Tag: seo

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SEO

How to Use Link Building to Improve SEO

Link building remains a cornerstone technique for improving your website’s search engine optimization marketing – provided you’re doing it right. Yet while most webmasters understand the importance of proper link building, too few know how to do it – and how to differentiate between a good link and a bad link (yes, there are appreciable differences, especially with regards to search ranking!).

If your goal is to rise above the competition – or maybe just improve your ranking – you need to prioritize a strong strategy for high-quality link building.

What is Link Building?

There are billions of websites and countless hyperlinks throughout the Internet. And every single day, new pages and links pop up by the millions. Social media alone is an absolute behemoth of information. Every minute sees over 350,000 Tweets, and over 500 hours of new video on YouTube.

So how does a search engine like Google cut through the chaff and help 5.6 billion daily search users find the content they need? Through its extensive algorithm, built over decades and designed around concepts like readability, relevance, and authority. Authority is particularly crucial here.

Real-world authority does have some role to play in the relevance and factuality of information displayed on the Internet – government resources, accredited institutions, hospitals, and multinational organizations are more likely to carry authority with the content they post, as there is a natural implication that they heed their sources and check their facts.

But online authority – or influence – also matters. The way search engines like Google take note of a website’s authority is through its place in the organic web of the Internet. Link building is a crucial element of this unseen formula.

The more websites link back to a page, the more relevant and authoritative that page proves to be. It is literally a source of information for countless other websites, something people refer to when they need to back up their statements, a useful resource shared multiple times across the web. That is extraordinarily valuable. But it can also be devalued.

If a network of pages owned by the same person, or multiple low-quality pages link to the same page, then it’s clear that there may be some tampering involved in the process. These aren’t organic links created to spread the word about useful information – they’re likely paid links, or the result of fabricated link building.

Google relies heavily on link building as a means to rank websites and determine their usefulness to the average search engine user by differentiating between high-quality and low-quality back links, and by taking into account metrics such as domain authority and content quality.

What You Need to Know

When it comes to successful link building, the terminology is important. Understanding what separates a good and bad link and the value of each of the different types of links used for SEO will help you implement better link building strategies, improve your current strategy, or better understand how an SEO expert aims to optimize your reputation.

Back links can be categorized as follow or nofollow links, and user-generated or natural links.

Follow links are regular links to other websites telling Google that you are endorsing or linking to said content as a source, resource, or for other purposes.

Nofollow links are links that you don’t want to associate with your website. For example, if you are inserting a sponsored or paid link into your content, you can disclose that link’s sponsored nature via a simple link attribute.

Alternatively, you can add the nofollow attribute if you don’t want Google to draw a line between your page and the linked content (i.e. you do not endorse it).

User-generated links, or UGC links, are effectively links to content you’ve created elsewhere on the Internet. It doesn’t have to be a proxy website you’ve set up to promote your product. It can be a mention of your webpage in an unmoderated comment section, user description on a forum, paid press releases, or advertisements on social media.

They are not the same as internal links, where a webpage links to another page on the same domain. User-generated links are frowned upon for link building, but you can avoid penalization for them by correctly attributing them.

Natural or organic links are links made to your content from other people on the Internet, mostly because they refer to your content as a source or want to link to your page to discuss your product or share a resource or service you offer.

The Right and Wrong Way to Approach Link Building

Firstly, it’s important to address that yes, link building still matters in 2022. Google heavily relies on metrics of authority to determine how it should rank content on the web, and there are few metrics as reliable for authority as high-quality backlinks.

But there are good and bad ways to build backlinks to your content, and Google has gotten better and better at telling the difference.

Requesting Links, the Right Way

The simple truth is that good link building strategies involve a lot of well-targeted and meaningful legwork.

You can start by requesting backlinks from websites that are relevant to your niche and would legitimately benefit from including a link to your content on their pages. Examples include established non-competitor businesses and organizations with dead links, i.e. links pointing to sources that no longer exist. Dead link checkers can help you determine if any target pages might be affected by the good old Error 404.

This is hard to do. A lot of webmasters will ignore emails asking for backlinks or mutual linking.

Google generally frowns upon it as well. While there’s obviously an ulterior motive, it’s important to try requesting links to improve someone else’s content. Will linking to your page genuinely help the organization, such as by removing their dead links?

The same goes for guest posting, by the way. When abused and misused, guest posts can actively harm your link building efforts. When done in a way that is genuinely mutually beneficial – and not just because money changed hands – it can be a valuable tool

Earning Links

Aside from requesting links, the other way to build high-quality links is to produce content that is organically shared throughout the Internet. We aren’t talking about sponsored posts, affiliate links, and another financially incentivized reposting.

This is content that gets linked back to for its wealth of information, originality, and relevance. These are editorial links – meaning their value inspired their placement in any other given content.

This type of link building is the hardest to do because it requires the most effort. But Google says it best: “creating good content pays off”.

Bad Links

Link building can backfire. Buying links wholesale, spamming your links across the web in user-generated content on other pages, or getting third-party links from low-authority, low-quality web pages can pull down your rank and flag you as an unreliable source.

It isn’t just about the sheer volume of links leading back to you – it’s about the quality of the websites that decide to link back to you. As a basic rule of thumb, the better the domain authority and page rank of the website linking back to you, the more you’ll get out of that back link.

Measuring Your Link Building Efforts

Regardless of your content strategy – whether developing interesting content, creating shareable guides, or working with other websites to build links with minimal penalization – it’s always important to measure the return on your investment. A few things to keep an eye out for when measuring the success of any given link building campaign include:

  • Your do-follow to no-follow link ratio. You want more do-follow than no-follow backlinks.
  • The relevance of the websites linking back to you. Relevance matters – if a seemingly unrelated page links back to you, that’s of little value for your ability to rank in a given niche.
  • The domain authority of the websites that link back to you. Higher authority means more quality.

Link building is one of the toughest and most rewarding SEO tactics out there. But beware – there are no shortcuts, and it’s a lot of work. It may be in your best interest to contact an SEO expert to help you revise your link building strategy – or create one to begin with.

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SEO

SEO Tools Are Evolving to Keep Up with Changes

The early days of search engine optimization were as simple as paying attention to your keyword use and gaming the “algorithm” as it existed at the time – and while things have gotten a lot more complicated since then, it does kind of work out to be the same thing it’s always been: trying to figure out the best way to top search engine results by playing by (or subverting) the engine’s rules.

Even now, decades after the launch of the first search engine, SEO remains a key tool in any digital marketing campaign as search still drives just around half of all website traffic, give or take (depending on niche and industry). Among those results, the vast majority of traffic originates from organic search (rather than paid), often to the 99th percentile.

In other words, no matter how many different platforms show up to present themselves as the next big opportunity to capitalize on growing demand for video content, audio content, written content, or other mediums, it all ultimately comes down to the same thing every time: now that you’ve got the product and the content, how are you going to make sure you get the right people?

Does that mean SEO has become stagnant in years past? Absolutely not. While it remains a pillar of digital marketing, part of the reason that’s the case is because the opposite is true: SEO is constantly evolving, even if in relatively minor ways. Most of the changes in the SEO game come in the form of new tools to aggregate and analyze search data and user information, single out specific user profiles to both improve traffic while maximizing leads, and optimizing loading speeds, user experience, ad experience, and more.

SEO is about so much more than backlinks and content. It now encompasses a vast number of factors that aim to make use of the way Google recommends information based on user preferences, search patterns, location, interest, and much, much more – while helping companies funnel their resources into their digital presence as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Let’s look at some of the ways in which SEO has changed in recent times – and how you may have adapted, or need to adapt.

User Experience is Critical

We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king” a million times now, and that isn’t necessarily wrong, even so many years later. It’s no surprise that Bill Gates of all people was right on the money well over twenty years ago.

But there’s certainly a whole lot more to search engine success in 2021 than good content. Good content does not excuse a poor user experience. This means everything from page loading speeds to fonts and colors, ad placement, page functionality, streamlined design, and more.

Poor user experience won’t get you penalized on Google, but it can be a make-or-break difference when the search engine compares your page to that of your closest competitor.

Google Has Emphasized Clean, Responsive Content

Aside from user experience basics, Google has further emphasized what they call their Core Web Vitals earlier this year. These are metrics of page performance, specifically factors that relate most closely to how users perceive your page. Core web vitals measure how quickly and effectively your page handles the following three tasks:

  • LCP (largest contentful paint), which is the amount of time it takes to render the largest piece of content on the user’s viewport.
  • FID (first input delay), which is a measure of how long it takes the browser to react to a user’s interaction with your page after their first click.
  • CLS (cumulative layout shift), which measures a phenomenon where page elements load inconsistently, causing misclicks and frustration as a user tries to interact with a page element that is no longer there.

A Higher Premium on Expert Advice

Another major change is that Google has continued to pay more attention to credibility and authority on certain topics, to the point that it becomes very hard to rank on them without serious credentials – such as being a renowned expert on the subject, an academic, or a credentialled professional.

This also means that content created and curated by professionals and experts in their given fields is given a higher premium than content created by unknown writers – especially in health and wellness niches. This is part of the reason you’re likely going to see results on certain medical conditions flooded by websites like WebMD, Cleveland Clinic, Healthline, and Mayo Clinic.

Bounce Rates and Search Intent

Getting a lot of clicks isn’t actually a great metric for success on Google – but it is the fastest way to expose weaknesses in your SEO strategy, by analyzing your bounce rates. A bounce rate is the number of people clicking off your page after realizing that it isn’t what they were looking for.

Bounce rates are an indicator that you’re attracting the wrong people with your search engine strategy. You might need to be more specific with your keywords and SEO, in order to ensure that as many people as possible who visit your page are satisfied with what they see. This is called search intent.

Much, Much More

While search engines like Baidu and DuckDuckGo command a lot of traffic (the first being China’s largest internet company, and the second being a popular privacy-oriented alternative to the Big Two), Google and Bing easily dominate, and the steps the two take to shape search – especially Google – have a continuous, reverberating impact on search as a whole every time a major change is announced.

Keeping an eye on changes as they’re announced and anticipated is important for any marketer looking to capitalize on modern SEO, especially because search engines can be volatile – and what might have been best practice six months ago isn’t necessarily harmful, it could be much less effective than a different, new approach.

This can be tough to do. Google has over 1200 unique features in its search engine results page, up from just a few hundred some years ago, and it continues to make algorithm changes thousands of times every year.

We help you keep up. Our SEO campaigns are always built with the latest and best practices in mind, and we don’t fall behind.

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SEO

8 Ways To Improve Rankings and Increase Traffic To Your Site

There are nearly two billion separate websites on the internet. Every awesome website added to the net today is the digital equivalent of a drop in the ocean. So how do you improve rankings and increase traffic to make your drop stand out?

The answer still lies, as it always has, in taking advantage of the way search engines filter through this enormous amount of content to bring users the results they want to see.

An overwhelming 93 percent of “web experiences” begin with an online search, overwhelmingly through Google, but also through other search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo. Furthermore, users overwhelmingly focus on the first few results of any search, with at least a third of users clicking on the top result.

In other words, the best bang-for-your-buck in improving traffic and lead generation is by making sure your search engine ranking improves, and capitalizing on the way search engines like Google rate and rank the websites that show up on people’s searches.

That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. Search engine optimization is about utilizing the known factors that companies like Google use to rate and rank websites according to different user searches, including ones such as content relevance, user experience, loading times, keywords, and more.

While there are hundreds of factors at play in any given search, we’ve picked out eight important ones for any new website to focus on.

Improve Your User Experience

Recently, use experience has taken center stage regarding ranking factors. Ignoring user experience is one of the most common SEO mistakes. Is your website intuitive, easy to navigate, and pleasant to the eyes? These aren’t just vague metrics – user experience (UX) is an integral part of both web design and SEO, as search engines like websites that snowball in traffic, and the only way to keep users on your site is to give them a few reasons to stay.

Poor performance, a cluttered look, and a confusing web architecture can serve to push potential clients away, and cost you leads. Loading times in particular are crucially important.

Search engines hate slow websites, and you’ll have a hard time outranking the competition if your pages take forever to load. If you’re in a niche that relies on multimedia, leveraging smarter ways to load image- and video-based content can help your ranking significantly.

UX depends on the target audience, as well as some simple best practices that aim to streamline the user through your website, from product search to purchase.

Include the Mobile Market

The mobile market has been exploding in popularity and significance in nearly every branch and industry since the early 2010s. About 68 percent of all website visits in 2020 came from smartphones and other mobile devices, and over half of the planet’s population now has access to the mobile internet, and mobile searches are becoming an ever-larger part of the pie.

To that end, you need to make sure your website is just as fun and intuitive to use on the small screen as it is on the big one.

Home In On a Niche

The Internet is a big place, and there are far too many competitors in any given industry to take them all on without some serious marketing guns and a lot of time and capital. However, even smaller startups can gain massive traction online without the financial backing of a venture capitalist or a viral Twitter campaign by simply picking their battles.

While you might not reach number one on Google for “New York bakeries” just a few weeks after the launch of your new site, you can focus on a niche that might not have quite as much competition, and dominate the search results there – such as “Brooklyn wedding cakes”.

Beyond picking popular keywords with less competition, focusing your brand and content on a particular niche can help improve your traffic and ranking by improving the legitimacy of your site.

A website focused on consistent leads in a single industry is going to have more success than one that produces content for both confectionary and woodworking.

Do a Little Keyword Research

Some keywords are better targets than others, even when they’re contextually related. Keyword research tools like Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, and Moz can help you figure out how most potential leads word their searches, helping you funnel your SEO resources in the right direction.

Quality and Consistency

Websites need content to help search engines rank and categorize them. While you can just build a simple storefront, slap it on the web, and push it via social media, you’re going to see a lot more organic search traffic (and better leads) if you add content to that storefront to attract and educate readers on the uses and benefits of your product or service.

To that end, there are two major factors to consider when producing web content: quality and consistency.

Your content shouldn’t be riddled with spelling errors, and it should be relevant to the product – without reading too much like a marketing brochure, or an attempt to do nothing but sell your services. The best content is the kind that helps readers learn something, and produces actual value for your brand.

It’s a big plus when the content is easily readable. That’s where header tags come in, letting you break up your content into digestible chunks, while providing opportunities for both readers and search engines to, at a glance, understand what your content is about.

Consistency is important too. You don’t need daily or even weekly new posts or updates, but do pick a realistic content schedule and stick to it. The more content you post, the more traffic will begin to snowball.

Links, Backlinks, and URLs

There are a few types of links to keep an eye on when improving your website’s ranking and traffic. These are:

Backlinks: These are external links leading to your website from other websites. These are random at best, as any means of trying to purposefully influence your backlink count (such as buying backlinks) can drastically backfire. Your best bet is to ensure that news outlets and trusted websites publicizing your company are linking to it as well. You want good backlinks.

Internal links: These are links leading to other relevant pages on your website. You can use these to keep readers interested and on-site, linking them from one topic to the next. Use internal links to lead readers to relevant on-site content, or products.

External links: These are links leading to websites outside of your own. External links can also be used to refer to backlinks. You can use these to boost the credibility of your content, or just provide quality sources for your information.

Furthermore, keep an eye on your page’s URLs. Dynamic URLs (those with a bunch of numbers) typically won’t perform as well as static URLs (especially ones relevant to the content of the page).

Keep an Eye on Your Traffic Metrics

You can’t gauge the impact of any major change in your SEO strategy without first having some idea of how your website is performing. While you don’t need to be a data junkie to implement good SEO, it helps to keep an eye on your weekly metrics and track how well new content is performing.

This can help you course-correct in the middle of a campaign, figure out a niche that seems to be doing much better than others, or halt a change that seems to be backfiring.

Google Analytics is the most common way to review your traffic and other metrics, but there are several other options.

Keep On Learning

Google alone makes changes to its search algorithm daily, and SEO experts always harp on the importance of keeping up-to-date on best practices to stay relevant on the web.

Websites have seen traffic tank for seemingly no reason at all, because of a subtle change to the way Google ranks pages, and more major changes can drastically affect a website’s strategy, to the point that what was once a best practice becomes actively harmful to your traffic and reputation.

If you’re looking for a team to get your content up to snuff, and start outranking the competition, get in touch with us today.

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SEO

Google Yourself: How to Rank for Your Name

Being able to rank well for your name in the SERPs is a crucial part of building your personal brand. When’s the last time you searched for your name on Google? Did you see something there that wasn’t true? Something that was about another person with a name similar to yours? What people see attached to your name – whether it’s true or not – has a major impact on how you’re perceived online.

When it comes to your personal brand, the wrong thing at the top of the SERPs may cause people to doubt you. It may cost you opportunities to earn money – such as brand partnerships or speaking engagements. It may even cause people to leave negative reviews about you or your company. That’s why it’s so important to work to control the information that appears on the first page (and even a few after) of results for our names. But that’s easier said than done.

Why is it so important? 70% of human resources departments research candidates online going beyond social media to search engines, too. They look to see what kind of things people are saying, whether or not the candidate has a professional persona, and some even look for reasons not to hire candidates.

Let’s take a closer look at how to handle it.

Start with Your Assets: Your Digital Homebase

If you don’t already own it, purchase your name as a domain name. Work to get a website on it as soon as possible. Make it possible for visitors to sign up for your email list and easily visit your social media profiles, should they decide to connect with you there.

Fill the site with content relevant to you and your work. Create a series of images, videos, articles, etc. to keep the content varied. Apply all SEO basics to any and all content you create for your site.

If you’re established with other online publishers, republish content there that you’ve previously published online. Just make sure you’re clear with the publisher’s rules and regulations about how to do it. Usually, this means relying on a canonical tag, linking to the original content, and waiting a certain amount of time after the content was originally published to post it on your own site.

If you’ve already got a site up and running, take the time to conduct an SEO audit. Edit the content where necessary to keep it timely and relevant.

Build Links

The asset is one thing, but simply having a website isn’t enough to influence ranking for your name. Because there’s less competition for your name than a commercial term, you won’t need as many links, and those links won’t need to be as authoritative for them to accomplish your goal.

Include a link to your website on all your social media profiles, and on your author profiles of websites you contribute to on a regular basis. Create profiles on sites like BrandYourself, too. Make sure you have a LinkedIn profile that includes a search-friendly version of your resume.

Build Awareness and Drive Traffic

Unless you get the assets in front of the right people, they are pretty much useless. Work to build awareness of your personal brand through booking podcast interviews, hosting webinars, partnering with other brands, etc. If you need a bit of help in this department, there’s nothing wrong with reaching out to a public relations expert.

Use social media and search engine advertising to drive traffic to your website, where people can learn more about you. This helps to increase the links to and from your website, which can be helpful for Google.

As you work to grow your audience and awareness, it’s crucial that you don’t rely on simple link dripping campaigns. You want to share your content in a way that provides value to your audience and work on engaging them in other ways. Failure to do so turns you into a self-promotional broken record that ultimately gets you ignored. Work content you’ve created into your social media feeds alongside content from other sources that are useful to your audience.

Keep Maintaining Your Personal Brand

Don’t just set and forget. New content is added to the internet every day, any of which may have the potential to impact your rankings. That’s why it’s important to check on things periodically to make sure they are still what you expect.

Create a Google Alert for your name, so that any time a new result that includes your name, you receive an email. This way, you can take a closer look at the content to determine if it is a positive or negative result – or actually attached to you.

If the content comes from a major news site, it will be nearly impossible to beat, so if it is negative, you’ll need to enlist help from a professional SEO expert to handle it. At that scale, the DIY option is not going to be enough to address the issue.

Ask people for reviews. Negative reviews are more common in a lot of industries, and they carry weight, so you’ll need plenty of positive reviews to balance them out. That said, incentivizing for reviews is not a good idea because it is against the terms of many review sites. If you choose to take the risk, don’t put it anywhere in writing.

Use all the features of Google My Business to provide the search engines with as much information about your business and brand as possible. Add images, news, videos, and more. The more information you have, the better for you, your target audience, and Google.

Every quarter, check your site’s analytics to see which content is most popular and use the information to inform your strategy in the following months.

Remember, this is an ongoing effort, and results don’t change overnight.

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SEO

Does Guest Posting Matter Anymore?

Many years ago, guest posting on another person’s website was considered part of a solid SEO strategy. Not only did it get you a link from another site, but it also exposed you to other audiences. If you guest posted on another site, that site got content they didn’t have to create – and if you posted guest posts on your site, you gave your audience fresh new content without having to do much of anything. There’s been much debate over the value guest posting offers – and now, we definitively have the answer.

Google’s John Mueller has said on Twitter, “Those [guest post] links have zero value. It’s a waste of time if you’re just doing it for the links.” Unfortunately, this isn’t new. Google has been telling us for years that these links don’t add any value – and they’ve even said you need to add the rel=”nofollow” attribute to them if you choose to use them on your website.

Google has said since 2014 that guest posting is a dead approach to link building, and yet there are still plenty of people out there who believe it offers some value in terms of SEO. However, just because it doesn’t do anything to build your backlinks, is it still a waste of time? Not necessarily.

Rather than focusing on what value it brings to the search engines – focus on the value it brings toward building authority with your brand and expanding your community. While it may not boost your search ranking, when people read the blog posts, they may choose to click the link to visit your site – so you should at least get a bit of traffic from each link. The more quality traffic you get, the better your rank will become over time.

Building the Right Kind of Guest Posting Strategy

  1. With guest posting, your goal should be to target the top blogs in your niche and in related areas. Ideally, they will have fairly large audiences who are engaged.
  2. Once you determine what those websites are, you need to craft pitches and produce quality content that the host site will find useful and of value to their audience.
  3. After the pitch is accepted and the content is published, actively promote the content, and participate in conversations around it.
  4. Rinse and repeat.

Finding Guest Posting Opportunities

If you’re a manufacturer of cast iron pots and pans, then you’ll want to focus on blogs that are related to cooking, health and wellness, and bloggers who are reviewers. You can connect with the people who provide the most value in terms of following and engagement with an influencer/outreach campaign, and pitch topics to the others for use on their blog.

Start with a Google Search

Google is a wonderful place to start because all you have to do is search for things like:

  • “guest post guidelines”
  • “guest post by”
  • “accepting guest posts”
  • “guest post”
  • “submit a guest post

Simply swap out keyword with your chosen industry keywords. You’ll be taken directly to pages on sites that address guest posting so you can learn more about their process. Some sites only want pitches, while others are willing to accept fully written pieces right away.

Beyond Google, you can also search on social media platforms to see more potential sites to work with. This works because many people share their latest guest posts with their followers. Run a Twitter search with “guest post” and you’ll see all the latest tweets about guest posts in your industry. From there, you can follow the links to see if there are any blogs still accepting guest posts.

Preparing to Pitch Guest Posts

While it may be tempting to go straight from finding the sites you want to guest post with to making contact right away, this isn’t the way to go. First, you need to do a bit of research. Taking the time to get to learn more about the blog you’re pitching not only helps you craft a pitch that is more likely to be noticed and accepted but also prepares you for what and how you should write.

Look through the Existing Content

Take time to read through some of the content that is already on the site. If you have a particular topic in mind, search to make sure it hasn’t been covered, or that you can find a different angle or way to add value without repeating what’s already there.

As you read through everything answer these questions:

  • What level is the audience they are writing for? Beginners? Intermediate? Expert?
  • Are they writing for a business to consumer (B2C) or business to business (B2B) audience?
  • What kind of content is most prevalent? Are they posting general overviews? Detailed tutorials? Are they a fan of list posts? How much are they linking to other sites? Are their posts full of images?
  • Which posts are getting the most interaction from people? Are the most popular posts all centered around one topic, or written by the same person? Are they all the same type of post?

Use what you gather here to help you when you craft your pitch.

Your Pitch

Take time to read the guidelines. Failure to do so just makes you look bad and frustrates the blog owner. Follow the guidelines in your pitch. Double-check everything before you submit.

Personalize your pitch to the site owner. If you can, refer to them by name in your greeting. Most people make their names known in the About section of their website. If you can’t find it there, look around the social media accounts to see what you can come up with. Use their name in the greeting whenever possible. Nothing says “spray and pray” like “Dear Sir or Madam.”

Remember, some of these blogs get hundreds of pitches for guest blogs every month. They’re used to generic pitches, so if you can make yours stand out, you have a better chance of getting them to work with you.

Introduce yourself and your blog, if you have one, but focus on your blogging skills first. Include why you should be a guest blogger, along with some samples of your work that has been published elsewhere. If possible, go with the posts that have the highest engagement levels so the site owner can see the potential value you bring to their audience.

If the guest post guidelines ask for an idea, don’t be afraid to pitch a few different ideas so they can tell you which one they’d rather have you do.

When you submit the post, make sure it’s formatted like the ones already on the site – and around the same word count. In other words, don’t submit a post with 500 words and one image if all the others are 1,000+ words with images throughout. Don’t forget the call to action to encourage people to interact with you, and most importantly, be there to respond and promote once the post goes live.

What are your thoughts on guest posting? I’d love to hear them. Leave them in the comments below.

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SEO

8 SEO Considerations for a Smooth Transition

Thinking about migrating your domain to a new name? Discover the eight important SEO considerations for a smooth transition. For a smooth transition in SEO, key considerations include maintaining URL structures or implementing proper redirects, preserving and optimizing existing content, and ensuring meta tags are transferred correctly. It’s crucial to conduct thorough keyword research to align with new goals, monitor site performance to catch any SEO issues early, and communicate changes to search engines through updated sitemaps and consistent monitoring of search console data.

If it’s time to give your company a facelift but you don’t feel that re-designing the website itself is enough, rebranding may be the solution. But, with a domain change comes the potential loss of all the SEO you’ve worked hard to build for your current website. If you don’t want to start over from the bottom and risk losing customers and valuable traffic in the process, there are some important things to consider before you begin the rebranding and domain migration process.

Send Signals Before the Switch

If it is possible to do so, use the old website to deliver signals to Google about the transition for a short amount of time before the transition occurs. You can do this through traditional marketing and PR efforts as well as through making changes to your content and metadata. When you’re moving to the new site, maintain elements of the old branding within the new metadata as well.

Use the Same URL Structure

Make every effort to retain the current URL structure. Changes to the URL structure and content placement can wreak havoc on your migration and SEO. Maintaining the URL structure or moving to something similar to the same number of content levels helps mitigate SEO risks and consolidates a variety of signals. It also simplifies the redirect process because it can be done with a single line in the .htaccess file.

All that said, Google will never forget a crawl path. Over time, the old URL will have picked up links that point to non-200 URLs and gone through changes and restructures of its own. Because of this, you still need to compile a complete redirect list and process it to ensure you retain all previous equity and signals.

Keep the Existing Content Wherever Possible

Though it may require some minor edits to align it with the new brand, it’s best to maintain as much of your original content as possible. If you must create new content, aim to replicate your old content as much as you can so that you avoid losing Authority and authorship. This helps prevent your rankings from dropping. Even keeping small elements like your fonts and headers the same can have a big influence on SEO.

Properly Implement 301 Redirects

To maximize your SEO effort and keep visitors happy, redirect every page from your old site to the corresponding pays on your new site.

If you have not been able to maintain the same URL structure for whatever reason, things are a bit more complicated. Because you can’t redirect the old pages to the exact same page on the new site, you have to redirect to the most relevant page on your new site. the easiest way to do this is to create a spreadsheet with the URL for the old site in one column and the URL for the new site and the other. This process could be time-consuming depending on the size of your site so it is crucial to prioritize and start with the pages that generate the most traffic.

Remember People Will Search for the Old Brand

Even if you’ve done a great job with marketing and PR to alert people of the rebrand with a new business name, people are still going to search for your previous brand name for years. To account for this, accommodate for the old brand name through your content in your FAQ Pages, blogs, and support section.

Users, both your existing user base and new ones to come along during and after the rebrand, may have questions about the old platform still. failing to include the old brand in your content to capture those searches leaves traffic to your competitors which could result in a large number of missed opportunities.

Generate New Signals

For the greatest success, you need to take time to generate new signals for the new domain. this can be done with traditional marketing, digital PR, and link building.

When you put together the redirect list, identify high importance links, potentially with branded anchors or commercial anchors that are pointed to the old domain. You can use these as outreach targets to try to have the link updated but these efforts should not substitute adding fresh signals to the mix.

Update Your Social Media Profiles

When your new brand is an effect, it’s crucial to update all of your social media sites. Depending on the platform, it may be a challenge. When rebranding on social media consider:

Twitter has a lot of IDs that aren’t in use so if someone has the one you want but isn’t actively using it, reach out to see if you can take it over. Twitter recommends doing this because they are slow at deactivating these accounts.

Facebook only allows you to change your page name and URL one time. If you need to rebrand a second time, you’ll be stuck creating a new page from scratch and hoping the audience migrates over.

LinkedIn is fairly easy when rebranding as long as someone else isn’t already using your company name. If that’s the case, you may need to change your company name just a little,  such as keeping the name the same and adding a tagline after it. Contact LinkedIn directly to change the URL.

Update Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics

To make sure you are getting accurate data about your traffic and potential crawling issues with Google, update both your Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics accounts to the new domain.

If you follow these recommendations to rebrand and also focus on creating buzz and new signals around the new domain, it should be easy to combine the old brand with a new one and make your transition easier after the migration.

Categories
SEO

Why Google Rewrites Meta Descriptions and How to Avoid It

Google’s John Mueller is a wonderful source of information, but staying up to date with his Webmaster Central Hangouts can be hard for many of us. In a recent episode, someone asked why their meta description was being re-written. His answer helps us see a bit of why Google’s algorithm may re-write your meta descriptions. But it doesn’t stop there – in another Google Webmaster Central Hangout, he responds to a question about what people can do to stop it from happening – so we have the information we need to make our lives easier while keeping the search engine happy.

It’s important to note that Mueller’s advice is general because he cannot provide an exact reason for the re-write without looking at the search results. He says Google re-writes meta descriptions for a variety of reasons. One note he did provide the search engine optimization community revealed it’s best to include the information naturally despite the possibility of Google making changes, as this provides Google with more information about your content.

Keyword Stuffing in Meta Description

If Google sees a bunch of keywords in the meta description, it’s going to assume the description isn’t useful to users and attempt to write something else. Google has to be able to trust the description before it will leave what you’ve provided alone. If you’ve written a meta description that focuses less on keywords and more about what the content of the page is about, it’s more useful to users and less likely to be re-written.

Duplicate Meta Descriptions Across Multiple Pages on the Site

If Google sees the exact same meta description provided for most of the pages on the website, it’s going to re-write them. Unique meta descriptions are essential to providing content that is useful for searchers.

Content and Query Matching Issues

In the publisher’s question about meta re-writes, he mentions that branded queries with a “UK” modifier were the ones rewritten. That may be why Google is re-writing the description. If the webpage itself doesn’t send Google UK related content signals, Google may believe that modifier isn’t relevant to users and change the meta description accordingly.

Adding modifiers to search queries can cause Google to not only rewrite meta descriptions but the title tags, too. It’s most likely to happen when modifiers like “home page” and “UK” are used in the query, but not found in the written content of the page.

The meta description needs to match both what the user is searching for and the other content on the page.

Search Query Influences

Whether Google rewrites a meta description is based on the search query. If you notice a rewritten query, take the branded query and check to make sure the meta description is not spammy and is actually useful to searchers.

Move forward from there, looking for patterns. Is it something that Google always gets wrong? Or is it only wrong some of the time, when the algorithm picks up something else on the page and mistakenly rewrites the meta description?

How to Avoid Google Re-Writing Your Meta Descriptions

There are undoubtedly times when the meta description the site owner provides won’t be enough for Google. There’s no way to ensure that Google will use the meta description you provide 100% of the time. But, there are things you can control that will influence Google to use the ones you provide more often than crafting their own.

Make the Descriptions Unique for Each Page on the Site

While it may be tempting to use a boilerplate meta description for every page on your website, this is problematic, especially if you have a larger site with hundreds or even thousands of pages. Think about the purpose of each page and what the user would be searching for to lead them there – as well as the information they will find to answer their query. Use that, along with relevant keywords to craft a useful meta description for each page on the site.

Pay Attention to Character Length

There is no official meta description length though Google may truncate at 155 to 160 characters. To ensure the entire description is viewable on the search engine results page, do your best to limit the character count to no more than 150 characters or so. To test the length of your descriptions, you can use a character counter tool. Remember, titles are truncated at 50 to 65 characters, so those need to be short and descriptive, too.

Make Them Match What Users are Looking For

Your meta description is basically a short sales pitch. It’s free advertising to reach out to prospects to entice them to click your results instead of another option on the page. And because Google is in the business of providing users the results they are looking for the first time around, you want to make sure you make the user happy to keep Google happy.

That means taking the time to ensure your meta descriptions match what users are looking for, but also match the page content. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword, “dog collars for small dogs”, then make sure that if the page isn’t specific to just small collars, that the page at least includes the option to filter out everything but the small ones. Don’t use a meta description for dog toys, or anything that’s not related to buying collars.

One of the ways you can make this easier is to divide your pages and keywords by search intent, then write the meta descriptions ahead of time, based on the keywords you’re targeting and the search intent of the people who’re using them. This way, you don’t create an informative meta description based on a transactional keyword, which could help boost your SEO results.

Meeting these criteria reduces, but does not eliminate, the chance that Google will rewrite your meta description. If there’s an obscure query that matches a selection of text from your webpage, it’s likely Google will just use that snippet of text in place of your original meta description.

Categories
SEO

Google My Business: FAQs for Multiple Businesses at the Same Address

There are several FAQs for managing multiple businesses at the same address on Google My Business. These address common concerns like differentiating individual listings, handling shared phone numbers, and specifying distinct business hours. Each business needs to maintain unique, accurate information to avoid confusion and ensure a clear online presence, aiding in better search visibility and customer understanding in local search results.

If you have multiple businesses at the same address, you may be wondering how you create Google My Business listing (now called Google Business Profile). You may also wonder how many listings you’re eligible for if you are legitimately running more than one business at your location.

You may be wondering about what determines eligibility and what penalties you may incur if you make a mistake as well as how to name your businesses at the same address.

You’ll find a wide variety of frequently asked questions surrounding this topic in local SEO forums all over the web every year. The guidelines for representing your business on Google contain most of the answers you’re looking for about complicated businesses. Still, sometimes they can err on the side of too little detail, thus creating confusion.

To help demystify the process, we will answer some of the most common frequently asked questions that business owners and marketers deal with.

Question: I have more than one business at the same address. Can I have more than one Google my business listing?

Answer: Yes, But…

To have more than one Google my business listing at the same address, you must be legitimately operating multiple legally distinct businesses. It’s not all that uncommon for more than one business to be located at a shared address but you need to keep reading for more provisions and details.

Question: Are my multiple businesses located at the same address distinct enough to be eligible for separate GMB listings?

Answer: Look at Your Business Structure

If each brick and mortar business you operate is registered separately with the appropriate state and federal agencies, and has its own unique tax ID, which you file separate taxes and meet face-to-face with customers with a unique phone number, then it is generally eligible for a distinct GMB listing. But you want to keep reading for more information.

Question: Do suite numbers help convince Google that I have two locations so I can have multiple GMB listings?

Answer: No, Google does not pay attention to suite numbers, whether they are legitimate or created fictitiously.

Don’t waste time attempting to make a single location appear to be multiple locations by assigning different suite numbers to the entities in hopes that you will qualify for multiple listings.

Question: What makes me ineligible for more than one GMB listing at the same address?

Answer:  if your businesses are not legally registered as distinct entities, or if you do not have unique phone numbers for them, you cannot list them separately.

Suppose your businesses are simply representative of different product lines or services under a single umbrella-like a handyman who repairs both air conditioners and water heaters. In that case, you are not eligible for separate listings. You should not list multiple businesses at virtual offices, mailboxes at remote locations, or any location you do not have the authority to represent.

Question: Is there a penalty for listing multiple ineligible businesses at the same address?

Answer: You may be penalized. Google could issue a hard suspension on one or more of your listings at any time.

If you get a hard suspension, it means that Google has removed your listing and its associated reviews. This could affect your search engine rankings.

Question: Can service-area businesses list multiple businesses at the same address?

Answer: Historically, Google has treated service area businesses differently than brick-and-mortar businesses.

There is no official guideline that forbids listing multiple service area businesses, such as blacksmiths and plumbers at the same location, it is not considered industry best practice. Google appears to be more active in issuing suspensions to service area businesses in this situation, even if the businesses are distinct and legitimate. Because of this, it’s better not to co-locate service area businesses.

Question: What if I work out of a Co-Working Space?

Answer: If your business has a direct unique phone number answered by you and you are staffing the co-working space with your own staff at your listed hours, then yes you are eligible for a GMB listing.

However, suppose there are any other businesses at the shared location in your categories or businesses that are competing for the same search terms. In that case, it is likely that you or your competitors will be filtered out of the mapping product because of the shared elements.

Question: How many listings can I have if there are multiple seasonal businesses at my address?

Answer: If your business hosts an organic fruit stand in the summer and a Christmas tree farm in the winter, you must closely follow Google’s requirements for seasonal businesses.

In order for each entity to qualify for its own listing, it must have year-round signage and set and then remove its hours at the opening and closing of Its season. Each entity needs to have a distinct name, phone number, and Google categories.

Question: How Should I Name My Businesses on Multiple GMB Listings?

Answer: To decrease the risk of filtering or penalties, co-located businesses have to pay attention to the allowed naming conventions.

Questions about this typically fall into one of these categories:

If one business is inside another as in the case of a restaurant located inside a Walmart, the Google My Business names should be “Subway” and “Walmart”  rather than “Subway in Walmart”.

Is Prague located Brands such as a Taco Bell in Dunkin Donuts share the same location, they do not need to combine their brand names for the listing. Alternatively, they should create a single listing with just one of the brand names, or if the brands operate independently, a unique listing for each separate brand.

If multiple listings reflect eligible departments within a business such as the sales and parts department of a Ford dealership, then it’s correct to name the listings for sale department and Ford parts department. No penalty should result from the shared branding elements as long as the different departments out of distinct words in their names, distinct phone numbers, and distinct categories.

If your brand sells another brand’s products don’t include the branding of the product being sold in the Google My Business name. However, Google says that if a business location is an authorized and fully dedicated seller of the brand’s product or service, such as a franchisee, you may use the underlying brand name when creating the listing.

If you are starting out with several new businesses at the same location, it is a best practice to keep their names distinct. For instance, a person operating a Pottery Studio and a pet grooming business out of the same building can reduce the chance of filters, penalties, and other problems, by avoiding Name-O and conventions like Sunshine Pottery and Sunshine Pet Grooming at the same location.

Question: Is it possible to create separate listings for events, classes, or meetings that share a location?

Answer: The guidelines on this topic don’t provide definition. Google says that you should not create listings for locations that you do not own or have the authority to represent.

Even if you do own the building, the guidelines can create confusion. For instance, a college can create a separate listing for different departments on campus, but should not create a listing for each class being offered even if the owners of the college do have the authority to represent it.

Let’s say a yoga instructor teaches at three different locations. If the building owners give the instructor permission to list themselves at the locations along with other instructors, the guidelines then appear to allow creating multiple listings of this nature. However, this kind of activity could be perceived as spam and filter it out because of the shared elements with other yoga classes at a location and therefore could end up competing with the building’s own listing.

Since the guidelines are not clear here, there is a bit of leeway in this area. Use your discretion in creating listings and view them as experimental in the event that Google should remove them at some point in the future.

If you have any questions that I haven’t covered here, be sure to ask them in the comments.

Categories
Digital Marketing

7 Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business in 2020

Effective marketing ideas to grow your business include leveraging social media for brand awareness and customer engagement. Creating valuable, SEO-optimized content establishes your expertise and improves online visibility. Email marketing, with personalized messages, nurtures leads. Collaborations with influencers can expand your reach. Offering promotions and loyalty programs encourages repeat business. Utilizing customer feedback for improvement and referral programs can also drive growth and enhance reputation.

Business owners need to know how to promote their businesses in the right way. You may know promoting your business online is necessary in today’s world, but you don’t necessarily understand all of the ways you can do it or the ways that will give you the best results.

No matter which of the methods you choose, the key is putting your customers first in everything you do. Speak to entertain them, inform them, and teach them.

In this article, we share 7 marketing ideas to grow your business.

Revamp Your Website

When it comes to promoting your business online, everything needs to lead back to your website because it is the one piece of the internet you completely control. While social media can help you grow your business, you’ll never have complete control of those spaces and you must have a plan should Facebook decide to put you in Facebook jail or delete your Instagram account.

Investing in your website helps you build long-term equity in your brand. You’ll develop an asset that never stops working for you, and gives your customers a home base.

The key to a successful website is one that is not only aesthetically appealing but is easy for your customers to use and contains content that they find useful. Your website should be treated as a living and breathing organism that must be kept up-to-date and continues to grow.

Invest More in Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of attempting to drive traffic to your website organically through search engines. As Google continues to exert more influence on its own results, SEO is becoming more difficult, but it doesn’t mean you should completely abandon it.

A properly executed organic SEO campaign builds equity in your site which keeps it working for you over the long-term. Organic SEO is better than pay per click ads in many cases. However, because SEO can take months to see results from, it needs to be only a portion of your overall marketing strategy.

Create or Advertise on Podcasts

2019 research indicates that nearly ⅓ of Americans over age 12 listen to a podcast monthly. 41% of Americans say they are listening to podcasts now more than they did last year. And, Americans average 7 podcasts per week during the period of the study.

This tells us that there is a high demand for podcast content which is becoming the new radio. It’s cheaper, easier, and has a much greater reach. If your company has the resources, our regular podcast can be the center of your content marketing strategy. You can build an audience and establish your brand’s authority.

It’s okay if you don’t have the resources to do a good podcast on a regular basis because few do. If you don’t want to start your own podcast, you can find podcasters whose audiences match your target audience. This allows you to leverage the podcast audience and use advertising on those podcasts to promote your business.

You may also consider finding podcasts to be interviewed on, so you can spread the word about your business this way. It may take a bit longer with this approach because you need to build relationships, but guest starring on podcasts is a wonderful way to grow your reach.

Focus on Your Email List

If you don’t already have one, you might not think about emails when you consider promoting your business. When you invest in building your email list you are creating and long-lasting asset for your business.

A HubSpot survey showed that more than half of respondents check their personal email account more than 10 times a day. It is by far their preferred way to receive updates from brands. 59% of those surveyed indicate that marketing emails influence their purchase decisions and more than 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of return on investment.

If you can get them to trust and value your brand, people will be more than willing to share their email address. Make sure you use smart marketing with compelling and useful content. you need to demonstrate to your audience that you’re worth listening to. Don’t just blast them with annoying emails every day.

Build Your Review Profile

We’ve known for a while now that Google and other search engines use online reviews from customers as a ranking signal. You should be looking for reviews on these platforms for your customers. Reviews serve as a basic kind of social proof to demonstrate quality.

Make sure you’re actively seeking feedback from your customers and using it to improve the products and services you offer. Ask your customers for reviews after your service has been performed or your product has been delivered. Follow up with your customers regularly, if you have long-term customers. and aim to have the best possible customer service at all times.

Why are reviews so important? A 2018 survey revealed 91% of consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 40% of customers only take into account reviews written within the past two weeks. and 89% of consumers read business’ responses to reviews so it’s crucial that whenever someone leaves the review for you that you respond to it.

Start with making sure you claim your Google My Business profile, as this gives you some control over how your information may display in the search results.

Start a Customer Loyalty Program

A customer loyalty program can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it – but it needs to be easy for people to sign up for, participate in, and redeem rewards for. Whether you use a card that’s scanned every time a purchase is made or another approach, you’ll get data to help you make decisions about your company.

You can use it to see who your most loyal customers are, and send them exclusive deals not available to the rest of your customer base. You can use it to convert more customers into repeat buyers. Your loyalty program can also help you see your most popular products and find other trends you can use to create promotions and other specials to keep your business growing.

Join Professional Associations

Chances are no matter your industry or niche, there is a professional organization available to you. You can use your local Chamber of Commerce or other B2B organization to not only market your business but to build relationships and camaraderie with other members. Membership in professional organizations helps increase your business visibility within your community and provides you with opportunities to network with other businesses in your area.

If you’re ready to kick your marketing up a notch in 2020, let’s talk!

Categories
SEO

The Death of Google as We Know It

The death of Google is something digital marketers refer to a lot whenever there seems to be a major change within Google, especially in how it manages data and user privacy, impacting its core services like search and advertising. With increased regulatory scrutiny and evolving user expectations, Google may shift towards more privacy-focused models, altering its traditional ad-revenue-driven approach. This could lead to significant changes in SEO, content marketing, and data analytics practices.

Now that Google’s parent company is Alphabet – and the search engine that started it all is just one of many products – small businesses and marketers have had to make some major adjustments to the way things are done.

While SEO is targeted at helping people get clicks from search engines, the sad reality is that more than half of Google searches don’t even result in a click. And as voice searches and smart assistants become even more prevalent, we can expect that number to continue to climb.

But it’s not just the voice searches and the fact that no one has to click to get a result. A lot of it has to do with the simple fact that Google is providing results for a ton of queries right there on the search page.

When you used to Google “calculator”, you’d get a list of results full of websites that have calculators on them. (Yes, sometimes when you’re at the computer it’s faster to just Google “calculator” than it is to open your computer’s native calculator app. Same for the phone. Particularly if you’re a fast typist.)

Now, you get this:

 

Instead of clicking on a result for a scientific calculator, I can just handle whatever equation I need right there on the SERP.

The same thing happens when you search for things like conversions from cups to tablespoons, gallons to liters, Fahrenheit to Celsius, USD to Euro, etc. When you ask for a state capital… and countless other queries.

Even if Google doesn’t provide the tool you need as they do with the calculator and currency converter, they often provide featured snippets that answer your question without you needing to click off the page. Thus the birth of the “no click search” aka “zero-click search.”

When I searched to find the number of Google searches that don’t result in a click? Yep – you guessed it. I didn’t have to click. I could have, but why would I? The answer I was looking for was right there.

 

And even if it wasn’t, I could have clicked on any of the “People Also Ask” questions to find an adequate answer there, too, I’m sure.

Why Google Loves the No-Click Search

Google loves it because they keep you on their property longer. Their customer is the searcher, not the small business that it pulls up in the SERPs… most of the time anyway. (The small businesses are only customers when they’re paying for ads.)

Google wants to make things as quick and easy for the searcher as possible. And usually, that means keeping them on the SERP while still giving them the information they’re looking for. But that’s why Google also tells webmasters to think of site visitors first — they want you to provide a quality user experience, so they in turn can do the same.

Why You Suffer

On the calculator search example, there are only nine results on the first page. The rest of the space is taken up by Google’s calculator, the People Also Ask box, image search results, and related searches. There aren’t any ads, but for the right query, there could be. And when that’s the case, there’s even less room available for organic results.

Take for instance “lawyers near me”. The first three results are ads. Then there’s a huge chunk of real estate for the Google Map pack, followed by a People Also Ask box, before you get the first organic result. Sure, you can click the “website” button on one of the map pack results, but unless you do that, you’ll stay on a Google property.

If you’re one of the lawyers trying to get traffic for that query, users have to scroll. And most people won’t. They’ll just click the ad or the map pack. And when they click the ad, guess who makes money? Google. You might, if they become a client – but you’ll pay Google for that click first.

How You Can Adjust

Now, instead of trying to compete for position 1 — or the first organic search result, you should look for ways you can rank for position zero. This is the featured snippet.

The key here is that not every query results in a people also ask box. And those that do, generally have long-standing results in that box. Those are the oldest, most trafficked sites that have established authority in the industry related to the search.

That means getting more specific with your strategy. Take time to evaluate who is currently in the box, and if you can’t beat them to take over that spot, look for queries that are related. They may be easier to grab the spot from… or they may not have a spot at all (yet.)

In this case, you just have to do the best you can. And that means focusing on providing a high-quality experience for your users. How do you do that?

Focus on Google’s E-A-T guidelines, which come from the Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines:

  • Expertise
  • Authority
  • Trustworthiness

Is E-A-T a ranking factor? Three ranking factors? No. It’s just an indication of quality, which Google uses to determine whether your site is worth displaying to users.

Improve your E-A-T by building more links, keep your content up to date, make sure your content is factually correct, and links to quality sources to support your information. If you’re in a YMYL (your money your life) niche like health or finance, hire experts — because these are niches where life experience won’t be enough to prove expertise.

Make things convenient for users. That means making sure you have a website that is:

  • User-Friendly: Users should be able to find whatever they’re looking for within three clicks. They should be able to browse comfortably whether they are on a computer, smartphone, or tablet.
  • Fast: Aim for a site load time of no more than three seconds.
  • Secure: Install an SSL certificate on your site to help protect user data.

Need help with your website? Reach out to learn more about how SMG can help.

Categories
SMG News

Sachs Marketing Group Named to the Clutch 1000

Here at Sachs Marketing Group, we pride ourselves on being a trustworthy, 100% in-house SEO company. Since 2010, our marketing experts have provided SEO services for dozens of huge clients, including BMW, Diamond Resorts, and the United States Air Force. We’re proud to learn that our hard work has been rewarded as Clutch has named us one of the top 1,000 B2B companies in the world! The Clutch 1000 only includes the top 1% of firms listed on Clutch, which makes this recognition quite special for us.

Our industry-renowned work has garnered a perfect 5.0 rating on Clutch. A leading B2B market research platform and a member of the Inc. 5000, Clutch uses verified client feedback to rank and evaluate companies across hundreds of directories.

We’ve been consistently named as a top company by Clutch since 2015, and we’re happy to continue to receive such great feedback from customers.

In a recent review, we developed social media advertising campaigns for the California Aeronautical University.

“We’ve worked with similar firms before, but this is the first time we’ve had a really trusting relationship,” said Matthew Johnston, the president of the university. “They’re not trying to take advantage of a budget. They’re true, genuine partners. I don’t feel like we’re a client that simply generates revenue for them. We’re treated more like family.”

Sachs Marketing is also ranked on The Manifest and Visual Objects, Clutch’s sister sites. On those sites, we’re listed as one of the top SEO firms in Los Angeles. Thanks to this industry recognition, prospective buyers can connect with us to bring their SEO to the next level. If you are looking to start a project, feel free to drop us a line today. We offer a free SEO audit and have never had a complaint or credit card dispute.

Categories
SEO

Bing Announces Link Penalties: SEO is Changing

Bing announces link penalties, signaling SEO is changing on the search engine. Bing’s announcement on link penalties signaled its crackdown on manipulative link practices. Penalties target unnatural links, including purchased links and participation in link schemes, aiming to ensure fair and quality search results. This move emphasizes the importance of ethical SEO practices and encourages website owners to focus on building natural, high-quality backlinks for better search engine rankings.

**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.**

As marketers and SEOs, the industry tends to focus most of its attention on Google. It is after all the search engine with the largest market share. According to Statista, in July 2019, it held 88.61% of the overall market share, while Bing accounted for 4.98%. However, failing to consider other search engines in a digital marketing strategy can prove harmful for many businesses.

That said, Bing has recently announced new link penalties that are focused on taking down private blog networks (PBNs), subdomain leasing, and manipulative cross-site linking.

Inorganic Site Structure

Bing wants to penalize what it calls “inorganic site structure.” Inorganic site structure refers to a linking pattern that uses internal site leveling signals with subdomains or cross-site linking patterns with external domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. These spam techniques have existed for years, but Bing introduced the concept of calling them inorganic site structure as a way to describe them.

Bing has noted that sites legitimately create subdomains to keep parts of the site separate such as support.domain.com or app.domain.com. The search engine maintains they will treat those domains as belonging to the main domain passing site-level signals to the subdomains.

Bing also said that sites like WordPress create stand-alone websites under subdomains. This is what happens when you create a site at WordPress.com. in this case, no site-level signals pass to those subdomains.

Having a definition of website boundaries is vital because algorithms assign different values to internal links than they do external links.

What Constitutes an Inorganic Site Structure?

An inorganic site structure happens when a company leases a subdomain to take advantage of site-level signals to increase search engine rank. Bing has included PBNs as part of an organic site structure.

“If your internal links are viewed as external, you can get a nice rank boost,” Bing says in its blog post, “And if you can propagate some of the site-level signals to pages that don’t technically belong to your website, these pages can get an unfair advantage.”

PBNs

PBNs are scheme networks that exist to manipulate the search engines by artificially passing link equity to other sites so that the target sites rank higher. Participating in this type of activity is already a violation of Bing’s link policy. However, going forward, it will also be in breach of the inorganic site structure policy and may be subject to additional penalties.

Doorway and Duplicate Content

Bing has seen an increase in the creation of dozens of doorway sites trying to rank for different keywords sets.

The doorways are designed to look like multiple independent sites, but they redirect to the same destination, which deceives the users who click through. Because duplicate content is such a common occurrence, Bing has said they will assess the intent of the content before designating it a violation of the inorganic site structure policy.

Subdomain Leasing

Leasing a subdomain to a different entity makes it challenging to determine how involved the main domain owner is, which makes it hard to tell whether the subdomain should be considered part of the Moon website.

Bing noted that a lack of easily accessible and direct navigation between the main site and a subdomain was a common issue between all of the cases they reviewed. Therefore the intent was clearly to benefit from site-level signals even though the content on the subdomain had little to do with the content on the rest of the domain.”

Bing acknowledged that some consider allowing a third party to rent and operate a subdomain as a legitimate way to earn money from a website. They had this to say:

“However, in this case, the practice equates to buying ranking signals, which is not much different from buying links. Therefore, we decided to consider ‘subdomain leasing’ a violation of our ‘inorganic site structure’ policy when it is clearly used to bring a completely unrelated third-party service into the website boundary, for the sole purpose of leaking site-level signals to that service.”

In the majority of subdomain leasing cases, the penalty would only apply to the least subdomain and not the root domain.

Why This Matters

The violations mentioned in their blog post may be tempting shortcuts to achieve higher ranks. Apparently, enough site owners have begun to use them to warrant a new penalty. Regardless of what new black-hat search engine optimization tactics you may struggle across, understand that getting caught can have dire consequences for your organic visibility and may even result in delisting. In this situation, there is no shortcut for making a comeback.

As website owners, you may also be held responsible for the content hosted under your domain. If you were to offer free hosting on your subdomains and 95% of them are flagged as spam, Bing says they will expand the penalties to the entire domain even if the root website itself is not spam. Penalties may also be generalized for subdirectories or subfolders that thing suspect have been hacked.

When you hire a search engine optimization and digital marketing firm to handle your online properties for you, you must trust that they do not engage in black hat SEO tricks. Relying on these tactics, such as domain leasing and doorway content to boost your ranking, only hurts in the end. Here at Sach’s Marketing Group, we use only approved methods for increasing your ranking. That’s why you’ll see natural growth over time, rather than fast results.

We’re glad to hear Bing is making improvements to provide quality, relevant results to its users. Competition between search engines encourages innovation. As we see Bing continue to improve, we may see search traffic become more diversified as people leave Google in favor of Bing and other search engines.

Categories
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.

 

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
SMG News

Sachs Marketing Group ranked highly amongst SEO service providers in California by Clutch

Sachs Marketing Group is a Westlake Village, California. A local SEO company based centered on providing cutting digital marketing solutions to your business including Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Development, Web Design, Mobile, Reputation Management, Conversion Testing and Optimization and Video Marketing. Our ability to provide small to midsize companies access to solutions usually available to big firms is what we pride ourselves on. We are very excited to share that Sachs Marketing Group has been recognized as a top provider of SEO Services in Los Angeles area by Clutch.

Clutch is B2B ratings and review agency that helps you connect with the right business partners to help you solve your next challenge. They use a holistic review process that includes past and present client feedback, market presence, work expertise and return on investment to get you reliable data to be well informed when you make your choice. Through their independent evaluation, Clutch awarded Sachs Marking Group an overall perfect rating of 5/5.

A look at a review of Sachs Marketing Group on Clutch:

The Los Angeles area is our home and our business is entirely established in this city. It is therefore with pride that we share that The Manifest, an affiliate of Clutch, has recognized us amongst the leading SEO firms in Los Angeles. The Manifest is a business news and how-to website that features business reviews and provides actionable industry insights and expert opinions to help you grow your business.

Clutch’s recognition is important to us because it is useful for you. We want our customers to have the right data and reliable information before they make a decision about who to hire to address their needs. Check out Visual Objects, Clutch’s new project, featuring top web designers alongside their creative portfolios to help you visualize products and services provided.

“Being recognized as a Clutch Leader for 2019 is a huge honor – confirmation that our focus on being of service to our clients has been a major contributor to our success over the years. Clutch has been extremely instrumental for us. The partnership between Clutch and Sachs Marketing Group has been a major driver of both brand exposure and lead generation for the past several years.”

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
SMG News

Sachs Marketing Group is a 2019 Los Angeles City Excellence Award Winner

The results are in! Sachs Marketing Group has been awarded a 2019 Los Angeles City Excellence Award by UpCity. Out of 624 marketing service providers in Los Angeles, we were selected as one of the top 20 based on our UpCity Rating, which measures digital recommendability by reviews, search score, domain authority and more.

By having our services listed on UpCity and featured as one of the top 20 agencies in Los Angeles, we’re able to cut through the noise, standout and create trust with prospective buyers. It’s an honor for us to be represented on the City Excellence Award List.

The infographic below goes more into detail on what makes a great agency in Los Angeles and stats that highlight Los Angeles as a marketing hub in North America.

UpCity helps businesses find marketing providers they can trust. The UpCity Marketplace creates and empowers successful relationships between businesses and marketing service providers. We provide transparency and insights to dramatically improve the marketing partner selection and purchase experience. Over 225,000 businesses visit UpCity each month seeking marketing services from over 33,000 providers in over 600 cities in North America. UpCity helps partners in the marketplace grow their business and build their digital recommendability.

Categories
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.
[/smgquote]

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.

Categories
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
Digital Marketing

10 Digital Marketing Myths You Need to Forget

Common digital marketing myths to discard include the notions that email is outdated, social media suits only certain businesses, content must go viral to be effective, and SEO is a one-time task. Other misconceptions include the irrelevance of websites in the social media era, the necessity of a large budget for effective marketing, and the idea that all traffic converts.

The world of digital marketing is vast and, well, a bit confusing if you’re a newcomer or startup. Millions of tools claim they’re just the ticket to help you win subscribers, grow your sales, and boost your strategies, but do they all really do what they claim? Not even close. In fact, some of the information you read on your journey to becoming a guru is questionable as heck — including these myths.

You Need Multiple Martech Tools

Ok, you need marketing technology tools. You need not use dozens to get the job done, at least if you choose the right tool.

According to Forbes, there were over 5,000 Martech tools available to digital marketers in 2017; that number continues to grow. You’re likely spending more time playing with the tools and their functions than you are coming up with a strong digital marketing strategy. The strategy should come first. Only once you’re settled on the strategy should you choose supplemental tech tools.

You Only Need to Be Online if You’re a Big Business

Nope! Digital marketing is for business of all sizes, whether they’re small, large, local, national, or global. A web presence allows for better communication, more opportunity for sale, and a whole new level of insight in analyzing customer buying habits and preferences. Even better? Your internal marketing team can gather and analyze this data without hiring a research firm to help you out.

You Need a Mobile App

Not really. Your customers don’t need you to have one, either. Apps work best when they fulfill actual needs. Can a customer buy and receive a service through your app? Receive 24/7 customer service? Place a fast-food order? Access medical records or  other data? If there’s no serviceable value, don’t jump to apps immediately.

Apps are marketing tools, not an extension of your brand. Don’t waste your money developing one unless you are certain you are offering something useful and actionable. Being perceived as bloatware isn’t a good look.

You Need More Website Traffic

Everyone wants more website traffic. In reality, quality over quantity is important in digital marketing. What if you could make more sales with less traffic? It’s possible if you’re narrowing your audiences and targeting the right people. Spend more time reviewing your customer persona and figuring out where your target demographic hangs out online. Targeting your efforts will improve the quality of your leads.

SEO is Insignificant

People have been saying search engine optimization (SEO) doesn’t matter for years, and they have also been incorrect for the same number of years. Or, at least they’re terribly misinformed. SEO may evolve, but it sure as heck isn’t dead!

Are you still using SEO techniques that worked well a couple of years ago? If so, they may not be working as effectively for you. That doesn’t mean SEO is dead. It means your strategy needs an overhaul, which is just part and parcel of being involved in marketing in 2019.

You Have to Redesign Your Website Regularly

Not exactly. Can you design your site and forget about it? No. Can you test your landing pages and layouts to see which are giving you the best results? Absolutely. This doesn’t mean your entire website needs a full makeover every other month. It means you need to make regular updates to images and text while testing minor tweaks here and there.

Maybe the homepage needs a little bit of an uplift. Maybe your internal link structure needs work. And yes, maybe your entire website needs to be re-created, but that’s rarer than just needing a few tweaks here and there.

Bad Reviews Will Crush Your Business

The occasional negative review isn’t going to kill your business. Most people looking at online reviews find businesses with a lot of positive reviews but nothing negative or below five stars to be somewhat questionable. They can also smell irrational negative reviews from a mile away.

What does matter? The way you reply to your reviews. Politely commenting with an invitation to talk or to find out how you can resolve an issue will show you are paying attention and are engaged. Ignoring negative reviews completely will make potential customers wonder if you’re paying attention. Responding emotionally will make you look unprofessional.

But the reviews themselves? They’re not going to hurt you nearly as much as you’ve been led to believe. If you get a bad review, don’t panic. Do your best to resolve it. If you get 20 in a row, something bigger may be wrong.

Mobile Doesn’t Matter

Okay, it’s not that it doesn’t matter. You need to understand what type of conversions happen on mobile. People are more likely to click on a coupon they can show in a store or sign up for information when they’re on a smaller mobile screen. They are slightly less likely to click on a product (or several products), fill out all of their billing and shipping info on a tiny screen, and then enter payment information. You need to know what result to aim for to ensure your mobile port works with your goals.

People Hate Retargeting

Okay, again…this is a more complex truth than just saying people hate retargeting. It’s an undeniably creepy feeling to search for socks on Google and then suddenly see Facebook advertisers want to sell you socks.

The problem is that most people don’t understand retargeting and they don’t like feeling like their right to privacy is being violated. They do respond to this marketing method when marketers use it in the right way. Make sure you are following best practices when retargeting. Cap your impressions, offer an opt-out feature, and make sure your website is user-friendly.

Additionally, consider the message and medium. If someone searches for at-home STI testing on Google, advertising them at-home tests on Facebook via retargeting may be an insensitive choice. The reality is that personal issues like these are often stigmatized, and if they don’t understand that others can’t see the ad, they may feel anxious and unwilling to interact out of fear others will see it like a regular share. Worse yet, they may even report it.

You Don’t Need to Be On Social

Lies – all lies. Mostly. Most brands should be on social media with the exception of sensitive brands and those that are prohibited by law. For example, people who are looking for hemorrhoid cream aren’t talking about it online, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have a presence. You just won’t get the type of on-site engagement you’d hoped for and will have to be more creative about sending people directly to your website.

You need to be on as many social media platforms as your team can efficiently handle. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — they’re all major players and you are missing out on huge opportunities for engagement and growth.

That said, no two channels are alike. Your strategies need to be different and should evolve as the platforms change and update.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make, small or large, is listening to too many digital marketing “gurus.” They end up lost in a sea of misinformation and conflicting opinions — and there sure are a lot of them out there. Choose a couple of strategies to implement and move on to the next as you become more comfortable with how each ebbs and flows.

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