Category : Search Engine Optimization

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Learn About Website Marketing

In the past 2 months we have completely revamped and re-written the articles in our resources section to keep you up-to-date with changing trends and technology. (That is one of the things that I’m working on while business slowed down during the covid restrictions.) Each guide is divided into sections to easily find what you are looking for. It is a great education in website marketing provided by experts in the field. It will help you understand the tools available to promote your business online. Give it a read – it is like a free class!

Here are links to our articles for you to browse.

  1. SEO & SEM Glossary
  2. SEO Basics
  3. Advanced SEO
  4. Intro to Search Ads
  5. Facebook Ads
  6. Google Search Ads
  7. Google Display Ads
  8. Google Ad Extensions
  9. SEM for Managers 

Google’s Mobile Friendly Changes

This week Google added mobile friendliness as a factor in search engine ranking. Some of the factors in determining mobile friendliness are the text size, button size and the amount of space between links. A good solution is to have a mobile responsive site which means that as you adjust the screen size the layout changes to accommodate. This avoids having to zoom in and scroll side-to-side when viewing a site on a smaller device. See this site for example: plomberiedaeva.com and drag your window size smaller to see how the page adjusts. Notice that the menu also becomes a drop down menu which is easier to use on mobile.

We have been converting many sites to mobile responsive so that sites are easier to use on mobiles. If your website is not mobile responsive, please contact us to help with this transition.

A Google representative said mobile friendliness was “one of many” factors used by the search engine to rank results.  In a blog post the company said it would have “a significant impact”.

You can check this link to see how your site scores for mobile friendliness: google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly. The plumbing site I linked to above scored “Awesome”.

awesome-mobile

How the Doorway Page Penalty can affect Landing Pages.

doorway-pagesOn March 16, 2015 Google announced that they will adjust their algorithm which will strongly impact websites using doorway pages. The explanation behind this change is that Google believes that doorway pages negatively impact a user’s search experience. This is especially true for pages with similar content but only keyword changes or for websites created with the sole purpose to lead traffic to another website.

Landing pages

Landing pages can be set up on a website as a destination page for specific ads or even to bring in traffic from search engines. These two uses must be treated differently especially after this latest algorithm change.

If it is a landing page for ads, there are good reasons for customizing pages that would not be SEO-friendly. For example you might want to create several pages with very similar content except for keywords which match the ads bringing in traffic. The keyword focus would improve your quality score and improve conversions. There is no need to integrate these pages in your site menu or from links on other pages since the landing pages are meant specifically to convert visitors who come in from ads.  To avoid penalties to your site you must inform search engine robots not to index these pages. Use either the meta tag <META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”> or use a separate robots.txt file to tell robots which pages not to index.

Will a NOINDEX also block the AdsBot-Google

Blocking all robots in your meta tag or robots.txt file will not block the AdWords bot unless you explicitly block AdsBot-Google. AdWords will assume that you want the page to be spidered since you put it as a destination for a paid ad. Google Adwords support confirmed this with us with the following email:

“If we are ever unable to crawl a site for any reason, we will manually review the landing page before giving it a quality score. We do not automatically give you a bad quality score if the ads bot is unable to crawl the site.”

If it is a landing page for SEO meaning that you want to attract visitors from regular search results, it must have original, useful content and have links from menus and other pages on the site. Think of it in every way as new content to be properly integrated with your website.

Building doorway pages is a technique that we stopped using many years ago for exactly the reasons mentioned by Google. Ironically, doorway pages are what launched our company in 2000! Building landing pages for Google AdWords campaigns on the other hand is still a very good idea as long as you block search engine robots from pages with duplicate content.

Google Business View – Inside Your Business.

Why add Google Street View for your business?
Quite simply, it provides additional visibility for your company on Google Search, Google+ and Google Maps. It invites your potential customers to a virtual sneak peek of your place of business. High resolution, 360 degree images are taken by a professional photographer in your city, at a convenient time for you. You can discuss what your needs are with the photographer and what images you want of the exterior and interior of your establishment. Once approved, the images are posted after only a few weeks and the photo rights belong to your business, not the photographer. Google Street View can also be easily embedded on your website via Google Maps API or HTML. Numerous case studies have demonstrated that Street View has substantially increased foot traffic to businesses. Read more about Google Street View.photo-shoots

9 statistics about SEO

Read this convincing article that gives some teeth to the importance of SEO.

Here is a glimpse:

“Leads generated through SEO close at around 14.6 percent while leads from other channels close at an average of 1.7 percent. -HubSpot”

“The #1 organic result gets nearly twice as many clicks as the #2 result. –Chitika/ Search Engine Land”

See the full article here

Authority Building

most-popular-90Authority on the web is one of the building blocks of SEO.  Being popular online helps raise your search results just as having high search results helps raise your popularity. Basically you need to be popular… to be popular. Not very useful advice – I know. But how do you break into this circle of privilege? You can actively work on authority building. In fact we will do it for you!

See our authority building service for details.

How Integrating Search & Social Ads Can Improve Your Revenue

In a recent study that explored search and social advertising campaigns, it was determined that customers who clicked on both search and social ads actually had 2x the conversion rates and a 26% increase in revenue per click when compared to users who only clicked on a search ad alone. What this means for advertisers is that by integrating both search and social campaigns together, you can expect to see more profitable sales, resulting in a greater return on investment! Read the article for a more in-depth look at how this integration can benefit your advertising campaigns.

http://marketingland.com/study-integrated-search-social-ads-80463

Why is Content Marketing important?

What is content marketing and how can it help your business?

Content marketing is the creation and publication of valuable and notable information to a specific audience. Ideally, this information will in turn make your company a go-to resource in your industry. 

Whole Foods Market logoA really great example of a company that’s done this right is Whole Foods Market. They’ve put together a blog with contributors including their management staff, employees, suppliers and partners. Blog post content ranges from how to buy food in bulk, tips on how to get your kids to eat better and of course, mouth-watering recipes for the groceries you can pick up at your closest Whole Foods Market store. If you succeed at doing something like Whole Foods Market has, you’ll have accomplished one or more objectives including brand awareness, lead generation, client acquisition, customer retention and engagement – just to name a few!

Remember that everything that you put forth on your website, social media channels and even in your traditional marketing communications should convince your audience that you are a valuable source of information that responds to their needs or offers solutions to their problems. Instead of continuously selling to your audience, you’re instead teaching them about what they want to learn about– and by doing this, your company will be regarded as a more trustworthy (and likeable!) source of information.

Lego Logo

For example, how does toy giant LEGO continue to engage their young clientele? They offer a free magazine subscription with sneak peeks of new LEGO sets, games, competitions, comics, secret online content and more. This added value easily keeps their young fans coming back!

How do you create memorable and engaging content?

  1. First of all, this might be obvious, but make it relevant to your brand and what you offer. You want to provide value-added information – for example, if your company is in the travel industry, you want to be able to provide advice on having an easy experience booking trips or offer insider tips about cities to visit.
  2. Next, make sure that your content marketing is inspirational and most importantly, relatable. Your readers need to get excited about what they’re reading and not feel like it’s a sales pitch to get them to make a purchase. Be sure that the voice you’re using matches your audience’s – read everything you can online to catch this– everything from your competitors to key industry players’ blogs to absorbing all feedback from current customers – and adapt accordingly.

A perfect example of how a company has generated buzz-worthy content marketing is McDonald’s Canada’s “Our Food. Your Questions.” website. What they’ve done is created a space for Canadians to ask any questions about their famous menu – everything from why their hamburgers don’t rot to why they don’t carry Halal food. You can imagine the amount of interest consumers have in these answers – some of these are questions that have been asked for years! All of the responses are personalized to the individual who asked the question and is written in a manner that’s easily understood – even if answered by their food scientists! And of course, beneath each reply on the website are conveniently placed icons for Facebook, Twitter and Google+ so you can share the answer.

Once you’ve become this great source of information, it’s natural that potential customers will start referring to you – just like the McDonald’s example above – using your information to share with their counterparts online and through social media, giving you free word of mouth publicity. This is where Google jumps in and starts to pick up on who has started to share your content via social networks or blogs or other qualified websites, helping you move your way up in search engine rankings. Great content marketing is the key to making your business an authority in your industry and needs to be included as part of an essential marketing strategy to your business’ success.

We hope this has been helpful and we invite you to get started on becoming a voice of authority today!