What is a crawler?
Discover these little robots that browse the web looking for information. Understanding crawlers is understanding the basics of SEO.
2022 Search Engine Optimization Guide
Complete SEO guide to increase your positioning on Google without having to program.
How much does a website cost?
How much does a website cost?
- The average cost of hiring a web agency is $ 100 / hour.
- A basic website consists of about eight pages.
- It takes 40 hours to produce these 8 pages.
- A quality website will cost you between $ 4000 and $ 5000
- Most of the time, you’re throwing that money outside the window
It is often said that a beautiful website can cost as much as a car, what is not said is that a beautiful website, without an effective SEO strategy, has no value …
Do not waste your money on a website if you do not invest in SEO*
I meet dozens of clients each year who are proud to make me discover their websites; small artistic, contemporary wonders, where pictures occupy the majority of the space and where the cryptic texts are borrowed from poems worthy of Nelligan. Sites with grandiose visual effects, moving at the touch of my finger on the mouse, like a ballerina at the big theater.
Technology continues to offer us site creation tools that are more beautiful than one another. The old austere WordPress is slowly giving way to new, more dynamic themes. Emerging newcomers like Squarespace or Webflow are surfacing to offer everyone beautiful designs. A website is no longer just a business card or an online store, it is gradually becoming a brand, a symbol of vanity … look at what my site can do!
The sites of my clients are like treasures, unique jewels that are the pride of their designer and owner. Unfortunately, like many treasures, these sites often languish at the bottom of the sea, buried under hundreds of pages in an ocean of Google searches …
I cannot count the amount of times when, after having admired the site of a future client, I looked at the number of organic visits that it generated (i.e., how many times a month the site was visited by a user who had discovered it on a search engine) and found that more often than not, the answer was “0”, no one visits these little masterpieces of modern technology.
Why do these beautiful sites have no visitors? Simply because Google considers them irrelevant. But why? In order to better understand, one must first understand what Google is looking for.
What is Google searching for ?
Google’s mission is to find the answer to a query as quickly and as accurately as possible.
How to be understood by Google ?
Your relation with Google is similar to a relationship. You must clearly express yourself in order to make him understand who you are and what you have to offer. Sighs do not replace words, just like pictures, do not replace texts.
Google reads your site regularly using so-called crawlers. When these little robots visit your site, the first thing they read and store on Google’s servers is your URL. If your URL reads leroi.ca, Google will know that your business is operating in Canada (ca) but it will have no information regarding the nature of your operations. If the URL reads, www.thekingofpasta.ca, chances are high that Google will classify you as a restaurant, specializing in pasta. It is therefore by reading what is written on your website that Google will understand the nature of it.
The second step of the crawlers will be to read the title of the page, which should be identified in the code by your programmer as the H1 tag. There must only be one H1 tag per page. The H1 acts as a business card and must clearly indicate what the company offers. You can check the tags of your pages here.
When building a website, you have to ask yourself, what will my future clients search for and how will I make sure that Google knows I have the answer to their needs? So you have to stop thinking like an artist and start thinking like a robot, a Googlebot.
Remember that Google does not have a favorite, it only seeks to understand and then classify your page in its index. If your site has the title tag “Where elegance and flavour meet in a pasta bowl”, and your competitor presents him with an H1 that reads: The best pasta in Montreal! guess which one of the two sites will appear first when a user searches on his phone “best Montreal pasta.” The crawlers will have indexed your page and that of your competitor, but that of your competitor will be much more representative of the search of the websurfer. Of course, if a user searches for elegant and flavourful pasta, you will most likely be the first to appear in the search results …
The H1 is an important element to increase your rank on Google searches, make sure you choose the most popular words and if your business is in a single city, I encourage you to add the name of the municipality.
Example of efficient H1: Ti-Joe Lauzon, the best plumber in Repentigny
If your toilet clogs, you will automatically turn to the internet. You will then look for: “Plumber Repentigny” or “Best Plumber in Repentigny””
Our H1 covers both searches, which greatly increases the likelihood that Ti-Joe Plumbing will find itself at the top of the first page of Google searches.
After H1, crawlers continue to read your site, switching to H2, and so on, until the end of the page. It is by reading the texts on your site that Google will understand and record in its index the nature of your business. This means that the new trendy websites, with lots of images and very few words, have little material to index and are likely to end up far in search results. If the nature of your site is not clear in the texts, change them.
A little trick: Read your H1, H2 and H3 titles tags out loud to someone who does not know your company, he should be able to tell you clearly after reading, the nature of your operations.
Here are three examples of very beautiful websites whose homepages have no relevance for Google and which, despite everything, are described as examples to follow :
Source: https://winningwp.com/examples-of-websites-using-squarespace/
A quick glance at each one of these websites quickly makes it possible to realize the lack of titles and texts. If for a human, it is difficult to understand the nature of the site, imagine how hard it is for a robot.
Conclusion
The simplicity of your texts and their concordance with the most recurring searches for your services or products are the starting point of good SEO. We must not neglect the quantity of words. Research shows that blogs that rank at the top of the first page of Google typically have 1500 words on their home page.
A beautiful website without SEO is like a sports car without a powerful engine.
Google evaluates more than two hundred elements in its algorithm to determine the position of a website on a page. An SEO expert will advise you to ensure that your site does not get lost in the abyss of search engines.
N’hésitez pas à communiquer avec moi pour toutes questions.
Eric St-Cyr
Leader ProStarSEO
[email protected]
581 447 4376
*SEO means Search Engine Optimization
Why do you have to do SEO?
SEO, the most important tool of your digital marketing strategy.
“Build it and they will come,” said God to Noah when he asked him where all these animals came from to live in his ark. It is with such faith that many of you undertake to build a website for your business and then look forward to the arrival of your first customers.
After a few weeks, when nothing moves, you learn, you read and desperately explore other avenues to generate the traffic so hoped. You create a Facebook page, and then a Twitter page, an Instagram account, a Pinterest account, you do the same with LinkedIn. Finally, you are told that what really matters is having your Google My Business page. From a simple web page, which was to act as a showcase for your business, you end up with 7 or 8 entities that, according to the digital gurus, must be fed regular content … You are caught off guard, you run out of time and then you hire a subcontractor to amuse the gallery with posts that you hope will become viral and bring you notoriety and fortune.
After a year, you now have more friends than you did at the peak of your popularity in your highschool years, but still no sales online. You decide to increase your expenses and invest in Google and Facebook advertising. Finally, the wheel begins to turn and sales come at the rate of the dollars you spend. As your margins are slim, when you consider all of your marketing expenses, you slow down your spending to analyze if momentum is setting in and if sales can keep increasing with less capital. Unfortunately, the drop in your advertising costs translates into a collapse of your sales. Are Google and Facebook the only ones who get rich in this circus?
How do you drive traffic to your website without spending a fortune?
Everything was so simple when there were only yellow pages, when spending a few dollars a year brought you a steady stream of customers. Everything seems complicated now; and yet the solution is there, within your reach. I’m not talking about Yellow Pages online here, but about a tool that’s a thousand times more powerful, a tool that gives you the unique opportunity to get customers to know you and increase your sales for free, I’m talking about Google.
Google has replaced all the telephone directories and archaic research tools we used in the past. When we’re looking for something, whether it’s Dolly Parton’s chest size (a 105 double D) or the nearest plumber’s phone number, it’s on Google that we “google” the search.
These sales that come from your Google Ads, they happen simply because in exchange for your money, Google positions you at the top of its page for the chosen keywords.
Still, I bet that when you do a search to find a plumber, instinctively you skip the ads presented by Google and you focus on the first two or three results presented by the search engine, those called in the industry, the organic results. The following graph shows us that organic results generate 57.8% of web traffic while paid ads from Google bring only 2.7%. The first is free and the latter costs money. Imagine the forecast of your sales and profits if you were the leader in SEO for the keywords your customers are looking for.
The sources of traffic on all websites
If you get results by squandering your money in Google Ads, which accounts for only 2.7% of web traffic, think of the results you would get by occupying the first organic place on the search engines!
Organic SEO on Google generates 20X more traffic than Google Ads
SEO, a long-term investment.
Putting your money in Facebook, Google or Instagram advertising can be an excellent strategy, it is about measuring the expenses necessary to make a sale versus the reported net income. If your margins are high, it’s an effective way to generate profits quickly and increase brand awareness.
However, it is an expense, not an investment. If the expense stops, sales disappear. However, a solid SEO strategy that gradually increases your website’s position on search pages will have a much longer-term effect on your sales than a passing ad. Indeed, unless there is a major change in the algorithm or a downgrading of the site caused by a penalty due to non-compliance with Google’s policies, sites that rise to the top of the ranking tend to maintain their positions. It should also be noted that the position of a site in the search engines and its organic traffic contributes greatly to the value of the firm during an acquisition. In addition to increasing your sales, a strong SEO will increase the value of your business.
How much does a solid SEO strategy cost?
Unless you do this yourself with the help of a detailed audit, an option that you should explore if time allows, your SEO strategy will require substantial capital investment. You must consider an investment of between $ 250 to $ 3000 per month for professional SEO services. The price will vary according to the firm, the size of your site, its complexity, and according to the number of languages published. Why such a price? Because SEO is a specialty, and who says specialized job, says scarcity in the market and high price.
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Should you invest in SEO?
Maybe not, it depends on the nature of your business or organization. Take the example of a bakery. Who questions Google to find where to buy their bread? Very few people. A village or neighborhood is not very likely to have more than two bakers, a website that would indicate the title H1: Bakery St-Cyr – Best bread in Shawinigan, should be in the first results without having to spend a penny. All it takes is a website and a Google My Business page. Why is it so easy to position yourself at the top of the search page for this bakery? Simply because there is little competition for bakery services in a city the size of Shawinigan.
However, for other areas and other cities, the situation will be different. If you get hurt while playing a sport, you may want to find a physiotherapist. If you live in Montreal, searching the internet will return hundreds of results. You will most likely choose one of the first three sites that will be presented to you. By occupying the top of the page, you will receive dozens of new customers each month, which will amply justify your SEO investment. This is the case for the vast majority of clinics and professional offices in major cities.
The question you need to ask yourself is: Is my service/product sought out by users? And if so, what would be the impact on your profits if you were in the top position when searching for popular keywords in your industry?
If you question the volume of monthly searches in your area, do not hesitate to ask us.
One trick: see if your competitors invest in Google Ads for important keywords in your industry, if so, it’s a safe bet to say that at the top of the page result is a very profitable site.
A strategic approach to SEO.
You have limited capital and are looking to choose between SEO and Google Ads and Facebook ads? Observe the situation of your current sales and available capital. Then, establish a Web advertising strategy on Google Ads or Facebook, depending on your product. Finally, capture the extra profits generated by the ad campaign and invest in SEO. You will get short term results with your advertising and invest in long term SEO, which will keep you going for years.
How to choose your SEO agency?
Since this business is complex and very few people really master SEO, it is very easy for people to disguise themselves as specialists.
Pay attention to the quacks that promise you the first position on Google. Either they use techniques prohibited by Google (Black Hat SEO), which is likely to penalize your site, or they will get you to rank first for keywords that no one is searching for…
The majority of website creation agencies, offer SEO as an integral part of their services. However, SEO is much more than a study of keywords. Each company has specific needs, and what works for one firm may not work for another.
Here’s a list of recommendations that will help you choose the right partner for your business:
- Avoid companies that make promises
SEO is not an exact science, you compete against other sites that you have no control over. Nobody can guarantee without cheating that you will be the first on Google searches. - Ask for a clear explanation of what will be done to increase your positioning
- Avoid the long term contracts that bind you, no matter the results.
- Ask for concrete and verifiable examples of current customers.
- Check if the firm has a policy that says it will refuse to serve your competitors.
There are many agencies that are specialists in one industry and offer their services to all of their participants. How can they choose amongst their clients, who will occupy the first place within the same industry? - Check the health of the technical SEO of the agency with whom you consider working with
Any results below the 85% mark should raise some red flags. If the shoemaker is badly shod, we can already predict that the results will be lame. (Free SEO Audit)
A complete digital marketing strategy must consider an SEO investment to drive and maintain traffic to a site in a continuous manner and increase sales.
SEO is the most important tool in your online sales strategy.
Eric St-Cyr
Leader ProStarSEO
[email protected]
581 447 4376
4 strategies to improve your SEO
The goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to make your website visible to crawlers. Once they have detected your web pages, these small robots are responsible for inspecting the information contained in them and ranking them according to their relevancy level in the search engine index. SEO is a science that is constantly evolving, so search engine optimization is not a one-off strategy, it’s an ongoing strategy. In order to obtain optimal results and not finish last in the race against your competitors, the constant monitoring and maintenance of your website are essential.
To help you improve your site’s optimization, here are four important SEO strategies to put in place:
1- Analysis of your website, competitors and target audience
- The analysis of your website. Run an analysis of your site, meta-descriptions, title tags, header tags, keywords and texts to assess your situation and identify glaring errors. To better understand this task, read: The 2020 Search Engine Optimization Guide, and request a free SEO audit of your website.
- Identify your main keyword. Start by identifying the main keyword that identifies your business and make a list of the terms that your target audience is searching for in your industry. To choose the right keyword, compare the keywords that receive the most traffic and ask yourself the right questions. For example, what would you search for on Google to find your website or a web page of your business (without using the company name of course)? Then ask the same question to your customers and friends. Do not be too generic. The keyword “Best Poutine In Quebec” is much more appropriate for a small restaurant than “Poutine”. You can create a free Google Adwords account and use the Keyword Planner tool to help you identify relevant keywords. Ubersuggest is also a great tool, which does a good job at no cost.
- Make a competitive analysis. To determine if your SEO strategy works well, be sure to do an analysis of the current keywords on your site and that of your competitors. Then, compare your current SEO ranking with that of your competitors’ websites. Select the top five results that come up on Google for the most important keyword. Then, do a study of these 5 pages. How many words do they contain? What are the H1s and other header tags? Where is the main keyword located? Which secondary words are used to support the main keyword? The PageOptimizerPro tool offers you a free trial that will help you complete your competitive analysis and make improvements on your site.
2- Research and development of keywords
- Analysis of keywords. From the first list you have created, now identify a targeted list of new keywords. It can be a single word, a sentence or a question. Use your list to determine the traffic associated with each keyword and the number of websites competing for each one. You must create a page for each keyword (and its close synonyms). Don’t try to put several keywords of importance on the same page.
Tip : Since users are humans, the keywords to consider may be expressions, singular or plural words and may also contain spelling mistakes. You should know that if users often search for a misspelled keyword, you will need to identify it and use it.
- Analysis of your ranking. You need to understand your current ranking in order to put in place a strategy that will allow you to climb your way up the search engine results. To do this, you can use an Excel file and write down your results on a weekly basis. To determine your actual ranking, do your search with the incognito mode on your browser, otherwise, Google will first show you the list of sites that you visited in the past, which will distort your data. If your strategy works well, you will see an increase in traffic to your website. Be patient, Google can take several weeks to adjust rankings.
To know : Traffic is a key indicator of your evolution. Some SEO experts will say that ranking is less important than traffic and conversions, but it’s still a great indicator of your performance.
- Set goals and objectives. Make sure you determine your goals in advance so that you can calculate your return on investment. Start simple, but don’t neglect this step. For example, you can set a goal of doubling your website traffic from 150 visitors per day to 300 over a six-month period. You can also improve your current conversion rate from 2% to 3% over a certain period of time.
3- Content optimization and web page submission
Create title tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.). Keyword-based titles help define the theme of your page and divide it into sections, which makes it easier for users to read.
Create meta-descriptions. Meta-descriptions can affect clicks, but they will not have a direct influence on your ranking.
Place strategic search phrases on your web pages. Include your keywords in the source code of your website as well as in the content of the pages of your site. Create quality content on new pages to include the rest of your keyword list.
To know : Write your texts by considering the words associated with the keywords (so-called keyword variations) in your content. For example, if your main keyword is “home chef”, use variations such as “home cook” and “private chef” in your content. This will allow search engines to more easily understand the content of your page. Many tests show that pages that contain 800 to 2,000 words outperform pages that have less content.
- Create new sitemaps. The sitemap is a file that contains the list of all the pages of a website. Sitemap files make it easy for search engines to discover and analyze web pages. In order to succeed in your SEO strategy, be sure to submit your web pages to Google and Bing for indexing. To do this, use the Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Create two versions of your sitemap, one XML and the other HTML. The HTML version is the first step.
- Submit your website to directories. It’s a quick and easy way to get links to your site in a natural way. These links will allow your site to be indexed by the search engines. You can send your URL to directories such as Yellow Pages, My Index, etc.
4- Tests and continuous analysis
- Test and measure. Analyze your search engine ranking, web traffic, and keyword performance to determine the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy. Test the results of your changes and modifications and keep track of how your performance evolves in an Excel spreadsheet.
- Frequently add and edit keywords and content. This will improve your search engine ranking and help maintain stable growth. Also, be sure to review your link strategy and verify that incoming and outgoing links are relevant to your business. Creating a blog will provide you with the structure you need to add the necessary content. Make sure to publish new content each month, always keeping a new keyword in mind.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
7 tips for an awesome and SEO-friendly blog post
Blogs have been evolving over the years and today they are a very valuable tool from a commercial point of view and a great source of traffic for many websites. Brands of all kinds create valuable and useful content to interact with their clients and attract their target audience.
Optimized blog posts allow products or services to become known and businesses to expand, as long as it is high-quality content. In this article we tell you how to write an SEO-friendly blog post!
What is a blog post?
A blog post can be an article, a news post or a guide published in the blog section of a website. On average, blogs are between 600 and 2000 words long and contain other types of multimedia content (images, videos, GIFs, infographics, and interactive graphics).
Typically, a blog post is informative and talks about a particular topic or query. Blog posts allow businesses to post ideas, thoughts, opinions, or stories on any topic. They also serve to attract traffic to a website, increase brand awareness and improve conversion rates thanks to call to action (CTA).
What is SEO writing?
SEO writing refers to the process of planning, creating as well as optimizing content for search engines and users. SEO copywriters take into account keyword density, latent semantic indexing (LSI), structure, style, tone and readability to organically increase a website’s content in search engines.
SEO copywriting is a mix of science and art which requires analytics proficiency as well as high-quality copy skills. It’s important for blog posts to respect SEO best practices but also make sure content is adapted to maximize the user experience. Good SEO copywriters have the ability to develop content that targets customers and guides their behavior on a web page through call to action as well as hyperlinks.
Google’s algorithm takes into account the browsing experience of users and the relevance of the content. This means that the quality of the content is essential to rank well in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
The importance of keyword research
Regardless of the article that is written, there are certain steps that must be followed so that the article is effective and ranks well in search engines. The most important thing is to perform keyword research and define the most appropriate and relevant keyword for the subject in question.
Positioning a website in the SERPs depends on several factors (site structure, authority, meta tags, quality of content, etc.) but the choice of the main keyword is one of the most important aspects. Take into consideration the search volume of the keywords before choosing them as this will determine how easy or difficult it will be to rank in a certain location.
The content must be aligned with the chosen keyword, and also include long-tail keywords, similar terms and synonyms of the keyword. Apart from the main keyword, it is highly recommended that you identify keyword variations and LSI that are related to the topic. These should be different from the main keyword but relevant in order to provide more context to crawlers and increase your chances of being indexed higher.
Google’s algorithm for ranking websites is constantly evolving and tries to understand what the user is looking for beyond the keywords they type in their query. There are many tools that are at your fingertips to perform a keyword search to effectively position your article in the SERPs. Some of them include SEMRush and Ahrefs !
Expert tips to write SEO-friendly blog posts
1. Choose a good headline (H1)
Having a good headline is one of the main factors that will make users click on the article and reduce your bounce rate. Obviously, the success of an article does not depend only on this, but without an effective title (H1), even the best content will not have visits. You should also make sure to include your main keyword in your H1 for optimization purposes.
Do you khow to write an attention-grabbing headline? The recipe for the perfect headline is complex. You need to make it stand out in SEPRs as well as inform and engage the user by convincing them to stop and click. All of this must be done in less than 65 characters!
2. Structure the article
Once you have identified the main keyword and chosen a powerful title, you have to create a clear structure for the article and insert the keyword in the most natural way possible. To do this, the best thing you can do is start by writing down some ideas for the titles of the paragraphs (H2) and subparagraphs (H3). By using H2 and H3 tags in your blog, you can organize the text on the page, dividing it by subtopics or subject areas.
This makes for much better readability and increases the chances that users will read the post until the end. In addition, it is very useful so that readers can quickly find the information they are looking for. Remember that a good article should always have a clear and engaging introduction, a development of the topic and a conclusion. Keep this in mind as you build the blog structure. Creating lists, adding internal and external links, using bold and italic to highlight information as well as adding call to action is also helpful !
3. Include call to actions
At the end of your well-optimized blog post, you should insert a call to action (CTA) to guide user behavior and influence what the reader will do next. Depending on your business objectives, you may want the user to download content, subscribe to your newsletter, schedule a consultation, register for an event, buy a product or service, etc.
After visitors read your blog post, they will click on the CTA and, in the best case scenario, they will become a potential customer or perform the action you wanted them to perform in the first place. A call-to-action is also a valuable resource for the reader, as you can use them to deliver more content similar to the topic of the post they just read.
4. Image optimization
All the articles you publish should contain images, infographics or videos to better represent what you are explaining to readers and make the content dynamic. You should know that images are not read by search engines like normal text, so it is necessary to optimize them so that the search engines know what they are about.
One of the most important elements to optimize an image is alt text, which is the alternative text that describes the content of the image. It is good to focus on the keywords contained in the text and include them in your alt text.
5. Optimiser pour le référencement Web
Once you’ve finished writing the article, you should go back and optimize the elements on your blog post. You shouldn’t exaggerate or obsess over the number of keywords to include (this is known as keyword stuffing). However, if you find opportunities to incorporate more target keywords without negatively affecting the reader experience, go for it. Also, you should optimize your URLs and make sure they include your main keyword.
Here are key on-page elements to review on your blog:
- Keywords
- Keyword variations
- Title tag and meta description
- Internal and external links
- H1, H2, H3… tags
- Page URL
- Structured data
- Etc.
6. Meta description
This is the description that appears below the blog post title on the search engine results pages. Meta descriptions offer users a short summary of the post before they click on it. Ideally, your meta description should be between 150 and 160 characters long and should start with a verb, such as “Read”, “Discover” or “Learn”. Meta descriptions help improve your search click-through rate!
7. Anchor text
Anchor text refers to the word or words that link to another page, either on your website or on an external website.
Make sure to choose the keywords for external links or on your site carefully because search engines take this into account when ranking your page for certain keywords. It is also important to consider which pages you link to.
You should consider linking to the pages that you want to rank for a specific keyword. Doing this can end up placing your website on the first page of Google’s results pages!
Are blog posts good for SEO?
Content marketing is an essential part of any SEO strategy. Blog posts use different on-page SEO tactics in order to help businesses rank better in search engines. Nowadays, investing in content production is key to increase traffic to a website, generate leads and optimize link building.
Here are some of the reasons why blog posts are good for SEO:
- They increase traffic to your website
- Google’s algorithm prefers new and updated content
- Backlinks help you improve your website authority and rankings in Google
- Blog posts help you improve the structure of your website
- They allow you to get organic click through rate (CTR)
- Blogs can turn your website into a lead-generating machine
- You can use blog content for your social media posts
- Content marketing drives long-term results
- They help brands manage their online identify and build trust
- And much more !
Do you wonder about the health of your website? Let ProStar SEO assess its condition and ranking in the search engine results pages.