Understanding SEO can be quite a task, and making it work is even more challenging. We’ve compiled a list of the top 10 best free SEO tools to help you understand your site, how it ranks against competitors, and the power of keywords, anchor text and back links. Watch this quick video and start crafting a strategy to boost your rankings on search engines!

SEO Tool #1 Google Keyword Tool
www.adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Research is key, this step requires a bit of time, but it’s worth it’s weight in gold. Provided by Google, this tool allows you to research your industry keywords to learn about local and global traffic statistics.

Now, what does your site look like to search engines in terms of SEO?

SEO Tool #2 SEO Website Grader
www.websitegrader.com

SEO Tool #3 SEO Blog Grader
blog.grader.com

SEO Tool #4 Check Backlinks & Anchor Text
www.bluebacklinks.com

SEO Tool #5 Search Engine Spider Simulator
www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php

SEO Tool #6 Alexa Ranking (Worldwide Rank, Search Analytics, Audience Stats, Etc.)
www.alexa.com

SEO Tool #7 SEO Book – Free SEO Tools (These SEO tools can be used for ongoing website analysis and stats.)
www.tools.seobook.com

Next, it’s a good idea to asses what your competition looks like. (You can use the tools above as well as the tools below for this purpose)

SEO Tool #8 Spy on Your Competitors (Learn About Competitor Keywords & AdWords)
www.spyfu.com

SEO Tool #9 Search Engine & Directory Submission Tool
www.ubl.org

Once your ready to move forward with an SEO strategy, these tools will hep you with search engine & directory submission as well as PR article distribution.

SEO Tool #10 Press Release Article Distribution
www.prnewswire.com

Knowledge is only half the battle! Once you understand the status of your current site and have a better understanding of what you need to do, it’s time to hire experts to handle the workload so you can get back to business.

Overwhelmed with information? We’re here to help. Contact us today for a free SEO quote.info@skyboxseo.com or call 619.865.8881

Free PDF Download!

We all know that colors provoke feelings. When we’re mad, we say we “see red”; when we’re down, we’re “blue”. We describe jealous people as “green with envy”. And we’ve become comfortable making our color choices reflect out personality — from the early days of personalizing pages on Myspace to colorful backgrounds on mobile devices. With customer-facing web and graphic design decisions, choosing the right color scheme is critical. The last thing we want is to have our design choices saying something that conflicts with our brand.

Skybox Creative recently published a Color Theory report that explores the implication of color and design choices worldwide. As a graphic design and branding company based in San Diego, we know that blue skies can suggest tranquility and golden sunsets bring happiness. But how does that translate to the branding, business strategy and the web design choices you make?

What’s Your Message?

The first thing you want to decide when making design and branding choices is what “message” you want to send. In other words, what’s the “vibe” you’re after? (I mentioned we’re from San Diego). If you were to loosely name the “themes” behind your business, what would they be?

If friendly and personal is an important part of your business, consider pinks and oranges. If you want to express health, healing or nature, green’s the way to go. If you want to convey trust – consider blue. Ever noticed how many banks use blue in their designs?

The Web’s a Small World After All

Since an online presence means a global presence, it’s important to know what your color themes mean to cultures around the world. It may not be what you think. Yellow, which to US audiences suggests summer, sunshine and optimism signifies mourning in Mexico. And red – sexy and dangerous in America – is a sign of purity in Asia. For more information about what colors mean around the world, download the report from Skybox Creative.

Apart from our Color Theory report, there are other great web and graphic design resources like Computerarts and Designtaxi that regularly report on the best approaches to color including reviews of software that can help make those colorful fantasies a reality.  A Google search of “color theory” will also return results with tutorials where you can read more and even try out color combinations without going public in mismatched clothes!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Brand Consultancy with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

From Pac-man to Bastille Day, Google has honored key dates and anniversaries for over a decade with their special doodles. Who doesn’t anticipate a fun new logo every now and then on their Google homepage? Today, over 300 Doodles have been designed for the USA, and over 7oo for international countries.

Curious about the conception of the Google doodle? It all started in 1998, when Google founders Larry and Sergey tweaked the logo to announce their attendance at the Burning Man festival. This concept of decorating the Google logo received a hugely positive response from users, and as a result, then-intern Dennis Hwang was appointed “chief-doodler”, and doodles became a recurring feature on the Google homepage. Today, a special team of designers is responsible for the creative doodles that are enjoyed all over the world.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Some of the most memorable doodles have actually been animations!

This most recent one, honoring the work of contemporary choreographer Martha Graham, instantly became viral:

Watch the video here

This stunning animation, commemorating the birthday of writer Jules Verne, is even interactive!

Watch the video here

We’re excited to see what they come up with next!!

Skybox Creative is a brand consultancy with an emphasis on web development and technology solutions. Get in touch today! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Startup America, an initiative launched this year to encourage high-growth entrepreneurship in the U.S., is introducing a huge partnership program this month — and Google has announced its $100 million commitment to the cause!

Click to read about the commitment on Google’s official blog

The Startup America Partnership‘s goal is to help entrepreneurs launch and nurture successful companies, with the support and resources of already well-established businesses. The program offers different solutions depending on which of the four stages the participating start-up is in — Idea (no company yet), Startup (newly created), Rampup (initial growth stage), or Speedup (exponential staff and revenue growth). Regardless of which stage a company is in, Startup America is offering a new free membership program for young companies who sign up!

Here’s how Google comes into the picture: From June 1, 2011 until June 1, 2012, Google advertising platforms (such as Adwords and Boost) will be available for Startup America members to use, and $1,000 spent will be reciprocated by a $1,000 match from Google. This is an amazing resource for promising young businesses who are starting out by humble means, just as Google once did.

And Google is not the only big contributor to the program — HP, Facebook, Cisco, and IBM are some of the other seasoned companies giving the newbies a boost. You can view a list of all the established organizations that are providing resources for the Startup America Partnership program here.

Do you know – or are you – an entrepreneur who could benefit from being a Startup America member? Look through the Resources center to find out if you should get involved!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your growing business with impactful brand + web design.

Search engine traffic, we all want it.

Google is at the forefront of every business owners mind, ranking high translates directly to business growth, there’s no denying that. So what are a few ways a website or blog can increase their search engine foot traffic? Here are 5 tips that can help get you started:

1. Title Tags on Your Website or Blog
This is one of those tried and true SEO tactics that has been around for a while and still makes a significant impact on your SEO today. One thing to keep in mind when writing your title tags is to think of the person searching on Google (or any other search engine for that matter), try to think of something that will make people want to click on your link. One way to do this is include the topic and a benefit, this easily allows for 2 keyword phrases to fit into the title.

A rule to remember: only 65 characters will display in the search results, anything after that will show up as … in the results.

Quick fact: 80% of top ranking pages include keywords in their title.

2. Blog Updates
We all know we should be blogging regularly, but who has the time right? People used to say once a week was good, but things are changing and fresh content is the key to search engine favorability. The new rule of thumb is to update your blog every 1-2 days (or more if you can manage that) to keep search engines indexing your pages regularly. Remember to use keywords in your title, URL string, body copy, categories and keyword tags. That’s the beauty of blogging, WordPress and other blogging tools make it easy to add keywords in a number of different places that really help you rank. Oh and don’t forget about linking…

3. Link to Other Blogs and Websites
As part of your SEO campaign, it’s a good idea to include outbound links. Google likes links to relevant and reputable websites.

4. Backlinking
This is one of the cornerstones of a good SEO campaign. The quality of your backlinks is very important though, the better the page rank and the higher the foot traffic, the better the backlink. Also what anchor text are you backlinking from? There are amazing free tools like BlueBacklinks.com that allow you to see how many backlinks you have and what anchor text is linking to you.

5. Internal Linking
If a blog post or page within your site has achieved a good page rank, use it to build in a few links to other pages within your site. Links will still hold search engine value even if they are coming from within the same site.

For an SEO website evaluation, contact us at info@skyboxcreative.com or call 619-381-3825

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your business with engaging brand + web design.

SEO is a term that is tossed around on a daily basis yet there are many people who still do not understand what it is. Firstly, there are 2 components to SEO and generating traffic online: Organic SEO and PPC. The term ‘Organic Search Engine Optimization’ refers to ranking well on Search Engines for specific keywords without paying on a per-click basis. Then there is PPC, which stands for, you guessed it Pay-Per-Click! There are a slew of local and national organizations offering SEO, but it is important to do your homework before hiring any of these companies. There are some basics that everyone should understand, so we are going to educate you here on just a few of the main points.

Defining your keywords and keyword combinations is a vital first step in the process. For instance, Web Design San Diego is a different keyword combination than San Diego Web Design, so selecting the appropriate keyword combinations is tricky. Getting thousands of ‘hits’ is not nearly as important as attracting relevant traffic. A great way to start your research is to sign up with a Google ‘Ad Words’ Account. You do not have pay anything to start the set up, but once your account is activated, you will have access to a tool called: Search-based Keyword Tool and the Keyword Tool. It is good to understand which keywords generate the most traffic, but also to make sure the ones you choose will help drive sales. For instance, a term such as ‘Brand’ will generate over 1,000,000 searches on Google monthly, but the term is too generic to sell ‘Branding’ or a specific brand for that matter, besides, you will be drown out by the 617,000,000 results, try getting to page 1-3, it will take A LOT of work!!

If you have a product or service that people will search for locally vs nationally, you are in luck! Whenever you add a city name to a search it narrows down the results tremendously. Take the Web Design example, a search for ‘Web Design’ generates 375,000,000 results, where as a search for ‘Web Design San Diego’ generates 11,600,000 results, you just eliminated 363,400,000 competitors from the running…not a bad place to start! If you have local seekers, you also have the benefit of Map listings which show up above the organic listings when a city name is added to a search. Google offers a free map listing, you can even add coupons and many other business details through their Local Business Center. Yahoo has a similar product as well, I would recommend setting up a listing with both Search Engines. A couple of factors will help you get to the top of that list, number one is location, but you can also submit your listing to specific categories + sub-categories and fill in keywords that way. It also helps to have customers go on and rate your business, if they like you! When visitors find a business with multiple testimonials and a five star rating up front, they will automatically feel a stronger sense of trust vs. your traditional Organic Search Results.

Ok, now to the on-site details.

Now that you understand the importance of keywords, you should know that your top (2-5) keywords should be all over your website. Developing a site entirely in Flash is fine if you don’t care about search engines, but if you want your site to be found, you should limit flash to a certain location on the page, keeping the navigation, title tags and body text in HTML/CSS. There is also a rule to be aware of called: Keyword Stuffing. If Google catches you trying to ‘trick’ the system, they can potentially blacklist your domain, which is definitely no good! Ok, so how do you repeat keywords without keyword stuffing, let me count the ways: title tags, url strings, meta keywords + description, h1 tags (proper definition of header text), body text and links (internal, inbound and outbound). If you have more questions about how these elements can be implemented on your site, please email us info@skyboxcreative.com I have attached a graphic below visually illustrating the elements I have mentioned above. The live site used as a reference model can be seen here: www.drgram.com

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