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Brent Chaters

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Owner, Gab Monkey

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Brent Chaters has been working with internet based technology since 1998, first learning HTML, and FLASH at McMaster University where he earned his BA in English. He later graduated from Sheridan College from the Interactive Multimedia Program, where his projects ...

Brent Chaters has been working with internet based technology since 1998, first learning HTML, and FLASH at McMaster University where he earned his BA in English. He later graduated from Sheridan College from the Interactive Multimedia Program, where his projects won two TV Ontario awards. Brent has since worked for large world wide corporations and small business helping lead them into the world of the internet.

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WEB: Gab Monkey Blog

July 25, 2011

Brent Chaters and 3 other people answered this question

What is the best way to outsource SEO?

Like any agency selection ensure you do the following:
1) review multiple agencies
2) ask for examples of work, as well as contacts for each job
3) call those contacts and ask lots of questions
4) ask for a general over view of how this agency can/would help you
5) ... more

Online Marketing

Search Marketing

July 25, 2011

Brent Chaters and 1 other person answered this question

What are some tips for optimizing images for search on your website or blog?

Beyond naming conventions of the file, consider the following:
1) Placement of the image in relation to the text around it.
2) Consider what content the image links to if it has a link around it.
3) Consider the text in the alt attribute (which surprising ... more

Corporate Website

Online Marketing

April 12, 2011

Brent Chaters and 6 other people answered this question

Is market research important to your SEO strategy?

Marce sums up some of it well. You should know your market before you start your SEO campaign. That said, part of your SEO market research should be where are your competitors getting links from (who is promoting their content), what words or terminology best ... more

Information Technology

Market Research

March 2, 2011

Brent Chaters recommends this answer by Jennifer Wing

what is difference between SEO/SEM.

Smiriti,
Technically SEM or search engine marketing refers to paid advertising whereas SEO is the process of organic search engine marketing but there definitions overlap so much that they are often used to virtually mean the same thing. It is a bit confusing, since SEO is ... more

Customer Service

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

March 1, 2011

Brent Chaters and 2 other people answered this question

What are the best SEO keyword tools?

Google Keyword tool is free
keyword spy (http://www.keywordspy.com/) and spyfu (www.spyfu.com) can be great for seeing where you align against competitors
keyword discovery: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
Most analytics programs will track what words drive to your site today (Google Analytics does this) and you can also now trap what position ... more

Keyword Analysis

Feb. 28, 2011

Linda Niskanen selected a best answer for

What are the SEO benefits of having a blog and where you host it?

I am wondering about the SEO benefits of having your blog hosted where you have your domain hosted vs. having it hosted elsewhere but connected to your website (on its own domain or on a wordpress domain)? Doesn't hosting it elsewhere make you lose out ... more

Feb. 6, 2011

Brent Chaters recommends this answer by Dejan Petrovic

How does PPC affect my SEO?

According to Google, PPC does not affect organic rankings in any way.
Here are a few tips though:
1) You could use PPC data to quickly identify well converting phrases and target them in organic search.
2) Another way PPC could "affect" SEO is indirectly as ... more

Online Advertising

Search Engine Optimization

Feb. 5, 2011

Brent Chaters and 3 other people answered this question

Define Brand: What's your definition of BRAND?

To muddle things a bit, I think there are certain levels/types of Brand:
1. Corporate Brands
2. SMB Brands
3 Personal Brands
Corporate brands like Apple, Gap, Coke, etc. are all encompassing, they have have set logo's, colours, design styles, product appearances, and more that contribute to their over ... more

Brand and Product Strategy

Brand Awareness

Feb. 5, 2011

Brent Chaters recommends this answer by Philip Taylor

What is the best practice for naming a blog or personal website?

Interesting question. I see a lot of blogs with obscure names that are not connected in any way with either the author or the subject matter. I tend to switch off at that point as It seems to me that the author of the blog ... more

Jan. 29, 2011

Brent Chaters answered this question

What is a Search Engine Referral?

It's any traffic from a search engine. It can be broken up into two buckets typically, paid and organic. Paid is traffic from the paid links on the search engine that are typicly purchased through an auction type format. The organic links are the free ... more

Search Engine Optimization

Jan. 25, 2011

Brent Chaters and 1 other person answered this question

48% of shoppers say they click on a company/ brand if it appears multiple times in search results...

This is one of those statements that needs a bit more context to it. Usually multiple rankings indicates that it's a brand related term, which if it is I would expect high clicks, but suppose it is not a brand related term.
If you are getting ... more

Organic and Paid Search

Paid Search Advertising

Jan. 25, 2011

Brent Chaters is now following

Jan. 25, 2011

Brent Chaters is now following

Jan. 25, 2011

Brent Chaters is now following

Jan. 25, 2011

Brent Chaters is now following

Jan. 16, 2011

Brent Chaters and 7 other people answered this question

Forget SEO trends, how do you stay ahead of the curve?

Read, read, read. There are sites out there that are constantly pushing new theories for what is relevant to SEO, as well as trends happening, some of these sites are even direct from the search engines themselves (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/), to some leading voices in the industry ... more

Online Marketing

Jan. 5, 2011

Brent Chaters and 4 other people answered this question

By what metrics do you measure the success of a marketing group?

Lee makes a good point, there should be no free lunches. Awareness works great for companies like Coke and Pepsi. They each will have a set of customers that will be brand loyal, probably all the marketing in the world will not move these people. ... more

Sales & Business Development - Small - Medium and Large Enterprise

Sales & Marketing Alignment

Sales - Small - Medium and Large Enterprise

Jan. 5, 2011

Brent Chaters and 7 other people answered this question

What are some ways that I can convert traffic on my site into leads and customers?

To build on the Analytics side if you want to really know what people are looking for, sample your audience with surveys. You can't please everyone but you can get an idea of what your general population is looking for. Some advice on that is ... more

Lead Development

Marketing Automation

Jan. 4, 2011

Brent Chaters and 5 other people answered this question

Why are links in email marketing important?

Why are roads important between cities? They help connect people from place A to place B. Links are like roads. Links can show you know what you are talking about, that there are sources to back you up, or if you sell something it makes ... more

Email Marketing

Email Marketing Strategies

Jan. 4, 2011

Brent Chaters and 1 other person answered this question

How do I optimize my business’s social media pages for search?

Content, content, content. Regardless if you are optimizing for the social vehicles own search engine or for Google/Bing, content rules. Here's a couple quick rules though.
on Twitter use the hash tag # paired with a word. This indicates a topic, most people have started to ... more

Social Media Profiles

Dec. 15, 2010

Brent Chaters recommends this answer by Tee Hoy

What is great SEO content?

Brent and Johnny have brought up excellent points in their answers. I'll add on to that by stating that relevancy is very important. Make sure that your content is relevant to your target audience (not just any audience). You can do an excellent job of ... more

Content Creation

Content Marketing

Marketing Strategy

Dec. 15, 2010

Brent Chaters answered this question

What is the single biggest SEO misconception that you see from clients?

Not to tweak or change pages that are already ranking well. The search engines are tweaking and changing their algorithms by being stagnant you do nothing but also risk dropping in rankings. Test and try new things, regardless of how well a page may already ... more

Marketing Strategy

Online Business

Online Marketing

Dec. 15, 2010

Brent Chaters and 1 other person answered this question

How and in what sense website is important??

That's a question really you'll have to answer yourself. It depends on the product you sell. Basically a website can function in many different ways. Here are some:
1) E-commerce engine to buy directly on line. Make it easy to purchase
2) Promote company and Brand, there ... more

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