All posts tagged seo

Getting SEO Right From the Start

Posted by on March 24, 2017

“Good SEO is paying atention to all the details that most bloggers ignore. From using the Yoast plugin, to writing for people, to creating thorough resources linking out to trusted sites and linking into evergreen, relevant content, do what others refuse to do to rank for semi-competitive and even competitive keywords. Spend an extra 1-3 hours to publish and SEO – optimized post. The returns from a targeted traffic, community and brand-building perspective are astounding.” – Ryan Biddulph


Every business, regardless of the size, aims to establish their brand name through the Google search engine. That means, penetrating the online industry is a step closer to successful marketing. However, if you’re aiming to get a high-quality traffic on your website, then understanding the importance of a good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) must be considered. Even a competitive business such as the SEO company are continuously striving to excel in the online world.

 
Following a good SEO can create a significant impact on how search engines rank websites. When done well, it can improve your site’s visibility in the search engine result pages. However, SEO nowadays can be a little bit tricky especially when it evolves every time. But to get you started, below are some list of questions on how to do SEO from the outset.

1. Will paying more and choosing a bigger agency to get me more ROI on SEO?

Yes. In fact, when you increased your investment then it generally comes with an increase in hours spent on your campaign. Whether you are up for producing content, doing an outreach program, or even building and leveraging assets, the hours you spent for these activities vary. In business, marketers should be upfront with their clients, telling you cannot work with them when their level of investment is not enough to compete in their market.

2. How do I decide whether SEO or PPC is better for me?

Doing both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) can be an advantage to your business. However, not all businesses can do both considering the budget. That is why marketers should understand each strategy. When it comes to generating the best Return On Investment (ROI) in the long term, then do the SEO. It is also going to deliver the lowest cost per acquisition. On the other hand, PPC is going to generate immediate results (most of the time). According to Andrew Raso, a Co-Founder of Online Marketing Gurus, he would recommend choosing SEO over PPC if you have investment for a minimum of 12 months.

3. If they rank for “SEO company my city,” does that mean they’re good at what they do?

Not necessary. Achieving a rank may not be difficult since the city-related terms are not that competitive. But just because they rank for a non-competitive term, that does not mean they can compete in the ranking with very competitive industries. Also, some businesses tend to manipulate the Google’s search engine for their website to rank. However, once the Google update is released, their site will not have longer rank.

4. Google discourages ranking guarantees. What should I expect instead from my SEO vendor?

The moment you start an SEO campaign, you need to have an outline of what exactly you will be doing for the investment every month, and ensure that you will deliver these promises to your target clients. Sometimes, there are SEO vendors who don’t show the work they are completing. Perhaps, it is either substandard or because they are trying to hide something from their clients. Markters should show their customers everything that you do – from the links and to the content that you produce. It is also a plus factor when you explain to them the process.

5. What would be a good length of time before I start expecting results from my SEO campaign?

It depends on the industry and client. Whether the client previously had SEO work done on their website or the client is doing other marketing works, or even whether their website has to be been penalized, these factors can significantly affect the results that you had expected. In SEO, the usual time allowed when generating transaction is within 4-6 months of starting a campaign. But then again, that depends on how fast and efficient you are when it comes to SEO strategies.

6. I don’t know how to choose from one of their packages. What should I do?

When you want to be successful with SEO, then marketers should build every strategy from the ground up and should be tailored to a particular campaign. Moreover, marketers should also have a scope of work that should be complete for that particular investment level for each month. When transacting business with your clients, explain to them how much you need to spend each month. It is for them to be aware of the business they are into.

7. Should I help them with keyword research?

That depends on how complex your industry is. For some companies, before they process with the campaign, they usually spend an ample amount of time understanding the scope of the client’s business. They make sure that they can talk with the client to obtain their approval. However, it is not necessary that clients do keyword research for the company. Keep in mind that SEO companies have plenty of tools available for them to use with the campaign.

8. My site has millions of pages. How many should I get them to optimize?

Most SEO experts would recommend targeting the most relevant pages with terms that your clients want to rank since this will help boost your site quickly. Also, when you have a team that is capable enough, then you can write a script that can pull a list of best practices for title tags, meta descriptions, etc. for your client’s website. However, if you are going to create compelling content, then you must do it manually, and it cannot be scripted. This is to ensure that your target audience will get interested on your website.

Final thoughts:

When it comes to business, there are times that the strategies used by the other companies are not applicable to yours. That means you should create your strategy that would fit your website’s needs. With that, you can ensure a growth on your website.

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9 Components of an Effective SEO Team

Posted by on March 17, 2017

“Even the best SEOs are not magicians. They can’t simply place a site at the top of the engines when there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of others that offer basically the same thing and provide basically the same information. If they could, you’d see a whole lot more millionaire SEOs” – Jill Whalen

No matter how appealing your website is, it would not go far if no one can find it online. When you are aiming to make your business big on the online world, then sooner or later you would encounter Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is a crucial factor in generating high-quality traffic for your website to rank on the search engine. Even a competitive business such as the SEO Company takes this strategy seriously. That simply means, having a capable team is one crucial factor in generating and achieving high-quality traffic.

Finding the right person that specializes in different areas may be a bit challenging, especially if you do not have that expertise. However, building a team is essential if you want to succeed in your business. When selecting a member, here’s some components you need to consider to have a competent SEO team.

Component #1: SEO Manager/Director

SEO Manager is the head of the team and manages everyone else. Their job is to be concerned with the “bigger picture” they would face later on. Especially when dealing with strategies and tactics to use, an SEO manager should be able to determine what and what not to do when it comes to those matters. Additionally, a manager should understand the capabilities of his/her teammates. In that way, it would be easier for them to delegate the tasks based on their field of expertise, and of course,

Component #2: The Content Creator(s)

Content is King. That just means, your content is crucial when it comes to generating organic search traffic. It is the job a content creator to come up with a compelling content for their target audience.They make sure to create a relevant topic, where people would get interested and engage on your site. Also, they ensure that they write contents where their target audience can relate to. When a website does not have any content, then there is no reason for the people to be interested in your site. Although it may take a lot of time, optimizing your content will eventually pay off.

Component #3: Designers

Keep in mind that people prefer visuals over text. That is why designers in a SEO strategy also play a big role in generating high-quality traffic. They are the ones who create custom images of all of your content. They make sure that the content would be associated with images that are relevant to the topic. Also, the SEO manager must ensure that the content creators and designers are on the same track. Otherwise, it would end up not the way you expected it.

Component #4: PR and Link Builders

Although there may be some distinctions between PR and Link Builders, both aims to reach out to other people in the industry. They are most likely to look for other business and develop relationships that will be mutually beneficial. In SEO, PR has a broader term that surrounds within modern link building. There are even times when the connection between the two could be used for other opportunities beyond gaining a simple link. Most SEOs who specialize in link building are also expanding their niche and skill set that includes PR skills.

Component #5: Technical Experts

The content on your website is a crucial factor when it comes to getting high-quality traffic. However, SEO specialist should not mainly focus on creating content to the extent where the technical side of SEO is ignored. Keep in mind that the technical side is the foundation of all the other parts of SEO. Without it, your team might experience difficulties along the way. People who specialise on the technical part are called the SEO analyst. Their job is to analyze and understand the site architecture and can detect flaws. Also, they handle another technical aspect as checking the load time optimization, split testing, internal linking optimization, implementing rich snippets and “rel” tags and keyword optimization in content (if need)

Component #6: Developers

This is where the user’s experience is involved. A great user’s experience depends on how great your website’s developer is. That means the developers are responsible for optimizing and modifying your site – its feature and usability of a website. It does not matter whether the manager plans to hire a full-time or a freelancer, the developer must be skillful enough to make a user-friendly site.

Component #7: Account Manager

There are just times that the job of an SEO manager can get overwhelming. When the manager gets too much workload, this is when the account manager takes place. Their job is to assign a new set of responsibilities to a member of the SEO team. The account manager will also be the one who handles the most basic client communication post-sale and generates reports of their work and its results. When the SEO manager is busy, the account manager will be the one who will answer the client’s inquiries.

Component #8: Email And Social Media Marketers

When it comes to getting a high-quality traffic, you must consider email and social media marketing. It does not just increase your website’s traffic, but it also gives your business the return on investment (ROI). Depending on your team, email and social media can perform differently. However, to achieve a better output, both should have some input into the content marketing strategy since it will be promoted and used in other ways.

Component #9: Conversion Rate Optimizers

An SEO manager can decide whether to have a conversion rate optimizers on his team or not since it is just an optional role. However, if you aim to achieve a desirable outcome, then having them on your team can be a good option. They are responsible for their SEO work to clients or upper management. They also care about the results of your actual rankings: traffic, profit, revenue, and to a lesser extent.

 

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Breaking Away from Procrastination – How to Do it Right

Posted by on February 17, 2017

“The essence of procrastination lies in not doing what you think you should be doing, a mental contortion that surely accounts for the great psychic toll the habit takes on people. This the perplexing thing about procrastination: although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn’t make people happy.” – James Surowiecki

Procrastination is a common way to get us all stuck. And yet, we may not even realize we’re doing it. Whenever you want to avoid a task, we tend to create reasons in our head that supply us with enough logic so we can delay it. For instance, you need to beat a deadline, yet there you are fiddling with miscellaneous things such as checking your email, social media, watching videos, surfing blogs and forums, and the list can go on. You will know that you are already procrastinating when you slack off from your work.

Everyone is guilty of procrastination. Who aren’t, right? But just because everyone else is procrastinating, that does not mean you’re doing the same thing as well. Especially when you work in a competitive environment such as the SEO Company, overcoming procrastination is must-do! Here’s how:

1. Face your fear

“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the “someday I’ll” philosophy.” – Denis Waitley

Have you ever tried thinking about being afraid of something that you just want to avoid it? Perhaps, you’ve been feeling a bit pressured on your work assuming you might get more work than you usually do whenever you are done with it. Not to mention the fear you feel whenever you make mistakes, stumble and not avoid the pain. This might be too risky for you to get ahead thinking about what can happen to you in the long run. But did you know that not bravely facing your fears can lead you to regrets? You may find it difficult to cope with the challenges in life, but at the end of the day, you must know that for you to move forward, you need to beat your fears head-on.

2. Start with the hardest task of your day

“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.” – Dale Carnegie

Did you know that humans are productive in the morning than later in the afternoon? This is because your mind is in working condition willing to perform any task you have. That means, if you start your day doing the hardest task, then you may feel relieved afterward. Additionally, you will feel more relaxed and good about yourself for accomplishing the task you might hate the most. Keep in mind that your decision and action would break or make your day.

3. Stop thinking. Start doing.

“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.” – Eva Young

There’s nothing wrong about planning ahead. In fact, it is one thing we need to do to complete our tasks more efficiently. However, when you tend to think and think and try to come p with “the perfect plan,” then this can eat up a lot of your time without accomplishing anything else. Coming up with that “perfect plan” may be impossible to achieve. When it comes to working, you need to start with some small steps and more small steps until you get to the point where you know what’s best for your task. It is a learning process. So, stop thinking too much and start doing it right now.

4. Don’t blow a task out of proportion

“If you want to make an easy job seem might hard, just keep putting off doing it.” – Olin Miller

“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off hard things makes it impossible.” – George Claude Lorimer

There’s also a popular saying that goes, “Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” – Benjamin Franklin

Let’s just say; you have a particular task that would be due on Friday. You think that it might be okay to put it off since it’s still Monday, later you’ll realize that days are passing so fast that you forget to do the necessary changes. Procrastinating would lead you to panic on what to do for you to get your task done, which naturally would also lead you to settle for less. Keep in mind that those who are okay with going for less are unproductive people. One thing is for sure; you do not want to be labeled as an unproductive person.

5. Just take the first step

“You don’ have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

There may be times that you feel like the pressure is on you since your tasks may seem impossible to accomplish. But keep in mind that no one is genius enough to get their work done perfectly on the first try. When it comes to working on your task, expect there would be some mistakes, some corrections, and some changes. Whenever you’re corrected, don’t take it too hard. You just have to be open-minded and keep it in mind. This is for you to grow mentally and emotionally. All you have to do is to take the first step and do whatever you can. You will eventually realize that you’ve finished your tasks already.

Final Thoughts:

Procrastination is the enemy of success. If you notice that you’ve been drag down to procrastinate, then force yourself to move in the other direction. Here’s a warning: There are a lot of temptations around you which lead you to procrastinate. Before you do, think again whether it is worth your time and effort. If it doesn’t, then avoid it as much as you can. It is in this way where you can learn how to discipline yourself and succeed whatever you are into doing. 

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7 Practical Tips to Rank Higher in Google’s Results Pages

Posted by on April 27, 2016

Rank your site higher and it’ll receive more traffic; obtain more visitors and it’ll rank higher on results pages.

Landing on the top positions in the results pages is becoming harder by the day. Or should be we say with each algorithm update? Some search engine optimization (SEO) consulting services try, trick and test Google. They do so using black hat techniques. But, these tactics only bring in immediate, short-term results. Also, that’s not the goal of optimization. Instead, the ultimate goal is to come up with strategies, techniques, and tactics that will produce long-term results. These results are higher ranking, bigger traffic volume, higher conversion rate and higher profits.

Interestingly, the traffic and ranking connection seems like a never-ending cycle. Rank your site higher and it’ll receive more traffic; obtain more visitors and it’ll rank higher on results pages. However, it often starts with appearing on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Now, how will you make your site appear on SERP? Here’s how.

tips to rank higher in google

The importance of backlink

Off-page optimization is as important as on-page optimization. In fact, some experts even think that the latter contributes about 80% to making the SEO campaign a success. Off-page optimization basically refers to the processes that allow getting the most number of backlinks possible.

A backlink is an incoming link from a website, web page to another website or web page. Just so you know, Google loves backlinks. For it, a website that receives lots of backlinks can be considered as an authority site. It’s because a backlink is deemed as a vote to that site. It means that the site contains unique and valuable information that can’t be found elsewhere.

The question now is – how will you earn more backlinks?

Ways to obtain backlinks

1) Competitor analysis

One of the simplest ways to earn backlinks is to copy what your best competitors are doing. Where do they get their backlinks? What sites are linking to them? Which of their contents are receiving the most backlinks? Why? When you do this, link building opportunities available to you will reveal themselves in the process. Perhaps, your competitors are not yet tapping the power of .edu and .gov sites. You can explore these opportunities to surpass their ranking results.

2) Guest blog

Guest blogging is not dead if you want to ask the question. But, the guest blogging that we are doing now is different from the guest blogging we do five years ago. Of course, we still write the content that will be published on a particular website or blog. The idea is to gain links from these established websites. Google gives more weight to this since these links are rather difficult to acquire. But, Google warns the content writers that if obtaining link is the sole purpose of doing guest blogging then, you are doing it wrong. This is the common pitfall. Instead, think of how you can add value to the readers of that blog. In this way, you’d deserve the backlink endowed to your website.

3) Web 2.0 sites

Web 2.0 sites publish user-generated contents. These sites often have social features. Examples of these sites are StumbleUpon, Reddit, and HubPages. Although Google constantly looks into backlinks created through these sites due to possible spamming, the links are highly Google-friendly. The best way to navigate through these sites is publishing 100% unique contents that target one keyword. Integrate multimedia like an image or video. Some sites only allow a backlink to your website once you reached the required number of published articles. Hence, write as often as you can.

4) Testimonials

Business partners and suppliers and other stakeholders that you do business with can also help you in ranking higher in SERPs. You may offer a testimonial to any of them. The beauty of this is that testimonials are published directly on the website. Often, a website allows the person to provide details of his or her company to show the visitors or readers that you are a real person. This means free backlinks for you. Double plus is the website where the testimonial will be published is already an authority site.

5) Link reclamation

From the name itself, it means reclaiming previously linked mentions that are no longer active now. The necessary first step is finding websites that mention your company and its products. Focus on those sites that don’t link back to your website. You may use tools like BrandMentions or Mention.net. Then, contact the website reminding its administrator to add the link to your company name, for instance. A friendly reminder will do. Remember, when contacting the website, give the full details. Include screenshots, so that the person may easily track the unlinked mention.

6) Blog aggregator

A blog aggregator is a website that lists blogs in various industries and niches. The majority of these aggregators offer a dofollow link for free. You need to submit your website for review, however, before the aggregator will include your website in the list. You will be given a unique HTML code to determine that you own the site you are submitting. Upon approval, you will see your website in its appropriate category. Also, there are blog aggregators that focus on specific niches. Make sure that you are submitting your website on the right aggregating site.

7) Broken link building

A broken link refers to a link that is not working, rendering a 404 error message (i.e. Page Not Found). When you find a 404 page that is relevant to your website, you may contact the owner of the site regarding the broken link page. Offer to write content for that page in exchange of a backlink. If you want to do this method in full swing, you might as well install the Check My Links Chrome extension.

A backlink is a strong ranking factor. Your website will not rank in Google without inbound links. If you are wondering if these will work, the answer is YES. Even the experts are doing these simple tactics. While backlinks are not the panacea, no one can underestimate the boost they can do for your ranking. It’s either you do it or your competitors will do it at your expense. It’s your call.

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How Much Time Do You Really Need to Do SEO?

Posted by on September 30, 2015

how much time do you need to do seo

Search engine optimization (SEO), which some of you dread (of course, we know), seems like a daunting task. Well, it doesn’t seem so because it is really daunting. If you aren’t doing SEO yourself, you might not understand the dauntingness (love this word) of it all. This is particularly if you are letting an SEO company to do all the optimization works for you, which is completely a-okay.

Lucky for you, but if you want to know what you are paying for the man-hours involved, here’s a simple walkthrough.

 

The simplest answer

To answer the question, you will need A LOT of time to do SEO.

SEO is a multi-factored activity. It also depends on what optimization works your company needs. For example, a website that is nowhere near the top 10 search engine results page (SERP) requires more time than a website that is already ranking on positions 11 to 20 for specific keywords. These are your factors; I haven’t mentioned competition yet. Definitely, at least one of your rivals are implementing their own strategies. Likewise, the competition against top ranking keywords is another story.

Thus, an answer applicable to all companies is difficult to come by. All we can say is… it depends.

 

The work required

There are three major opportunities to optimize a website and each opportunity involves man-hours of its own. These are on-site, on-page, and off-site.

On-site SEO

Audit

On-site optimization always starts with a website audit to determine how it is currently performing SEO-wise. Optimizers need to know how does the website appeals to both users and bots. A thorough audit will be the foundation of the future improvements on the site so this must be taken seriously.

Among others, the tasks involved are:

  • Analyzing the site speed
  • Checking the keywords used
  • Conducting a keyword research
  • Analyzing the link profile (internal and external)
  • Analyzing the navigation (if the site is intuitive)
  • Checking if the site already includes micro formatting (URL, logo, and other markups)
  • Analyzing contents including structure and duplicate
  • Identifying errors (i.e. broken links, missing pages, bad codes, heavy images, etc.)
  • Checking the sitemap
  • Checking the social media activities (i.e. social widgets installation and placement)
  • Checking the site’s mobile-friendliness
  • Checking the site’s overall security
  • Checking Google Analytics and Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmasters Tools) implementation

Estimated time: 8 to 40 hours

* More man-hours will be needed if the website will require a redesign

On-page SEO

On-page SEO forms part of the on-site SEO. It’s just that the former is taken on the page level while the latter is considered on the site level. The tasks involved are:

  • Checking the tags (i.e. title, meta, header, image alt, etc.)
  • Checking whether each page has unique tags
  • Assigning landing pages or creating new ones for each keyword

Estimated time: 8 to 16 hours

For these on-site and on-page SEO, it would be much better to check this checklist so you’d really understand what needs to be done.

Set-up

Setting up the SEO campaign starts with the implementation based on the results of the audit. The tasks involved are:

  • Implementing recommendations based on the analyses

Estimated time: 16 to 40 hours

Monitoring

After completing the initial setup, period checkups must be implemented. Adjustments must be made based on the results of each checkup. If any issues arise (major and minor), troubleshooting is required as well. Specifically, the tasks involved are:

  • Checking Google Analytics and Search Console
  • Measuring the campaign
  • Analyzing for improvements
  • Troubleshooting based on the recommendations
  • Preparing ranking and traffic reports
  • Drafting new recommendations based on the reports

Estimated time: 4 to 8 hours per week

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO are optimization efforts performed beyond the site. Nevertheless, this aspect of SEO comes in various forms and completely depends on the extent that you want to invest on it. These are tactical and yet technically optional. The tasks involved, but are not limited to the following, are:

  • Building and earning links
  • Promoting contents on social media
  • Doing other peripheral SEO strategies

Estimated time: 12 to 24 hours per week

Content development

Content creation is another daunting task and an ongoing one at that. Writing a blog post, press release or article may seem easy, but it is not. The amount of research involved alone may discourage you. Alternatively, you can outsource content writing to a service provider. In this way, you may focus on other more important things to do.

Estimated time: 4 to 16 hours per week

 

A basic caveat

In every task, you may use a tool, but be careful what you use. Basically, the use of tools is subjective. There are hundreds to thousands of SEO tools and apps online; it’s up to you to choose which one you think is the right fit to your purpose. [Notice that I said ‘the right fit’ not ‘the best tool’ because all of them claims to be the best. Pun intended.]

For best results, try using Google’s products (Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, etc.). They’ll tell you what to do exactly. We use this tools for our audits as well as other tools online such as Screaming Frog and Moz.

 

The plausible timeline

Month 1 – Audit and analysis

An entire month will be devoted to analyzing the website and its current strategy. Recommendations must be made based on the analysis. It is possible to conduct the analysis and technical changes within a month.

Month 2 – Technical SEO

Again, the technical changes may have already been implemented by this time. If the website requires more than just simple coding tweaks, this can go on for at least 2 months. That’s why it is advisable to consider SEO when developing a site from scratch or during a redesign. Nevertheless, while technical SEO is on the works, building contents and links may start now.

Month 3 – Content development

Once everything’s implemented, the foundational works such as creating contents may start now. An entire month might be needed, but this will still depend on the types of contents that you want to be created. If you’ve started publishing contents on the second month, you might be seeing results on the end of the third month.

Moreover, the succeeding months must be devoted to ongoing content creation, link building and technical optimization. You have to do this to improve your search performance to the tune of #1 position. Yes, aiming for that position is hard, but no one says that it’s impossible.

To put things in perspective, you need to invest 32 to 96 hours to do the groundwork and another 20 to 48 hours per week to do SEO. So, that’s really a lot. Again, you may do it yourself, hire an in-house SEO specialist or outsource to a local SEO company. It’s your call.

 

Inc | Hobo | SEOMark | Forbes | Search Engine Watch

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The Rise of Emojis: Why Using of Emojis Can Boost Your Social Media Presence

Posted by on August 14, 2015

thebertshow.com

Let’s admit it! For the past years up until now, emojis have already influenced and penetrated the way we communicate with other people. We usually use emojis to fill empty and boring texts into more exciting and fun messages. How much more if we bring it to the next level? SEO Companies, and I’m sure you too, are thrilled with the thought of using and integrating emojis with their social media optimization efforts.

If you are not sure and still stuck on the thought whether emojis are worth the integration on your social media strategies or not, let me give you some reasons why emojis can help boost your brand’s presence. For one, it can make you appear friendlier to your followers and target audience and make you happier offline in the process!

They make you more popular on social media

Have you ever tried reading blog posts or even comments that are so plain with no visuals at all? Boring, isn’t it? And you definitely don’t want to continue reading it. There are times that no matter how good the content of your posts, your target audience will still not notice or, worse, deliberately ignore your post. Perhaps, your posts were monotonous and dry enough for them not to be engaged and interested on it. I bet, you too will skip that post and scroll down!

It doesn’t matter whether your post is long or short. If you just have the right visual or emoticon that will help represent what you want to imply, your target audience will definitely love to drop by and read your post. And they will do this consistently. The more attractive your posts are, the more people will be interested to read and share them to others.

They convey your emotions correctly

It will definitely be hard on our part to imagine how happy, sad or pissed our followers are if there are no representations of what they really feel. Before the emojis exists, typing and including *pissed* on your post is just a word with no feelings at all. Well, it will really take an imaginative mind to picture just how pissed the person is.

However, with the use of emojis, it gives life to the feelings that we have. It projects and represents the almost exact feeling that we want to convey with the other person. Of course, it is given that we should use the right and exact emoji for others to clearly understand how we feel.

People who usually used emojis on their content can immediately grab their target audience’s attention. There are even times that we tend to giggle, smile or laugh whenever we see posts with emojis that are so cute that we want to use and look at it all the time. With that, who would not want to enjoy reading your posts?

They’re ok even in business settings

A lot of you here might wonder and ask whether using of emojis in companies is acceptable or not. For some, the use of emojis when communicating is a sign of unprofessionalism. Perhaps, they think that emojis are only used for communicating with friends and families. Well, that might be true to some firms especially when they are strict with their policies. All forms of communication must be firm and professional in any way.

However, there are a lot of businesses that have already adapted the trend. They already have included emojis in sending emails to their target market. There are even studies that can prove that use of such increases the target audience’s participation.

The University of Missouri-St. Louis had a research about how their target audience react when they received emails with emojis. Researchers sent two kinds of email to the group of audience. One is a flirtatious email and the second one is extending a job interview request with emojis on some part of it. They then discovered that their target audience like the second email more because they feel like the sender is talking to them in a friendlier and more approachable way.

Moreover, they discovered that although they used emojis in some of the emails, the credibility of the sender was not affected in any way. It only grew more traffic and participation from the target audience.

They soften the blow of critique

Generally, if one receives a critique from his or her followers, that’s because they were not pleased by the content that they’ve read. The content might have offended them or it violated some of their rights as a consumer. There are many other reasons, which lead any of your follower to throw some criticisms on your way.

However, if you used some emojis especially some smileys on your email or article, they might have second thoughts on directing harsh criticisms on you. There are also studies shows that whenever there are some negative feedback from your followers, yet you responded to them with positive emojis, there is a higher possibility that your followers will have a change of mood. They will feel good about the message that you have sent to them.

They create a happier workplace

In everything you do, there will always be a positive and a negative feedback from your followers as well as from your colleagues. You even criticize yourself, right? However, when you create a positive vibe even with the way you communicate, it will develop a good atmosphere in the place. Not just in your workplace, but also in the digital work, in general.

Furthermore, people who use emojis can accurately “read” the emotional content of a message, which leads to lesser conflicts in understanding and clarifying messages. Thus, giving the conversation a more “light-hearted” tone.

In sum, emojis play a significant role in the way people interact in the social media. It is something that the audience naturally uses and expects to see whenever one updates his or her status or post. Following the trend, several brands and well-known companies are now using these visuals to increase brand engagement. These are the audiences’ emotion-driven engagement, encouraging them to care more about the post without interrupting the way we communicate our brand towards our target audience.

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Top SEO Faux Pas

Posted by on July 23, 2015

seo faux pas

In these current times, websites are no longer considered a luxury, it is a fact that they are now a necessity. Websites  are vital to the growth of a business in nearly all industries to remain competitive. And because of this, SEO (search engine optimization) strategists have come up with various ways to stay on top of the business. This may involve optimization that offers link building services and would grant you guaranteed SEO.

So, you have created impactful, information rich, compelling and great engaging content. You value the necessity of responding to a reader and customer feedbacks are an extreme boon for the existence of your website. You make essential adjustments, use correct header tags, utilize and source images legally and write attention grabbing headlines. You have managed to do everything in your capacity and to your knowledge. This should all have been efficacious in giving you exemplary results, right? But you may wonder, what are you still doing wrong?

It may have escaped your attention, but you may have been adopting increasingly aggressive marketing tactics that are more likely to harm your website visibility in search engines instead of helping it. You may be doing this in a misguided attempt at getting more views and in an injudicious competitive spirit. Shall you continue doing so, your website visibility will most likely tank in the long run.

If you think you may have, this article helps you become aware of it. Check the list below and see if you are committing any of the said SEO cardinal faux pas.

  1. Keyword Over-Optimization

Before the advent of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithms, overuse of keywords (otherwise known as “keyword stuffing”) was a common practice. Yet website owners rarely experienced any adverse ramifications over this. Today however, search engines have become increasingly complex and Google, in particular, is continuously tweaking and altering its algorithms to reward content that is high in quality while penalizing low-quality content.

Nowadays, stuffing a page with keywords in an attempt to make it rank higher for those phrases is not only ineffectual and impractical, but it will tank you rankings as well. This is not only an example of an ineffective tactic that may have negative repercussions but should this particular tactic be identified by Google’s Panda algorithm, the website may be subsequently removed from Google’s search results.

  1. Insufficient and Infrequent Content

Keeping website content short and sweet may have been the primary focus for years. Recently however, this focus has shifted. The current trend among search engines is that they prefer pages with information-rich, in-depth and compelling content. Should a search engine encounter a page without so much content, it would potentially conclude that this page is low in quality. These contents are considered “thin contents,” ensuing to less visibility in search results.

Publish quality, valuable, informative and relevant content in order to ensure that your website remains competitive today. Generally, articles that include properly-formatted images and videos tend to rank better in search engines, have higher engagement with readers and get shared more in social media.

Google wants to display content in its search results that people will appreciate and like. So give your website a closer inspection and see if anyone would really love it. If not, remove the offending content or combine it with other content to create something better that would be valuable and shareable.

Apart from sufficient and compelling content, a lot of website owners do not quite understand just how essential consistency and frequency is when it comes to content publication. Succinctly put, there is a definitive link between publication frequency and search engine rankings.

  1. Broken Links

“Broken link” is the term given to a hyperlink that no longer redirects you to its intended destination. This is rather cumbersome for readers who were already won over by your lengthy spiel and your promise to deliver. Furthermore, it makes your site unreliable as well.

Sites naturally accumulate broken links but this can be a major nuisance to your visitors and Google does not appreciate them either. But if they are supposedly natural, why would Google penalize you for them? Well, the simple reason is that bad links will earn you a bad reputation which would cause a ripple effect. Online, people or businesses with adverse reputations are not viewed as authorities on anything.

And along with that, Google downgrades rankings on sites with many issues such as this. So clean up your site and make sure broken links are remedied.

  1. Unnatural Link Building

A common mistake among website owners is having the misguided impression that buying links is a speedy and effective way to boost their site’s search engine rankings. While quantity and quality of inbound links are a major factor in the search ranking algorithm, unnatural inbound links can trigger devastating penalties on your website.

Fact is, Google has been rather clear regarding their stance when it comes to the purchase of links. Simply put, Google does not like it and are quick to punish any site found to be building unnatural links. The bottom line is learning how to build your links naturally.

  1. Building Too Many Links on Your Homepage

A website would look contrived if it only links back to the homepage. One of your SEO goals should you want results is to make the backlinks profile look as natural as possible. A lot of online businesses get too excited about ranking their homepage, making them forget to build backlinks to other pages.

Instead of building hundreds of links to your homepage, you should split these links to your blog posts as well. This factor would make your website rank better in Google.

 

To conclude…

Managing a website along with a business is not exactly an easy feat and it is extremely time-consuming. Furthermore, with the added responsibility of keeping up with changes in the SEO industry, it is rather difficult to keep up with the changes in the SEO industry. It is also difficult for business owners to have a clear idea of what to do when it comes to implementing a good SEO campaign. It might be easy to understand why business owners commit these mistakes, but it does not excuse them all the time. By now, business owners should exercise more caution and be more proactive in the pursuit of beneficial SEO techniques.

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SEO, The Key to Getting Your Business Out There!

Posted by on July 2, 2015

www.adammcfarland.com

                

In today’s fast paced and ever evolving digital age, just how much of a necessity is acquiring search engine optimization for your business? Does it come with the most essential benefits that a business owner has always sought for? Is SEO truly worth the investment? And just how pivotal is this so-called SEO to one’s business? Before we answer the litany of queries preceding this sentence, it is important to consider how involved the average human is in online activities and just how much he or she spends time in front of a computer. When those are factored in, it is rather transparent just how beneficial it would be to have your business (especially those which are still at their inception stage) advertised and promoted online.

When one views it from that aspect, it is rather obvious just how vital search engine optimization can be and consequently would answer the string of questions that were written prior to this paragraph. To illustrate just how indispensable SEO can be, companies all over the world have been making a renewed commitment to the investment in solid, reliable SEO Company and web infrastructure. Along with this, it is key to consider how search-engine friendly it is given the engines’ relentless effort in improving their algorithms time after time. In a nutshell, the readily seen benefits one can reap from investing in a good SEO company are raising revenue, increased customer satisfaction, lowered costs. Raising revenue, as an advantage is rather obvious as getting your business advertised online generates more potential clients and customers. As for increased customer satisfaction and lowered costs, these are benefits that can be acquired. Investing in SEO produces an umbrella effect where one would not need to advertise in every single and available media as the power of the Internet does this for you, while customer satisfaction is evidenced by reviews. But the benefits mentioned above barely scratch the surface of how SEO can be truly advantageous to one’s business. This article aims to show you more ways than those enlisted above on how search engine optimization can truly be one of the indispensable and powerful tools a business can have.

So here’s a list of reasons on why your company should be investing in SEO:

 

1.) It still works and effectively at that

Whoever said that ‘SEO is dead’ is dead wrong. Fact is various techniques have been progressing and evolving every single day and the techniques employed and are already existing in order to improve SEO are still working. Data regarding organic traffic from Google might be a recent discovery and innovation but the other techniques themselves remain sound and efficient.

 

2.) Optimal reach to potential clients and customers

It is fairly obvious how individuals nowadays rely on search engines to answer quick queries and this has been proven rather effective for them. It is quick, accessible and convenient and answers are delivered within seconds (depending on the speed of your connection) making people unconsciously trust it. It is common knowledge that when Google places a particular business at the top spot of a search then it has surely earned that placed and by analogy, that place should be good. This particular person doing the search would then advertise his or her find on various platforms of social media, at times leaving a link for them to click as well. This works rather fast as things posted online, most especially on social media, get seen resulting to better revenue. How is this possible? The search engine matched everything perfectly and it all pointed to a particular website with good link building.

 

3.) Compared to other online marketing strategies, SEO is cost effective.

SEO finds stiff competition with other online marketing strategies such as PPC advertising, purchasing leads for an email marketing program, social media marketing and the like, but what gives search engine optimization an edge is the fact that it provides business owners with results. Otherwise stated, SEO provides fairly good return of investment. PPC may drive more revenue and social media may be hip, trendy and relevant (and perhaps great for your image), it is undeniable that your organic SEO remains bedrock of your online relevance and presence.

 

4.)  Gives you optimal insight into your customers

Properly optimized websites have a lot of benefits. Among them is having an increased visibility, usability and credibility in search engines, which would collectively result to a higher traffic for your website. Now that you are driving more traffic into your website and enjoying more visitors, Google Analytics—an indispensable tool all websites should be equipped with—can track valuable information about your visitors. This information would yield their browser preferences, the keywords they use, the geographical location, and the time they spent on a page, among others. This information is relevant as it assists business owners in helping discover your target market and hone your products to relate with them best, plan your marketing strategies to entice them and determine other key marketing strategies based on facts rather than guesses. After all, it is no question that the better you know and relate to your customers, the higher your return of investment will be.

 

5.)  Your competitors are utilizing it

SEO is an invaluable tool when it comes to online marketing, it’s efficacy is fairly obvious and because it is so, it is a reality that your competitors are also using to their advantage. You, as a business owner, should progress along with the times and harness its marketing potential as well. If you are not moving forward and are not doing anything to improve your position, then you are losing ground to a competitor who is doing so. Do not let your competitors outmaneuver you in this business marketing strategy. Business may be hard, but advertising and getting your business known should not be. Let search engine optimization be your answer to your online business marketing dilemmas.

 

In conclusion…

SEO remains to be one powerful online marketing tool that business owners who are starting out or have been in business in years still utilize. However, it is important to consider that no matter how optimized your site may be, or how powerful your SEO company might be, or how modern your techniques and tools are, they will be all for nothing if content remains lacking. It is essential that online marketing tools be used in conjunction with creative, powerful and information rich content. This, along with your company’s business marketing strategy is a surefire way to get a decent, if not great return of investment.

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SEO Basics: Ways to Optimize Your Website

Posted by on June 24, 2015

 

               

yoptimize.me

Search engine optimization or SEO is one of the most essential tools in online business marketing. It is fundamental as it is necessary, as it will assist you in positioning your website correctly so that it can be found at the most critical points in the purchase process or when people need to find what they are looking for and that should be—your website. Basically, if you are a business owner looking to get your business out there, advertise online and have more people know your brand, you might as well engage in the services of an SEO Company. SEO companies will help you give your brand recognition as well as herd potential customers and clients to your website, resulting in increased web traffic.

However, if you want to maximize your website’s potential and make the most out of the services of your selected SEO Company, there are also several ways you can optimize your website for SEO use yourself. Key questions you should ask yourself are: What are search engines looking for? Is there a way to build your website in such a way that will please visitors and potential customers as well as Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines? After you have thoroughly assessed what your website needs and answered these questions, here are the ways you can optimize your website:

 Use Keywords that are laced with Common Sense

This one is rather obvious. But to elaborate, you need to ask yourself who your potential clients and visitors are? Who do you think is going to look for your services or products? And how do you think they will formulate their search? (e.g. What keywords would they apply and type into search engine boxes?) Do not stress the details. If you have a pastry business that specializes in making cakes, keywords will most likely be cake, desserts, oven goods, sweets and so on. If you want people to know where your business stands and operates, your keywords may include your area. Should your area be somewhere along Luneta St., you might want to include that in the keywords you select and use.

Identify your Primary and Secondary Keywords

In addition to using your keywords as tags at the back end of your website (which we will get into later), it is important to use the most significant keywords as content at the front end of your website. Select those keywords, which you think have a great chance at becoming one of the top results for a particular search. Try formulating questions from your potential visitor’s perspective. For example, does your pastry shop have a low calorie option, a sugar-free selection? Having “pastry” or “cake” simply as a keyword would be a fatal choice for your primary keyword as this is an umbrella keyword that encompasses millions of others websites dedicating to pastries and cakes and you would not want to compete with that.

It would also be great move to qualify your primary and secondary keywords as much as possible in order for you to target and corner your niche market. Choose keywords that would potentially and significantly lower down your competition. Get creative and think of subcategories instead of plainly just categories. Qualify your keywords with something descriptive to eliminate potential competition in the search results.

Use keywords as your Tags

Be resourceful and utilize the “tags” section of your website to your heart’s content. Key in any and all the words and phrases you think are related to your topic, separating each word or phrase with a comma. View it from every aspect and angle. Think of all the ways that might draw potential visitors to your business. Contemplate on what makes your business unique; what sets it apart from the others. Do you offer anything that makes you so special? Is there anything that might set you apart from other businesses that are roughly in the same line as you are?

These are the focal points you need to consider in order to generate more unique keywords and have people discover your website and your business better.

Hyperlinking Keywords in Your Website Content is helpful

Words which are hyperlinked and are emphasized are considered especially relevant on your website, they are the meatiest portion of the content in your website so be wise and creative in utilizing them. Hyperlinked words get an extra bonus with the search engines when they are hyperlinked to other pages with the same hyperlinked keywords. Because such is the case, ensure that your hyperlinked keywords go on and lead to another hyperlinked keyword. In fact, the more akin your hyperlinked word is to a Russian Doll, the more efficacious it will be.

Produce Pertinent Incoming Links         

Teamwork is essential in optimizing your website as well. This is where other websites come in, and they can be just as useful to you as you are to them. This is the reason why you should be sure to reach out to others in your field (cross blog as much as possible). And when you do contribute content for someone else’s site, you will not only get access to that particular website but you will also have their website pointing at yours (through hyperlinks in your content and blog post). Of course, you should also have the courtesy of promoting that individual’s site through your own network and website. This encapsulates every online marketing strategy you have such as social media pages and your mailing list. It would also be a wise practice to ask writers to contribute content to your site and have him or her promote that particular post throughout her network. This would increase the links indicating and pointing to your site.

In sum, SEO is one of the leading ways to get your business noticed and is one of the most effective online marketing tools. You should always keep SEO at the forefront of your mind and follow the wisest and best practices to fully maximize your website’s potential. SEO Companies are an asset but they work best when complemented with your very own efforts in maximizing your website.

 

 

 

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A Guide to Making Effective Articles for SEO Use

Posted by on June 22, 2015

www.textboss.com

Content is the crux of every marketer’s business website, it is what gets the product noticed and herds in potential customers and clients. It also gets the word out about your business. As marketers, content creation is a large part of what we do and writing well-optimized content that is not only rich in information but effective as well is imperative. With so many competitors online and with SEO Philippines progressively getting better, it can be quite difficult to be a top SEO Company, which is why great content is necessary to stay at the top of the SEO chain.

Creating content that is search engine optimized is essential as it helps Google and other search engines rank it on search engine results pages. Failing to do so would result to a diminished visibility, which in turn will cause a negative impact on the ability of potential customers and clients to find you.  Fact is, poorly written less optimized content can render you invisible on the web. Writing articles in no easy task, but writing articles for SEO use is even more difficult. Among the new terms you will often hear when it comes to web content, SEO is probably the most common. Understanding it is the first step but putting it into practice is an entirely different story. However, you do not need to be an expert in SEO in order to create SEO-optimized content. All that you have to keep in mind is that you are writing for people and not robots.

Furthermore, it is important to consider that writing content for people means that your writing should deliver the things your potential customers and clients and prospects are looking for. It should not just be a whole block of words with keyword stuffed content that reads more like a random jumble of terms than a cohesive content. No, it should be a riveting read that is rich in information. Balance is key. Search engines want to serve quality search results that highlight fresh, informative and authentic content. They want to deliver answers that fit the context of what it is that searchers are trying to seek. Use this to your advantage.

Here are 6 tips you can try for writing effective SEO content.

 

I.  Use captivating titles that capture your readers attention

Much like how the cover of a book gives its readers its first impression of the contents inside, your title should be able to convey what your article is about at a glance. Take note, your title is a brief summary of your entire piece. Though titles should be able to capture your readers’ attention, avoid being gimmicky. You may attract readers initially but if they see you are being deceitful as a strategy to grab their attention, you will lose readers in the long run.

 

II. Utilize attractive visuals and images to give life to your content

Images and visuals are the spice of every content; they give your article a personal touch and a bit of life. They give your otherwise boring looking article colour so your readers would not be staring at a plain block of words while reading your content. Add pictures, slide shows, artwork and infographic to your written pieces. This will not only break the text portion of your article but make your article more visually appealing as well.

It is ideal to use visuals that are your own creations but if this is not possible, make sure you get permission to use them from the original owners of the graphics and give credit where it’s due.

 

III.  Strategic placement of keywords

More than ever, quality content is really the core of getting your webpage noticed which is why you should know how to utilize your keywords. Do keyword research and know what people are searching for in relation to your content then use that information to guide the creation of key content areas. Don’t use too many keywords or repeat the same ones over and over because this would compromise your content and will make it difficult for search engines as well.

 

IV.  Lists are your friend

Giving your article a brief description then elaborating the finer points through the form a list will make your content not only easily readable but scannable (meaning it makes it easier for search engines to find). It will also draw in readers as they are easy to comprehend and the thoughts you convey are presented in a direct and concise manner. Lists will tailor your content to be succinct, your thoughts neat and organized. Blog posts are not meant to be long-winded essays; so keeping your ideas short and direct keep your post on point so that you can focus solely on one topic (and keywords) without going off tangent.

 

List would also entice your readers to finish perusing your article entirely as lists are relatively short and easy to comprehend, appealing to both readers and search engines.

 

V.  Content should be easily shareable

One of the main goals of writing articles and posts for SEO is to garner traffic onto your website. You may have written the most information rich post, the most entertaining and dazzling piece that’s perfectly optimized for search engines yet all this would be rendered useless if the post is not being shared defeating the purpose of writing the article in the first place.

It is important to make sure your site has push buttons for social media sharing for all the social media platforms. If you are working on a piece for press release, include links so people can conveniently access images and more information.

 

VI.  Storytelling is a creative way to craft articles

Mix it up once in a while, do a content that is not only creative and a riveting read but a different one as well. Tell a story; captivate your readers. No matter the topic, it is always best to start your piece with a short but otherwise creative story to engage your readers and keep them reading. After all, nothing beats quality content that is well written and houses interesting and relevant information.

It is always possible to go back and tweak your content to optimize it for search results. But as the core of garnering website traffic, one should not compromise compelling and entertaining content for optimization. Even when you harness all the optimization techniques in the world, if your content is not read, shared and discussed, it would be not much help. So in sum, write quality content not only for SEO use but for your readers as well. Remember you are writing for people, not machines.

 

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