Category: SEO

Explore our library of search engine optimization articles and discover the SEO tips you need to boost organic rankings and traffic.

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SEO

Getting Organic Traffic That Isn’t From Google

Diversifying sources of organic traffic beyond Google involves optimizing for other search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo. Social media platforms can drive significant traffic. Participating in forums and Q&A sites, guest blogging on relevant sites, and leveraging email marketing can attract visitors. Focusing on content quality and user engagement also organically builds traffic from various sources.

If Google is your only traffic source, it can be wiped out in a matter of seconds as the result of any algorithmic change. As such, it could invalidate years of effort and SEO overnight. Maybe it’s not completely disastrous, but it is a huge risk for many businesses.

Instead of relying solely on Google for your traffic, it makes sense to strengthen your foundation of traffic sources and diversify them just in case you get hit with a manual action randomly. After all, there are reports of people being hit with manual actions even though they haven’t done any kind of manual link building in the past 5 years.

Take a look at these seven sources of organic traffic that don’t rely on Google to help you have a back-up plan.

Video Content on YouTube

Producing video content means that you are creating highly engaging content that has the ability to drive significant traffic to your website. YouTube, owned by  Google, should never be ignored as a source of traffic because it has 1 billion users. Even if you suffer a manual action or some sort of algorithmic downgrade on Google, it should not affect any YouTube traffic that’s coming to your site.

Changing your focus from your website’s text content to producing video content or producing both can create another traffic stream while you work on addressing the manual action.

You can also promote the video content with press releases because it can drive other traffic to your site in the meantime.

If you have an email list, you can send out promotional emails every time you publish a video to help drive traffic to your website too.

Traffic from Other Search Engines

Even though Google is the most popular search engine in the world,  that doesn’t mean you can’t get traffic from Bing and Yahoo. Because of all of the focus on Google, the search market results are highly competitive. And many SEOs have written Bing off on the basis that if you rank well in Google you also ranked well in Bing. The problem with that is that the algorithms are incredibly different.

Because Yahoo search is powered by Bing, working on improving your Bing ranking will enable you to gain a competitive advantage on Yahoo as well. Creating foundations with other search engines only means that Google will not destroy all of your traffic.

Some Bing ranking factors to consider are:

  • Content and keyword density
  • Site structure and on-site optimization
  • User engagement
  • Social signals
  • HTTPS
  • Page Authority
  • Inbound anchor text
  • Backlinks
  • Bing authorship
  • Pagerank
  • Keyword in domain

Commenting on High Traffic Sites Within Your Niche

No, I’m not talking about the old school, spammy technique of trying to game Google and leaving crappy, generic comments on thousands of blogs in an attempt to generate backlinks. Instead, I’m talking about taking the time to add meaningful and high quality comments on sites in your niche. Aim to start or continue a conversation that’s already going on on the blog – and contribute regularly to build relationships with the authors and their readers. Focus less on self-promotion and more on building relationships because that’s where the value is.

Participate in Forum Discussions

Like with commenting on high traffic sites in your niche, aim to become an active participant in forums where your target audience is already active. Don’t spam links in every exact match keyword anchor text occurrence.

Take time to do forum discussions right and use branded anchor text, naked URLs, and natural non keyword targeted anchors as you participate naturally in contextually relevant discussions.

Nobody likes a spammer, so you shouldn’t just randomly begin posting on forums in an attempt to increase your traffic. Abide by the forum rules and posting etiquette because this can go a long way toward establishing yourself as a reliable forum member. Just like you do with commenting on high traffic websites, focus on creating connections and building relationships first.

Start a Podcast or Guest Star in Popular Ones

Podcasts are a great way to boost traffic. They have low competition. They offer a mobile-friendly option that is engaging and convenient for listeners. Podcasts are continually growing in popularity and their audiences tend to be passionate and loyal.

Interactive options are available and they help you to establish thought leadership in your industry. You have the opportunity to grow a loyal traffic base by publishing podcast content on a consistent basis.

If you’re not quite ready to commit to starting a podcast of your own, there are plenty of other options out there. Podcasters are often looking for guests to create their own content so you can find other podcasters to reach out to about guest starring in a future episode.

Booking  generate traffic and build publicity for a podcast of your own in the future.

Leverage Any Traffic Source with User-Generated Content

User-generated content takes many forms. I’ve already talked about a few of them such as blog commenting and forum discussions. In addition to these, you can use review sites such as Google My Business, Amazon, Trip Advisor, and Yelp to help increase the value of your reputation through user-generated content.

As you increase your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness through reviews and high quality content implementation of user-generated content, you can expect to see more traffic from these sources.

Build an Email List

If you’re not already, capture visitors email addresses as they land on your site. Anytime you create a brand new piece of content and promote it, if you have an email list, you could send it out to drive traffic to your site.

Though it isn’t exactly organic traffic, it is direct traffic and this will show in your Google analytics which leads to an increase in your overall draft pick.

It serves as another foundation you can take advantage of to build direct traffic sources if Google ever goes south.

Google will continue to update its core algorithm and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. Before those algorithmic updates, there wasn’t as much competition and it was easier to increase your organic traffic. It is almost guaranteed that you will at some point experience the algorithm update. This is especially the case if you are using any kind of black hat or grey hat SEO practices to artificially inflate your ranking

The good news is, however, there are legitimate ways to create multiple foundations that will make it easier for you to survive any overnight traffic loss that happens when Google finally hits your site. As long as you build the foundations, you won’t have to worry about what will happen when Google penalizes your site.

Diversifying your strategy and building multiple traffic sources is a smart move to make in a risky SEO climate, even if you have been following Google SEO guidelines the entire time.

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SEO

Google’s Guide to Ranking Category Pages

Google’s guide to ranking category pages emphasizes using clear, descriptive titles and meta descriptions, and ensuring content relevance to the category. High-quality, unique content on category pages can enhance user experience and SEO. Internal linking strategies should be employed to improve site navigation and page authority.

**This post was selected as one of the top digital marketing articles of the week by UpCity, a B2B ratings and review company for digital marketing agencies and other marketing service providers.**

Whenever Google’s John Mueller speaks, the community listens to what he has to say. Recently, he answered a question about how to rank a category page over a product page. As part of the discussion, he covered how Google views links and the negative ranking effect of keyword stuffing.

How Do You Rank a Category Page?

The publisher who asked the question saw their product page was ranking for a keyword phrase. However, they thought the appropriate page for that keyword would be the category page. The publisher was able to confirm the category page was indexed.

Mueller answered with:

“Some of the things I think you should look at here, one thing is to make sure that the category page is well-linked within your website.

So if you have multiple products that are all in the same category or related to that category then link to that category page so that when we crawl the website we can really understand this category page is actually really important.”

This is something I’ve come across in many client website audits. Often, they have a less-than-optimal site architecture and this prevents users and bots from reaching the pages you want them to find. It can add an unnecessary few extra clicks toward reaching a category page. A clear site hierarchy is crucial for user experience and for the crawlers.

Category pages are useful for users and for ranking, particularly when it comes to more general two word phrases.

User Intent and Ranking Product Pages

Something Mueller didn’t discuss, may be because he was taking the publisher’s word is that the Google algorithm sometimes understands that a percentage of users are looking for a specific product even when they use a general phrase.

In that situation, a product-specific page maybe the right page to show, better than the category page. Of course, the optimal outcome would be to show both pages – the category page and the product page. It’s worth pointing out that the reason a specific page is shown may be a reflection of what the user wants.

Keyword Stuffing May Prevent Ranking

Mueller suggests that a reason category page may not rank is because of using too many keywords. This practice, known as keyword stuffing or term spamming, is something Google frowns upon. Though it used to be a popular and easy way to rank for nearly anything you wanted to in the past, Google has grown smarter and more effective at preventing pages that keyword stuff from ranking.

Keyword stuffing and keyword best practices deserve an article of its own. However the point is that using too many keywords, or using keywords too much, can cause the page to be less trustworthy thereby affecting its ability to rank.

He said:

“Another thing that I sometimes see, especially with e-commerce sites that kind of struggle with this kind of a problem is that they go to an extreme on the category page in that they include those keywords over and over and over again.

And what happens in our systems then is we look at this page and we see these keywords repeated so often on that page that we think well, something is kind of fishy with this page, with regards to these keywords, well maybe we should be more careful when we show it.”

“So it might be that you’re… kind of overdoing it with the category page in that it would perhaps make sense to kind of move back a little bit and say, I will focus my category page on these keywords and make sure that it’s a good page for that but not go too far overboard.

So that when we look at this page we’ll see… this is a reasonable page, there’s good content here, we can show it for these terms. We don’t have to worry about whether or not someone is trying to unnaturally overdo it with those keywords. “

Linking Building and Ranking a Category Page

The publisher went on to ask if building external links to the category page as well as to the website homepage would be helpful. Once the discussion turned to building links, he said:

“Yeahhh… I… I mean… that’s that’s something doesn’t… doesn’t cause any problems and from our point of view, uhm…in general backlinks from other websites are something that we would see as something that would evolve naturally over time.”

In other words, links are fine, but getting too many too fast is the red flag. don’t engage in black hat SEO techniques of buying links or participating in link schemes. Focus on slowly and steadily building links to all parts of your website where they are a natural fit.

Perhaps more importantly, focus on creating high-quality content that people want to link to on their own. This will help position you as more of an authority.

Mueller said:

“So I don’t think you’d need to go out and kind of artificially go out and artificially build backlinks to a category page like that.”

There’s a Webmaster help page about link schemes that is worth reading if you have any questions about what constitutes an artificial link.

Mueller adds:

“I think, what I would also do in a case like this is kind of go with the assumption that you won’t be able to fix this very quickly. Not, not that it’s impossible but kind of assume that it’s… it’s going to stick around a little bit because sometimes our algorithms do take a bit of time to adjust.

And… find a way to make it so that when users land on that product page that they realize there’s actually a category page that might be more useful to them.

So, something like a small banner or some other visual element on the page so that when users go to that product page they can find their way to the category page fairly easily… so that you don’t have to worry about the short term problem that maybe the wrong page is ranking.

And in the meantime, you can kind of work on creating a reasonable solution for the category page itself.”

The most important takeaway from this question is that fixing a category page ranking issue needs to be thought of as a long-term project. Changes to a page may lead to ranking changes within days, but that doesn’t mean you should expect that to be the case. Internal linking patterns and the lack of links from outside the site also play a role.

 

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SEO

New Link Attributes from Google

Google introduced new link attributes to provide more context about the nature of links. These include ‘sponsored’ for paid or sponsored links, ‘ugc’ for user-generated content, and modifications to ‘nofollow’ attribute, used when not endorsing a linked page. These changes allow for more nuanced link categorization, aiding Google’s understanding of web page relationships and improving SEO practices.

**This post was selected as one of the top digital marketing articles of the week by UpCity, a B2B ratings and review company for digital marketing agencies and other marketing service providers.**

If you’ve been involved with working with websites for any amount of time, you are familiar with the nofollow attribute.  Google first introduced it about 15 years ago as a method to help fight against comment spam. Over the years, it evolved to become one of Google’s recommended methods for tagging advertising related or sponsored links. Since it was first introduced in 2005, we’ve seen the web evolve considerably.

In response to that evolution, Google recently announced two new link attributes to provide webmasters and marketers with more ways to identify the nature of links. But before we dive into the new attributes, let’s first refresh our memory about nofollow and why it’s important.

Rel=”Nofollow” and Why It Matters

Webmasters and marketers are advised to use rel=”nofollow” when they want to link to a page but don’t want to alert Google to an endorsement that includes passing the ranking credit to another page.

In 2005, Google would not count any link with the nofollow tag as a signal for use within the search algorithms. That’s not the case today.

All link attributes, whether nofollow, sponsored, or ugc are now treated as hints how about which links to exclude or consider within the search engines results pages. The Google algorithms will use these hints alongside other signals to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use the links within their systems.

Rel=”Sponsored”

Google advises people to use the rel=”sponsored” attributes on links that were created as part of advertising, sponsorships, or any kind of compensation agreement. This link attribute is especially important for bloggers and influencers who are regularly participating in marketing campaign.

Rel=”UGC”

UGC stands for user-generated content. Tag links within user-generated content, such as those in comments and forum posts with this link attribute.

Why Did Google Make the Change?

In the past, the nofollow attribute meant that Google was completely ignoring the link. Google has since determined that links contain valuable information that can help them improve search. This includes how the words within the links describe the content they point to. Google has decided that by looking at all the links they run into, they can improve their understanding of unnatural linking patterns. Using the hint model, Google doesn’t lose the important information but still allows webmasters inside owners to indicate that certain links shouldn’t be given the weight of a first-party endorsement.

Do You Need to Change Current Nofollow Links?

If you are currently relying on nofollow as a way to block sponsored links or to let Google know that you do not endorse a page you link to, Google will continue to support that. You do not have to change any of the nofollow links you already have.

If you are using nofollow for ads or sponsored links, you can continue to use this method to flag links and avoid possible link penalties. There is no need to change any of your existing links. If you are using a system that automatically includes the nofollow attribute on new links, you can continue to do this. However, it’s a good idea to switch to see sponsored attribute when or if it is convenient for you.

It’s important to tag ads or sponsored links to be sure you avoid possible link scheme penalties. Google would rather you use the sponsored link attribute rather than nofollow, but either is fine. They will be treated as the same for this purpose.

If you’re afraid of using the wrong attribute on a link, there’s no wrong attribute except in terms of sponsored links. If you tag a UGC link or non-advertising link as a sponsored link, Google will see the hints, but there wouldn’t be much, if any, impact. At most, Google may not count the link as credit for another page, and in that situation, it’s not different than the current approach many UGC and non-ad links that are already nofollow.

That said, any link clearly sponsored or an ad should use either the nofollow or the sponsored attribute. Google would rather you use sponsored, but will still support nofollow.

Can You Use Multiple Attributes on a Single Link?

Yes, you can use more than one attribute on a single link. This is most useful for sponsored links that are also user-generated content. For instance, you can use “rel=sponsored UGC” to indicate that a link came from user-generated content that’s sponsored. You can also use the nofollow attribute with the others to ensure everything remains backward compatibility with services that don’t support the new link attributes.

These two new attributes went into effect on September 10th, the date of the official announcement on the Google Webmaster’s Blog. This allows them time to incorporate the attributes for ranking purpose. But, in terms of crawling and indexing, nofollow won’t convert to a hint until March 1, 2020.

When this happens, if you’re using a nofollow attribute to block pages from being indexed, which Google never recommended, you’ll need to use an alternative method to block URLs from Google such as:

  • Meta tags
  • Password protecting the web server files
  • Using txt

If you’re concerned about the new approach encouraging link spam, the truth is a lot of websites that allow third-party contributions to their sites are using other moderation tools you can integrate into many blogging platforms. Using UGC and nofollow attributes will continue to be a deterrent.

For the majority, moving to a hint model means there will not be a change in how Google treats those links. Google will generally treat them the same as they’ve done before by ignoring them for ranking purpose. The hint model will allow them to assess how to use links just as they’ve always done, and how they’ve acted with no attributes are used.

It’s a good idea to use the new attributes because it will help Google better understand process links for web analysis. If people apply the attributes to links to your content, this can improve Google’s understanding of your content.

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SEO

Google Changes GMB Listings

Whenever Google changes GMB listings, you must check your listings to ensure they’re live and accurate. Google made significant changes to Google My Business (GMB) listings, enhancing the platform’s usefulness for businesses and consumers. Updates included more options for business categories, attributes, and posts, enabling businesses to provide detailed information. Enhanced features for booking services, messaging, and Q&A improved interaction with customers. These changes help businesses better manage their online presence and customer engagement.

Google recently announced they will be automatically applying changes to Google My Business listings with distance-based service areas.

The last remaining distance based service areas will be removed. Moving forward, service area businesses currently based on distance are to be automatically converted to the closest named areas. For instance, if your service area includes obscure towns such as Norris, South Carolina, Google will update it to mention Liberty, Central, Clemson, and so on.

Managers of Google My Business listings that are affected by this change will have the chance to review the updates after they log into their account.

If your account is one that has been affected by the changes, you’ll see an update from Google at the top of the page the next time you log in.

At that point you’ll have the option to either accept the changes Google has made or provide a new service area based on zip code, city, or other attributes.

Though it may seem like it is not a sudden change because Google has been in the process of phasing out the distance based service areas since last year. Google is making this change to accommodate businesses that provide services outside of set distance from where they’re physically located. This change is good for businesses that do not serve customers at a physical location.

Google has been encouraging businesses to apply the changes on their own and were given an ample amount of time to do so. Now, Google is forcing the changes on any listings that still has distance based service areas.

If you do not accept the change Google automatically applied, you can provide a new service area. You should receive an email notification about the change.

The change should not have any effect on how your listing appears in the search results. It is a good idea to review Google’s changes to ensure that your listing still shows up in the areas where you serve your customers.

Adding or Editing Your Service Area in Response to the Changes

If your business serves customers within a specific local area, you can list that area on your Google my business listing. Listing the service area how’s your customers know where you’ll go to deliver to them or visit them and helps ensure your listing shows up in the right local searches.

Though you can no longer say your service area as a distance around your business, you’ll be able to specify your service area by ZIP code city, or other areas. This way, you can cover your entire service area or delivery radius using the city names and zip codes in the area.

  1. Sign in to Google My Business.
  2. If you have multiple business locations, open the location you’d like to manage.
  3. If you need to verify your pure services listing, find the verification needed card and click “Verify now.”
  4.  Enter your address and click next.
  5.  Choose the verification off option to finish your verification process.

When you update your business information, it’s important to remember that if you do not serve customers at your business address, you must leave the address field blank and only enter your service area.

If you serve customers at your business address but also have other service areas, enter both your address and your service area.

As a pure service area business, you should not enter your address under the info tab in the Google my business dashboard. Leave the business location field blank.

To edit your service area:

  1. Sign in to Google my business and open the location you’d like to manage.
  2. Click “Info” from the menu.
  3. Click “Edit” in the service area section.
  4. Enter your service area information based on the cities, zip codes, or other areas you serve.
  5. Click “Apply”.

To remove a service area:

You can only remove a service area if you’ve enjoyed your business address.

  1. Sign in to Google my business and open the location you’d like to manage.
  2. Click “Info” from the menu.
  3. Click “Edit” in the service area section.
  4. Click remove next to each service area you want to remove. To remove all service areas at once, click “Clear service areas”
  5. Click “Apply”

Ultimately, this gives you more control over the specific areas you’re advertising your services in. Adding additional locations based on zip code or city will also help your local SEO efforts because you can choose the areas with the least amount of competition.

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SEO

Google’s Stance on No-Follow Outbound Links

Google’s stance on no-follow outbound links is clear and concise. Google’s updated guidance on no-follow outbound links indicates a shift in how these links are interpreted. While originally used to combat spam and unendorsed content, no-follow links are now treated as hints rather than directives by Google’s algorithms. This change reflects Google’s advanced understanding of link context, impacting SEO strategies and link-building practices.

Many blogs and websites use no-follow links when writing about outside sources. It’s been common practice to do so among publishers, as it allows them to remain impartial and “safe” from showing preference for one source over another. This practice has long been believed to be the most acceptable way to avoid being seen as showing preferential treatment or providing “link juice” to sites with whom publishers may have a relationship. Another common belief is that sites will be dinged in Google rankings if they use do-follow links. Recently, though, comments from Google’s own John Mueller have made it seem that past thinking may be incorrect. Let’s take a look at this new information.

About No-Follow Outbound Links

First, let’s examine what no-follow links are. No-follow outbound links are ones with a rel = “nofollow” HTML tag used for them. This particular tag lets search engines know they should ignore or bypass that link. It’s long been thought that these links don’t affect search rankings because they don’t pass PageRank.

No-Follow Vs. Do-Follow Links

This may cause you to wonder what the difference is between no-follow and do-follow links, along with why they might even matter. Readers can’t tell a difference between the two tags when browsing a site. A no-follow link can be clicked on, copied and pasted like any other link and will perform in the same way. Common thought, however, was that do-follow links help increase search engine rankings, while no-follow links do not.

Only do-follow outbound links count in Google’s algorithm. No-follow links don’t count; they don’t pass  PageRank. If the link doesn’t affect PageRank, it won’t contribute to raising rankings in Google’s search engine algorithm. The long-standing rule in link building has been to try to obtain do-follow links as frequently as possible across the web. In an attempt to seem impartial, many publishers such as bloggers or news sites often choose to use no-follow links. They don’t want to appear to be giving favor to any outside sources, particularly in cases where sponsorship or payment for service may be involved.

Why No-Follow Links Were Created

The original creator of no-follow links is Google, and the purpose was to cut down on blog comment spam. You see, spammers jumped on the bandwagon when they saw the ever-increasing popularity of blogs. They would often leave unrelated comments on blog posts with a link to their site with the intention of gaining link juice from the action. These spammers were soon starting to rank highly, pushing legitimate sites with useful content aside in the rankings. So, in 2005, Google made the no-follow tag part of their algorithm. Other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo also started using the practice.

No-Follow and Paid Links

Google Webmaster Guidelines do state that all paid links should be no-follow. They don’t want advertisements to receive increased PageRank. This makes sense, as paid content isn’t occurring naturally. Therefore, it shouldn’t be rewarded with higher rankings. Google wants backlinks to be earned, not paid for. If Google catches paid advertisements or other content with links that are do-follow, they’re apt to penalize those sites. Any attempt to manipulate PageRank is considered to be a link scheme.

Google’s New Stance

In a recent Google Webmaster Central hangout, Google’s John Mueller made some statements indicating that no-follow links may not be beneficial or necessary for some sites to use. Specifically, he was talking about sites that use all no-follow links, not just the ones that choose no-follow for paid content.

The question that prompted Mueller’s response was this:

“What do you think about the practice of some big publishers tagging all outgoing links with rel=nofollow?

From what I know, the reasoning behind this is that with follow links you would leak link juice and then rank worse.”

In his response, Mueller indicated that this belief is “definitely wrong.” He said that using no-follow on all outgoing links could even cause problems for a site, as these links appeared by Google to be unnatural.

Here’s what he had to say:

“So that’s definitely wrong. It’s definitely not the case that if you use normal links on your website that you would rank any worse than if you put no-follow on all outgoing links.

I suspect it’s even, on the contrary, that if you have normal linking on your page then you would probably rank a little bit better over time — essentially because we can see that you’re part of the normal web ecosystem.

So it’s definitely not the case that you have any kind of ranking advantage by marking all outgoing links as no-follow.”

Why Sites Use No-Follow for All Outbound Links

In additional remarks, Mueller made note of the fact that some sites use no-follow tags on all of their outbound links. He believes they do this to err on the side of caution because they’re not sure who to vouch for. Therefore, they decide to use no-follow for everything in an attempt to remain impartial. However, it’s Mueller’s belief that this is not the way to go. By doing so, it seems to indicate these publishers don’t stand behind what they write.

He states:

“I understand not knowing which links you can trust. But essentially, if you’re a news publisher, you should trust what you’re writing about.

Or you should be able to understand which part of the content that you write about is actual content that you want to have indexed — that you want to stand for.

If these are things that you want to stand for, then make sure you have normal links on there.”

As you can see, Google’s John Mueller seems quite clear in the fact that news sites and other publishers may want to discontinue the practice of using no-follow outbound links everything in the future. There doesn’t seem to be a benefit to doing so, and it could actually hurt their rankings. That’s not to say that some links, such as paid advertising, shouldn’t be attributed as no-follow. Use your best judgment when making such determinations.

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SEO

SEO Perfection for Location Pages

Striving for SEO perfection for location pages is every SEO’s priority. However, location pages can vary depending on the industry, type of business, and location. Optimizing SEO for location pages involves using local keywords, providing comprehensive and up-to-date contact information, and integrating Google Maps. User-friendly design, local reviews, and unique content for each location page enhance relevance. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) across web listings and integrating local events or news can also boost local SEO performance.

**This post was selected as one of the top digital marketing articles of the week by UpCity, a B2B ratings and review company for digital marketing agencies and other marketing service providers.**

Many clients may believe that stuffing the keyword “near me” is the best way to rank in the map pack. The truth is that SEO rankings in the map pack are based on many factors, but one of the most critical ones is having a top-notch location landing page.

What Makes a Top Notch Location Page?

As SEO professionals, we tell our clients and stakeholders that great SEO implementation must satisfy search intent. why don’t we bring the same logic when it comes to location page optimization?

Use this checklist to address several possible questions your website visitors may have when learning about a local business to cover your bases and increase your chances of ranking in the map pack.

Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

The NAP is a critical part of local SEO. Your nap should be an exact match copy throughout all of your citations such as your Google My Business profile, various directory listings, and your location page.

There are many SEO professionals out there they claim exact match isn’t as important as it used to be but there are plenty who still do.  as such, there’s really no point in risking it so you may as well ensure an exact match across all of your local citations.

Photos

Photos are an important part of the location page experience but many businesses are missing important opportunities when it comes to their photos.

Interior Photos

You would think this is a no-brainer, but there are a surprising number of location pages that are missing interior photos.

Interior photos help visitors get a realistic expectation when it comes to your business. Often, especially when it comes to the healthcare industry, high-quality interior photos can be a deciding factor on whether or not to make an appointment.

Exterior Photos

Just like interior photos are important, exterior photos are important for your local page optimization. Examples of exterior photos include:

  • Logos and signage.
  • Nearby businesses if you are located inside a mall or strip mall.
  • Parking lots and other parking areas if applicable.

Including exterior photos will help new visitors locate your business the first time they arrive and they also be a decision factor when it comes to new business.

Optimizing Your Image Metadata

Your images should be high quality, but images taken from digital cameras tend to be large in terms of file size. The larger the file, the longer it takes to load on your website so it’s important to optimize it to improve your page load speed.

Much of the larger file size has to do with the extra metadata that is included within the photos,  the majority of which is unnecessary, such as the type of camera that took the photo.

Using software like ImageOptim can remove that metadata with lossless compression so that the image quality is not compromised, but the file size is greatly reduced. Using software such as ImageExifEditor can be used to add metadata to your images such as a title, description, and GPS coordinates.

When it comes to your website, adding GPS coordinates to the metadata may be a bit much. However, when it comes to adding the data to photos that will be used on your Google My Business profile and other local citations, it may help boost your rankings.

Description of the Business Location

Many businesses fail when it comes to the description of their location. Some locations use the same description on all location Pages only replacing a location name. While it may seem like it’s a good idea at first, ultimately in terms of ranking it is not the ideal approach. For the best possible ranking potential, each location page needs to be unique.

You can do this by including information such as your:

  • Products and Brands: If you are a store, include some of the major brands that someone may be searching for near them.
  • Services Offered: Do you offer services of this location that are unique compared to other locations?
  • Unique Selling Proposition: what makes your business unique compared to the competitors in the area?
  • Menu: For restaurants, including the menu is paramount. However, other businesses such as nail salons can also include a menu that lists the various products and services alongside their pricing to help people know what they can expect to pay once they arrive as a walk-in.
  • Nearby Locations: Do you have any other locations nearby? If so, this can help with your internal linking.

Helpful Call to Action (CTA)

It’s important to include a call to action on any page where you want the visitor to take an action. However, many location pages often overlook this step. The key to a successful CTA is to make sure that it makes sense and adds value to your user experience. Options for CTAs on your location page include:

  • Request appointment.
  • Make a reservation.
  • Call us now (Click/tap to call).
  • Get directions (with a link to Google Maps).
  • Shop Now (if you’re set up for online shopping).

Directions to Business Location

Including directions to your business not only helps users find the business but it can also help you naturally work in Geo specific keywords and targeting in your copy.

As a general rule, you should focus on how to get to your location from at least two directions either east and west or north and south from major highways. It’s a good idea to mention major intersections to also help you identify your business location.

And don’t forget to mention nearby businesses in your direction so your users can find your business if it’s located in a shopping mall or outlet center.

Embedded Map

Take time to embed a map on each location page as this can help users more precisely figure out if your location is the one that is closest to them. If possible, use the Google Maps API to develop a custom map solution that also includes other nearby locations.

Schema

All local businesses should be using the standard local business markup. But, it’s also important to take things one step further and use the specific local business type that is most relevant to you. Take a look at schema.org for a list of more specific business types and try to find the one that matches your business the best.

SEO Title and Meta Description

One of the most important and well-known steps of SEO is to have a well optimized title and meta description. Local SEO amateurs are known for spamming it because they don’t tend to worry about the title and meta description since they are focusing on ranking in the map pack. Local businesses will still get traffic from standard organic search results so you should always cover your bases and ensure that your listing is optimized wherever someone may find it.

To ensure your title is well optimized, it should include your brand name, keyword, and a geo-specific keyword such as your city or local area.

When it comes to your meta description, be aware that it does not directly affect rankings but it is a free selling space in the search engine results page. You should include the same three elements from the title while adding some additional flair to help sell users so they are more likely to click your link.

Internal Linking

Whenever possible, you should add relevant internal linking to your local landing pages. Though not all of these may be relevant to your business you can try some of these ideas:

  • Location specific social media profiles
  • Doctor/staff profiles
  • Other nearby locations
  • Informational pages about the specific services you offer
  • Company about page
  • Space for blogs you’ve recently published
  • Menus
  • Any available only shopping options

Loading Speed

Your pages load speed is an important ranking factor especially in terms of local SEO. Having a fast loading location page can make a difference between your site ranking in position 1 or position 2 in the map pack. Use tools such as Google PageSpeed insights or GTMetrix to help you diagnose issues with page load speed and to give you suggestions on how to improve it.

By addressing these 10 key areas on any and all location landing pages on your website, you can increase the chances of beating your competition out of the local map pack for a variety of searches.

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SEO

Have a Help Desk? Mine it for SEO Insights

Your help desk is a wonderful source of customer insights that  everyone in your organization can learn from.

Depending on how big your business is and how sophisticated your customers are, you probably have a collection of tools that allow you to:

  • Enable customers to submit help tickets and search your knowledge base
  • Enable customers live chat with employees or bots
  • Determine your customers’ net promoter score

Once you’ve properly configured your help desk, here are five SEO insights you can mine from your help desk analytics and ticket log.

Keyword Research

What are the most common phrases your customers are using when they submit a support ticket or search your knowledge base?

Depending on how robust your ticketing system is, you’ll either be able to see these insights within the app or you can create a spreadsheet of all your tickets with an export.

After exporting a CSV file you can use any number of text analyzer tools to help you identify the most common questions or issues that your customers are dealing with.

Your analytics for your help desk can also help you identify how people are finding your help documentation whether it is through organic search or through your own internal search function.

If you find that people are mainly coming to your help documentation from Google, this is an indication that:

  • Either your help documentation layout or search functionality isn’t meeting your customers needs and they are turning to Google for the best documentation
  • Or you’re getting search traffic from people who are not your customers

Making your help documentation crawable is a good way to drive a large amount of long tail search traffic. If you’re driving non-customers to your help desk documentation, it is a good opportunity to introduce these visitors to your awareness stage and consideration stage content.

Content Ideation

Once you’ve built your knowledge base and organized it by category, you can mine your analytics data to see the topics that people are spending the most time reading. Using custom reports in Google Analytics is your best friend because it can help you organize your data this way.

This report will let you know about the other documentation you should create or improve through your customer service or marketing teams.

A lot of the time, you may have already written the content but you need to spend time and proving it through video or other content formats.

Don’t forget to submit your help documentation through the Google Search Console. Doing this can help you identify other topics that you are generating impressions for in search regardless of whether you’re actually generating traffic because of those pages

Seasonality Searches

Throughout certain times of the year, people ask certain questions more than others. Analyze your customer ticketing data month-over-month or quarter-over-quarter to identify trends in search behavior.

If you’re able to anticipate the increase and help desk inquiries during certain times of the year, you’ll be a far more proactive marketer or customer success manager.

This data will help you make decisions about the:

  • Number of help desk agents you need during various times of day or week
  • Articles you need to feature around specific campaigns or product launches
  • Ability to differentiate predictable seasonal turn compared to larger systemic churn issues

Product Development

If your knowledge base articles are not gated and are viewable to crawlers, you can pull the Google Search Console data for your keyword impression and click data. You can use the information to identify Trends in integration queries and feature request to help you prioritize your product development decisions.

The Google Search Console also allows you to create an account based on a subdomain or subdirectory so you can isolate the keyword and impression data specific to your help desk.

Device Usability

This will help you learn how people are coming to your help desk. Device level data from Google Analytics lets us see how and in what situations people are looking for help. If you see more help desk where he’s coming from mobile devices, this is an indication that users are running into issues when they are not sitting in front of their computers.

If you pair your device level data with heat mapping and user recordings to quickly identify where users are running into problems, you can create a plan to address and eliminate the roadblocks.

For the greatest chance of success, it’s crucial that you don’t assume all of the search traffic to your help desk or help documentation comes from just your paying customers.

Gathering data from your knowledge base search queries, your Google Search Console keyword level impression data, and basic text analysis of your customer service tickets Allows you to better align your Marketing, sales, and customer support teams. Using this information allows you to be more proactive in meeting your customers needs and drawing in additional prospects.

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SEO

Leveraging Offline Events for Link Building

When it comes to SEO, link building is a major part of the process since Google and other search engines take a look at how many sites are linking to yours. For the greatest impact, those links can’t come from just any site, but instead should come from topically related websites that have high quality content. That makes it a bit more complicated for new sites – because they have to work hard to establish themselves as link worthy.

Fortunately for you, link building comes down to little more than building strong and reputable relationships online. And, it’s also possible to take offline strategies to apply them to your brand building efforts online.

All stages of your event process, from promoting the event to what happens after the end of it, provide great opportunities for building links to your site. The key is to apply the correct strategy for each stage. Whether you’re sharing your event on event sharing websites, relying on influencers to build traction, publishing content specific to your event, leveraging your face-to-face marketing efforts to acquire more backlinks helps your business, regardless of its size, become more visible to your target market.

Before Your Event

Before you start your link building mission, take time to determine which pages and domains you want other people to share so you’re building links to the right places. If you’re the one in charge of the event, rather than just attending the event and using that to help build links, you’ll want to have a landing page on your site dedicated to the event. The landing page should provide the important details and invite registration. It’s the best place to send potential attendees and is easy to share for promotional purposes.

Event Sites

Once you have the event domain and pages setup, you can take the landing page to various event sites to get some easy links. Your event location determines where you’ll post. If you’re hosting a small event, focus your efforts on region-specific sites that will give you links to boost your visibility in the local search results.

If on the other hand, you’re hosting an event with a national or international appeal, you could use sites such as Meetup or Eventful to link directly to your event page. Other sources may scrape the larger sites so you could possibly get multiple links from a single post.

Reach Out to Influencers

If you have relationships with bloggers in your industry, you can ask them to share your event details with their followers to gain links.

If you don’t have any established relationships with bloggers in your industry, you’ll want to research to connect with the right kind of influencers you need, and make sure they are the kind of influencers that will give you the return on investment you’re looking for. You want to choose bloggers who’ve built credible, authoritative sites that will in turn help you build authority and improve your search engine visibility. Yes, it’s harder to obtain links from industry experts with higher domain authorities, but they will be the most beneficial when it comes to building your brand.

Once you’ve come up with a list of your target bloggers, connect with them to explain why your event is relevant for their audience, and how sharing it or posting about it would enhance their content’s value. To make sure they have a reason to want to work with you, be sure to offer in return, such as cross-site promotion. This will make the relationship mutually beneficial and get more exposure to your target market.

During Your Event

Whether it’s your company hosting the event, or someone from your organization is speaking at one, there are plenty of chances to support your link building efforts. Many people love to share their insights and recaps from conferences and other events on their blogs and social media accounts. When they do this – there’s a good chance they’ll link to your company’s site.

Publish Blog Posts

Even if you’re just attending an event, post a blog daily to highly the key takeaways from the sessions or keynotes you attended. The event-specific content will be promoted by the event hosts, sponsors, speakers, attendees, and other people on your team who stayed back at the office.

To boost your chances of getting the content out to the right people, share it in a LinkedIn message or email to a presenter or the marketing lead from the event host. Always share the post on your company social channels and tag anyone who’s mentioned. The idea is that because you’ve included them and given them free publicity, they, as higher quality sources will share your content.

Network With Other Attendees

Posting about events can help you build links, but one of the most important aspects of hosting or attending events is the networking. The chance to build strong, long-term relationships with others in your industry is important, and you should take it. The majority of event-goers say they attend for networking opportunities. You never know what kind of opportunity may come from a relationship you build with someone… even years from now.

After the Event

After the event has wrapped up and everyone has gone home, you can still be building backlinks because many of the best chances to do so are still coming.

Use Social Listening Tools

Social listening tools allow you to track your backlinks. When you see what sites are linking to you, you may find there are some that you could work with to develop a mutually beneficial partnership. If you do, reach out to them and discuss it with them.

Follow Up Via Email

If you were a speaker at an event, nurture those who attended your session through email. Send them a link to a landing page on your site where the slides from your presentation are available for download. They can share the page and link to it from their blog posts about the conference. Encourage them to share the presentation with their readers and followers by sharing it on their social pages. If they share a blog post about the session and what they learned, you can earn some valuable backlinks this way.

Building backlinks is hard work, but doing so consistently will pay off for years to come. Building backlinks creates a snowball effect because it increases your rank positioning in the search engines and makes it easier to attract more attendees to future events.

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SEO

New Options for Fine-Tuning AdWords Bidding

Last month at Google Marketing Live, Google revealed updates for bidding controls in Google AdWords. Marketers should see those become available over the coming months as they roll out. Let’s take a closer look at what the new options are.

Set Conversions at Campaign Level

Until now, you’ve only been able to set conversion goals at the account level. Being able to set conversions at the campaign level allows you to fine-tune your approach. For instance, if you have campaigns where a download is the desired action, and other campaigns where requesting a demonstration is the conversion goal – it’s hard to track with the current setup. Once the new feature rolls out, you’ll be able to assign distinct goals to their corresponding campaigns, so you’ll be able to use conversion-based smart bidding strategies and have better conversion reporting.

You’ll also be able to group conversion actions into conversion action sets to apply at the campaign level.

Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding is a group of automated strategies that use machine learning to optimize for conversion or conversion value in all auctions. In order to use Smart Bidding, you must have conversion tracking enabled, unless you’re suing ECPC with Display campaigns. You have different ways to track conversions, so it’s important to be sure you’ve set up conversion tracking correctly for the type of conversion you want to track.

If you want to track things such as website purchases, button clicks, newsletter sign ups or any other website action, you must set up conversion tracking for your website.

If you want to track customer installs of your app, or in-app purchases, you must set up mobile app conversion tracking.

If you want to track phone calls, you’ll need to choose to track calls from ads, track calls to a phone number on your website, or track phone number clicks on a mobile website, depending on your needs. You can choose one or all of these options.

You can also set up conversion tracking for offline conversions such as phone calls after an ad you ran or visits to your store.

If you want to track multiple kinds of conversions, set up a different conversion action for each type of conversion you want to track. It’s also possible to set up multiple conversion actions for each source. For instance, you can set up an action to track purchases on your website, along with another one to track newsletter signups.

Google introduced the “maximize conversions” bidding strategy in 2017. Now, it’s expanding on that strategy to add “maximize conversion value.” The maximize conversions option aims to generate as many conversions as possible within your budget, the new strategy aims to optimize to get the greatest conversion value within the budget.

The available contextual signals to use with smart bidding are:

  • Device
  • Physical Location
  • Location Intent
  • Weekday and Time of Day
  • Remarketing List
  • Ad Characteristics
  • Interface Language
  • Browser
  • Operating System
  • Demographics (Search and Display)
  • Search Network Partner (Search Only)
  • Web Placement (Display Only)
  • Site Behavior (Display Only)
  • Product Attributes (Shopping Only)
  • Mobile App Ratings (New Feature Coming Soon)
  • Price Competitiveness (New Feature Coming Soon for Shopping)
  • Seasonality (New Feature Coming Soon for Shopping – More Below)

Conversion Rule Values

Values will appear within the coming months to allow flexibility in assigning values to each of your conversion actions. You’ll be able to set the conversion value rules based on factors such as audience, location, and device.

Seasonality Adjustments with Smart Bidding

Current smart bidding strategies already aim to account for seasonal spikes in ad campaigns. But, smart bidding for shopping campaigns will add seasonality signals, as well as price competitiveness. Google will offer an option to fine tune seasonality adjustments in line with your own promotion calendar. This means you’ll be able to schedule adjustments as aligned with your promotions to address higher conversion volume.

We’ll first see seasonality adjustments roll out for Search and Display, and later this summer, we’ll see them become available for Shopping ads. This data informs Google’s conversions predictions model, so you’ll only have this option when you’re using conversion-based bidding strategies.

Why This Matters

Google AdWords still allows for manual bidding, but Google has been downplaying this ability for a while now. According to Google, more than 70% of their advertisers are now using automated bidding. In this case, Google is giving their users more controls. The new features are meant to allow advertisers to fine-tune based on their own goals when it comes to using smart bidding strategies.

Of all these updates, the campaign-level conversion settings are likely the most significant, but all of them offer increased flexibility so you can tailor your conversion and bidding strategies to your specific business objectives surrounding each of your campaigns.

While it may take a few months for all of the new features to roll out to all AdWords accounts, these additional features and controls give us greater flexibility to adjust PPC strategies as needed for our business goals. Ultimately, this allows for better use of budget and should provide a higher ROI for those who use it correctly.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use Google AdWords to grow your business, but would rather not administer the account yourself, let’s talk. The team here at Sachs Marketing Group specializes in running PPC campaigns so all you have to do is discuss what your goals are, and we handle the rest.

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SEO

Google Breaks Silence: Top 3 SEO Factors

Google Webmasters has started a new video series designed to dispel SEO myths – called SEO Mythbusting. The first episode debuted May 15th, and in it, Martin Splitt, one of Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst speaks with his guest about how search engines work. As part of the discussion, he discusses how Google chooses relevant pages for its millions of searches every day, and the three most influential factors that webmasters need to consider when attempting to rank for any given keyword.

How Google Determines Relevance

Splitt says, “We have over 200 signals to do so. So we look at things like the title, the meta description, the actual content that you’ve got on your page, images, links… All sorts of things. It’s a very complicated question to answer what ranks you best, but yeah… we look at a bunch of signals.”

When asked about the top three things that someone should consider, Splitt responds with content, meta data, and performance.

Content is King – Number One Ranking Factor

“So… us being developers, originally, you probably want me to say, oh use this framework or use that framework… that’s not how it works.

You have to have really good content. And that means you have to have content… that serves a purpose for the user.

It’s something that users need and/or want. Optimally they need it and want it, like ice cream.

So, if your content says where you are, what you do, how you help me with what I’m trying to accomplish, that’s fantastic.”

Focus on the purpose of the page and build the content around that, rather than focusing specifically on the keyword.

If someone is looking for a Blue Soccer Ball, Google tends to rank product pages that are exact matches for Blue Soccer Balls. Google knows users are happier with pages that are direct matches to what they are looking for.

In the case of product page, the purpose is to provide accurate information about the specific item for sale. For a better user experience, add the ability to compare products.

When it comes to searches related to a topic rather than a product, Google ranks pages a bit differently, which is why many online businesses struggle with their SEO. It can be hard to take the focus away from the keyword and see the purpose of the page.

That’s where taking the time to match user intent to the keyword phrase matters. If you write content based on the phrase itself, rather than the stage of the buyer journey that someone would use for that phrase, you’ll miss the relevancy mark.

Meta Data

“So the second biggest things is [to] make sure that you have meta tags that describe your content, so have a meta description because that gives you the possibility to have a little snippet in the search results that let people find out which of the many results might be the ones that help them the best. And have page titles that are specific to the page that you are serving. So don’t have a title for everything. The same title is bad.

If you have titles that change with the content that you are showing, that is fantastic. And frameworks have ways of doing that. So consult the documentation but there’s definitely something that helps with the content.”

This means you need to pay special attention to the title and meta description. Using a template and automation can make it look and feel like cookie cutter content – which isn’t the best approach. But, tools like the Yoast SEO plugin use placeholders that make sure the title and meta descriptions are unique, and still follow automation.

For example, Yoast will take the WordPress post title and will automatically use it as the page title, with the site name appended to the end. Unless you create a custom meta description, it will automatically pull the first 160 characters of the blog post to use. You also have the option to create a unique page title for the meta data. This is particularly helpful if you want to create a blog post headline to encourage clicks, that doesn’t necessarily feature your keyword – because you can create the variant that features your keyword in the actual page title, instead of using your WordPress page or post title.

For years, the SEO community has understood that the meta description itself is not a ranking factor, but with the word from a Google employee that a meta description is part of the top three things to consider – even ahead of links. It’s a fairly good indication that Google has changed something.

Performance

Your website’s performance has been a top SEO factor for a long time. John Mueller, a senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google has said that as a ranking factor, performance (page speed) does not override other factors. In a Webmaster Hangout, Mueller says:

“…the good part is that we have lots of ranking factors. So you don’t have to do everything perfect.

But that also means that you run across situations like this where you say, Google says speed is important but the top sites here are not so fast therefore it must not be important.

So for us it is definitely important. But that doesn’t mean it kind of overrides everything else.

You could imagine the fastest page you can think of is probably an empty page, right? But an empty page would be a really terrible search result if someone is searching for something really specific.

It’s really fast but there is no content there. The user wouldn’t be happy.

So we have to balance all of these different factors. The content, the links, all of the signals that we have and kind of figure out how to do the ranking based on this mix of different factors that we have.”

Ultimately, because performance is a soft ranking factor, if you’ve nailed everything else, and the user experience will suffer because Google chooses not to show this site, you may still rank well even if your site speed is lacking a bit.

If the user expects to see a slow website, then that’s what Google will display.

A better way to look at it is performance is a top SEO factor, but it’s not often a top algorithmic ranking factor.

Splitt says, “Performance is fantastic, we’re talking about it constantly but we’re probably missing out on the fact that this is also good for being discovered online.” Google wants to be sure that people clicking on your website are getting the content quickly, so it’s not just about making your website faster, but making your website more visible to others, too.

While the full Google algorithm will never be released to the public, SEOs have been working for years to identify what influences rankings. Most of us had a pretty good idea about how content and site speed do influence rankings – and we use this knowledge to help our clients. I’ll be keeping a close eye on the Mythbusting show to share more insights with you as they come along.

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SEO

Why Invest in Both Paid Search and SEO

If you’re not working in the digital marketing space, it’s easy to see why you may believe investing in pay per click, or PPC, paid search campaigns could serve you better than investing in search engine optimization, or SEO efforts. The truth is, they both serve their purpose in marketing your business, and the best digital marketing strategies include both. Let’s break them down and take a closer look at why you shouldn’t choose one over the other.

What Is Paid Search?

When you’re investing in paid search, you’re paying a certain amount of money each time someone clicks one of your ads that display in the search engines for certain keywords. These paid ads always appear at the top of the page, above the organic listings that are influenced by SEO.

It involves using the Google Keyword Planner Tool to determine the value of each possible keyword you want to run ads for. Certain keywords that have a high search volume are highly competitive, meaning that if and when your ad shows, you’ll pay a hefty penny for each one of those clicks. (And just because someone clicks doesn’t mean they will make a purchase, so that’s something to keep in mind when looking at those costly phrases.)

The Keyword Planner tool will help you see the estimated cost per click, and you can decide what keywords you want to use, along with the details of the campaign within Google AdWords. If you’re not too sure about handling it all on your own, the team here at Sachs Marketing Group can assist you in setting up and managing your campaigns – choosing the best keywords and budgets for your goals.

What Is SEO?

SEO, on the other hand, focuses on using a variety of methods to have your website’s content rank highly in the organic search for any given keyword. The traffic from organic SEO efforts is free, though unless you’re an expert yourself, or willing to spend time learning (and there’s a lot to learn!) you’ll need to pay someone to help you with the various stages of SEO – from the technical side of ensuring your website is well-coded and fast loading, to the content creation and marketing, link building, and social media.

Content is a huge part of SEO because Google expects users to receive high quality results that suit their needs. The average length of a #1 ranking page in a Google query is 1,890 words. And it pays off to have a content marketing strategy, as data shows it leads to a 2,000% increase in blog traffic and 40% increase in revenue.

Why You Need Both

With organic traffic from search engines from SEO, you have a number of benefits.

Branding and Awareness

Visibility in search engines around your targeted keywords puts your business in front of potential customers much the same way advertising would. That same visibility around commercial terms and informational queries related to your business helps you build trust and credibility with searchers as they conduct the research that leads to a purchase. It allows you to become an authority on industry topics.

Trust and Credibility

When your site shows up in organic search results, you can improve your perceived credibility with people who are looking for your services. Many users skip the ads and go to the organic search results because they trust them more. The visibility gives your business a stamp of approval. If you can strengthen that with review and reputation signals, you’ll get even more benefit.

Cost Per Click

The traffic from SEO is free – aside from the money you’re spending to get help with it. You’re not paying a direct charge for each click. SEO isn’t cheap or easy, but over the long term, it is more cost-effective than other marketing tactics. It helps deliver brand awareness and relevant traffic to your website at a lower overall cost.

Return on Investment (ROI)

SEO, when done correctly, can have a better ROI compared to various forms of paid media, and can improve upon your PPC efforts.

Sustainability

Organic traffic won’t stop the second you stop paying for it, but PPC traffic will. Organic traffic can help sustain your business if and when you must reduce marketing spend.

Better Click Through Rate (CTR)

More users click organic results than they do ad. There are some exceptions to this rule, of course, but typically you’ll get more traffic from a highly ranked organic listing than an ad.

Strategic Advantage

Visibility in organic search isn’t easy or quick, which is a double-edged sword. Establishing yourself in organic search results ensures your competitors can’t just buy their way in – as long as you’ve done things the right way. If your competition is relying on paid search, you have the advantage. That said, it can be difficult if you’re competing against long established players, so you may need to adjust strategy.

Scope

Because of the volume of queries every day, if you want to maximize scope, you’ll need strong organic visibility. You won’t want to pay for all kinds of clicks or advertise all the content on your website.

PPC Considerations

PPC offers the benefit of laser targeting. You can target people who you know are most likely interested in what you’re selling, and those who are far enough along in their journey to consider making a purchase from you. Google provides the ability to offer visual shopping ads, known as product listing ads, that helps users see what they’re clicking on, which can improve click through rate because that feature isn’t available in organic search. Consumers who click on a Google search ad before visiting a brick-and-mortar store are 27% more likely to make an in-store purchase, and on average spend over 10% more.

According to Google, businesses generally earn an average of $2 for every $1 they invest in search ads. Because ads dominate the above the fold space on the screen, users will see the ads even if they choose to scroll past them. Desktop users see four ads above organic results, while mobile users see three. And, because of the tight budget control options, you are in great control of your spending. You’ll set a maximum amount you’re willing to spend every day, and go from there.

However, because PPC stops as soon as you stop paying for it, you can’t rely on it as a steady lead generation machine unless you have an unlimited amount of money to continuously invest.

That’s why it’s wise to invest in both PPC and SEO initiatives, and align your strategies. PPC is a great way to start driving traffic and generating leads when you’re a brand new business and need to work on building brand awareness and credibility while your SEO efforts are working for you. Search ads can increase brand awareness by 80%.  Where SEO takes time to generate results, you can start getting instant traffic and benefits from PPC.

Neither SEO nor PPC are “set and forget” options. Both require skilled management and optimization to ensure they are working for you as hard as they can be. If you have to choose between investing in one or the other at first because of financial constraints – it’s hard to give you a clear cut answer. It really comes down to the unique situation of the business at hand.

If you’re a hyper-local business with little competition and you only need a few leads a week, a little effort in the SEO area could give you good visibility in the local organic search results. But, a new e-commerce store that’s competing against big players such as Amazon and eBay and department stores, is going to struggle, in the short term, anyway, to gain traction in organic results. It really depends on how quickly you need leads, whether you’re looking at the long game, the competition in local search, the cost per click in paid search, and what you have in terms of website authority.

If you need help making that decision, get in touch with us today. We can help you develop a digital marketing strategy that clearly identifies both short-term and long-term goals, to help you choose how to make SEO and PPC work together for your company. Ideally, it is best to work with both strategically, so they can support one another.

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SEO

5 SEO Tips for Pool Cleaning Businesses

Here in sunny California, there are plenty of pools that need cleaning. If you run a local pool cleaning business anywhere in the country, your website is working for you 24/7 to draw in new business. Ranking high in local search results is important because most people will go with the first company they see – and will generally go with the first company that calls them back or responds to their email.

In this article, we’re sharing five SEO tips for pool cleaning businesses to bring in new leads.

Claim Your Google My Business Listing

Start by claiming (or creating) your Google My Business listing (now called Google Business Profile). It’s where you can provide information to potential customers about your business. Make sure the information is current and accurate. Use all the features available to you, including the Q&A section where you can address the most commonly asked questions, and the Posts feature where you can share news about your company and any specials you may have.

Repeat the process with Yahoo and Bing to ensure you’re covering all your bases. Just because Google is the most widely used search engine doesn’t mean it’s the only one you should be catering to.

Consider using the main keyword as part of your business name, even if it messes with your name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistency across your citations (more on that below) because the ranking boost is often worth it. Plus, you can adjust the rest of your citations to match.

Related: Why Local SEO is Important for Small Businesses

[smgquote author=”Chris Rice, SEO Manager”]
Optimizing your Google Business Profile can dramatically boost the visibility of your brand and services to local customers.
[/smgquote]

Build Local Citations

Search engines use local citations as a ranking factor. A citation is an online mention of the NAP for a local business. You can build them on local business directories, apps, websites, and social media platforms. Options for your pool cleaning business include Yelp, HomeAdvisor, The Pool Directory, your local Chamber of Commerce, Yellow Pages, and any industry association directories. Taking the time to join industry associations such as Pool & Hot Tub Alliance can not only help you increase credibility with your potential customers but also help your SEO efforts. As of April 1, 2019, The National Swimming Pool Foundation (NPSF) and the Association of Pool and Spa Professionals (APSP) are unified as the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance.

Ask Customers to Review Your Business

Reach out to past customers to thank them for their loyalty and ask that they review your business on their choice of review sites. Send an email with links to your review profiles and let them know you appreciate their time. You can also ask your social media followers to the same if you’ve already established a presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Whenever you complete a job for a customer, you can ask politely in person with a business card that includes the links to the review sites. Or, you can send a follow-up email shortly after the completion of the job.

Always take time to respond to all reviews – whether positive or negative. When negative, apologize for the issue and take the conversation off the review platform by leaving your email and phone number and inviting the reviewer to contact you for a resolution.

Related: 7 Home Services Marketing Tips to Get More Customers

Create Valuable Content for Your Website

Search engines look at various things about your website’s content when deciding where to rank you for any particular keyword. They look at how fresh (current) the content is, how often the website is updated, how useful the content is to your audience, and keywords, to name a few.

One of the best things you can do for your website in terms of content freshness and update frequency is to start a blog and create a digital content strategy. When you create content for your blog, you should focus on content that helps customers learn about pools and pool maintenance. This will help you rank in searches that your target audience would use to find you, and also show your readers you are a credible business that knows the industry.

For instance, you could write about:

  • How Often You Should Clean Your Pool
  • Preparing Your Pool for Cooler Temperatures
  • Pool Maintenance Schedules
  • Pool Safety Tips
  • Chlorine vs. Saltwater Pools

If you’re not confident in your writing abilities, or find that you just don’t have time to write the content, you (shameless plug!) can hire a marketing agency to help you. Though I’m not a tax professional, these kind of investments can be written off on your taxes because they are business expenses related to marketing.

[smgquote author=”Eric Sachs, CEO”]
Create content that others can use and link to as a resource for their audience.
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Invest in Social Media

Social media sites, particularly Facebook, are useful because people turn to their networks to get recommendations and discover businesses. It is the most popular discovery platform, ahead of Google Reviews and Yelp. When you create your Facebook Page, focus on filling out as much detail as you possibly can. Include your Facebook information on your website, business cards, and other marketing materials to help in building your audience.

When it comes to posting content on the page and engaging your audience, there are many things you can do, including:

  • Posting links to content from your blog
  • Posting before and after photos of jobs you’ve done
  • Sharing special offers for discounts on your service, exclusive to your Facebook followers
  • Ask your audience to share photos of them enjoying their pool – whether they are your customer or not.
  • Connect your Facebook Page to an Instagram account to automatically share your photos there and expand your reach

You can also invest in Facebook Ads to grow your audience and promote your business. Search engines pay attention to social signals when determining rank, so it’s important to maintain an active presence. If you don’t have time to write content for your site, your marketing agency can take care of it for you.

If you’re just starting your pool cleaning service, it can be frustrating trying to get it up and running. If you’ve been in it for years, it can be hard to find time to handle your marketing and advertising efforts. In both cases, a high-quality website and digital marketing strategy are crucial to your business growth and sustainability.

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SEO

How to Use Press Releases for Better SEO

Press releases have long been a great way for businesses to get announcements about their store openings, special events or awards and recognitions circulated by the media. In the past, news outlets would either publish your press release or use it as a basis for building a bigger story. As the internet grew, publishers started to look at press releases differently – not just in terms of media distribution, but in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) value as well.

What Exactly Is a Press Release?

Press releases are specially formatted pieces of communication designed to share a very specific piece of information. They’re usually about events or contain announcements about changes to a business. In some cases, businesses use them to highlight something considered newsworthy and notable to the business.

Traditionally, press releases were given to newspapers and magazines with the hope that reporters would see the information and become interested in it. From there, the reporter could more easily create articles before the paper published, getting the word out in a shorter period of time.

Some press releases are limited to certain media groups, giving them first rights to publication. These initial publishers would then make the release available to other outlets a little later on, often for a fee. Associated Press still does this even today.

Other releases are made available for immediate use (often called “for immediate release” instead). This means any news or media outlet can run them from the moment they are first released.

As the internet evolved, so did the purpose of the press release. While releases are always written with the media in mind, businesses interested in online distribution are also focused on the SEO value of the release – both in the release itself and in the authority of the sites that run it. This is especially important to businesses that function primarily online, where local media releases might not be as appropriate or helpful.

Of course, there are still some things you’ll need to do to make sure your releases add value to your campaigns. Let’s talk about that next.

Choose Your Topic Carefully

We can’t stress this enough: your topic has to be a newsworthy piece of information that will appeal to your audience and to the world of journalism.

Think of:

  • An announcement about a new product or service
  • Major changes to staff at higher levels in the organization (CEO, etc)
  • Announcing support of a charity and a related event
  • Major giveaways or promotions (not regular day-to-day sales)
  • Partnerships with other corporations or groups
  • Information about community outreach efforts
  • Business-related achievements on a company level
  • “World record” style achievements specific to an employee

Be creative as you go about your daily operations. You may be surprised at what you find you can spin into a great press release. Aim to put one out at least once per month, if not more often. Ideally, you’ll create a release each time you grow, evolve, and succeed along the way!

Focus On Your Keywords

In the case of a press release, you’ll need to make sure the keywords you include aren’t just geared towards your products and services. They need to contribute to a newsworthy story – something both your target audience and the average journalist might be searching for. Even though you’re publishing your press release online, you still want to try to have it picked up by reputable media outlets. Optimizing keywords in your press release will ensure this happens.

Write Creative Headlines

It’s important to be creative when writing your headline, but you can’t be vague. Any journalist looking at your headline should be able to pick up on appropriate keywords and get an idea of what your story is going to be about. The headline needs to be catchy and clear at the same time – something people will want to share, whether they’ve clicked through and read the full release or not. Consider it a challenge and have fun with it.

Format Your Copy Properly

The formatting for a press release is relatively specific. The top section should include your logo, contact information and information about the release date. Beneath that you should have a major headline and a subheader. Your first paragraph always begins with a dateline (City, State, Month, Date) before the body of the text begins.

Limit your copy to three to four short paragraphs of text. Include clear, concise pieces of information, especially in the first paragraph. Write naturally, but include your main keywords whenever appropriate to increase your SEO value. Hyperlink some of your main keywords or the name of your business, directing traffic back to a relevant page on your website. Don’t include more than one or two links in the entire body of text.

Wrap it up with a boilerplate line, end notation, and a final note about who the media should contact for additional information. You can include a link to your website in the contact information at the top, or in the final note at the bottom.

About That Logo

Make sure you include your company’s current logo in the press release. This is non-negotiable. Don’t skip it, thinking you can simply write the name of your company in bold text at the top. We guarantee that a media outlet will do a Google search for your company’s logo to include if they do decide to publish. Including it yourself will make sure they end up with the most recent, properly branded version available. For better SEO, make sure the file name is your company name before you finish the upload.

Include Different Forms of Media

While you don’t want to fill the body of your press release with fluff, you do want to make it appealing. Be sure to embed or attach any relevant videos or images that support your story. No matter where your release ends up being published, the odds are very high that it will end up shared on at least one social media platform. Having an image attached will increase your odds significantly.

Press releases are a great way to spread the word about your business while improving your online presence. Make sure you are using different keywords in each press release and don’t forget to cross-publish them on your website’s blog or a dedicated press release page as well. As with all aspects of your marketing campaign, you’ll need to experiment to see which techniques work best for you. Adjust the process after each release and we’re sure you’ll be pleased with the boost your SEO efforts receive.

Categories
SEO

8 Outdated SEO Techniques You Need to Stop Using — Now

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is evolving at a fast and constant pace. You’d be surprised at the number of techniques “experts” used just a couple of years ago that are completely ineffective now! Advances in artificial intelligence (and Google’s algorithms) make it easier than ever for bots to identify genuinely valuable information as opposed to content developed to cater to the search engines. You must change your strategies to keep up.

Gaining new knowledge is one of the best ways to stay ahead, but sometimes it’s what you’re still doing that’s the real problem. Avoid these old-school hacks at all costs. If you haven’t stopped using them, they could be leading you down a very risky path.

Article Directories

Remember back in the day when you could submit to article directories? You included a short bio with a backlink, so that anyone who picked up your article to republish it would have to include the same bio and link on their site, too. (Most of those articles never got picked up, and those that did were stolen without the bios anyway.)

After a while, Google started to recognize article directories as the stuffed-with-low-quality content link farms they really were. By the time the Panda update rolled out, the algorithms were able to stop valuing this type of backlink altogether. Don’t waste your time with them.

Article Spinning

What is “spinning,” exactly? It’s a black-hat technique that takes articles and replaces random words to create “unique” content. The spinner then redistributes the plagiarized content to different platforms. The results are at best not well-written, and at worst completely unreadable. A general rule of thumb is to avoid using software to create content. Content created by humans is by far the best.

Low Level Guest Blogging

In the past, guest blogging was about finding well-ranked websites with a high domain authority (DA) and page rank (PR). Bloggers would do anything to get a link, even if it meant writing a home improvement article so they could have a link in the bio pointing back to their health website. Site owners loved it because they didn’t have to pay for content. The strategy didn’t make any sense.

There is value in guest blogging, though. The key is to put in the work to find a related niche website where you can provide high-quality content the readers will find valuable. It’s still OK to write killer content to post on other people’s sites. You need to make sure the site’s topic is somewhat related to yours and that the content is as valuable as anything you’d publish on your own domain.

Keyword-Based Domains

Instead of finding a domain that reflected a business brand, people used to choose a keyword and then attempt to find a domain based on an exact match. We see people doing this not only on the web, but also on Facebook pages and other social platforms.

Exact-match keyword domains are considered spammy. Google will not give you any extra link juice for this uncreative method. As a matter of fact, Facebook’s terms of service specifically ban the use of keywords to name pages. Branding is more important than shoving long or short-tail keywords into someone’s face.

Optimized Anchor Text

We know you want to rank for certain keywords. That doesn’t mean you need to over-optimize your linking strategy to stuff exact-match keywords into your text. It’s considered unnatural and it is — again — a technique Google now limits.

It’s fine to include keywords in your text, but only if you can fit them in naturally. If you can’t, it’s better to create your backlinks from more natural phrases like the one we just highlighted in this sentence. Use your keywords as tools to help you plan your content, not to force overused words or awkward phrases into your writing.

Creating Too Many Pages for Your Site

Let’s say you’re a plumber. An old-school SEO expert may have told you that you need a whole bunch of different pages on your website so that you can rank for each keyword separately. You ended up with a page each for plumbing, plumbing repair, plumbing problems, plumbing upgrades, and other keywords that seem different but are all closely related. The content ends up being weak because it’s not geared towards the consumer, but for the keyword itself.

Why is this bad?

Well, words aren’t going to convert and buy your services.

Okay, that was a little tongue-in-cheek, but what we mean is that it’s people who convert, not the words you write. You should always focus on serving people first.

As for spamming pages? Google can detect it and will penalize you if they do. The RankBrain intelligence system and Google’s Knowledge Graph made it easy for the bots to detect pages created to game the SEO system. Skip it and focus on what matters.

Weak Metadata

Although it’s now considered outdated, SEO experts used to recommend stuffing your keywords into your meta tags and descriptions. The thought was that the bots would crawl the descriptions, and rank pages based on these small chunks of information. As a result, the description previews people saw in the search results were keyword-stuffed garble that made little sense.

Google’s official stance now is that meta descriptions don’t impact page rankings, but that’s not 100 percent true, either. While your rankings may not be affected by the actual text of the meta descriptions, Google does consider how many people click through to your page. If the description is what causes a person to click your link, it is indirectly supporting your SEO efforts and overall rankings.

Quantity Over Quality

Quality content is key these days. Stop churning out page after page, blog post after blog post – unless you have something meaningful to say with each article. Your readers want to dig deep and gain value from the blogs you offer.

Want to know the number one secret? Shake up your content types. Offer long-form text, video, infographics, and other visuals. Stop writing nothing but short, 300-word missives that summarize an idea but give no real, actionable information.

Now that you know what not to do, how will you change your strategies for 2019? Are you planning to create new content or more of what’s already working? Have some new hot leads for guest blogging and relationship building? Let us know what SEO plans you have and what strategies you are going to ditch and leave behind. We can’t wait to hear your ideas, see your tips, and watch you grow into the New Year!

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SEO

SEO and Healthcare: What You Need to Know

It doesn’t matter if you work in a small doctor’s office or lab or for a large hospital chain; all healthcare professionals need to have an online presence. Healthcare and medical providers face a growing set of unique challenges in the SEO world because of the intense need for privacy and sensitivity they face. HIPAA compliance rules make it difficult to directly address some online concerns, but patients are demanding higher levels of satisfaction. They’re voicing their opinions and concerns online — loudly.

If you happen to be operating in the healthcare industry, this is an important topic. A single negative review on sites like RateMD can sink a private clinic lightning-fast, leading to a loss of patients or even eventual lawsuits.

Your job is to balance the need for privacy, respect, and sensitivity with the need to market your brand and business. Here’s how to achieve that goal and what you need to know in order to avoid a PR disaster.

Organic SEO Results in Healthcare

Let’s be realistic – just about everyone with internet access tries to look up some sort of healthcare information now and again. Don’t even pretend you haven’t tried to play Dr. Google at least once; we all do it. Healthcare providers often show up in those searches, especially if they use the right keywords and content.

How can you make the most of that? The key is to make sure you are using the right keywords and strategies as they relate to your practice or specialties. This can take a little bit of finesse and skill.

In terms of keywords, a primary care physician may want to use search terms that relate to their geographic area, to their areas of specific interest, or even to the specific age groups they treat (e.g., geriatrics or pediatrics). Some choose to focus on the type of insurance plans they accept instead, because searchers often look for what their insurance will cover first.

A specialist, on the other hand, may be able to take a broader approach regarding geographic area since people are often willing to travel further for a well-known, highly-skilled specialist. Other keywords would have to be more specific to their areas of expertise; e.g., cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics, and related terms.

Once you have a specific list of healthcare related keywords, the practice’s website will need to be properly optimized. The site’s title descriptions, meta tags, and of course content should all reflect your chosen terms. Unique on-site content needs to be created around these terms, and  not just within service and information pages, but on informative blog and article pages, too.

Healthcare providers are not exempt when it comes to creating high-quality content for SEO purposes. In fact, because most are classified as industry experts, visitors often expect an even higher level of content than they might from, say, a department store, restaurant, or hair salon. Keep this in mind at all times.

SEO and HIPAA

HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, was designed to create guidelines healthcare facilities must follow in order to keep patient information safe and secure. While this generally applies mostly to patient files and how they are shared among different offices and other providers, there are some things you need to keep in mind for SEO and marketing purposes.

  • Your website should be using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) to prevent unauthorized access to private information. This is especially important if your website has an online portal your patients can use to connect with the office, send messages, and view records. Having SSL will help boost your rankings.
  • HIPAA requires that all websites have a Notice of Privacy Practices in order to remain compliant. The notice must specifically disclose how information is collected and how it will be used.
  • HIPAA guidelines require medical websites to change their passwords on a regular basis. It also dictates that only certain people in your organization should have online access to PHI (personal health information).
  • In terms of website content, you must have a patient’s express, written permission to share details of their treatment or story on your website or social media platforms. This includes anecdotes, even if you switch out a few details to try and mask the possible connection of identity.

In short, everything you do must comply with HIPAA guidelines. The actual bill is almost 140 pages long, though, and most of us here aren’t lawyers. If you are ever in doubt, have your practice attorney take a look at the regulations and your plan. This is one instance in which it’s best to be safe, rather than sorry (or even sued).

HIPAA and Review Management

Review and reputation management is a huge part of search engine optimization. Every business entity should be paying attention to what people are saying about them online, but healthcare providers need to be especially conscious of this feedback. Patients can leave reviews just about anywhere, including the standards like Google, Facebook, and Yelp, as well as other narrow-themed sites like Vitals, HealthGrades, ZocDoc, and RateMD.

Some patients will leave reviews on third-party sites and write their own Facebook posts or blogs about what happened during their office visits. They may or may not call you out by name. The important thing to remember is that you simply can’t engage with these people or reply with specific details. Not only is it a HIPAA violation, but it’s also extremely ethically questionable, too.

We’ve seen business owners react emotionally to reviews time and time again, but you simply can’t do that in the healthcare industry. In most instances, best practice would be to leave a comment inviting the person to contact your office so that you can go over their issues. There is very little else, even if they disclose personal details, you can say online without violating HIPAA.

HIPAA and Social Media

Having a social media presence is obviously important to SEO, but your profiles can be a ticking HIPAA time bomb if they are not handled properly. The first problem is that too many healthcare organizations allow employees who seem social media savvy to handle their accounts without any true knowledge of social media management. They get over excited, post pictures, and share details they simply shouldn’t.

That snapshot of Carol laughing with your patient last week you posted to Facebook? If you don’t have a waiver signed for it, it just might get you in trouble.

The biggest thing to remember when it comes to social media is that nothing you share should include anything at all that could tie the post back to a specific person – directly or indirectly. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t use a name if you did use a full-face photo. HIPAA guidelines specifically forbids you to use any PHI in your marketing or social campaigns, paid or organic. Just don’t do it.

You also need to make sure your staff are trained to not discuss the details of their jobs on their personal social media accounts. VeryWell shared an article detailing some chilling examples of privacy violations gone wrong, including an EMT that posted enough details about an assault victim that the media was able to figure out where the victim lived. This can lead to real, serious harm – physical and emotional – especially in situations where a crime has been committed.

The key to good healthcare SEO is to make sure the information you distribute, whether posted on your website or on social channels, sticks to your area of expertise without using real-life examples or personal details. You can be friendly, informative, and engaging without violating someone’s privacy.

If you do want to share something about a patient, do the right thing – ask them for permission. Have them sign a waiver giving you permission to share that inspiring story or successful treatment picture. They’ll appreciate it, and so will your lawyers.

Categories
SEO

Step-by-Step Guide to Troubleshooting Technical SEO Trouble

Technical SEO is, well, technical. Okay, sure, that’s a bit obvious, right? What isn’t always obvious, especially to laypersons, is how to address technical SEO concerns and how to fix problems when they occur.

If your site is struggling, but you aren’t exactly a virtuoso in the industry, hiring an expert to help you correct the problem is always best. But you don’t necessarily need to be an expert to correct every problem. In this post, I’ll outline some of the most common technical troubles and reveal why they pose a problem for websites in the first place. Then, I’ll tell you how to correct them so you can get back on track.

Verify if You’re Indexed

Maybe you change your URL, or a developer accidentally no-follows your homepage instead of an internal page. For whatever reason, accidental de-indexing does happen, and when it does, webmasters usually see a sharp and sudden decline in traffic. Sometimes the issue really is this simple!

To identify whether this is your issue using Google’s provided verification tool within the search console (start here). Then, track down whatever’s preventing you from being indexed and correct it so you can get back on track.

Check Your Robots.txt

Nearly all websites and web platforms have a Robots.txt file that sits in the top-level directory of your web server. This tiny text file tells crawlers what to do when they encounter specific directories or files. The standard contents look a little something like this:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

When formatted as above, this file tells crawlers they are encouraged to crawl every page and resource in your site directory.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always ideal; code-heavy structure elements and pages that aren’t shown to the public can slow down crawlers, causing them to miss other important elements.

To fix this problem, developers alter the Robots.txt file to specify which elements should be ignored, making it look a little something like this:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /alternate/

Disallow: /mail/

The “disallowed” elements here are simply server directories that shouldn’t be crawled because they don’t contain any useful content.

Where the problem occurs is when hasty developers absent-mindedly forget to finish off the Disallow sections after the forward-slash. Listing only “Disallow: /” tells crawlers not to crawl your entire web directory, including your website, meaning you are effectively de-indexing yourself if you do it.

The fix for this is easy, of course – just remove that pesky forward slash and properly list your disallowed entries.

Review All Meta Tags

It isn’t enough to check your Robots.txt anymore; you should also check the source code (including meta tags) for each individual page. Sometimes, web platforms (including certain WordPress plugins) will default to inserting a “NoFollow” tag on individual pages, instead of within the Robots.txt file. These are often overlooked because they weren’t placed there intentionally in the first place.

If an internal page does contain the NoFollow meta tag, crawlers will effectively ignore it and any other internal page linking from it. If the tag placement happens to be only one or two pages deep, crawlers may miss up to 80 percent of your site when they crawl. Another symptom of this issue is a high bounce rate on a seemingly-random internal page.

Track Rel=Canonical Tags

Rel=canonical exists to make life easier for web developers and webmasters. It tells crawlers that two pages, either on or off site, are identical, and identifies which of the two pages crawlers should consider when indexing your site. This prevents search engines like Google and Bing from labeling you as a plagiarizer, which can potentially get you de-indexed and sandboxed permanently.

Failing to use Rel=Canonical tags at all is just as much of an issue in technical SEO troubleshooting as failing to use them correctly. They need to be in place, on the right pages, pointing to the right zones, in order to positively impact SEO.

Using analytics tools, search your site for instances of duplicate content. Then, repeat the search for off site versions. Don’t forget to factor in syndication, multiple website versions (e.g., www.example.com versus example.com, or https:\\ vs. http:\\), and multiple web platforms (mobile vs. desktop versions). Then, use Rel=Canonical meta tags to redirect crawlers to the right page.

One final note: be cautious of over-reliance on Rel=Canonical for pages that differ slightly, but aren’t quite the same. Moz talks about this concept here, but essentially, it’s debatable whether it’s wise or harmful in the long-run. If pages have anything but just one or two small differences, they may be better off as standalone pages.

Repair Broken Backlinks

We’ve seen it a thousand times before: a site owner sits down and re-categorizes their entire WordPress site, shortening their URL structure. Or, a developer moves the site to a new host, which necessitates changing the site’s structure slightly. Suddenly, backlinks everywhere cry out as they break en masse.

Even minor changes to the structure of your site, including changing tags or categories, can have this affect. Often, developers don’t notice the problem until they see a sudden dive in traffic or SEO results a month or two later.

Unfortunately, the fix isn’t nearly as easy as in the previous sections. Fixing broken backlinks coming from sites you don’t own can be exhaustive. First you have to identify them; then, it’s time for an outreach campaign to provide them with the correct and updated URLs. It is, however, a fantastic time to cultivate new relationships with people who are already paying attention!

Reformat PDFs and Text Images

Plagiarism is a real problem in the online sphere; that’s why website owners sometimes turn to image-based PDFs for text they fear will be stolen. Or, they post images of text articles and blogs instead. This rarely wise; the benefits gained just plain do not outweigh the negative effects lost in the process.

The problem with image-based text is two-fold: one, it frustrates readers, who may highlight to help them follow along, and two, search engines just aren’t great at understanding the text within as of yet. You lose SEO power, frustrate the people who find you, and water down any benefits gained from the content.

Instead, change how you think about your content. If it’s really so important that theft matters, put it behind an email signup page or reformat it for web consumption. It’s fine to continue using PDFs; just be sure they contain actual copyable text and and not images so search engines can parse them. As for images of blogs and articles, skip it altogether.

Improve Security with HTTPS

Still operating on HTTPS? It’s time to step into the future. Google recently announced a preference for secure sites with current SSL certificates, meaning HTTPS has more SEO weight than HTTP alone. If you use secure site technology to keep your viewers safe, Google will reward you with a slight ranking boost.

Caveat emptor: in certain rare situations, HTTPS can cause your site to become slow. This is evidence of a site problem in and of itself, and shouldn’t preclude you from switching to HTTPS altogether. Instead, it’s a sign that you need to review developer best-practices, such as minifying resources for mobile devices.

Check for Negative SEO

If you’ve gone through all of these suggestions, yet you still seem to be having trouble, there’s a small and rare risk that you may be suffering from a negative SEO campaign. This is when a competitor (or someone who just plain doesn’t like you) engages in malicious SEO practices designed to make search engines think you’re manipulating results.

What does negative SEO look like? Common practices include listing you on link farms, backlinking to your content from “adult” websites, or plagiarizing your content on multiple other sites without your permission to make you appear to be engaging in content theft. You can’t control such activities, but you can disavow links here and report plagiarized content to Google.

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SEO

Taking Risks with Your SEO: What to Do and What to Avoid

When it comes to business, sometimes you have to take risks in order to grow. In SEO and web marketing, taking risks is, well, risky business. Sometimes, it’s worth it for the sake of testing, experimentation, and growth – but you really need to know what you’re doing before you make the jump. Otherwise, your actions can have a very real and immediate negative impact on your digital marketing efforts.

But here’s the issue; figuring out which risks are safe, rewarding, or just too problematic isn’t easy, especially with constantly-changing SEO guidelines. In this post, I’ll walk you through which risks are safe, which you should approach with caution, and which ones you should avoid altogether.

DO Buy Expired Domains

Domain URLs are like collectables. The more you have, the more you can increase your traffic. The key is to only buy expired or available domains that happen to be tightly related to your niche market.

Need an example? Let’s say you sell sporting goods. Domains with names that apply to sports, or that once hosted sports sites or sporting goods, are a great choice.

However, domains that were ranked well but that are not at all related, or that simply had a ton of junky spam content, are extremely risky for this strategy. In fact, if you snap up the wrong one, it can be a disaster.

The goal is to buy related domains and redirect the URL to your well-built domain. That way, the people searching for the original site end up on a new site (yours!) that offers a similar product or service, increasing your odds of building a new relationship.

DON’T Disavow Backlinks

At one point, there was a Google update that punished websites if they had backlinks coming from questionable or low-quality websites. SEO experts and webmasters spent hours of their time disavowing backlinks and adding code to disassociate themselves from the ones they thought were hurting them.

Disavowing is a waste of your time and could potentially hurt your rankings. Why? No one really knows which links are helping and which links are hurting, and Google finally recognized that we don’t always have control over which websites link back to us.

The only links you should be disavowing are the truly unsavory ones – like weird-looking adult sites or questionable political sites that border on flat-out offensiveness. Otherwise, let go and leave the neutral links alone.

DO Go After High-Quality Backlinks

Quality backlinks from high domain-authority sites in a similar niche to yours are always worth the effort and risk. Backlinking is a numbers game, but quality is far more important than quantity. Look for trustworthy websites that let you contribute content or are willing to quote you as a source or resource within their own content. You may be able to come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Sometimes, site owners complain that their backlinking efforts simply aren’t paying off; this often has more to do with Google not picking up on the links than the value of those links. When you look at your analytics, you can see all the backlinks connected to your website, but you can’t tell if they’re follow versus nofollow. This is, again, because Google wants you to focus on quality, not gamified attempts to outdo others on the number of links you attract.

Use Google analytics to see what parts of your site are most popular for linking. Then, create new content targeting similar and related topics or questions. This approach honors Google’s desire for quality while capitalizing on the potential for link volume.

DO Experiment with Changing Your URL Structure

Your page URLs make a big difference in SEO ranking, especially if they contain specifically targeted keywords. This approach helps both Google and your potential readers better identify what they’re going to find inside. Unfortunately, a lot of older websites defaulted to URL structures that used simple number and letter codes for each page (including early versions of WordPress). This is an outdated tactic and can hurt your page’s overall rankings.

You don’t want the URL to be too long; just clear enough to give a glimpse inside. For example, you should avoid:

  • com/taking-risks-with-your-seo-what-to-do-and-what-not-to-do

Instead, try something like this:

  • com/seo-risks
  • com/seo-risks-to-take

Besides being too long, the first URL above makes another mistake: the keywords are way too far into the URL itself. Whenever possible, your keywords should fall as close to the top-level domain within the string as possible (as is shown in the shorter versions).

DON’T Delete Site Content

Deleting entire pages of site content can do you far more harm than good, especially if other sites are linking to those pages. You run the risk of completely unranking yourself for whatever keyword was associated with the page in question.

There are a couple of ways around this:

  • Is the page you want to delete a product-listing page? Leave the page on the site – but put up a note letting people know that the product is no longer available and suggest alternative products and services. Remove the page from site navigation; don’t delete it from the site as a whole.
  • Is the page you want to delete an informational piece or blog post? Instead of deleting the page, rework the content to improve it. Try incorporating new and different visuals. Add a video, a new infographic, or maybe a series of photos alongside fresh text.

DO Improve User Experience

Improving user experience is one of the most powerful strategies for keeping people on your site longer; this factor directly influences your ability to rank. Review your page analytics to see how long people stay on each page, then assess your bounce rates. What’s working, and what isn’t?

The goal is to get people to stay on each page longer. You can do that by adding short video clips, infographics, descriptive content, reviews, quizzes, or fun, short little games that add a bit of levity to your content. All of these require just a little more time to digest than plain text alone, but they also make the content much more fun.

Experiment with one change at a time, on a few pages at a time, to monitor whether the changes are helping or hurting. Don’t make mass changes; if something goes wrong, it will be difficult or even impossible to track down.

You can never quite tell which way the wind is going to blow with SEO, but that doesn’t mean you should just give up and hope for the best, either. Implementing carefully-planned changes on a smaller scale gives you the data you need to determine what works and what doesn’t before you implement site-wide changes. Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to successful SEO.

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SEO

Google’s Featured Snippets: How to Draw Attention to Your Content

We’ve all searched something on Google and instantly found our eyes drawn toward the featured ads at the top of the page. Depending on what platform you’re on, what you may not have noticed is the new featured snippets. They’re the boxes at the top of the search results that preview a little bit of the body of a post, an image, and a link to the website where the featured snippet comes from. Here’s what makes them so unique and exciting for SEO specialists and marketers.

What Is a Featured Snippet?

Featured snippets aren’t sponsored or paid ads. A whopping 99 percent of the articles featured already show up on the first page. Instead, Google’s algorithms choose what best represents the answer to the “question” the searcher is asking, and then embeds it into the featured snippet box. The goal, of course, is to make Google Search more friendly and useful for searchers.

While there is nothing you can do to mark your page for inclusion as a featured snippet, there is code you can add to your website if you do not want to be included. Otherwise, the algorithm Google search uses to determine what shows in the featured snippet box is as much a secret as every other algorithm Google creates.

Featured snippets actually come in three forms. There can be a paragraph of text with a link, a table with statistics, or a small graph / quick answer box. The latter, for example, is what you might see if you try to convert dollars to pounds. A functional conversion box right on the screen is extremely useful for searchers who need to make quick calculations.

But that isn’t our current focus. Instead, we’re looking at the paragraph feature with a link, as those are the snippets most likely to get you an increase in organic traffic.

The Benefits of Becoming a Featured Snippet

You might initially assume that showing up as a featured snippet isn’t actually good for your website traffic. Why? The nickname for this box is the “answer box,” because the snippet shown shows a short answer to the posed question. If someone sees the short, quick answer they need, why do they need to click through?

The good news here is that this is false logic. Plenty of people find that the Q/A style presented actually tempts people to click in further. Ben Goodsell at Search Engine Land saw one of his pages increase in click-through from 2 percent to a whipping 8 percent.

How to Optimize Your Page for Featured Snippets

Since there is no way to mark your page for inclusion as a featured snippet, your best bet is to optimize the content on your page in a way that gets it noticed. Your organic SEO strategy plays a primary role, here, because – yet again – showing up on the first page increases your odds of being featured. Here are a few other tips that may help:

Answer Questions

The posts that show up in featured snippets are answering questions, so make sure some of the content on your page answers your audience’s most burning questions or curiosities. Look at the questions other people (or your own content) are already answering, and use that as a springboard to a more comprehensive, detailed answer.

The higher the quality of your answer is, the better your odds are of surpassing your competitors in the rankings. The trick is to make sure that you wrap up the short answer to your question in one slick paragraph. Use the rest of the body of your article for expansion and deep dives.

Be sure to include a variation of the question as a subheading somewhere within your text. Choose a vibrant, relevant, royalty-free image to include in your post, as this will grab the most attention. Google loves images, so pages with pictures stand a better chance of being included than pages without.

Understand Your Competitors

Do a little research to find out if any of your competitors have been featured. The analytics tool on SEMrush allows you to organically research almost any domain, getting an instant look at how your biggest competitors manage to thrive. Just put the domain name into the search box: if they have a featured snippet, it will show up as an inbound linking provider just below.

People Also Ask

After you type a keyword or question into the search engine box, you see the featured snippet and lower box appear below. It suggests related questions centered on the topic that may help you brainstorm ideas. Click on them. Take note of what other websites are featured within the results. Can you add content to your page that answers the same question – or even improves upon the answer to surpass the current offerings?

Answer the Public

Answer the Public site has been around for a little while – a couple of years, in fact – but it seems like it’s only now gaining real trajectory. This is an invaluable resource for people who need to figure out just what the heck people want to know in the first place. All you have to do when you visit is type in a keyword; the site will give you a graph outlining the most commonly asked questions in an easy-to-digest format.

AtP’s question categories mostly fall into who, what, when, where, and why; choose one of these and you can dig down deeper to find more answered asks. This approach helps you find a good angle to attack when creating your own unique content.

Develop a Q&A Page

So you’ve done your research. You created a list of questions you want to try to answer, and you think you’re ready to steamroll on. Wait – your online real estate is valuable, and some questions aren’t necessarily worth giving it all away. That doesn’t mean you should opt out of answering it altogether.

Take those questions, put them in a logical order, and develop a question-and-answer or FAQ page for your website. The trick here is to make sure your answers aren’t too short or too long. A solid paragraph or two for each should be just right.

Getting Featured Takes Time

While optimizing your page content for snippets may help you with organic traffic, the entire process takes time and patience. It can take weeks or months for a page to be picked up by Google, and even longer to get it optimized to the first page. Once you’re featured, though, you have the potential to stay relevant for years to come. Take note of the pages you’re optimizing with snippets in mind – and be sure your SEO team knows to give them special attention.

Your goal, of course, should always be to provide high-quality content to your readers, Google snippets or no Google snippets. Knowing the type of format Google looks for when searching for “answers,” and what your demographic really wants, is the best chance you have at earning extra traffic. It isn’t easy, but it’s definitely possible – especially with our help.

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SEO

Don’t Sign with a SEO Company Without Doing Your Homework

We all love to study and learn – that’s why so many of us got into marketing and the quickly-changing SEO market in the first place. It would be great if you could handle every aspect of your business in-house, but the reality is that SEO efforts take a lot of planning and consistent effort. With the exception of fully-structured SEO and marketing agencies, most businesses will eventually need to reach out to the experts for guidance and help.

Before you do, you should have a strong understanding of how SEO works, what the agency or expert should be doing, and what red flags you need to be aware of. Here’s the catch: if you aren’t already in the business, you might not even know where to start or what to ask to get the info you need. That’s exactly what you’ll learn here today.

Listen to the SEO Firm’s Questions

No matter what you feel you need to ask the SEO firms you are considering, listen carefully not only to the answers the sales person gives you but to the questions they ask in return as well. A firm with a strong working knowledge of your industry will will know what questions to ask about specific things your business does. Firms that claim to work well with medical spas, for example, should have at least some familiarity with the injectables, lasers, and procedures most commonly marketed as well as ideas for how to shine in a very competitive market.

Don’t forget: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Run screaming from anyone who claims they can get you on the front page of Google for a keyword in 7 days (or, for that matter, even 30 days or 60 days). Unrealistic SEO goals will cost you money and the black-hat tactics often used to achieve them may even hurt your site.

Web Development Strategy

One of the first things you should ask a prospective SEO firm is what they will do to optimize your website. While no SEO expert is going to give you a full strategy for free, you should be able to get an idea of what necessary changes they plan to make.

Why is this so important? You may need a complete website overhaul, or you may only need updates to your meta tags and content. The difference in price can quite literally be several thousand dollars, making it much smarter to ask first.

Lastly, no matter how small or big the job, ask about mobile optimization. At this point, any SEO company who isn’t familiar with the differences between desktop and mobile optimization and design is behind the game.

Look for References and Reviews

Experience matters. Is the SEO firm pitching you brand new or have they been established for years with a proven track record? There is nothing wrong with working with a newer company as long as the principles actually have experience working with other firms, as proven by their resumes and references.

Beware of anything that seems to over-promise, yet has virtually no footprint on the web and online sphere. There are a lot of people who do a little Google research, build a website, and call themselves SEO experts and those are the people you really want to avoid.

Don’t be afraid to ask the SEO firms you are considering for the names and contact details of two or three clients they work with – and actually call them. Your online presence can make or break your business and it is your right to check their references just as you would any other employer or contractor you’d consider hiring for your business. Ask about their overall success ratio, starting and current or ending statistics, whether they deliver work on time, and whether or not they felt the advice they received was useful.

Be Cautious of Outsourced Services

Let’s start this section by being completely contradictory to the heading: there’s really nothing wrong with a company who works with foreign contractors. In fact, freelancers from India, China, and other poorer countries who work and study hard to become good at what they do can often bring a really fresh perspective to the table. Firms who lean on these experts vet them carefully and work to develop a good relationship with experts.

Unfortunately, some “firms” take advantage of desperate workers from poorer countries just to make a quick buck. They will immediately take the SEO job from you and outsource it to struggling foreign workers who lack experience or skills, yet will work for pennies because they are desperate for work. This is unethical and unfair to both you and the struggling, underpaid worker, and often leads to sub-par or risky results.

The general rule? Working with overseas freelancers shouldn’t be an automatic red flag, but you should ask more questions. How do they find their experts, and how long have they been working with them? If a long-standing relationship exists, it may be fine. Otherwise, look for companies who handle everything in-house.

Request an Audit

Audits are critical, yet they take a significant amount of time and effort. You can and should expect to pay for them from day one. Larger companies may have a couple of firms do audits for the sake of comparison, while a smaller company may ask the firm they’re already leaning towards for an audit before making a final commitment.

Note that you should establish baseline trust before approaching an audit. You’ll need to give the SEO firm in question restricted access to your Google analytics so that they can run reports and analyze the data, so vet them at least slightly before you reach this step. Once they’re in, they should be able to evaluate your site rankings, identify issues that are holding you back. Good agencies will then present you with action steps that will take you to the next level.

As for what your audit should include, think technical. Things to look for include an analysis of your site’s speed, code issues, internal link reports, and anything that might be slowing your site down or causing traffic to bounce.

Don’t expect the SEO firm to give you an outline detailed enough you could do the work on your own. It should be clear enough for you identify a sound plan of attack, though, including pricing and estimated costs for each phase of the project as well as ongoing maintenance.

Communication Is Key

We’ve seen blanket pitch emails from fly-by-night SEO companies that claim completed audits, yet when you search for the “examples,” they come from abandoned or ignored sites not touched or changed in years. Others will pitch “domain audits” on URLs that don’t have anything actively published. Red flags galore.

Pay attention to the communications you are receiving from a company, starting with the very first pitch email or call. Are the things you are hearing inspiring you to take action? Do you feel like the SEO expert is communicating with you in a way that makes you comfortable enough to understand their job and what they’ll be doing for you? Moreover, do you feel like you understand the pitch in a way that makes sense?

An SEO expert needs to have the communication skills necessary not only to work with you, but with your IT department, marketing team, and even your sales teams. If they can’t even convince you and speak to you on your level in a marketing email, it isn’t likely to get any better on the other side.

Ask About Reporting

SEO firms need to be held accountable for what they do. Be sure to ask how they will report to you and show their progress. You should receive a monthly report outlining changes the company makes to your website, your SEO campaign, and your ranking or keywords at least once a month, if not more often. The work you see on your site in the first few months is usually more than in subsequent months, but you should always see some progress, even if it is just towards maintenance.

Don’t like what you’re seeing or hearing as you go through your interview process with the firm? Ask them to clarify or share your concerns. A good agency will be more than happy to explain or clarify, and to be fair, some things seem shady when they aren’t (such as asking for server access to FTP in for hard code changes to metadata). If you don’t feel comfortable, walk away – there are better options out there.

A decision to invest in SEO is a decision to trust the agency to handle some of your most sensitive information. You must be able to put complete trust in what they’re doing while feeling comfortable enough with the process to ask questions. You have a right to know where your money is going and what to expect. Don’t sign on the dotted line until you’re confident your new SEO firm choice will give you the results you’re looking for.

Did you stumble upon our article because you’re searching for SEO assistance yourself? We’d like to extend an invitation to get in touch with us here at Sachs Marketing Group. From handling everything in-house to our incredible, long-standing record of customer loyalty, there are so many great reasons to choose us.

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SEO

7 WordPress Plugins You Should Consider for Better SEO

WordPress’s “fill in the blanks” style approach levels the playing field for people who don’t necessarily want to dabble in web design, but still want to take control, right out of the box. It’s insanely easy to create, roll out, track, and optimize content on the back end, all without ever needing even to touch hard code.

What we’re here to talk about today doesn’t really qualify as “right out of the box,” but it’s just as important a topic. Plugins extend the platform’s standard features, giving you powerful options for optimization and content structuring that the regular WordPress experience lacks.

When it comes to SEO and content optimization, having the right plugin can really help. It effectively allows you to put SEO tasks on autopilot while also improving your ability to monitor and track.

Before we tell you about some of these fantastic plugins, let’s start with this small caveat: SEO work can’t (and shouldn’t) ever be 100-percent automated. That’s way too risky; human oversight is a must. Now that we have that out of the way, here’s the best plugins to use to reduce your load without becoming uninvolved.

Broken Link Checker

Features: Monitor individual posts and pages. Get notified when a link breaks or an image is missing. Stay on top of restructuring as you grow.

Broken Link Checker lets you continuously monitor your website’s pages for broken links and image errors, too. This is important because the more content you create, the more difficult it is to keep up with where it is and when it gets moved. When broken links go unaddressed, it can negatively impact your SEO results, especially if you have a high number of them misdirecting visitors. Broken Link Checker eliminates this problem, allowing you to instantly review and correct issues.

Rel NoFollow Checkbox

Features: Automate “nofollow: code and track links faster on an individual basis. Take charge of which links you pass rank to and from.

In the world of SEO, links are gold. That doesn’t mean you should link to just any external website; in fact, the wrong link can do more harm than good. The way Google perceives the value of the sites you link to can, in turn, affect your authority. Rel NoFollow Checkbox allows you to quickly and easily add “nofollow” code to links.

This doesn’t mean all links should be nofollowed. Instead, you should pick and choose your links carefully, only allowing relevant sites with established authority the gift of a backlink. WordPress does give you the option to automatically nofollow all of your links at once, but it’s better to review each one on a case-by-case basis.

WPtouch Mobile Plugin

Features: Get a quick-and-dirty mobile optimized port of your website. Automates mobile optimization when manual isn’t an option.

Let’s be honest here: if your site isn’t already mobile-optimized, we need to have a much bigger conversation. That said, there are a few websites out there that don’t have the budget, manpower, or expertise to mobile-optimize. The WPtouch Mobile plugin gives you simple theme options that let you create mobile-friendly ports in seconds. These ported versions only show when someone drops in from a mobile device; your desktop views stay the same.

Why is this so important? Google’s most recent updates favor mobile-friendly sites, so your SEO will be impacted if your site isn’t optimized correctly. The short answer is that automating your mobile port is better than doing nothing at all. A longer-term manual fix is still preferred.

Smush Image Compression and Optimization

Features:  Shrink or compress massive images quickly and easily. Optimize visuals to best fit your website and visitor’s needs.

You don’t want a slow website in today’s fast-paced world. Given that most people click away within 10 seconds if they aren’t hooked, those precious few moments of loading time could make or break your efforts. Image size is one of the main reasons websites get bogged down and begin loading like a duck in cold molasses. You have the option to compress every single image before uploading them manually, but it’s daunting and time-consuming for large sites.

Instead, use Smush Image Compression and Optimization to automatically compress every image on your website at the same time. The result is a speedier website with faster loading times that put you back in the “good graces” of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Features: Automatically show links to related posts to encourage people to “dig deeper.” Keep people on your site longer to improve SEO.

Keeping people on your website for a more extended period is one of the best ways to improve SEO. It tells Google and other search engines that you have something worth paying attention to, which will automatically help your rank. Low bounce rates essentially prove your site is valuable.

The Yet Another Related Posts Plugin makes it easy for you to automatically show links to related posts at the bottom of each article or blog page. Why should you do this? Intrigued visitors will keep clicking within your site’s pages instead of going off to search the web for more information. Curiosity drew the cat further in!

YARPP also boasts cool control options letting you change how recommendations show, ensuring they fit seamlessly into your website’s design. The tool’s algorithm is advanced enough to identify which of your posts are best for display.

All in One SEO

Features: Get multiple all-in-one SEO features in a single package, including sitemaps, metadata, and so much more. Pro options provide training, too!

All in One SEO is an incredibly popular SEO plugin; there’s a good reason for all that popularity. This tiny-but-mighty plugin is super lite on resources, straightforward to use, and packed with functionality. Create sitemaps, explore keywords, add metadata tags — you can do it all with this one plugin. Plus, it’s fully integrated with Google Analytics and WooCommerce.

The pro version of All in One SEO offers advanced support and more options for SEO optimization. Extra video training helps you get to know how to use it best for maximum effect.

Yoast SEO

Features: Optimize your meta descriptions, set up pages titles, and set up your sitemap. Address on-the-fly adjustments quickly. Incorporate social sharing to track shares and other information.

No list is complete without a nod towards Yoast SEO. This plug-in tops most lists for flexibility and functionality. It, too, is an “all in one” jam-packed assortment of tools for beginners and pros alike. With a free version and a pro version, it’s also remarkably easy to get started with even if you don’t have a large budget for plugins.

Yoast’s readability recommendations are the plugin’s main drawback. It isn’t necessarily a bad feature, but some of the suggestions it makes are…well, downright incorrect and silly. It’s best to consider them as suggestions, especially when it comes to keywords.

WordPress plugins can help you maximize results, especially when it comes to SEO. Start with some of the most proven and accessible to get your site up and running, but don’t be afraid to experiment with some of the others you see. If you can think of a function you want to add, you can probably find a plugin to get the job done!

Categories
SEO

Critical Reasons Your SEO Efforts Aren’t Paying Off (And How to Fix It)

SEO isn’t always an exact science. Sometimes, finding the right approach demands a significant amount of trial and error, making calculating Return on Investment (ROI) feel a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Add in the complexity of constant changes from Google and it’s easy to see why some webmasters and SEO agencies struggle with campaigns and results that just don’t seem to pay off.

In this post, I’ll teach you to identify why your SEO campaigns aren’t working. Then, you’ll discover important and actionable steps you can use to fix the problem and preserve success long-term.

You Expect Too Much, Too Soon

Good SEO takes time, effort, skill and expertise. That’s why the average SEO campaign doesn’t produce measurable results until the four to six-month mark, after significant research and many, many adjustments.

To help explain this phenomenon, I’d like to highlight Forbes writer Josh Steimle’s standard SEO timeline. While he’s quick to point out that every campaign is unique, and thus, “standard” is a bit of a misnomer, he also lays out a path for how the average campaign might flow:

Significant, rank-impacting change doesn’t even start happening until well into month two; even then, it takes time for Google to factor in those changes. Reindexing alone, especially on a brand-new website, can take as long as a week or two.

It isn’t until month six, when the most significant adjustments are already in place and Google has a chance to register them, that Steimle recommends attempting to measure for success or failure. Any measurements before then represent a partial picture at best – and may even be completely inaccurate.

How to Fix: Unrealistic Turnaround Times

Stop expecting miracles when you’re barely out of the gate. Whether you’re big or small, sprawling global corporation or freelancer, you need to be patient enough to wait for rank to grow organically. Resist the temptation to invest in rapid result providers that put your company at risk by using black hat strategies.

Instead, change the way you think about progress, especially in the first three to six months of your campaign. Skip the ROI until month four; instead, measure “success” by outlining consistent effort and progress. Identify what your SEO provider is doing, when they’re doing it, how it relates to your eventual success. Then, stick it out for a little while to see if those efforts actually translate out into success.

By month six, you (or your provider) should be able to identify at least some movement in ranking, conversions, or sales. If you still can’t see any evidence that your efforts are paying off, or worse, your efforts seem to be worsening your rank, something isn’t right. It may be time for a new provider.

You Aren’t Allocating Enough Funds

It isn’t easy to determine an accurate SEO budget, especially if you’re just starting out. Like anything else, you get what you pay for; the more you invest, the more likely you are to see significant results by month six and beyond.

Here’s the problem; SEO costs money because it takes time, effort, expertise, and often, access to premium tools of the trade. If you hire an SEO and pay them $20 an hour, they’re barely paying themselves for the hours invested, let alone putting money into your campaign with advanced strategies.

Skimping on SEO by taking the cheapest plan you can find or leaving out critical elements of your campaign will hold you back. This is true whether you’re handling your own SEO or hiring an agency to help. At best, it results in sub-par results; at worst, it could even land you in hot water when a “discount” agency turns to black hat strategies to achieve the results you demand.

How to Fix: Low SEO Budgets

Good SEO costs money. If your marketing budget is razor-thin, take some time to reassess if your investment is reasonable – or at least determine whether it’s in line with your expectations.

While there are no magic budgeting numbers that work for every business, it is possible to gain a ballpark idea by looking at industry statistics. For example, this study by Moz breaks down how much businesses spend per month:

  • Just 9.76 percent spend less than $500
  • 83 percent spend between $501 and $1000
  • 27 percent spend between $1,000 and $2,500
  • 63 percent spend between $5,0001 to $10,000

It is important to note that a significant number of businesses taking the study skipped this question. It’s possible that more people spend more than $10,000 per month or that some of these brackets may be larger than anticipated. But we can still infer that nearly all businesses spend an average of $500 or more each month, a $200 or $300 budget just isn’t high enough.

Increase your budget while monitoring for changes over, say, three to six months. Or, if you’re budget capped, realign your expectations or piecemeal your strategies as you can afford them. Focusing solely on content generation, for example, is more effective as a solo investment than spreading yourself out too thin.

Your Competition is More Competitive

Here’s the thing about SEO and your competition: you’re both striving for the same goal, and ultimately, there can only be one. Sometimes, despite investing enough and putting enough effort in, your competition just manages to do it better – leaving you in the dust wondering why your efforts aren’t paying off.

To be clear, this is more of a misinterpretation than anything. Your competition may pull ahead from time to time – or even for a significantly long period of time – but it doesn’t necessarily mean your efforts aren’t paying off.

In fact, good SEO efforts are usually what keeps you from sliding even further back or completely out of the picture when your competition has a significant growth spurt. If your SEO efforts weren’t paying off, you’d be in much worse shape!

How to Fix: Losing to Your Competition

If your competition suddenly seems to be beating you in rank, wait a hot minute and see if their rank improvement holds out. Chances are you’ll see those numbers shift again because SEO is a constant “King of the Castle” game. Some volatility and fluctuation is a given, especially early on in your campaign.

Instead, think of SEO as  a marathon, not a 100-metre-dash. Your goal is constant, steady growth, but even holding steady in the face of a competitive onslaught is still a sign that you’re succeeding. There will always be brief blips; proper competitive analysis can reveal whether or not those valleys and peaks mean anything.

Here’s how to get competitive analysis right: start by investigating your competition’s website. Dive deep and investigate their website. Figure out:

  • How they optimize their website
  • What keywords they’re targeting
  • How they structure their meta tags
  • Which internal linking strategy they use
  • What kind of content they’re sharing
  • Their average content length
  • How many outbound links they use
  • How they optimize layout and design
  • Their external SEO strategies, e.g., SEM, GMB
  • What their backlinking profile looks like

Once you have all this information on hand, compare it to your own SEO campaign. Figure out what it is they’re doing that you are not doing; then, tweak what you can. Use their link profile to find linking opportunities.

If you’re targeting the same keywords, diversify your keyword profile and find long-tail alternates or new keyword opportunities. Analyze their content and figure out what’s getting the most attention; then, work similar content into your own strategy, but always keep it unique.

It also pays to stay realistic about your competition. If you’re a small startup in a heavily saturated industry full of multinational corporations, it isn’t realistic for you to compete against that corporation. Coming in a close second or third, however, is completely realistic and should be considered a win.

Categories
SEO

Hot SEO Tips for Brand-New Startups

When you’re first starting a business, how you manage your money matters. In fact, how you manage every single aspect of marketing plays a role in whether or not you survive the first year. Your number one goal is to achieve rapid growth without putting yourself in the hole in the process. That’s a tough nut for most marketing departments to crack because exposure and brand awareness costs money.

Unfortunately, budgeting issues often cause businesses to completely overlook search engine optimization (SEO) in the first year. They either feel they aren’t big enough to need it or they feel other strategies are more important.

We believe this outlook couldn’t be more wrong.

Budget matters. Early SEO matters. And you can make the best of both worlds by scaling your efforts to match your monetary capabilities; you don’t need to overextend yourself just to see beneficial effects. Here’s how.

Develop a Consistent Brand

No, this isn’t really an SEO tip. But it is the single-most important precursor to SEO success. Define your brand and figure out who you are what you’re trying to achieve, then create that persona and stick with it. Don’t flip-flop on names, change your product multiple times, or change your mission repeatedly; it confuses people and essentially forces you to start brand awareness all over again.

When it does come time for SEO, you’ll be marketing your brand. If you can’t figure out who you are, how can you expect anyone else to?

Research the Market

Market research is just as critical to SEO as it is to your overall market strategy. You need to know your available audience, your competition, and the market’s viability before you can even begin to identify a niche or keywords to target. This should be your first step – and you should continue your research as you grow.

Identify Your Niche

Start by categorizing your business – what do you sell? What do you provide? Are you marketing to customers, businesses, non-profits, enterprises, or some other form of organization entirely? Define your industry to start.

Now, head on over to Google’s Keyword Planner. Pop the name of your industry in and do a bit of exploring. What keywords come up? Do any of the longer 3+ word keywords (called long-tail) relate to your business? This should give you insight on your niche if you’re having trouble nailing it down.

Save your list of keywords in the Planner for now. You’ll need it!

Assessing the Competition

While you’re in Google Keyword Planner, take a look at the “competition” column. How competitive are the keywords you chose? If they’re all high, deep search a little more, branching off from your identified keywords. Look for keywords with low to medium competition that really relate to what you do or offer.

Next, it’s time to hit up Google. Search for your keywords on Google (plus your location if you’re a brick and mortar business). Which businesses come up? Are you going up against places like Wal-Mart and Target, or do you only find Yellow Pages listings and small mom or pop shops? This, too, is insightful.

Optimize Your Website First

Once you have a good list of keywords nailed down, it’s time to start optimizing your business website. On-page optimization comes first because it ensures search engines like Google and Bing can not only find but also correctly index your website. Without that critical factor, no one will ever land on your site.

First, I’ll explain three forms of keywords. Then, I’ll tell you how and where to use them for the best chance of success.

Branded Keywords

“Branded keywords” are niche or industry keywords that also contain your business name for brand awareness. E.g., “Sachs Marketing Group,” our name, is a branded keyword because it contains both our name and what we do (marketing). “SEO Services from Sachs Marketing” is another example, as is “Best SEO Company SMG.” They all include some variation of our brand name.

Niche Keywords

Niche keywords are self-explanatory; they’re the industry or niche-specific keywords we discussed further up in the article. These should be related to either semantic search questions your customer may have (such as “SEO Services in Thousand Oaks, California”) or something specific to your industry (B2B SEO Services).

How and Where to Use Keywords

Start by using your keywords in titles, headers, and the title of your page. This ensures that search engines see who and what you are the moment they crawl your page, but it also prevents confusion when your first few organic visitors start landing on your homepage.

Next, use your keywords sparingly and naturally throughout any existing content. This means no stuffing, no high percentages of keywords, and no oddly-placed grammar in your text that makes the keyword obvious. One to two times is plenty for most standard on-page content.

If you’re using a site platform like WordPress, look into plugins that help to simplify adding meta tags (tags that tell search engines what your content is about). SEMrush and Yoast are two of the most popular; they enable you to enter meta tags from within the WordPress editor instead of via FTP. Use keywords here, close to the start of the tag, at least once for each tag.

(Confused over meta tags? See this article by Search Engine Watch for a more in-depth primer.)

Get Present on Social Media

The second-last major tip for your first six to 12 months, at least concerning SEO, is to get out there and get noticed on social media. If you don’t have a business page on at least three platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SnapChat), create them.

But don’t stop there! Create posts regularly (at least once per week to start, if not more often) on each profile, tailoring the content to the site. Users on LinkedIn are more business-minded and professional, while SnapChat users often want to see product demos or be notified about insider specials. Similarly, Twitter is best for images or short #TGIF posts, while Facebook allows for more creativity and length.

Posting regularly has two main benefits: it lets searchers who look for you know that yes, you DO exist, but it also improves SEO and brand awareness. Google ranks sites with established social media profiles higher on trust and rank.

Start Blogging or Influencing

This last tip is critical to your ability to grow in the online sphere. Don’t just set up your sites and profiles, post to them, and forget they exist. Turn your brand into an influencer by getting involved in conversations online, responding to your clients and customers when they have questions, and releasing high-value, helpful content people find useful on a regular basis.

There are a few ways to make this happen:

  • Start blogging at least once per week, covering audience-specific topics
  • Start guest blogging for other industry or niche bloggers in exchange for links
  • Have a spokesperson or brand representative become an influencer
  • Hire influencers with experience to increase brand awareness for you

Blogging is the easiest because most businesses have at least one person who can jump right in and write authoritative, interesting content. Guest blogging is a little bit more difficult because you need to research and network to identify the right blogs, but it can really pay off.

Influencer marketing works differently; either you work to become a branded influencer, or you hire someone who influences to share your message.

No, this doesn’t mean you’re always hiring people like Kim Kardashian – unless she’s right for your message, of course. It just means finding someone who somehow relates to your brand and/or is already using your products, who also happens to have a large following, to give you a share, promote your services, or mention your name. Sites like Instagram and Twitter are best for this approach.

It isn’t easy being “green” – Kermit the Frog said this, and it just so happens to be a really common reason businesses turn to us for help with their SEO and marketing campaigns in the first year. It’s hard to enact marketing and SEO changes during hectic ramp-ups and rapid growth. We’re always happy to lend a hand! If you need guidance, we’re just a telephone call or message away.

Just reach out.

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SEO

8 Local SEO Tips for Restaurants

There are several local SEO tips for restaurants. Restaurants can boost local SEO by optimizing their Google Business listing, including accurate location and contact information, and encouraging customer reviews. Utilizing local keywords in website content, optimizing for mobile users, and including menus online are essential. Building local backlinks and engaging in local community events can also enhance local online visibility.

Do you have a local restaurant that you want to advertise online? Using a variety of marketing tactics, you can help draw in more customers without spending much money. Take a look at these eight tips to help you get started.

Build a Real Website

It may not seem necessary since you can use social media to advertise your business, but let me assure you, it is. When you rely on social media, you’re building your business on rented land – and when you build a website, that’s your own piece of the internet. You never know when Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms will change practices or close your page down for some random (and possibly false) violation. When you have a website, you’re ensuring your customers can find you – and you can link to all your social media and directory listings there.

Get a Google My Business Listing

Search for your restaurant in Google, and I can just about guarantee you’ll find a listing. If you’re so new you don’t have a listing yet, go create one. If you haven’t already claimed it or created it, you need to do it right now. I’ll wait.

Edit your listing to make sure all the information is correct. Information that Google has in your listing comes from third party sources, and though they work to verify it, it may not always be valid. Periodically check your listing to ensure it’s current and up to date.

Use the Google My Business Posts feature to share daily specials or other promotions you have going on.

Claim Your Business Listings in Directories Around the Internet

Claiming your listings, as well as removing duplicate listings in directories lets the search engines know they can be more confident about the information they have about your business. When you claim your listings and edit them, make sure you keep the information consistent across all of them in terms of name, address, and phone number.

There are tons of local directories out there, but many are specific to restaurants. Take some time to see if you’re listed on any or all of these sites:

Each of these listings will build a backlink to your website, which helps improve your ranking over time.

Use Schema

Schema, along with other microdata is a way to turn your website content into a content that the search engine robots can better understand.

Search engines are constantly trying to learn more about your business, such as the type of food you serve, your contact information, your hours of operation, what’s on your menu, the reviews from customers, your blog posts, and so on.

By taking the time to learn schema and code your website appropriately, or pay a web designer to do it for you, you are making the search engines job easier. Therefore, there is the potential for your website to rank higher when someone in your local area searches for your restaurant.

You can use schema to format your address. Before you add schema, an address looks something like this:

<address>
1234 Main Street
Somewhere, CA 12345-6789
phone: (123) 123-4567
fax: (123)123-7890
</address>

With schema, it looks more like this:

<address itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>
<span itemprop=”streetAddress”>1234 Main Street</span>
<span itemprop=”addressLocality”>Somewhere</span>, <span itemprop=”addressRegion”>CA</span> <span itemprop=”postalCode”>12345-6789</span>
phone: <span itemprop=”telephone”>(123) 123-4567</span>
fax: <span itemprop=”faxNumber”>(123) 123-7890</span>
</address>

But, that’s not all schema can do for your restaurant’s website. You can also use it to:

  • Code your menu into your website – more on that in the next section.
  • Tell search engines whether or not you accept reservations.
  • Tell search engines what kinds of payment you accept, as well as the currencies you accept.
  • Tell search engines the hours of operation.
  • Tell search engines your price range.

This is what your listing would look like if you included ratings, pricing, and hours schema in your website.

See all the things you can do with schema for your restaurant and what codes to use here.

Add Your Menu Everywhere You Can

I cannot stress enough the importance of using schema if you’re going to include your menu on your website. Yes, it’s easy to throw a PDF of your existing menu on your website for people to download, and it works – but it doesn’t help your SEO.

It can be a pain to put all the code in, especially if you have a large or complex menu. And it can be difficult to keep up to date if you change your menu often. But, that’s the easiest way to get your menu directly in the search engine results – which may help your ranking depending on what people search for to find your restaurant in the listings. Even if it doesn’t directly improve your rankings, it will improve the user experience for people who want to learn more about your restaurant and what it has to offer.

If you include your menu on your website without schema, or on third-party websites like the ones I listed above, Google will pull this information in. That’s okay, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the data will be correct or consistent. It’s better for your user experience if the listings are consistent and current.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve decided to go check out a restaurant I’ve never tried before based on something I saw on their menu online, only to go and discover they don’t serve the dish anymore. It’s disappointing, and while I generally find something else to try, it still upsets me a bit. If I had known it wasn’t an option, I probably would have gone to my second choice restaurant instead.

Include your menu on Facebook, and links to it on your other social platforms. You can also use SinglePlatform to handle your menu in multiple places at once – like Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, and Trip Advisor.

Encourage Patrons to Review Your Restaurant

Wherever they review you, other people who find your listing can see it, so it can help you. But, reviews in Google will do the most for your SEO. Even if there’s a bad review, that’s better than no review at all. You can take the time to reply to a bad review to smooth things over with the reviewer, which lets anyone who views it in the future know that you’re paying attention and taking steps to improve.

Incentivize Guests to Check in on Social Media

Offer something small for free, like a basket of rolls, or free cheese dip with your chips and salsa, to people who check into your restaurant on social media platforms like Foursquare, Swarm, Yelp, and Facebook. Put up a sign on the door that tells customers what they’ll get if they check in, and advertise it on your social channels, too.

This boosts your social signals, which is important to growing your organic reach on Facebook especially. When you check in, your friends see where you are. If they’ve not tried the restaurant before, they may be more inclined now that they have your recommendation.

Get Active on Social Media

Social media activity doesn’t directly influence your search engine ranking. If it did, simply creating a Facebook profile would help you rank better. Instead, the activity – sharing links to your website with their audience, and thereby increasing your traffic.

Use social media to share daily specials, share photos of your food, get ideas for new menu items from your loyal customers, and so on. Twitter is great for food trucks that are constantly moving from one place to another.

Rankings Won’t Improve Overnight

Local SEO takes time and effort. Making one small change, or claiming your listing on Google My Business won’t make much of a difference right away. And if you don’t have good food and service, there’s not much point in focusing on SEO – because you want what’s out there on your business to be positive buzz. Sure, you’re not going to be able to keep 100% of your customers happy 100% of the time, but focusing so much on SEO that you’ve forgotten about the restaurant itself can’t be a good thing.

If you need help with your restaurant SEO, get in touch with me and we’ll come up with a plan to help you blaze ahead of your competition.

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SEO

How the SEO Industry Evolved (And Where It’s Headed)

The SEO industry evolved from keyword stuffing and backlink manipulation to a focus on user experience and content quality. Google’s algorithm updates have shifted the emphasis to mobile optimization, site speed, and user engagement metrics. The rise of voice search and AI technologies continues to shape SEO strategies toward more natural, user-focused content and technical optimization.

Sit down; let us tell you a little tale about the Wild West…

And by Wild West, we mean the early days of marketing on the Internet.

In the mid-1990s to the mid-2000’s, the Internet was just coming into its own. More people than ever had home computers, and businesses slowly began capitalizing on this by creating websites and online ads to market to home users.

Because search engines and websites were fairly simple at the time, SEO itself was fairly simple. It started with having a domain name directly related to whatever you were marketing. Something like fun-toys-for-cats-from-hypothetical-brand.com would naturally rank higher than, say, just hypothetical-brand.com alone.

Next came the oversaturation of keywords. Rather than writing high-quality content, writers simply had to create ANY content at all and stuff it with as many relevant keywords as possible. This included both base keywords and their variants.

Because most search engines were only capable of cross-matching words (known as exact match), this approach worked.

It was also incredibly spammy.

The First Evolution (Or How the West Was Won)

By around 2000, it was becoming very obvious just how much of a problem this approach caused. Results were rarely useful, and even when they were, you often had to go to the third or fourth page to find what you needed. Searching felt frustrating, annoying, and exhausting.

By about 2005, Google had had enough. Search use was dropping off because of the low quality, hampering the company’s ability to sell ads. Users were frustrated and turning to other indie engines instead.

So they decided to make a major change: keywording would still be relevant, but not in the same way. Instead, Google would focus on reasonable use of keywords, including where and how keywords were used (e.g., meta tags, H1 tags, and within the body of text).

Writers who engaged in deceptive keywording tactics (like hiding text or keyword stuffing) in an attempt to manipulate results were penalized. Often, Google removed their websites from search engine results altogether.

Around the same time, Google also began to put more emphasis on linking strategies. At the time, they believed that pages with more backlinks must obviously be creating more quality content. After all, why would people link to bad pages?

This was the first and most impactful change in the SEO and content writing industry. Rather than paying for churned-out cheap, spun content, businesses had to scramble to find skilled writers who could write without angering the “gods.”

The Final Frontier

Search engine results did improve after these changes. Overall, results became better targeted to the needs of searchers with fewer spammy links or uncorrelated results. But there was still a problem; people were still gaming the system, especially in relation to keywords and links.

In 2008, when Google first placed more emphasis on linking, they underestimated how likely people were to abuse these links. The result was that marketers began creating link directories and link farms – pages they owned or posted a link to their website on solely to increase backlink volume.

Obviously, this was a problem. In some cases, websites would have 20,000 or 30,000 backlinks pointing to them, giving Google the impression that they were immensely popular. In reality, those links were fake and/or purchased from link farms instead.

The Start of the Future

In 2011, Google rolled out their Google Panda update. Panda focused on using more contextual analysis to provide a better picture of what really qualified as, well, quality. It also penalized users for manual links – including backlinks, purchased links, and linking directories or farms. Within an instant, a significant portion of the marketing industry found themselves sandboxed.

It gets worse.

After Panda, many websites who weren’t even using paid backlinks or linkfarms suddenly found themselves de-listed.

As it turns out, competitors were abusing Google’s system to get their opponents de-listed, and there wasn’t much they could do about it.

Enter Google’s Penguin update. Penguin made the penalties for abusing keywording or links even more harsh, but it also gave webmasters the ability to disavow links permanently. This ensured the system wasn’t abused.

By 2016, algorithms were smarter than ever. Keyword matching became much less effective; instead, Google started using a strategy called intent matching. How intent matching works is fairly complex, but essentially, it focuses not only on what’s being searched, but the specific intent with which the searcher is searching.

The Mobile Revolution

Around the same time, Google enacted a massive crackdown on bad mobile website practices. Websites that refused to optimize for mobile saw a drastic drop in ranking. This was the first time we saw the search engine factor in website design as well as keywords and contextual search information.

Just afterward came another change to mobile and its impacts on ranking. Pages that used mobile pop-ups (especially if deceptive or difficult to close) would also find themselves falling in rank or de-listed altogether.

In the search engine’s official announcement, they drew parallels between pop-ups and poor user experience, especially in accessibility. “Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible,” they explained.

Fortunately, everyone’s favorite search engine also provided webmasters access to a handy tool to help them acclimatize. The mobile optimization test, (found here) remains online even now. It’s a fantastic way to get a quick peek at your website’s mobile friendliness, even if it is an admittedly surface-level view.

Not optimizing for mobile devices is one of the most common SEO mistakes businesses make today.

Looking Forward to a Changing Future

That brings us neatly up to just about present day. In 2018, we’re seeing more change than ever on the horizon as search engines respond to increasingly complex technological demands.

Mobile, for example, will likely be a much larger focus as people make the shift from big, bulky computers to smaller handheld devices. Given that over 50 percent of all users view websites from a tablet or smartphone, that just makes sense.

Newer technologies that don’t currently factor in to Google’s ranking system may also play a bigger role in coming years. This includes voice search requests, chatbot-driven search assistance (Siri; Alexa), and social search influences. All three are currently at the forefront of search algorithm research, but most haven’t been integrated or developed enough just yet to make them useful to Google.

Content will remain key, but the way we digest and use it may change. We’re seeing a shift away from average-length content (500 to 800 words) and a bigger focus on short, snappy tidbits (under 400 words) and longform content (1000 to 4000 words).

You should also expect other forms of media, including photos, gifs, graphics, video, and even mobile games, to qualify as “quality content” in the upcoming years.

Ultimately, what this means for you is an even bigger focus on content quality, diversification, and skill. This is a good thing (even if it does make our job a little bit more challenging) because it encourages a higher level of expertise than ever before. And that makes it harder for shifty SEO “specialists” who rely on client deception to succeed against the real, hard workers in the industry.

 

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SEO

How to Prove Local SEO ROI for Your Business

Local SEO is how local Southern California businesses can reach their prospective customers. Like traditional SEO, it involves a series of calculated steps to improve ranking in the search engines. A number one ranking is where you will get the biggest return on your investment, but number 1 rankings cannot be guaranteed and will certainly not happen overnight.

That’s why I want to show you a few things you can look at to see how well your local SEO efforts are performing. It can get discouraging if you don’t see ranking improvements, but that doesn’t mean the work being done is for nothing.

Track Ranking on Search Engines

Watch for changes in ranking for any of the keywords you are targeting. If you see a major change in rank, you know you’re getting a decent return on your investment. Take screenshots to show the changes in ranking so it is easier to demonstrate ROI to investors.

Ranking changes will likely increase slowly over time, but progress is being made. If you can increase your ranking quickly, this is wonderful, but will only make a difference in the long run if you can sustain the higher rank.

Track Calls from Leads

Using call tracking software, you can have your leads call a different phone number based on where they are coming to your website from. Your tracking system will connect with analytics and count it as a conversion. And attribute it back to the source.

Though this could be helpful, it’s important to display a consistent business phone number across the web because not doing so can affect your ranking negatively. Code your business phone number into your site using schema and monitor your local citations to make sure you’re talking numbers are not being picked up elsewhere.

If you notice calls are picking up, you know your efforts are working. If calls from a certain number are doing better than others, then you know that’s where you want to focus more of your efforts and budget.

Make Google Search Console Your Best Friend

  • Pay attention to Click-Through Rate (CTR): You’ll be able to tell if you’re getting more clicks on your targeted keywords than you use to. This matters because it lets you know that your traffic is clicking through you your website. If you’re not seeing improvement, rewrite the title tags on your site.
  • Keep an eye on search queries: Monitor the search queries that are bringing traffic to your website. Copy the data into a spreadsheet so you can watch for changes. Even if you don’t see a change in ranking yet, an uptick in traffic from certain phrases can show your SEO efforts are working.

Make Google Analytics Your Best Friend, Too

  • Track link interactions: Find out which links people are clicking on, and if they’re using the click to call button on their mobile devices. Set up event tracking in Google Analytics for more insights.
  • Find your most popular traffic sources: After people fill out a contact form, redirect them to a Thank you page. This way you can learn where your traffic is coming from, and you’ll know which methods are working so you can invest more of your resources on those.

Use the Google My Business Dashboard

You’ll be able to track impressions on your listings here, so you can see what kind of results you’re getting from the Map Pack. Since you can only go back 90 days, you’ll want to copy the data into a spreadsheet so you can watch for historic trends.

Use Year-Over-Year Comparisons if Necessary

If you’re in a seasonal business, comparing traffic on a month to month basis isn’t going to give you an accurate picture of what’s going on. Rely on the same month in the previous year to see how much you’ve grown.

The Formulas for Calculating ROI

Anticipated ROI – What You Expect to Earn

To calculate this, you must know:

  • Average monthly visits – from Google Analytics
  • E-Commerce conversion rate – also from Google Analytics if you’ve setup Goals and Conversion tracking
  • Average order value (AOV) – Total amount of revenue divided by the total amount of orders

Let’s say your website gets an average of 60,000 visits and has a 1% e-commerce conversion rate. Your AOV is $100. Let’s say the proposed SEO project cost is $15,000. To break even, you must make at least $15,000 extra, and to generate a profit, you must produce a substantial amount of sales.

To determine the number of additional orders required for that breakeven point, you’d divide that $15,000 by the average order value of 100. You’d need 150 orders to break even.

Now, you need to determine the additional traffic required to generate those orders.

Take the number of orders required to break even and divide it by the ee-commerceconversion rate. 150/1% = 15,000 additional traffic.

To deliver a decent ROI, you should double that traffic volume and aim to drive 30,000 visitors with the campaign.

At this point, we can expect to get 200 orders through the SEO efforts, which would result in $30,000 in sales – creating a 100% ROI meaning for X, you’ll earn 2X.

Actual ROI – What You Earned

Your actual ROI is the total e-commerce revenue through SEO + the total goal value through SEO – the cost of running the SEO campaign/cost of running the SEO campaign.

Let’s say you ran that $15,000 campaign and ended up with $35,000 in sales. You got a bit more than 100% ROI.

You can also use another formula:

  • K = volume of keywords searched
  • S = % of searchers who became visitors
  • D = % of visitors who became leads
  • C = % of leads who become customers
  • V = average customer value
  • L = Local SEO revenue

(K) x (S) x (C) x (V) = L

ROI = (L – Cost) / Cost

Let’s say 7,500 people search for “Carlsbad plumber” every month. Only a small percentage of these searches will end up on your site. The percentage of course depends on where you rank. If you are higher on the 1st page, you’ll end up with a larger portion of those visits.

So, let’s take a look at what you could expect if you were at the bottom of page one compared to what you could expect if you were in the number 1 position for that keyword phrase.

In position 10, you can expect to earn about 3% of the search traffic. Of that hypothetical 7,500, that’s 225 visitors. If you rank lower than that, you can expect even less traffic.

But, if you were in position one, you could expect to earn about 40% of the traffic for that keyword which means you would get 3,000 visitors. It’s clear that it pays more to rank higher.

To keep the math simple, let’s assume that 5% of visitors in both ranking positions become leads since the vast majority of people who visit your website won’t take the time to contact you at all. Now you’ve got 12 leads (rounding up) at position 10, and150 leads at position 1.

We know that not every single lead will convert to a paying customer. Let’s assume that only 20% of those leads become paying customers. In position 10, you’d get 3 (rounding up) customers and in position one, you’d get 30.

If your average customer value is $200, you produced $600 in revenue in position 10 and $6,000 in position one.

If you’re spending a $750 a month in SEO services, and you’re left with $5,250 profit in the number one position and $150 loss in the number 10 position.

For every dollar you’re spending on SEO, you are earning $7 in return in the number one position. Though I’ve chosen completely arbitrary numbers, if you were in position 10 in this scenario, you would be losing money – 20 cents on every dollar – and therefore would need to increase your average customer value to make it worth it. If you spent less on your SEO, it would make it more difficult to increase your ranking quickly.

Knowing ROI is Important

Local SEO ROI can be found in many different ways. It’s important to look at the overall picture and focus on multiple metrics to see how well you’re doing. Choosing just one metric can skew your results.

 

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