Best Ways To Transform Your Google Business Profile

Are you a small or mid-size business looking to grow your online presence? As you seek methods to enhance your SEO game, look to those that help your brand stand out. By making factors like these a priority, you’ll be able to attract the right people to your website.

The best way to grow your online presence is to select SEO methods that best address your audiences’ needs. When you go with strategies that put people first, you’ll be on a path toward long-term business growth.

You’re probably wondering how adjusting your Google Business Profile (GBP) helps improve your SEO game. Today, we’ll discuss the top ways to help make that happen and how you stand to benefit.

Check That Your Contact Data Is Consistent With Your NAP

One great way to optimize your GBP is to ensure your NAP is correct. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number of your business. Taking this step may be simple, but your business does change over time. Not only that, but you may also have had different addresses in the past.

As you update your information, check to ensure your contact data on other directory sites is consistent with your NAP. By keeping your data consistent and up to date, you can build trust with your audience. Not only that, but you can also grow your rankings in the maps section of the search results.

Select The Right GBP Categories That Best Describe Your Business

Choosing the right GBP category is an important SEO factor as it can impact your local search rankings. For these reasons, make sure to select your categories carefully.

For example, if you have a store that sells coffee, you might consider choosing “coffee shop” as your category. These steps can help those looking for coffee online find your business in the local search results.

If your business does more than one thing, make sure to include subcategories too. For instance, your coffee shop may also sell cupcakes and donuts. In this case, “donut shop” and “cupcake shop” would be your subcategories.

Selecting the proper categories and subcategories helps you attract the right people to your business online. It also plays a crucial role in helping you outrank your competition in the long run.

Fill Out Your GBP Products Section

One of the most visible elements of a GBP profile is the products section. If you have a non-product business, filling out this section can bring you benefits. GBP also allows you to display photos of your service offerings. With your GBP products section, your business can gain visibility from your audience.

Google arranges your products/services photos in a carousel-style design. These features help go a long way in helping you drive more views, calls, and sales. You can categorize and add descriptions, images, and calls to action to these product profiles.

One thing to note is that the final product you enter will be the first to feature on your profile. Before adding products or services, make sure to organize them per your needs. You can also add GIFs as your product image by saving them as a JPEG. With these GBP tools, you can leverage your product section to help attract consumers.

Use Photos To Help Your Cause

Google also provides you with many options for photos you can include for your GBP. Here is a list of photo types you can add as you put together or update your profile:

360-degree view
Indoor pics
Outdoor pics

Businesses with photos receive 42% more driving direction requests to their location than those without them. They also receive 35% more clicks to their websites. These findings are according to research Google has done over the years.

The best photo practice is to include at least three pics from each of these business aspects:

Employees
Products
Services you perform

By following these measures, you can increase your web presence and get online searchers to explore your business further.

Write A Compelling Business Description

You can also optimize your Google Business Profile by writing a rational business description. On your profile, Google gives you a max of 750 characters to describe your business. One thing you want to avoid including there is sales jargon. It can potentially alienate your audience and go against Google’s rules.

Here are some things you can include in your GBP business description:

Company mission and vision
History
Products and services
What makes your business unique?

With a top-tier business description, you can give your audience the best details about your business. They also would be more likely to look into your business further.

Keep Your GBP Q&A Section Up To Date

You can also improve your SEO game by optimizing your GBP Q&A section. Google gives you the option to create a question and answer vault within your profile. They do this to ensure the answers consumers receive are the ones you want them to.

As with many portions of your GMB, consumers can contribute and control how others view your business online. To provide people with the right questions and answers, use the consumer data that comes up in your Insights section.

By adding the best questions and responding to them, you’ll have more control over the narrative. You’ll also ensure that people will perceive your business better.

Post Regularly From Your GBP

Keeping in touch with your audience is a prime SEO factor. Posts that originate from your GBP are pretty much mini-blogs. They provide your audience with important information along with updates from your business.

Below are two key benefits of how posting from your GBP can improve your SEO efforts:

Posting Boosts Your Keywords And Phrases

As you post from your profile regularly, you can boost your primary and halo keywords you want to rank for to Google’s algorithms. Over time, they build up your association with your goods and services. With these measures, you can reach the right people and influence consideration for your business.

Posting Drives Up Engagement

Google also evaluates engagement when it comes to SEO factors. They measure how much you engage with your profile.

As you provide your audience with regular updates via posts, you can drive up your engagement levels. The more you engage with your GBP, the more likely Google will reward you.

With top-quality posts, you’ll achieve better search rankings and more customers.

Check On Your Online Reviews

Review signals are another prime factor when it comes to SEO. They also influence whether people will do business with you or your competitors.

Research shows that 89% of people check online reviews before setting foot in a specific business. 84% of those consumers also trust online reviews as much as their peers. Also, 31% of them will do business with those that have great reviews.

If your business receives a bad review, that doesn’t mean doom for your business. When this happens, look to address the consumers’ concerns and work towards solutions that best address their pain points. With these approaches, consumers are more likely to view your business positively. They may even turn around to upgrade their rating to a positive review.

When it comes to reviews, make sure to also be proactive in requesting reviews. As they leave a positive review, make sure to thank them. With a people-first approach like this, you’ll be on track to gain the trust of your potential customers.

Choose People-First Approaches when Updating Your Google Business Profile

As you update your GBP, look to SEO methods that engage your audience and tell the best story about your brand. With these people-first methods, you’ll drive engagement and be on track toward building long-term consumer relations. By focusing on the needs of people, you’ll be on a path toward strategic growth for your brand.

What else do you feel is the best way to optimize your Google Business Profile? Which other SEO methods can also help you build trust with your consumers and drive business growth? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share your thoughts below.

Six Website Optimization Tips To Help Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

As we’re now in the second half of 2021, we’ve seen many events occur that affect consumers and brands alike. That’s especially the case when it comes to the Digital Marketing industry. This makes improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts that much important going forward.

Today, we’ll discuss a few website optimization tips that will help increase your search engine rankings. In the end, you’ll gain a better idea of how your brand can compete in a fast-evolving online world.

Improve Your Site Speed

Site speed is a key factor that determines the success of brands online. With every second it takes for your page to load, the number of people bouncing from your page increases too. This will cause your overall page ranking to suffer a drastic drop.

For this reason, you’ll want to make addressing your page speed a top priority. To test your site speed, there are free online services that can help you optimize your page. Below are some great examples of these types of services.

Google Page Speed Insights
GT Metrix
Pingdom Tools
WebPage Tests

With a faster website speed, you’ll stand to gain more visitors and increase your overall page rankings.

Make Sure Your Site Is Readable And To The Point

Always keep your audience in mind when writing website content. Strive to write it in a way most people understand. To attract their interest, make your key points right at the beginning. Use headings and subheadings to explain the topic without having to read further. This helps guide readers into reading information that’s most essential to their research.

Another writing tactic you should use is what’s called the Inverted Pyramid Method for best SEO results. To attract the interest of readers, make your key points right at the beginning. This helps entice the readers to read more about what you have to offer. If they can find value by scanning the text, they’ll be more likely to consider your brand.

It’s also best to use transition words like “less than” to compare and “thus” to conclude. This will help you make your points while bringing clarity to your audience.

Utilize Top Quality Outbound Links

Outbound links are another crucial SEO factor to keep in mind. When making claims, it’s always a great idea to back them up. For that reason, make sure that you link your claims to trustworthy sites. Here are two great tips to follow when using outbound links.

Make sure the target site is of high authority.
Use facts that have been published within the past 12 months.

By taking these steps, you’ll be able to gain credibility with your audience.

Use The Right Keywords For Your Website

Gone are the days where you could pick any random keyword, write a 500-word article, and rank for that keyword the next day. SEO has since gone through so many changes due to many algorithm updates by search engines.

That’s why researching the intent of your target audience has become a crucial need. This will help you determine which long-tail keywords work best at bringing those people to your website. Here are some examples of keyword research tools that can help assist you in your keyword research.

Ubersuggest
Moz
SEMRush
Ahrefs

The key here is to think about how your audience would search for a keyword. Also, think about what kinds of content they seek to find on a page. When using these tools, start by typing in a broad keyword. They’ll provide you with a list of keyword suggestions you can use to attract a specific audience.

Repeat this step over again as you create more website content. Aim to write top-quality articles that provide others with as much information on the topic as possible.

Use The E-A-T Method

Another great way to ensure you’re developing high-quality content is to use the E-A-T method. This stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Expertise

Expertise refers to the high knowledge and skills a content creator has in a particular field. For YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) topics, formal expertise is a must. An example of this type of topic is providing medical advice to others.

As for Non-YMYL topics, it all comes down to one’s everyday expertise. For example, someone on a support page sharing their experience of recovering from an injury counts as that. Expertise is a crucial part of developing content that provides value to others.

Authoritativeness

This refers to the reputation of the content creator. When others see a website or an individual as their go-to source for information, that is authority. A great example of this is people searching for symptoms on WebMD. Due to WebMD’s credibility over time, people see them as their primary source for medical information.

Raters check authority through independent sources like reviews, expert recommendations, and references. As you create content, you always want to make authoritativeness a key part of your plans.

Trustworthiness

What this talks about is the legitimacy and transparency of the content creator. Raters look at three main things as they evaluate trustworthiness.

Content accuracy
Content information
Proper citation of trustworthy sources

These three pieces are crucial as you create content for your website. After all, trust is a major factor in helping you attract your ideal audience.

The E-A-T method goes a long way in helping build your online presence and growing your search engine rankings. It also helps you avoid any surprises that may come from any Google Core Updates.

Show Users And Search Engines Your Website Is Secure And Consistent

Website security and consistency are both major page ranking factors you’ll need to take note of. That’s why it’s crucial to follow these steps to ensure the best results.

Maintain Consistent Contact Data

Ensuring consistent contact data across local directory sites helps build trust with your audience. When using Google My Business (GMB), always include your name, address, and phone number (NAP). You should also check to make sure your business listings are consistent with your GMB listings. This helps go a long way in helping you rank high in the maps section of the search results.

Stay Up To Date With Security Updates

You always want to stay up to date with security updates. This fixes loopholes in systems to ensure secure site data. It also keeps your site from being exploited.

If you must delay any updates, make sure to set up a time that works best for you. Just be sure to perform the updates as soon as possible.

Use HTTPS

Utilizing HTTPS can also help keep your website secure. It uses the SSL/TLS protocol to protect data so that attackers can’t compromise it. This helps make HTTPS-protected sites more trustworthy in the eyes of a user.

When you demonstrate consistency and solid security practices, search engines will reward you for it.

People Focused Website Practices Lead You To The Best Results

Website optimization strategies that focus on giving your audience a top-tier experience will drive the best SEO results. It’s also important to make your information quick and easy for them to find. That way, you’ll be able to advance your cause positively and increase your search engine rankings ten-fold.

What else do you feel is key to helping increase search engine rankings over time? How do you feel these tips will help translate towards growth for brands? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Four Tips To Using Local SEO To Increase Your Online Presence

Ski Lift In Aspen — Photo by Chase Baker On Unsplash

Are you a local small business or an eCommerce brand looking to move up the search engine results page (SERPs)? Whatever the case, you’ve come to the right place. Today’s consumers are searching online for products or services that can best fulfill their pain points or needs. That’s why it’s vital that you make Local SEO a part of your online marketing plans.

Today, I’ll discuss four tips on how to grow your online presence and attract your ideal consumer via Local SEO.

Make Use Of Local Link Building Tactics

Link signals like domain authority are among Google’s top-ranking factors. Local SEO will require these kinds of tactics, as does SEO overall. That’s why linking domains should be geared more towards your target location.

A great way to achieve this is to target top authority sites in your area. Let’s say that you’re a local shop in Aspen, CO, that sells skiing gear and offers ski lessons to beginners. You could target local tourist sites as a potential linking partner. When you gain valuable backlinks from sites like these, you’ll be on a path towards gaining credibility with search engines. You’ll also be on track towards growing your brand.

Use Long-Tail Keywords Within Your Content

If you’re a small to mid-size brand, it’s highly likely you’ll be competing against big brands for short-tail, broad keywords. That’s why you need to work on using long-tail keywords as you create content. These types of keywords are long and more specific that people use as they get closer to making a purchase. They don’t yield as much web traffic, but they’ll help attract the right audience to your site.

Using short-tail keywords like jersey is more competitive and won’t help you reach your target audience. For best results, use keywords like women’s Denver Broncos football jersey. These keywords are more detailed about what type of product you’re selling. This helps you gain more targeted traffic and will help increase your conversion rate.

When seeking to attract your audience, do these two things.

Seek quality over quantity when it comes to online traffic.
Use long-tail keywords to attract your ideal audience.

This will help you lead to long-term success with your Local SEO efforts and help grow your brand.

Build On Your Brand’s Reputation Management

Review signals are a key player in your local search rankings. That’s why you need to respond to reviews, good or bad, in a timely manner. It’s not the end for your brand if you receive a bad review. It all comes down to how your brand responds to adversity.

That’s why you should be attentive to the consumers’ concerns and work towards solutions that best resolve their pain points. Consumers will be more likely to think highly of your brand, and they may even change their rating to a good review.

Ensure Your NAP Is Consistent Across The Web

Search engines assess citation signals such as your brand’s NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency in local search results. This means that you’ll need your information to be on major citation sites like these below.

Google My Business
Yelp
Bing
Social Media Sites

You also need to take steps to ensure your brand’s NAP is consistent across all sites. Check for any misspellings, address, and phone number differences. Also, keep track to ensure that there are no duplicate listings. If there are any, work to resolve them promptly to improve your Local SEO efforts.

Make Local SEO Part Of Your Digital Marketing Plans

When it comes to Local SEO, always put the needs of people first before anything else. Make sure you take these steps to ensure that your content is easy to find, consistent, and reputable. This will help attract your ideal consumer and earn you respect from the search engines. In the end, you’ll be setting your brand up for long-term growth.

What else do you feel is key to using Local SEO to increase your online presence? How do you feel these tips will help translate towards growth for your business? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Eight SEO Tips To Help Grow Your Online Presence In 2021

Happy New Year everyone. 2020 sure has been a rollercoaster year for us all. It also has been a year full of major events. This couldn’t be more true when it comes to the fast-growing landscape that is Digital Marketing.

There was one event towards the end of 2020 that helped set the stage for the future of Digital Marketing. That event was the December 2020 Google Core Update. These updates happen to encourage websites to write content that addresses users’ needs instead of just trying to please search engines. Google and other search engines strive to bring users relevant content and that is what brands need to do too.

A great way to help provide that is via a quality Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. These eight SEO tips will help address the needs of users while helping grow your online presence in 2021. Let’s go over them, shall we?

Avoid Black Hat SEO Tactics

An important lesson to know about SEO is that it is a long-term online strategy. This means that we must never try to trick the search engines in hopes of getting high search rankings. That is what we call Black Hat SEO tactics. Here are some examples of those tactics that you should avoid doing.

Cloaking

This is the practice of showing the search engines a different set of content than what is actually on a site. The actual content turns out to be subpar and gives users a bad experience. That will get you in big trouble with the search engines.

Duplicate Content

This is taking content from others and passing it off as your own in hopes of getting higher search rankings. Search engines will not be kind to sites that duplicate content and will harm you in the end. On top of that, this is plagiarism as we learned in English class.

Irrelevant Links

This is the practice of seeking any link from sites that provide irrelevant content from what your site is about. This will make your site look like spam and that will not go well with the search engines.

Keyword Stuffing

This is where sites use the same phrases nonstop throughout their site in hopes of attracting web traffic. This is spam-like behavior that gives users an unpleasant experience. It will also harm you in the search engine results page (SERP).

Spam Blogging

This is the practice of commenting on other blogs or letting others comment on yours for link juice. Blogging on posts that have nothing to do with your cause makes you look like spam to users. In return, it will cause harm to your search rankings.

In other words, don’t do it. Black Hat SEO will do you no favors in earning trust from users. It can also harm you in the search engine results page and could even get you de-indexed. Always go for White Hat SEO tactics instead to help increase your presence towards the right people.

Seek Quality Links

It is crucial to not seek just any links. You want to focus on links that are most relevant to your brand’s cause. Focusing on getting the right links helps your brand stand out to the right audience in a positive way. It also benefits both you and your linking partner as you’d both benefit from high quality web traffic. When seeking links, always go for Quality over Quantity as you would in other Digital Marketing situations.

Make Use Of Long-Tail Keywords

If you’re looking to increase your conversion rate, then turn to long-tail keywords. Long-Tail Keywords are long, specific keyword phrases that visitors commonly use when closing in on a purchase. According to a study by Neil Patel, using long-tail keywords averages a 36% average conversion rate. This will help go a long way in helping outrank your competition while building up your long-term online presence.

Some great tools to help you uncover long tail keywords include SEM Rush, Answer The Public, and Google Keyword Planner. Tools like those will help you identify keywords that will best help you reach the right audience.

Match User Intent With The Most Relevant Type Of Content

You also want to keep in mind where they’re at in their customer journey. That is why you need to know the three types of user intent below. That way, you’ll know what type of content is most appropriate to develop for that specific audience.

Informational Intent

This is where people look for the ‘I Want To Know’ type of content like FAQs or How-Tos. The goal is to bring in the right kind of users who are not familiar with brands like yours.

Navigational Intent

This is where people search for “I Want To Go” content types such as store locations and customer service information. The end goal here is to provide a great shopping experience and provide top-notch information that best helps customers.

Transactional Intent

This is the type of content that you would encounter at the end of the customer journey. This is where “I Want To Do” content types like Videos and Product Stories appear. The end goal here is to seal the deal with the customer and get them to hit the Buy button.

Keeping the intents of your audience in mind will help you plan which types of content you should develop. By following this step, you’ll help provide your users with a great experience at every step in their customer journey.

Strive For High-Quality User Experience (UX)

A crucial tip in growing your online presence is to give your audience a high-quality UX while on your site. One thing to do is to work to keep your site up to speed. A great way to test your site speed is to use the GTmetrix tool. This will give you details on how you can help improve your site speed.

You also want to make sure that your website is easy for users to navigate. A great way to accomplish that is to make your content be accessible in the least amount of clicks/taps possible. This helps your users find what they’re looking for much quicker.

You also want to ensure that your website is responsive across all devices and that it works well on mobile. With mobile taking up a large percentage of today’s online searches, this is crucial to ensure success in attracting visitors.

Make Your Main Points Clear And To The Point

To attract readers’ interest, you always want to make your key points at the beginning. First, use headings and subheadings that best explain the topic without needing to read further. This will help guide readers into reading information that is essential to their research.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style for best SEO results. This means work to put your key points in the first paragraph and work to entice readers to read further. Readers will be encouraged to read on if they can find value by scanning the text.

To help make the flow of the text be clear, use transition words. Examples of them include “less than” to compare and “thus” to conclude. No question that they’re helpful in making your points while bringing clarity to your readers.

Utilize The E-A-T Method

A very important tip in helping grow your online presence in 2021 is making use of the E-A-T method. EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. To demonstrate expertise in YMWL (Your Money or Your Life) topics such as medical advice, formal expertise is basically a must. For Non-YMYL topics such as sharing your experience with a disease on a support page, it’s all about demonstrating everyday expertise. Expertise is vital in developing high-quality content.

You also need to demonstrate authoritativeness when developing content. Raters check up on authority via independent sources like reviews and expert recommendations like on WebMD. This sure is something to consider when thinking about what type of content you should create.

People also look to how trustworthy content creators are. They look to things like content accuracy and proper citation of sources. This will go a long way in building trust with the right audience and helps attract them in the end. The E-A-T method will help ensure that your content is high-quality and overcomes any core update that comes along.

Make Voice Search A Big Part Of Your Plans

A growing online trend that we should take note of is voice search. According to a DBS Interactive study, 27% of online users use voice search. Voice search queries tend to be longer so it is a great idea to make use of long-tail keywords. In addition, they tend to be questions so including FAQs for your pages would be a great plan to utilize. Voice search may be small now but it will be a big thing in the future. That is why you want to make it a big part of your online marketing strategy going forward.

A People-First SEO Strategy Grows Your Brand For The Better

There is no question that taking a people-first approach to SEO helps grow your brand’s online presence for the better. In addition, making it easier for your website visitors will make it more likely that they convert into paying customers. When you put the needs of the people first, the search engines will reward your brand greatly in the end. By giving your users a great experience at every step, your brand will be set up for long-term success.

What do you feel is key to growing your online presence in this new year? What other SEO tips do you feel are essential to helping your brand succeed? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO

White Hat vs Black Hat? Whatever could that mean? You might be thinking that a battle in the Wild Wild West is about to go down. While it might not be exactly that Old Western battle that involves cowboys, vaqueros and prospectors, there definitely is a battle between brands in standing out in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The way that brands accomplish just that is via Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Most good brands would work towards focusing their SEO strategies around their ideal consumers. There are others who focus their SEO strategies on trying to trick the search engines like Google and Bing in order to get ahead. The latter my friends is what we call Black Hat SEO.

Six Black Hat SEO Tactics To Avoid

Black Hat SEO is best defined as the practice of obtaining website traffic by means of foul play against the rules of the search engines. While Black Hat SEO may get you some wins in the short term in terms of attracting web traffic, it can doom you in the long run in a way that you’ll never recover. With that being said, I’m about to describe to you six of the most common Black Hat SEO tactics you’d be wise to avoid.

Irrelevant Keywords

There are some who try to use keywords that are not relevant to their cause just for the sake of attracting search engine traffic. It might bring you plenty of traffic at first but at the end of the day, the users will bounce away from your site. Eventually you’ll lose your credibility with the online users and the search engines.

Keyword Stuffing

There are some that will use the same phrases over and over again throughout their online content just for the sake of trying to attract search engine traffic. For example, take a look at this sentence below:

“Come shop at out Doggity Dog Shop and get the Doggiest Dog Dog clothing for your doggity dog so that your dog is the doggiest dog of all the doggity dog.”

Definitely a head-spinning experience for online users (By the way, I love dogs 🐶. They’re so adorable as is my sister’s dog Zeus.) Like with irrelevant keywords, it won’t end well when it comes to where you’ll end up in the SERP. Not to mention that you’ll bore and annoy the online user.

Irrelevant Links

There are some that will seek backlinks towards their site just for the sake of attracting website traffic. Seeking just any link from websites that provide no relevant content from what your brand is about will make you look spammy. Obviously, participating in online spammy-like behavior won’t go over well with the online user and could even get you penalized by the search engine.

Cloaking

There are some that will attempt to fool the search engines into giving their site a higher ranking by showing the search engines a different set of content than what it actually is. Most of the time, the actual content is of low quality and provides the online user content that gives them no value or worse, a negative experience. This is an absolute NO-NO and could get your site greatly penalized or banned entirely from the SERP.

Spam Blogging

There are some that will comment on the blogs of others or let others comment on theirs just for the sake of obtaining link juice in hopes of getting higher rankings in the SERP. Let me tell you something, simply blogging on posts that have nothing to do with your cause will do you no favors and will make you look spammy in the face of the online user.

Duplicate Content

There are some that will take content from other pages and then put it on their own page making it look like it belongs to them in hopes of getting a decent ranking in the SERP. Let me tell you that will not go over well with the search engines and could get you penalized. Also, that is online plagiarism as we all learned in English class during grade school.

As you can see here, Black Hat SEO tactics will do you no favors in the end. On the contrary, it will greatly hurt your standing with both the online user and with the search engine. In other words, DON’T do it. Black Hat SEO is poison, evil and potentially deadly when it comes to your standing with the search engines. Thankfully, there’s a better way to go by making your brand’s voice heard in today’s online world. That something is the exact opposite of Black Hat SEO which is called White Hat SEO.

Five White Hat SEO Tactics To Embrace

White Hat SEO is best defined as the practice of obtaining website traffic via online consumer-oriented means that actually focuses on building relationships with your ideal target audience while being within the rules of the search engines. While this route may take time for you to see strategic results, it will pay off in the long run while helping increase your online presence towards your potential customers in a positive way. With that being said, here are five of the most common White Hat SEO tactics that will help you achieve quality results.

Keyword Research

What everyone must do in order for their ideal consumer to find you is to think like them. Study their search intents at every stage of the customer journey. Are they asking a question? Are they ready to make a purchase? These are questions to ask yourself before choosing keywords that are most relevant to what you offer and that will best attract your audience to your website. Keyword research will make a big difference when planning your content that will help attract the right people to your website.

Relevant And Quality Links

When it comes to link building practices, it is important to not just seek any links. Definitely focus on seeking quality links that are most relevant to your cause. Focusing on getting those right links will help your brand stand out towards your audience in a positive way. It will also be a win-win situation for both you and your linking partner as they would both benefit from that quality web traffic due to your discipline in seeking the right links. In other words, Quality over Quantity wins out here as it does in countless Digital Marketing situations.

Quality Blogging

Just like when it comes to link building, the best blogging practices come when you focus your efforts on those who are most relevant towards your cause. When reaching out to the blog owners, important to be authentic when composing that message. Show interest in their work and offer something that is of value to them that will help grow their cause. Using the Quality over Quantity approach while showing genuine interest in your outreach approach will help lay the foundation towards achieving strategic online results.

Quality User Experience (UX)

Definitely important to give your online audience a quality experience while they browse your website. Websites that are easy to navigate and up-to-speed are more likely to be viewed favorably by your online audience. In order to ensure maximum success, making your content easy to find in the least possible amount of clicks or taps will help your audience find what they’re looking for in a much quicker fashion. It also is a great idea to ensure that your videos on your site are no more than one minute and make sure that your website is optimized for mobile as mobile takes up a large percentage of today’s online searches.

People Over Search Engines

When it comes to developing your actual content, it is important to develop an approach that is Customer-Centric. While you do need to ensure that your website is visible to search engines, you also need to think of your customers first. When placing your keywords into your online content, do so in a way where your sentences are clear, understandable and easy to read. Ensure that your web content focuses on the needs of your ideal consumer and helps lead to resolving their inquiries. Focusing your Digital Marketing strategies on being the solution to the problems their ideal audience faces will help your brand stand out in a positive way. Also, don’t be afraid to share your story in a way that resonates with your audience and inspires them to take action. Taking the Customer-Centric approach to Digital Marketing will help your brand stand out against your competitors in today’s online world.

As you can see here compared to what you saw in the Black Hat SEO section, White Hat SEO is much more likely to yield you strategic results that will help lay the foundation towards long-term relationships. White Hat SEO is that magic potion that will help catapult your brand towards new heights. Ranking highly in the SERP does take hard and does take time but at the end of the day, staying true to your end goal towards customer-centricity will pay dividends for the better.

White Hat SEO Wins Big In The Wild Wild Online World

As you can see here, White Hat SEO is the Good while Black Hat SEO is the Bad and Ugly. In today’s online world, Good is what wins all the time, every time. The key to success is by implementing an online strategy that is relevant to your brand’s cause, focuses on authentic outreach strategies and focuses on the needs of your target audience. In other words, Quality Over Quantity and People Over Search Engines is how you accomplish your Digital Marketing goals. By staying true to your brand and showing long-term commitment towards your goals, you’ll be on your way to success in building your online presence and grow your brand for the better.

What SEO strategies do you feel will help grow the online presence of brands in the long run? What SEO strategies do you feel we should all avoid? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.

Three Essentials To Keyword Research Success

When it comes to today’s online consumers, they’re always looking for brands that relate to them the best and will help them solve the problems that they face. There are so many brands both big and small that they can choose fun which means that competition is on the rise to win over those potential customers. Many businesses, especially small businesses, always ask themselves questions on how to reach their ideal target audience. Well, it all starts with doing what is called Keyword Research.

Keyword Research is the process of targeting keywords that will help you reach out to your ideal target audience in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other major search engines. With competition at an all-time high, it’s crucial to research the intents of your target audience and come up with keywords to reach them and help grow your business in the long run.

With that being said, here are three essentials to a successful keyword research strategy that will help lay the foundation to your long-term SEO strategy.

Know What Your Target Audience Is Looking For

Before you can actually start researching keywords and adjusting your content to reach your ideal consumers, you must first know what their search intents are when it comes to their exact needs. This all depends on where they are in their customer journey whether they just want information or if they’re ready to make a purchase. When it comes to the search intent of your target audience, there are five major categories of intent they could fall under as listed below:

Informational: This is where searchers need specific information such as the name of the highest point in Texas.
Navigational: In this scenario, searchers want to go to a page of well-known brands such as Microsoft or to the Denver Broncos homepage.
Transactional: Here, searchers want to do a specific action like downloading music or buying a ticket to a sports event.
Commercial Investigation: In this case, searchers compare products and services to find the best one that fits their exact needs. This is common in the E-commerce industry.
Local Queries: Here, searchers want to find a business that’s close to home or in their vicinity such as a nearby restaurant, movie theaters, etc. This is the category that we recommend small businesses strive to rank in as they’re most commonly concentrated in one local location.
Language: This is where searchers may speak different languages and want information displayed in that language. One example of this is when Spanish-speaking customers are searching for Popsicle sticks, ice cream, and other frozen treats via search terms like “Paleteria Y Neveria De Aaron.”

Definitely, valuable information we just went over in defining the intents of your target audience and how to categorize them based on their exact kinds of needs. Knowing which categories your audience falls under will better prepare you as you seek out those keywords while adjusting your content to reach those consumers. Now that you know how to categorize the intents of your target audience, let’s dive into how frequently are they searching via specific search terms.

Know How Frequently Your Audience Uses Specific Search Terms

Always important to note that many are also seeking the same keywords that you are. With that said, look for ways to distinguish yourself from your competitors. What may work for them may not work for you. This is especially true if you’re a small business competing for a great position in the SERP so it’s crucial to come up with the right keywords that best describes what you have to offer to your ideal customers.

There are two keyword types commonly used to reach consumers in the SERP.

Short-Tail Keywords: These are the keywords that consist of phrases of three words or less and tend to be broad. Keyword examples are “Women’s Soccer Gear”, “Men’s Shoes” and “Spatula”.
Long-Tail Keywords: These are the keywords that consist of phrases of more than three words and tend to be specific. Keyword examples are “Short Sleeve Denver Broncos Shirt” and “Hydrodynamic Spatula With Port And Starboard Attachments”.

They definitely have key differences in terms of search traffic potential and conversion rate potential. Short-Tail Keywords tend to be highly competitive keywords which makes it harder and more costly for your website to be found in the SERP. Only well-established and authoritative companies like Amazon and Google would be found easily via these types of keywords. It’s probably better for newer companies and SMBs to be found via a different route.

Long-Tail Keywords tend to be less competitive and have less search volume but here’s the catch. It costs less and those who search via this route have high intentions of making a purchase which means that the chances of conversion are pretty high.

This is definitely a gold mine for new businesses and SMBs to take advantage of and lay the foundation towards not only getting found by your ideal customers but also getting them to become your customers. That is assuming that you have quality content that answers the exact needs of the customer. Focus your keyword research on long-tail keywords. It will definitely pay huge dividends as you work to build your brand via an excellent SEO strategy.

There are great keyword research tools that can help assist you with finding keywords that work best for your business as you work to build up your long-term online presence. Great tools include the following listed below.

Moz Keyword Explorer
Google Keyword Planner
Google Trends
Answer The Public
Bing Keyword Research
SEMRush’s Keyword Magic Tool
Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

These are all valuable tools that can help you gain valuable insights about ranking potential, competition and suggestions on giving you the best insight on which keywords would work best for you when it comes to standing out in the SERP on both Google and Bing.

Know Where To Insert Your Keywords Into Your Content

Now that we covered the keyword search intent categories of what your target audience is a part of and how to research the frequency of those keywords, now we must figure out which areas of your content would we place them into.

One big thing to remember is that you don’t want to get into keyword stuffing just for the sake of trying to trick the search engines into ranking you higher. That will be a huge turnoff towards your target audience and will hurt your chances of converting. Also, it would hurt you in the rankings and you’ll lose the trust of your target audience.

Always important to optimize your site for the user first before anything else. After all, the users are your potential customers so always strive to provide them an excellent user experience.

When it comes to the areas of where in your website you would strategically insert your keywords into. There are four types of areas we would place them into as listed below:

In Your URL

Definitely important to include keywords in your URL that are relevant to your cause and would help the users understand exactly what type of content they can expect on your site. A great example of a user and SEO-friendly URL would be something like this:

https://shop.denverbroncos.com/denver-broncos-men-jerseys

Definitely a quality URL as opposed to something not SEO-friendly and unclear to users like this:

https://www.dontdothisone.com/Folder/Y3485939/345

People and search engines alike both prefer URLs that have descriptive keywords relevant to the site owner’s cause as opposed to boring old numbers that say nothing about you. Definitely keep this in mind when deciding on your URL.

In Your Heading And Meta Tags

These are one of the first places the search engine will be scanning so definitely incorporate your keywords here. The Title Tag will be of biggest importance as this will be what your audience will see as the link on the SERP. Definitely use keywords that are relevant to your cause and will help identify yourself to both the users and the search engines.

You also want to incorporate your keywords into both the META description tag and the META keywords tag. This is the area where only the search engine bots will be crawling your page. When it comes to the META description, you definitely want to include your keywords towards the very front of your description as search engines only scan through the first 150 characters.

When it comes to the META keywords, you definitely want to only include keywords that are relevant to the page on your site as well as the website as a whole. The key to be recognized and identified correctly by the search engines via the META tags is to aim for relevancy and accurate descriptions of what your cause is about. That will help rank you for exactly what you’re wanting to rank for.

Definitely work to use keywords that will help both your target audience as well as the search engines identify exactly what your cause is about so definitely refer to this when coming up with what to write as your heading along with the META tags. Also, do the same thing for your headers and sub-headers within your content as well.

In Your Alt Tags

This is important when it comes to increasing visibility towards the search engine, those who search for images only and those who are visually impaired. The key to success in increasing your visibility towards your target audience via keywords in your Alt Tags is to use keywords that are relevant to the image. Also, avoid using image numbers as your alt text. Numbers won’t tell the users and the search engines anything about what the image is about.

Here’s a great example of a good Alt Tag as listed below:

“football.jpg”

Here’s what not to use as an Alt Tag as listed below:

“img.30014”

See how much better the first Alt Tag is. It contains a relevant keyword that actually tells you what the image is about. This will come in handy in the event your image fails to load. Keep this in mind as you’re prepping your content.

In Your Body Text

This is perhaps the most important aspect of SEO on a website. You know the saying about Content is King. Well, this definitely rings true here. When it comes to incorporating your target keywords into the body text of your content, you must work hard to balance out in satisfying both the search engines and your target audience.

Mentioning too little of your target keywords won’t allow your site to get found by either search engines or your target audience while overdoing it would result in keyword stuffing as we discussed at the beginning of this section. This is definitely a tall task for SEO Specialists to handle. At the same time, it can most certainly be done with some great strategic thinking. Strive for a keyword density of between 0.5% and 3%. This will help you strike the right balance of keyword usage.

In addition, these three tips in writing quality content that is SEO-friendly will help keep your target audience engaged.

Keep it relevant to what that section of your particular content is about.
Write as you normally would while explaining to them in everyday language they would understand. In other words, relate to the user.
Center your content around what your audience wants to do and use specific language such as long-tail keywords as we discussed in the previous section. This will best relate to the exact needs of the customer and they would be more likely to look into you more.

These three tips will go a long way in balancing out in ensuring that your target audience is engaged while at the same time increasing your visibility with the search engines. Absolutely crucial to keep these things in mind when incorporating your keywords around the content that you write on your site. I promise that it will pay off in the end by following these tips.

Key Lessons Learned About Keyword Research

When it comes to finding keywords that will help attract your ideal target audience, there’s no doubt that research is key. On top of that, knowing exactly where to incorporate those target keywords within your content is even more important. Proper keyword research followed by proper keyword usage will not only help attract your ideal consumer but also will help keep them engaged while making it more likely that they’ll do business with you.

Quality keyword research is the first big step in building up your long-term presence via a quality SEO strategy. By making keyword research alongside developing quality content as your starting point for your SEO strategy, you will no doubt be on your way towards building trust with your target audience and lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships.

What do you feel is essential when it comes to using keyword research as a way to build your online presence? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below