Posts Tagged ‘QT Web’

Expert’s Corner–Chris Steingart from QT Web

Posted on: November 8th, 2012 by Deborah Plouffe No Comments

Our expert this month is Chris Steingart and this column is an excerpt from his QT Weblog.

SETTING SEO GOALS 

The difference between attainable and “pie in the sky”

I had a client ask me a few months back why they weren’t ranked higher in google. They are a small garage focused on quick Oil Changes that are also environmentally responsible. They were not sure why they couldn’t find themselves when they searched “Oil Change”. Notwithstanding the fact that their website had only been active for about 3 months, they were baffled why they didn’t rank higher.

What I explained to them in the infancy of their website is that before we get into the content on your website, SEO success is relative to the sample size. What that means that if you are searching for a target like “Oil Change” which returns 340 million possibilities on google, your chances of being in the top 10 are fairly slim.

What the client was doing was deciding that in year one of operation, they wanted to be considered for the main search terms that had the biggest sample size. What if they considered focusing their search more (which many people are inclined to do these days anyways) to something like:

• “oil change Guelph” 319,000 hits

• “environmentally safe oil change Guelph” 90,000 hits

Adding a geographic term (guelph) or a specific feature (environmentally safe) you offer to your search target shortens the sample size dramatically and also is more intuitive to a way that people search these days anyways. Now that you’ve sized up your competition it’s time to further identify how you can place these key terms into your content. But deciding to set a realistic goal when your site is in its infancy is a good idea. That’s not to say that one day you might be the number 1 choice on google for “oil change” but why not start with a more attainable goal.

What are your goal search terms?

Start today by jotting down a couple keywords or search terms that defines your company. Put yourself in the head of the consumer, what would they type in to find you? These goal search terms are an important first step to building your company’s website search-ability. Keep these on hand, on a post it note, share them with colleges or co-workers. Having your goal search terms is the essential first building block of good SEO.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

A great way to find out how much action is taking place around a particular keyword or relative keywords is to test out the Google Adwords Keyword tool. This tool was created to allow folks using adwords to bid on key search terms to validate the traffic, but it’s also a great way to see how many global searches are conducted on a particular terms in a month’s time. This is a great way to check your search’s relevance.

CLICK HERE to learn more about QT Web Designs!

What’s New on Rewriter.ca!

Posted on: July 2nd, 2012 by Deborah Plouffe No Comments

This quarter, we’ve set up a brand-spanking-new rewriter.ca FAN PAGE and I would LOVE for you to add your LIKE to the page by CLICKING RIGHT HERE!

Let us know what you think of our new cover designed by QT Web Designs! Of course, I wrote all about the TImeline experience and you can read the guest-blog entry HERE.

Expert’s Corner

Posted on: February 10th, 2012 by Deborah Plouffe No Comments

As published in the January 2012 Timed Write newsletter…

Our expert this month is Chris Steingart from QT Web Designs.


This article is very well done and definitely worth the read!

In the 14th century Dante Alighieri wrote the epic poem Divine Comedy.  This allegory describes the journey of Dante through his own medieval concept of Hell, outlining what Christians refer to as the “Seven Deadly Sins” a list of vices and errs to inform the populous who were apt to stray from the path of righteousness. These sins are not only relevant, but we’ve seen them committed on various websites. Below are the 7 deadly sins you may be already committing on your site, instead of calling out the sinners, we chose to use that most sinful of fruits; the apple – to demonstrate.

CLICK HERE to continue.

Expert’s Corner – Chris Steingart

Posted on: February 22nd, 2011 by Deborah Plouffe No Comments
Our expert this month is Chris Steingart from QT Web Designs. Here’s an exerpt from his Kings of Social Media blog.

The reason most people stop blogging – and how to avoid it

If you’ve got a blog, newsletter, website or any other form of communication with your target market you will no doubt start nodding your head when we talk about the creativity or content hump? Unless you’re a professional writer, you will no doubt run in to times when other stuff comes first and with this blog that dilemma is constantly rearing its ugly head. After all, until the blog replaces clients it doesn’t pay the bills – that being said this blog has garnered us our fair share of clients so its proven to be a valuable part of our marketing so it requires at least a little attention…

Either way, we thought we would share some ideas to help you get over the overload “hump”.

3 easy ways to avoid blogging overload

Blogging overload occurs in a variety of ways; either you don’t know where to begin writing, or you’ve been blogging for 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months or any length of time and you’ve run out of gas or no longer stick to the schedule that you’ve set for your self when you started thinking about a blog. Here are some ideas sure to get your creative juices flowing.

Overload Avoider Idea 1 – Dig up some old articles, newsletters, emails or other stuff that you wrote before you even had a blog. With a little bit of editing, you’re looking at some new posts.

Overload Avoider Idea 2 – Schedule your posts. If you’ve made a deal with yourself to post to your blog every Wednesday, that doesn’t mean that you need to be physically writing your post each Wednesday. Take one morning each month write 4 posts about 4 different topics and schedule them for each Wednesday.

*To schedule or back date a post – when editing a post click the “edit” link in the “Publish” box in the right hand column. Change the date and time to either a date in the future or a past date to quickly start building your archives.

Overload Avoider Idea 3 – Invite friends or associates to write something to post in your blog that is related to your topic. By letting other people write stuff for you it promotes them and it helps to fill up your blog adding more posts that are searchable online and will bring more visitors and traffic. Be sure to thank or reference them and link back to their website or contact info.

BONUS Overload Avoider – Create your own special program – challenge yourself to do something like lose weight, make money, learn a program, or conduct a survey (or something else really unique and creative). Not only will it keep you interested and attract followers, but in the end you will also have material that you can compile into an ebook.