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18 Oct, 2023
For local business owners, achieving a high ranking in Google's map pack results is not just a desirable goal; it's essential. The map pack, comprising the top listings that appear when someone searches for a local service or product, plays a pivotal role in local SEO. These listings provide vital information about businesses, including their name, address, phone number, ratings, and websites, accompanied by a map displaying their locations. But why exactly are map pack results so crucial for local SEO? And what steps can you take to improve your chances of ranking higher in these results? Understanding Map Pack Results and Their Significance Map pack results, also known as local pack results, represent a specialized form of organic search results that Google displays in response to local queries. When users search for services or products with local intent, such as "dentist near me" or "lawn care service in Lehi," they encounter map pack results at the top of the page, followed by regular organic results. These map pack results are pivotal for local SEO due to their high visibility and relevance to user intent. They furnish users with a wealth of information about each business, including location, operating hours, reviews, and websites. This comprehensive data empowers users to make informed decisions and select the best-suited option for their needs. Optimizing Your Website and Google Business Profile for Map Pack Success To ascend the ranks within map pack results, it's essential to optimize both your website and your Google Business Profile. Your website serves as your digital storefront, showcasing your offerings, while your Google Business Profile acts as your listing on Google Maps and Google Search, furnishing crucial information about your business. Here are some best practices to optimize your website and Google Business Profile for improved map pack rankings: Claim and Verify Your Google Business Profile: The first step in securing a spot in the map pack is to claim your listing on Google Business Profile and verify your ownership. This grants you control over your profile, enabling you to update information and respond to customer reviews. Complete and Optimize Your Google Business Profile: Once you've claimed and verified your listing, ensure that all pertinent fields and categories are filled out accurately. Provide consistent details such as your business name, address, phone number, website, operating hours, services, and description. Incorporate keywords that align with your business and match user search intent. For instance, if you operate a dental clinic, consider keywords like "cosmetic dentistry," "teeth whitening," or "emergency dental care." Additionally, include high-quality photos and videos that highlight your business and attract potential customers. Optimize Your Website for Local SEO: Your website should be optimized for local SEO, emphasizing relevance, speed, mobile-friendliness, and security. Implement local keywords strategically in title tags, meta descriptions, headings, content, and URLs. For example, if you offer lawn care services in Lehi, utilize keywords like "lawn care service in Lehi," "Lehi lawn mowing," or "Lehi lawn aeration." Display your business name, address, and phone number prominently on every webpage, preferably in the header or footer. This fosters recognition and trust among both users and Google's algorithms. Solicit and Showcase Reviews: Reviews wield significant influence over map pack rankings and your business's reputation. They offer insights into customer satisfaction and serve as social proof that can sway potential customers in your favor. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your Google Business Profile and other platforms like Yelp or Facebook. Respond promptly to both positive and negative reviews, demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction and valuing their feedback. Local Business Listings and Links: Local business listings, aka “citations”, which mention your business name, address, and phone number on external websites, and local backlinks, links from reputable sources pointing to your website, play a pivotal role in map pack rankings and authority. Focus on acquiring citations and links from relevant and trustworthy sources, including local directories, blogs, and social media platforms. This not only reinforces trust in your business but also enhances your traffic and conversions. Achieving higher rankings in Google's map pack results holds the potential to transform the fortunes of your local business. It can amplify your visibility, drive more traffic, boost conversions, and enhance your reputation—all while outperforming your competitors. To ascend the map pack rankings, focus on optimizing your website and Google Business Profile. Additionally, maintain a vigilant eye on your performance and be ready to adapt to changes over time. If you’re looking for assistance with your local SEO, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We are a dedicated digital marketing agency specializing in local SEO, small business website design, and local paid search ads. Our expertise can empower you to craft and execute a tailored local SEO strategy, propelling your map pack rankings and business growth. Discover how we can assist you at leadgenix.com.
09 Oct, 2023
Are you searching for a digital partner that can bring your business to the forefront of the online landscape? We are your one-stop solution for achieving digital excellence. We build powerful websites, rank your website in Google, promote your Google Business Profile, and find new customers with paid search. Our team of experts collaborate with you to understand your brand, goals, and target audience, crafting a comprehensive digital strategy designed for maximum impact. With Leadgenix, your business isn't just another project—it's a partnership dedicated to your long-term success. Comprehensive Web Design Solutions Your website serves as the digital storefront of your business, and making the right first impression is crucial. Leadgenix excels in providing professional and responsive design solutions. Our web design services go beyond aesthetics; we focus on SEO-friendly design, user experience (UX) design, and website accessibility, ensuring your site is not just visually appealing but also optimized for performance. SEO-Integrated Website Design: Understanding the importance of search visibility, Leadgenix integrates On-Page SEO elements right from the design phase. This blend of SEO and web design ensures your site ranks well in search engine result pages, attracting a larger local audience. Mobile-Friendly and Responsive: In the age of mobile search, having a mobile-friendly website isn't just an option—it's a necessity. Leadgenix crafts responsive designs that adapt to different screen sizes, providing a seamless user experience across devices. Exceptional Local SEO Services Local SEO is at the heart of Leadgenix’s expertise. Our team employs a comprehensive local SEO checklist, which includes optimizing Google Business Profiles, local citations, and location-based keywords to ensure that your business ranks prominently in local search results. NAP+W Consistency and Local Business Listings: One of the foundational elements of local SEO is maintaining consistent Name, Address, Phone Number, and Website (NAP+W) information across various platforms. Leadgenix takes care of building your business listings and ensures that your NAP+W data is consistent, which is critical for local search visibility. Customer Reviews and Reputation Management: Online customer reviews significantly influence local search rankings and customer trust. Leadgenix’s local SEO strategy also includes a focused approach toward garnering authentic customer reviews and managing your online reputation effectively. Localized Paid Search for a Targeted Outreach Paid search is an excellent avenue for immediate results. Leadgenix’s services encompass everything from campaign setup, ad creation, keyword research, and conversion tracking. Localized Paid Campaigns: Geo-targeting allows for more focused advertising, reaching potential customers in specific locations. Leadgenix customizes your ad campaigns to target local customers effectively, ensuring an optimized cost-per-click (CPC) and a better return on ad spend (ROAS). Quality Score and Ad Positioning: We prioritize achieving a high-quality score and favorable ad positioning for all your paid search campaigns. By optimizing landing pages and ad copy, Leadgenix aims to provide maximum ROI on your advertising budget. Why Choose Leadgenix? Leadgenix is not just another digital marketing agency. Think of us as an extension of your business—a dedicated marketing department armed with a wealth of experience, committed to driving measurable results. Transparency and Reporting: Our commitment to transparency sets us apart. You receive detailed reports, tracking your campaign performance across various metrics like keyword rankings, website visitors, calls, form submissions, and more. This data-driven approach helps us refine our strategies, ensuring your digital marketing investment yields tangible returns. Budget-Friendly Solutions: Quality doesn’t have to break the bank. Leadgenix offers scalable solutions that fit a variety of budgets, making top-tier digital marketing services accessible to both small and medium sized businesses. Team of Experts: Benefit from a dedicated team that is proficient in multiple areas of digital marketing, from local SEO expertise to paid search proficiency and web design creativity. Elevate your local online presence, engage your target audience, and achieve your business goals with a tailored digital marketing strategy from Leadgenix. More than just another agency, we view ourselves as an extension of your team—a partner committed to your success. As a local business looking to reach customers in your immediate area, Leadgenix has the strategies and solutions tailored for you. Don't leave your digital success to chance; reach out to us today to see if we'd be a fit for your business needs. Let's build something amazing together.
By Adam Young 10 May, 2022
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By Kevin Phelps 10 Apr, 2022
If your business has a physical, customer-facing location, chances are that you can benefit from local SEO. When consumers search for a product or service in their area, guess which businesses they’re likely to visit first? If you guessed, “the ones that show up in Google first,” you’re correct! Local SEO helps you bridge the gap between your business and your target market by putting your business where people can see you: right at the top of the search engine results page. We’re long past the era of when phone books, flyers, mailed coupons, radio ads, and billboards made a good enough strategy for growing your business. It’s 2020, for crying out loud! According to Forbes, if your business isn’t on the web via multiple channels, then you’re losing your edge against your competitors who are utilizing this resource. And according to Google , 46% of online searches are looking for local businesses. It’s obvious that local SEO is critical to surviving as a modern business. So how much does local SEO cost? Well, it’s a little complicated. What Are You Paying For? Local SEO is like making a complex recipe — there are a lot of ingredients and processes that need to be used in order to achieve the desired result. So when you pay for professional local SEO, there are a lot of different factors that go into that charge: Industry : Different industries have more or less competition than others, affecting how difficult it will be for you to rank well. Geographic location(s) being targeted : Different locations have more or less competition than others, which affects how difficult it will be for you to rank well. You will also likely have to pay more for each additional location. The contractor’s expertise in local SEO : Contractors with less experience in local SEO are likely to charge less than those who have more experience. Your current rankings : If your site already ranks well, then it will take more work to get it to rank better than if your site currently ranks poorly. Previous SEO : If your site has had SEO done in the past and it’s currently hurting your rankings, it will take a lot of work to undo. On the other hand, if that SEO simply needs to be built upon, then you will likely end up paying less. Keywords : Targeting more keywords will be more expensive than targeting fewer. Furthermore, the more competitive your market and specific the keywords, the more work it will take for your site to rank. SEO packages often have a variety of inclusions as part of the charge and play a role in “sweetening the deal.” Some of these inclusions are very helpful, while others are just fluff with no real benefit. Beware of choosing an SEO package just because it seems to offer the most “bang” for your buck. How Much Does Local SEO Cost? Every source you read on the cost of local SEO is likely to give you a different answer just because SEO itself is so variable. No two businesses have exactly the same needs, and SEO thrives on catering to those differences. For example, according to an Ahrefs survey of 348 respondents: The average monthly retainer for local SEO is $1566/month. The average rate per project for local SEO is $2756. The average hourly rate for local SEO is $96/hr. We took a walk around the internet to see what we could find in terms of average local SEO costs, and what you can expect for your own campaign: Monthly Retainer Monthly retainers are the most common type of charge for SEO campaigns because it’s highly compatible with the fact that SEO takes a while to get results. In fact, according to the same Ahrefs study mentioned above, 74.71% of respondents charged clients a monthly retainer fee. When you’re on a monthly plan, you pay a flat fee every month to your SEO agency, and in return you receive services related to getting your site optimized and ranking more favorably. Many SEO agencies prefer to sign clients up for 6- or 12-month agreements because it can take that much time to get on the first page for some competitive keywords. However, some agencies also offer true month-to-month plans. The cost of a monthly retainer for SEO in general varies widely, from about $500 all the way up to $20,000/month. But small businesses interested in local SEO are looking at a range from about $250-$5,000/month. Pay Per Project If you aren’t ready to jump into local SEO with both feet, or your current budget doesn’t quite permit paying a monthly retainer, then the Pay Per Project method can be a great way to get started and target your business’ most urgent needs. Instead of offering the full suite of local SEO services, Pay Per Project is the a la carte alternative that enables you to pick and choose which exact products you need. These local SEO products can include: Google My Business creation Bing Local creation Yellow Pages creation Yelp listing creation Content writing Competitor analysis Keyword research Landing page design Link building On-site optimization Schema implementation Social media posting Video marketing The cost of a Pay Per Project approach is extremely variable compared to other options, because it all comes down to the project in question and the size of your business. For example, creating a Google My Business profile is likely to be a much less time-intensive project than producing a marketing video, so the former is likely to be less expensive than the latter. One-time SEO audits are a popular form of Pay Per Project SEO that act as a “checkup” for your marketing strategy. Instead of picking just one thing to look at, SEO audits look at your local SEO strategy as a whole and identify as many issues as possible. SEO audits are a great way to get a birds-eye view on the current status of your business and determine your strategy’s most pressing needs. From there, you can springboard into tackling the most important projects one at a time, whether you hire professional help or DIY. Cost depending on the size of your online presence, how detailed the audit is, and whether they make recommendations for addressing found issues. Some SEOs offer free SEO audits as a sales tactic (these are generally automated with no actionable value), but generally it is likely to cost a small business between $500 to $5,000, depending on the size and complexity of the website. Choosing an SEO Aside from the three main types of local SEO pricing strategies, there are also two main types of search engine optimizer: SEO Agencies : SEO agencies tend to have more collective experience, which means that in hiring an SEO agency, you benefit from the expertise of many. Agencies traditionally manage the entire campaign including the strategy, fulfillment, reporting, and communication. SEO Consultants : SEO consultants are specialists. They’re often very experienced with SEO or a segment of SEO, and when you hire one, their job is to get to know your business inside and out to create the perfect strategy for your needs. They are traditionally advising more than fulfilling and usually act independent from an agency. However, there are some agencies that exclusively advise like a consultant would. Price is not the only factor you should consider when choosing someone to help with your local SEO. SEO is an investment, not just an expense, and you generally get what you pay for, so relying on price as your sole indicator could cause problems for you down the road. Make sure that your SEO candidates offer the services that you need most. These are some of the most important service that should be included in a local SEO campaign: Keyword research On-page optimization Citation and link building Google My Business (GMB) management Customer review management Q&A management Detailed reporting and analytics based on: Work performed Website traffic Phone calls and form leads Keyword positioning While evaluating potential SEOs, look at their portfolio. Do they specialize in local SEO, or are they more generic? Are they familiar with businesses like yours? What were they able to do for that business? Keep these same questions in mind as you read through the candidate’s reviews and testimonials. It doesn’t cost anything to get a quote (or at least it shouldn’t for most local SEO campaigns). Get to know a few agencies and collect quotes so you know what your options are for exactly the services that you need. After shopping around, make a decision. Red Flags to Watch Out For If you find any of the following on an SEO’s website, they’re not the one for you: Guarantees : If the candidate guarantees “instant results,” that probably means that they found a way to shortcut the search engine’s algorithm. This can seem like a sweet deal at first, but their methods are likely to get you penalized in the long run. Reputable SEO will usually take 3-6 months to start showing results. Shady Link Building Practices : If the candidate advertises link building, ask them about their strategy. Many low budget campaigns will use link building strategies that Google deems unnatural, like link farms, private blog networks (PBNs), or blog comment spamming. Super Low Prices : As the saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you find an SEO agency that is offering prices significantly lower than $500/month, it’s likely either automated or outsourced. An agency is service-based, meaning it requires humans to research, make decisions, and perform work. Ask yourself what your company would do for $500/month. How many hours could you work and still meet margins? Similarly, an agency needs to be profitable and if they are charging the normal hourly rate of ~$100/hour, your campaign is only getting 5 hours/month of attention. That’s simply not enough time to make a meaningful impact for most businesses marketing needs. An SEO that hides their pricing info isn’t necessarily a red flag — in fact, it’s probably a good thing. There are just too many moving parts in SEO for cookie-cutter pricing to work well. SEO agencies that don’t have a one-size-fits-all pricing strategy are likely to put a higher priority on customizing their work to your business’ exact needs. This is also likely to give you better return on investment. Conclusion We get it — doing something new and unfamiliar is scary. As a small business owner, local SEO is just adding one more thing to the pile of bills that you’re trying to cut down on. Remember, there is a reason your competition is growing, stable, and succeeding in your space. It’s because they are investing in marketing and most likely have excellent rankings for their local keywords in Google. It may be expensive in the beginning, but a good local SEO strategy will pay for itself several times over.
By Kevin Phelps 10 Mar, 2022
This article was originally written by Atul Jindal and published on Search Engine Watch . We liked it so much, we wanted to share it with our readers too! I’ve worked with many SEO and CRO campaigns as well as fortune 50 companies over the years. This gives me access to valuable data that helped me understand what is working and what’s not. Over the years by analyzing data I found that UX is a critical ranking factor for SEO. The story of SEO and UX began almost 20 years ago with both making a foray into the market in the 1990s. While SEO was widely used as a marketing technique, UX (user experience) concentrated on giving the users an enhanced engaging experience on the website. If you have exhausted all your SEO techniques but still don’t see a considerable movement on your website or rankings. Then probably you’re losing at User experience. But it is quite difficult to find UX-related issues on your website. When you’re only looking at your website from an SEO perspective! You need to take a look at your website with your user’s (customer’s) eyes. In this guide, I’ll explain UX and guide you on how to implement it into your SEO campaigns to get results. What is UX? User experience (UX) is the experience of a user with your website/application. An easy-to-use website will provide a pleasant user experience but an unplanned website will have a bad or poor user experience. UX focuses on the site architecture, visitor journey, desktop, and mobile layouts, user flows. In short, user experience is driven by how easy or difficult it is to navigate through the user interface elements that the website designers have created. User interface (UI) focuses on the graphical layout of any application. It includes several factors such as fonts and design styles, text entry fields, transitions, images, and animation interface. In short, anything visual comes under the umbrella of UI. It is important to note that UI and UX are two different functionalities. While UI revolves around design layout, UX is the experience of the user on the website while they are navigating the web pages. Since we have a better understanding of the two, let us further understand how we can successfully implement UX into an SEO campaign. Why does UX matter in SEO? In recent years, Google has changed its ranking criteria. There was a time when Google was looking for the keyword reparations in your content or the number of backlinks that your website has. But now the scenario has been completely changed. Google is becoming more user-centric day by day. They are using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and other kinds of latest technologies to understand, evaluate and provide the best of the best results. Google has introduced the EAT concept as well as metrics like search intent, page speed, mobile-friendliness, dwell-time are ranking factors to rank on Google. All these factors are part of a rich user experience. A rich user experience is a factor that creates the difference between the first and second positions. Providing a rich user experience is always helpful for visitors and encourages them to stay longer and engage more on your website. That sends positive quality signals that show your website the best result to Google. And as a result of that Google rewards you with top spots. How to implement UX into an SEO campaign? As mentioned above, SEO and UX share common end goals – audience engagement. SEO will answer a person’s query, while UX will take care of their navigational queries once they reach the webpage. Today, it has become imperative to include the two while designing SEO campaigns or any digital marketing strategy. Google is constantly evolving its user experience and merging effective SEO strategies to give the audience a more meaningful experience. An excellent example of UX and SEO design is IKEA. We all know what IKEA stands for, but their website forms a story at every step. It guides the user to the correct landing pages and keeps them engaged. The color palette, their tags, and categories make a user stay longer and engaged on the website. Empathy plays a vital role in optimizing your web pages with the right combination of keywords. Those days are no more with us when the exact keyword matches were enough to rank well. Today, it is about putting yourself out there and thinking from a bigger perspective. Google has done a great job over the past five years of getting away from ranking signals that can be spammed easily such as links and keyword stuffing. In other words, understanding your audience’s buying intent and analyzing their search queries will lead to refined and sustainable results. Let us understand the three most critical factors that influence the SEO + UX ranking. Understand your audience It is probably one of the trickiest parts of running any successful campaign – Understanding the target audience. Most companies spend a considerable amount of time researching the audience before concluding who will be their right target. It is why we have spent a sizable amount of time highlighting its importance. We have often heard of marketers, businesses, and content creators emphasizing the importance of the right target audience. While sometimes it is more or less commonsensical to grasp the audience’s pulse, there are times when you need to explicitly ask: Who is my target audience? What do they want? What they are searching for? How are they looking for the information? Did my searcher bounce right away? Was there any action taken on the link? These are key questions, Google’s algorithm takes into consideration to understand whether search results are aligned to the searcher’s intent. For example, Airbnb works on an inclusive design model that concentrates on improving readability across all platforms. Their target audience is clearly defined – travel enthusiasts, people looking for holiday home options, and people looking for holiday hosting solutions. Their focal point has been improving the user experience by leading them to the right landing pages. They coupled it with catchy CTAs that probed the user to take an action. Whether you are a host or someone seeking an extraordinary travel experience, their comprehensive holiday solutions pave the way to make booking a holiday faster and easier. Once you understand your audience completely, it can lead to a page getting clicks and some action taking place if you are on the first of Google search results. UX helps the audience stay glued to the page while SEO honors their intent to click on the page’s keyword and land. Everything you do, your focal points are always around the satisfactory experience of the users. From addressing their color preferences to the layout and messages, you have to build everything that caters to your customers. Another critical factor in understanding the audience is the user’s intent. It would help if you addressed it while carrying out a detailed audience persona such as informational, navigational, transactional, or commercial purpose. In each case, the queries have to be predefined to understand the user’s need. Keyword research Understanding the intent of potential visitors landing on your web page through search is another crucial factor that makes up for an effective UX and SEO strategy. If your website is not fully optimized with the right set of keywords, there is a bleak chance of it ranking on Google or even leading to any action. For example, imagine searching for the keywords – “How to wear a bowtie?” The most logical conclusion is that your search will lead you to a tutorial or a video, right? If the same set of keywords are used by an ecommerce site selling the bowtie, your query will remain unanswered. You may conclude that the website using this keyword is not worth visiting in the future because they apply ‘click-bait’ words to lead a consumer to their website. But if the person lands on the right page with the instructions clearly outlined, they stay to learn, thus increasing the dwell time and may browse the website for more information. Here your keyword has played a vital role in leading the consumer straight to the tutorial. Google keyword planner, Moz keyword explorer, Keywordtool.io, Ahrefs Keywords explorer, or SECockpit are some practical tools used widely to search for the right keywords. The best way to select the right keywords to fit your SEO strategy is to iterate the keywords you need ranking. Search relevant topics based on your business to portray and understand how the user intent affects keyword usage. In short, keyword research, before setting up SEO campaigns and merging them with UX, help you evolve with changing market trends. Site architecture Designing a website without optimizing it for search engines is a waste of time and vice versa. Both these aspects work together and need to be carefully considered right from the beginning. The site’s architecture is how the pages flow on your website. From the SEO point of view, good website architecture means Google will easily find and index your page. Simply, links should help Google to navigate smoothly from high to low authority pages. Google Search Console has improved a lot since its early days and became highly informative to SEO technicians, helping them to understand how a website is indexed and appeared to Google. Using H1, H2 tags, headings, taglines, catchy CTAs, and informational menu labels, decide whether your audience will interact with your website or not. Remember- your homepage should not be more than four clicks away. Mobile responsiveness Mobile-responsive design has gained significant importance for both the user experience and SEO. Over 50 percent of all traffic is now driven by mobile search and sites that are not mobile-responsive will compromise the user experience. According to Google’s page experience document, mobile-friendly websites have priority access to appear above in search results. Enhancing the readability of your readers by incorporating the right font family and text size is a must-have to consider improving the mobile experience. Having a responsive website with the ability to load faster has on varying screen sizes has become a standard these days. You can check a site’s mobile responsiveness by using Google’s Mobile-friendly testing tool. Conclusion Bad SEO + UX ruins the entire motive of brand building. It pays well to give importance to the fine attributes today. It includes domain name, informational content, internal links, optimizing meta tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, headings, and page titles to make the entire experience worthwhile. Implementing SEO with UX design may seem a little daunting initially; however, it is critical to boost rankings and build a great brand. Atul Jindal is a web design and marketing specialist, having interests in doing websites/apps optimized for SEO with a core focus on conversion optimization. He creates web experiences that bring conversations and transform web traffic into paying customers or leads.
By Adam Young 10 Feb, 2022
What is the purpose of SEO? SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing a business’ web presence to improve its chances of showing up as a result for a particular search. SEO is beneficial for increasing website visitors, in-store traffic or leads, and sales, while also strengthening your brand and reputation. Local SEO further narrows that down by focusing on businesses with a physical presence in the offline world. These businesses are looking to target prospective customers only in the local vicinity of their storefront or service area. Local SEO and national SEO are generally quite similar, but they do have their differences. For example, locally-focused online business reviews play a particularly critical role in local SEO. How Online Business Reviews Can Improve Local SEO Local business reviews are a far more democratic ranking signal than other factors in SEO like inbound links, or even citations. Search engines pay particular attention to reviews because they are the most accurate means by which search engines can measure a business’ popularity. According to Moz’s 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors study, online business reviews are the third most important ranking signal for showing up in Google’s Local Pack (three featured listings provided in local search results). Review score, review quantity, review velocity, review site diversity, and the actual text of the reviews are considered as part of the ranking algorithm — as well as the reputation of the reviewers themselves. Review content : Google gets smarter every year, and it’s beginning to use more than just keywords to guide its ranking algorithm. Google can semantically analyze reviews by looking for adjectives like “great,” “best,” “average,” and “okay,” measuring them to get a general idea of how customers feel about your business. This also plays a role in Google’s growing sentiment analysis capabilities. Right now Google’s AI can only determine whether a reviewer’s attitude is generally positive or negative, but it will likely get more specific in the future. In time, words may become even more powerful in SEO than links. Review quantity : Generally speaking, popular businesses serve more customers than less popular ones. Google uses that assumption to gauge a business’ offline popularity by the number of online business reviews it has. Similar to how you want to know a product is tried and true by the masses, Google too, wants to see that trust. Review diversity : Google My Business (GMB) is important, but it’s not the only source of reviews that Google looks at. Google takes into account reviews from many different third-party websites to help determine your business’ reputation, size, and location. Review velocity : Review velocity, or frequency, is how often customers leave reviews. According to BrightLocal, 73% of consumers tend to ignore reviews older than three months. Fortunately, Google’s “expiration date” for reviews seems to be more lenient, which is good news for industries that receive fewer reviews. Businesses that have a steady stream of new reviews are likely to rank better than those sitting on a pile of old reviews, or businesses that get reviews in surges. Review score : A business’ actual numeral or star rating doesn’t weigh as heavily in Google’s algorithm than you may expect it to. Ratings are likely to play a more significant role in consumer choice, as according to the same BrightLocal survey referenced earlier, most consumers prioritize rating above other review factors. Reviewer reputation : There is some evidence to suggest that some reviewers carry more weight than others in terms of how their review affects a business’ rank. It’s likely that reviews from members of the GMB Local Guides Program have more clout. How Many Reviews Do You Need? Evidently, if you want to improve local SEO, then you need local business reviews. Preferably, as many as your leading competitors have. According to a survey, people want to see an average of 40 online business reviews in a business’ profile before they’ll trust its star rating. But as we mentioned earlier, you also need a continuous stream of new reviews. In order to get a steady stream of reviews, you need to “prime the pump.” Businesses with lots of local reviews and high ratings tend to get more traffic, which means more reviews, which leads to more traffic and more reviews, etc. How to Get More Online Business Reviews Every good local SEO strategy needs a plan to get more reviews (and before you ask — no, simply waiting for people to leave reviews does not count as a review acquisition strategy). Here are a couple of ground rules to keep in mind: No buying fake reviews: It’s misleading to consumers and will eventually lead to decreased trust in your business, rather than increased trust. No incentivizing reviews: Google particularly dislikes incentivized reviews. So although giving out a coupon in exchange for a review seems like a good idea, don’t do it. Here’s what to do instead: Simply ask them to leave a review. Only 1 in 10 customers will leave a review out of the goodness of their heart. If you want local reviews from the other nine, you will have to ask them for it. Fortunately it’s not as awkward of a proposition as you may fear — most people will at least consider leaving a review if asked. One way to ask for reviews is simply to share links to your reviews page(s) with your followers on social media. This reminds your fans to leave feedback, and encourages lurkers to visit your location, too. Another way to get more reviews is to train your employees on how to do it. People really value having a personal connection to a business, so when a person asks them for a review rather than just a screen or a slip of paper, they’re more likely to do it. However, your employees are likely to feel awkward about asking for reviews on their own, so it’s a good idea to provide some training to show them how to do it in a natural and friendly way. Of course, in some cases you can’t ask your customers to leave a review — specifically, on Yelp. Yelp lumps these reviews in with incentivized reviews, so whether or not you agree with their stance, it’s best not to ask people to leave you a review on Yelp. Make sure your customers know where they can leave reviews. There are many places that you can turn into an opportunity to direct customers to your review platforms: Business cards Thank-you notes Receipts and e-receipts Email signatures Email campaigns Social media profiles Social media posts Dedicated page on website Which Websites Should I Use to Collect Business Reviews? Google My Business: GMB is one of the most important places for you to gather online business reviews and improve local SEO rankings, since it’s directly tied to Google’s ranking algorithm. 6 out of 10 customers check Google reviews. Your first step is making sure you have a GMB listing. If you don’t think you have one, check. Sometimes Google auto-generates business listings from existing information on the web, but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate or optimized for local SEO. To find out if you have an auto-generated listing, Google your location and industry. For example, if you’re an Italian restaurant in Minneapolis, MN, search “italian restaurants Minneapolis”. If you find a listing, click the “Claim This Listing” button so you can start uploading photos, replying to your GMB reviews, and more. If you don’t have an auto-generated listing, go to Google My Business to get started and start collecting those valuable Google reviews. Yelp : Yelp For Business populates the review stars on Apple Maps. It’s practically a household name for reading local business reviews, and you can bet that prospective customers are likely to look at your profile on Yelp before visiting. There’s just one problem: managing your Yelp reviews can be a bit of a challenge. Yelp For Business has a notoriously aggressive review filter, and aside from prohibiting review solicitation, they have a long history of accidentally removing real reviews while leaving the fake ones. The good news is that Yelp is making an effort to clean up their reputation and fight local business review fraud more effectively. One of the ways that they plan to do this is by checking the IP addresses of users who are leaving reviews. If they review a business that is nowhere near their location, then the account gets marked as suspicious and may be deleted. Bottom line: Don’t ignore Yelp. Facebook : If you have a Facebook page for your business, you may be tempted to ignore it because you don’t have many followers. Social media isn’t usually associated with SEO. But it’s not about the followers, it’s about the visibility. And there’s evidence that Facebook reviews may improve local SEO. Facebook has become a MAJOR platform for both online and local business reviews. 69 percent of American adults use Facebook, which means that there’s a good chance your target market is waiting for you there. Many businesses make the mistake of hiding their reviews page on Facebook because they discount Facebook as a review platform. If you’re one of them, don’t worry — it’s pretty easy to enable reviews. Here’s how to do it on desktop: Click “Settings” at the top of your Page Go to “Templates and Tabs” in the left-hand column Scroll down to the “Add a Tab” button Find “Recommendations” or “Reviews” Click the “Settings” button next to it Click the toggle for “Show Reviews” from “Off” to “On” Click “Save” Industry-Specific Review Sites : There are a variety of industry-specific online business review sites. These sites are important because they are where your customers go when they may not know your name yet, but they’re looking for your product/service. Make sure to have well-optimized listings on the ones relevant to you. Automotive : AutoMD, RepairPal, SureCritic Car Dealerships : Car Gurus, Cars.com, Edmunds Healthcare : Doctor.com, Healthline, WebMD Home : Angie’s List, Home Advisor, Houzz, Porch, Thumbtack Hospitality : Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com Legal : Avvo, FindLaw, Lawyers.com Real Estate : Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow Restaurants : Eater.com, TripAdvisor, Zagat Weddings : The Knot, Wedding Bee, Wedding Wire You can see the full list of top industry-specific business review sites here . For certain categories, Google also displays relevant Critic Reviews from well-known editorial sites. Businesses with good Critic Reviews may rank better than businesses without. How To Respond to Online Business Reviews Local business reviews are like planting flowers. You can’t just put them on your front lawn and expect them to make your home look pretty for the rest of the summer — you need to take care of them. Flowers need water, and reviews need responses. It may be tempting to automate these responses or create a cookie-cutter response that you copy and paste every time, but remember — people like to have personal interactions with businesses. And despite your best efforts, they will be able to discern whether you’re using an automated response or if you’re being genuine. Positive personal interactions are an opportunity to create brand ambassadors and loyalists, even if it’s just a “Thanks for your review!” Automated replies are how you drive people away. Responding to reviews in a timely manner (in other words, ASAP), can be done in one of two ways: you can either monitor review sites by yourself or you can purchase professional review monitoring software. If you monitor your local reviews by yourself, you will be able to save some money, but between GMB reviews, Yelp reviews, Facebook reviews, etc. — it’s easy to drop the ball. Keep a list of the review sites that your business is listed on so you don’t miss one in your daily sweep. You generally have to pay for review monitoring software, but it can be very helpful when you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, have multiple locations, or have a lot of different review sites to keep track of. Software automatically checks for new local reviews every day and sends you an alert when it finds one. It’s also a good idea to check social media for mentions of your business, particularly your ads. Customers don’t always leave reviews on a review site — sometimes they prefer to leave them as comments on your ads or posts. Make sure to address these quickly in order to show both followers and the rest of your audience that you care about your customers. Finally, setting up Google Alerts to monitor your brand is helpful to discover when anyone on the internet is referencing your brand, regardless of whether it’s in a review or not. Is a Bad Review the End of the World? Congratulations! Your first negative review as a business is a real milestone. It makes you real. And as you work to get more reviews, negative reviews are going to be inevitable. Most people don’t expect businesses and products to be perfect. In fact, studies have shown that most purchases have a rating between 4.2 and 4.5 out of 5. When you don’t have any bad reviews, it starts to look suspicious. There are three main types of negative reviews: Competitors trying to drag you down Customers who didn’t have a good experience with your business Spammers Negative reviews are an opportunity to show the world what your business is really made of. They can also be an invaluable method of letting you know about your business’ weak points and where you can improve. Responding to reviews is always important, but responding to bad reviews is especially important. Most sites allow for you to respond to bad reviews, so you can connect with the displeased customer on a personal level and potentially resolve the issue entirely. The simple act of addressing a bad review makes it more likely that customer will work with your business again. One important thing to keep in mind is that the real audience for that response is just this one particular customer. You are in the spotlight on a stage in front of countless prospective customers who will judge you by your reaction. First, don’t get defensive. Before you think about replying to the comment — no matter how wrong they may be — take a minute to calm down. You can’t think clearly when you’re riled up. Then, once you’re calm, put your best customer service hat on and reply with the intent of resolving the issue. Once you’ve calmed down, you may be tempted not to respond to the review. But the problem here is that by not responding, you have still made a response. Silence tells your customer that you care so little about them that you won’t even acknowledge them. If you’re being attacked by a competitor who is trying to drag you down, determine whether you can delete the review. If that’s not an option, write a polite response to the complaint and invite them to contact you to resolve the issue. They probably won’t contact you, but the response will make you look good in front of your audience. At the very least, you can attempt to report the review to the website. What if the comment is a troll or spammer? Well, they’re a special case, but ideally the review can be flagged for moderation by the review website to investigate. Conclusion Online business reviews do more than just improve local SEO — they also provide real-time social proof that your business is just as awesome as you know it is. Reviews have more of an impact on sales than social media likes or followers. For example, businesses that use Yelp see a 5-9% increase in revenue over those that do not. As you can see, there’s no reason not to have a local business review acquisition strategy. It’s just a win-win all around!
By Adam Young 10 Jan, 2022
"How long does SEO take" is a common question we get from our clients. We thought Jeremy Knauff's post on Search Engine Journal did a great job outlining what goes into a good SEO campaign and the factors that can dictate how long it can take to start seeing results. Three things affect how long SEO will take to get results. Learn how competition, inbound links, and content play a role in this. One of the most common questions I get as an SEO professional is, “How long does SEO take?” It’s also one of the most frustrating questions because, while clients understandably want a definitive answer, there is simply no way to provide one due to all of the variables involved. This is because, in addition to all of the variables that play a role in the optimization of your own website, you also have to evaluate those same variables in your competitors’ optimization efforts. This can make an already complex question infinitely more difficult to answer.To steal a line from “Pawn Stars”: “Best I can do is…” The best I can do is give you a range of four months up to a year. That range is based on three key variables that determine how long your SEO will take, which are: Competition Inbound links Content It’s important to point out that even with the data behind these variables, there is no formula to answer this question. However, there is a lot more to answering it than simple guesswork. Figuring out how long your SEO will take comes down to first evaluating the data behind these three variables, beginning the work and evaluating how quickly you begin to see results, and then extrapolating that to get an idea how long it might take to hit a particular position. The Role of Competition in How Long SEO Takes If you’re selling something like salmon-flavored breakfast cereal, you probably won’t face any competition. However, those of us selling products and services that real people will actually buy are going to face varying degrees of competition based on demand. For example, a plumber serving a small local market would face less competition than a real estate brokerage serving a large city, which would face less competition than a national mortgage company. As you might imagine, the more competing webpages you’re up against, the longer it will take to climb to the top of the search results. This will follow a consistent pattern where it’s both easier and faster to outrank the lower pages, but as you climb the search results, each subsequent step will often take significantly more effort and time. This is both because of the volume of competitors and the fact that the top-ranking pages tend to have experienced SEO professionals behind them. An often overlooked aspect of competition it’s the correlation between the volume of competition within a niche and the competency of the SEO professionals behind the top-ranked web pages in that niche. Think about it like this: Demand drives companies into a niche, leading to increased competition. That competition pushes them to offer more competitive deals, which means they must take a larger share of the market in order to remain profitable. This is an environment that usually favors larger companies with deeper pockets – and they can afford to hire the best SEO professionals in the industry. If you’re up against this situation, you’ve got a longer and tougher battle ahead of you. So we need to evaluate all aspects of our competitors’ SEO, but we need to look beyond just where they stand today. That’s only a starting point.We also have to look at their activity over the previous several months, and then continue to track their activity going forward. This is important because, in order to outrank your competitors, you need to put in more effort than they are if you want to pass them. The Role of Inbound Links in How Long SEO Takes It’s no secret that links still play a huge role in SEO, but their impact on how long it takes depends on several deeper factors. The first is the volume of links to your website. Generally, more links will help you achieve SEO success more quickly, but it’s not just a numbers game. Generally speaking, fewer, high-quality links from relevant websites will have a far greater impact on your results than a greater volume of low-quality links from irrelevant websites. This is also important because high-quality links are generally more difficult to earn, so they will be more difficult for your competitors to replicate.And they tend to last longer, as opposed to links generated using automated methods.But the speed at which you earn links and the speed at which you have historically earned links can also be factors because, generally, an abrupt increase could indicate an unnatural attempt to manipulate ranking. If you’re using methods that don’t meet Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, and you have an abrupt increase in the number of inbound links that trigger a manual review, you could end up facing a penalty . So, generally, the faster you can earn relevant, high-quality links, the faster you will rank, but that comes with a caveat. Your link velocity – the speed at which you earn links – should have relatively stable growth. If your link building tactics follow Google’s guidelines, that should happen naturally. It’s usually only when you use black hat tactics that you see unnatural patterns that could hurt your progress. The Role of Content in How Long SEO Takes The content published on your website also plays a role in how quickly you see results, and the first thing you need to know is that quality matters a lot.Days of churning out hundreds of 300-word articles you ordered on Fiverr aren’t going to move the needle when it comes to your ranking. Now, don’t interpret this to mean that each piece of content you publish needs to be a 4,000-word beast. In fact, there is no minimum or even ideal length – content simply needs to be long enough to solve a visitor’s problem. There is a myth that you should publish new content slowly, which comes from the theory that publishing lots of new content at once could look unnatural to Google, and thus, could hurt your ranking. It’s understandable how people could believe this myth, but it’s been officially debunked by Google. If you have great content ready to go, then there is no reason, from an SEO perspective, not to publish it immediately. The sooner you get it out there, the sooner it will have a positive impact on your ranking. Waiting only makes your SEO take longer. It’s worth noting that the ranking of a webpage does correlate with its age. In other words, newer pages tend not to rank as well as older pages, but that is due to other factors, not age. On that note, I recommend maintaining a consistent publishing schedule, rather than publishing in surges though, for two reasons: It shows Google that new content is added to your website on a regular basis, which generally encourages their spiders to crawl it more frequently. This helps to speed up your SEO efforts. It encourages users to return to your website more frequently, which may help send positive user experience signals to Google, and as a result, speed up your SEO efforts. However, it’s not just creating content. Deleting content can play a positive role in how long your SEO takes, as well. The key is determining which content to keep, which to improve, and which to delete. Danny Goodwin hosted a webinar on this topic , where he explained how Search Engine Journal used this approach to cull a number of underperforming pages, which helped to boost the site’s overall performance in the search results. Ultimately, the key is to create original, useful content that solves your audience’s needs, and continually improves. And if you needed another reason to do this, higher-quality, long-form content tends to earn more links compared to low-quality and/or shorter content. In fact, Backlinko’s Brian Dean analyzed 912 million blog posts and determined that long-form content earns an average of 77.2% more links than short articles. So while content plays an important role in its own right, it also impacts your link building efforts, so it’s like a two-for-one. So, Is It All Just an Educated Guess? Our job is a lot like that of meteorologists, where despite all of our knowledge, experience, and tools, we often get things wrong. And much like my local weatherman, whom I want to choke until he turns blue when my beach plans are ruined by the rain that he promised wasn’t going to happen, our clients are often just as frustrated when they don’t see results from their SEO campaign as quickly as they would like. Part of the job of an SEO professional is to manage client expectations .This is an area that many fail in. Thanks to being told what they wanted to hear by far too many practitioners, many clients today have unrealistic expectations. As a result, many people think this is something that only takes a few weeks or even months. You might begin seeing improvements in organic ranking and an increase in traffic for keyword topics with little competition in just a few weeks.On the other hand, moderately competitive topics might takes months, while highly competitive phrases could even take one year or more!For example, my team was able to rank a website #1 for the term “marketing company,” which produced a steady flow of leads for several years. However, despite our skills, manpower, and resources, it took us about a year of consistent work to achieve that. On the other hand, a particular client with virtually no digital presence came to us when a website had published some unflattering information about him that was taken completely out of context. Since it held the first position in Google for his own name, this had cost him a considerable amount of business. Fortunately, there was little competition for his own name, and that website didn’t have much authority, so we were able to fill the first several pages in the search results with pages we controlled in just a few weeks. I’ve also seen cases when clients and even agencies have used tactics that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines in an attempt to speed up the process.While this may work in the short term, you will eventually face a penalty and end up further behind where you started. From the Horse’s (Google’s) Mouth You need to be prepared to invest several months to a year before seeing results from your SEO efforts, but even then, you won’t be king of the hill. Here’s what Google said about it. " In most cases, SEO's need four months to a year to help your business first implement improvements and see potential benefit." In fact, according to a comprehensive statistical analysis by Tim Soulo, only 5.7% of all newly published pages will get to Google’s top 10 within a year.And even once you do, you won’t be able to rest on your laurels because your competitors – both current and newcomers – will constantly be gunning to take that position from you.In other words, this is an ongoing effort that will never really be complete. Conclusion You can’t accurately predict exactly how long SEO takes until you start putting in the work. However, you can make a highly educated guess based on certain variables. Then, over time, you can get a better idea of how long it may take within your particular niche against your competitors.
By Adam Young 10 Dec, 2021
Contrary to popular belief, social media does have a connection with SEO, although not directly. That is why seasoned marketers are investing heavily in social media marketing. But what are the best social media practices for improving your SEO marketing effort? Below, you will learn seven practical social media marketing tips on how to improve SEO with social media. Whatever action you make towards improving your social media efforts should correspond with your SEO objective. That way, you don't lose traffic from either side. To find success using social media for SEO, you shouldn't ignore these successful social media and SEO tips . 1. Publish High-Quality Content SEO has continued to evolve, and search marketing is not what it used to be. Google bots and search engine algorithms have developed to understand user intent and content relevance and quality. These factors enable Google to offer users the most relevant content based on their search query. In other words, keyword stuffing is of the past, and quality content reigns supreme . For this reason, make your blog content perform well on social media and SEO by creating well-researched and helpful content — make this a priority. Quantity vs. Quality Don't be in a hurry to publish blog posts every other day. Instead, take the time to research your materials and produce in-depth copies that connect with your readers. One of the best ways to create quality content is to understand your ideal reader. Get into their shoes and understand their needs (and pain points). Also, reworking old blog content is a fantastic way of producing quality. Get your best-performing blog posts and add more valuable data to spike engagement on social media. This strategy can also help you get more social signals that will improve your SEO. Also, look for under-performing blog posts and give them a face-lift. Follow the same process as you would your best-performing blogs. If the content is not doing well, the best approach is to add more valuable materials using skyscraper techniques. The Skyscraper Techniques The skyscraper technique is a content creation strategy that transforms your posts into link-worth materials. The concept of a skyscraper content strategy is to ensure that your articles perform better and outrank your competitors. Such blog posts come with more value for the reader and more keyword variations that rank on search engines. The content will have the capability to rank for different keyword terms. And since it has more value, it will attract quality backlinks. How the Skyscraper Technique Works Primarily, you should apply these three fundamental steps: Search for a blog post that performs well on search with a considerable amount of backlinks Create similar content, but make yours even way better than the original (in length, thoroughness, and more up-to-date) Find marketers who linked to the original piece of content and reach out to them to link to your updated version. Since marketers found the original content useful and linked to it, they are more likely to also link to your content. So get to work, optimize your content using: Relevant keyword terms The right visual materials, and Make it more up-to-date than your competitors content by adding more helpful materials These components will help you to improve your social media SEO. Why Is the Skyscraper Techniques so Important? Brain Dean of Backlinko reveals the values of implementing the skyscraper content marketing strategy. After applying this blogging tip to his post about "Google's 200 Ranking Factors," his traffic numbers doubled in only two weeks. Besides, inbound links to the article increased significantly at at the same time. The Benefits of Skyscraper Techniques Some incredible benefits of the skyscraper techniques include: Produces helpful content that adds value to your readers. Improves blog engagement. Increases social media shares. Helps gain more blog comments. It can add more quality backlinks. Increases your brand recognition. Boosts brand reputation and authority. Producing such articles takes hard work, but the result justifies the means. So, go to work, and it will pay off big time! 2. Make Sharing Your Content Easy for Users People use social media for various reasons. But for marketers, it is mainly to reach more consumers with their brand message. Reaching more people helps grow your brand awareness and generate leads. But how can you get your message out if your followers cannot easily share it? That is where making content sharing easy for users comes in handy. With all the vital elements in place, such as social share buttons and compelling calls-to-action, readers will share your content. Having those components on your blog encourages social sharing, which will effectively increase your reach. Also, when you post on social media sites, use calls-to-action to help your followers reshare your posts. Helping others share relevant or valuable content helps your message reach a broader audience and boosts brand publicity. Keep in mind that a call to action is not all there is to make your content shareable. Ensure your content is share-worthy.? Make it more appealing, engaging, and of course, helpful to your target market. Craft compelling headlines and or captions. Use appealing visuals. Ensure the content is useful to your social audience. Users will have no choice but to share your posts with friends and followers. 3. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles Most potential clients will examine your social media profiles before reaching out to you – they need to get a feel for who you and what you do. When you are writing a proposal or applying for a job, HR and hiring managers will often ask you to include your social profiles for the same reasons. Furthermore, several would-be connections will also check your profile page before reaching out to you. Some will look you up on Google as well. Therefore, ask yourself: How compelling is my profile? Does it have all the secret ingredients that will attract the right people? When people search for my name, will it appear on Google? One of the many factors that negatively affect social media for SEO is the lack of profile optimization. This negligence is costing you money as it prevents you or your brand from appearing on searches throughout the web. A well-optimized social profile enables your target market and eventual customers to find you online. However, you must regularly maintain consistency across channels. It means that your social profiles must align with your blog or website and brand message. Thus, your audience can quickly find you across different marketing platforms. Google loves it. 4. Optimize Your Images for SEO and Social Visuals are an essential aspect of marketing communication. They are incredible content marketing tools since they help in developing your brand tone. Also, adding images in your blog and social media posts is the most efficient way to transmit information. The human brain can process visual materials faster — that is why more people respond quickly to visual content than text materials. Studies have found that our brain can process about 36,000 images 60,000 times faster than other types of content. Moreover, the brain can retain 80% of the visuals it processes, in contrast to only 20% of text content. So, to make the most of images, you need to optimize them to increase your content popularity on social media and search results. If you optimize visuals correctly, they can play a vital part in improving your SEO campaign. Here is How to Optimize Your Images for SEO Before you include any visual to your blog posts, you should maximize your content for Google by doing the following: Use the appropriate file name for your image (relevant keywords separated by dashes, not a file name given by a camera or a stock photo site). Select the right image format — speed matters. Make sure the images are responsive. Reduce the file size to make it load faster. Create compelling captions with keywords. Add your keywords in alt text and title text (don't stuff; the alt text must make sense for those that use screen readers). Include image structured data . Also, for social media, quality photos are the key to increased engagement for your posts. So, choose top-quality images and optimize them well. You can read this article for more on how to optimize your photos. 5. Build Relationships Through Active Conversations One of the best ways to increase engagement on your social accounts is to build relationships (brand-customer alliance). Relationships foster trust and establish credibility. They also help you understand your target buyer, their needs, and the pains they are struggling to solve. So, when they sense that you have an interest in their struggles, it becomes easier for them to engage with you. And the best place for such interactions is social media. You can interact with them via social groups, forums, and marketing profiles. You don't have to wait for your marketing persona to come to you. Take the initiative and strike up a conversation with your audience. Ask relevant questions to know how and what they are thinking about your brand. Ask for their thoughts about your latest blog post. Look for questions they might have asked on the platform and provide helpful answers. Respond to user's comments. Create a poll to understand what they would like to read next on your blog. These are a few ways to start conversations that produce positive results and build long-term relationships. These discussions are essential for improving your SEO because you offer useful information and, at the same time, establish your expertise in your industry. As a result, you will increase engagement, grow your followers, and improve other social media signals that Google uses to rank your site. 6. Evaluate Your Social Media Marketing Operations Do you measure your social media activities? If you are not, you could be harming your business. Your marketing success relies heavily on quantifying your performance to understand how your effort is working out for you. You need to know whether your social media marketing exploits are generating positive ROIs. Consider the following; over the past few months: Are you making profits from your social activities? Do you feel that you are wasting your time on nothing while on social media? Are you losing money? Can you identify what is working for you on social platforms? What marketing tactics can you avoid, and what to improve? You cannot make sure you are successful if you do not measure your marketing metrics. So, define your social media marketing goals and evaluate them accordingly. It helps you grow your social media and improve SEO. Also, analyzing your performance results enables you to make better marketing decisions — you can channel your efforts in the right direction. In consequence, develop a social media strategy, set attainable goals, and how to measure them. It gives you a focus on how to use social media to improve SEO. 7. Craft Compelling Social Media Post Captions Whatever business or industry you are involved in, content plays a crucial role in your marketing strategy. And the best content pieces are those that center around or incorporate storytelling. Why is storytelling so essential and useful as a marketing tool? In one of Semrush's Twitter chats, experts explain why storytelling is so essential and why it should be part of your marketing strategy. Please, find expert comments on the subject below. In response to why storytelling is import to your business, Brian Fanzo said: “I believe the future of marketing is relatability, especially in our noisy digital world. And to be relatable, you must be authentic and engaged. There's no better way to do that than telling a story!”You can read the recap of this chat in this article by Melissa Fach to learn: The steps to take when creating a marketing storytelling strategy, Critical questions to gather for your stories, Available forms of storytelling for your business, and Resources for successful business storytelling. Thus, you need to invest in your post captions to make them compelling enough to engage users. Use enticing story snippets to hook your target market and make them click and share your posts with their tribe. Also, as your goal is to improve SEO using social media, ensure to add your focus keywords and related keyword terms within the captions. Depending on the social platform you choose, if there is a title section for your posts, include keywords there also. Furthermore, use relevant hashtags where necessary and optimize your content well according to each social media platform. Also, use active voice to strengthen your copy. These activities help in improving your social media and SEO Wrapping Up Social Media for SEO Ranking Techniques At this point, I believe you have learned how to use social media for SEO. A sustainable social media strategy enables you to improve SEO and rank higher on search results. While there are several ways to score your SEO using social media best practices, the seven pointers above will set you up if applied correctly. Understanding these social media tips is essential, but implementing them to your marketing content on social media is even more crucial. What is more? Keep testing your performance to see areas to improve. We found this content on semrush.com written by Moss Clement and wanted to highlight some of the excellent points made!
By Adam Young 10 Nov, 2021
In 1990, the internet was introduced to the world. The first search engine, named Archie (short for “archives”) was introduced in the same year. The first version of Google, a search engine named BackRub, came out in 1996. And in 1997, we saw the birth of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Or at least, as far as we can tell. According to Search Engine Journal, at that time, John Audette of Multimedia Marketing Group started using the term “SEO.” The popularization of SEO from that point may have been assisted by the efforts that manager of the rock band Jefferson Starship took after he noticed that the band’s website was ranking on Page 4 of a popular search engine. Localized SEO didn’t make an appearance until 2003-2005, when search engines started to try to provide local results to searches, as well as additional information such as business hours and map listings. In 2012, Google released Google Maps. Local SEO strategy didn’t really get going until 2014, when Google released an algorithm update that used traditional website ranking signals to rank local businesses. Goodbye, Phone Books The birth of local SEO signaled the beginning of the end for the fat yellow phone book. Before the internet era, phone books were essential to finding businesses in your vicinity. How else were people supposed to find the products and services they needed, aside from driving around town and hoping that they would stumble across a place? Now, virtually everyone carries internet-enabled smartphones equipped with GPS, rendering the phone book all but obsolete. Phone book distribution began to be banned as early as 2012 due to concerns that producing and distributing the books was a wasteful practice. At the beginning of 2019, Yellow Pages finally stopped printing. Common Local SEO Terminology What’s an algorithm? What is local SEO? What is SEO period? This is not a comprehensive list, but here are some terms that you are likely to encounter in a discussion or article about local SEO: 3-Pack This is the dominant form of Google's local results, consisting of a list of three businesses deemed by Google’s algorithm as the most relevant to the user’s search. Also sometimes referred to as the “Local Pack” or “Snack Pack”. Citation An online reference to a business, usually consisting of the business’s name, address, phone number, and other important information. Citations can be structured or unstructured. Structured Citation A citation that occurs in the form of a formal local business listing in a directory. Unstructured Citation A citation that occurs in the form of simple mentions of a business on an online publication such as a blog, news site, website, etc. Directory Any website which lists business names and their contact information, usually organized in alphabetical order or by industry/niche. GMB Google My Business. This is Google’s directory, and one of the largest and most influential directories to local SEO. Knowledge Panel An information box that appears in the search results for entities such as people, places, organizations, businesses, and things. In local SEO, the knowledge panel contains essential information about a local business, including NAP+W, products/services, photos, and customer reviews. In a desktop search this will appear on the right side of the search results page, and on mobile it will appear at the top. National SEO National SEO is the process of optimizing a website so that it shows up in organic search results regardless of the user’s location. This strategy uses keywords that are not location-dependent, such as, “scarf knitting patterns”. National SEO is helpful for websites and online-based businesses. Local SEO Local SEO is the process of optimizing a brick-and-mortar or service area business’s online presence so that it shows up in local search results. Local SEO strategy uses keywords that are tied to a location or imply location dependence, such as “buy scarf slc”. Local SEO is helpful for businesses that provide products or services to a restricted geographical area. NAP / NAP+W An acronym for “Name Address Phone + Website”. This vital information constitutes a business’s "thumbprint" online. How Local SEO Works How Search Engines Work To understand how local SEO strategy works, you need to understand a bit about how search engines work. The goal of a search engine is to present a relevant set of search results that will fulfil the user’s query as quickly as possible. They accomplish this goal by using web crawlers (also known as “robots,” “bots,” or “spiders”) to constantly crawl the web in search of new and updated pages. When a crawler finds a new page, it gets added to the engine’s index, which contains every single discovered page and data about its ranking signals. Every time a query is made, search engines reference their index to determine which pages to list on the results page, and in what order, based on relevance to the keywords in the query. The Best Search Engine The best search engine for local SEO (and SEO in general) is Google. Why? For one, Google is the most frequently used. Although there are many search engines other than Google, Google still nets over 70% of search engine traffic as of May 2020. Most people Google at least one thing every day. Google also has an enormous database of websites in its index. Its crawlers process over 3 billion pages per day and the Google Search Index contains over 100,000,000 gigabytes of data . Most of all, Google also has the most sophisticated algorithms. Its algorithms were developed to better provide relevant results for users, and they are constantly being tested and honed to improve, as well as to adapt to the constant flux of the offline world. Understanding the intent behind a search is something that Google really excels at, and what makes them stand out from their competitors. By combining their powerful search engine with proximity and geo-targeting technology, and then pairing the results with Google Maps, Google has arguably created the best search engine for local search. Local SEO Ranking Factors Now that you have a bit of background information, we can get into how local SEO works. Local search results are dependent on how well a business meets Google’s ranking factors. According to Google , they rank local results based on relevance, distance, and prominence. A 2018 Moz survey broke those requirements down into eight primary ranking signals: Google My Business (GMB) Signals Proximity to the user’s area, category classification, whether a keyword is present in the business title, etc. Link Signals Inbound anchor text contents, linking domain authority, quantity of linking domains, etc. Review Signals Number of reviews, frequency of reviews, diversity of review platforms, etc. Onpage Signals Presence of NAP information, presence of keywords in meta data, domain authority, etc. Citation Signals NAP information consistency, number of citations, etc. Behavioral Signals Click-through rate, number of clicks to call on mobile, check-ins, etc. Personalization User’s location, language, search/browser history, etc. Social Signals Engagement on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Why Local SEO? Statistics can speak volumes on a topic. Most smartphone-based searches are local. 46% of all Google searches are local. 75% of search engine users never look past the first page of results. 4 in 5 customers use search engines to find local information. 71% of people look up a business before visiting for the first time. 89% of people search for a local business once a week or more, and 58% search daily. Customers are more likely to make a purchase after doing a local search. 50% of people who conducted a local search from their smartphone visited the store within one day. 34% of users who searched on a non-smartphone device visited the store within one day. 80% of local searches convert. 56% of local retailers have not claimed their Google My Business listing. 91% of consumers 18-34 years-old trust businesses with positive reviews. 97% of search engine users search online to find a local business. Search is 300% more effective than social media in directing website traffic. 86% of consumers use Google Maps to find a local business. Local SEO statistics not convinced you quite yet? Consider the following major benefits of local SEO: Local SEO puts you where your customers are. It’s safe to say that you can expect your customers to be on their phones — a lot. Whenever they want something, they often turn to a search engine first. Local search optimization can put your business literally on the map, helping make sure that you get their business before one of your competitors does. When your business isn’t on the web (or optimized for the web), you may as well be invisible. Local SEO builds your brand. Because local SEO targets potential customers within a certain radius of where you’ve set up shop, once you’ve optimized your web presence, your name will start to pop up when they look for products or services related to your business. They might not convert on the first search, but they will likely see and subconsciously remember your name. People like to buy from brands that they’re familiar with. So that brand awareness may play a critical role in laying the foundation for future conversions. Tips for Building a Local SEO Strategy Here are a few ways you can build up your internet presence and optimize your business for local SEO: Create lots of directory listings Flesh out your GMB profile Keep your GMB profile up-to-date Gather customer reviews Optimize your site for local search Ensure mobile compatibility Implement local keywords Optimize metadata (title tags, meta descriptions, etc.) Add schema markup Create location-specific pages or a contact page Post regular blog articles Optimize for voice search Get more backlinks Create pages for your business on relevant social media platforms Increase social media engagement Conclusion Since joining the mainstream, local SEO has changed the face of local business marketing for good. We are long past the point of considering it just an option if you want your brick-and-mortar or service area business to succeed in the modern world. Googling, “What is local SEO?” was just the beginning of your journey. Now it’s time to create your own local SEO strategy and see how it can transform your business for the better.
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