is one differentiator that separates your product or service from the rest. So, make sure your site is better in at least one or two aspects to increase your chance to be at the front page of the search engine results pages.

(6) Have web analytics on-hand

It's critical to have web analytics software installed on your site right at the start. If you have a plan and defined goals for SEO, the web analytics package that you choose can help track and analyze the elements on your site that work, and which ones don't.

(7) Publish unique, relevant, and useful content

'Content is still king' especially if it's useful to the end user - your future customer. Make sure it's uniquely written and easy for your audience to digest. And don't forget that you're writing content for humans, not the search engines.

(8) Optimize page title and Meta description

One of the most important on-page SEO factors is the page title. Use primary keywords on the page title for ranking purposes, and on the Meta description. While the latter doesn't have an impact on SEO, it serves as a snippet for online searchers to get an insight of a specific page on your site.

(9) Include a page for site map

A site map assists search engine spiders in finding all the important pages on your website. It also helps the spiders understand website hierarchy especially for those with hard-to-crawl navigation menus.

(10) Use image ALT tags

ALT tags are short text descriptions for images you use on your website. Since search engines cannot read an image, an ALT tag tells the SEs what it is.

(11) Create internal links

Internal links are great for user navigation. Use targeted keywords as anchor text, as this helps search engine spiders to understand what the page is about.

(12) Build external links wisely

Find authority sites within your industry and ask their owners if you can provide an original post with a link to your site (guest blogging). You can also build links using social media to spread awareness among your followers.

(13) Diversify your site's traffic source

While Google search engine traffic is a given, it's best to have other sources of traffic such as social sites, local search, and subscriber emails. This protects from suddenly losing majority of your traffic if, for example, the next algorithm update hits your site hard.

(14) Use local search opportunities

Optimize your site to catch local traffic by using your location name. Prepare a detailed description for your business and submit your website URL to free local listings.


(15) Take advantage of search engine tools

Google Webmaster Central, Bing Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer can help you learn more about how these search engines see your website (e.g. how many inbound links they can detect).

There are still more ways to increase website traffic without spending a lot of money and by doing it on your own. It does take time to see the effects of SEO tactics and applying them at the onset is the best time to do so.


Do you have any more DIY SEO tip/s to add to this list? List them down on the comments section.

View User Profile for Crista McCandless Crista is a self-proclaimed geek who loves fiction, data analysis, growth hacking and everything Tolkien. At Fast Track, she helps businesses identify areas to improve and grow online with her ninja moves. She manages the digital strategy, including online marketing and search engine optimization. Follow her musings about world domination in Twitter as @crista_mcc.
Posted by Crista McCandless Tuesday, May 12, 2015 9:36:00 PM Categories: online marketing SEO website

15 Reasons to Perform a Website Audit 

reasons to perform website audit

It’s important to perform a website audit on a regular basis, particularly before a major website redesign. Evaluating your website can help determine if it's optimized to meet your goals, and for you to find ways to improve your website's performance.

If this is your first time or if it's been a long time since you've done website evaluation, seek out the help of a professional (an individual or a team) who has the technical know-how to execute this process effectively.

What are the benefits?

One of the main benefits of a site audit is achieving increased website performance. Generally, this is the ultimate goal for both technical and content aspects. A website evaluation allows you to check the strength of your site's technical framework, asses if it is search-engine-friendly and can be easily navigated by visitors.

An audit also allows you to enhance your SEO by identifying overlooked SEO opportunities, remedying poorly executed SEO practices throughout your site's content, and re-focusing your SEO strategy to put your site visitors first before the search engines. This protects your site by minimizing the impact of the constantly changing search engine algorithm.

Also consider reassessing your site's lead generation and conversion rates during evaluation. This will help you to identify overlooked opportunities to convert site visitors into leads. Remember to include relevant call to action statements and pinpoint deficiencies in landing pages to improve conversions.

Why do you need a website audit?

Below are 15 reasons why auditing your website is important.

(1) The internet is ever-evolving and, so are the standards.

(2) Change in best practices, software, device compatibility occur quickly online. Your site should be able to handle and adapt to these changes.

(3) It can help you find the probable cause as to why your site is not converting visitors into customers.

(4) You can derive insights from analysis reports with regards to how well the graphics are optimized.  You can also get insights into consumer behavior that could affect your strategic plan.

(5) Analysis reports provide insight on your website traffic rank (i.e. increase or decrease of site visitors), search percentages, and bounce rates, showing the popularity of content on your site.

(6) You have a basis for modifying your site's components that impede performance.

(7) Using the traffic report that your site audit has generated, check where your traffic is coming from and which keywords are being used by visitors to land on your site.

(8) You'll be able to identify and repair broken links which are affecting your site's functionality.

(9) HTML errors, that present website pages incorrectly on browsers, can be identified and fixed.

(10) The analysis can provide a review of how/why your site is too slow.

(11) Erroneous page output is often caused by incorrect character setting and this can be identified and fixed during the audit.

(12) Ensuring that your site contains 'link juice' is another reason for performing site evaluation. It checks link juice flow to pages which helps in achieving optimum search engine ranking.

(13) Download time is often impacted by the size of your website, so an audit is necessary to also achieve optimized bandwidth usage.

(14) You can also check if website security has been compromised via security audit. This requires the use of a server and security testing software.

(15) Human error such as duplicate input of page titles and metadescriptions can be checked and fixed during an audit.

There are still many other reasons to perform a site audit to ensure that yours is secure, safe to users, and compliant to all the applicable standards. However, as mentioned, you will need the expertise of a professional company that offers this type of service.

Fast Track has been performing website audits for our customers for years, and we'd love to provide the same service to you. Contact us today and let's get started.

View User Profile for Crista McCandless Crista is a self-proclaimed geek who loves fiction, data analysis, growth hacking and everything Tolkien. At Fast Track, she helps businesses identify areas to improve and grow online with her ninja moves. She manages the digital strategy, including online marketing and search engine optimization. Follow her musings about world domination in Twitter as @crista_mcc.
Posted by Crista McCandless Monday, April 27, 2015 12:10:00 PM Categories: B2B B2C Google Analytics SEO small business tips SMB web trends website
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