by Myra Ray | Aug 7, 2019 | Search Engine Optimization, Services
A lot of people who don’t understand Google’s algorithm think that content writing beats the purpose of search engine optimization. However, what they don’t know is that content writing and SEO go hand in hand; their functions blend and overlap each other until one cannot exist without the other.
When they are at their best, they have the potential to shoot up your site to the top of the search engine.
Here are some of the ways that content marketing benefits SEO.
SEO Requires Strategic Use of Keyword
Although websites and blog posts have come a long way, keywords still matter. You can determine their importance from the fact that your website’s rankings depend upon whether you have used a specific keyword in your page title or not.
Before you start making your content, make sure you have a list of the most important and relevant keywords related to the topic. These keywords are the most likely terms that people will use to find your business, products or services.
Once your content is completed, incorporate the keywords wisely into them. Do not overuse or force them where they are not necessary. Also, make use of LSI keywords and long-tailed alternatives.
Google will rank your content if it has the relevant terms that people are searching for. However, if your content is not unique and relevant, it will be very difficult to rank it on a specific keyword.
Quality Content Can Create Quality Backlinks
One of the most important off-page activities of SEO is to form quality backlinks, so that you can provide users more opportunities to come to your site. Most of us focus on our social media and social networking accounts to acquire backlinks. However, this is not the only way.
Your real success will come when people voluntarily start to link to your website. Why would they do that?
They will do that because they appreciate the content that you post and find you a credible source for such topics. These backlinks will not only bring in more visitors than you could ever get on your own, but Google will also see them as validation to rank your website.
Search Engine Needs Content To Rank Your Website
If your website does not have any relevant content, on what basis will Google rank it? Google ranks videos in its Google Video section, it ranks images in its Google Images section, and in its All section, it ranks quality content.
That’s why quality content writing is so important for SEO. It does not just let Google rank your website, it also tells it for what keywords your content needs to be ranked.
Content Writing Leads to Search Task Accomplishment
Search Task Accomplishment means giving users exactly what they are looking for. The benefit to you is that Google is now working to rank content only if it offers the most appropriate solution, and exactly the information users are looking for.
If your content does that, your website will rank. If not, it may disappear from the relevant search results.
When content marketing and SEO are not in harmony with each other, they can cause harsh penalties from Google, which can be virtually impossible to recover from. However, when content is optimized, it dramatically reduces website visibility, traffic, engagement, and ranking.
If you want your website to stay in the spotlight, you need to commit yourself to creating optimized content. Print & Web Designer can help you bring your A-game when it comes to content marketing and SEO. Contact us on 919-891-0545 or email us at info@printandwebdesigner.com, and we will help you rank your website on Google’s top result pages.
by Myra Ray | Jun 20, 2019 | Search Engine Optimization, Services
In the conflict between traditional and contemporary forms of marketing, the internet definitely has the advantage. Being the largest online directory present on the internet, Google offers multiple opportunities for individuals and organizations to get their business online.
The Google My Business page is the information that immediately displays on the right side of the search engine results when someone searches for your brand name. While making this page is the bare minimum you can do, you should also keep it updated with regular edits and tweaks.
Most businesses feel that they have everything covered once they have made their Google My Business Page, but that is just the first step of the process.
Once the page has been made, you have to go the extra mile to keep it updated at all times. Here we look at reasons why you should keep your Google My Business Page updated at all times.
Show Accurate Information on the Web
Imagine a customer searches for your business online and discovers that the number you have on your Google Business Page is not updated. This will kill the user’s interest and eventually drive him/her away from you.
You need to be clear here with the information you give. All relevant information should be updated to ensure that your customers aren’t left disappointed with the information you are giving to them.
Update Your Map
Your location is one of the most important information present on your Google My Business Page. Knowing the importance of this information, it should be updated at all times to make sure that the customers are able to reach your location easily.
Make sure that you properly make amendments if you change offices or go to a new location around town. You wouldn’t want customers to go to your previous location and come back with disappointment on their faces.
Most brands neglect the importance of updating their location on the Google My Business Page. The importance of your location on your Google My Business Page holds even greater value, if you are looking to attract new customers.
While old customers would be able to come to the right premises based on past experiences, your new customers will need updated information on your location to come to the right place.
Serve as a First Source of Contact
Your Google My Business page is your first source of contact with your potential audience. You would want this source of contact to be free of any flaws whatsoever.
Make sure that you have all relevant information updated within the page. It is also the most basic step towards perfecting your digital campaign. Most customers will search for your business through your Google My Business page.
Make sure that you don’t just have a Google My Business page, but you are updating it on a regular basis. Make the first source of contact a memorable one for every client.
You should follow these tips to generate traffic to your online mediums of contact, and to make sure that people get relevant and updated information related to you. Your Google My Business Page is the best way to keep people updated with your timings and location.
By creating a profile on Google My Business, you can increase your online traffic and attract high-quality leads. The end result is an increase in revenue for your business.
Print and Web Designer who will be able to guide you according to your needs on the best ways to create and manage a Google Business Page.
by Myra Ray | Apr 29, 2019 | Search Engine Optimization, Services
Every endeavor has a start, and every campaign has an initiation. Your SEO campaign needs to start from somewhere, and a Google My Business listing is the perfect way to get this campaign started.
With the internet changing the way we communicate with each other, advertising has also seen a disruption of sorts. Gone are the days of extensive billboard advertising and selling your products through extensive hoardings. The world has moved on to the digital space, and Google has taken center stage with its extensive SEO campaigns.
What Is a Google My Business Page?
For those who have just started their SEO campaign, the Google My Business (GMB) page is just the start of the process. GMB is basically the way your business tends to appear on Google Search and Maps. This page includes the addition of your location, business name, regular business hours, customer reviews, the pictures you have added, and how people are searching for your information.
All of this information is vital for creating a good rapport online and help you position your brand well in the eyes of a visitor looking for your page through Google.
If you have just started your SEO campaign, then Google My Business is the best place for you to head to. When you focus your efforts on improving your Google My Business page, you can boost your online visibility along the way.
When customers search for a product online, they are often extremely close to buying it. It is in fact pretty much the final phase of the consumer decision-making process, and they are just moments away from making the purchase.
So, it is imperative that the information you show as part of your Google search result be accurate, optimized, complete, and attractive. It is important for you to give an attractive page layout to your customers, as they will be attracted by an appealing design and layout.
Creating Your Google Business Page
A Google My Business page is completely free to create, and you can get one made without incurring any additional charges. With all these benefits, it will be a real pity if you don’t get this page made.
Once you do start making your Google My Business page, it is best that you follow the steps that we have mentioned below:
- Step 1: Start your efforts of making a Google My Business page for yourself by logging into the Google Account that is associated with your business. You will be required to create a Google Account for yourself if you don’t already have one.
- Step 2: Once you have created your account, you can go to the business section and click at the ‘Start now’ button on the top right-hand corner.
- Step 3: Once you have clicked on the ‘Start Now’ button, you would be required to input some details pertaining to your business. Add all the details here and choose the business category that you would want to deal in. Also make sure that the location added is correct.
- Step 4: Once you have added all details, you can verify them through a verification option of your choice.
By creating a profile on Google My Business, you can increase your online traffic and attract high-quality leads. The end result is an increase in revenue for your business.
You can also get this done by employing the help of professional graphic designers such as Print and Web Designer who will be able to guide you according to your needs on the best ways to create and manage a Google Business Page.
by Myra Ray | Apr 29, 2019 | Search Engine Optimization
What Does SEO Stand For?
Let’s say you live in Brooklyn and are looking for a bakery that does customized cakes near you. When you search for ‘customized cakes in Brooklyn’ on a search engine such as Google, you’re going to get a list of suggested websites and businesses.
While the process of sifting through keywords and showing results takes milliseconds, there’s quite a complicated algorithm that goes behind choosing which results to display in what order.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to the strategy of using different methods to ensure your website is ranked higher in search results.
What is SEO Ranking and Why is it Important?
SEO ranking is incredibly important for visibility and marketing. The chances of someone clicking through to your website are significantly higher if your business is shown on the first page of results as opposed to if you’re further down the list.
The higher you are in the search results, the more relevant web traffic you will be able to direct to your website. This is the first step in ensuring that you can attract, engage, and convert customers.
How to Rank Higher on Search Engines
There are two ways to ensure your business ranks high in search engine results. The first is to use paid ads. These ads are ranked in accordance with how much you are willing to pay per visitor to your website. That is why this form of advertisement is known as “pay per click advertising’.
When you choose to use paid ads in order to appear higher on the search results, your business will appear independent of organic search results and viewers will be able to see that you have paid to appear higher up in the results.
The other option is to rank higher organically by ‘optimizing’ your content for Google. As we mentioned before, Google and other search engines have a comprehensive algorithm that helps them determine which pages should be ranked higher.
These factors include things such as the relevancy of keywords, the quality and quantity of the internal and external links, the relevancy of content, whether the webpage has been shared across social media and if it uses multimedia content and correct meta details and tags.
All these factors come together to signal which web pages should be ranked highest and allow search engines to ‘organically’ sift through results and display the most fitting.
Having great, relevant content is not enough on its own to rank highly. This is where the art of SEO optimization comes in. For a higher SEO ranking, businesses use a combination of tactics, keeping the engine algorithm in mind, to ensure that their webpage ranks as highly as possible.
Once you have ensured that your business is in the top search results, you can proceed to focus on the next step of customer conversion which is having a website that is attractive, easy to navigate, and persuasive enough to convince the visitor to become a customer.
You can do this by employing the help of professional graphic designers such as Print and Web Designer who will be able to guide you according to your needs on the best ways to optimize your website.
by Myra Ray | Nov 8, 2018 | Search Engine Optimization, Web Design
Search Engine Optimization is a challenge for any sized business, but particularly for smaller companies. Obviously, a giant such as Coca-Cola can afford to spend countless hours and a nearly unlimited budget making sure they rank for any keyword they desire.
Your Raleigh or Cary business does not have such resources. However, that doesn’t mean all is lost. One of the key points about SEO for local businesses that works in our favor: all SEO is local.
What that means is that when you’re searching for terms in your preferred browser, that browser is making note of your location. It assumes you want to find something nearby, whether it’s a hair salon, a business coach, a marketing agency, or a dog walker. That search engine will therefore serve up results nearby first.
Consider these surprising local SEO statistics:
● 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles.
● 30% of mobile searches are related to a location.
● 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase.
● Local searches lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within one day.
● Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries.
Of course some terms may produce national results. When you search for more general information, for example, such as “What does a business coach do?” That’s an informational search and less focused. SEO managers in the know often avoid these more general keywords and focus their efforts on lower-volume searches that are more targeted. You don’t have to rank No. 1 on the search page for every term. What’s more important is to rank well for terms that will actually get you new customers.
Position “Zero”
When you Google something, you often end up with several results at the top of the page that aren’t even considered the first organic result. Instead, you see advertisements. Then you see the map. To the right, you’ll see some general info that the search engine provides without you needing to click anything. Many business owners who strive to rank No. 1 for a term are forgetting that even getting that high means sitting near the bottom of the page. Getting even higher, in the section known as Position Zero, is difficult without paying.
Tips for Local SEO
Getting to position zero requires content strategy and a lot of long-term effort. While you can work on that in the meantime, if you’re seeking some short-term results, consider these options:
● Check your “Google My Business Page.” This is how Google lists your hours, website, and more information to the right of the search results. This is not the same as Google+ or Places.
● Pay for online advertising with Google Maps. When you’re searching local you may find yourself drawn to the map so you can zoom in and find what’s nearby.
● Make sure your website looks great on a phone and tablet!
● Check your assumptions about search with data. You might assume people search “lawyer” more than “attorney,” but that’s not true.
● Include geographic terms in your posts and on your website.
● If you are a home-based business, get a post office box or some other address to include on your site. The postal service and UPS now offer boxes that have a real street address instead of the P.O. Box.
● Work on getting some links to your site from other local sites. This may mean starting a meetup group or paying to join the
Chamber of Commerce (link and networking are worth the cost). You might partner with some related businesses that don’t compete with you.
If you have questions about ranking your business website locally, contact us about SEO for Raleigh and Cary businesses.
by Myra Ray | Jan 25, 2018 | Inbound Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
Increasing your SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is key to expanding your business’s reach online. When someone is seeking your service, having your website at the top of their search results makes it easier to find and more likely to be used. You might’ve heard some SEO tips and tricks thrown around, but do you know if they’re really going to help? Here are a few myths about SEO and the truth behind them.
Myth 1: Someone can guarantee to get you on the top page of search results.
Fact: If someone absolutely promises to get you to the No. 1 spot in search results, he or she is lying. Even Google advises against listening to anyone with that message.
Myth 2: SEO is all the marketing you need.
Fact: Businesses should never put their entire marketing budget into SEO. Instead, SEO should be one pillar of a larger marketing plan. How else are you working to make contact with your clientele? Are you using all of the available platforms and media methods available to you? Small and local businesses, especially, must connect with customers on many levels, through advertising, networking, branding, and more.
Myth 3: The more keywords, the merrier.
Fact: A 2017 article from Entrepreneur advises against keyword-stuffing, or filling up your website or domain with words that will make your company “pop.” While including a keyword can be useful (for example, plumbing businesses should use the word “plumbing” in their domain), too many can harmful. Google sometimes views this as a “spammy tactic,” and will refrain from pushing your website up on their results. Make sure you aren’t repeating keywords so much that it decreases the value of your content.
Myth 4: Higher rankings = more money.
Fact: Even if your website appears as a top search result, there is no 100 percent guarantee that you’ll receive more business. Customers might be early in their buyer journey when they find your website. They might click on it only to learn more about the product or service. While they might come back later, they may find an alternative they prefer.
Or, maybe they click on your website but find it difficult to use. If your website does appear as a top search result, check to ensure that your site is well-made and easy to navigate. While SEO can help you reach a broader audience, it’s up to you to make sure that a client’s experience after that initial click goes smoothly!
Myth 5: I did SEO once. I’m all set, right?
Fact: You must continuously work at SEO to maintain your rankings. Think about it: new stuff is coming up all the time. Links to your website become old or disappear, search engines change their methods (algorithms), competition is working against you, and your content becomes old. Yours will begin to lose rankings if you don’t keep it going.
SEO can be tough to tackle. Let us help you get started.
