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Say you have a business that relies on a local customer base, you want to rank high in search engines for local users, right? SEO is going to be integral to making that happen and, by implementing the following steps, you will be well on your way to being more visible to your local customers. Local SEO isn’t about gaming the system; it’s more about convincing a robot (a search engine) that your site is the most relevant for users in a certain location who may want your products or services. Local SEO is a series of signposts that allow the robots to understand where you are in the world and what you're providing. It allows them to better rank your site according to the search terms the user enters. In designing your site, you will still want to follow general SEO practices, for example, conducting keyword research into the most relevant search terms. On a technical level, your site will still need to meet best practices for crawls. But, to target a local audience, you will need to go even further....
Do one SEO tactic incorrectly, or too frequently, and you could be facing Google punishments that remove your website from their search results. This is not a gamble that most businesses can afford, as most consumers initially find a business online. In fact, Inc.com ran a survey and found that 7 out of 10 consumers said they are more likely to use a local business if they have a social media presence and another 78% said ratings and reviews are important when deciding what to buy. Google has made some significant changes in the last couple of years when it comes to ranking your website in search results. Google Panda and Google Penguin are the two major updates you may have heard about, and many more are coming. Here are some of the major abuse tactics that were employed by SEO’s and some workarounds that you should be implementing in their place....
Have you noticed the recent proliferation of “content marketing agencies” popping up on the scene? You may be wondering why, but this trend has been building... ... I had a recent conversation with an SEO executive team, and they were seriously contemplating taking the entire company in a new direction… to content marketing. Why? Their reasoning was (besides pure SEO budgets drying up) that the value they used to provide to customers (which used to be immense) simply wasn’t there anymore. Hundreds, if not thousands, of SEO agencies are in the same position. I’ve seen a few — such as TopRank Online Marketing and Vertical Measures — make this transition incredibly well. Others have simply put the “content marketing” moniker on their SEO content production service and called it content marketing. Yes, they’ve added such services as infographics creation, video production, and blog content creation, but content production is only one small part of the content marketing process. Strategic planning aspects of mission statement creation, audience persona gathering, internal content integration, and measurement outside of content consumption metrics are often absent. The lesson for brands: A holistic content marketing strategy includes up-front planning and multiple goals, which in turn must bring in non-digital channels (such as print and in-person vehicles). SEO is just one very small part that covers a few marketing objectives. Make sure your content marketing strategy goes beyond top-funnel considerations....
While social media appears to be ideally made for budget conscious marketing small business, the reality is that social media can be a resource hog. During 2012, small businesses stepped up their social media activity across a variety of social media platforms. With the exception of Facebook, where small businesses, like their larger counterparts, had followed the masses, these firms had limited participation on social media. More than four out of five small businesses had staked out their turf on Facebook as of December 2012, up seven percentage points from May 2012. While Facebook can be effective for consumer-oriented businesses and not-for-profits seeking to engage a mass audience, it’s not ideal for every business. Without time to examine the options available, many small businesses aren’t necessarily selecting the optimal social media platforms for their firm. While about 30% use LinkedIn, the top professional social platform, it’s mainly for their ability to reduce hiring costs, not marketing. The omission of blogs is surprising and may be attributable to the fact that many companies consider it content marketing, not social media. Blogs should be at the center of your social media strategy since they provide information that answers customers questions and shows them how to use their products. Further, beyond creating the posts and distributing them, blogs don’t require constant engagement like other social media venues. As a bonus, they support search optimization!...
This is a round-up of some of the best guides and How To's for understanding the world of SEO and building an SEO-friendly website that Google will love now and into the future. The foundational element of a successful real estate website (or really, any small business website) is information-rich content that ranks well in search engines. To create such content and develop a website that’s SEO-friendly and gets properly indexed in search results you’ll need to: - Understand how to perform proper keyword research. - Understand on-page SEO factors so that you can properly optimize your content pages. - Understand how to claim your Google authorship so that your authorship information displays in search results for the content that you create.…and much more. But don’t worry, this doesn’t have to be difficult. I’ve rallied some of the best content around the web to give you a solid introduction to understanding search engine optimization. Some of these are guides that’ll give you a good introduction into the world of SEO and others are practical How To that’ll walk you through the process of implementing and building an SEO-friendly website that Google will love now and into the future....
If words and pictures were drugs, Google would be an addict. Writers, photographers, and visual artists are the peddlers in this world. Search engines are hooked because their customers told them it’s what they want. People have TV for the hard-sell commercials. They want awesome, informative content with entertainment value. That’s the deal or they won’t pay attention to your brand. That’s why content marketing is all the rage…It’s a high stakes game, and he who dies with the most awesome, high-quality content wins. Blogging is one of the best ways to produce this content. It’s the business owner’s platform to tell the world about them, and their industry. That can spell trouble for some. You’ll either need to become a better writer, or hire one....
By now, many of us are familiar with how to create great content for content marketing to our readers but is it actually pulling in the amount of visitors you expected, especially with the work that goes into creating great articles is – well… a lot!? Among the many factors that go into sourcing and crafting great articles, there are many other dynamics that go into making the content searchable and significant for the search engines to determine what, where and how display your written content and rank in the search engines; but for the purposes of this article when we look at how “good” content is created, we’ll be taking a look from the technical perspective and help you find that things aren’t as easy as just creating a readable and engaging article (though it should be that simple)....
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There is a lot of talk these days about social signals affecting Google Search Results, and many SEOs are feeling the effects for their clients, who are disconnected from the social world. The complexity of marketing your business on Google is rising as search success becomes increasingly intertwined with your social media presence and how you interact with your customers. Your website content and external links are no longer enough to gain Google’s trust. Publishing fresh content on your site means nothing if no one is reading it — and it means even less if no one is sharing it to their social networks. As a business, your primary marketing goal is always to generate leads. Leads are certainly generated from dominating search results — but what if I told you that a solid content marketing strategy could get you leads, even if it didn’t result in #1 rankings right away?...
How are you measuring the ROI of social media? Do you measure up against your peers? Does the ROI of social media meet your expectations? Do your metrics help make better business decisions? ROI of social media ROI means return on investment and when we talk about the ROI of social media we’re looking at metrics to evaluate your increased sales as a function of expenses to drive those sales. But, that’s really hard to do since there really isn’t a direct link between social media and sales. In the infographic below, see some of the surrogates for return firms use to evaluate their social media marketing campaigns....
Today, I would turn that message around and say the following: Do clients know you are on social media? I would follow-up with a few other questions. Do they know where to find you? Are they interested in what you are talking about? Believe it or not, you and your company are the news. Everyday, you have the opportunity to bring the news to your clients and prospective clients. It’s time to start making quality news, not noise. There is a difference....
As successful link building tactics change, companies and clients alike are seeking to understand how certain forms of link building can be translated into long-term content marketing campaigns.... The growth of content marketing is also a concept that Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures agrees with. Content marketing continues to see growth because it is the future of online marketing. He likes to think of content marketing as "moving the message from a banner to your brand and changing the engagement from a view to a conversation." Furthermore, Google's algorithm is continuously changing, meaning this pretty much guarantees that the quick win strategies that may have worked in the past will no longer work in the future. For instance, Google has announced that in the future, they will no longer be announcing/confirming Panda updates because it will be integrated into the search engine's existing algorithm (i.e. Panda is here to stay indefinitely). We've also seen recently the dangers of garnering links from paid advertorials (even on respected, high domain authority websites), a tactic considered as "buying links" in Google's perspective. Now is definitely the time to develop a new type of strategy to garner links and traffic. Inspirational examples of phenomenal content Below are some examples of companies that have created phenomenal pieces of content. Hopefully this provides ample motivation to take your site/client's site to the level!...
Search Engine Optimization is a vital part of creating and setting up a website these days. It ensures that your website gets more traffic and more importantly, receives relevant traffic. The common perception that prevailed was that any traffic is good traffic, however with the passage of time, this misconception has been put aside. If you have 1,000 visitors on your site daily, but only 10 are interested in buying your product, this is quite a waste of your hard work. Conversely, if you use the correct strategy to drive traffic to your website and are able to attract 100 visitors to your site out of which half are ready to purchase your product, you have struck gold. One vital tool that can be used to drive relevant traffic to your website is social media. We all know that having a web presence is important. There is simply no better way to create a positive footprint on the internet than social media. It humanizes companies and makes them more accessible and approachable....
This article has been ranked #1 on all of Forbes and has "rankled" thousands of people.... ...So what do we do? Adam grinned with resignation, “It’s the Hubspot strategy of great blog content with a massive opt-in audience of social followers. It’s your InsideSales.com approach with strong industry research that people follow. And it’s old-school PR. PR has made a full-on 180 degree swing. I started in PR as a major. Now it is the ultimate, because it is about who you actually, really, know. It’s the buzz you create. And how much value you provide your community of followers in return.” I summarized: “So great content is king, and communities of avid followers make the king? And my friend Cheryl, of SnappConner PR will rule the world?” “Yes, basically.” Adam went on, “Dell does a really good job. They have 1M followers on just one account in Twitter. Their team answers all direct messages from their community, and stays on top of their brand and reputation.”...
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Really solid SEO tips designed to help you reach out to your local market.