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Keyword Search

Identify the keywords that you believe your target audience would use to search for your product or service.

Look for words and phrases that are the most relevant to your product or service versus how much potential traffic they bring.  For example, the keyword phrase “minnesota lawyers” may be too generic for a Minneapolis law firm that only specializes in criminal law.  A better search engine phrase may be “criminal lawyers Minneapolis,” because it’s more descriptive and relevant to its target audience.

Focus on finding two to three keyword phrases per page of your website’s content.

Below are the most agreed upon approaches by SEO experts to help improve your rankings. Use the keyword phrases you’ve selected as you write your meta tags and website copy.

Meta Tags

• Title Tag- The most critical tag in your website code that tells the search engine what the website/page is about. This is the text that search engine visitors ultimately click on to view your website.  Limit your title tag to 8 words or less.

• Description Meta Tag-  Found underneath your search engine listing and thus people will read or skim it before clicking on your search listing.  This tag is not required by most search engines; however it does improve the likelihood that a potential visitor will click on your listing.  Limit your description to 190 characters and try to repeat your keywords.

Web Copy

• H1 Headers- The top text header before a paragraph of content.  Header tags are typically labeled in the order of hierarchy they are presented in the website.  Therefore a second header in a page is usually labeled as H2, H3, etc.  Use your keywords in the headers.

• Keyword Density- Refers to how frequently the keyword presents itself in a page.  As in the example of the criminal lawyer, consider using the keyword “Minneapolis criminal lawyer” in the web page copy for every hundred words of text.

URL

• URL Structure- Refers to the actual URL address that the web page / website reside.  Purchasing a domain name that has keywords embedded in it like “criminallawyersminneapolismn.com.” may help improve your rankings.   If you wish to keep your company name or domain, you can change your internal URL to reflect your keywords such as: www.mycompanysite.com/minneapolis-criminal-lawyers.html.

Link Popularity

Increasing your website’s link popularity is the second component to the search engine optimization campaign.  I’ve attached the two links below to provide more detail.

Places To Promote Your Website for Free - Part 1

Places To Promote Your Website for Free Part 2

If you are unsure how to deploy these optimization techniques, you may prefer to outsource these services to a firm that specializes in search engine optimization.  As you may have gathered, small changes in optimization strategy can greatly influence the results.  As such, it’s important to find a supplier that upholds the most current optimizing techniques.  To find a highly ethical and reputable provider of SEO, the Better Business Bureau and the SEO Consultants Directory provide easy look-up options.  For more information regarding search engine optimization techniques or best practices, be sure to check out other posts on our online marketing blog.

There is a BIG difference between a good-looking website and a website that works.  99.999% of businesses are aware that they need a website. However a large percentage of those businesses do not know that their website could hurt them rather than help them.

Many websites are created in-house by various different employees, which is usually a big mistake.  Just because your administrator took a class in college or plays on the internet a lot does not mean they are capable of creating and designing a workable website that will generate leads and grow your business.

Another common mistake is not putting your contact info on the homepage in the upper right hand corner. Rather they put it down on the bottom of the page or only on the Contact Us page.  The issue with this is that we are all time poor and have no attention spans while surfing the web.  We know what we want and we want to get it in about 30 seconds by searching via Google, Yahoo or MSN.

I have also come across several Brochure sites meaning they are used as a reference only.  A reference only site is not really a working site, but an online brochure that you can direct companies you already have contact with to but does not work well to generate new business.

The last mistake people make is a lack of links.  There are sites that will link to your site and sites you should link yours to.  This adds credibility to your site, making it more resourceful if you have good links, but more importantly, the linking process helps gain relevance for Google, Yahoo and MSN Search algorithms. This will help your site show-up higher in natural or “unpaid” listings in the search results.

So How Do You Make Your Site Fabulous?
A website that works is one that has several different elements incorporated into it.  Everyone knows that your website should look nice and be in keeping with your specific industry and branding, but there a few other things you need to do before your website is fabulous.

• It should be updated every 1 to 2 years depending on your industry.
• The navigation should be easy and clear for your visitors to understand.
• You should always have your contact information (phone #) visible on every page.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) is an element that is more important than any of the other elements.  SEO is what gets your website found by consumers and businesses searching for your product or service.
• Tracking with Google analytics or any other analytics program is an easy way to gauge the growth your company is driving from your site.

By optimizing and building a working website, that incorporates all these elements, you can generate leads online and find your business growing.

Advice: Use a professional web designer/developer to create and launch your website.

Chio –
Lennea Israelson

It’s amazing how far technology has come in the world of video. Post production software has come so far that just about any shot can be corrected, fixed or enhanced in some way, and look pretty darn good. However, this doesn’t mean post production should be relied on as a “fix-all” solution. The concept of “garbage in equals garbage out” is one that nearly every serious videographer is familiar with. If your original shot is crummy, chances are your final product isn’t going to look much better.

Getting that perfect shot right the first time, out in the field, is always going to be better than trying to fix your mistakes later in post production. Plus, it’s going to save you boatloads of time and frustration. Trust me, you’re better off spending more time getting your camera settings correct, than spending hours upon hours in front of a computer monitor, pulling your hair out and wishing you had paid more attention to those zebra stripes!

Now, generally speaking, getting things perfect the first time is something we all aim for. And usually (if you know what you’re doing, and take your time) it’s really not difficult to get the shot you want.  But with that said, sooner or later it’s going to happen – it happens to every videographer at some point. You set your iris, white balance, adjust your focus and shoot your footage. Things look great in your viewfinder and/or LCD display, but when you dump your footage onto your editing suite and review it, things look nothing like what you expected; particularly, the color looks way off. This is one of those few instances where color correction can really shine.

Let’s take a look at some footage I shot a couple months ago.

As you can see, there is an overall orange/warm tone to the footage, even though the subject was well lit and the camera was properly white balanced. More than likely, this color “offset” was caused by the nature of the set (which consisted of tan/gold painted walls) combined with some spill off from the lights. The viewfinder and color LCD screen on my camera does not pick this up.

To correct this, I’m going to bring this footage into my editing software and use its color correction tools to compensate for the color offset.

Here’s what it looks like:

This is the color correction tool found in Sony Vegas, which is what I use to edit my footage. Most editing programs (such as Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Avid, etc) use a similar set of tools. There are three color wheels here, one for low tones, one for mid tones, and one for high tones. Low tones are generally the darker colors such as darks grays and blacks, while high tones are the brighter colors such as whites and bright yellows. Mid tones are pretty much everything in between.

Since the low tones really aren’t the problem here, I’m going to begin by adjusting the mid tones, which will affect the overall tone of the footage along with most of the skin tone of the subject. I’m going to move the adjuster towards the light blue, which is opposite of the light orange. This will help counter the orange-ish hue of the footage and balance it out.

Here’s what the adjustment looks like.

Not bad, but we can do better! The skin tones still need some slight adjusting, primarily around the areas of the forehead where there are a couple minor hotspots created from the lights.

For this, I’m going to adjust the high tones wheel, bringing the adjuster (again) towards the light blue.

This looks pretty good. But the shot does look a little flat.

To enhance this, I’m going to adjust the brightness and contrast.

I’m going to start by turning the brightness down slightly. Then I’ll increase the contrast just a little to separate the subject from the background. This will give the shot a slightly more three-dimensional look and add a nice final touch.

Here’s what we end up with.

Pretty slick, huh?

As you can see, you don’t need to make huge adjustments to create good results. Once again, I wouldn’t recommend relying on color correction to save your butt. It can be very useful when you don’t have much control over the tone of the shot (such as in this case), but even then you should do everything you can to get the shot as perfect as can be before dipping into post production tools. Remember, garbage in equals garbage out (in most cases.) I tend to use color correction as a last resort since it’s never 100% reliable and can be quite time consuming. This particular shot was a rare case, and I’d say on average, I  use color correction as a “fix” maybe one out of every 10-15 shoots. Most of the time I’ll use color correction merely to enhance a shot and/or give it a certain tone or “feel.” Experiment with the tools you have at your disposal. Learn what each one does and what you can and can’t get away with. Knowing the boundaries is going to really be beneficial both on and offsite and will save you a ton of time. Good luck and happy shooting!

It’s likely that you have heard of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and might even possibly be an accredited business.  But what does being an “Accredited Business” of the Better Business Bureau really mean?

#1 Branding- Businesses and consumers trust other businesses that have good ratings with the BBB.  The mere act of showing your BBB Accreditation tells other individuals that your company has high ethical standards and Integrity.

#2 Business Resources- the Minnesota BBB offers several luncheons and seminars throughout the year that businesses can attend for a nominal “BBB Member” fee.  Which are typically hosted by well recognized experts in the field and Minnesota’s business community.

#3 Paper and Electronic Advertising- the BBB of Minnesota now offers a new paper and electronic publication entitled the BBB SmartSource that has circulation to over 700,000 households in the state of Minnesota and North Dakota.  In addition, they offer a free ND & MN Business Directory for consumers and businesses so that they can easily locate other BBB accredited businesses.

For more information about how the Better Business Bureau can help your business, check out the below video (produced by TMA E-Marketing) or visit http://www.thefirstbbb.org.

The internet has practically turned press releases into a form of direct marketing. Before the only way for your press release to get published was if an editor deemed it newsworthy. But now with the Internet, anyone can submit a press release online and get it pickup by news search engines like Google News and Yahoo News. With more and more people turning to the Internet to get their news, online press releases are now an effective way for companies to communicate directly with their target audience.

Web friendly press releases

More people get their news and information about products and services online than ever before. Regularly submitting online press releases is a great way to create news about your business, communicate directly to your consumers and build link popularity for your own site. But to make sure you get the most from your online press release and that it will rank well in the news search engines, it needs to be web friendly and search engine optimized.

Here are a few quick tips for optimizing and writing web friendly press releases:

• Use important keywords that your audience is likely to search for in the title of the press release.

• Repeat those important keywords a few times in the body of your press release, especially in the first paragraph or summary.

• Link those keywords back to your own website, but not just your homepage. You’ll get better link popularity if you can link them to an internal page or landing page that deals specifically with that keyword phase.

• Use images; insert your company logo, photos, video and graphs to show your reader what you’re talking about.

• Structure your press release just like you would any other piece you’d write for the Web with headings, subheadings, bullet points, bold and italics.

The Internet has changed the way we communicate in so many ways and now has even changed how we communicate with press releases. However, it is still important that your press release remains newsworthy. When using online press releases to communicate with your consumer, it can become easy to forget the actual news story and write one long advertisement. This could hurt your credibility and the reach of your release. I hope you find these tips helpful as you begin utilizing online press releases as a way to communicate directly with your consumers.