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SEO

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Why New Clients Are Failing at Providing High Quality Content That Ranks

Business, Digital Marketing, SEO 0

Most of the content published online is failing miserably at being up to snuff with Google’s quality guidelines. We define quality content as content that is well-researched, long form, solves a problem, and develops trust with your audience. Here, we list the most common reasons why new clients are failing at providing high quality content on their websites and how you can help them see the light.

From content that is far too short to ubiquitous opinion pieces that have no substance, bad content is rampant online. Here are some of the most common content mistakes clients are making.

Content Under 1000 Words

It used to be easy to get content on your site because it didn’t have to be long form. You could write around 500 words and it would be great.With the new guidelines and the changing needs of customers longer form content is the goal. Quality content writing should be at least 1000 words, 1500 or even 2000 is better. Unfortunately, over 85% of the content being published is under 1000 words.It has been proven that longer form content will get you better rankings, more shares, a higher number of likes, and much more interaction than shorter content. Teaching your clients about the importance of long form writing will help them stand out in the marketplace and gain more social media interaction.

Writing Into The Void: Ignoring Keyword Research

Clients know their business. They live and breathe it. They know everything about it. So, it should be easy to write compelling articles relevant to their industry right? No.

Too many people are writing content they THINK their potential customers would like to read. Instead, they should be writing content they KNOW their customers want to read.

How do you know what they want? By doing keyword research. Putting some time in doing research can save you tons of time and heartache in the long run. Even the best blog article is pointless is no one wants to read it.The best thing about keyword research now is that Google has become smarter than ever. You no longer have to repeat the same term over and over. The new algorithm understands what terms are related to one another.This means that if you find a great keyword to use for your client you just need to create a topic based on it. While writing on the topic, which includes the main keyword, you should naturally be using secondary and related keywords to the main one.

Writing What You Want Without Solving Problems For Readers

In a similar vein to avoiding keyword research, writing for your own purposes and not answering the questions and concerns of your customers is an issue.Quality content writing helps your clients find answers to their questions relating to your industry. Have your clients make a list of the top ten questions they get asked by their customers on a regular basis. That’s ten great high quality content articles right there. All it takes to build those into well optimized ranking machines keyword research. Make sure you sprinkle in some high volume keywords, answer the question with research and know-how, and you have a piece that adds value to your site while bringing in eyeballs.

Solving problems for their readers helps with something even more important. Answering their questions before they ask them in person will help them develop more trust for your client and their business. We all know that trust is the easiest way to turn readers into customers down the road.

Content That’s Too Hard To Read

Let’s face it, in the world of immediate gratification and reality TV nobody has time to read collegiate level blog posts. High quality content should be “skimmable”. “Skimmable” means that the article should be written in a way that lets the reader get the gist of it without reading every word. If your client wants to have more of a social media presence this is extra important.

Why quality content is important for social media is that it needs to be shareable. Quality content that is easy to read, solves a problem, and has been researched has a far better chance of getting passed around among friends.

Too Many Opinions, Not Enough Facts

While reading some of the content on your new client’s site you come to the realization that there are no sources to be found. This is a huge clue that what is being written is an opinion and not based in factual evidence.Enhance clients to find authoritative, non-competitor sources to back up their opinions with facts. This will make them look more credible to their audience and to the bots crawling for search engines.

Avoid These Mistakes And See Results

High quality content is more important than ever before if your client wants to make it to the top of the search engines. Today, you and your clients have to put in the research, sweat equity, and hard work to produce quality content for their website to see results. The purpose of the site must be clear and all the pages on the website should be working to serve that core purpose. Encourage your clients to find above par content writers that can help them achieve articles and page content that they can be proud of.

Posted by admin

How to Craft the Right SEO Meta Description to ensure clicks

Local SEO, SEO 0

When it comes to optimizing website content, there’s typically a lot of talk about the importance of choosing the right keywords and drafting compelling headlines – but the impact of Meta descriptions on a website’s on-page SEO too often goes overlooked.

While you may think you have ticked all the boxes to boost visibility of your ecommerce site, the absence of an accurate Meta description might just be costing you traffic and sales.

So, what are Meta descriptions? They are short, unique snippets that describe a webpage. Think of what you would write if you had to advertise the webpage – that is exactly what Meta descriptions need to include.

Many people tend to leave Meta descriptions blank without realizing the effect it has on search results. A powerful Meta description leads to a rise in click-through-rates which boosts the SEO ranking of your page. Simply put, they form the first impression of your website, so you rather make it a good one.

Here are 6 ways you can optimize Meta descriptions to ensure clicks.

Answer questions

Whether it’s seeking the nearest plumbing services or discovering the best hotels in Cochin – everyone on Google has come looking for answers to a problem.

Put yourself in a customer’s shoes and think about what they could possibly ask to which your business can pose a solution. Your Meta description needs to answer their question and impart value to entice them to click on your website.

While the Meta description length has been extended up to 300 characters in order to make them more “descriptive”, it is always safe to stick to 160 characters so that the description does not appear abrupt and incomplete which can be rather frustrating for readers.

Evoke emotion

Let’s face it – emotion sells. Whether it is arousing urgency, anger, joy, trust, curiosity – any piece of content that evokes emotion is likely to be more effective in persuading readers to act. The same needs to be applied while drafting Meta descriptions too.

You need to identify the emotional benefits a customer will attain by considering your brand and leverage it to drive traffic. Use words such as ‘attractive’, ‘enormous’, ‘powerful’, ‘unparalleled’ among others to strike a chord with your readers in just those two to three lines.

Use calls to action

Calls to action (CTAs) are powerful words that one must incorporate in the Meta description because they communicate a clear purpose and urge readers to take a step forward.

However, this is not the place to use obvious calls to action such as ‘read more’ or ‘shop now’. Instead, you should use words like ‘save more’, state an offer or a tangible benefit such as free delivery or a free 30-day trial in the Meta description to make better use of this space.

Incorporate keywords

Choosing relevant keywords is one of the most critical steps for SEO optimization. That said, stuffing your content with these keywords won’t fetch you results. What’s important is strategically placing them in sections that can make a difference such as the Meta description.

When Google displays search results, the search words are displayed in bold and it helps to have them highlighted in your website’s Meta description tag which indicates relevancy and catches the reader’s attention too.

You are likely to have many keyword suggestions from research. In such cases, prioritize the keyword that has maximum impact for the particular webpage and use it in the Meta description instead of fitting them all in 160 characters.

Avoid duplication

Each of the pages of your website are unique so why must they have the same description? If more than one page of your website shares the same description, then they are competing with each other because it means that they are talking about the same thing. This results in Google pushing your website lower down the rank.

So, don’t get lazy here and duplicate meta description content because that just gives the wrong signals to Google, deeming them to be spammy or repeated content which can hurt your search results.

Use rich snippets

Have you noticed some Meta descriptions contain links, reviews, ratings and video images among others? Those are referred to as rich snippets. Contrary to normal snippets, rich snippets include structured data to give more detailed information to the search engine, helping people make a better decision before clicking websites.

Rich snippets give users quicker access to information through their visually appealing formats, images and relevant information that ultimate enhance click-through-rates. So, whether it is adding a contact number, product reviews and ratings or direct links – consider incorporating rich snippets in your Meta description for it to stand out and attract clicks.

Hence, even though Meta descriptions don’t directly affect page rankings, it is recommended to optimize them to drive clicks and generate traffic.

Posted by admin

12 Knowledgeable areas to deliver Successful SEO Results

Digital Marketing, Local SEO, SEO 0

While SEO and search might not be the shiny object that it was a decade ago, it still has a critical role in the digital marketing mix.

That, plus a soaring demand for qualified talent, make it important for current and aspiring SEO professionals to know and master key areas of knowledge.

Even seasoned veterans will tell you that there are certain areas that they must continue to grow in to keep up with changes in the industry.

1. Audience Research

What used to just be “keyword research” has evolved.
While we still perform keyword research, doing it in the absence of personas, consideration of the customer journey, or focusing on topics as much as keywords is shortsighted.

Being able to understand your audience – their demographics and psychographics – and knowing what content will resonate with them all the way through to their ultimate goal (e.g., engagement, sale, lead) is what is expected.
Whether you work for a single brand or a wide range of clients, you must master the ability to see the business goals and work your way backwards to understand your target audiences and how to move them from search query to end goal.

2. Competitor Research

Understanding the competitive work scenario is important at most phases of SEO.
Just abiding by “best practices” and looking inward at your website will lead to mixed and likely underwhelming results.

Profiling high ranking and top websites and brands who are currently capturing a share of the audiences you seek is an important skill and ability to master.

Competitor research ranges from externally auditing manually and via tools to determine ranking factors of what is driving competitor websites.

This includes on-page and external factors for competitor sites as a whole and on a page-by-page basis for more granular topics and queries.

3. Web Analytics

SEO professionals are naturally expected to be able to analyze the performance of their efforts.

It is necessary to:

  • Understand the impact of your strategy and efforts.
  • Report on your efforts to the stakeholders you’re accountable to.

Proficiency with Google Analytics is a typical goal and standard.
However, there are so many additional customizations and aspects of it that aren’t default or out of the box that SEO pros should take advantage of and master.

A couple of examples:

  • Attribution models to see more of the customer journey.
  • Assisted conversions reporting.

Use all the analytics data you can to gain a complete picture that’s tied to searcher intent, different personas, and to fully know the impact of SEO on the business.

4. Tracking

Being able to serve as the point person for your own website, with web developers, or with IT teams is important for ensuring the proper implementation of tracking scripts and pixels.

This is why knowledge about analytics, heat maps, Google Tag Manager, and other tracking mechanisms is a must.
While a lot of tracking implementations and updates are straightforward, the occasional need to troubleshoot and work with others is an underrated skill as developers and IT professionals aren’t always well versed in implementation and ensuring proper tracking in tools more commonly used by marketers.

5. Indexing

Something that seems to be talked about less now than it was years ago is indexing and how it works. It’s still important that you fully understand how indexing works. That base knowledge leads to strategic or troubleshooting actions on our own websites.

Large sites, ecommerce sites, and those that have a lot of duplicate content need specific strategies around crawl budget, canonical use, use of robots commands, and more.
Plus, international sites and variations have an extra level of complexity.

6. International SEO

International SEO considerations are something that many SEO pros ignore or gloss over if they don’t have any sites or focuses outside of their home country.

If there’s a chance you’ll ever have an international focus for your site or clients, you should master at least the basics of:

  • What is required regarding:
    • Top level domains.
    • Hosting.
    • Hreflang tags.
  • How languages and countries differ for international versions of the search engines.

7. HTML

It is much easier to do SEO without an extensive background knowledge of HTML now than prior to our era of open source content management systems and tools that will show us or scrape tags for us.

A base level mastery of HTML is still relevant, however. You’ll need it when you have to troubleshoot issues caused by a CMS or code that isn’t semantically solid for SEO.

The ability to diagnose issues in the code with duplicate tags, tracking script implementations, and to be able to collaborate on AJAX, JavaScript, and other aspects of the conversation about site speed are important.

8. Local Search

Roles and responsibilities can vary depending on organizational structure for where the responsibility lies for local listings and local search optimization.

Local search is faceted enough that SEJ has an entire guide to Local SEO, outlining aspects to master.

However, the general SEO should understand:

  • The full local search ecosystem.
  • Ranking factors.
  • Importance of Name, Address and Phone (NAP) data.
  • How the claiming and management process works.

9. On-Page Factors

While focus has shifted to content and context, there’s still a place for on-page factors and ensuring that tags are unique and present on each page and that content at least addresses topics even if it doesn’t have to be hyper-focused on the frequency and density of specific words. Having a solid grasp on the on-page factors, how they work together to help build context, and what is fact versus fiction on their true impact on rankings is key.

10. Link Building

While we all want to develop content that naturally attracts links and never worry about link building, you still need to understand how linking impacts rankings and link building strategy.

A commonly misunderstood aspect is quantity versus quality and how too much or too little focus on links and authority can hold back optimization efforts.

A full grasp of link quality, strategies for attracting and gaining relevant and high-quality links, and how to implement into the overall optimization strategy are a few things that must be mastered.

11. Process Development

It’s hard to address all aspects of SEO at one time.
Being able to create a cohesive strategy, prioritize activities, and work through implementing in phases is essential to success.

Without a process for accomplishing one-time and recurring tasks, even the best and brightest among us will end up chasing rather than proactively leading the effort.

Creating a standard, repeatable process is important as well for being able to articulate with stakeholders where we are and where we’re going over the long-term nature of SEO campaigns and efforts.

12. Adaptability

This may seem like a given, but being able to have a process as noted above comes with the balance of adaptability.
Much like agile methodologies, we have to be able to pivot based on:

While adaptability is more of an aptitude than a skill, it is still important to find a way to master methods for how to pivot and change and when to recognize that something needs to be updated in your strategy, approach, tactics, or goals.

Posted by admin

Leveraging Organic and Paid Search Together: Various Steps to Maximize Performance

Digital Marketing, Local SEO, SEO 0

With over 3.5 billion searches made per day, ranking well on the SERP has tremendous power to drive traffic towards your site. As per research tracks channel share and finds that SEO traffic is still the largest trackable channel and in the majority at 50.1% of traffic, which is a number people across the community use to help elevate SEO to the C-suite to secure more support and resources.

48% of queries, however, also have paid ads that appear above the organic site results, so brands that neglect to integrate their organic and paid search strategies will lose out on tremendous potential for attracting the attention of prospects.

As brands compete for attention on the SERP, it has become increasingly common for organizations to invest in PPC. There was a 24% growth year over year in ad spend in 2017. Brands who don’t carefully develop integrated campaigns run the risk of being left far behind.

Step 1. Use paid search to test organic keywords

Raising your rankings with organic keywords requires considerable effort. You need to not only develop content but also promote the content across various channels and platforms to raise its visibility. Strong SEO also requires meeting various optimization goals and using technical efforts to improve its visibility on the search engines. Before you invest your time and energy in this process, many brands find it helpful to first research and see if the keywords will bring in the desired return. Paid search can be an excellent asset for this research.

Develop a bit of content and set up paid search campaigns to test the receptiveness of the target audience. Since paid ads will have a prominent display on the SERP when they appear, you can be confident that your site will be visible for the target keyword. You can then gauge the interest of the audience based on how they respond to the ad.

If you get a lot of clicks, for example, but also a high bounce rate and few conversions from your effort, that you have a reasonable idea that your site and content might not align well with the user intent for this keyword. On the other hand, if you see an outstanding response to your site and content, then you can feel confident throwing your resources behind an organic search campaign centered around this theme. This will help you better invest your resources moving forward.

Step 2. Use organic keyword research to find good paid keywords to target

You can use your organic keyword research to find good paid keywords to build your campaigns. Using platform features like Data Cube can provide greater insight than just for your organic search campaigns. You can also use them to create paid search strategies.

Use Data Cube to find relevant keywords and base you interest around the search volume. You can also research the keyword further to see what types of content appears on the page for that particular term, as well as how many ads appear at the top of the page. This will help you create a list of keywords that will provide the most value for your brand.

Step 3. Use paid to raise traffic and attention for seasonal or new content

Many brands need to produce seasonal or new content for various new products or seasonal events. Producing content and then earning rankings on the search engine high enough to capture a significant portion of the relevant traffic within a very short period, however, can be very difficult. The task can feel nearly impossible for smaller brands who do not have sites carrying an immense amount of domain authority.

Paid search can help fill in this gap. You can use paid search strategies to raise the prominence of your site for high-value keywords. This will help you attract traffic and engagement to the page earlier than you would have relying solely on organic.

Since a well-qualified paid search campaign also brings in relevant traffic, your efforts can also help to further boost the organic rankings of the material.

Step 4. Use paid search to target hard-to-reach keywords

There are more than a billion websites online. This means that nearly every industry has intense competition online. This competition renders some keywords particularly difficult to rank highly for. You likely have encountered some keywords that are highly relevant for your target audience, but the sites that rank well for these terms are well established. Finding ways to surpass these keywords in Organic will be nearly impossible.

Paid search, however, can help to achieve this goal. Between 1 and 4 ads will be shown at the top of the SERP for most queries. This means that paid searches will increase your visibility on the SERP for those hard-to-reach keywords. You will be able to gain the clicks and traffic that would likely have not been possible without a solid paid strategy.

Step 5. Use organic content to build stronger paid campaigns

Building a strategy in paid search requires a greater upfront investment than organic campaigns. You have to pay for the clicks you receive on each ad. Therefore, as you build your strategy, you want to make sure you invest your money wisely.

Use organic search and content strategies to build outstanding content that will drive your paid search campaign. Just like any other type of click, when a potential customer clicks on an ad, they want the content on that page to answer their need. Brands already know about the importance of building high-quality content to meet the needs of their organic campaigns, but those same strategies also need to apply to the paid campaigns.

Create material that addresses the likely pain point of someone making that particular search. Use the keywords regularly in the content so that the site visitor knows immediately that the content has relevance for them. Use images, lists, bullets, and subheadings to make the content look appealing and interesting.

Step 6. Use paid and search together to maximize your presence on the SERP

The key to both paid and organic search lies in visibility on the SERP. When you use them together, you can maximize your visibility and presence.

  • Align the language you use across your organic and paid search strategy. Keep the messaging consistent so that users recognize you between channels.
  • Leverage the two together to drive traffic towards content. Even if you achieve page one ranking for a particular valuable keyword, a paid ad on that keyword can still boost visibility, particularly since most clicks go towards the links at the top of the SERP.
  • Use PPC to drive content engagement on other channels. PPC does not only live on the search engines. It also can help on the different social platforms, driving clicks towards your content through social channels.
  • Use the two together to capitalize on user intent. Google has focused over the past few years on deciphering the user intent of people making searches. This explains why the SERP can vary widely from search to search with the number of ads, visual content, and articles that appear. As you create your organic and paid search campaigns, consider carefully the intent of of users for those keywords and create all your material to align with these needs.

Paid and organic search are two important tools for any marketer looking to increase their presence on the SERP. Understanding how these two interact will allow you to integrate these two strategies and build stronger campaigns, driving greater traffic towards your website.

Posted by admin

Have you thought of a better strategy for your CMS, SEO, and Web Hosting

SEO, Web Development 0

Drupal and WordPress are free Open Source CMS solutions that will run on the cheapest hosting site, enterprise solutions should be developed using enterprise hardware, software, caching, bandwidth, database, hosting, and CDN solutions—beginning at birth, at installation. Here’s an exhaustive list of all the stuff you really should think about before you try to merge your I think I can, I think I can little put-put onto the highway:

SEO Automation

Most modern content management (CMS) sites support plugins and modules. There are a variety of 3rd party modules that can automatically optimize site content and site images in the background after setting up these plug-ins and integrating them into Google and Bing Webmaster tools, etc.

Writing for SEO

Most traditional copywriters are appalled by how they’re taught to write for search. Luckily, Google’s recently become more interested in user experience and readability; however, Google still only returns pages that literally have the searched-for words on them. So, writing for SEO is a balance between readability and user experience and having all the words and phrases your site needs to have to show up on search literally on the pages of your site. This also includes linking, keywords, etc.

Writing Copy for Search

Also, writing content for search. Since Google Search is extremely literal, it’s important that whatever search terms that you want your site to show up for, you need to have both the literal phrase in there and also a cornucopia of similar content. In search, SEO experts spend a lot of time doing keyword research, trying to find the least competitive search terms that would result in their site being found and then write to that; also, people oftentimes will write content based on Google Trends, trying to surf the most currently-successful content to drive traffic to their sites. Writing copy for search is all about creating content that is the most compelling to Google and Bing search so that their sites show up organically on Google under these terms.

Optimizing Drupal for Search

While database-backed CMS and blog platforms can be like catnip to Google Search based on its architecture and how professional Drupal sites tend to be, Drupal can also be a pig hog of a resource-intensive site. There are so many useful plugins and off-site 3rd party services available, each of which can slow Drupal down. Additionally, server speed, caching, image optimization, and database optimization and responsiveness, can bog down a site to where Google won’t be willing to pass visitors off to it. This can really kill search results even if the site is content-optimized for search. In the new search, all parts contribute to where your site shows up organically on search.

Optimizing WordPress for Search

WordPress is one the easiest database-backed platforms online. Unfortunately, the success of the site directly affects its performance. As a database-backed site, each additional plugin and 3rd party script can slow down a WordPress site to where Google might be unwilling to rely on it and will lower its placement in the Google rankings. So, even if the copy is on point and the site is architecturally and keyword-optimized with content that passes Google’s muster of readability while still covering all preferred keywords and phrases, you still need choose the right hosting company, have a server with enough RAM, a fast enough drive (or a quick enough virtual server), close enough to the Internet backbone (tier 1 service), image optimization, adequate caching, and possible integration with a Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to distribute service spatially relative to end-users to provide high availability and high performance. In addition to investing in better servers, better hosting, better caching, database optimization, image optimization, adding a CDN to the mix can make your site show up everywhere around the world without any undue delay. It can be a very effective service, especially for new and ecommerce sites.

Site Speed Optimization

So many companies are willing to pay thousands of dollars on SEO consultants and site developers but are unwilling to spend enough money on making sure their sites are being hosting on a powerful and responsive enough hardware, virtual, or cloud server solution to support not just the site being fast enough for your visitors, readers, or customers, but quick and responsive enough to pass Google’s PageSpeed Insights site speed test. It’s not only the allocated RAM memory or the speed of the hard drive, it’s also the responsiveness of the database, the site caching, the optimization and minification of images, CSS, HTML, and even JavaScript. There are so many advantages to 2018 Google Search; however, one of them that can be frustrating is that if your site isn’t as responsive as Google Search itself, Google might de-prioritize your listing based solely on that fact and not whether your site offers the best content. Even if your site is perfectly optimized for keywords and architecture and your link strategy is on point, if your site is perceived as too slow or not quick enough, Google will ignore it. I will be so bold as to add mobile and accelerated mobile page (AMP) to optimization via site speed.

Content Management Systems

Experts with blogs and CMS platforms since 1999, include sites on Linux, BSD, and Unix servers. Web applications built using Perl, Python, and PHP with PostgreSQL, MySQL, and ZODB database backends. Currently developing, running, populating, updating, and monitoring. CMS proficiency includes WordPress, Drupal, Zope, Plone, and Joomla. We have experience installing, monitoring, and building up online forums and message boards and Nukes, including phpBB, Phorum, vBulletin, etc.

CMS Site Management

Just because you’re the captain of your own ship doesn’t mean there isn’t an engine room full of sweaty engineers and mechanics. Yes, you can solo sail a small boat—even around the world. Anything bigger than a 35-foot sailboat and you’re going to need help. It’s important, after building and optimizing your site, you’re going to need to hire or retain an engineer or expert who can keep your site running like a top. Databases become slowly corrupted, hardware and software needs to be optimized, domain names and nameservers need to be maintained, updated, and renewed. From hardware to software to the healthiness of the pipe connecting your site to the Internet, need to be constantly gardened.

CMS Site Security

Sites can be vulnerable from the very front end through issues with templates, JavaScripts, to vulnerabilities in PHP at the server-side scripting language-level to the PostgreSQL and MySQL database back-end to the Apache, IIS, lighttpd, etc, webserver, all the way back to the OS, DNS, etc. Making sure all the holes are prevented and patched is essential.

CMS Site Updates

Updating your CMS, all the plugins and modules, and all your back-end services, including PHP, MySQL, BSD/Linux, isn’t rocket science; however, you would be surprised to see how many WordPress and Drupal sites are months if not years behind in their site security and compatibility updates. You don’t ever want to be the one caught with your pants down when it comes to site security and vulnerabilities.

CMS Site Analytics

Google Analytics and Bing/Google Webmaster Tools take a second to learn and a lifetime to master. From setting up and connecting your site to Google’s and Bing’s tools to integrating them, adding 3rd party analysis and reporting tools as well as dashboards and campaign tools, we’re more than happy to set everything up for you, including helping you with advertising and keyword services. We can even write reports for you and your boss and your board.

CMS Site Monitoring

From simply making sure that your site is always up, to making sure your site is running on all cylinders, we can set everything up for you and you can do all the monitoring—or we can do it for you. We can even write reports for you and your boss and your board.

Posted by admin

4 Vital Freelance Project Management Tips for Independent SEO Professionals

Local SEO, SEO 0

Effective project management can make or break a venture.

If you’re just starting out as a project manager, you probably have a lot more questions than answers.

What do you need to do for the project ? What tools are to be used ? How does project management for freelancers work ?

1. Use Effective Freelance Project Management Tools

Project management for freelancers is very reliant on effective communications and a clear flow of information. High-quality freelance project management software is essential for this.You want something that allows you to communicate, collaborate, assign tasks, monitor completion, and supports editing. If it has a method of invoice management and freelancer payment built in, that’s even better.

Don’t forget to check out other SEO tools. These let you better understand your market and can help you shape the kind of work your freelancers are doing.

2. Process, Process, Process

You have to have a set process for assigning, monitoring, and editing your workflow. It’s absolutely vital that things flow smoothly and stay organized at all times.

For SEO work the absolute minimum information you need available on a project tab is:

  • Task Identifier
  • Assigned Writer/Editor
  • Optimization Status
  • Due Date
  • Workflow
  • Current Status

There are plenty of other factors you may need on a case by case basis. Every task you create will need at least this basic setup.

3. Communicate

Communication seems obvious but you’d be surprised how often it becomes an issue. As SEO project manager you’re the one in charge of keeping everyone on the same page.

It’s your job to make sure requirements are understood and changes are communicated quickly and completely. You don’t want to discover that one of your contractors wasn’t working to the style guide or owners vision weeks into their work. Make sure you also recognize when people are providing excellent work. A big part of a project managers job is keeping interpersonal forces working in the project’s favor.

4. Remember the Big Picture

As the project manager, it’s your job to make sure all the puzzle pieces you’re assigning eventually form a complete picture. Make sure you’re adequately managing your own attention to ensure this happens. Set up a schedule of reviews and all hands meetings and keep to it religiously. Don’t make it intrusive to everyone’s workload, just be sure they all know that what they’re working on is part of a greater whole. We get it, it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday operations. Just make sure you always keep the big picture in mind and delegate tasks when necessary.

Always Be Improving

One of the most important things to do in freelance project management is to review your management style and tools regularly. Find out what’s working and what isn’t. Change things up and constantly improve your skills. In today’s economy stagnating is a great way to find yourself irrelevant to future projects.

Posted by admin

Grey Hat SEO Techniques That Can Help You Gain That Coveted Top Spot

Local SEO, SEO, Social Media Marketing 0

Grey hat SEO uses questionable strategies that aren’t banned by Google. But, could become black hat SEO in the future. Using these techniques isn’t recommended because they’re a bit risky.Here are 10 grey hat SEO tips that can take your website from zero to number 1 in no time:

1. Add Length to Your Old Content

When it comes to generating traffic, long content works better. If you are in a competitive niche, you should consider creating blogs posts of 2,000 words or more. The rule of thumb is that posts of 2,000 words or more can work miracles on your organic traffic.

2. Buying Expired Domains

This technique is one of the most popular grey hat strategies. It works great if it’s done right. When you buy an expired domain, you should be careful to buy a reputable URL. The domain should be relevant to your niche and free of any toxic links.

3. Using Private Blogging Network (PBN)

You might’ve heard that using a PBN is a black hat SEO strategy. Yet, this is true only if you build your PBN using irrelevant backlinks and duplicate content.

4. Taking Advantage of the Right Keyword Density

Keyword stuffing will hurt your search engine ranking. But, keeping the right keyword density in your content can do wonders for your rankings.

5. Careful Use of Social Bookmarking Sites

Submitting your website links on social bookmarking sites can help your SEO. But, you should be careful about overdoing it.

6. Submitting Your Website to Web Directories

You can get relevant and high-quality free backlinks by submitting your website to web directories. Here you’ll list your website on those directories under a category.So you should research and submit your website only to web directories that can generate high-quality backlinks.

7. Having Several Social Media Accounts

You should open multiple social media accounts to improve your social presence. When you only have one account on a social media network, it’s considered white hat SEO.But, it falls into grey hat SEO when you create multiple dummy accounts on social media. These accounts can help you increase your followers, shares, and traffic.

8. Getting Positive Reviews

It might come as a surprise but, it’s a must for any business or brand. Getting it listed is half the battle.It will improve your search engine rankings when customers leave positive reviews.

9. Building a Microsite or Blog

Building a microsite or blog can be a grand strategy to generate backlinks for your primary website.You’ll be using high-quality backlinks because you are in total control of the content. The content should be original and relevant to boost your rankings.

10. Link Building Using Web 2.0 Submission

Web 2.0 refers to dynamic content you can update to improve quality and relevancy.It will help improve your SEO by promoting user engagement. This will translate into more organic traffic to your website.

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What Is The Difference Between SEO and PPC?

PPC Management, SEO 0

The main difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) is that traffic coming from SEO (organic) is free while traffic generated from PPC is not free (as the name implies you have to pay a cost per click).

This is also the reason why you may sometimes see the terms organic search engine listings and paid search engine listings (or Paid Search Advertising – PSA).

Both SEO and PPC are part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which is one of the tools you can use as part of your overall Internet Marketing campaign.

Organic Traffic vs. Paid Search Advertising

Position in Search Results

Where exactly your ad will appear depends on a number of factors (i.e. the keywords you are targeting, keywords in your ad copy, keywords in your landing page and many more) but it’s either on top or below the organic results.
Organic results can only appear in the middle of the page. Whether your listing will appear in the top positions or first pages this depends on how optimized your web site is both in terms of on-site and off-site SEO.

  • SEO: You can get first page positions if your web site is optimized for search engines
  • PPC: You can get your ad on the first page by paying a higher cost per click (CPC)

Cost

  • SEO traffic is free and PPC is paid and while this is absolutely true, you should understand that it needs a lot of effort and hard work to get free traffic from search engines.
  • The competition is high for almost every keyword you can search and you really need to have a high quality web site and a great SEO plan to get one of the top 5 positions.
  • There are no shortcuts despite what some “SEO” companies are trying to sell you. If you are not familiar how search engines work or don’t know anything about SEO then the best way to get search engine traffic is to hire an SEO expert to do the work you.
  • On the other hand, Pay Per Click cost depends on a number of other factors.
  • If we take for example the cost per click of advertising with the most popular PPC system, Google Ads, then it depends on the popularity of the keyword, on the number of advertisers who want to use the particular keyword, the number of related web sites that have ad positions for the particular keyword and many more.
  • If it sounds a bit complicated then it probably is, despite the efforts made by Google to make the whole system easier to use.
  • The good news with PPC is that you only pay for the clicks your ad receives and not for the views.
  • In addition, you can determine in advance your daily budget and pay no more than that and you can calculate an estimate of what is the average cost per click for the keywords you want to target.
  • SEO: Cost of SEO is indirect. You cannot pay to get to the first page but you may have to pay for SEO services if you cannot do SEO yourself.
  • PPC: You pay only when people click on your ad. You can use the Google keyword tool to calculate how much you can pay.

Traffic potential

Which method can bring more traffic to your web site, SEO or PPC?

SEO (organic traffic) is more than PPC traffic so if you can manage to rank your web site for the keywords you want, you will get much more traffic than paying for those keywords.

This is because when you are in one of the top 5 positions (according to statistics the majority of search traffic visits one of the top 5 web sites) you can expect to have a continuous flow of traffic 24×7 without having to pay anything (the actual volume of traffic depends on how popular a keyword is).

So, if you compare traffic and cost of first page positions for SEO traffic and PPC traffic, organic traffic is better. There are some studies suggesting that PPC ads get more clicks than organic but this also translates to a bigger cost.

If on the other hand it is very difficult to get first page positions for a keyword then paying for traffic may be your only option since second and third page positions will probably bring 0 or very little traffic.

  • SEO: Organic traffic is continuous as long as you are ranking in one of the top positions.
  • PPC: PPC ads can get more clicks but this means that you pay more.

Conversion

Which visitor is more likely to convert (i.e. make a purchase, register to a newsletter and in general response to call for action), someone coming from PPC Ads or from organic search?

If your ads are highly targeted and optimized then a visitor from PPC is more likely to convert than a visitor coming from search.

The reason is that a web page can rank for different keywords (other than those initially intended) so the search visitor may not be looking exactly for the content (or product) presented in the particular page.
On the other hand if you run a successful PPC campaign then you will only get clicks from visitors who are interested 100% in your content or products.

  • SEO: SEO traffic is better than other forms of traffic (i.e. social media) but in terms of conversion is not as good as PPC traffic.
  • PPC: Highly optimized keywords will generate more conversions but will cost more

Ease of use

Neither SEO nor PPC is easy to do if you don’t have the necessary knowledge and experience.

SEO is a process that takes a lot of time and effort. It may take months or even years to rank for specific terms or not rank at all!

On the hand, in order to get some good results with PPC and Ads you either have to take a course or hire a PPC expert to help you or you will lose a few hundred dollars before you understand how it works.

PPC first and then SEO

PPC can bring you faster results so you can run a PPC campaign and test which keywords convert better and then try with SEO to rank for those keywords.

Use PPC when you have a high converting product and use SEO when you have a limited budget to spend on advertising.
SEO may take time but the results are (under some conditions) long lasting while with PPC when you stop paying for clicks, traffic will also stop.

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Mid-Year Review: The Top Four Digital Marketing Strategies Of 2018

Business, Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Technology 0

Marketing is evolving at an exponential rate. In fact, one survey found that 76% of respondents felt “that marketing had changed more in the past two years than in the previous 50.” Consider these digital marketing stats: By next year, mobile will account for 72% of digital ad spend. Over the last year, 60% of people started using voice search. Social media is the most popular content marketing tactic for 90% of business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses, and 94% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers use LinkedIn as part of their content strategy. Human behavior has changed, and marketers must keep up. Here are four digital marketing implementations that have moved to the forefront this year.

a) Hyper-Focused Content

Marketers are creating significantly more content. Between social media, video, photos, infographics and interactive content, consumers are saturated with content. You’re competing not just against brands with similar products, but for your audience’s attention, affection and money. Regardless of your industry, you must create a niche or hyper-focused content to attract attention.

Get specific. Think about underserved sub-niches within your audience and adjust your content calendar to appeal to these groups. For example, a fitness center may create content based on weight-loss tips or effective exercise techniques. Define your niche even more with a blog post such as “Weight training for busy moms” or “Safe and effective bodybuilding for those over 50.” If you provide the same content as your competitors, you’ll bore your audience. If you go out too far on a limb, you’ll confuse them. Find the balance between what your audience is already interested and what they haven’t seen yet. Think about targeting the niche of your niche.

b)Voice In SEO Strategies

Analysts predict that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be done using voice. That means if you are not including voice in your SEO strategy, now is the time to get started. Marketers know the importance of creating quality content to move up the internet search ladder. It’s even more important with voice search. The goal is to be in the coveted “position zero” when Google Assistant answers a user’s question. Position zero is usually the same “featured snippet” block that appears at the top of a search page. Optimizing content for those featured snippet blocks is critical to being featured for voice search.

c)Millennial Drivers

One study noted that convenience stores are twice as important to millennials as fast-casual restaurants. Why should this interest marketers? It shows that millennials want experiences that are short and sweet. Convenience is key. They want quick answers that are easy to find. Meet this need by offering a variety of search options with deep knowledge. Move past simple keyword searches. Use natural language and phrases that your millennial visitors are likely to use. Ensure they get the right answer by offering a real-time chat to guide customers that don’t find what they are looking for immediately.

How?

  • Use video.
  • Engage your audience on social media. Go beyond just having a presence.
  • Create valuable content. Work with their on-demand lifestyle by giving them the option to download meaty articles, e-books or webinars.
  • Develop an app to give millennials immediate information without the wait.

d)Artificial Intelligence

AI automation is transforming the way businesses interact with customers. In one study, 15% of respondents said they have used a chatbot to interact with a business in the past 12 months. How can you integrate bots into your digital strategy? Consider these three ways.

  • Interact with website visitors. AI bots are an easy way to live chat with visitors without a dedicated employee. Bots can be programmed to answer common questions, then pass the visitor onto a real person if the bot is unable to help. Remember to write questions and answers in your own voice, sticking to your company’s branding.
  • Qualify leads. Lead management is a challenge, especially with increasing numbers of leads coming from all of your digital efforts. Set up a bot to find out where the customer is in the sales funnel. Bots can converse, ask questions, answer questions, then pass the customer onto a sales rep when appropriate. Integrate with social media with tools such as a Facebook Messenger bot. You can direct customers to the right product without ever actually speaking to them.
  • Personalize the experience. Customers love a personal experience. Bots can be programmed to take in data from users so their visit can be personalized each time.

As 2018 unfolds, we should expect a good deal of changes in an ever-changing digital world. Be sure you stay abreast with the latest trends to assure you reach your digital marketing goals.

Posted by admin

What PPC offers you and your business

Business, Digital Marketing, PPC Management, SEO 0

What is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

Google’s PPC ads are essentially a real-time auction in which you bid on searches with the keywords you want your ad to appear for. When a keyword you are bidding on is searched with, yours and competing companies’ adverts are displayed in the ‘Ads’ positions.

The order of that display – the ranking – is decided by who bids the most and who has the ad copy and landing page most relevant to the keyword being searched with. When your ad is clicked on you pay the amount you bid.

What can PPC do for you?

Here is a summary of what PPC offers you and your business:

  • Be seen – your brand and advertising copy can be seen for any audience you choose to target.
  • Deliver almost instant traffic to your website.
  • Get qualified leads – your ads only appear in front of searchers using relevant keywords that you have chosen.
  • Make immediate sales.
  • A much higher (and more immediate) Return On Investment (ROI) than traditional advertising methods.
  • Limit your daily budget to as little as you want.
  • Add, change and delete the keywords you bid on and the ad copy you display.
  • Test the profitability of different keywords and ad copy.
  • Target different languages, regions and cities in most countries.

A Checklist for PPC success

To create your Google Ads account, visit the Ads homepage and follow the sign-up wizard which will walk you through the process.

Once your account has been activated, organization is the key to managing your PPC. Here are some tips for setting up your Ads campaign, use them as checklist for your own PPC success:

  1. Set your budget’s daily limit. This is the most you can spend in any one day. Start with a small amount and then you can bid with confidence until you’ve learned how to make a profit.
  2. Use Wordtracker to carefully choose the keywords you bid on. Your keywords are the heart of your campaign and Wordtracker shows you real words searched with by real people.
  3. Segment your keywords into different Ad Groups so that they can each have different bids, ad copy and landing pages.
  4. Write different adverts and test them against each other. And never stop testing – always trying to beat your best performing ads.
  5. What have you got that your competitors have not? What’s your Unique Selling Point (USP)? Use your USP in your ad copy to make your ad more appealing and increase your clicks. The higher your click rate, the higher up Google’s pages your ad will appear.
  6. Learn about Google’s different match bids and use exact match and broad match. With exact match you bid on specific keywords only. With broad match you bid on all keywords containing the word you are bidding on.
  7. Introduce negative keywords into your campaign. Your ad will not show for any searches containing the negative keywords you bid on.
  8. Make sure your ad copy and landing pages all use the keywords they serve. Do this and your ads can move higher up Google’s results pages without the need to increase bids – that means less cost and more profit.
  9. Geo-target your ads. Make sure your ads only appear for searchers in regions that you can sell to.
  10. Limit your ads to display only during times of the day relevant to your company and products.
  11. Measure your results using Google Analytics or Yahoo’s Index Tools and learn what works and what doesn’t, always chasing a higher return for your investment.

Pay Per Click (PPC) can bring you instant traffic and results. But beware! If you don’t know what you’re doing, PPC can take all your money for little return.

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