Tag Archive for: SEO

How to Continue to Choose the Right Keywords

Your website has the power to be your best salesperson – but not if you are using the wrong keywords. Keywords are the crucial element in making sure that your website ranks high on search engine result pages, after all.

While everyone knows about SEO, not everyone is exactly sure how to choose the right keywords. If you are just now getting into the SEO game it can be especially daunting.

It helps to keep in mind that when it comes to choosing keywords, you goal is to figure out what keywords your potential customers are using to search for your products and services and then connect your website to those keywords. You also should keep in mind the following:

  1. It’s important to size up the competition. What are they blogging about? What do their landing pages look like? Are there particular keywords that appear repeatedly in their copy? If their website shows up on the first page of search results you will know the keywords they are using get noticed.
  2. Generic keywords don’t work. Keywords do not have to be just one word. In fact, it’s probably better if they aren’t. A little specificity goes a long way. For example, if you sell floor coverings, “tile” or “carpet” are going to be pretty competitive words and probably won’t do you a lot of good. Instead, focus on more descriptive phrases such as “porcelain floor tile” or “laminate wood flooring.”
  3. Testing is essential. You need to test how particular keywords work. You may be surprised to learn how a slight change in words or word order can make a significant difference. If you don’t test, however, you will never know which combinations work better than others.
  4. Region-specific keywords can make a big impact. When you add your city and state as keyword phrases, as well as the address of your business, this lets the search engines know you serve that market. This will help to drive local traffic to your site.

Coming up with an initial set of keywords can be a lot of work. And the fact is, you probably won’t get it right the first time. However, it does get easier over time since you will have a baseline for knowing what works and what doesn’t work. The key to success is to always pay close attention to how your website is ranking on search engine result pages. That way you can make the changes necessary to excel at SEO.

Why Digital Marketing Can Make or Break Small Businesses

Digital marketing is no longer optional for small businesses. Instead, digital marketing can literally make or break a small business.

While many small businesses still staunchly believe that their business can thrive without digital marketing, this is simply not true. From social media to online reviews to local online searches, you either adopt digital marketing or you face extinction.

Talk to small businesses owners who are resisting digital marketing tactics and you often will discover an individual who is overwhelmed at the idea of going digital. Most of them will tell you that they simply don’t believe that they have the time to learn about every digital platform, nor can they afford to effectively market on all of these platforms.

The good news is that there is no need to “do it all” when it comes to digital. Instead, the key is to develop a marketing strategy that allows a business to do only what makes the most sense for their business. Of course, there are a few things that a small business must do in this digital age.

The first thing that a small business must do is to optimize their business website for local searches. After all, if you are a hair salon in Columbus, Ohio, there is no reason to try to attract customers from across the country.

The key to getting noticed locally is to optimize title tags and meta-descriptions on your website so that they include the name of your city or town. You also need to make sure that you are listed on leading directories like Google My Business and Yelp. Many small businesses are surprised to learn that local businesses are what are found on the first pages of these types of directories. The key is to make sure that your information is always accurate.

The second thing to keep in mind is that your website must be optimized for mobile. If people search for your business on your phone and your website isn’t set up for mobile that will make it difficult to read and navigate, causing users to quickly move on to the next listing. When this happens, you don’t just lose a customer, your ranking on search engines drops.

Finally, don’t just optimize your business for local searches and then make sure your website is mobile-friendly. You always must be checking to see that anything you are doing online-email marketing, for example-is producing the results you want it to produce. If it isn’t you must try something new. After all, marketing dollars are scarce so you can’t afford to waste them on digital tactics that aren’t working.

Seven Ways to Come Up with Blog Topics

Seven Ways to Come Up with Blog Topics. Blogging can do wonders for a business. Driving traffic to its website and converting that traffic into leads are just two important benefits of blogging. Blogging also helps a business become seen as a thought leader in its industry which helps establish trust with current and prospective customers.

While it is easy to see why blogging is so important to a business, blogging itself can be much more difficult. Many times it isn’t the blogging itself that causes issues, rather the ability to come up with blog topics over and over. In order for blogging to successfully promote your business, it must be done on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, coming up with new and fresh ideas can be extremely challenging.

If you feel as if you have hit a wall in terms of blog post topics, rest easy. What follows is a list of ways to spark your creative juices and have you back at the keyboard in no time.

1. Ask questions. These questions don’t have to be profound. Next time you are talking with a client just ask that client what his or her biggest challenge is right now. And customers aren’t the only ones you can get ideas from, either.

2. Interview experts. People love to read interviews with leaders in their industry who have been successful. Interviews are great blogs because you don’t have to come up with the content, the interviewee does that for you.

3. Brainstorm. It seems simple but how many times have you asked your co-workers and sales team to sit with you for a few minutes and just throw out ideas. You might be surprised at how many topics you gain from such meetings. Bring donuts and the room will be packed!

4. Use personal experience. Think of a time when you learned an important lesson from a failure. Or when you stuck with an idea no one else believed in and it paid off. These types of blog posts make for great reading because they personalize the author.

5. Spy on your competitors. What are your biggest competitors writing about? If they are getting a lot of likes on their blog posts see if there is anything you could learn from their methods or topics.

6. Keep up on current events. This is a great way to write timely and creative blog posts. Sporting events are a good example. How about a post on how hiring employees is like preparing for the NBA draft.

7. Take a look back. What were your most popular blog posts? Consider updating those posts or expanding on them. Chances are they will be popular once again.

Blogging can be difficult but is essential to the success of your business. Hopefully the ideas listed above will make the task of blogging a little easier.

Seven Simple Ways to Drive Backlinks

Seven Simple Ways to Drive Backlinks. If you are a small business owner looking to improve your content marketing efforts, driving more backlinks to your website is essential to your success. This can be a difficult task, however, if you aren’t sure how to generate backlinks.

While everyone talks about content marketing and all that it can do for a business, it can be difficult to gain traction-especially in the beginning. What follows are some ways to generate the all-important backlinks necessary to get your content noticed.

    1. Guest Post. Writing an article for someone else’s website or blog is one of the simplest ways to drive traffic back to your site. Not only will it drive more traffic to your website, it gets your name out as a thought leader in your industry. Be prepared to return the favor when people ask to publish on your website, however. You also can find guest posting opportunities on Twitter by using Twitter Advanced Search for quality sites that need niche writers.
    1. Practice Link Reclamation. Seek out sites that mention you or your brand and make sure that there is a link back to your site.
    1. Get Listed. Directories are a great way to build backlinks. Write a unique description of your brand and get it listed in one (or more) of the many free web directories out there.
    1. Help a Reporter Out (HARO). When you sign up for HARO, journalists are able to find you if they need a quote for a story.
    1. Publish Infographics. Everyone loves visual content. Find out what is trending in your industry and create an infographic and promote it. The more it’s used, the more backlinks you will enjoy.
    1. Give Testimonials. We all want customers to give us testimonials but your testimonials are valuable as well when it comes to gaining backlinks. Gather a list of products or services you have used recently and visit their websites to see if they have a testimonials page. If they do, write one to be published.
  1. Entice Bloggers. Exchange goods for reviews. Do a search for bloggers in your industry and reach out to them by asking them to review a product or service you will provide at no charge. This is a win-win fo you and the blogger.

Building backlinks is easier than you might think. The key is to always be reaching out to others to gain important backlinks.