What is keyword stuffing? It’s not a Thanksgiving side-dish. But it is a great way to get penalized by Google.

Keyword Stuffing Ingredients

•       Using words or phrases out of context, just to squeeze in your keywords
•       Irrelevant keywords
•       Using terms repetitively
•       Stuffing the metatags or alt tags
•       Typing keywords in text that’s the same color as the background of the page so that the bots can read them, but the user can’t
•       Listing cities and states in blocks of text to get local SEO-everywhere
•       Spamdexing-this is overfilling your content with links. Search engines interpret this as keyword spamming and may penalize you for it.
•       Inserting keywords into the page’s HTML code

At one time, the practice of overusing key terms to boost your SEO was a successful tactic. But then Google got wise and not only improved their algorithm but began issuing penalties for websites that try to game the system.

Keyword Density

To find out what your keyword density is, you can use a basic formula. First, divide the number of words in your copy by the number of times the keyword appears in the copy. This will give you the percentage of your copy that your keywords are using. The ideal density is around 2-4%.

Another easy way to keep track of your keyword density is to use the Yoast plugin. It’s free and is a great way to learn how to put together a web page or an optimized-not overdone blog post.

What’s the Problem with Overusing Keywords?

It’s usually awful to read content that has been stuffed with keywords. You won’t keep your readers on the page very long. And because it does nothing to enhance the user experience, your site could incur a penalty from Google or be removed from the search engine results pages altogether.

A Better User Experience= Better SEO

Rather than over-optimizing your page for Google’s algorithms, the goal is to give your website visitors a better user experience. You can do this by using synonyms (different words that mean the same thing). Not only does it read more naturally, but it also helps Google to sort through potential homonyms (words that look and sound the same but mean something different).

Write More, High-Quality Content

Writing longer pieces of content, including relevant images, will give your readers the valuable information they are looking for, keeping them on your page longer. This will make Google happy. It’s a win-win without the black-hat SEO tactics of bygone days.

Use Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific because they consist of 3-5+ words. So, while the search volume is lower, they will also pull in the readers looking for that exact information, lowering your bounce rate and raising your conversion rate.

At Iceberg Web Design, we know how to improve your SEO the right way. We have SEO content writers who can ensure your content is on brand and targeted to your audience.

Do you want to raise your online visibility?

Contact us today!

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Your Ideal Customer Profile Could Change—Proceed with Caution!

Imagine you are a nutritional supplement company that has historically marketed to men in their 50s, and you decide to release a new line of supplements for women over 45. Not only is your customer profile going to change, but you will also need to carefully rebrand so that you don’t alienate your base while you bring on new customers. This means considering how you will keep past promises you have made as a brand while taking on a new role in the market.

How Do You Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Profile?

Base your ideal customer profile on solid, current research. For example, if you are an established company, you can look at your existing sales data.

If you are a new company or are marketing to a new type of customer, such as in our supplement company example, you will want to use market research studies and surveys. It can often be most effective to hire an outside consultant to do this research.

What Information Do You Need for Their Profile?

While you want a thorough profile of your ideal customer, don’t get bogged down in the weeds of details that don’t matter to your marketing campaign. It doesn’t matter what their kid’s names are, for example. What matters is what their needs are and how you can meet them. If you are doing the research yourself, here are some things you will want to find out.

•       Name- Give them a name to make them more human
•       Gender
•       Age
•       Job Title and Industry
•       Income Level
•       Ways they connect with businesses like yours. What social medial platforms do they use? Do they prefer mobile or computer?
•       Pain points. What matters the most to them right now? What keeps them awake at night worrying?
•       How will your product/service help solve their problems?
•       Any questions specific to your business; For example, if you are a flavored water company, you will want to ask what flavors they currently drink and what flavors they would like to try. Then give them some unconventional options that you are thinking of about trying to market. Finally, ask why they choose flavored water over other beverages. Your sales and marketing department will be able to determine any other specific question that would be helpful in their campaign.

Do the Research!

There are so many ways that you can get the information you need. Use online surveys, direct or mass email with or without an incentive to participate in the research. You can also do post-purchase surveys of your current customers.

Compile the Research

As a team, compile the data. Once you input all the responses onto a spreadsheet, you will start to see some patterns. List more open-ended questions, such as those dealing with pain points, separately to gain new ideas and insights that you may not have had before.

Now, look at the data and create 3-5 ideal customer profiles. For each profile, you will answer the questions you asked during your research as if you are the person whose profile you are creating.

Here is a super simplified, non-scientific example. Imagine you are marketing a long-term memory-care facility for people with dementia. Even though your clients will be the facility’s residents, your customer profile needs to be the primary decision-maker. Naturally, that will be the adult children or spouse of the client.

Name

You can choose to name your ideal customer anything you want, which will help them feel more like real people to you. Of course, it helps to know the genders before you choose names.

Gender

For example, if 2/3 of respondents were women. You might create one male profile and two female profiles. So, let’s call our profiles David, Andrea, and Jessica. You can give them last names, too, but it’s not necessary.

Age

The respondents’ ages were between 28 and 79. Men tended to be older than women. So

•       David is 76. His wife has severe dementia. As a result, he is no longer able to care for her himself at home.
•       Andrea is 48. Her dad has developed dementia and lives alone in another state.
•       Jessica is 31. Her mom has early-onset dementia. Jessica’s dad cared for her until he contracted Covid 19 and unexpectedly died from its complications. Now Jessica is caring for her mother.

Job title and Income Level

Of the respondents, 1/3 were business owners or professionals in high-income fields. 1/3 were professionals making $60-75,000/year. And 1/3 were retired.

•       David has an annual income of $142,000 from his retirement accounts. He was a petroleum engineer.
•       Andrea makes $65,000 a year as a public relations specialist.
•       Jessica makes $20,000 a year providing part-time daycare services out of her home. She will have access to her mother’s social security and her father’s insurance funds to care for her mother.

Pain points

The obvious pain point for all of these people is the pain of losing their loved one, if not physically, emotionally, and mentally, as their memories fade. But there are other issues, too, including:

•       Safety
•       The ability to ensure access to medical care and medications on the proper schedule
•       Ensuring no one takes advantage of their loved one
•       The guilt associated with placing a loved one in long-term care

Think about what it is that your customers worry about most.

How will your product/service help solve your customers’ problems?

Your brand needs to speak to these pain points and reassure them that you can help them with these issues.

Ways customers connect with businesses like yours

Do they use social media, email, direct mail, or do they prefer to call? Do you need to plan in-person events that you should promote on your website?

Are there other service providers that you could connect with to market cooperatively? For example, as a long-term-care provider, would a local medical equipment supply store be willing to display your brochure in exchange for a link on your website. Think creatively!

Now, Use It!

Use the information you’ve gathered and compiled, or it will have been a waste of time and resources for you and your company. Once you have your ideal customer profiles created, you know who you are speaking to every time you write a piece of marketing copy, a web page, or anything else that you hope will reach them.

Do you need a website makeover?

Partner with the best! At Iceberg Web Design, we’re experts at helping businesses connect with their ideal customers. We have a website-based business solution for you! First, read Our 5 Star Reviews!  Then, Contact us today.

The post Creating Your Ideal Customer Profile appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

At Iceberg Web Design, you get to have a dedicated partner with an invested team working for your business’s interests. Each month we have been featuring each of our team members in a profile post, so you can get to know the penguins better. This month, we are talking to Heather Erickson, our SEO Content Writer.

Heather | SEO Content Writer

I’m an SEO content writer and head of the content department at Iceberg Web Design. I was a freelancer, contracting with Iceberg from November 2019 until July of 2020, when Iceberg hired me to be on staff full-time.

Have your duties changed since you first started working here?

I started writing blog posts for customers who subscribe to our SEO writing services. That involves researching the business and the things about which their customers are concerned. Then, I write articles about those topics. I might be writing for a lawyer and an electrician one day, and the next, I could be writing for a roofer and a flooring company. So, I get a lot of variety.

Over time, I started taking on website projects. That’s an entirely different type of writing, but the same SEO principles apply.

What do you do for Iceberg’s customers?

Every website project that I write content for starts with a content interview. I prepare for the interview by doing some preliminary research and deciding what I need to prioritize since I will only have an hour with the client. That time can go very fast!

My job is to gather enough information from the content interview to put the business owner’s passion for what they do into words. I need to do it in a way that evokes trust and assurance to customers and gets customers excited about working with the business—all while making the copy search engine-friendly.

The process includes writing a couple of drafts to ensure I get all of the details right. Once I have delivered the final copy to development, I am pretty finished, other than checking the site before it goes live for any potential issues.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

My childhood dream job was to be a detective, so I love the content interviews and the research. I get to pull out important details to get an accurate picture to have on the website. Plus, I love getting to know our customers. It’s the one chance I have to really connect with them.

What is your #1 goal when working with a customer?

My number one goal is to help create a website that will fulfill their business’s needs. Sometimes that means they want sales. Other times they want to hire new staff because of high turnover. I love finding ways that their website can make their job easier. The truth is, we do much more than build websites. We build business solutions that happen to look like websites.

In what other industries have you worked?

Haha. You name it. I’ve been a nursing assistant, a waitress, a cashier, a trainer in restaurants. I guess I like the service industry. I was also a realtor for about ten years. My favorite job was homeschooling my kids. I got them through to college, which they each started at the age of 16.

Tell us a bit about your family (including pets):

I’m a widow. My husband had lung cancer for seven years before his death in 2019. Our kids are Matt (17), Samantha (19), and Summer (22). Summer just got married, so now I have a son-in-law, too! I have a gerbil. My youngest kids are allergic, or I would get something more interactive.

Do you have any hobbies/special interests?

I hunt wild mushrooms and am involved in the Minnesota Mycological Society. I also carve Wooden Duck Decoys. I don’t hunt, but I love the carving process. I enjoy learning Spanish, as well. I like learning anything.

What is something about you that might surprise your customers and co-workers?

I’m a true crime junkie.

Describe your perfect day:

Perfect weather, 72* with no humidity and a soft breeze rustling through the trees. I get to spend the day in the woods. I can walk, look for mushrooms, read, take a nap, relax. That sounds amazing to me.

Science or History? Which is your favorite and why?

I think history, though it is tough to choose. I love the stories that are attached to history. There are science stories, as well, but they aren’t well known.

If you were guaranteed the correct answer to one question, what would you ask?

“What should I do?” The key thing is to save that question for the most crucial moment—a pivotal point in time.

What is your best piece of advice? It can be about anything.

If you can learn from your mistakes, you turn them into life lessons. Then, they are no longer regrets or wasted moments in time.

My second-best piece of advice is to contact us at Iceberg Web Design for all of your website needs! 

Connect With Heather or the Iceberg Team

Learn more about The Iceberg Team. Read Some Of Iceberg’s Reviews!

The post Penguin Profile: Heather Erickson | Iceberg Web Design appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

If you own a website, you probably view SEO as a way to influence your search ranking. At the same time, search engines like Google prioritize the experience of the user. That’s the goal of the various factors they look at as they rank pages. If you keep that in mind, the way that website code influences your search ranking will make a lot more sense.

What is Website Code?

Code is the set of building blocks that make up a web page. Have you ever looked closely at the code that makes up your favorite websites? All you have to do is go to a page, right-click on the page in an area where there is no image. Then, click on “view page source” in the dropdown menu. Go ahead and try it now. To most people, it would look pretty complex. Let’s examine a few components of this code to see how they influence your search ranking.

Title Tags

If you walked into a library and none of the books had titles, it would be a terrible experience trying to find what you were looking for. Likewise, if they did have titles, but the titles didn’t accurately reflect the contents of the book, it would be frustrating. You would likely go to a different library.

Just as titles are essential to books, HTML titles are essential to your web pages. They’re the most important HTML signal that search engines use to understand what a page is about. Bad titles on your pages are like having bad book titles. The keywords in your title tag should reflect the content of your web page.  If the content of your title tag is deceptive to users (intentionally or simply due to poor website coding), Google will penalize your page in its search ranking. It is so important to search engines that pages are accurate and descriptive, that if they aren’t, Google will change them.

Meta Descriptions

The same keywords or phrases you include in your title tag should be in your meta description.  If you are coding your own website, start the text with <title> and end with </title>. This tells search engines the topic and keyword that your web page is about.

Honest and unique Meta descriptions for each page on your site are a must. If readers go to your site based on the description, but then what they find doesn’t match, it will have a negative effect on the user experience.

The Meta description is a lot like the synopsis on the back of a book. The title tag is the heading, and the Meta description describes the content. Just like the limited space on the back of a book cover, your Meta description (which includes your target keywords) should be 160 characters or less.

How does a Meta Description influence your search ranking?

A skillfully written Meta description will help you rank well on Google, but it will also sell and encourage readers to “click” on it when it shows up on a search engine result page (SERP) with the keywords the user searched for in bold, catching the user’s eye. Both can result in additional clicks to your site.

It’s important to understand that having a Meta description tag doesn’t guarantee that your description will actually get used. While having made it more likely that what you prefer will appear, search engines may create a different description based on what they believe is most relevant for a particular query.

Header Tags <— (This is a Header Tag)

Header Tags help readers navigate your content more easily. For example, you would give the main headline an H1 tag. Relevant subheadings follow with an H2 tag. They identify key sections of a web page, reflecting the logical structure (or outline) of a page. Including keywords in your header tags gives search engines a clue regarding what a page is about. This can increase the chance of appearing in searches for those words.

Links

Links are essential for SEO. Together with XML sitemaps, they help search engine crawlers locate and index web pages.  The following guidelines will help you create links that are more search engine friendly:

• They contain the keywords you want users to follow.
• They should be blue (and underlined)—these act as visual cues to the user that the text is a link. Without this formatting practice, it will be difficult for the user to recognize and click on links.
• Avoid making links all uppercase or lowercase characters
• Don’t give generic instructions within your links such as “more”, “read more”, “click here” and “learn more.” Users identify and understand links and therefore it is not necessary to tell users to click them.
• Set up cross-links internally and from other websites.

The Need for Speed

Users typically spend between 10 and 20 seconds on a web page unless the content grabs their attention. Now imagine how quickly users will leave a web page if that content takes very long to load!

https://storage.googleapis.com/twg-content/original_images/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks-01-01-download.jpg

Faster sites create happy users and speed is becoming more important to users every year. Google has even started including site speed in web search ranking. This is a crucial way in which website code influences your search ranking.

Larger files created when JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) embed code in HTML files, make them slower to load. It can help to externalize the JS and CSS files and fetch the code whenever required. Compressing these files will make them smaller and thus faster to fetch.

Check out what a couple of Google webmasters have to say about the concept of speed on #askgooglewebmasters

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/7HKYsJJrySY” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>

How your website code influences your search ranking is complicated

If you want to increase your search ranking, contact the professionals at Iceberg Web Design. They have the experience and knowledge needed to take your website to the next level.

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Half of all Searches Will Be Voice Searches by 2020

Voice search is here, and it isn’t going anywhere. Around 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020, which is just around the corner. And although only 13% of households owned a smart speaker in 2017, that number is predicted to rise to 55% by 2022.

Content optimized for voice can do wonders for your business.

• For starters, it can improve the customer experience by offering content that is easy to consume on the fly.
• Additionally, voice search is a new frontier, where only one result is received by the listener. That means customers won’t have all the options a traditional search results page offers. Instead, they only have you.

3 Quick Tips for Optimizing Your Website Content for Voice Search

Now that you understand the impact voice will have on your website content, it’s time to optimize. To get started, here are three quick tips you can use now to create content optimized for voice.

1. Use Questions in Your Copy

Most voice assistant users ask questions when looking for information. To best serve your customer, use questions in your copy and provide detailed answers. For example, some businesses find it easy to add FAQ pages to their website to answer specific questions customers have about their business.

You can use online tools such as Answer the Public and Quora to find commonly asked questions in your industry. By answering these questions on your website, you have a better chance of being the result your customer hears in response.

2. Go Beyond the One-Word Keyword

Use phrases and long-tail keywords in your copy. When we use voice search, we use natural or conversational language versus the language we use when we type. Use full sentences to optimize your copy instead of one-word keywords. For example, you might type “coffee Minneapolis” in your search bar, but search for “the best coffee in Minneapolis” via voice.

3. Keep Your Area Information Updated

Voice searches are 3X more likely to be local-based than text-related. This means that the areas you serve and your contact information are critical for voice search. Using the same example as above, you won’t show up as a result for coffee in Minneapolis if your website doesn’t mention your business being near that location.

List the areas you serve as well as your address and phone number throughout your website. Make sure you update it as your business changes.

Is Your Website Ready for Voice Search?

If your website isn’t ready for voice search, you could be missing out on critical leads for your business. To learn more about optimizing your content for SEO and voice, send us a message.

The post How to Make Your Website Content Voice-Search Friendly appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Building a great website means following a consistent process. Coupled with website design, our development process ensures your website helps you reach your goals.

The 5 Steps We Use to Design & Develop Your Website

Developing and designing the website of your dreams is a team effort. During the process, we’ll handle most of the deliverables but, you’ll be responsible for some of your own. To help you better understand the web development process, we’ve broken it down into five easy to grasp steps.

1. Lay the Groundwork

First things first, we want to get to know your business better. By laying the right groundwork, we’ll be able to make strategic decisions to jumpstart your project. During this time, we’ll discuss:

• Website Goals: We’ll determine the primary goal or action you want for users to visit your website. Is it to fill out a form, call your office, or purchase something?
• Your customers: We’ll want to develop a website that communicates your message to those who matter the most: your customers.
• Your brand and design preferences: If you have a logo, we’ll take a look for design inspiration. We’ll also discuss website designs you like and those you don’t.
• Your content: Yes, this step comes first. After all, building a great website depends on communicating your message. Whether you’re writing your own content or receiving help from a professional copywriter, we’ll complete this step before moving on.

2. Create a Project Timeline

A project timeline ensures everyone on the team stays on track to launch your website as quickly as possible. Our project manager will prepare a schedule for deliverables for our team and yours. This is a great time to ask any questions you have about your deliverables or the overall project.

3. Design Your Website

It’s go time! Before we get started on the development stage of your website, you’ll need to approve the design. We’ll create a style guide complete with colors and fonts for you to review and for our designers to reference during the development process. We’ll also create a navigation outline of the top-level and sub-pages your website will have.

Finally, we’ll create a mockup to give you a visual of the home page of your website. You’ll see the design and layout, serving as the template for the other pages on the website. If there’s anything you wish to change, you’ll deliver that feedback to us.

4. Develop Your Website

With your stamp of approval, development begins, starting with your home page. You’ll be able to view your developed home page in your browser for approval. Once approved, we’ll deliver one or two interior pages so you can see how all the pages work together. Finally, we’ll develop your full website and send it to you for the final review.

5. Go Live

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: website launch! But wait, it’s not as simple as flipping a switch, there are lots of pieces to put into place to fully introduce your new website to the world. The first step is to update DNS hosting, which tells the internet where to find your new website. Next we need to install an SSL certificate to secure communication between users and the web server. As a final step, we’ll install and activate Google Analytics so you can track your website’s traffic.

Bonus Step: Maintenance & Ongoing Website Updates

Congratulations! Your website is now live and ready to help you reach your business goals. Over the course of the next few months and years, your business will likely change. We can help maintain and perform website updates to keep content up to date, add new service pages, add features and more.

Learn More About Our Design & Development Process

Ready to get started on your website project? To learn more about our design and development process, send us a message.

The post Web Development in a Nutshell: 5 Steps From Groundwork to Launch appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.