Review: Hoot Suite is a terrific resource for tracking and maintaining multiple social media accounts. Primarily a vehicle for maintaining Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, both personal profiles and business profiles and fan pages, there is an additional app directory, tying together 3rd party social media sites such as YouTube and Tumblr. Also native to Hoot Suite are social media sites Google+, Four Square, MySpace, WordPress.com and Mixi.

I like what the fee version* of the software offers. It enables me to control the publication of my business tweets, Face Book posts, LinkedIn posts and there is a plugin for YouTube.  The Hoot Suite dashboard can be set-up and accessed at www.hootsuite.com or you can download their mobile app for a Smart Phone at http://hootsuite.com/features/mobile-apps. I particularity like the mobile app, which enables me to to control multiple social media accounts from one source. The Hoot Suite dashboard for a desktop or laptop is great too for separating out professional accounts from personal accounts (especially useful for Facebook users) and tracking multiple accounts at the same time from one pane. It’s very convenient to open up one web tab and see and control all of my accounts from one source. One of the most efficient tools of Hoot Suite is it’s Scheduling module. You can use this feature to calendar out one or a series of posts and tweets. Just set it and forget it.

Here’s the downside: I would like to be able to tie my self hosted WordPress blog (an independent blog not hosted at WordPress.com) to the software as well. I host my blog on my own server so I cannot use Hoot Suite’s native app for WordPresss.com websites. Hoot Suite  is presently not tailored to working with self-hosted blogs.  I did think up a workaround to this. There is an RSS feed app that can be set up to post out excerpts of my WordPress blog feed to my social media accounts but it is imperfect. The result is that the notification of a new blog article can publish to my Facebook Fan page and profile, but unlike Networked Blogs, the notification does not include a featured image and the excerpt text is truncated and not drawn from my blog excerpt text. Hoot Suite’s rss feed app can automate the process for Twitter  and LinkedIn Business profiles as well, however it is not visually stimulating. Better to use Networked Blogs for now to tie a self-hosted WordPress blog to my social media accounts if I want to automate the process.

Conclusion: Overall I’m a fan of Hoot Suite. It’s not perfect, I can’t cleanly automate the process of re-posting my blog articles on Facebook and Twitter, but for those of you looking for a more hands on approach to manage your social media campaigns without being overwhelmed by the multiple profiles, for those that are confused by personal profiles and fan pages under one account or for people looking for a way to better control the flow of information over multiple accounts, Hoot Suite is the site and software for you.

*Note: Hoot Suite has a free version of their software, good for tracking and maintaining up to 5 social media accounts, and a pro version for setting up unlimited accounts.

Cont. from Part 1

The human element of a web page is the body content, the page itself that the reader sees, reads and interacts with. As with the title tags and meta tags in the HTML code preceding it, the web page body content elements should be optimized and sprinkled with specifically targeted keyword phrases. Body content elements include the page article itself, its header elements, any text links and images displayed on the page.

Optimizing Header Tags and Header Text

Header tags, defined in HTML code, looks like this, <h1>Header Text</h1>. Header tags highlight specific areas of text that hold importance; the higher the number, the more important the text.

Header 1 tags, <h1></h1>, should be used only once per page. It is typically is used to define the main title of a web page and appears at the top of the page. As search engines refer to it to better summarize the content of the web page, it should include highly targeted keywords if at all possible.

Header 2 tags, <h2></h2>, Header 3 tags, <h3></h3>, Header 4 tags, <h4></h4> and higher numbered tags are often used to highlight and introduce sections of a web page. As with the header 1 tags, search engines refer to all header text elements to better understand how a page should be optimized so it is good practice to include targeted keywords in all header text elements on each page if possible.

Optimizing Text Style Elements

Applying text style such as Bold and Italic tags to highlight keywords and phrases of higher importance can further help the optimization process. Spider bots are drawn to bold and italic text, as well as “text in quotes” so applying it to your targeted keywords and phrases helps to further enforce your efforts to have a page indexed and found for those very same keywords on search engines. Just don’t overdo it or you may turn off people that visit your site on a visual level and it can get your page penalized by search engines.

Optimizing Page Links

An often overlooked tool for on-page optimization is the page link. If you have ever added a link to your site that reads “click here” or is simply url itself, such as www.domainname.com you have missed an opportunity to define your site’s keyword intent. Search engine bots review inbound and outbound page links to assess both the sites they links to as well as the pages that contains them.

Define the text link.  Try to include keywords that are specific to the content of the website or webpage being linked to in the link text. If you are linking to an article, add the name of the article in the name of the link. If you are linking to another website, spell it out. “Click Here” provides no hint as to the nature of the page content on the other side of that link whereas “Creative Developments Web Design in Scottsdale, AZ” informs the spider bot that the website being linked to is a creative web design company, a specific business, and is located in the city of Scottsdale in Arizona.

The name of each page of your website holds importance as well. If the name of your page is “about us” or a default name like “?p=123”, what are you relaying about your page? Nothing, names like these relay no information to search engines. Be sure to define your site’s permalinks and be sure that the file name of each of your pages includes keywords that indicate to search engines what the topic of discussion is and the keywords you desire to be found under.

Optimizing Page Images

Have you ever searched specifically for images on Google and other search engines? Do you ever wonder how image files are found when you search for them? Image files are found on search engine result pages because they too are optimized, every single one of them. Search engine spider bots can’t see; they can’t visualize what an image is on a page. To bots, embedded images in web pages are just strips of code. But spider bots do read text and special text called “alt tags” and image “title tags” are text applied to images which enables the bots to interpret the images and index them in browsers.

<img width=”200“ height=”150“ title=”Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale Arizona“ alt=”Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale Arizona“ src=”http://www.develop4u.com/wp-content/uploads/Easter_200x150.jpg“>

Example of its use: If a webpage was promoting an Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale, Arizona and it included a picture of an Easter egg hunt, applying an alt tag and a title tag that reads alt=”Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale Arizona” or title=”Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale Arizona” helps inform search engines how to index this image and the page itself for the keyword phrase given.

Note: not all search engines recognize both image title tags and alt tags so it is good practice to code an image with both types of tags. Duplicate the text and apply both types to each image on your web page.

www.unionhillsacehardware.com

The home site of Union Hills ACE Hardware store located in North Phoenix, Arizona.

The client hired Creative Developments to redevelop and upgrade their existing website and port the site to a WordPress environment. This site was optimized and registered on search engines by Creative Developments. The client is participating in an SEO marketing campaign that includes a sustained blogging campaign for added site propagation.

This site was developed using WordPress using a theme by Woo Themes.

SEO Campaign Examples:

Sample Google Keyword Search Result For: “hardware store in Union Hills”

Sample Google Keyword Search Result For: “paint mixing in Phoenix”

Google Analytics – Organic Keyword Report (PDF):
01-10-12 to 06-09-12.

On-Page optimization is of essential importance when it comes to Search engine optimization (SEO) and having a website and its pages indexed favorably on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. It is the practice of proper web page development both for the content a reader sees and the code that is seen only by search engine spider bots, micro programs written by search engines that review and index registered web pages.

On-page optimization encompasses several elements that make up a web page including the page title tag, page meta tags, the inclusion of header tags and page styles within a page’s body content, link optimization, image optimization and the appropriate targeting and implementation of keywords and keyword phrases. We’ll address the importance of optimizing each element below.

Optimizing Title Text

As of the writing of this article, of most critical importance are title tags, i.e. the title text of a webpage. Not to be confused with a page title, which is generally defines a page link and the page’s main header, the title text of a page is defined within the <title></title> tags in HTML code.

The title text is located at very top of a browser window. (Look carefully at the very top of the page you are reading now. See it?)  The title text is also what is displayed as the main link for each website listed in the organic region of a search engine result page.

The title text is your first, best way to indicate to a search engine how you would like a page to be found. Try to include within the title text the most essential keywords that you are trying to target for a particular page. It is generally good practice to keep a page’s title text within 70-80 characters as longer strings are generally ignored and truncated by search engine result pages.

Optimizing the Description Meta tag

The Description meta tag is used both as a way to further define your targeted keywords and keyword phrases and, in some search engines, is drawn from directly to define the description of a web page in a search engine results page listing.

Defined within the content quotes of this strip of code, <meta name=”description” content=”add description text here”>, the description text should be written for humans to read and include the targeted keywords and keyword phrases for a particular page. It should be no longer than 150-200 characters or it too may be truncated or ignored by search engines.

When writing the description meta tags, include the most relevant keywords first, appending your secondary keywords later in the text. If it applies, you may also want to include your key promotional point, company name for branding and a business phone number to better grab the attention of the person that is reading your listing in a search engine results page.

Optimizing Keyword Meta Tags

Once considered of great importance in determining placement of web pages by search engines, keyword meta tags are considered of little relevance as of the writing of this article. Still, they are seen of as some value to some search engines and since we never know what the future of search engine optimization will be, it is good practice to include keyword meta tags in the code of your web pages.

Defined within the content quotes of this strip of code, <meta name=”keyword” content=”keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3,”> , each keyword or keyword phrase should be separated by a comma. The keywords should be relevant to the article itself and appear in the body content of the page. Keyword meta tags should be limited to 10-20 keywords and phrases and contain no more than 500 characters.

Read part 1 of 2

When it comes to implementing a new organic marketing campaign, Creative Developments Web Design and Internet Marketing Specialists located in Scottsdale, Arizona near Phoenix, AZ, suggests optimizing all initial pages of a website, registering the site on search engines and local business directories and then giving the registered site a month or two to observe where the preliminary analytics level out.

The second thing Creative Developments recommends is engaging in a blogging or article writing campaign. This is useful for two reasons, it informs the search engine that your site is active with lots of activity and it helps build multiple landing pages to your site. Web sites that are constantly active derive more attention and are seen more favorably by search engines than sites that are static and never changing.

Each article or blog also enables you to build up a database of targeted keyword phrases that your site may be indexed and found by. Every page, post and article published has the change to act as a landing page into your website. Product reviews, opinion blogs on issues that are topical, informational how-to articles and event blogging for specific events like Easter or Memorial Day all have the potential to draw traffic to your site beyond the initial pages of your website. Over time, as your landing pages grow, so too will the number of visitors to your site per day. It may not be an overnight process, but over time, it can bear fruit.

Example one: A pool cleaning company may have basic pages such as a Home page, an About Us page, a page for each service that they provide, a Locations page and a Contact page, but if the site owner follows that up by writing a series of informative blogs articles such as an article titled “how to clean a green pool” and optimizes that page specifically for “how to clean a green pool” , inevitably people who have green pools are going to query a search engine with that exact question. When they do, there’s a good chance they will find this informative blog article on the page of search results. Once visitors click on this blog article and enter into the site they may very well decide, “Hey, this company knows their stuff, I’ll call them”.

Example two:   A trauma therapist practice who engaged in a blogging campaign with Creative Developments wrote articles focused on topics of interest that they felt prospective clients may be interested in searching for. Beyond just optimizing their basic services pages for keyword phrases such as “trauma therapist in Mesa”, they also wrote articles such as “I don’t want to hate myself anymore” thinking along the lines of a depressed person typing that phrase into a Google search box at two in the morning, depressed.  The results; www.aztraumatherapy.com is found at the top of page one nationally without resorting to a geographic keyword anchor.  Moreover, unlike AdWords, this article has had staying power; published in February of 2010 they are still drawing traffic for this keyword phrase to this day. That’s a pretty good result for an optimized post long since paid for.

Note: it took writing 30-40 articles and optimizing each page of their site but the trauma therapist’s site averages 40 visitors a day via organic marketing alone. The initial campaign that was implemented took 4-6 months to develop.

Conclusion

An optimized, registered website with no activity may draw 5-10 visitors per day. That very same site, which engages in a blogging/article writing campaign proper optimized has the potential to draw 20-30-40 or more visitors per day organically.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

That is a complex question to answer. There are many factors to consider.

What is the nature of the business? Where is the location of the business? What are the local demographics?

An informational website should be seen as an extension of your business, internet marketing a way to generate traffic to your on-line presence. Creative Developments approaches an organic marketing campaign in stages. If all of your pages are optimized, each page concentrating on specifically targeted keyword phrases and your site is registered and indexed on search engines you have the opportunity to be found by prospective clients that are seeking your products or services out. However your demographics will determine much of your success upon your initial launch.

If you have an audio electronics store with only a dozen competitors in your area and your site is optimized for your targeted geographic location, chances are good you may land on page one for your targeted keyword phrases relevant to your business. If you search for “car audio in Tempe” in a Google search, you’re likely to find one of our clients, www.soundzgood2me.com.  This is due to the inclusion of a geographic anchor “Tempe” in the keyword phrase and the limited number of competitive sites for the category of business they serve.

If, however, you type in a more simplistic search such as “car audio”, chances are the audio electronic store will not be found unless they resorted to a Pay per Click (PPC) AdWords campaign. This is because there is no geographic anchor. You’re not being location specific in your search. If you are looking to have your site found for basic searches such as “car audio” or “dental practice” or “therapist”, your best bet to be found is via PPC.

Regional competition and geography do matter when it comes to organic marketing. If a company is a dental practice in New York City, even if they optimize their site for the keyword phrase “dental practice in Manhattan”, they probably wouldn’t have much luck being found on page one or two without first having a high page rank or engaging several months in a comprehensive, multifaceted internet marketing campaign.  Don’t be discouraged though. Most markets are not so competitive. If this dental practice was optimized for “dental practice in Great Neck, NY”, chances are, their site, if optimized, registered and indexed, can be found on search engines and local business directories. The reason is the different geographic regions have far different levels of competition for that particular business.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

Read Part 1 or 2

Recently an internet marketing client at Creative Developments web design, located in Scottsdale, AZ, contracted us to develop her WordPress website.  She was developing a site that would require extensive use of custom menus posts and categories.

WordPress 101: A WordPress website enables web developers to add custom menus for nav. bar development from the dashboard under appearances…menus. This is good tool, enabling one to create navigation bars that consist of more than just pages, but rather a combination of page, post, category and custom links.

While reviewing the work of my client it soon became clear that she did not quite comprehend menu architecture and when it is that she should declare a link on the custom menu to be a category a page or post.

The golden rule: If you intend to showcase multiple posts under a specific topic then it may make sense to develop a custom menu link from a category. If your menu bar link is intended to be a single, stand-alone article, there is no reason to add a category to your menu, link to the page or post instead.

Think of a category as a list of posts or an archive of articles. Example: If I were writing multiple news articles on the New York Yankees, I would create a category called New York Yankees and associate all posts that are related to the New York Yankees with this category. That way when I click on the category link “New York Yankees” on the menu bar I would see a list of posts and the preview of each article on the category list of Yankee Baseball posts. This is quite common architecture when visiting a newspaper website.

Let’s take another example; suppose I wanted to develop a list of links to several of my videos on YouTube. Should I create a page or a category? Was your first thought a page? Not so fast. If I wanted to create several links on a single page that in turn linked to my YouTube videos then yes, I would create a page, set up a list of links that pointed to external YouTube videos.

But what I wanted site visitors to comment on each of my videos without visiting my YouTube Channel?  If that were the case I may want to create a post for each video with the comments option turned on and embed the YouTube Video into each given post. The posts in turn would be associated with a specific category. In my example, instead of creating a page of links to all my videos I could develop a category called “Video Gallery” that in turn would showcase a list of posts, each one associated with a specific video.  It takes more time to develop but what you end up with is a more refined presentation that is less dependent up external linking.

Remember, categories are not posts, categories are not articles. You can manipulate a category to include html in order to showcase more than just the archive of posts but a category is still just that, an archive of posts. Treat it as such.

Check back on our blog often for new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

Easter is almost upon us and Creative Developments web design in Scottsdale, Arizona, near Phoenix, AZ is ready to celebrate with our Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale Arizona.

Easter Sunday means it’s time to celebrate spring in Scottsdale, AZ by saving you green in your wallet. Check out what we have in store for you:

If you found this Easter Day blog by searching for Easter Day Specials in Scottsdale, AZ or Phoenix Arizona, Tempe, Mesa and surrounding areas, wouldn’t you want to be found on page one for your Easter Day Specials as well? You can!

Are you celebrating Passover in Scottsdale, Arizona? We haven’t forgotten you! Just as the Last Supper is tied together forever with the Passover Seder so too are the April Holiday Specials at Creative Developments web design near Phoenix Arizona.

If you have a business or are promoting a service, Creative Developments internet marking specialists in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, Arizona can help you get placed on search engines and draw traffic to your website just like you found this page here.

Save now on our Easter season search engine page placement special. Have your website found for Easter or any major holiday! We can place you at the top of Google for your geographic region for any holiday.

Easter Day Website Sale in Scottsdale AZ:

Don’t have a website, or is your website underdeveloped, well, that what we do. Creative Developments web design can develop a website for you and upgrade your existing website. Take advantage of our Easter Day special, 20% off all new website development in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, AZ. What a deal.

All sales last thru Easter Sunday and the end of Passover so let’s make your Easter Sunday special with these incredible deals at Creative Developments Website Design.

Check back on our blog often for new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, Tempe, Mesa, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

www.soundzgood2me.com

Sounds Good to Me car audio electronics and vehicle alarm installation specialists, located in Tempe, Arizona near Phoenix, AZ have been selling and installing the best in car audio / video / navigation and security for more than 20 years.

The client hired Creative Developments to redevelop and upgrade their existing website and port the site to a WordPress environment. This site was optimized and registered on search engines by Creative Developments. The client is participating in an SEO marketing campaign that includes a periodic blogging campaign for added site propagation.

Compare the new site with the original website

This site was developed in WordPress using an open source theme.

SEO Campaign Examples:

Sample Google Keyword Search Result For: “car audio in Tempe”

Google Analytics – Keyword Report (PDF):
07-17-10 to 05-11-10.

Google Analytics – Dashboard Report (PDF):
07-17-10 to 05-11-10.

March Madness is not only on the court…it’s at Creative Developments web design in Scottsdale, Arizona, near Phoenix, AZ.

Forget about your broken brackets and broken dreams of winning that big jackpot on Duke or Missouri. Earn your money back on our money saving specials.

March Madness SEO Sale:

Free Registration of any website and sitemap on Google and other major search engines with purchase of any search engine optimization package. $150.00 value!

Creative Developments SEO Specialists in Scottsdale, Arizona can set up your server accounts on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask, establish a Google Analytics account, develop, register a sitemap, and install SEO WordPress Plugins and add the search engine tracking code to your website. A $150.00 value, FREE with any web site optimization package.

If you found March Madness blog by searching for March Madness in Scottsdale, AZ or Phoenix Arizona, Tempe, Mesa and surrounding areas, wouldn’t you want to be found on page one for your March Madness Specials as well? You can!

If you have a business or are promoting a service, Creative Developments internet marking specialists in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, Arizona can help you get placed on search engines and draw traffic to your website just like you found this page here.

Check out our deals and ask about our holiday season search engine page placement special. We can place you at the top of Google for your geographic region for any holiday.

March Madness Website Sale in Scottsdale AZ:

Don’t have a website, or is your website underdeveloped, well, that what we do. Creative Developments web design can develop a website for you and upgrade your existing website. Take advantage of our March Madness special, 20% off all new website development in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, AZ. What a deal.

All sales last thru March and the duration of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament; let’s get crazy with these incredible deals at Creative Developments Website Design.

Check back on our blog often for more specials, new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, Tempe, Mesa, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.