What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of fine-tuning a website to achieve higher rankings in search results like Google.

My 4 Back-to-the-Basics SEO steps:

1. Are the keywords that you want to rank for actually on your page?
2. Are you worthy of a Google ranking?
3. Are your website users enjoying your website and content?
4. Are other websites of authority linking to you?

Do you need assistance with your custom SEO Strategy in Toronto or SEO in New York City?

Contact me today at nerd@anerdsworld.com

Thank you for your time,

Chris A. Hughes

The post SEO for Dummies first appeared on A Nerd's World.

If I had $1 for every time I was asked “how long will SEO take for me to get to #1 on Google” I would be a much richer man.

I apologize if I offended anyone, but I’m here to motivate you to move forward with your SEO goals having realistic expectations and timelines.

SEO has really helped my website design business grow, but it has taken me many years of constant work to eat the fruits of my labour. Now I’m really eating (you can tell by my shape).

If you need assistance with your custom SEO Strategy in Toronto don’t hesitate to email me directly at nerd@anerdsworld.com

Have a fantastic day!

Chris A. Hughes
A Nerd’s World
“Real Work by Real Nerds”

The post How Long Does SEO Take? first appeared on A Nerd's World.

My name is Chris and I am the co-founder of A Nerd’s World a web design and digital marketing agency here in Toronto.

I am addicted to SEO, and everything that surrounds Search Engine Optimization.

I don’t believe in trends, fads, or listening to anyone that hasn’t done it themselves. I get real search engine rankings, and the content that I create and share on my YouTube channel can help you grow your own organic traffic and overall website rankings.

How to Rank your website on Google???
Simple answer is – Reverse Engineer your SEO Strategy!

1. Find Competitor(s) Domains
2. Pull Stats on SEMrush.com of each Competitor
3. Pull Competitors Keyword List
4. Understand the Keywords
5. Create your Keywords List
6. Create Website Page Guidelines (different guidelines for each keyword and page)
7. Create Website Pages (but better). One Website Page for each Keyword!
8. Submit your Domain to Free Web 2.0’s + Local Directories
9. Steal Backlinks from your Competitor
10. Watch Statistics on your Website Pages
11. Revisit Pages Regularly and Update

Do you need assistance with a custom SEO strategy? Let’s set up a call and we can discuss how my team can help.

Buenos noches!

Chris A. Hughes

The post SEO for Beginners: Only Video you MUST Watch! first appeared on A Nerd's World.

So you’ve just finished creating your website, but now it’s time to share it with the world. After all, what good is your site if no one is around to see it? Promoting your website doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money.

In fact, it doesn’t have to cost you any money at all. I know that the world of website promotion can be intimidating and confusing, not to mention expensive. Not everybody has the financial budget to sink into paid advertising campaigns and event sponsorships.

Here’s the good news: in this video, I’m going to introduce some tried-and-tested personal strategies that you can use to promote your website and increase your sites traffic.

32 (almost) Free Ways to Promote your Website:
1. Friends & Family
2. Reddit / Quora
3. Blogging
4. Promote your Blog on SM
5. Create a YouTube Channel
6. Email Marketing
7. Submit to Free Local Directories
8. SEO
9. Submit to Media
10. Facebook Groups
11. Guest Blogging
12. Signature Branding
13. Create a free resource
14. Pintrest
15. Ebay
16. Etsy
17. Web2.0’s
18. Message Boards
19. Signage
20. Referrals
21. Flyers & Stickers
22. Cold Call
23. Networking Events
24. Carry a Business Card
25. Forums
26. Repeat Business
27. Join Forces
28. Get Featured (GoDaddy & BlogTO)
29. Apply for Awards
30. Community Boards
31. QR Codes
32. By Any Means Possible

Do you need help with your Website Design in Toronto? Or anywhere in the world? We’re available simply send us an email at nerd@anerdsworld – All the best!

Chris A. Hughes
A Nerd’s World
“Real Work by Real Nerds”

The post 32 Ways to Promote Your Website for FREE first appeared on A Nerd's World.

Creating landing pages can be a very important step in the success of your online business and SEO strategy. Each landing page should focus on one location, industry and keyword.

Remember: A website page is easy to find for all users to your website and featured on your homepage plus links from menu and navigation. Whereas a landing page is only found from a Google search for the one specific keyword you are targeting (and the user has entered). Landing pages cannot be found in the general navigation of your website.

Example of our Toronto SEO Page – Normal website page.
Example of a Toronto Dentist SEO Page – Landing page built for specific SEO searches.

I hope you enjoy today’s video!

Chris A. Hughes
A Nerd’s World
“Real Work by Real Nerds”

The post What is a SEO Landing Page? first appeared on A Nerd's World.

Successful entrepreneurs don’t wait for success to come to them – they go out and make things happen. Hustling can help you become a better entrepreneur as it helps you manage your time properly and take your own initiatives. By improving your hustle, you can take your business to the next level.

A strong work ethic is a vital part of being successful in your business. Work ethic is a set of values based on the ideals of discipline and hard work. Forming good habits such as focusing, staying motivated, honest with your clients, finishing tasks immediately, and more helps to create a good work ethic that will impress prospects and clients.

Hustling teaches you the importance of determination despite failures and roadblocks. A successful entrepreneur understands that failure, rejection, or negative feedback are not signs of stopping, but signs to keep moving forward and persevering.

My wife Grace and I have dedicated our whole life into building the business and brand – A Nerd’s World.  We recently celebrated our 15th year in business and we’ve only got started.  If you need any assistance with your website design, logo design, or SEO feel free to reach out to us today at nerd@anerdsworld.com

Chris A. Hughes
A Nerd’s World
“Real Work by Real Nerds”

The post The Importance of Great Work Ethic in Business first appeared on A Nerd's World.

I am doing live website audits that help you create a better user experience, and get more leads and win sales.

Get more leads and close more deals with beautiful, actionable, and easy to understand websites.

For this weeks audit I am reviewing – I Create Your Site (https://icreateyoursite.com)

Thank you,

Chris A. Hughes

The post MY CRITIQUE OF A WEBSITE first appeared on A Nerd's World.

Today we’re talking about the basics of SEO and how they pertain to small business owners, in particular.

This post is part of my search engine optimization series written for humans, not robots (hey, I like robots as much as the next guy, but sometimes you just gotta speak human).

WHAT’S SEO AGAIN?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a popular subject over the past 10 years.

Entrepreneurs and business owners have realized the value of optimizing a website for search engine visibility.

By creating content that is more easily found via search engines, you end up ranking higher on Google and saving time and money.

If you’re a blogger, business owner, or someone with something to say on the web, you should know this stuff.

Frankly, it’s not as difficult or intimidating as some would lead you to believe.

I’ve learned a few simple tricks for SEO from people much smarter than me. And I wanted to pass them on.

Because of my lack of technical knowledge, I’ve tried to make these tips as simple as possible — so that other non-geek folk untrained in robot speak like me can still understand it.

BEFORE GETTING STARTED…

Before you start writing content for search engines, you need to decide: What are you going to write about?

SEO is about having a laser focus, so knowing what term or phrase you want to focus on ahead of time is important. You should choose a term that is broad enough that people will search for it, but narrow so that you have a chance of getting ranked for it.  In SEO terms we call that “long tail keywords”.

For example, the term “Dentist” is way too general. However, “Best Dentist in Downtown Toronto” is a pretty good one.

Once you’ve chosen a term or suite of terms, it’s time to start creating content.

THE BASICS OF SEO

Here is a list of Search Engine Optimization basics — all the essential need-to-know stuff — for business owners, beginners, and other non-bots:

#1 WRITE A GOOD TITLE

A good page title is your bread-and-butter. It should include your keywords as close to the beginning of the title as possible.

You can see the page title by looking at the top of your browser window. For instance, You’ll see that mine is: “seo-for-beginners” but that I have a slightly different headline.

Try to keep it under 65 characters total, so that it doesn’t get cropped by search engines like Google.

#2 BUILDING BACKLINKS

Links are essential to growing your search engine ranking (especially others linking to your site). There are two ways to do this:

• Link out to other helpful articles using anchor text with your keyword or keyword phrase.
• Get other people to link to you, either by asking or by writing great content.

Inbound links (or “backlinks“) are the most important, but all are helpful. A great strategy for building links (other than writing killer content) is guest posting on other websites or social media.

#3 HOW TO USE KEYWORDS

Choosing a keyword is one of the hardest parts of SEO. What will your article be about? Once you choose a topic that is relevant to your site’s topic, then you need to include it in a few other places:

– The page title and headline
– In the URL
– In the body of your article
– In your site’s metadata
– Image ALT tags

Use your keyword within the first paragraph of your blog post or page text. Starting off with a question is a great way to do this.

Also, use your keyword a handful of times in the body of your post (but not too much), linking to any relevant resources on your site or others about the topic, using anchor text with links.

#4 HOW MUCH SHOULD I WRITE?

Make your post the ideal length: 500-1000 words.

Going over 500 is fine (unless it means your readers won’t read it, which can increase your bounce rate), but less than 250 isn’t ideal.

#5 FREQUENTLY CREATE CONTENT

Posting frequently (more than once a week) teaches search engines to come back and check your website more regularly, which will cause your pages to rank more highly over time.

#6 DON’T FORGET ABOUT METADATA

Meta means “information about information.” It’s the invisible stuff that search engines see about your content that your readers don’t. While this is not as important as text on your site, it is a factor.

Include keywords in your meta tags, as well as your page title and description. Some blog themes already do this for you. If not, find one that does or use a third-party app like a plugin to help you.

A free WordPress plugin that does this quite well is All in One SEO Pack or Yoast.

#7 HOW TO USE PHOTOGRAPHS

Rename the file name to include your keywords and include them in your image title, alt text, and description (this is also meta data).

Images can also help hold the reader’s interest and can lead them to click other content on your site, as well.

#8 CREATING CATEGORIES

Intelligently name your categories to focus on major keywords your blog may talk about (e.g. “Stuff” isn’t a great category name). And please rename your “uncategorized” category title to something better (for example “Miscellaneous” or “General”).

This builds more links to your content on your site and allows search engines to see that you’re linking to keywords on your site.

#9 ADDING H1, H2, H3 HEADERS

This is a little technical, but not as hard as it sounds.

If your site’s theme has an option for adding headings or subheads (this is a built-in feature for WordPress), then it’s no sweat. If not, all you have to do is add some simple code into the HTML section of your article.

You should use subheads to lead your reader through the article, but also use variations of your keywords in your H1, H2, and H3 tags. (Note: Don’t use the H1 tag in a post if your blog system pulls this from your title.)

#10 GET SOCIAL AND USE INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, TWITTER

While the vote is out on how much links from social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter affect SEO, it is a factor.

However, the more important reason is that shared content via social media gets attention (and ultimately links) from other website owners.

I’ve often seen that when one of my posts gets a lot of traction on Twitter, it starts acquiring backlinks within a few days.

Do you need help with your SEO in Toronto? or SEO in New York City? Don’t hesitate to contact us at nerd@anerdsworld.com today!

Thank you,

Chris A. Hughes
Founder of A Nerd’s World

The post SEO FOR BEGINNERS first appeared on A Nerd's World.

In today’s video I will give you my honest opinion for the 7 website designs submitted.

Do you need assistance with your website design – contact us today!

Thank you!

Chris A. Hughes

The post 7 Honest Website Design Reviews first appeared on A Nerd's World.

What is Dropshipping? Where to find a good Dropshipper? How much money do you need to get started?

WHAT IS DROPSHIPPING?

Dropshipping is a type of business model which enables a company to operate without maintaining inventory, owning a warehouse to store their products, or even having to ship their products to their customers themselves. How it works is that the retailer partners up with a dropship supplier that manufactures and/or warehouses products, package the products and ships them directly to the retailer’s customer, on the retailer’s behalf.

In simpler terms, this is how dropshipping works:

1. The customer places an order for a product on the retailer’s online store.
2. The retailer automatically or manually forwards the order and customer details to the dropship supplier.
3. The dropship supplier packages and ships the order directly to the customer in the retailer’s name.

WHERE TO FIND A GOOD DROPSHIPPER?

The simple answer is – Google is your friend. I used to use www.ioffer.com as a great starting point to search products, and contact sellers.

HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU NEED TO GET STARTED?

To be honest, you don’t need much. You only need enough to purchase a domain and hosting, plus pay for a Shopify website to get started.

WHERE CAN I GET MY WEBSITE DESIGNED IN TORONTO?

Visit our Web Development and Site Designers page here.

Chris A. Hughes
Founder of A Nerd’s World

The post DROPSHIPPING FOR BEGINNERS first appeared on A Nerd's World.