Tools

Word Cloud Tools for Keyword Discovery

Nicole Harrison · March 12, 2014 ·

Looking for another useful SEO tool? A word cloud may be just what you’re looking for. A word cloud shows words that are used most frequently within your content. The larger words within the cloud represent the words that are repeated most often. Online tools create these graphics for various purposes, but they have become popular with SEO writers because they help evaluate keyword use throughout specified content. Check out the word cloud below for the most relevant words in this article. Word clouds can help you assess whether you’re using the words you want your brand to be known for. Ideally, the biggest words will be the most relevant to what you want to rank for. In the word cloud above, you can see that content, SEO, words, and cloud are important. These tools offer a great way to troubleshoot your content and take SEO into your own hands. To create your own word cloud, copy and paste any text or a link to a website with an RSS feed to have the content analyzed. It’s that simple.

Here are 3 free word cloud tools for keyword discovery:

Wordle Word it Out Keyword Tag Cloud It can be easy to get caught up in SEO, but remember to focus on creating content for your audience. You can use these tools to check that you’re using words you want to be ranked for, but it is important not to overuse them. When you use too many keywords, it is obvious to readers and Google ranks your pages less favorably. Also, remember to use the Keyword Planner in Google Adwords or another keyword analyzer to see how popular the words you have optimized for are. Ideally, you should select specific keywords to focus on before you write a post. Looking for more help with social media and search engine optimization? Contact SocialNicole today!

2013 in Review: Best SEO Plugins for WordPress

Nicole Harrison · December 9, 2013 ·

“SEO” has become a common term in the online marketing world, but what does it mean? Search engine optimization, or SEO, helps ensure that your website performs as well as it can on specific search engines. By using Google’s keyword tool, you can easily optimize your WordPress site with plugins. As we approach the new year, let’s take a look at the best of the best in SEO plugins. Here are 2013’s best SEO Plugins for WordPress:

WordPress SEO by Yoast

Yoast helps users create quality, optimized content using keywords throughout each blog post. It offers detailed explanations throughout the process, so it’s easy enough for beginners to use. It even offers a Google Analytics plugin for easy blog tracking. For more information, see SocialNicole’s simple guide to Yoast.

All in One SEO Pack

This plugin, All in One SEO Pack, is excellent for beginners. It can be used immediately upon installation, and is very user friendly. The plugin automatically creates optimized post titles for search engines and generates META tags, which will simplify your entire posting process.

SEO Friendly Images

The internet is extremely visual, so why not use images to drive traffic to your website? SEO Friendly Images adds alt and title attributes to your images. This image optimization makes it easy for more visitors to find your site.

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache decreases download time and helps manage high traffic periods. It also boosts page speed and site performance, which enhances your search engine rank. Overall, this plugin immediately improves the user experience on your website.

Scribe

Scribe will directly help your content marketing strategy. It shows you how to fit in with your target market on the web, and it provides specific keywords to use. This plugin works after you’ve written content by offering changes to improve search engine ranking. As a bonus, Scribe recognizes other websites where you might form a strategic alliance, and social media influencers who are likely to share your content.

Want to learn more about Search Engine Optimization or WordPress Pluggins? Our customized SEO services match your business objectives and budget. Contact SocialNicole today!

3 Social Media Management Tools You Should Be Using Right Now

Nicole Harrison · May 21, 2013 ·

When you’re managing several clients, all at different times of the day and using different messaging and promotions for each of those clients, keeping everything straight can become a bit challenging. Social media management tools save you time, energy and stress. Not to mention they allow you to better understand and connect with your online communities. But there are loads of social media management tools out there – which ones are the best? To get you started, check out our three top favorites at SocialNicole. Hootsuite Hootsuite is a very popular tool, and with good reason. It’s a management tool that makes managing multiple businesses, people, or clients simple. From this dashboard, you can easily track interactions, send messages from multiple social sites like Facebook and Twitter, and see direct results of your management. Hootsuite makes scheduling messages incredibly simple and intuitive – you can even request to have an email sent to you when your scheduled message goes out. You can also customize the columns of your dashboard to include what’s most important to you – perhaps you want all of your clients Twitter timelines laid out next to each other on one dashboard – you can customize this on Hootsuite. Hootsuite offers free, pro, and enterprise levels of management which could potentially include social profiles, enhanced analytics, advanced message scheduling, Google Analytics and Facebook insights integration. Buffer The beauty of Buffer is in its simplicity. Buffer is a virtual queue that you can easily fill with content that will be automatically posted in a staggered manner throughout the day. Add the Bufferapp to your browser and, when you’ve found something worth sharing, simply click the icon for that post to be added to your queue. This is a worry-free tool – simply fill up your Buffer with enough content for an entire week and it will be sent out for you. Forget carefully scheduling delivery times or strategically choosing which post should go out when. Buffer allows for an easy was to have a consistent social presence all day and week long, but without the pain of manual labor. Buffer also offers a mobile app The and provides analytics about the engagement and reach of your posts. SocialBro SocialBro is a relatively new discovery – but I’m so glad I’ve finally found it. This tool is highly analytic, giving great insights to fuel your management. SocialBro allows you to browse your communities to identify key influencers, track specific user engagement, and analyze your competitors’ activity. This tool will analyze the timelines of your followers to show you when the optimal time for you to tweet is, allowing you to reach the maximum number of followers for each tweet. SocialBro makes it easy to make goals, track progress, and identify improvement. They also offer a visual dashboard that lays out all the recent activity of your account such as new followers, new replies/DMs, and most influential users from the day. Overall, SocialBro will allow you to better understand, target, and engage your Twitter audience, all the while helping you grow a more substantial online presence. But don’t take my word for it – get out there and test these tools! Give each of these tools a trial run to see what works best for your business. Need extra help managing your social outlets? Get help from SocialNicole today! Photo Credit

Blogging 101: Yoast SEO Plugin

Nicole Harrison · April 19, 2013 ·

Welcome back to our 2nd installment in our Blogging 101 series! In case you missed it, check out Blogging 101: Google’s Keyword Tool to catch up on where we are. Today, we will be discussing the Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress. WordPress is not only a great blogging platform, but what we use to build our clients websites on. It’s user-friendly and easy to update, manage and customize. We’ve tried many plugins that WordPress offers to boost website traffic for our clients. All have proven helpful yet one stands out: the Yoast SEO Plugin. Not only is it effective but it’s so simple to use and work with! We wanted to share another secret to success with you that you can start working with today. How cool is that? While there are many ways to get in-depth and complex with Yoast, we decided to make it as simple as possible for you to get going with your SEO plans.

A Simple Guide to Using the Yoast SEO Plugin:

Complete Your Keyword Research: As stated in our previous post before you share your content with the world, correct keywording for your post is a must. With Yoast, you need to have your “word” or “phrase” decided on before you start working with it. Once you have that done, it’s time to making the most of Yoast! Fill Out the Yoast “Form”: Below, you will see what the Yoast form will look like under each of your blog posts before publishing. There are several tabs and boxes to fill with information. It may look intimidating, but the first step is to fill the first tab out.

First, put your keyword or phrase into the Focus Keyword box.

Next, select an SEO title. This may be the same or different from your post title and here’s why: your post title may already have the keyword you’re using it it or it may be a trendy, fun title that wouldn’t get much SEO “juice”. If it’s already keyworded you can copy/past the original title into the SEO Title box. If that’s not the case, creating a separate SEO Title will allow you to keep your “fun” post title but still generate traffic. See below for an example of a normal title vs. an SEO title:

Next is the Meta Description. This is a short summary of the blog post that will appear under your SEO Title on search engines. We generally include our keyword and encourage readers to “read on” and click our link to gain traffic. You really can’t go too wrong with this part, just keep it short, simple and catchy.

This is what the Snippet Preview looks like and shows you how your post will display in searches:

Once you have this all filled out, green and red wording will appear under your Focus Keyword box informing you of where your Focus Keyword appears in your post for SEO purposes. As you can see below, our URL doesn’t include the keyword we chose. It’s simple to edit your URL to include this by going to your post title and clicking “Edit”!

Then, you can click your “Page Analysis” tab that reviews your entire post and gives you the green, yellow and red lights on certain areas of your post. Take a minute to read through these and use them as a guide to improve your post even more. Some things can’t be avoided, while others you can take the extra time to work on.

If you want a different Meta Description to appear on Facebook or Google+ you can click the Social Tab and fill it out accordingly.

Finally, in the upper right corner of your screen where the Publish box is located, Yoast has a handy SEO “light” that will, again, either appear green, yellow or red according to your optimization efforts. Always look for green before your hit publish!

This is a basic guide to the Yoast SEO Plugin and by no means shows you all that this thing can really do! We hope that this guide will help lead you in your SEO efforts and with practice, help you increase traffic to your blog!

In our next post, we will work on optimizing the photos you use in your blog – stay tuned! Missed a previous Blogging 101 post? Never fear! Blogging 101: Google’s Keyword Tool Blogging 101: Resize a Photo for Online Use Blogging 101: Optimize Photos Interested in help with your company’s blog or website? SocialNicole is here to help!Contact us today! Want to see us blog about something specific in our Blogging 101 series? Share below!

PitchEngine: Another Tool in Your PR Belt

Nicole Harrison · September 17, 2012 ·

Looking for an easy way to get your latest news out there, and share it with the world with just a push of a button? Look no further! PitchEngine is a service that allows companies an easy way to publish news, rather than simply creating a traditional press release. A huge asset to any organization, PitchEngine puts you in the driver’s seat. While the traditional route may just be loading a PDF to your website or pushing out a press service without any follow up, PitchEngine provides a much better alternative. With PitchEngine you create a “Pitch” to share news, announcements or promotions directly with your customers and community. In addition, PitchEngine gives you the power to pitch search engines directly and obtain high-ranking on those search engines- a valuable SEO tool! PitchEngine also gives you the ability to share your news with your social networks, website, email and more. This is a useful feature as more and more companies are trying their hands at social media outreach, instead of depending solely on traditional public relations to get a story into the arms of the media. However, PitchEngine is not simply a service with social media press release offerings, such as PR Newswire or Businesswire. These services offer “social services” such as video additions and social links. With PitchEngine you create bite-sized content that people can process quickly and share easily. The content is powerful and drives traffic from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social websites, as well as major search engines like Google and Bing. Created from the ground up to be a social press release service, PitchEngine listens to their users- and with over 30,000 companies currently using their service it’s safe to say they definitely have developed a worthwhile platform.

Below is what a PitchEngine Newsroom looks like:

Other unique PitchEngine features:

Set up a newsroom on your website. You can either embed the RSS feed on the website, use an iframe, or simply add a link to the website that takes people to the company PitchEngine newsroom. The flexibility of PitchEngine allows companies to use it however it works best on their website.
The PitchEngine Facebook App allows you to add the newsroom as a tab on a client’s Facebook page.

For most small and mid-sized companies the ability to employ a public relations company to pitch your story to media is somewhat limited. PitchEngine allows small and mid-sized businesses a chance to get their news, announcements and stories published. Keep in mind, though, that PitchEngine can never take the place of true traditional public relations. Rather, compliments the traditional public relations platforms and, when used with solid social media strategy that focuses on community building and real engagement with customers, PitchEngine can be very powerful.

Some ways that we have used PitchEngine with our clients include:

Online Press Kits
Enhanced Press Releases (Social Media Releases)
Digital Flyers
Announcements
Newsroom Builder/Manager
Search Engine Distribution and Optimization
Social Media Distribution and Optimization

So what do you think? Would you use PitchEngine? Share your thoughts below!