What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site within the first page results. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML, schema markup, Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #30 in another search engine. New sites need not be “submitted” to search engines in order to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site. THe best backlinks are those from high traffic content by reputable websites.  That’s why content marketing has become an integral part of SEO while also bringing tons of targeted traffic and brand recognition!

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues. If you’re doing your own SEO a couple of good places to start are Majestic SEO and SEMrush.com.

A good search engine marketing and promotion company will look not only at your search ranking goals but also your business plan in order to make profit worthy recommendations.  After all your overall goal is not to only increase your search engine ranking and website traffic but to bring about more business. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

If you need a hand please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and set up a time for a free consultation.

5 Ways Content Marketing Can Benefit Your Brand

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Content marketing is not just a fad. It’s a solid marketing strategy that has brought success to brands and businesses of all sizes. When you do content marketing correctly, you can expect to benefit for a long, long time. So, here are the top 5 ways content marketing can help your brand.

1.    Valuable content brings hordes of traffic to your site

Who doesn’t want traffic? No webmaster in their right minds would say they don’t want traffic. The truth is we build websites and establish a presence on the Internet because we want people to know more about us.

The good news is with content marketing, you can bring a ton of people over to your site without paying exorbitant amounts of money for advertisements. Yes, it will require some money to amplify your content but nowhere near the cost for ads that get minimal results.

2.    You’re building your brand identity

When people see your brand on many valuable posts and articles, you’re essentially letting the world know what your brand is all about. You’re establishing an identity online.

When people go looking for information that falls right up your alley, then chances are people will be able to better recall your brand over your competitors!

3.    You’ll gain your audience’s trust

It takes a lot of work to gain people’s trust. And it’s essentially what content marketing is – it’s a lot of work. But once you’ve successfully established yourself as an authority and your brand starts sticking in people’s minds, then it will be easier to gain their trust. You’ll find that when you’ve captured people’s trust, getting them to follow your calls to action becomes much easier. Remember trust is a long term game so take it slow and steady!

4.    Get higher conversion rates

The most successful content marketing campaigns have excellent conversion rates. This means they’ve successfully positioned themselves as authorities in their industry, and they’ve created content that resonates with their audience. Factor in great web design, and you’ve got a recipe for success!

5.    It’s great for your site’s SEO

There are plenty of SEO benefits to content marketing. When you consistently publish valuable content, you’ll be able to eventually rank for more keywords on search engines.

You’ll have a highly engaged audience on your site, meaning they’re not going to bounce right after they land on your page. You’ll have many people linking to your content (search engines love this!) which will help boost your rankings on search pages.

8 Tips to Increase Website Traffic

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1. Update the pages on your website frequently (we’re starting to employ this ourselves!). Stagnant sites are dropped by some search engines. You can even put a date counter on the page to show when it was last updated.

2. Offer additional value on your website. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and products and ask them to do the same for you. You can also advertise their books or videos, if these products relate to your industry and are not in competition with your own product. Having backlinks will increase web traffic and overall SEO!

3. You can allow customers to ‘opt in’ to get discounts and special offers. Place a link on your site to invite customers to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons. Be sure it’s not the same content they can find elsewhere!

4. Add a speak to me script (like we have from Vcita) that will allow for immediate contact or to leave a message.

5. Be sure to brand your website so that visitors always know they are on your site. Use consistent colors, logos and slogans and always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on each page.

6. Create a FAQ page/section which addresses most of the doubts and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.

7. Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate titles and keywords so that your customer can find their way back to your site if they lose the book mark. It’s also a good practice for SEO purposes!

8. Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails. Later if they decide they want to ‘opt out’ of the mailings, be sure you honor their request and take them off the mailing list. They may still come back if they like your products. But they will certainly not come back if you continue to flood their email box with mails they no longer wish to receive.

Playing the Twitter Game and How a Business can Prosper

SEO

Playing the Twitter Game and how a Business can ProsperThere are two main social media platforms these days – Facebook and Twitter. The latter is much less known and has less than half the number of users than the former. But that doesn’t make Twitter any less important than Facebook. It allows businesses a unique position to become authorities in their given field. It allows for users to share ideas in short, impactful updates and others to follow exactly what is going on with small little bites along the way. Finally it allows for trending topics to be followed and discussed between millions of other Tweeters. But a big question – how does it work and how can I make it work? Can I create a trend out of thin air? Here is how Twitter works and some of its core elements.

What does it mean to be trending?

If you ever wanted to learn about what the younger generation is doing or cares about these days, finding what is trending on Twitter is vastly important to this end. Twitter’s metadata tags are called hashtags, and look something like these: #SuperBowl #Grammys or #Science. When users display hashtags within their tweets (generally to end a tweet), that tweet is grouped with other tweets whose users have used the same hashtag. A user can then discover what others are saying about the #SuperBowl and then engage in additional dialogue with those users, perhaps discussing a blown call, nice catch, or off-the-field story with a player and his celebrity girlfriend.

So that’s a quick overview, now how can a business use Twitter?

Now if that’s the type of thing people use Twitter for in regards to personal use, how to businesses use Twitter to their advantage? Well for one, businesses can jump in and engage with users like in the example above. Businesses can ask users questions about their favorite flavor of soda and engage in public conversation surrounding a trending topic. If a user Tweets at your business and asks a question (about your service, product, or other business-related topics), you can answer them through the business’s Twitter account. One of Twitter’s benefits is that you can manage relationships with current and potential customers quickly and easily. It’s best not to get into flame wars with other users or start back and forth battles of he-said-she-said. Some other things to remember:

  • Part of the business’s reputation is tied to its Twitter account
  • Trending can be good or bad for public relations (depending on why your business is trending)
  • Potential customers as well as other businesses see your tweets
  • Always Tweet in grammatically-correct and proper English

How often should the business tweet?

There is a point in which you might ask yourself, how often should we use the business’s Twitter account? Well, fairly regularly. Businesses are expected to have social media pages these days. Regularly updating and engaging with other users is a must. When a user asks a question, answer the question within 24 hours at least. Here are some great ways to tweet as a business:

  • Retweet and share business-related news bits
  • Introduce new product lines or services
  • Connect with other businesses on Twitter
  • Announce deals and coupons
  • Share fresh blog content

Being overly promotional is something to stay away from. Nothing turns a user off more than following someone new and finding out all they do is spam links to their site and spout off about how great their business is. Temper that. If your business gets a column written about it by Forbes Magazine, then obviously you’re going to want to show off to others.

Twitter is like learning how to read a new language. At first it seems completely over your head and as if you don’t have what it takes, but with a little patience and being open-minded to learning how it works, you’ll find success. While businesses are pressured to be on social media these days, these digital platforms offer businesses unique ways to wrangle up new customers and engage with other users and businesses. Twitter can help grow your business and enter the new era of digital marketing. Twitter is no longer trending, it is a necessary aspect of any business.