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Thanks to a study that was earlier published by Sterlingsky, we learned that if a local listing manages to garner 10 reviews or more, they get a ranking boost in the Local Search Results by Google. The study also shed light on the fact that the recency and length of the reviews play an important role.

 

Last month, we saw the results of another study being published! This new study suggests that reviews with more than one upvote tend to stay in the top ten for around 100 more days as compared to those with one or no upvote.

Take a look at the chart below that clearly indicates the more upvotes a review gets, the longer it stays in the top ten.

Considering the fact that a previous study conducted in 2021 reported that the upvotes play no role in moving a review up in position, the findings of the latest study have surprised many.

Why This Is Important?

Having useful reviews appear in the top ten is bound to be more beneficial not only for your business but also for your customers. Hence, it is recommended that while asking your customers to leave a review, you also ask them to upvote the helpful reviews they find on your listing.

Are you interested in repairing your online reputation to increase your review quantity? Contact us to see how eBizUnvierse can improve your online reputation.

According to Google, links may become less important in the future. But a recent survey contradicts Google’s prediction. The survey says that links continue to be a critical ranking factor.

The survey anonymously asked 755 professional link builders about how they build links, what works best / worst for them, and what it really takes to make link building work for their business.

Here’s a summary of the most interesting findings and key statistics:

  • 3% of link builders pay for links. We knew this number would be high, but didn’t expect it to be this high.
  • We broke down the specific amount being paid and found that the average cost of a paid link is $83.
  • However, when comparing those who pay for links VS those who don’t, we found that paying for links yields only an extra 2 links per month.
  • In-house SEOs pay 75% more for links than niche site owners. Nobody seems to have a problem spending other people’s money.
  • Looking at all links, when salaries are factored in, we found that experienced link builders can build links 41% cheaper.
  • It takes an average of 3.1 months to see the impact of a link on the search ranking, with very few saying it takes longer than 6 months or less than 1 month.
  • Guest posting is, by far, the most popular link-building tactic. It is somewhat contradictory to the point that the same people said creating content or linkable assets is the most effective link-building tactic.
  • Google has told us that nofollow is a hint, not a rule. Our participants agreed, as 89.1% of link builders say nofollow links have an impact on rankings.
  • Looking for a way to boost your results? Are you using social media for outreach? Link builders using social media build 22% more links than those who don’t.

This survey was published in November 2022, just before Google’s Link Spam Update. This update specifically targeted purchased links, showing that Google still considers links to be an important part of its ranking algorithm.

However, there is a possibility that Google is overestimating its ability to detect purchased links. Only time will tell if buying links is still a viable ranking strategy. So, for now, be careful and stay tuned for updates.

Are you having trouble keeping up with all the Google SEO updates recently? Contact us and see how we can help you maintain your high ranking without sacrificing your time.

There is a question that is being discussed all over the world now: Can ChatGPT answer all of our questions in the way we want? And if it can, will it revolutionize how we search for and ask for things on search engines? Well, you may wonder, discuss, or throw your opinions straightaway, but Microsoft is bringing ChatGPT’s AI question-and-answer service to its Bing Search, opening a whole new world of possibilities for us to interact with AI in everyday life.

This chatbot, launched by OpenAI, has become incredibly popular across the globe. Everyone, not just professionals, is using it for their projects, research, homework, writing essays, and getting answers to their queries. Some people loved it so much that they called it the “Google killer!” So, is it a code-red for Google, or are we going too far? Let’s find out.

Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is based on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 family of large language models and has been refined through supervised, reinforcement learning techniques. It can teach itself how to answer questions by using content drawn from the web that dates up to 2021. However, it has difficulty keeping up with recent and popular topics!

Keeping all that in mind, Microsoft is planning to launch a version of its Bing search engine that uses the artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT to answer search queries instead of simply providing a list of links. This feature will depict a human-like interaction, which Microsoft thinks will help it outflank Google.

So is it really a “Call the ambulance!” moment for Google? Well, experts in the industry are saying no. Google already has advanced AI and machine learning that can do the same as ChatGPT or even better. And to add to this, it has ways to detect AI-generated plagiarism and scraped content. In conclusion, it’s a “Call the ambulance, but not for me!” from Google’s side.

Are you getting the best return out of your digital marketing?

Need an extra pair of eyes to review your online game plan? Let our experts take a look at your current state and do a comprehensive digital marketing analysis at no cost to you. Please call us at (800) 379-2829 or contact us today and we will get to work right away.

March DIGITAL MARKETING INSIDER SECRETS

Top 12 Website Design Guidelines for SEO

Website Redesign Checkpoints 6 Steps for SuccessInstagram Product Tags Rolling Out to All US Users

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Top 12 Website Design Guidelines for SEO

 

Want to become an expert on how to use SEO when designing your website? Read on to discover top 12 guidelines for SEO-friendly website design.

 

  1. MAKE SURE YOUR SITE NAVIGATION IS SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY

Using Flash for navigation on your website can be bad news if you aren’t aware of how to make Flash objects accessible and web-crawler-friendly. Search engines have a really tough time crawling a website that uses Flash. CSS and unobtrusive JavaScript can provide almost any of the fancy effects you are looking for without sacrificing your search engine rankings.

 

  1. PLACE SCRIPTS OUTSIDE OF THE HTML DOCUMENT

When you are coding your website, make sure you externalize JavaScript and CSS. Search engines view a website through what’s contained in the HTML document. JavaScript and CSS, if not externalized, can add several additional lines of code in your HTML documents that, in most cases, will be ahead of the actual content and might make crawling them slower. Search engines like to get to the content of a website as quickly as possible.

 

  1. USE CONTENT THAT SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERS CAN READ

Content is the life force of a website, and it is what the search engines feed on. When designing a website, makes sure you take into account good structure for content (headings, paragraphs, and links). Sites with very little content tend to struggle in the search results and, in most cases, this can be avoided if there is proper planning in the design stages.

 

  1. DESIGN YOUR URLS FOR SEARCH FRIENDLINESS

Search friendly URLs are not URLs that are hard to crawl, such as query strings. The best URLs contain keywords that help describe the content of the page. For example, think about the following URLs for an HVAC website:

 

hvacompany.com/services/repairs/

hvacompany.com/services/residential-repairs/

hvacompany.com/services/commercial-repairs/

  1. BLOCK PAGES YOU DON’T WANT SEARCH ENGINES INDEX

There could be pages on your site that you don’t want search engines to index. These pages could be pages that add no value to your content, such as server-side scripts. These web pages could even be pages you are using to test your designs as you are building the new website. Don’t expose these web pages to web robots. You could run into duplicate content issues with search engines as well as dilute your real content’s density, and these things could have a negative effect on your website’s search positions.

 

  1. DON’T NEGLECT IMAGE ALT ATTRIBUTES

Make sure that all of your image alt attributes are descriptive. Search engines will read alt attributes and may take them into consideration when determining the relevancy of the page to the keywords a searcher queries.

 

  1. UPDATE PAGES WITH FRESH CONTENT

If your website has a blog, you may want to consider making room for some excerpts of the latest posts to be placed on all of your web pages. Search engines love to see content of web pages changing from time to time as it indicates that the site is still alive and well. With changing content, comes greater crawling frequency by search engines as well.

  1. USE UNIQUE META DATA

Page titles and descriptions should all be different. Many times, web designers will create a template for a website and forget to change out the meta data, and what ends up happening is that several pages will use the original placeholder information. The Best Web Design Companies know that every page should have its own set of meta data; it is just one of the things that helps search engines get a better grasp of how the structure of the website is constructed.

 

  1. USE HEADING TAGS PROPERLY

Make good use of heading tags in your web page content; they provide search engines with information on the structure of the HTML document, and they often place higher value on these tags relative to other text on the web page.

 

  1. INCREASE INTERNAL LINKING ON YOUR WEBSITE

Internal linking can boost the rankings of your website when used correctly. It helps Google understand your content better and also sets an informational hierarchy for your website. Websites with information are consistently correlated with each other. It is very helpful for people and search engine bots when relevant information leads them to further information on the subject.

 

  1. MAKE YOUR WEBSITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY

Whenever a query is entered in the search bar, Google will rank websites based on several different factors, but mobile-friendliness is be one of the primary factors. Thus, Google requires webmasters and businesses to create a mobile friendly website.

 

  1. IMPROVE YOUR PAGE SPEED

Nobody has the patience to tolerate a loading website nowadays. With so many options available at our fingertips, people swiftly switch from one site to another to look for the desired products or services. Thus, you’ll lose the potential rankings and leads if your site’s speed is low.

 

Need help with website design? Get in touch with our team for expert advice.

 

Analyze your site?

Website Redesign Checkpoints 6 Steps for Success

Website redesign is complicated. Here are some steps to take away before, during, and post-launch to avoid an SEO disaster when redesigning your site.

 

  1. Take inventory of your current site

Before changing anything, you need to take a snapshot of what your site and ranks look like currently. This will be a necessary reference point post-launch when evaluating if everything is indexing and ranking as it should.

 

Some areas to keep in mind while taking inventory of your site are:

 

  • Current SEO rank: Check the current rankings of each of your website and also make note of the pages that currently rank in Google.

 

  • Crawl your current site: This will let you see what your current site looks like and grab the structure, current URLs, meta description, and titles tags so you can match your new site up to the old.

 

  • Blocked content: Verify any blocked content with your Robots.txt and/or Google Search Console. It is good to check this list so that you can make sure that these blocked pages continue to be blocked after the redesign.

 

  1. Keep content as close to the same as possible

We all know the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t change a page.

 

You just need to make sure your development and copy teams know when and what tags need to stay the same. Yes, during a redesign, you may need to make some changes to copy/content, but make sure the changes are small and deliberate.

 

In order to maintain your current rank, you should aim to keep the title tag, meta description, URL, and the H1 – H6 the same.

 

These areas are the most commonly crawled and are most important for pages that already rank on Google.

 

  1. Preserve some of the overall site architecture

Yes, some of the ways you organize your navigation and files may change based on your new website strategy and goals, but if possible, try to keep as much of the structure the same as you can.

 

Search engines already know your current site architecture, so by maintaining it, you give yourself a better chance of not affecting your rank.

 

Keep your existing visitors in mind as well, you don’t want to change your structure and confuse your existing audience when they revisit your website.

  1. Create 301 redirects

You also want to make sure you don’t want to remove any pages that are doing well. If you must, make sure you inform the search engines about this change by setting up a 301 redirect. If you don’t implement these 301 redirects you can drastically kill your traffic

 

Keeping an organized list of old page URLs vs new page URLs is extremely important and will help you with re-organizing the website.

 

  1. Block your new site from search engines during staging

Once you have a game plan of what your new site architecture is going to look like, it’s time to design and get the new site built.

 

Make sure your development team sets up the new site on a staging environment or a platform meant for testing that resembles the live environment without launching the pages.

 

It is important to have a staging environment so that you aren’t messing around with your live site and prematurely set pages live and having search engines index duplicate content.

 

A very IMPORTANT thing to do once your staging environment is set up and put a “No Index, No Follow” on it.

 

You don’t want Google finding your staging environment and marking it as duplicate content. This will create a bigger mess to clean up once you take your new site live.

 

  1. Double check everything in staging

When everything is built, run tests on the staging environment to make sure you aren’t missing or have duplicate H1 & H2 tags, title tags, and meta descriptions.

 

Once everything looks good and you have not only run some SEO tests but also did internal QA (Quality Assurance) to make sure the site is responsive and works in various browsers, it is time to take the site live.

 

What about post launch?

Even everything looks great in staging, once you set a site live, there are several things you need to do to ensure you maintain your SEO.

 

Here is a quick hit list:

  • Remove “No Index, No Follow” – This is a very easy thing to forget to do it is the #1 item on our post-launch checklist when launching a site to make sure that is removed.
  • Import your 301 redirects
  • Check your 301 redirects to make sure if you did redo your highest-ranking pages that they are redirecting where they should go
  • Make schema.org tags are still implemented
  • Make sure tracking codes are all still up and running
  • Re-run broken link checker
  • Re-submit new submit to Google Search Console

 

You should be monitoring your new site regularly to spot any issues. Check Google Search Console to check on the number of pages indexed in Google to ensure no pages dropped, track impressions and clicks, and track your rankings.

 

It’s important to monitor these things so that if you did drop in SEO rank you can work on getting it back up quickly, rather than catching it too late.

 

Need help? Do get in touch with our professionals for assistance.

 

See How You Can Improve Your SEO! 

Instagram Product Tags Rolling Out to All US Users

Instagram will open product tagging to every user in the U.S. The ability to tag products is starting to roll out now and will become available to everyone within the next few months.

 

Product tagging debuted on the platform in 2016 as its initial foray into e-commerce. Until now, only businesses and creators could tag products in video posts, stories and reels.

 

Of its 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram has an estimated 159 million users in the U.S., according to Statistia.

 

Why we care.

Instagram said that 1.6 million people are already tagging at least one product per week. By making product tagging available to everyone in the U.S., this number will likely skyrocket as users learn of and use this feature. This is yet another way for brands and businesses to be discovered organically on Instagram. So if your brand isn’t set up for Instagram Shopping, there’s no better time than now to test it.

Instagram Why We Care

 

How to tag products?

After creating a post, users would tap the “Tag Products,” tap the product in the video or image, then search for the product from the shop to add a tag. Instagram users who see a product tag can tap it to buy the product within the app.

 

Control for brands and businesses

Whenever one of your products is tagged, Instagram will notify you on your profile. Want to turn off product tags? You can in your account settings. By default, it is set to “Allow all”.

Are you getting the best return out of your digital marketing?

Need an extra pair of eyes to review your online game plan? Let our experts take a look at your current state and do a comprehensive digital marketing analysis at no cost to you. Please call us at (800) 379-2829 or contact us today and we will get to work right away.

June 2021 Newsletter Core Web Vitals

 

Why You Need to Start Paying Attention to Core Web Vitals

How to Take Advantage of the Google Page Experience Update

Core Web Vitals Tips for SEO Developers

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Why You Need to Start Paying Attention to Core Web Vitals

Google has always placed a great deal of importance on User Experience (UX). In fact, every Google algorithm update has been about ensuring the users can gain access to user-friendly, relevant results quickly.

Now, with the introduction of Core Web Vitals, UX will play a vital role in increasing organic traffic. Hence, it is important that we understand all that we can about these Core Web Vitals.

What Exactly are Core Web Vitals

For the past few years, Google has been pushing website owners to go mobile-first. Building a mobile-friendly website is now crucial to SEO success.

Taking it a step further, Google is now ready to focus on mobile performance, also known as Core Web Vitals.

This summer, we will see algorithm updates that will focus on a new ranking factor, which happens to be page experience. Google will be measuring page experience using Web Vitals metrics. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) are the core metrics within Web Vitals.

How Will the Core Web Vitals Impact SEOs

Search engine algorithms work on helping users find the information they need while collecting data that throws light on user behaviour, which then helps them provide more relevant results.

Websites that meet searchers’ needs naturally rank higher in the search engine results and enjoy increased organic traffic. With Google focusing on improving UX, paying mind to Core Web Vitals will mean the difference between SEO success or failure.

By optimizing for the new ranking factor, one can see a drastic rise in their organic traffic. The Core Vitals report in Google Search Console will tell you exactly which pages on your website need improvements in terms of UX.

What’s Important

While it may all seem very technical, it is important to understand what exactly is being measured by the Core Web Vitals. To put it simply, Core Web Vitals focus on three aspects of a good UX:

  • Loading Performance
  • Responsiveness
  • Visual Stability

These aspects are measured based on the user data from Chrome’s user experience report. You can check out the data for your website using the Google Data Studio report. This report offers detailed data on the important aspects of Core Web Vitals, along with information about usage on different devices.

The Three Main Elements of Core Web Vitals

  1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP is a metric used to measure how long it takes for the largest element of a webpage to load. This metric applies to the loading of the above-the-fold content; anything beyond a user’s screen is not taken into consideration.

Overall, LCP measures images, video poster images, block-level text elements, as well as elements that come with a background image. You can measure your website’s LCP with the help of lab scoring tools  like PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse.

Ways to Optimize for LCP

Google suggests that the LCP should happen within 2.5 seconds of page loading. Anything that takes beyond 2.5 seconds to load needs improvement.

Ideally, you should be able to reduce the LCP time by doing the following:

  • Optimize the images – Ensure you choose the right format, incorporate width and height attributes and use compressed images whenever necessary.
  • Optimize your server – You may want to look into upgrading the hosting plan and using a CDN to improve the server performance.
  • Add caching – Make sure you use URLs consistently and that caches store images.
  • Fix render-blocking CSS and JavaScript – See if you can implement Critical CSS, deliver smaller payloads and compress the code file.
  1. First Input Delay (FID)

FID is a metric used to measure a user’s first interaction, meaning the delay between the time when a person clicks on something and the time it takes for the site to respond to the action and process it. However, it only measures finite user interactions, like clicks, taps and key presses, and not continuous interactions like scrolling and zooming.

Ways to Optimize for FID

Monitoring and optimizing your site’s UX is the only way you can do well with this metric. Ideally, your site’s FID score should be no more than 100 ms. If it goes beyond that, your site’s UX needs improvement.

Try the following to improve your site’s FID score:

  • Optimize the JavaScript code – Try breaking up long tasks, minimizing unnecessary polyfills and deferring or a-syncing unused JavaScript.
  • Optimize the CSS code – See if you can remove the unused CSS code and try compressing your files.
  1. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS is a metric used to measure the visual stability of your site. It checks whether there is any unexpected shifting of any of your page elements and how often it occurs.

Ways to Optimize for CLS

Generally, you should be able to avoid the unexpected items shifting by doing the following:

  • Opt for transform animations with context and continuity.
  • Avoid inserting any content above your existing content.
  • Incorporate size attributes, such as width and height, on your image and video elements.

To understand which elements on your site are keeping you from getting a good CLS score, check out the Layout Shift GIF Generator tool.

Final Takeaway

It is a known fact that users now expect and tolerate nothing less than a seamless web experience. In order to ensure that your site delivers just that, it is essential to invest in LCP, FID and CLS improvements. After all, an improved user experience is key to higher rankings and increased organic traffic.

For help with Core Web Vitals, do get in touch with our expert team for assistance.

Analyze your site?

How to Take Advantage of the Google Page Experience Update

To understand how a user will perceive the experience of a specific web page, Google will evaluate a set of signals. This includes existing Google Search signals such as mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. It also includes metrics in Google’s Web Vitals to do with a site’s loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

How to prepare for the Page Experience update?

For site owners and others, understanding these signals and making the necessary changes should be a priority. Among the steps to take are optimizing for mobile, improving page speeds, CTAs, and alt text for images.

You can start preparing now for user experience to become a ranking factor now. The Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console is an excellent place to start getting a sense of how your site is performing in these areas. Alternatively, you can also make use of the PageSpeed Insights tool by Google (which is a part of our SEO Audit) to understand how your site stacks up.

How are we helping our clients with the Page Experience update?

To cope up with the update, we are already doing the below things for our clients:

  • Implement search-friendly alt texts for images while doing on-page optimization of your website.
  • Implement relevant schema tags on the website.

We have also updated our SEO Audit Reports to bring back the Mobile and Desktop Page Speed Insights sections which are a critical part in improving the Page Speed experience for users. In addition, our Audit also shows the Website HTTPS (secure website) status which is a critical ranking factor in relation to this update.

By showing this to your clients, it presents a lucrative opportunity for you to upsell add-on services like “mobile friendly optimization”, “improving page load speed”, “making website secure”, “CTA optimization”, “landing page optimization”, etc. If you’re interested, our team can discuss this further how to best provide these services to your clients at a minimal cost.

For more information, do get in touch with our reps.

Ask us now!

Core Web Vitals Tips for SEO Developers

Google’s “Page Experience” algorithm update is expected this month, June 2021. But what you need to know is that you shouldn’t expect a major fluctuation in the rankings, as of now!

We believe that Google will be rolling out the update carefully, as suddenly shaking up the ranking scene will draw unwanted attention to their powerful monopoly on search. Keeping this in mind, you can expect them to implement gradual changes over time. For now, relevancy will rule the ranking game!

Here are a few important tips on how to respond to the Core Web Vitals ranking signal going LIVE.

Reduce JavaScript (JS) Execution – If your report shows a poor FID score, consider reducing and optimizing your JS execution. As per Google, one of the ways to reduce the execution is by deferring unused JS. Start by cutting down unused JS, which can be done using code splitting.

Implement Lazy Loading – Implementing lazy loading is essential if you display images on your site. With lazy loading, your site’s UX and core web vitals score will remain unharmed. For sites with heavy elements, such as images, animations or videos, lazy loading is considered a must. It allows the loading of images at the exact same time when users scroll down through the page, without compromising on the overall website loading speed. Lazy loading offers a bunch of other benefits.

  • Improves site performance
  • Limits bandwidth usage
  • Improves your site’s SEO
  • Reduces bounce rate by keeping visitors on the page

Optimize & Compress Images – For some websites, the largest element is images. Optimizing images will make your page significantly lighter, thus improving several factors.

  • Loading speed
  • LCP score
  • UX
  • Search engine rankings

There are a lot of free tools available, using which you can compress your images. If you think that compression will affect the quality of the images, well, it isn’t true. Always ensure to save landscape images in .jpg format and the graphics in .png format.

Provide Proper Dimensions For Images & Embeds – CLS score below 0.1 is considered to be poor. To improve your CLS score, you need to have your dimensions in place. Setting proper width and height helps the browser allocate the correct amount of space on the page while the element is loading.

Also, make sure to set proper dimensions for embeds, like when inserting videos from YouTube into your site. At times, the video might look proper on the backend, but it may end up looking way too big or messy on the front end. See to it that the video you insert goes well with the interface of your site.

Improve Your Server Response Time – Google says, “The longer it takes a browser to receive content from the server, the longer it takes to render anything on the screen. A faster server response time directly improves every single page-load metric, including LCP.”

Most importantly, a long server response time can negatively affect your SEO and UX. Google suggests your server response time to be lower than 600 milliseconds. To measure server response time, use Time to First Byte (TTFB). But before you begin, note down the details on your server’s current performance so you can compare the results later on.

  • First, check how fast is your web hosting.
  • Use CDN (Content Delivery Network) for your site.
  • Then, review your plugins.

To Summarize It All

What you really need to do is pay very close attention to your competitors. You do not necessarily have to meet or exceed Google’s Core Web Vitals guideline scores, but rather meet or exceed your competitors’ scores. Next, you should focus on the content quality of your site and its relevance in terms of the search terms that you’re looking to rank for.

Are you getting the best return out of your digital marketing?

Need an extra pair of eyes to review your online game plan?

Let our experts take a look at your current state and do a comprehensive digital marketing analysis at no cost to you.

Please call us at (800) 379-2829 or contact us today and we will get to work right away.

 

Top 5 Things to Look for When Hiring An SEO Firm

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves increasing the quality of your website visitors which in turn increases your rankings in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. SEO is one of the most important elements of your digital marketing strategy. It involves on-page SEO including keyword research and analysis, content relevance and individual webpage optimization as well as off-page SEO including link-building, content marketing and social media. Such activities can bring better quality visitors to your website who are more likely to convert. It will also result in a higher search engine ranking. When someone searches for a keyword in a search engine, they are most likely to choose one of the top organic results on the first page of results. Therefore, it is extremely important for your website to rank highly in order to achieve its maximum potential.

Google Panda and Penguin Algorithm Updates

Google updates its algorithms about 500 times a year. The latest major update – penguin is targeted at web spam. It will punish sites that it believes are violating Googles existing guidelines for quality. For those sites that use black hat SEO practices, they will face a severe penalty if caught.

seo

seo

On the other end of the scale, Google has updated its Panda algorithm again which inflicts site wide penalties. Panda targets sites that aren’t really spammy, but are of inferior quality in their eyes. It’s designed to decrease the rankings for already low quality sites, sites that upload duplicated content, or sites that don’t provide much value for readers. It will increase rankings though for those sites that have original content and good information.

Basically Google wants to increase rankings for the websites that provide decent content, and severely penalize those that try to use black hat techniques to manipulate the SERPs.

SEO really can be a full time job, especially if you want to get it right. Therefore, it can often be easier to leave it to the experts, and they are many of them out there! How do we know how to choose the best SEO firm? There are 5 top things to look for really:

Results

Ask to see previous case studies and testimonials from real life clients so as the company can prove their ability to successfully boost the SEO rankings for a client. Look for definite facts and figures e.g. screen shots of search ranking position over time, 5% increases in revenue and website visitors.

Experience

Do they have knowledge of your particular industry? Have they worked with companies who sell similar products or services to yours? If an SEO firm is to be creating content and sourcing quality back-links on your behalf, they need to have some knowledge of your business. For example, there are certain SEO companies who may deal exclusively with those in the production industry. They may deal with several different niches but have knowledge of the generic industry.

Communication

Will the SEO firm ensure to communicate all SEO actions? How will they do so – monthly report, weekly meetings? Communication is a key element to ensuring your SEO strategy is being implemented exactly how you want it and as was agreed. Should something topical occur in the news which relates to your business, how are you required to go through this with your account manager? Always ensure to agree to a schedule of meetings or reports that suits your requirements before signing on the dotted line.

Opportunities

Ask the SEO firm to outline exactly what they believe they can do for you. Perhaps have them perform an SEO audit before contracting into any continuous work. Where do they believe your weak spots are and what can they do to improve them? Do they require any additional work from you to achieve higher SEO rankings? Ensure to not only hear what generic SEO services the company offers, but how they can apply these services to boost your business.

Fees

How do the SEO firm operate their fees? Some may opt for a basic rate plus performance bonuses once they achieve particular goals. Other may opt for a flat monthly fee regardless. It is important to ensure that the payment schedule suits you and forms a performance initiative for the SEO firm.

In today’s world small businesses need every advantage they can get and SEO provides that in spades. The internet world is filled with businesses of all types from small website design firms to large multinational financial institutions and a business has to utilize search engine optimization to be found. Whether your small business works with selling merchandise like electronics or offering services like legal help, it could benefit from the invaluable input of SEO into it’s website and web content.

What Does SEO Do?

Simply phrased, search engine optimization provides a clear and thorough path for customers to find your business online. It allows you to set up perimeters of how a person searching online can find your business and content and what they see when they get to it. SEO is both simple and complex, allowing a better way for small businesses to bring traffic to their website and consistently bring in revenue to shore up the business.

SEO and Why it’s Beneficial

The benefits of optimizing a website and it’s content may seem like it is pretty clear, but there are some hidden benefits that small business fail to realize. In the article “6 Ways SEO Benefits Small Business” you can find out what exactly your small business would gain through SEO.

SEO or search engine optimization and social media are like two sides of a coin; they need the other side to truly stand up and be complete. They can work apart, but in the modern age of social networking, online brand awareness and the social drive of the customer, SEO and social media marketing together are vital to the overall success of the advertising campaign bringing in profits and web traffic.

Gain a More Steady Customer Base with SEO & Social Media

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are constantly in a state of renewal, bringing in thousands of new users every day because social networking is king at the moment. That constant state of new potential customers and heavy regular use of current customers, allows a greater chance of brand awareness and return on investment for good SEO business practices. By incorporating search engine optimization with social marketing, a business is able to reach greater quantities of customers by offering up-to-date information that is carefully planned with SEO parameters in mind such as keyword tagging, meta title tagging, linking and more. Adding search engine optimization to social media platforms increases the chances of the information being seen by the right people and bringing ROI back to the business.

Blending the SEO & Social Media Together to Grow Exponentially

Search engine optimization and social media at times can seem like two entirely different options for a business to get ahead in the business world. However, they both play their part in creating a clear web presence for a business and, if done right, they do it in such as way as to play off of each other and create a whole new level of customer participation, profits and brand awareness. Search engine marketing and social media marketing are two things that a business must invest in today and in a way that allows them to work hand in hand. Without utilizing the two complimentary business marketing options of SEO and social media, a company isn’t using every avenue they have available to become a leading company in their section of the business world.

Local SEO for many businesses is still a little used business practice, rather businesses spend a great deal of time focusing on more broad term keywords and techniques that everybody is using. However, as search engines and search engine optimized content is geared more and more towards locality rather than basic keyword search results local search engine optimizing has become relevant to businesses now more than ever.

Why is Local SEO So Important?

People search everyday for things from local restaurants eat at to website design services, each search offering a chance for a business to draw a searcher to their site with carefully oriented search engine optimization. But, if another business utilizes local techniques such as using the keyword “SEO Chicago” instead of a plain “SEO” within their content, they are far more likely to be seen as relevant to not only the searcher, but the search engine that determines a business’ rank on a search page as well.

Why You Should Love Local SEO

Search Engine Watch recently posted a blog that talks about the value of utilizing local search engine optimization in the article “5 Reasons Small Business Should Love Local SEO.” Read the article and find out why is it so important to utilize local SEO content for your business.

SEO is oftentimes the driving force online, from e-commerce websites to social media pages and a search engine optimized business blog is just as vital to securing your place in the business industry. A business blog can be an independent project allowing you to offer your sage advice to the masses or a job related project that helps to give your company a positive marketing spin. However, to effectively make your business blog successful SEO must be incorporated throughout to draw in visitor traffic and keep them coming back for your stunning wit and knowledgeable advice.

A Business Blog in Relation to SEO

When it comes to search engine optimization, a business blog has a wealth of strategies to chose from to make it successful. From simplistic options like placing keywords with blog content to more involved strategies such as backlinks, SEO offers an unquestionable advantage to a business blogger who is able to marry optimization with interesting and knowledgeable content.

What Successful SEO Strategies are Out There?

Entrepreneur.com aimed to help business bloggers get a handle on the concept of utilizing search engine optimizing in the article “Five Effective SEO Strategies to Optimize Your Business Blog”. It offers insightful SEO strategies that will help to make your business blog one that is successful on multiple levels.

To use the right anchor text when you’re doing an internal linking or link building strategy will have a great effects on your rankings and organic traffic. Linkio is a tool that will give you the perfect anchor text percentage and usage to get over your competitors very quickly and gain quality organic traffic to your website.

Landing pages and SEO have had a long standing relationship since the birth of search engine optimization. The landing page is oftentimes one of the most viewed and most searched page, and if your landing page lacks the right optimization you could be missing out on a wealth of page/website traffic that you aren’t even aware of.

Using Your Landing Page & SEO to Tell a Story

Whether you realize it or not, your landing page is telling a story to those who visit and those who search for it. What that message is, is largely up to your or to those who ultimately design and implement the landing page design. With the use of SEO in the right way, landing pages become bright beacons that draw in targeted traffic and help them on their way to not only finding what they need, but helping your site to achieve the goal of increasing sales, lead generations and conveying the right message. Search engine optimization utilizes the concept of page ranking, keywords, backling, on-page modifications and so much more to help increase the success of not only that individual page, but the overall success of the website as well.

Tips to Help You Create a Truly SEO Optimized Landing Page

In the article “10 Killer SEO Landing Page Tips” you can learn about ten invaluable tips that can help your landing page’s page ranking and effectively create a solid search engine optimization strategy that helps your website increase revenue. Without a solid landing page that has SEO strategically used throughout it, your site just may not perform as optimally as it could be.

Outsourcing your SEO is something that every business using search engine optimization needs to consider whether they are a small local company or a big multinational conglomerate. The use of optimization to carefully optimize content is a way of ensuring that a business’ online content, whether it is product pages or advertisements, is ranked high on search engines and seen by specifically targeted audience. But, doing so it’s as easy as just including a few keywords… it takes talent and know-how. Without these two things search engine optimizing can quickly go from a benefit to a hindrance… so here are 4 reasons to outsource SEO.

SEO Requires Expert Knowledge and Specific Skills

The task of successfully coordinating an SEO strategy can be very similar to navigating a minefield… one wrong step and all of your efforts go up in a plume of smoke. Search engine optimization requires an expert knowledge and specific skill set of the intricacies of algorithms like Google’s Penguin & Panda, the current web trends, understanding of the use of keywords/meta tagging/backlinking and much more. It is a complicated dance that requires precise steps to make your efforts successful.

An Effective SEO Strategy Requires Dedication

What most people don’t understand is that SEO requires dedication for the present and long into the future to remain effective. Once a search engine optimization strategy has been put in place only half of the work is done… next comes a tireless campaign to keep fresh content continuously coming, drive traffic to you website, analyze results (then adjust the strategy accordingly), etc.

Outsourcing SEO Allows Your Business to Focus on What it Does Best

When your business started however many years ago it was you began with a singular purpose in mind whether it was offering quality clothing at reasonable prices or providing legal counsel to your customer base. You did so because you had a passion and a particular skill set that was centered on that purpose… however, incorporating SEO into your business structure takes away from that singular dedication and gobbles up the time of you and your employees that would be better suited towards furthering your businesses specific goals. SEO requires a seemingly endless amount of time consuming effort and if you get stuck in a cycle of putting more time and effort into your search engine optimization strategy you will be endangering the overall success of the business.