Three Crucial Steps Small businesses Follow for Reaping Online Benefits Instantly

3 Crucial Steps How Continuous Improvement Can Benefit Your BusinessThough small businesses spare no efforts in bolstering their online presence, they often do not have access to resources and tools that are available to behemoths and conglomerates. Talking about online presence or existence, it chiefly comprises your company site, business listings on social media platforms, and business listings of key stakeholders. Nowadays, majority of your customers and prospects are most likely to search for your site on their smartphones-so it is crucial that your portal’s URL is visible when someone browses with a particular set of keywords.

If you’ve a startup or small business to promote, planning an appropriate online marketing strategy could seem to be a daunting task. However, laying out an effective modus operandi for giving teeth to your SEO plan will surely make the mission of publicizing your site across the web somewhat easier. This post walks you through three simple yet practical steps for guaranteeing online success.

1. Mull over opting for social media ads and PPC

Facebook continues to be the top social media platform, having the highest number of users and followers amongst all other automated social media sites. Hence, the alterations effected by Facebook of late have created some online marketing impediments. However, this is not a recent phenomenon as such modifications have been carried out in the past leading to social media promotion upheavals.

Users’ feeds on Facebook that mostly used to be organic in nature, have now transformed into paid content. That in essence, implies you’ve to pay for advertising (read promotion) on Facebook so that you can view others posts and blogs. The same ruling applies for other users as well.

Paid advertisements enable you to target and tap your niche segment as well as contacts of your customers. Consider opting for PPC (pay per click) along with SEO for placing your blog posts in front of target segment. PPC ads give your business the leeway to temper content with target-oriented keywords. The results of your online marketing efforts will be at your disposal almost immediately.

At the same time, you’ll have the added benefit of reviewing the analytics with a view to fine-tuning your efforts. Additionally, you can take advantage of geotargeting when it comes to targeting relevant prospects. To put it succinctly, PPC is a very efficient way of gauging the marketing potential of your site as well as the efficacy of your canvassing strategy on the whole.

2. Optimizing for local SEO

One of the most effective ways of popularizing your small firm on the web is by marketing the business locally. It does not need to be emphasized that in order for your business to grow and develop, you have to take steps for making it familiar locally. Putting it in perspective, you’ve to forge an online marketing plan that’ll propel your site to the top of the first SERP whenever Google embarks on a local SEO drive.

To buttress local SEO optimization, you can register your site with/on Google My Business. Also, list your site with local Chamber of Commerce and other popular search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and MSN. It is extremely crucial that the name, address, and phone numbers of your entity is consistent throughout the web.

3. Focusing on developing quality videos or video content

There’s no gainsaying the fact that the bulk of your customers and prospects will form an opinion about your establishment after watching YouTube videos. Make sure you design high-quality videos that’ll supplement content of your site. Nowadays, producing videos about your product or service has become a simple affair, thanks to state-of-the-art tools that even a layperson can use effectively.

For more tips and suggestions on how you can promote your business online, log in to www.localseojacksonville.biz or make a call to 904-425-9679.

Seo Is Still Relevant In The Online World Of Trade And Commerce

Is SEO Really That Important for E-commerceOnline marketers and social media promoters who’ve already cast aside SEO as passé and antediluvian, would be pleasantly surprised to know that search engine optimization is more germane than it ever was. Simply put, local SEO plays a key role in helping major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo as well as net surfers track down your business website. At the same time, it does not need to be emphasized that in the present times, almost 80% of prospective customers go online for viewing and/or reviewing products and services before purchasing.
The upshot of the above assertion is that it still makes sense to optimize or sync your site with the search engines so that the portal gets a rank almost on the top of SERPs. Vice President of marketing at Boostability, Kelly Shelton also shares the opinion that local SEO can prove instrumental in enabling your business to claim a listing on Google’s first SERP. According to Kelly, almost one and all browse on Google when they wish to find answers to a question or search for a product.

And Google’s search algorithms always deliver. No wonder why Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Google makes use of a string of parameters for according a rank to a business site including but not limited to website design, textual/visual content quality, page load speed, and navigability. It is quite shocking to note that though most of the consumers nowadays browse on the net before buying something, there are still a good number of businesses that do not even have a website.

A good proportion of those running small businesses are hamstrung by misgivings and mistaken notions about the Internet. Many businesspersons strongly feel that they’re small fries compared to the ecommerce behemoths like Amazon, eBay, and Wal-Mart. And there are those who think hiring an online marketing specialist for creating a small business SEO strategy can be quite expensive.

If Kelly is to be believed, then there are approximately 40% of small businesses that are still managing without a portal. However she adds that these establishments are gradually recognizing the internet’s potential in boosting business prospects in the web realm. If you do not have a website yet, then you’d be happy to learn that getting one designed and developed is not only simpler these days but supremely affordable as well.

Creating and having a portal of your own is a sine-qua-none in this digital age just for the sake of keeping your business afloat, let alone make profits. As a small business owner, maintaining a constant presence in the world of websites can be quite challenging for you. Apart from having a target-oriented small business SEO strategy (which you should consider as given), what else can you do to bolster your business’s online presence?

Create a Google My Business Page

You’ll definitely get results if you take the trouble of increasing your visibility on the most admired search engine in the world-Google. To be specific, it pays to have a Google My Business account, particularly if your business is localized and you’re looking to attract local customers. And you do not need to have a website to be included in the Google My Business listing.

Boost your brand’s popularity in the online medium

The best way to entice the niche segment that will use your product or service is to establish a rapport with the same. There are so many ways of forging a relationship-write a blog and update it regularly, create social media profiles, and so on.

Make your website informative

Your website is the book or reference manual that users and your potential customers will turn to for picking up info about your product. So, make sure you update original and creative content that describes your ware or service.

Ensure that the portal is coded appropriately

It goes without saying that your site should be coded appropriately, especially for fast downloading on smartphones.

Jacksonville SEO can help you out with designing a target-based SEO strategy for your ecommerce site. Call 904-425-9679 for complete details.

Boost Your Site’s Performance in 5 Easy Steps

How to boost your site's performanceThis spring, don’t focus just on cleaning your house, as your website also needs some attention. And be sure that you will be amazed by the results!

The good part is that cleaning your website doesn’t require that much effort as making your entire place shine. It takes just a few simple moves and your SEO spring cleaning will be done, boosting the site’s search performance.

We’ve put together a list of 6 tips, easy to apply and with some serious effects. Without much further ado, let’s see how you should tidy up that website!

Start with an inspection

First thing first, begin by collecting all the data you need. Use a crawler and identify all types of metadata and site errors, as well as the status of each page, to figure out which areas need attention.

One of our favorite tools for this is Screaming Frog, as it offers very detailed information, but it’s up to you to decide which one works best for your website.

Get rid of low-performing pages

Google Analytics can reveal which one of your pages is doing good, so why not take a look through all of them? You will surely find out that there are some of them that don’t bring the desired results, so it’s not worth keeping them anymore.

Specifically, we’re talking about those pages supposed to be targeting valuable keywords, but aren’t attracting enough natural search traffic. If you put enough SEO efforts in them, but still don’t obtain what you want, it’s time to call it quits and clear the clutter.

Eliminate all the duplicate metas

Another very easy thing you can do in order to boost your site’s performance is to look at each title tag and meta description and make sure it’s unique. Sure, this can be a bit time consuming, especially if you have a lot of pages, but it’s definitely a rewarding job.

Titles are still one of the most important on-page SEO elements, so it’s mandatory for them to be unique and not surpass 65 characters. As for meta descriptions, although they’re not a ranking factor, they can seriously affect CTR rates from the search results. Then can reach over 300 characters, but for the best results, include your major keywords in the first 155, which are shown in SERPs.

Break all those redirect chains

In time, a lot of your pages will become obsolete, leading to chains of 301 redirects. Or, if you prefer, one URL will redirect to another, redirecting to another, then to another, and so on. But what wants this?

Such chains require a lot of server requests to execute, not to mention that they slow down page loading times. The good news is that your crawler can produce a report of these chains, so why not replace them with a redirect from the first URLs to the last ones?

As you can see, just a bit of spring cleaning can have some excellent effects on your website. If you just don’t have the time to do it, you can ask Local SEO Jacksonville Company to help you! With the most competitive SEO packages, able to satisfy any small business owner in the area, they will make sure that your business stays at the top of the search results.

How Important Are Customer Reviews For Seo?

Why Customer Reviews Are Important for SEOIn order to have a happy life, you shouldn’t care that much about what people say about you. But when it comes to online businesses, this actually matters way more than you can imagine.

Besides trying to come up with new SEO ideas, in order to build some high-quality links and help your website rank well, you should also keep an eye on its day-to-day performance. Specifically, we’re talking about research, product development, sales fulfillment, or even customers service.

Forgetting about these aspects or even not caring about them that much can lead to a series of negative customer reviews, which can make you lose potential customers and even hinder your rankings.

Let’s take a few moments and understand how reviews can affect your SEO efforts, in both negative and positive ways.

They are actually user-generated content!

Just think about it: while you’re trying to integrate some specific keywords into your content, many of them feel very natural to the users who use them in reviews. And Google is seeing them as signals, therefore noticing your online presence.

Whether we’re talking about general keywords in your niche or long-tails, they are all necessary for your SEO strategy. Good reviews can take your ranking scores a bit higher, while negative reviews will bring you down if you are not careful.

They help you compete in your market!

Besides affecting your SERP rank, customer reviews can also affect your overall market performance.
Specifically, when somebody searches for a term in your niche, a list of results will be displayed. Some results have customer reviews, while some of them don’t.  Let’s take things logically: won’t you be tempted to check out the result with reviews, as It looks legit?

It was proven that people are more likely to trust an online business with a mix of reviews, whether they are positive or negative. By displaying these, a company shows that it’s far from being perfect, not to mention that it somehow guarantees that the reviews are real!

They provide a lot of value for local SEO campaigns!

When a user leaves a review, which contains local references, your local SEO efforts receive an unexpected boost. This review is a small piece of organic content, after all. The more you get, the stronger your presence will be in Google’s eyes.
The more positive customer reviews integrating local terms you’re competing for, the better for your business.

They help you establish a relationship with clients

When somebody wants to buy something online, Google offers the information about the product or service they are after, giving the best possible options available. As for customer reviews, these are real deal sealers.

Some people like to go through a couple of reviews before making the final decision, so it’s obvious that what past customers have to say matters a lot. Their opinion makes your business feel genuine and if the reviews are good, potential new clients want to feel the same thing.

Make sure you always answer the reviews, including negative ones, as you will help people know you better.

Keeping up with all reviews can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. If you want to build relationships with your clients, but also improve your presence in Google, SEO Jacksonville is here to help. Competitive search engine optimization packages, able to help you make a difference for your business, are just one call away, at (904) 425-9679.

Adopting an effective SEO campaign is a must for smalltime businesses

Adopting an effective SEO campaignIn case you own and operate a proprietorship firm or have just established a startup, you might be very guarded and circumspect investing your scarce financial resources. So, you may consider allocating resources for small business SEO a dispensable and futile expense as you believe that SEO is not as effective as it used to be for promoting a firm or enterprise. Nevertheless, contrary to what you think, the significance of SEO is growing day by day vis-à-vis all the concomitant segments of trade and commerce.

Hitherto, SEO used to be indispensable for medium and large-scale outfits but with passage of time the online marketing strategy is proving to be equally vital for small and micro-sized businesses.

Defining SEO

Apparently, small business SEO may appear quite simplistic to you but in reality it can be remarkably complicated than you may envisage. SEO is not just about developing meaningful, original content, and keying in the relevant keywords but also about paying attention to other aspects that can be categorized under the heads of ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page’ optimizations. On-page optimization means taking steps for bettering your business portal’s ranking across SERPs of search engines like intuitive webpage design, fast loading times, and smooth navigation.

On the other hand, off-page optimization involves efforts to build quality links so that your e-commerce site becomes popular across the net and attracts a high volume of quality traffic. At the same time, implementing measures to bolster presence on automated social media platforms is also an off-page optimization endeavor.

Getting Started

It would be very imprudent on your part to completely disregard small business SEO simply owing to the technique’s complexity. You’d be investing much less on a search engine optimization plan for generating incoming traffic (read online leads) compared to your investments for engendering outbound or offline leads (through cold calling for instance). However, you’ll have to spare sufficient time for devising an intelligent and workable SEO campaign which you’ll have to find if you sincerely wish your business to grow and develop.

To say the least but not the last, once you get the hang of SEO, you’ll be in a position to take advantage of the following tips for improving your site’s position on the search engine results page of Google or Yahoo.

1. Local SEO-Though your business is much smaller than MNCs and big companies, you enjoy an edge over the latter as Google gives preference to local content. However, you need to have a clear idea about who comprises the local audience if you want Google to favor your business over the large corporations. You can make the most of the web-based tool, ‘Google Keyword Planner’ for punctuating local content with keywords running into many words or a long phrase.

Look for extensive phrases that capture the essence of your business, and create content revolving around such phrasal keywords. Most importantly, if you’ve more than one business address, ensure that the NAP is consistent for all locations throughout the web.

2. Link BuildingLink building is extremely crucial for augmenting the visibility of your site across all social media sites and other web-oriented platforms. Hire established bloggers to write quality guest posts, request your steadfast customers to write positive feedbacks about your product or service so that your site receives maximum publicity. Alternatively, steer clear of black hat methods and spamming techniques if you want to avoid getting penalized by Google.

3. Social Media-Automated social media can go a long way in driving more traffic towards your site. Therefore make sure that you routinely post fresh content on Facebook and Twitter.

In order to tap the aforementioned small business SEO to the optimum, you can log in at www.localseojacksonville.biz or make a call to 904.425.9679.

9 Effective Tips for Promoting Your E-Commerce Outlet

9 Effective Tips for Promoting Your E-Commerce OutletYou’ve an e-commerce store that you wish to promote in the best manner possible in order to reach out to the maximum number of potential customers. You have taken all the necessary measures to make your online outlet optimized for e-commerce SEO. You may have already done all the homework for making the site friendly for Google’s web crawlers, including indexing the web pages, readying it for downloading quickly across digital handheld and desktop devices, and so on.

Now, in order to increase the flow of traffic to your e-commerce portal, you can make the most of the following e-commerce SEO techniques.

  1. Upload relevant and creative content about your product or service

Regardless of whether it is a product or service that you wish to promote, the best way to do so is to present the benefits and features of the same via creative and engaging content. Writing at length is perfectly all right as long as you are not beating about the bush. Not making the content keyword heavy is another aspect that you need to keep in mind.

  1. Have title tags that will titillate users to click on the same

Having an appealing title tag that will titillate the users to click on it is another useful e-commerce SEO   tip to bear in mind. Most of the time, you are so focused on the bigger picture in order to ameliorate your site’s search engine ranking that you tend to miss out on the seemingly inconsequential aspects.
For instance, a plain and simple title tag may not induce users to click on it as much as a catchy one.

  1. Go for versus posts

You can try the versus post strategy in case you are promoting two of the best selling products under a product category from your online store. In other words, you could create a post or blog comparing and contrasting the two products or write a piece where you review the products vis-à-vis other comparable products.

  1. Encourage bloggers to review your product

This is a tried and tested strategy but remains effective to this day. Look for bloggers who focus in your area and have them write reviews by offering them a free sample.

  1. Prefix or suffix the words ‘buy online’ to the title tag on the product page

Prefixing the words “buy online” or even suffixing the same to the title tag of products goes a long way in boosting meaningful traffic to your site. The probability of someone clicking on the product title tag is higher when you add those words.

  1. Write articles that serve as buyers’ guide

This e-commerce SEO tip is helpful for those who deal with a wide range of products of different brands. For instance, if you are selling salmon fishing hooks and related accessories, you could pick and choose from several keywords, germane for the items, like ‘different kinds of salmon hooks’ or ‘the best salmon fishing lines’.

  1. Take advantage of Schema Markup for positively reviewing product

If you wish to attract higher traffic from your current SERP position, you can take advantage of Schema markup for annexing reviews to every product page.

  1. Make the most of promotions

Devise a good promotional offer and publicize the same across all online platforms in order to make your product ubiquitous.

  1. Canvass newly launched products via reviews

SEO Jacksonville Company can help you out with your e-commerce platform promotion. Contact the firm at 904-425-9679 or log in at www.localseojacksonville.biz

The Citation Circus

The citation circusNot too long ago, citations were the wunderkind of the Local SEO and general SEO landscape. Google would rank you higher and faster with such citations and then the inevitable happened, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. What happened next?? You can guess.

As soon as anything proves successful in online marketing you can bet that companies will be at war over it. You’ll have competition setting up sites based on the success of others, almost to cookie cutter accuracy, you’ll have those web based marketing gurus showing up with high priced course on ‘how to’ which lead to seminars that are nothing more than upsells to more idiotic and useless products and services. You’ll have SEO pros going at it night and day trying to figure out best to exploit it and you’ll have customers so confused they won’t know what hit them.
This is how citations started and in today’s citation circus, things are weird but still have ups and downs. First of all, citations aren’t going away anytime soon. Due to the potential windfall of citations, it’s a good bet that keen eyes will be on them for quite a while since no one knows what the search engine algorithms will do next. Google gives hits but that still is up to the interpretation of SEO experts and they’re not about to share their secrets out in the open as the citation circus can boost traffic and sales.

Nowadays, the sites that list citations are comprised of some pretty huge traffic monsters. Some are simple to use and others a royal pain. The bottom line is are their citations successful in driving traffic and boosting sales. As citation sites and marketers flourished there was turbulence in the industry. Sometimes unethical practices were employed and just downright incompetence too. Clients of SEO companies suffered and of course the SEO pros had to go in and fix things. There used to be a very hot market regarding prices but it seems to have leveled off after dropping considerably. Nothing stay the same after you’ve exploited it to death.

So for citations the deal is you’ve got to study up. Get lists of all the top citation sites and their terms and sometimes costs. Look around to see what others are saying about these citation sites and if you’ve friends who use them, get their opinions and work with it. Since no one knows what will happen next with Google and other search engines regarding the importance of citations, it’s best to be on your A Game regarding your knowledge and application of them. This calls for keeping an eye on your stats from top to bottom. Take it one step at a time to make sure that the citations pointing to your client’s sites are accurate and up to date with information and relevant keywords. If you find any errors, contact the site immediately and get them corrected.

Remember, citations are just opinions of a site and its location, however, they are located on the web and people make decisions about sites and products and services based on reviews quite a lot. You want your client’s site to have the best and relevant citations, not outdated and inaccurate listings.

Do things right and citations should work just fine for you.

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SEO Service Can be Affordable for Small Businesses

SEO JacksonvilleGood  news for small businesses, bad news for established local SEO firms the industry is becoming more competitive and the shortage of local SEO professionals is beginning to be filled, though gurus with more than a few years experience are still in the minority.

SEO affordability then may become a reality for many more small businesses and not by trying to do it yourself, and often getting it not quite right.

For some time if you wanted an affordable SEO company you would look to outsource off shore, quite possibly to India or the Philippines, there are a lot of very good SEO professionals in these countries but there are some very poor ones as well; now more than ever a bad SEO company can do more harm than good following the Google Penguin update.

Many people who opted for cheap SEO services in the past from offshore companies have now seen their sites penalized by Google Penguin and they have no comeback, it is much better to use a US based SEO company but price has always been an issue.

In terms of the time SEO takes to complete it shouldn’t cost as much as it has in the past or even does now, SEO companies though know they are competing against other types of marketing and they understand the relative value of SEO so charge as much as they do.

A $1,000 a month on SEO may seem a lot but it probably is better value than the same spent on newspaper advertising or another type of traditional media advertising. Read more …