Having an attractive website is a necessity to display your business and offerings to the marketplace. However, you can have the most beautiful and stunning website in the world but if nobody knows about it, what use is it?
Ever wonder how some sites seem to have millions of visitors? What sets them apart and how do they do it? How do you convert visitors to your site to customers?
The Okanagan Valley Entrepreneurs Society (OVES) & Kelowna Scotiabank proudly present the April 2011 Townhall Series.
Our team of local search engine optimization experts will share their sage advice and techniques to fine tune your website and increase your traffic.
We explored:
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- Interactive advertising
- Social media optimization
- Web analytics/search analytics
- Search engine marketing
- Google ranking
- Tweaking your code
- Inbound & Outbound Link optimization
- Search engine friendly urls
- E-mail marketing
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- How to convert visitors to customers … and much more.
Our Panellists:
Muriel Archibald:
Muriel Archibald is a co-founder of the Search Engine Academy of Western Canada. She and her business partner Shelly Coe, offer an extensive curriculum on the latest techniques in the world of search engine optimization, positioning and marketing.
Together they offer hands-on courses in Vancouver, Calgary and Kelowna with future expansion planned throughout Western Canada in other areas of B.C. & Alberta.
Muriel is also the owner of SEMpro Search Engine Marketing which performs a variety of online marketing services for clients and company-owned Web sites. These services include keyword research, search engine optimization and positioning, ranking maintenance, pay per click account management and content writing services. Prior to founding SEMpro, Muriel worked for various search engine positioning companies. She has been working in the field of SEO since 1999. Prior to her career in online marketing Muriel's background was in broadcast journalism (radio news) and corporate communications as a research assistant to the Mayor of Kelowna.
SEMpro operates several other online properties including SiteSnoop directory.
Daren Wride:
It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention.
Daren Wride entered the world of Search Engine Marketing many years ago, due to a need to market his growing professional speaking business.
When his team building keynote address The Power of a Team began to take off (which is truly a HOT team building talk!) and began to expand into a full half day seminar, he established a new website ThePowerOfaTeam.com as his primary speaking website and figured out how to promote it with PPC (Google Adwords) and then SEO.
To his surprise, he both enjoyed, and was pretty good at search engine marketing.
He began to market a book he wrote online, then other speakers, and then other businesses.
Near the end of 2008, with what looked like a slow speaking year ahead in 2009, Daren immersed himself in search engine marketing and ended up establishing his PPC (pay per click) services company ValleyPPC.com and his local internet marketing company KelownaInternetMarketing.com
Daren is always taking at least one course related to internet marketing and spends roughly one day each week in personal education to keep up to speed on the latest developments, and enjoys testing various theories on his own web properties.
He continues to deliver his team building and personal development presentations, but spends most of his time promoting websites for clients in Canada and the U.S.
Daren is currently finishing a manual tentatively titled “Internet Marketing for the Overwhelmed Small Business Owner.”
Chris Pinkerton:
Senior Account Executive
Mediative Performance Marketing
Chris is the strategic account lead for Mediative's largest clients. He works on developing digital marketing strategies for clients such as Allstate Insurance, 3M, Zurich Financial, Deutche Telekom, and the American Red Cross.
Chris started his career in multi-channel sales in the sporting goods business, representing US golf companies in Canada. He worked for several B2B companies before starting with Enquiro, one of North America's top B2B Search Marketing Companies. Chris worked with both the user research and search marketing teams at Enquiro, and is a contributor to the book The BuyerSpehere Project - How Business Buys From Business In A Digital Marketplace.
Enquiro was recently acquired by Yellow Media Inc. (a Yellow Pages Company) to create the largest digital marketing company in Canada, Mediative.
Our Moderator:
Rae Stonehouse:
Rae is currently developing entrepreneurial opportunities, online & here within the Okanagan Valley. Through his business Rae Stonehouse Speakers Services he provides Master of Ceremonies services and speech/presentations coaching for individuals or groups. He is currently delving into the information marketing field and is completing writing his first book, working title: Protect Yourself! A Violence Prevention Manual for Healthcare Workers drawing on his years of nursing experience.Rae is also an Independent Associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, offering affordable legal services for everyone.
Rae is also a Director of the Okanagan Valley Entrepreneurs Society (OVES) and is the organizer and Moderator of our Townhall Series.