Tag Archives: Facebook

Significance Of Local SEO For Small Businesses

Posted on by · 3 min read

Benefits of Local SEO for Small BusinessesMost small businesses, especially those that are multi-located come across a predicament while competing with the big national and international level brands. It is mainly related to a limited budget. Due to this reason, local SEO is a terrific marketing weapon. It allows small businesses to compete with bigger brands in a constant battle for survival in the competitive market. The local SEO gives the small business credibility in the market. It is also crucial for mobile searches. Here are some ways of bettering the local SEO.

1. Have accurate business info on Google: When you are looking to get your small business to appear in local searches or on Google Maps, you are needed to create a listing with GMB or Google My Business. You will have to provide up-to-date information about your organization here. Make sure that you are submitting all the required data, verification of business location, adding photographs, entering the current working hours, and managing the reviews properly.

2. Embed the website with Google Maps: For this purpose, you need to utilize the Google Maps Embed API. You can place a panorama that contains an interactive map or a street view on your website. The entire process is completed by using straightforward HTTP requests.

3. Use good on-page SEO: When you are looking to dominate the local searches for your small business, the on-page SEO must be precise. There are two factors involved in on-page SEO. These two factors are the products and services you are offering and the location of your business. It shows to Google the products and services you are providing and the place where you can find them. There are certain key elements involved in the on-page SEO that you need to focus on such as, title tags, meta tags, NAP info, header tags, page content, and photos.

4. Have reviews on the website: When you are looking to achieve local ranking, you will need reviews. The review count and the actual score are factored within the local search ranking for Google. A higher number of reviews showing positive ratings are more likely to raise the local ranking of your small business. Having positive reviews also helps in getting your business to stand out to the prospective clientele that is close to arriving at the final decision.

Keep in mind that you are going to have some negative reviews as well. Ensure that you are not leaving out any of them unaddressed. You must reply with honesty, courteousness, and as per the Google guidelines. The question now is how do you get the clients to give reviews about your services? Well, you may create links that lead to review websites. You can also develop a business card for providing all the review site info. Or, you can even ask satisfied clients to write reviews about the products and services you provide.

5. Have local citations: The local citations provide a mention of your small business’s website info and NAP info on the internet. Google considers the citations to be a way of establishing the relevancy and authority of your small business. In other words, these local citations help the organization in developing prominence and relevance in the eyes of Google. The best websites you can use for citation are Yahoo.com, GMB, Opentable.com, Apple Maps, Yelp.com, Facebook, bbb.org, and Here.com. These local citations are not only helpful for the local SEO but they can provide awareness about the organization via different sites. These sites are considered to be reliable by many people.

Remember, all the local search results are achieved through relevance, distance, and prominence of your business. All these factors work in tandem to help you in finding the best fit for the local search. For achieving this goal, you need to utilize the power of search engines. You can leverage a bigger customer base by using them as it is a common way of running a small business. Any local SEO company can be quite useful for these multi-location small businesses, especially for gathering more customers and developing their sales. When you are looking to develop sales in Jacksonville, FL area, you can get in touch with the professionals at Local SEO Jacksonville for reliable service.

Let’s Compare SEO & PPC

Posted on by · 4 min read

SEO/PPC differenceYou will find that there are several acronyms involved in the field of internet marketing and it can be tough to keep up. However, there are two such acronyms all digital marketers have to be aware of and they are SEO & PPC. When you are looking to improve your focus and boost the visibility of your brand, you can take a closer look at SEO & PPC for deciding the approach that will be more suitable to your marketing budget. Keep in mind that SEO &PPC are two sides of the same coin. They are both trying to get your company noticed on the web.

SEO/PPC difference

The clue for finding out the difference between SEO/PPC lies in the name of both these approaches. SEO or search engine optimization optimizes your site content for improving its ranking in the SERPs. These results are many times referred to as organic search results. Pay per click or PPC on the other hand involves the promotion of your website or its content by using paid alternatives available on your selected ad platforms. Some of the more popular PPC campaign platforms are Bing, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. When you are paying per click, you can find the ad close to the top position of the SERP. The optimized content is also going to feature close to the top spots however, it will always be below the paid content. Like everything in life, there are some exceptions and several caveats for both SEO & PPC. If you are a good internet marketer, you will be aware of how to use both of them effectively.

What is the better alternative between SEO/PPC?

Is there a better alternative involved while selecting either SEO or PPC? It depends basically on what you are looking for in terms of results. Both these internet marketing approaches have their advantages and they can be useful at a certain point in time during your campaign. There are fewer costs involved in SEO, excluding the expenses of content creation and time spent on managing the content. But, PPC can bring you the clientele immediately at least for short term advantage.

For most business managers and website owners, investment in SEO is a wise decision in long run. This decision process is well-documented on the internet. The importance of the research process for an average customer cannot be underestimated therefore, having the content ready for answering the queries and being available during this phase will always be extremely critical. Conducting a successful organic SEO campaign means you are saving money on paid clicks. However, in some cases, a successful PPC campaign will pay for itself.

A cheat sheet

Using PPC: You need to use the PPC approach when the promotion is time-sensitive such as in the case of live events, or discounts, or sales seasons for your products and services. PPC is useful while launching a new product or service and when you are looking for maximum exposure. You can profile the brand well in a competitive market by using PPC. It can be used when you are looking to target a specific audience or demographic. When your website is not designed for SEO viz. it doesn’t have blogs etc., you will be required to use PPC. Sometimes you do not have the time for managing the SEO. Here you can opt for PPC.

Using SEO: When you are looking to build a solid foundation for continuous traffic that will not be paid, you need to use the SEO approach. Sometimes when you are looking to develop your DA, Trust Flow, etc., you need to use SEO. SEO is necessary especially when you looking to build an information portal or thought leadership.

The verdict for the comparison between SEO/PPC

After reading all the information above, you may still be looking to decide what approach will be best suitable for your case between SEO & PPC? Keep in mind that most site owners will always work on SEO as their long-term goal that is going to need continuous input. However, using PPC campaigns can also boost SEO. After the proper brand exposure, people are more likely to opt for organic results. If you are offering useful content on your website, it may be shared on other sites and social media. These backlinks are great for SEO. When you are undertaking a PPC campaign ensure that it is being seen by the right audience. Remember, there is a sizable fake market on the internet with crawlers, bots, click farms taking a share of the marketing budget.

For a better understanding of these internet marketing approaches, and if your business lies in Jacksonville, FL area, get in touch with Local SEO Jacksonville. They will help you in defending against shady practices and make sure that your ads are being seen by humans.

Three Crucial Steps Small businesses Follow for Reaping Online Benefits Instantly

Posted on by · 3 min read

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.

Twitter: New Features Hint at Snapchat App Influence

Posted on by · 2 min read

Twitter: New Features Hint at Snapchat App InfluenceTwitter is, by all means, one of the most popular to-date social media apps that have taken the consumer market by storm, with millions of users and thousands or more signing up and using it’s service regularly. Twitter, however, much like other major social media sites has had its share of challenges in generating new users and popularity, given Facebook’s heavy advance on the consumer market, often taking other social media users by the ‘herds’.

Over the past year, Twitter has innovated several of its own unique, strategies in the form of features – most recently, the “Stories” feature which essentially grabs and compiles (or “stitches”) all your Tweets from the same day and presents it to your followers in a unique, organized, and thoughtful way.

However, Twitter’s most recent feature is perhaps likened to that of Snapchat’s, which allows it’s users to send temporary, “self-dissolving” pictures or video feed to its followers. Though, unique to its cause, it (supposedly) will also allow the original Sender to be notified whether or not recipients have viewed, ‘screenshot’, or shared their image or video. Though in all fairness, it can be considerably difficult, given today’s technologically advanced users to track ‘per say’ whether anyone has truly screenshot the image, or in the case of a video re-recorded it. After all, for every new “anonymous”, private, or self-deleting form of media there appears to be at least 5 to 10 different new programs that likewise are designed to, ironically enough anonymously capture the content.

Now, whether this new image/video feature by Twitter is truly a knockoff so to speak of previous Snapchat technology is difficult to say for certain. However, more often than not, social media sites, apps, and technology, in general, seem to often ‘hijack’ one another’s ideas. But, most people might simply consider this a form of innovative thinking, rather than actual theft or a lack of originality.

Image Credit: Mizter_x94