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Amanda Stephens
Recent articles by Amanda
5 Critical Factors When Designing a New Website
When designing a new website, there are countless factors to consider. What content management system (CMS) should I use? Should I use a pre-built theme? Should I go headless? Which pages should I include in my sitemap, and how should they be nested? What font and colour scheme aligns best with my branding? What should …
A Tour of Google Real Estate
In a recent discussion about what it takes to “win” at SEO and digital marketing, my colleague Alex Belanger, an account manager with seoplus+, hit on the notion of “Google real estate.” In this instance, we weren’t talking about Google/Alphabet’s property holdings in Mountain View, CA, nor about how to rank #1 for real estate …
5 Reasons to Choose Rebel for Managed WordPress Hosting
Whether you’re a small or medium sized business, a startup, an artist, an entrepreneur, a community group, or a changemaker, you need a fast and reliable website. Designing and launching a new site can feel overwhelming, and migrating an existing WordPress website to a new hosting provider isn’t easy. Until now. Rebel Managed WordPress Hosting …
A Recipe for SEO Success
It’s happened to all of us: we get a craving for brownies, or are trying to plan appetizers for Superbowl Sunday, or maybe we just want some sandwich alternatives to get us out of a lunch rut. We navigate to Google, key in a search for the delectable recipe, and click the first results that …
seoplus+ recognized at Web Excellence Awards
The Web Excellence Awards, a leading international interactive web awards competition, has announced the 2021 award winners to highlight this year’s “best of the best” in web design and development. We were recognized with the excellence award in the category of Website – Experimental/Innovative for our work with Area X.O. We were also awarded in …
8 Trust Signals for Your Local Business Website
As a local business, your website is a critical marketing tool. Whether referred by word of mouth or found through a Google search, almost every new customer is going to visit your website at some point in the buying cycle. Confident customers might just visit your website to grab your phone number, while others might …
8 Ways to Keep a New Website Project On-Track
A new website is a powerful marketing tool. Keeping in mind up-to-date best practices in terms of conversion rate optimization (CRO), user experience (UX), and search engine optimization (SEO), you can launch a beautiful website that satisfies your audience and addresses your business priorities, whether that’s informational, leads, or sales. However, the internet is littered …
5 Signs Your Analytics Tracking is Broken (And How to Fix it)
Google Analytics is a fantastic free tool for website owners to use. It helps provide data about how visitors find your site, how they interact with it, and whether they complete desired actions like signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form to request a consultation. With a large enough sample size, you …
Are You Using SMART Digital Marketing Goals?
SMART goals are a popular way to define and manage objectives. They can be used in any area of life, from budgeting and weight loss to business and marketing. Today, we are going to explore how SMART goals can help you better measure digital marketing success and zero in on areas for improvement. The below …
Are You Making These Keyword Research Mistakes?
Keyword research is the process of identifying a list of keywords for which you would like your website to rank. Based on this list, you will develop content and make SEO optimizations in the hopes of improving your website’s position in the search engine results page (SERP) to generate more impressions, traffic, and conversions. While …
5 Smart Ways to Use Google Posts
First introduced in 2016, Google Posts are information cards that appear on the Google search results page for local businesses, via the Google My Business knowledge panel. Google Posts rose to further prominence when the failed social networking platform Google Plus was put to pasture in 2019, but many small businesses have yet to take …
How Google Trend Data Reveals a Crossword Cheating Pandemic
I have been an avid cruciverbalist – person skillful in solving crossword puzzles – for the last decade. Though in my younger years the NYT crossword was impenetrable, only the easy Monday crossword presenting any chance of consistent completion, with the introduction of the NYT crossword app I was able to get enough reps to …
Elevate Visibility into Your Data with Google Analytics Custom Alerts
Google Analytics is a massively powerful and informative analytic tool, but it can be overwhelming to navigate. In Canada, 9 in 10 of the most active websites have a Google Analytics tag, but far too many webmasters and marketers set it and forget it. Though it may be used sparingly to measure growth in traffic …
Why Customized Landing Pages Are Worth the Investment
Whether you are running a Google search campaign, Google remarketing campaign, or Facebook Ads campaign, all ads must point to a destination. There are many options out there. You could point to your homepage or a standard service or product page on your existing website. You could custom code a landing page designed specifically for …
Everything You Need to Know About Meta Descriptions
What if there was a way to improve click-through rate, drive more traffic to your website, and better delight users, all in 160 characters or less? It’s all possible when you take the time to add well-crafted meta descriptions to your website. In this quick guide, we’ll walk you through everything there is to know …
DIY Websites for Small Businesses: Are They Worth it?
When you first start your business, there is a laundry list of things to do…and most of these cost money. A lot of money, in some cases. Register your business name with the local government = money. Business cards = money. More minutes on your phone = money. Heck, a new tie, a decent desk …
seoplus+ Named to 2017 STARTUP 50 List as One of Canada’s Top New Growth Companies
Canadian Business and PROFIT ranked seoplus+ No. 36 on the 2017 STARTUP 50 ranking of Canada’s Top New Growth Companies. A companion to PROFIT 500’s rankings of Canada’s Fastest Growing-Companies, STARTUP 50 recognizes young companies based on two-year revenue growth. seoplus+ made the 2017 STARTUP 50 list with year-over-year revenue growth of 418%. seoplus+ has …
We Love You Google – But “Website” is a Swing & Miss
When I first read about Google’s new website builder, I was excited to see if it could indeed simplify online visibility for small businesses. It goes without saying that we’re big advocates of a well-designed website, but we also acknowledge that development can be costly, intimidating, or hard to prioritize when you’re toiling day and …
seoplus+ Recognized as One of Ottawa’s Fastest Growing Companies
We’re proud to announce that the Ottawa Business Journal has recognized seoplus+ as one of Ottawa’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2017! The Fastest Growing Companies designation is based on revenue growth figures over a three-year period. In that time frame, seoplus+ revenue has grown by more than 417%, placing our digital marketing firm third on …
Eddy Abounehme Named in Ottawa’s 2017 Forty Under 40
We are excited to announce that seoplus+ Chief Executive Officer Eddy Abounehme has been named one of Ottawa’s Forty Under 40 recipients. The honour recognizes the accomplishments and contributions of the top business leaders in the nation’s capital under the age of 40. The Forty Under 40 list is presented jointly by the Ottawa Chamber …
Does Your Site Pass the AMP Test?
This year, we’re written and talked a lot about AMP. The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project is an open source initiative with the aim of making mobile page loading virtually instant. We all know the pain of clicking an interesting headline on Facebook, only to give up when the page takes forever to load (even …
Domain Name Q&A
When building a new website, the selection of your domain is very important. It’s the main way visitors will try to navigate to your site, and it plays a role in your search engine rankings. Choosing a domain name is relatively straightforward…or is it? We had the chance to chat with SEO Specialist Lindsay Kavanagh …
Google Strikes a Blow Against Annoying Mobile Popups
Google is continually updating its mobile algorithms to better guide searchers toward the best answers to their questions. Yesterday, they announced on the Webmaster Central blog two important changes. First things first, since 85% of mobile search results meet or exceed the criteria for mobile-friendliness, Google has decided to remove the “mobile-friendly” label from search …
Everything You Need to Know About Google’s Title/Meta Extension
In the last few weeks, SEOs and publications have explored the recent change in Google’s maximum title and meta description length. Previously, title tags were limited to 50-60 characters, but they can now be as long as 70-71 characters. Meta descriptions have also been lengthened and you can now add an additional 100 characters. This …
Why Your Small Business Should Like Facebook Reactions
If you haven’t been living under a rock, you noticed the rollout of Facebook Reactions to all users earlier this week following a beta testing period. Reactions allow Facebook users to respond to posts with a range of feelings: like, love, haha, wow, sad, and angry (yay and confused were included in original testing, but …
12 Days of Digital Marketing: Moving Beyond Keywords
Back in the day (OK, maybe 2012 wasn’t that long ago), SEO was all about keywords. Think of a keyword like a shortcut that sums up the content of your page. It can be a short-tail keyword (fitness), or a long-tail keyword (book personal training lesson online). If you didn’t have your exact keyword repeated in …
12 Days of Digital Marketing: Use Grammarly
Hey, we all have an Achilles heel when it comes to grammar. Is it receive or recieve? Should have or should of? Your or you’re? Affect or effect? Even grammar gurus can get tripped up from time to time, especially when writing a high volume of content. Word Processors If you’re writing documents in Microsoft Word …
12 Days of Digital Marketing: Are You Targeting a Niche Audience?
Visit BuzzFeed’s main page, and it’s a sure bet that you’ll spot at least one – or thirty – articles or quizzes aimed at a niche audience. With titles like “44 Things You Can Learn from Gilmore Girls Season 4” and “37 Signs You’re from Gatineau,” Buzzfeed writers know how to zero in on a …
Ask the Expert: How Can SMBs Increase Their Social Media Impact?
If you ask the owners of small and medium-sized businesses about their biggest marketing goals for 2016, having a bigger social media impact ranks very high on the list. When you’re a busy small business owner, you know that creating original content and beautiful images is one hurdle; getting it seen by a receptive audience …
Get Smart: Google Introduces Smart Reply for Gmail
If you’re like me, your inbox is a constant flood of new messages between the hours of all day long. If you manage both a work and a personal account, this holds doubly true. Trying to type out a long professional reply to an important business email during your commute home is easier said than done. …
5 Easy Steps: From Zero to Content Hero
Mary has just opened up a café in Calgary, Café YYC. She’s enthusiastic and ready to go. She’s read everything she can about marketing, and she’s excited to dip her feet in the world of trying to get her café’s name out there on the internet and on social media. She knows she brews a …
3 Easy Steps for Creating Effective Content
These days, content isn’t just king. It is emperor and queen and president and duke and countess and assistant to the regional manager. Quality content is at the forefront of driving traffic, engaging users, and ranking your page. We can repeat and repeat the importance of having high-quality, unique, and relevant content on your site …
Overcoming Content Writer’s Block
You know that creating compelling, relevant, and engaging content is a cornerstone in any successful online marketing strategy. You can’t establish your authority in the field or connect with your audience out of thin air – you need to publish informative and interesting content. What if you’re stuck and can’t come up with any ideas? …
Coming Up With Creative Blog Content
Maintaining an informative and engaging blog is at the core of any successful content marketing strategy. When your blog develops a reputation for containing relevant and interesting ideas, you’ll be rewarded with traffic from an engaged and receptive audience. Blogs with content that is spammy, outdated, and poorly written are worse than having no content …
How to Maintain Brand Consistency in a Shifting Online World
By definition, trends come and go. They quickly rise on the scene and become omni-present instantly, then disappear just as fast. In social media and online marketing, it’s important to know what is a trend, and what is here to stay. Someone who dismissed Twitter in 2009 as a fleeting diversion missed out on years …
