The objective of Mestar Digital Calgary Local SEO Company is to support companies in the success of their projects on the web. Above all, we seek to make your digital strategy more efficient and to put your site and your web communication tools at the service of the development of your sales and your reputation.

We are not only trying to attract visitors to your site and make your brand known, especially through SEO, but also to improve the user experience, to turn these visitors into customers and specifiers.

We help you build a strategy and powerful actions measured through digital analytics, mainly Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

On a specific mission or with long-term support, we help you manage your online marketing strategy through in-depth analysis of your web data: SEO, SEA, Analytics, SoLoMo (Social – Local – Mobile). By improving your visibility on search engines or conversion paths, we can target your strategic objectives: sales, leads, traffic …

Anyone who is currently creating a new website should definitely have a keyword search carried out before starting the writing of the actual content creation. Because now you have the opportunity to do everything right from the start. How are you going to lay the foundation for a successful website? Because let’s be honest, a website should first please the customer. But it should also be found via search engines (Google, Bing, etc.). For this, you need good and relevant and unique content. In this article, we will tell you how to find suitable search terms.

Keyword research brings you paying customers

The truth is only very few websites are successful “by accident”. This usually means through preparation and keyword research. And, you will have to make many decisions based on a few important questions like.

  • What should the menu look like?
  • Which colors, fonts, and pictures should be used?
  • How should the visitor be guided? What is the goal of the website?

Of course, much earlier you start thinking about the target persona group, their desires, and fears. For their price awareness and their way of life.

There is usually a lot of “invisible” work behind successful websites.

The right homepage does not appear within a few days or weeks. It develops over months and then changes several times afterward. There is a lot of work behind this.

Behind a good placement on Google and Co too.

The more competitive a keyword is, the more difficult and complex it is to place it well. This is one of the reasons why SEO is so difficult. Not only your own needs regarding the target group and the design have to be considered. Your competitors’ actions also determine what needs to be done.

We have already shown you in a few articles what makes a website “good” from a technical point of view. If you missed that, check out the OnPage Optimization guides again.

But today it’s getting a little more practical.

We’ll show you how to find the most important keywords in your industry in three easy steps. So that it does not become too theoretical at this point, we do this using the example of Ben. Malik. Ben runs a Mediterranean grocery and meat shop in Calgary. It relies on the Mediterranean produce, does without a lot of grocery products and offers great service.

Keyword research: who is the target group?

In order to research the right keywords, Ben must first know his target group. Because only those who know their target group can offer them what they want. And this is how your simple target group analysis looks like:

  • The target group looks after new immigrants looking for Mediterranean products almost exclusively from their country.
  • The group is newcomers or has just moved from another province.
  • Is a group that pays a lot of attention to what they eat. They want to enjoy it but in a healthy way. Flavor enhancers and other additives are taboo. The target group is also willing to spend a few dollars more. The food should be fresh, regional and if possible organic. There is also a large proportion of vegans and vegetarians in the target group.

Of course, there is more data on the target group. However, since this is not relevant in detail, we will not go into further details here.

Keyword research: Step 1 – brainstorming

Ben now takes a piece of paper (or an online tool) and starts brainstorming.

All terms, whether they consist of a term or a sentence, are collected on it. The view from the outside is usually helpful at this point. So Ben brings a potential customer from your target group on board. Another friend supports the team.

Ben and his “team” are now asking themselves what the target group is looking for on the Internet. What terms would they enter if they are looking for a Mediterranean food product?

Since the area of ​​voice-controlled search is steadily increasing, especially when something is being searched locally, Ben must also keep an eye on this area when doing his research.

A little digression on the difference between search requests from Siri, Alexa, and Co.
Because search engine optimization, and thus keyword research, should always be as up-to-date as possible, we would like to take a brief look at the different media used in an online search. Because a lot has happened here in the past twelve months and we personally notice that this changes our search behavior. Today we have more and more and better voice recognition software available. We no longer have to laboriously enter the destination address in the car, and a lot of things now also work with voice recognition on smartphones.

We call “Hey Siri!” And ask our question.

If you observe yourself, you will find that your questions differ greatly depending on the medium. With “Siri” you probably speak as you would with a tourist guide.

They ask real questions.

If you enter your question on Google, you do not use any filler words. You are looking for a “Mediterranean food store” or maybe also for “Mediterranean grocery import”.

If you shout “Hey Siri!” On the way, you will probably say “Show me the nearest Grocery store near me.”

Do you notice the difference?

In line with this trend, the weighting of keywords is also changing. You used to optimize for a single word. Are “holistic” texts written today?

They deal with a certain topic.

Comprehensive and conclusive. Many different keywords are used. It also tries to answer any possible questions. In our opinion, the voice-controlled search will continue to increase, especially in the local area.

Ben’s brainstorming brings the first keywords.

Ben loves his grocery store and knows his target group. Therefore, the first terms are quick.

  • Mediterranean grocery Calgary
  • Arabic grocery stores in Calgary AB
  • Mediterranean food
  • Middle eastern grocery Calgary
  • Mediterranean import food
  • Turkish market Calgary
  • Mediterranean food store near me
  • Greek grocery store near me
  • Greek grocery store Calgary

These individual keywords are also referred to as “generic keywords”. As a rule, optimization is no longer worthwhile here. The search volume is very high, but the competition is also high here. If anything, SEA measures are worthwhile here. However, these keywords offer a first, good clue.

Keyword research: Step 2 – keywords that bring visitors and keywords that bring sales

Let’s take the keyword “Mediterranean grocery Calgary” and look at the search intent. So when someone in Calgary searches for the term in front of their computer. What does this person expect?

As a rule, this will be someone who is looking for basic information about the term. He may want to know what the concept is or what the offer is.

Google search results turn out accordingly.

Mediterranean foor store

 

As you can see, hits one and three are more general in nature. Various Mediterranean stores are presented in the area.

Exceptions to generic keywords

We also chose this example because there are still exceptions. Whenever it is a product or service that is relatively new, a look at generic keywords is also worthwhile. Mediterranean food shopping stores are still fairly new. There are hardly any in the country. The density is now higher in Vancouver, Montreal, and Ontario. If Ben now opened a “normal” food store, the optimization to “food store” would never pay off. With the actually generic keyword “Mediterranean grocery store”, however, yes.

The generic keywords are also supplemented by place or country names. “Mediterranean Food” then becomes the “Italian market” or more specifically: “Greek market” or “Middle Eastern food store”. Detailed localization is good and important, especially in the local context. Because the visitor looks for the generic keyword including localization rather than just the keyword.

Keyword research practical tip

Our example targets local clientele. If you are working anywhere, leave out the place names and concentrate on the generic keywords.

When choosing, make sure that the keywords can also generate sales. Traffic is great, but it doesn’t fill your fridge.

Research other search terms

After brainstorming, Ben sat down at the computer to research additional search terms. There are now a few free tools and many paid keyword research offers.

Google Suggest

Free keyword research tools *

Google Suggest
http://soovle.com/
https://keywordseverywhere.com/
https://ubersuggest.io/
http://keywordtool.io/
https://kwfinder.com/
This list of tools is certainly not exhaustive, but it does provide a rough overview of the current range.

An insider tip for better search terms

Do you know forums? For example, if you have a specific question during pregnancy, you will usually find valuable answers in forums.

We also count Facebook groups as forums, even if they are not necessarily.

But the intention is the same.

You ask a question in a group and hope for the answer. By the way, you also learn a few private details about the target group. Usually, there are half novels depicted there. Our Ben with the Mediterranean grocery food might find out in such a forum (or in a Facebook group) that the newcomers are looking for a place to shop for imported Mediterranean goods.

They are looking for a place where they can walk around (and adults can eat some Mediterranean meals in peace).

Or a father is looking for a place where he can meet some people from his home country.

Especially in forums, you can often find keywords in the long tail area that you would never have come up with otherwise. You can also see what the target group wants here.

Perhaps another business idea will develop from this? Should have already happened.

Your advantage: You will find keywords that come from needs. The best prerequisite for turning visitors into paying customers.

Keyword research: Step 3 – what is the competition doing?

Many SEOs like to keep this tip, ladies, and gentlemen, under lock and key. Because it is easy to implement, although the effort may be very high. Before you get lost in the vast expanse of keyword research tools, take a look at your competitors (i.e. the competition).

To stick to our example: Ben does not open the first Mediterranean Grocery. In order to be inspired, Ben now looks at what the other operators have done, preferably in the immediate vicinity or in a place with more competition.

Take a sheet of paper and write down which main pages there are and which topics are discussed on the sub-pages.

Then enter these keywords into Google and check who is ranked above. The second step is to see if you can outbid the content. However, this is not about quantity! That is super important!

You have to surpass the existing content. You have to have more to say (or write). Only then is a good placement possible.

Now comes the most difficult part of keyword research: sorting it out.

When Ben has exhausted all the options, he will have a (very) long list of keywords. Now, these keywords need a reasonable structure. In addition, the question of which keywords should ultimately be optimized must be clarified.

How to proceed with the structuring:

Determine the meaning. Ask yourself what search intent lies behind the term. Is the person actually looking for a café for the next celebration or does he just want to see how others run their children’s café?

The terms can be divided into three categories:

  • Terms that have a specific goal in mind. If you enter “Amazon” or “Youtube” in the search mask, you want exactly this website. These terms are also called “navigational queries”.
  • Anyone looking for the term “Best Mediterranean Food” usually has a specific question. These terms are also called “informational queries”. These visitors often do not become buyers.
  • The third group is called “transactional queries”. The user is looking for terms such as “Mediterranean Food lunch”. He is looking for a food store (probably on the way) by having something to eat for lunch. So this user can become a customer.

Keyword research: Search volume is an important factor.

The previous steps for keyword research were free (at least if you do it yourself), but now it will be a little bit chargeable.

Because (in our opinion) there is currently no free provider that provides reliable results on the search volume of a keyword.

A few years ago, the search volume could be queried directly from Google free of charge.

This is no longer possible because the keyword planner can only be used if Google advertisements are also displayed (and with a higher budget). Of course, there are other providers who have integrated a keyword planner. The relevant data are generally valid. However, such tools often cost smaller three-digit amounts. Some of the tools also offer free use for entrepreneurs, but the keyword tools are usually not included or regulated according to the number of keywords that can be queried.

Search volume and competitors

Unfortunately, the most beautiful keyword is of no interest if it is only searched 10 or 100 times a month. Optimization does not make sense here (in terms of costs and benefits). Therefore, always look at the competition. Some tools offer the option from the start. If you cannot find a technical solution for this, it is also worth taking a look at the competitor. Enter the favorite keyword on Google and take a look at the competitors. Can you really beat the content? Are there perhaps new insights that the competitor has not (yet) considered? Can you deliver real added value? If so, then you should add the keyword to your list.

Small search volume = bad keyword?

Ben wonders what search volume is really worth optimizing. There is no general answer to this question. As a rule, optimization for a keyword with little search volume and at the same time little competition can be worthwhile. If you consider that Ben has about 20 places, the optimization for keywords with a small search volume is definitely worthwhile. The search intention should always be considered here. If the user also wants to become a customer, then the keyword should be considered in any case. If, on the other hand, the search intent is more of a “want to compare”, then it is rather not worth it.

How to identify well-optimized websites from the competition.

They still exist, the websites that rank well even without good optimization. For example, because they have been around for a long time or because no other competitor has really invested in search engine optimization. Such websites can be easily “depended” on the rankings. An already well-optimized website from competitors, however, is difficult to overhaul.

At least with the terms that have been optimized for.

You can recognize a well-optimized website by these criteria:

  • Depth of content
  • Many referring domains (also on subpages)
  • Current content
  • Keywords in title and description
  • Optimization of the subpages according to OnPage criteria

And what do you do with the determined keywords?

Once the keyword research has been completed, you have around 15 keywords that are worth optimizing. The implementation takes place by including them in the page structure. The higher the search volume, the higher (in the page structure) the keyword should appear. For Ben, the home page should be optimized for “Mediterannean food Calgary”. A subpage on “North African Food” or maybe also on “Import African Food”.

Sometimes it’s not just the most obvious keywords that are worth optimizing. So, in our imagination, Ben has expanded his offer. In the morning, if there weren’t many visitors anyway, he now offers a co-work place. Immigrants come with their young children, a helper provides support and the parents can work for two or three hours. Afterward, everyone has lunch together in the Mediterranean grocery store. Organic, regional and delicious. Well, keyword research isn’t just good for your google ranking. It may bring you new ideas.

How did you do with keyword research? We look forward to your answers in the comments!

Of course, we have also optimized this page. Once a year, we check and expand the content. For this optimization, because we optimize holistically, we have chosen the following terms (and a few more):
Keyword research
page
Searches
keyword
content
search volume
Tools
planner
Google
competitor

If you are an entrepreneur, then you know the importance of having a professional website and acquiring regular traffic. Getting traffic is good but it’s only half the work. The real challenge at this point is to keep the visitor on the website for a long time to learn more about what you have to offer and, even better, to bring it back because you have attracted interest and want to know more.

So, what makes visitors come back to visit your website? What can you do to keep your visitors past the first few seconds?

Be clear about your activity

When a visitor arrives on your site, is he able to clearly understand the nature of your website? Your visitors need to know very quickly if your website is relevant to their query. If they can not understand what you are doing, they will move quickly to a competitor’s site. Keep this in mind, if a visitor has landed on your website, it is very often for a very specific reason. He is looking for something that meets his needs or a solution to his problem. Your job is to help him find the information he needs as quickly and clearly as possible.

Know your target audience

Everything about your website, from its graphics chart, its color code, the size of characters to its content and the editorial tone used, must speak to your target market. If your website tries to reach everyone, you will end up not interested in anyone. Do not be afraid to really zoom in and be specific about the ideal customer you want to serve. In fact, the more specific you are, the better.

Keep your website simple

Your website can offer an out-of-the-ordinary user experience, or offer animations or awesome features from a technology perspective, but if it does not engage your visitors and keep them off the first few seconds, you lose them forever.

Boost your site

Everything in this world is going very fast. People are very busy and getting their attention is difficult. Your website should load quickly otherwise you run the risk of seeing your visitors go elsewhere. No one has the patience to wait more than 3s for a web page to load, especially if it is open on a mobile device. Make a technically clean website to make sure nothing is slowing it down. If your site is slow and you do not understand why? You can get help from a professional.

Look professional.

Make sure the ‘look & feel’ of your website can bring credit, that your business appears trustworthy and not spam. Why not a site made by yourself as long as you respect the basic design rules and have an eye for aesthetics. Make your choice and evaluate the opportunities between investing in a professional website (think about the advice you can get) and making one yourself.
The problem with a tinkered site is that it feels like miles. Ultimately, why should your potential customers invest in your products and services if your website says loudly ‘I do not want to invest in my own business? ‘.
Naturally, independent contractors often have a tight budget at startup. However, a professional website, good photographs and flawless writing are some of the key investments you should not be saving money for.

Hunt for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

Spelling mistakes and bad grammar send bad signals to your visitors. We are talking about trust here: if a potential customer has to spend money on your products and services, they need to be able to trust your business. Spelling errors and grammatical errors make your business seem less trustworthy.
Many studies show that potential buyers will tend not to use a company that presents content with obvious grammatical or spelling errors on their website. The argument is that they would not trust the company to provide quality service.

Fresh and up-to-date content

If the last article on your blog is a year old or older, if the latest news starts in 2012 then it’s time to dust off the content, hunt the cobwebs or your visitors will assume that your business is no longer very active. Make sure you keep your site up to date. Nobody wants to do business with a company that presents content that seems old and not brought up to date. Having recent content also tells search engines like Google that your website is still active.

Make it easy to use

Make sure that your website is easy to navigate and that your visitors can find the information they need quickly without having to analyze too many levels of information.
Use images and white space to provide an easy-to-read layout. Too much text will repel reading. Use text caps, titles, and subtitles to prioritize information by giving the possibility of a quick diagonal reading. Use the categories and hierarchy of your website to group the contents in a logical way. Make your visitors contact you easily.

Easy on the pub

If you have a blog that you want to profit from with advertising, be careful not to disturb the visitor with too much advertising display. This makes navigation on the site difficult. Ads that contain a lot of animation are particularly bad. Also, having too many ads on your site makes it slower to load. Monetizing your site is a good idea, but be attentive to the expectations of your visitors. Think about strategic locations for ads.

Clear call to action (CTA)

Do not assume that your visitors will automatically know what to do. You must tell them clearly. Want to subscribe to your newsletter? Tell them that so clearly with a call to action button. Think of an incentive to do so. Do you want to request a quote? Tell them where to go to fill out the form or display your telephone number clearly. You want that they organize a free consultation call? Provide the link to book a call with you.

A visitors engaged is a potential buyer

Caring commitment of visitors is one of the most important things for you, website owners. Engaged visitors will be more likely to buy your products, buy your services and sign up for your mailing lists. They will also remember your business and return more easily to learn more

To have a good local SEO unfortunately it is not enough to want it. Indeed it can be extremely difficult to position yourself on competitive keywords, especially at the scale of a country or a big city. But with an effective local SEO strategy, you can claim to appear on the first page of Google for a user search corresponding to the area of expertise of your company.

Being known by Google

To be well seen by Google, it is essential to create a business listing via Google My Business. In this form, you can display the name of your company as well as a description, its opening hours, the address and phone number and a link to your website. You can also share photos that will appear during Google searches. This card can also receive customer reviews.

Note: This step is crucial, create this form does not exempt you from making you known elsewhere, especially on local and regional directories (Yellow Pages, Yelp, Tripadvisor, etc …). pay attention to ensure that your information is consistent across platforms and update it regularly.

Encourage your customers to give their reviews

Stand out with consumer reviews

73% of consumers trust a local business if they have read positive reviews about it. What’s more, Google takes into account the rating of companies and favors those that are well-rated and whose reviews are numerous and positive to position them among the first results of research. More reviews will be numerous and praised on different platforms and the more you will shine in the eyes of your customers, but also Google.

What to do in case of a negative review?

Do not panic and feel free to answer, being courteous and professional, of course. Make a short and sincere response, provide useful information to resolve this dissatisfaction and if necessary invite the customer to contact you.

Responding, and even more, to suggest a solution will show that you are truly interested in your customers and will thus bring a more positive note to negative comments.

Promote local links

Work your network of ‘partners’

By providing your financial, material or human support to associations, local sports clubs or events in your geographical area, you can in exchange ask to show a link of your company via their website or on their social networks. Remember also to show on your site other companies ‘partners’ who, in exchange, publish a link to your site.

Let’s not forget that, external links pointing to your site can boost its ranking in Google search results in a remarkable way.

Think about local press

The local press, both in print and online, promote local events and often mentions their support. To talk about you, you can also contact them directly when you have a piece of strong news. If the news seems relevant, they will not hesitate to write content, give the link to your site and sometimes even to share on social networks.

Many tips exist to gain visibility on the Internet, locally or nationally or even internationally. In addition to the tips given above, you will, of course, think about SEO optimization of your site, to create accounts on social networks and to keep a blog. If You do not know how to do it or have no time for it, Don’t hesitate to call on a specialist to set up an SEO policy adapted to your company, it is the best solution to boost your Local SEO.

While operating systems today have almost all their own assistant staff which allows owners of an electronic device to interact directly with their machine through vocal search, what are the impacts of voice search on the results provided by Google?
What impacts does voice search also have on other spheres of the web, especially on SEO work?

The increasing use of voice search

According to a 2014 survey published on the Google blog, 55% of teenagers and 41% of US adults already used voice search at least once a day.

Because the use of voice search is constantly changing in the United States and now in Europe since this study, especially among teenagers, more and more successful personal assistants have arrived on the market. The Google web giant and its Google Home smart speaker sold around the world is a great example of this.

This growing use of voice search becomes an important criterion to consider for website owners. Indeed, there is a real impact on the results provided by Google.

The results of voice searches very often differ from those generated by a manual search.

What changes the voice search has on the results?

The evolution of artificial intelligence, but also the uses of vocal search lead to changes in the results provided by Google. Voice search changes the results because vocally spoken queries are longer and more accurate. One of the consequences of formulating grammatically well-built sentences is the shift with a short manual search. Manual searches are characterized by the addition of keywords.

In addition, the voice search, thanks to the artificial intelligence, allows the requests to be realized without any misspelling, and with accents. But it can also generate some misunderstandings. Indeed, voice requests are not always totally absorbed by the machine.

What are the impacts of voice search on SEO?

Because speech search encourages users to communicate with their personal assistant almost as if in a real conversation, search engine queries become unique and push the trend towards decreasing keywords.

The end of the reign of the keyword, without its complete abandonment thus leaves a place for a content that is more and more in tune with the natural formulation of a question.

Questions and answers sites, often presented as FAQs (FAQs), where natural language is privileged can logically appear in the first results of the Google search engine after a voice search.

The zero positions or featured snippets are also preferred and placed in a very good position after a speech search, because of their response to a specific question.

The SEO optimization work must then aim for a zero position. It must also rely on the shaping of the request by rich and qualitative content. This content must indeed cover a whole semantic universe to be able to answer the precise questions of the users.

4 CRITERIA TO EVALUATE YOUR SEO

SEO is relatively unclear for may marketing professionals and an abstract marketing and customer acquisition lever. Indeed, it contains a part of ‘chance’ related to the goodwill of Google and other search engines to put forward your website or not. Fortunately, there are criteria that can show if you are going in the right direction in your SEO strategy. Discover 4 criteria to evaluate your SEO with Great Northern Marketing Calgary Local SEO. Read more

In recent years, Google has made profound changes to its algorithms which has changed in a radical way SEO. However, it must be said that this is an essential technique to boost its presence on the web. Indeed, it is useless to have a website if it is not visible on the various search engines. How to improve your SEO for 2018? This is the main question that entrepreneurs have been trying to answer for some time. Here are the best SEO tips to follow.

#1. Firstly, respect the fundamentals

In order to succeed in your SEO strategy, you must first respect the fundamental principles that will allow you to get a better ranking.

First of all, it is necessary for you to focus on users at the expense of search engines. They are your customers and not Google.

This is easily understandable. There is no point in bringing traffic to your website if your visitors are not converted into customers.

In order to achieve this, it is important to offer quality content information so they can easily share with their loved ones.

Indeed, users are impatient and some are not loyal: they will not hesitate to go to your competitor if you can’t hold them. Worse, if your content is not attractive and that your visitors quickly leave the site, your site positioning will be degraded by Google in terms of the bounce rate of your page (25 tools to analyze your traffic).

#2. Do not position for a single keyword

It has been estimated that the average user’s queries consist of 4 words.

This comment is especially true with voice search. Users can directly search for something and get accurate answers without having to type anything. This trend also impacted the keywords since people learn complete sentences when conducting a search. This can be a huge opportunity for you to take advantage of its use. Rather than stand on a very competitive keyword, why not focus on queries referencing more complex and less competitive.

Check seo centro tool to know the volume of search phrases on Google and suggestions of related keywords:

#3 Be more localized

Consequently, the search engine places a lot of importance on geographical positioning and this trend is likely to continue.
Thanks to geolocation and cross-channel technologies, we will soon arrive more at a city level, but at a much more specific area! The consequences in terms of SEO can be very interesting. You will be able to create more research niches.
Tool to check its positioning in the results pages of Google: rank tracker from Moz
Tools to check the technical SEO level of your site:
https://metricspot.com/app/
https://auditor.raventools.com/
https://varvy.com/
http://seositecheckup.com/
https://website.grader.com/

#4 Go for the Link building!

For those who do not know much, link building is very popular with SEO specialists.
Indeed, it simply refers to the fact of creating links. Link building is the action of increasing the number of external links (backlinks) pointing to a web page that you wish to see an increase in the positioning of pages of search engines positioning. Whatever it is, the link building allows you to improve the positioning of a page according to the keywords on which the links were created.

In other words, if you really want to position your website among the best search results, you should probably consider creating links.
Your backlinks should appear as natural to the search engines. The more your backlinks will be relevant, trusted and diversified the better your page will be referenced. However, there are several ways to create a link: in a natural way (mention of a site, quote of a site, etc.) or the inscription on a website.

#5 Directories

Contrary to what one might then think, do not draw a definitive line on a directory registration. You just have to use it in a clever way, and not spam hundreds of directories, which would only penalize your own site. In this respect, three types of directories must be distinguished, all of which do not require the same approach: general directories, thematic directories, and local directories.
For registration in general directories, we recommend using Knowem which is a service that will register your institution on general directories and be putting a backlink on them. To find thematic and local directories we refer you to which lists these directories.

#6 Comments

The link building in comments of other sites generally obtains the objective of artificially obtaining backlinks in a logic of ‘optimization’ of the natural referencing. This practice is to be conducted with caution. Abuse of this practice is a practice considered black hat SEO and Google may penalize you.