Family Day 2016 is taking place on Monday, February 8, 2016 in BC.

Are you and your family looking for fun activities to take part in on Family Day 2016?

We have done the research for you. Here is a list of activities in Vancouver and across the Lower Mainland that are sure to be fun for the whole family. Best part, most of these venues offer free activities, which are sure to put a smile on everyone’s face.

Family Day 2016 Activities

Make the best of Family Day 2016 by planning ahead and taking part in some of the above activities.

SEO benefits may be something you have heard a lot about if you’re a business owner, but do you really know and understand what they are?

Not to worry, our SEO benefits breakdown will help you understand the basics.

What is SEO?

SEO or Search engine optimization is a set of rules that a website or blog owner can follow to optimize their website for search engines and, as a result, improve their search engine rankings.

Have you wondered how some websites rank higher than others in search engine results such as Google, Bing or Yahoo?

The answer is SEO efforts.

The SEO world is ever changing and often impacted by a number of factors such as algorithm updates by the search engines. Google is frequently updating their SEO algorithm to ensure that the search results on their platform best meet the needs of the users.

Google’s goal is to make sure they place the best results at the top of the page because they want the users, like you, to have the best experience using their product, much like you want your customers to have the best experience using your products or receiving the services you provide.

So what are the SEO benefits and how can they help you increase your sales?

SEO benefits

  • Put you ahead of your competition.
    • Search engine optimized websites rank higher than those that are not optimized, even if you and your competitor provide the same service, the SEO content will rank better.
  • Most search engine users choose one of the suggestions on the first results page, so being there will increase visits to your website and sales.
  • User experience and usability are improved with good SEO practices and help your visitors have a good overall experience on your website.
  • Search engines are a trusted source for users to generate the best results for their search. Ranking well confirms to your customers that you are a trusted source as well.

Understanding the SEO benefits and how they can impact your business is only the first step in helping you increase the traffic to your website as well as sales.

How can you help your website or blog rank well in search engine results?
There are a number of ways to achieve this. Most business owners often outsource SEO services to a marketing company that they trust such as our company, Longevity Graphics.

While outsourcing is a great decision for some businesses, in some cases there are other options that are better suited. SEO training by Longevity Graphics is a great investment for those companies or business owners that would like to complete the SEO on their own. A crucial investment, in this case, is ensuring that proper SEO training is received for best results. If implemented incorrectly, the efforts can have the opposite effect and hinder your rankings.

Longevity Graphics SEO training is the best local SEO training in Vancouver. It teaches business owners like you how to generate more leads and increase sales from your website.

We have worked with business owners like you for over 15 years helping them rank at the top of the search engine results page for their keywords. When it comes to SEO, we have learned what works and are excited to share our strategies with business owners like you.

Learn from our local SEO experts how to get your website ranked on the first page for your keywords, helping you increase sales.

Learn more about the training or sign up now. Our first class starting February 1st has been sold out. Don’t miss your chance to increase sales and generate more leads for your business, sign up for our March 2016 class.

Part One: How to find bloggers & Online Media

If you have a product-based business or brand, getting a blogger or online influencer to feature your product is one of the best ways to get low cost promotion online.

Public relations agencies rely on online media relationships almost as much as their traditional media relationships. Social media, newsletters and contest giveaways provide the ROI and SEO to prove that increasing your online presence on blogs automatically upgrades your brand online. As part of your marketing communication plan,  you can choose to use an outside agency or in-house PR team. There are positive and negatives to each option.

In a perfect world and with the right budget and manpower, you can have an in-house team working on local media, bloggers and spokespeople or brand ambassador pitching. to compliment this, a PR agency can handle the major media- more traditional for TV spots, print media and product placement.

If you choose to bring PR in-house, researching online influencers is the first step. use the old cloud brand brainstorm.Write your brand and circle it in the middle of a page. Next, draw stems and list all the top categories your brand is related to.

  • What type of blogger would you want to promote you?
  • What type of blogger would be interested in your product?

Start by keeping the net wide; use the basic categories such as: Food, Health, Sport, Fashion, and Music etc. Now, let’s move to using your categories to find relevant online influencers.

Depending on your product, you can really find a huge number of like-minded bloggers on various social sites.

How do I Find Bloggers?

Searching is easy, but time consuming. Start with an excel sheet. Name the tabs per pitch. (If you are starting your pitch from scratch, then name your initial search ‘Master List’ and categorize each blogger in their respective areas researched above.)

Twitter Search

Twitter search is one of the better ways to find influencers. Why?

  1. Basic- if they are on Twitter, they are socially aware.
  2. Users that are active on Twitter, are usually active on their blogs.
  3. The larger their followers, the easier it is to weed out who you want/don’t want to work with.

Searching on Twitter used to be easier. There was a section when you landed on another Twitter profile that would say, ‘Similar to Profile’, but now it just says ‘Who to Follow’. ‘Similar to Profile’: This tells you people that are similar to the profile you are on. This was great for finding more bloggers similar to the one you found. You could keep right-clicking and opening up profiles as you find them. ‘Who to Follow’: Is just a list of people you should follow, based you your own profile. Nothing to do with the profile you are on.

What are you left with now? Searching using hashtags! (You can also use basic words, but that could get crazy. So stick to hashtags. )

Start making a list of ‘Related Hashtags’. To make it easier, you can call it: ‘brand relevant keywords’. You’d use them for SEO, Google search marketing or tagging for articles or blog posts on your own website. Keep these handy for your whole team- pull them from your mission statement. These keywords are your brand in a bubble, they are the various descriptions of what your brand is about.

Once you’ve added a hashtag into the Twitter Search, a few filter options will appear on the left hand side:

Tweets> Anyone that has used that hashtag in a recent tweet. Depending on the tweet- open their profiles, follow them if they are relevant and open their website url to see if who they are.

People> Any people who regularly use that hashtag- relates to their profile. Use this for your main search. Open their profiles, follow them if they are relevant and open their website url to see if who they are.

Additionally:

  • Top Photos>Photos with that hashtag
  • Top Videos> Videos with that hashtag

Things to keep in mind when researching on Twitter:

  • Use a range for followers. Stick to a minimum you think is acceptable for you.
  • Sometimes they can have a ton of followers and a non-relevant site, so look further than the #’s.
  • The above, but vice-versa.

Google Blog Search

Researching usually starts on Google. Start off with using Google blog search to see if anyone has ever blogger about your product before.

  1. Bring up the Google search bar- click on the filter of Blogs.
  2. Google will then search within any relevant blogs to your brand/product.
  3. Start your research of anyone talking about you here

Note: Google alerts are key for any yammering about your brand online. Make sure you have a good group of alerts emailed to you ‘when they happen’ so you know what’s being said about you online.

Happy Researching!

Next up:

Part 2: How to Search Within Blogs and Sending the first blog pitch.

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Written by: Cristina Pagnucco, Social Media Specialist, Longevity Graphics

Questions about this article? Email me [email protected]

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