Tag: SEO

Confused about the low number of people who are coming to your site, and staying there? You’re probably not doing one or all of these seven things that drive traffic to your site.

You don’t blog.

Blogs are an excellent way to build original, authoritative content for your website, especially if you don’t have the resources or skills to create webinars, videos, or infographics. Blogs drive traffic to your site by offering valuable information to your potential clients. If your website doesn’t have any content to offer, why would anybody visit? If you commit to blogging consistently and promote your blog posts, you will start to see how your traffic increases.

You’re not on Google My Business.

A Google My Business listing adds your business information to Google Maps, Search, and other Google properties. It’s a great way to get eyes on your site through a verified and trustworthy source. Have you claimed your listing on Google My Business? Maybe that’s why people aren’t reaching your site when they search for you.

You’re not posting on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is an excellent platform to post when it comes to social media, because it isn’t just a social platform--it’s designed for professionals. Posting your original content (see #1) on LinkedIn, where your followers are in the business mindset and want to learn, is going to drive traffic to your site. It’s so easy to do, and it’ll bring you many new and engaged visitors.

Your site is not responsive.

More and more people are using smartphones to search instead of computers. If your site was never designed with mobile in mind, it probably isn’t very fun to visit it on your phone. Double check how your site looks and works on your phone, ask others, and if it isn’t great, definitely make getting a responsive site the next thing on your to do list.

Your site is slow.

If your site doesn’t load in less than two seconds, most people will just give up and click away. Sure, it sounds harsh, but there’s a large possibility that you’ve done the same thing. All of us on the internet have gotten used to getting things quickly, almost immediately, and studies confirm that visitors won’t wait for slow loading content. If you want to drive traffic to your site, optimize your site for faster loading times.

Your content is expired.

Unfortunately, information changes at a rapid-fire pace these days. Although you do want content on your site, you don’t need old and outdated content. Hubspot recently deleted 3,000 pages of old content from their blog, and it did wonders for their SEO. If your site is very old, you can not just prune your content, but prune your entire site and do a redesign to organize your information better. Better content, organized more invitingly, will make potential customers more willing to visit (and stay on) your site.

You’re not optimizing for SEO.

Maybe the sound of “SEO” scares you, because you don’t have much knowledge of what it means and you’re nervous to dive in, but you keep hearing about how important it is to drive traffic to your site. Maybe you’ve never heard of search engine optimization at all. If you haven’t explored SEO for your site, whether doing it yourself or getting someone else to do it, that may be why your site is getting low traffic. Do your business a favor and get to it.   Getting more site visitors doesn't have to be hard. Make these seven things a priority and see how the number of visitors to your site increases--and from there, how your business grows.

Without active representation on social media, your business is likely to have trouble staying in the competition. With customers and clients, both current and prospective, seeking social media sites, simply having a presence on these platforms isn't enough. You must also employ strategies to bolster your current techniques and to integrate new ones.

Update Content Regularly

Whether you're using Facebook or Twitter, stale content is sure to drive away otherwise interested parties. A lively presence means that visitors can get an updated look at what's going on with your business and feel a need to keep checking back. Imagine a small store that never added any products to its inventory or sought out better versions of current ones; this shop will likely not succeed. Your social media presence is similar. How often you should post depends upon the platform, the type of business and your overall goals. For example, constantly adding new jobs to your LinkedIn page might seem jarring and unreliable to viewers. On the other hand, a two-week absence on Facebook could signal that your business is struggling in some capacity. You also want to know your audience. If your target audience consists of people who work during regular business hours, scheduling your posts for the height of the business day isn't the best idea.

Interact with Visitors

You also want to show that you're invested in the people who check out your platforms. After all, they are taking the time to conduct research on your company and to interact with you. If you receive messages on Facebook about your business, make sure that you have a person or team who is dedicated to answering these messages. When followers comment on posts on Instagram or Twitter, comment back to them. While you may not have the ability to respond to every single comment, you should employ techniques to look for the most crucial. For example, if followers are asking questions and your business never answers them, you may find that these followers don't want to purchase products.

Integrate Content Marketing

Your presence on these social media platforms should be about more than posting witty status updates from time to time. Integrating the strategies of content marketing is also smart. For example, if you have a blog associated with your business, you can include snippets of it on your status updates. Then, you can list the link so that interested parties can read more. Bringing in photos and videos is also a useful way to employ content marketing. If your business sells products, such as ones for makeup application or cooking, you can create videos of people actually putting the products to use.

Match Branding Efforts

Chances are that your business has a website, and you have a particular design to that website. While you don't necessarily need to match every single element, a strong sense of cohesion should exist between your web design and your social media accounts. You want people to recognize your brand, and in order to achieve that goal, cohesion is key. Branding efforts of this nature can help to create a sense of trust in clients and customers. Also, imagine that your web design and your social media design are totally different from one another. Visitors might come to the social platform and wonder if it is even affiliated with your business at all.

Polish the Writing

Regardless of what social platform you choose to use, written content is likely to play a role. When search engine optimization, which is a set of strategies that you should study and use on your accounts, first came into the picture, stuffing keywords and phrases into content was common. The content would often lack total grammatical clarity and correctness in order to get these keywords and phrases in. Now, however, you should place a focus on writing content that is free of grammatical mistakes. What you may want to do is hire a professional writer and editor or a team of such experts to produce this content. -- Your presence on these social platforms is of utmost importance. Therefore, take the time to review your current strategies and to integrate new approaches.  If you ever feel lost or struggling, our social media experts are always available to help you on your next project.

Running a successful business requires more than honing in on products that are hot and in-demand. Today, building an online presence and brand for your business is just as important as delivering high-quality items to shoppers. Understanding the importance of professional website design and why it matters for your business is essential to truly maximize your online reach and ability to generate profits and long-term revenue.

Why Good Web Design Matters

In the beginning of the internet era, developing a website required information and simplistic graphics to captivate its intended audience. Today, the internet has become more prevalent in our everyday lives than ever, making it an extremely appealing commodity for business owners and independent entrepreneurs alike. When you visit a website for the first time, you are left with an immediate impression and response based on the overall quality of the website's design and layout. If a website appears outdated, grainy, pixelated, or simply unrealistic, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the attention and trust of your visitors. You only have one opportunity to make a positive and lasting impression on your website visitors, which is why it is so important to implement a layout design that is optimal for your business and brand.

Maximize Your Online Reach

Adding a new layout and design to your website is not only great for optics when targeting current and loyal customers, but it is also ideal to maximize your online reach. When you want to maximize your online reach and visibility, relaunching your site with a brand new look, feel, and design is imperative. A new website layout and design is one way to stand apart from your online competition while establishing your dominance and authority in the market and industry of your choosing. With a layout that is modern, attractive, and relevant, expand your ability to appeal to even more visitors and prospective customers from around the world in less time.

Fast Loading Times

Creating a new layout for your website and optimizing your site altogether is a way to increase your page's loading times. A fast-loading website is much more likely to retain the interest of visitors. If your website takes too long to load or if your website times out for visitors, you run the risk of losing potential sales or prospective customers. If a website does not load properly or fast enough, your visitors are likely to seek out an alternative website or supplier that is more responsive and easier to access.

Get Contacted in Less Time

While working to create a new layout and design for your website, consider a single page website. Single page solutions help attract new visitors without redirecting them to various pages of your website, potentially losing their interest in your services or products in the process. A single page website is a great way to promote your contact information along with your company's purpose and links to your products or eCommerce hub.

Blow Your Competition Away

Modern web design is not exclusively available for art gallery owners and graphic designers. When you want your business to stand out amongst your local and international competition, begin with rebuilding a presence and website for your company that is difficult to forget. Building a solid and loyal following while also showcasing your products using a modern website has never been easier than with updated and responsive design. Even if you are working in a highly competitive market it is still possible to outperform your toughest competition by establishing your business and brand with an updated and attractive online presence. With professional web design solutions and services, showcase your business, its brand, and the products or services you offer in a modern and aesthetically-pleasing manner. Using proper website design not only helps with building a professional online reputation, but it can be one of the quickest ways to garner followers while gaining the trust of new customers and prospective clients.

Many of our clients and the business owners that we know here at S-FX put a lot of effort into growing their web presence. They’ll work to improve their SEO, constantly check their progress on Google Analytics, and might even try their hand at Search Engine Marketing. But, most will ignore one of the easiest and most effective ways to inform people about their businesses. It’s a service called “Google My Business” and it’s absolutely free. Welcome everyone. We hope you’re ready for your weekly dose of #TechTuesdays knowledge!

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a platform that lets you manage how your business information shows up across Google Search, Google+, and Google Maps. You can post your company description, hours, location(s), and photos of your company and employees. You’ll also be able to monitor all your Google reviews, and get analytical insights into your customers. You might think of it as the most powerful directory the world has ever seen.

Benefits of Google My Business

1. Increase Your Online Exposure: When a user types “Lawn Care in NJ” or “Pizza Places Near Me” the following shows up: The important takeaway here is that the Google Map results show up before the search results. The only way to get on that list is to fill out your information on Google My Business. Once you do, customers who are looking for your business, in your location, will be sent right to you! 2. Easy to Update: If you change your address, hours of operations, etc. Google my business gives you an easy way to make that update in one place. Now you won’t have to be worried that you forgot to update Maps, or Google+; make the change once, and it will take effect across the board. 3. Interact with Your Customers: You will be able to see and respond to all the ratings and reviews put up on Google. This will allow you to thank your customers if they put up good reviews, perform damage control for a bad review, and get a general idea of what your customers think about your business. 4. Analytical Insights: Google My Business will keep track of various analytics for you including: How many people viewed your business information, how many people clicked for driving directions (and where those people are from), how many people clicked the link to your website, and how many people clicked to call you from their cell phones. This can definitely be useful in determining if your web presence is doing enough to draw customers.

Get Started With Google My Business

Going to the Google My Business website and click on “start now” to list your business information. It’s simple to do, and has the extra benefit of being free. This could be one of the most powerful options you ever take to draw more online attention your business, and bring in more customers. Until Next Week!

We’ve taken a look at important matters such as SEO (search engine optimization) tips and social media best practices for your business in previous #TechTuesday articles. Today, let’s examine that general field, but instead concentrate a laser focus on blogging and how frequently making posts can better serve your business’ search presence online. In order to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the benefits of blogging, let’s first look at how your audience is affected before we turn our thoughts to how search engines respond.

Blogging Lets Your Audience Know You’re an Authority

Put simply: You’re in the business of convincing your audience that you are an expert in your field. A guru. A sage. Heck, a regular leading light. Towards this end, frequent blogging on content specific to your industry increases your impact with customers as an authority figure. And with an increase in perceived authority comes the likelihood of your potential customers actually purchasing your goods and/or services. Plus, frequently blogging about your field helps keep you sharp, too!

Blogging Creates an Educational Resource for Your Audience

Blogging also affords you the opportunity to do a little good and provide a free resource to your audience that they would otherwise lack. Your tips, tricks, and industry know-how that may be included in your blog posts will establish an educational resource for your clients. Aside from being able to pat yourself on the back, you’ll also engender good will among your base, which may itself lead to more business.

Blogging Drives Search Engine Traffic

Now that we’ve examined how your existing audience reacts to blogging, let’s look at how search engines react. If you wish for your business’s website to achieve a high page ranking, you need content. Frequent content. Search engines know that users benefit the most from websites that offer constantly updated, original content that is topically associated with the purpose of the website (a.k.a., content that is not repetitive, off-topic spam/trash). Also, engines love when blogs contain outbound links, or those which link to another, external website (a source) to further validate the authority of your own writing. Search engines take these considerations and principles and use them all to determine how to rank websites. If sites are not frequently updated in a quality manner with sourced links, your page won’t be one of those that is consistently served to search engine users. Let’s get a little more specific and look at some numbers. When you write a blog post, it counts as an additional indexed page on your website. Once that page is indexed, it’s another shot for you to get featured in a search engine. Accordingly, the more shots you have, the easier it is for search engines such as Google to drive traffic your way. According to recent numbers, on average businesses that blog regularly receive 55 percent more site visitors. Also, you’ll receive nearly 100% more inbound links (other sites linking to your site) as a result of your persistent blogging. Those numbers represent a huge opportunity to receive new traffic and garner more sales leads. And it’s not necessarily a short-term phenomenon, either. Your blog posts remain indexed forever, and can drive traffic to your company’s web site long after you’ve made the post — even while you’re sipping mojitos on vacation!

Blogging Helps With Social Media

Don’t forget another bonus to blogging: social media help. Occasionally, you or your social media manager may be a bit stumped as to what to share on your business’s social media profiles. However, consistent blogging immediately remedies such situations, giving you a constant source of relevant information to share on social media. This both keeps your social presence looking spiffy while also broadening the reach of your authoritative blog posts.

Blogging is Inexpensive

Did we mention that blogging is an inexpensive way to build up site traffic? Even if you outsource your blog writing, it’s a far cry from having to pay for pricey web ads to drive traffic.

And of Course, S-FX Can Help

Hopefully you now recognize how important frequent blogging is to developing authority, driving traffic, and creating new sales leads, and you’re already plotting out a CEO or employee-based blog in your mind. It’s possible, though, that you feel you don’t have enough time to compose blogs, and there’s no one qualified within your organization to grab the reins, either. If so, know that we offer blog posting services, newsletter development, and social media management. Tune in next week here at #TechTuesdays to learn how Branding Matters for Your Small Business. Until then, good luck with your new company blog!

It’s difficult for anyone to arrive at a consensus as to what flawless SEO (search engine optimization) implementation looks like. In fact, there’s no such thing as “flawless implementation” in the SEO arena. Google and other search engines have been consistent in keeping their exact page ranking procedures inconsistent, as they frequently alter algorithms. As a result, those looking to keep their web pages ranked highly on search engines are left to be kept on their toes. And in the near future, Google will be leaning more heavily on social media and your location to better serve you information. For example, articles your friends have shared will list higher in your search engine results, as will those sites that offer services most relevant to your zip code. Keeping all this in mind, today on #TechTuesdays we’re setting out to ease you into the ever-shifting world of SEO with seven basic tips to get you started that aren’t predicated on knowledge of HTML (hypertext markup language). And remember, again, the world of SEO is a little like the Wild West. Even when there are “laws,” they are in constant flux and aren’t always evenly enforced, so take these tips as a list of best practices and not so much the gospel word on all things SEO.

Content

Let’s take a moment to ensure we harp on content. Achieving a high page ranking is incredibly dependent on content. If you’re not constantly keeping your website updated with fresh, original, quality content, your page ranking will suffer greatly. Search engines understand that the most useful sites for users are those frequently updated with quality information, and they’ll rank sites accordingly. Depending on the field your small business is in, you may not feel there’s an opportunity to consistently keep your site updated with new articles. However, there’s always something you can do. If nothing else, consider setting up an employee blog page on your site, or running a CEO blog.

Keywords, Keywords, Keywords!

What do people use when they search for a website without knowing exactly which specific website they are trying to reach? Why, they use keywords, of course! When you’re writing content and updating your web site, always take the time to consider what kind of word(s) a user may input into a search engine’s search field when trying to find content related to what you’re writing about. Once you arrive at a list of likely words, take action by ensuring these words are sprinkled appropriately throughout the body and titles of your article. And when we say “appropriately,” we mean organically, or naturally. Intentionally “keyword-stuffing” articles with keywords where they don’t make sense or interrupt the natural flow of things will hurt your site ranking because you’ll be labeled as a spammer. Oh, and be sure to specifically include your keywords in the title of your article and any header and subheader listings on your page, where appropriate. These are a couple of the most important areas to include your keywords.

Link Back to Yourself

Internal links matter! Always link back to yourself when possible (although not excessively). Whenever you make a reference to a previous topic you’ve written about, or quote something in your archives, ensure that you make the reference a hyperlink that connects back to that specific article on your site. If that hyperlink is itself a keyword relating to the content of the page it’s linking to, then all the better.

Search-friendly URLs

Never blindly rely on the default URLs (uniform resource locator, or web address) created as you’re making a post for your site or blog if the default URL is one that uses a randomly generated nonsense string of numbers and letters, or if it just uses the date, etc. Instead, ensure the URL uses recognizable words that reflect the content contained within your post. For example, this article here on S-FX wouldn’t be “www.s-fx.com/0324/u999867.htm,” but rather more along the lines of “www.s-fx.com/best-seo-tips”.

Social Media Distribution

Have a business social media account? Good, you should. Use it. When you make a new post on your company blog, share it with the world via your company’s Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other social media entity your have a presence on. Share it using your personal social media profile(s), too, if you have them, and encourage friends to do so as well. The more social media profiles you have sharing your content, the more eyeballs your content will reach.

Sign Up for Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools allow you to quickly check your site’s status and ensure it’s “playing nice” with Google. Adding your site to Google Webmaster Tools is a quick, straightforward process, and once added you’ll be able to index your site on the search engine the way you want it to be indexed. Google will also check your “site health” for any potential issues, as well as keep you updated as to how users are finding your site.  This knowledge can be invaluable to tweaking your site for search engine optimization and we highly recommend making use of the free service.

Sign Up for “Google My Business”

“Google My Business” is a free service that allows you to add and control your local business listing on Google and tweak how it displays to those within your area that look up the field of business you operate in — whether they are searching through Google’s Search, Google+, or Google Maps. The service also allows for users to review your business, which opens the opportunity for you to encourage friends and happy patrons to leave positive reviews that will bolster your organic search ranking within local listings.

Wrap-Up

In conclusion, allow us to simply reiterate what we suggested before: BE CONSISTENT. Consistently add new content, consistently interlink within your articles, consistently employ keywords, etc. As long as you’re consistent with the practices above, you’ll see improvement with your search ranking, and that will only mean good things for your small business.  

Source: Business Insider