MQ is a data-driven web development and SEO company based in Calgary, Alberta. We have been providing professional web and SEO services for over a decade to leading brands in Canada and the US. If you need SEO Experts, we're the business to call.
SEO and Your Business
If you imagine Google search results are a flowing river of answers, then each search is a new type of fish, and each "click" is like your catch of the day. In this analogy, your website’s SEO strategy is kind of like a fisherman out to catch a whole bunch of fish. If you use the right bait, run a bunch of fishing lines, and cast a wide net, then you could have an endless supply of clicks. But it all comes down to your website’s content—the bait! How you word your copy, format pages, and build your keyword strategy could make you the best fisherman out there. However, without a smart plan for attracting search traffic, you could end up with an empty boat.
Alternatively, you can skip the SEO effort, go directly to the grocery store (Google AdWords) and just pay for the fish (buy clicks), bidding and spending your way to the top-rank position day after day, week after week, year after year. This latter option isn't cost effective. It racks up your annual advertising budget and can end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. If you have an organic SEO strategy in place, it keeps working for you even if you aren’t spending a dime on advertising. The choice is yours, but we promise you, a good content and SEO strategy is worth the investment. The total cost is often a fraction of ad-driven traffic – and that’s what we offer, a way for you to pivot your SEO strategy. Work with our team, start capitalizing on missed opportunities, grow your organic search traffic and get more fish in your boat.
If you’re looking for help building a strategy to get more traffic, to rank more on results, and to generate organic leads, then reach out and let’s talk about your business needs.
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Why Work with a Search Engine Optimization Agency?
Organic search traffic can be a double-edged sword — people are searching for your business and services, but if they’re only finding your competitors, then it’s time to improve your search engine strategy. The best SEO strategy strengthens your brand reputation while increasing your website’s organic search ranking. An SEO agency can help you fast track this process. The best outcome is positioning your website at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs), ensuring that you are being seen by those actively looking for the business you provide.
You may already know this, but the first result on search engine result pages receives about 70% of all organic traffic. That’s a big incentive to be number one! The question is, did you search “Calgary SEO,” “SEO Services Calgary,” “Search Audit,” “Search engine optimization Calgary,” or something else before you came to this page? You can’t look at SEO as a one-dimensional challenge, because the reality is that you need to distribute your efforts (don’t put all your eggs in one basket), and rank for as many related search terms as possible. Our SEO experts' goals are simple: to help you rank more pages and to also get the best pages to that number-one position, which will boost your traffic and give you the chance to increase sales.
Calgary SEO Company
We offer expert search engine optimization in Calgary, Alberta, but we work with clients around the world.
Mobility Quotient is a leading digital agency that works with you to improve your website’s Calgary SEO ranking and online presence. Our main bread and butter clients are massive media publishers that serve millions of pageviews every day—that makes our SEO experience world-class. Whether you’re looking to improve your search engine optimization locally around Alberta, or you’re looking to target an international audience, we have strategies for both.
As a boutique technology and digital agency, we’re comprised of a team of skilled marketers, strategists, engineers, designers, and technical web experts; together we have over fifty years of SEO & online marketing experience.
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We also offer web development and design services.
About MQ Contact us
Calgary is the third largest city in Canada and is one of the more affordable large cities to live. In recent years, Alberta’s diversification into tech has brought a wealth of online business growth including the addition of brands like: Neo Financial, Benevity, BlackSquare, JustBeer, Meticulon, Ceridian, Platform Calgary and countless others that call Calgary home. Alberta is quickly becoming a competitive leader in online industries within technology, fintech, talent acquisition, business development, and media, making Cowtown a world leader.
That means if you’re a business operator in Calgary, you know how competitive it is. Having a strong online presence is essential, and what seems next to impossible to rank on Google for revenue-driving keywords like "Calgary Real Estate Lawyer" or "Calgary tattoo removal", just needs a little extra strategy and planning. You want experienced SEO experts to help raise your site to the top of search results, and that's what makes us one of the best SEO companies in Calgary.
SEO Services Include:
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Keyword Research
Our keyword research gives you an in-depth strategy and target for the most popular and relevant terms related to your business. When your customers have questions, you should be providing the answers they seek. With our keyword research, we’ll provide a predictive and historical dive into your brand’s best SEO keyword targets. With this keyword research you’ll be able to strategically plan content and target the most ideal organic search results.
Example of Keyword Development
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On-Page SEO Strategy
With your keyword targets identified, we’ll help you create SEO-driven page templates and custom content, starting with the title and meta description, down to the last call to action. Your on-page SEO strategy goes beyond what you can see and includes non-visible HTML tags that search engines like Google and Bing use to best understand what your content is about. Bringing your keywords, content and on-page SEO strategies together is the backbone of a top-ranking page in search.
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Link Building: Internal Linking & Backlinking
Link building is about establishing Google’s understanding of your website and content’s value; this includes domain authority, trust, and simply showing the importance of your content through its online influence. Google is all about clout, so links are your way to build direct and measurable proof of your influence. Consider this: what would you be more inclined to trust (and buy)—a product with two 5-star reviews, or a product with 521 reviews and an average of 4.6 stars? This is why clout matters. If we imagine that the pages of your site are like products, then each link to an individual page is a lot like a review—links are miniature endorsements! Your best SEO strategy needs to include internal and external link building, which is an ongoing long-term strategy. External links (backlinks) tell search engines your topic authority and perceived value. Internal links enforce the structure of your site and show your proposed priority of content. We’ll help you use your internal links to create content hierarchy and topic-authority. We'll help you build external SEO-optimized links to establish authority and trust through other websites like local directories, citations, and topic-specific authority sites.
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Local SEO & Calgary Specific SERPs
Does your business only serve local customers? We can position your website and implement our best local SEO services to get your business found in Calgary, Edmonton, Cochrane, Banff, Red Deer, and other related local searches.
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Ongoing Campaign Review
Here's a fun fact: some of our client’s best ranking content started from their worst. It's true. And did you know, the top-ranking spots are not a single-point achievement? SEO is an ongoing race, and we can regularly review your SEO campaigns, evaluate your page ranking, identify opportunities for improvement, and help you refine existing content over time to climb the ranks. We can also continue to make on-page and off-page optimizations to help you maintain and improve your top keyword rank position over time.
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Google Analytics & Search Console Setup
If you’re new to search and all things SEO, we can set up and install Google Analytics (GA) and Google Search Console on your website. These tools give you (and us) a real-time analysis of your site’s performance, with detailed drilldowns to individual pages. Then, we can take your Google Analytics data and evaluate your SEO campaigns, helping you understand what changes may be required to improve your site traffic. With SEO analytics you can achieve an evidenced-based evaluation of your website, rather than following hunches or opinion-based suggestions. -
SEO Audit & Technical Search Engine Optimization Review
Not interested in a full-form SEO strategy or commitment? We get it, we’re DIY types too—and for you we offer SEO audits including a technical evaluation of your site. We'll crawl your site and content to give you a snapshot of performance, and then we’ll dive into the technical aspects like page load times, crawl permissions, dead links, reputation score, and broad-sweeping HTML formatting. With a technical audit, you can get insights to improve your rankings in search engines so you can pivot your strategy and move forward from the top down, rather than the bottom up. With our extensive look at your website, you can determine what fixes should be implemented to continue driving your SEO campaigns forward.
Calgary SEO Audit
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Competitor Analysis
As your SEO efforts and content ramp up, beating your competition can become half the battle. We will analyze your competitors who routinely rank above you in search results. By comparing their site, content, keywords, and overall approach to SEO, we can offer you a clear idea of what your brand needs to do to stay equally competitive within your SEO plan.
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Monthly Check-in & Reporting
If SEO is a top priority for you, then it’s best to focus on results. We can review your website’s progress and cover your search engine rank changes on a monthly basis. You'll also have reports available to review as you’d like, so you can evaluate your traffic and search engine optimization progress.
Audience & Traffic Building Services Beyond SEO
Building your website traffic isn’t exclusively about SEO. We can set up AdWords or pay per click (PPC) campaigns for you, create a content marketing plan complete with a content calendar, and offer training to give your brand the extra push it needs to grow over time.
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Ad Words & Pay Per Click / PPC: Paid Search Results
If you’re looking for instant traffic, Google AdWords and pay-per-click is a direct way to buy top-level rankings on search results. Paid search traffic can reduce the need for a content strategy; however, we have often found that low conversion or poor ROI from paid campaigns is related to content and/or website usability issues. If you’re looking for assistance with your AdWords campaigns, we may still strongly recommend UX adjustment on the targeted landing pages, to capitalize on your advertising investment.
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Content Marketing: Planning & Strategy
The content on your website isn’t just about telling others who you are. It should also provide value (and show your expertise) to people searching for information. We can help you build a robust content marketing plan and strategy, so your website content is intertwined with your brand building messaging—providing value to people looking for answers, while also educating them about your business. Building brand awareness and sales leads starts with a smart content marketing plan.
Calgary Content Calendar & Copy Planning
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Content Calendar Creation
Our keyword research pairs directly with a content calendar and we can help you create one. A content calendar allows you to extend your SEO strategy and stay on top of content creation with a well defined plan. Best of all, you won't lose sight of important content tasks as the year carries on and impeding projects throw you off. When you're equipped with a content calendar and SEO insights, you'll have a guide that allows you to progressively build your site’s reputation and value, putting out new blog posts, social content, and search result worthy content that will make an impact for your business.
SEO Conversion: leveraging long-term traffic to generate sales leads
As you’re getting your content, SEO, and website traffic into tip-top shape, you’ll also want to capitalize on that traffic and drive conversions. We build conversion strategies to convert your hard-earned traffic to paying customers. Through a myriad of strategies including marketing funnels, quizzes, landing pages, repurposed social content, and offers/promotions you can further increase your ROI.
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Search Engine Optimization FAQs
Learn more about SEO: These are some frequent questions we get asked about search optimization that might help you better-understand SEO and its vital relationship with your business.
What is SEO & Why is it important for your Calgary business?
SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. How effectively you optimize your website and content for search engines will impact how often your site shows up in search results. SEO is important because it impacts how Calgarians, or local visitors find your business online. By leveraging smart SEO techniques, you can improve awareness for your Calgary business.
What is the difference between organic and paid search results?
Organic search results appear in the search engine results page, for free – this is based on your website’s content, Google’s algorithm and how effectively you answer things people are searching. Paid search results, (often called AdWords or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns) appear at the top or side of search results pages and they are bought based on a competitive bid system, where the highest bid wins. Both options are available to you.
Which is better: SEO or PPC?
A popular question is whether PPC or SEO is better for driving web traffic and marketing campaigns. The simple answer is that each can have their role in your marketing efforts. Pay per click rankings on Google tend to yield instantaneous results but cost more; whereas organic traffic from SEO is long term effort that pays out over time. With SEO-driven campaigns, results are often delayed by at least a few weeks but can take as long as 2-6 months to really reap their rewards. In our experience, traffic volume tends to be much higher per dollar spent with organic SEO compared to PPC, meaning you have a much better return on your investment.
As an example, imagine you’re running a single PPC campaign that costs $50/month and generates 17 clicks—after 5 years you’ve spent ~$3,000 and paid for a total of 1,000 clicks (or $3/click). You could have alternatively created a single well-formatted organic article (taking you roughly 8-16 hours in total), and that article could end up generating 500, 1,000, or more clicks every month! SEO just takes a bit more time and effort up front.
Both approaches are different and determining the best SEO or PPC strategy for your business will depend on factors like urgency, budget size, and what your ultimate goals are. We prefer for SEO over PPC simply because the long-term benefits tend to be exponentially greater. Organic, SEO-driven traffic will continue when no dollars are spent, whereas your PPC traffic will end when the dollars stop.
What is a meta description, and does it still matter?
The meta description is the text that appears below your page in search results. It explains what the page is about, telling the user what they’re about to read and positioning Google for what you deem as the most important snippets of content on that page.
Meta descriptions are important, and they still matter. Meta descriptions and meta tags used to be the primary place to optimize keywords for Google and explicitly declare your page contents. Today, with so many parameters search engines check against, the meta description is more about appealing to a potential user from a search result and enticing them to click. Meta descriptions still count toward your keyword density and it’s important to include keywords and related information for your Calgary business.
What are SEO Keywords? Are there Calgary-specific keywords?
Keywords are conceptually the individual words or combination of words we want to use in content when targeting Google searches. If your business is a pancake house, "pancakes," "flapjacks," "breakfast," and "Calgary pancake house" would all be the obvious keywords to target. The easiest way to start building a keyword list is to think about the words you’d search to find your website and then additionally each individual page. A more strategic approach would be to analyze related searches too. Keyword planning is as much an art as it is a strategy, but we can help you target the keywords that will yield the best short- and long-term traffic.
When thinking about local traffic and Calgary-specific keywords, synonyms and combinations are good to include (such as, "Calgarian," "Calgary-owned," "Kensington" (if your business is located there), "YYC," "Cowtown," and so on. How you set up your Google Business listing will also play a significant role in how you rank in local search results.
How do I know when I’m using the right number of keywords on a page?
When creating content for SEO, you want to avoid keyword stuffing at all costs – that’s when a writer jams too many keywords into a page to the point that it doesn’t make sense to the reader, and where Google flags it believing it's trying to trick the system. While there is no magic number for keyword usage, a generally safe target is to apply about a 1-3% density. This target helps you think more critically about placing the relevant word(s) within your content but avoids excessive use which may be deemed as “cheating.” Beware, sites caught keyword stuffing can and are penalized by Google, so you should only use keywords on a page that are applicable to your brand, the content, and as you need to.
Example Keyword Analysis
Page that ranked #1 for "commercial lawyer"
How long will my rankings take to improve?
Typically, we see traction within a few weeks. It can vary based on the keyword difficulty, competing brands, and your overall website authority. We generally see that it takes between three to six months for the more competitive keyword rankings to increase.
For more established brands with older websites and a good reputation, SEO adjustments often have a fast impact seeing changes in the first month or two. For newer websites that lack an online reputation, results take more time, and this is where we work to improvise and target long-tail keywords and content clusters to build your site’s authority from the ground up. Whether a site is new or old, search engine optimization is a valuable investment and strategy that generates significant impact especially over time.
How often will I receive SEO updates?
Our goal is to operate within a model that works for you and works within your budget. For some clients, that could mean a biannual search audit, for others it could mean a rolling engagement with monthly meetings and reviews. We can provide regular detailed reports on your campaign performance including custom SEO, Google Ads, and Search Console reporting. Speak to us for more information about our SEO services for a more detailed explanation.
Does search optimization work?
If done well, yes search optimization works very well. Here is an example of traffic changes before and after MQ implemented a robust SEO strategy:
SEO Traffic Data Following the Implementation of MQ's SEO Strategy
For a deep dive SEO case study, check out how we achieved this jump in traffic using only organic search traffic.
Why does search optimization take time before seeing a change in results?
Search engines are algorithm-based and evaluate over 200 dimensions. The reality is, shifting your reputation and priority within that system often just takes time. Keywording, SEO formatting, and your content strategy are great ways to get things on track, but new sites or websites with a poor reputation need to build that authority over time. For brands and businesses with an existing online presence, SEO results are often seen almost immediately.
Some website search ranking factors include:
- Authority: Topic authority around a cluster of content. If Google deems you’re a gardening site, you’re going to have a hard time ranking for legal advice.
- Specificity: The primary, secondary and longtail keywords chosen per page.
- Engagement: The amount of time a visitor stays on your site after leaving Google.
- Quality: How well your site compares to your competitors, which is determined by the number of additional searches a user executes after visiting your site (did you answer their question, or did they have to keep looking for an answer?)
- Length: content under 300 words is unlikely to rank, while content over 1,000 words may be more ideally primed to rank if it answers visitor questions in an effective way.
- Relevance: The relevance of your content based on the keywords and topic authorities.
- Age: It’s a bummer if you’re a new business, but the age of your domain and website affect it’s reputation. That said, we’ve seen newly launched brands routinely get tens of thousands of monthly pageviews within their first year.
- Location: local SEO is important to Google, which is why you rarely see international results when you search basic queries like, “restaurants” or “real estate.”
- Competitors: Who is routinely ranking against you in Google and how established they are can affect your ability to rank as well. In cases where you’re up against a really solidified brand, your best opportunity is to identify holes in their content and SEO strategy and establish yourself within the outliers and then close the gaps on the more competitive terms.
- Cadence: How often you post new content. Sites that are used like a brochure (where site updates are transactional rather than ongoing), tend to start losing rank quality over time. Keeping up to date with good-quality content is an ideal way to maintain rank position over time.
What is an SEO audit? How do technical SEO elements differ from on-page search optimization?
A SEO audit checks technical aspects of your website giving you a snapshot into potential problem areas. It also identifies opportunities for improved rankings in SERPs. When we execute an SEO audit, we take a detailed look at your website and short-list the fixes, prioritized by impact, based on what will improve your SEO campaigns and organic search rankings.
What is included in an SEO audit? These are the items we check in our search audit service:
- Site usability evaluation (browsability, navigation, general first time user impression, and web accessibility checks)
- Mobile responsive check & mobile first site review
- Standard SEO check (SSL certification across https, sitemap inspection, and a site-wide page SEO formatting review)
- Website & page speed audit
- Website indexability & crawlability
- URL parameter checks
- Page redirect checks
- Link review: checking internal links for broken links and orphan pages, and checking backlinks for toxic or low-quality domains that potentially harm your reputation.
- Mixed content probe (checking if a site is trying to load unsecure resources over HTTP)
Calgary SEO services—Where is your Agency located?
The Mobility Quotient (MQ) office is based here in Calgary. We’re located in SW Calgary in the Currie Barracks area, just off Crowchild Trail. We’re just across from Mount Royal University, and our address is Suite 320, 5010 Richard Road SW.
The MQ team works a hybrid between in-office and home-based, but we all live in Calgary and we do not outsource or subcontract our projects. If you’re interested in learning more about our SEO services, please reach out and setup a call or in-person meeting to review your specific needs.
Websites We’ve Worked On
Case Studies, Samples of Work & Portfolio
