This Article Will Help You Increase Sales With The Best SEO Strategies 2020

When you sell, you survive. Sales are how business gets by. Next year, eCommerce sales will increase to $4.88 trillion globally. A large reason why is SEO.

Search engine optimization is about getting visibility in the cutthroat world of the internet. Competition is always learning. New digital marketing trends are on the upswing. SEO has not gone away.

SEO gets you noticed. It helps you convert prospects into customers. It gives a business momentum. SEO = sales.

SEO best practices have changed a lot over time. If you don’t know what works for SEO in 2020, don’t worry. We’ve got it covered. Here are the best SEO strategies to maximize sales and increase revenues.

The #1 determinant of a successful SEO strategy is quality of content

More than anything, have great content. If sales are driven by value, content is where you contribute most.

A prospect searches the internet for a product or service. They eventually locate different social media profiles, articles, and websites. A prospect is looking for answers to their questions. Developing content that answers questions, that’s smart.

If a prospect lands on your website and you have the best, most relevant, and most engaging content with your blog or website, there’s no reason to visit anywhere else. They stick with you. They build a relationship with you. Before long, you’ve got them. Here are some content forms to consider for your SEO:

 Blogs and articles.
 Infographics.
 Videos.
 Podcasts.
 Animations.
 eBooks.
 How-to guides, education, and general information.
 Product reviews.
 User-generated content.

Content is a vehicle. It is free information and value a customer doesn’t have to pay for. Conversion-driven, shareable content is what to aim for.

Choose your SEO keywords right and use them frequently

Keywords don’t have the pull they once did. They are still crucial though to an SEO strategy prioritizing maximum sales. It’s ultimately up to you to find what keywords are best. Once you have your keywords, use them:

 Content blogs and articles.
 Website page titles.
 Website pages – service pages, product descriptions, etc.
 URLs.
 Headings.
 Image descriptions.
 Video descriptions.
 Metadata.
 Emails.

Look at short-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords. Local SEO keywords that include city, region, province, or country. Over 50% of all search queries are four or more words. There’s less competition for these phrases and they carry higher conversion rates.

Is your on-page SEO the best it can be?

On-page SEO strategy accomplishes a number of objectives. It prioritizes a user-friendly site. Search engines more easily index your pages. Your search engine ranking is likely to increase. Essential user-friendly elements like visuals are also maximized to include an SEO approach.

What’s the best way to approach on-page SEO – well, it depends on the design opportunities available to you. There are some critical areas though to get right. Here’s a basic 7-point guide for best on-page SEO.

1. Create title tags that are original, descriptive, and which include SEO keywords.
2. Do everything you can to increase page load speed. This is a major SEO ranking factor. Faster page load times also mean reduced bounce rates.
3. Alt-text for images should be filled in with keyword-optimized text. Make it direct yet descriptive. Search engines will use what you write to interpret what’s in the image, classifying it accordingly.
4. Every heading should be optimized with keywords and a relevant description.
5. Link site content with internal links. This is to create a web of relevant, engaging pages. From a user perspective, it also improves navigation. To search engines, this helps with indexing.
6. URLs should make sense, be direct, have keywords in them, and be easy enough to read and type.
7. The meta description should be written to include keywords and direct, detailed information.

Can I use social media marketing to grow my SEO reach?

SEO is about search engines. This doesn’t just mean Google. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have search engines as well. They work from the same principles of keywords, high-quality content, and value.

When we want to find interesting content, over 79 percent of us turn to Facebook. Reach audiences where they are. SEO and social media marketing have synergy. They work in combination, supporting one another.

Sales should happen naturally. If you give a customer the information they’re looking for and access to purchasing the product or service they want, you don’t have to push hard. SEO and social media work from this perspective. Sales pitches are spam. Information is most valuable. Human, authentic interactions matter most.

Does my online reputation affect my SEO or online sales?

Reputation matters. Online reputation management is to control what others see on search engines when they search for your business. It’s an underrated yet key SEO strategy.

Let’s say, you’re a restaurant. Someone puts you in Google. The first things that come up are hundreds of Yelp reviews complaining about the food, service, and price. If you’ve recently engaged in a public argument with a customer on Facebook or Twitter, that might come up as well. New prospects are seeing this. Do you think anything else you do with your SEO is relevant with your reputation being what it is – absolutely not.

Monitor your brand online. If complaints are showing up, you will want to resolve them quickly. Here are a few things to remember when managing your online reputation.

 Always be professional in every public post or customer interaction.
 Set in your schedule a time to regularly review online reviews.
 When negative reviews happen – and they will – respond calmly, quickly, and professionally.
 Encourage people to write positive reviews with every purchase.

Is local SEO the right strategy for my business?

Local doesn’t have to mean ‘city’. It could mean province or state, region, or even country. Geography is ultimately what we mean by ‘local’ in terms of how it applies to SEO.

Over 30 percent of all searches have local intent. This means someone searching for ‘digital marketing’ is using ‘digital marketing + city’ as their keyword. Deciding on keywords, using city name and region help you be found. Unless you’re operating globally, local SEO is the right strategy for every business.

What’s the best SEO smartphone strategy to reach customers on their mobiles?

Laptops and desktops are out. SEO algorithms don’t focus on them anymore. Why should you? The most sales online happen across smartphones and mobile devices – eCommerce or otherwise. That’s where to look at for maximizing revenues.

On smartphones, think of user behaviour. They open emails, browse social media, and use a variety of search engines from Maps to news apps and more. Tap into this. Get your business registered on every search engine. Use the power of SEO to give you visibility across mobile platforms.

You may want to consider starting an email campaign, an SMS marketing campaign, or using social media marketing to target smartphone users. Your SEO footprint has got to extend to smartphones and other mobile devices. Mobile-friendly strategies work.

Some quick facts about SEO marketing and sales

 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine.
 81 percent of people use some form of online search before making a larger purchase.
 Leads from search engines have a conversion rate of 14.6 percent, compared to outbound marketing with only a 1.7 percent rate.
 78 percent of location-based mobile searches result in a purchase offline.
 18 percent of location-based mobile searches result in a sale within 24 hours.

Make a splash. Pursue strong SEO strategies. See your sales climb. Cut through the scarcity of placements on search engines. Get on the first page, up to the first result. Do it today with Unlimited Exposure.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1134-this-article-will-help-you-increase-sales-with-the-best-seo-strategies-2020.html

This Article Will Help You With SEO Strategy Success in 2020

SEO is just as important today as it was a decade ago. Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is vital digital marketing. If you know what SEO is and you already have a strategy, you might think you don’t need to read this article – wrong.

SEO algorithms have changed a lot in the last couple of years. Mobile sites have priority. Voice search has impacted how sites rank. Some factors are not so important anymore. Elements are always changing around the algorithms that dominate what makes good optimization.

When SEO works, it gets more eyes on you. More visibility for your website. More leads. More conversions, if you set your content strategies right. You build brand awareness and position your website to maximize its potential. Here is what you need to be successful in SEO in 2020.

What is SEO?

SEO is the practice of optimizing a website for search engines. SEO helps a website rank on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

When someone searches a phrase that’s relevant to your brand, you want your name to come up. The closer you are to the first result on the first page, the better. To get there, you need SEO. Popular SEO strategies include keyword, content, off-page SEO, and local SEO.

How many SEO search engines are there?

Google is not the only search engine. Its market share has actually been on the decrease, lowering from 91.7 percent in 2012 to 87.9 percent in 2019. Here are some other search engines SEO can help you rank on.

 Bing. This is a Microsoft search engine. It is the default search engine in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge.
 Maps. Maps is a Google search engine. It is on every Android smartphone and used frequently by mobile users.
 Yahoo. The Yahoo search engine has been less popular in recent years but still holds significant global market share.
 Baidu. Baidu is China’s biggest search engine. Baidu has over 80 percent of the market share on all mobile searches in China.
 Yandex. Yandex is the most popular Russian search engine in the world. Much like Baidu for China, if you are appealing to this demographic, this is the search engine to use.
 DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo promotes itself as a search engine that doesn’t track users, unlike Google and Bing. The search engine generates over 1 billion searches worldwide every month.
 Amazon. Amazon uses keyword-based search. It is one of the largest search engines worldwide. If you sell on Amazon, focus on strong keyword use.
 YouTube. YouTube is a Google-owned search engine with more than 2 billion users. YouTube’s a keyword-based search. Use keywords in tags, titles, and descriptions.

What is the best SEO keyword strategy?

Keywords still matter. They’re crucial to SEO success. Keywords should be researched, carefully chosen, and used at a rate of 1-2% in your content.

Keywords can be words or phrases. When a person types in the keyword into Google to find content, the search engine provides sites using said keywords.

How to search for SEO keywords varies in strategy. Look for high search rates and those with low competition. You want to select keywords from three different categories.

1. Short-tail keywords, such as ‘marketing’.
2. Long-tail keywords, such as ‘marketing experts in SEO’.
3. Local keywords, such as ‘marketing experts in Toronto’.

Once you have selected your keywords, you have to use them. It’s not enough to just include them in content. Use them in URLs, titles, and elsewhere on your website.

What is the best SEO content to use to achieve results?

You can’t have a healthy SEO strategy without content. It counts for everything. Publishing content, any time someone wants to know about your topic, they find you.

Content can’t be like a sales pitch. Content should contribute value. It must be relevant, engaging, and shareable. Here are a few forms of content to use in your SEO strategy.

 Blogs.
 Videos.
 Infographics.
 Podcasts.
 Social media posts.

What is Off-Page SEO?

Around the keywords and content you include on your website, there’s also off-page SEO. This is optimization off-site. The main way to do this is through backlinks.

Backlinks are links on other websites that direct back to you. High-quality backlinks say to SEO crawlers that your site is of value. This helps build authority and helps you rank.

The best off-page SEO backlink building strategies are guest blogging, shareable infographics, and connecting with influencers.

Should I use local SEO?

More people are using smartphones to search. A lot of those searches have local intent. If you operate in a strict geographic region, use local SEO. These strategies will tap into these local searches.

Local SEO uses local keywords, such as ‘marketing in Toronto’, ‘marketing in the GTA’, and ‘marketing in Ontario’.

Another way to emphasize local SEO is to register your business in local business directories. Creating location-based landing pages on your site is also strongly recommended. Register yourself on Google Maps and Google My Business listings.

Why is SEO important for new small businesses?

SEO increases visibility. It makes it easier for people to find you. More than 25 percent of people click on the first search result and nothing past. That’s advertising you can’t buy.

SEO boosts web traffic. More leads. If you have your web design right, this means more conversions. What you want to aim for is to rank in the first five positions on Google. This is where 75 percent of all search engine clicks happen.

SEO contributes to authority. This can mean a lot. It lets users know you’re the real deal. You’re trustworthy. You have something to offer. A high search engine ranking suggests quality and excellence.

An added benefit of SEO is improved user experience. Site usability improves. Customer experiences are more positive. Mobile visitors will have a usable site to work with.

What can hurt your SEO?

SEO algorithms aren’t perfect. They can make mistakes in assessing content. Unfortunately, it’s your website that will suffer if there’s bad strategy involved. Here are some areas that search engine crawlers struggle with.

1. A site should have a proper link structure. When it doesn’t, some pages may not be included in a search engine crawl. When this happens, your rank lowers.

2. Minimize coding errors. If you are lazy with your website design, you can sabotage your SEO strategy. Ensure your web coding skills are up to par.

3. Duplicate pages. Repeating the same content over and over is cheating. That’s how search engines see it. Your website will be penalized if you have multiple pages using identical content.

4. Forms. Search engine crawlers struggle to read the content included in forms. This is why we avoid them unless they’re necessary.

5. Images, audio files, flash graphics, and video. Content that’s not text is not easily read by search engine crawlers. Use meta-data and write descriptions. This will tell crawlers what an image or video is meant to represent.

SEO Trends in 2020

Before we close the book on what is successful SEO in 2020, there are a few trends dominating how SEO is being done this year. Here are what they are and how to use them.

 Google has implemented BERT, a natural language processing model. It analyzes the context and intent behind a query. You can’t optimize for BERT but you can for your audience.

 Visual search is more common. Google Lens, Pinterest, Instagram, and other sites are platforms on which to search for images. Content should incorporate more relevant high-resolution images, optimized with titles, descriptions, and alt-text.

 Voice search. Over half of all online searches this year will be made through a voice assistant. Target long-tail keywords, question-and-answer content types, structured data, and featured snippets.

It’s 2020. Times have changed. Adapt your SEO. The algorithms are waiting to make you a star. Whether you’re targeting locally or the world, Unlimited Exposure can help you. Talk with an SEO expert today.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1128-this-article-will-help-you-with-seo-strategy-success-in-2020.html

Do You Have a Voice Search SEO and Social Media Strategy – Here’s Your Guide

Consumers are smitten with voice assistant devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Since 2018, voice search has taken off in a big way. Every month, more users join the fold. Changing the way consumers search for products and services, as well as how they use search engines, voice search is also changing the way customers interact with their favourite brands.

Marketing’s an exercise is responding to and capitalizing on consumer behaviour. If you don’t already have a voice search strategy in place, you are at risk of being left behind. SEO is changing, as is how voice search is driving smartphone Internet use and social media. A new world awaits.

Is voice search a fad?

Different forms of voice-enabled technology have been on the market since the late 1950s. Throughout recent years – and even months – voice tech is getting better and better. By leaps and bounds, voice-enabled products are improving on word recognition accuracy, function, design, and more. If you have a smartphone and/or are on social media, congratulations – eventually these are areas that will be transformed by voice search.

How popular is voice search?

There are more than 51 million voice-assisted devices in North America alone and screen-less browsing accounts for 30 percent of all Internet browsing. It is estimated that roughly half of all searches on Google and other platforms are now conducted by voice search. That’s a huge impact! These numbers aren’t stagnating – they’re growing.

What are some voice search statistics?

 By end of 2022, 55 percent of households in Canada and the US will own a smart voice-enabled speaker.
 According to numbers from January 2018, there were more than 1,000,000,000 voice searches every month. This number has only increased, since then.
 Of the people who own voice-activated devices, 52 percent put their speaker in the main living room, 25 percent keep it in the bathroom, and 22 percent keep it in the kitchen.
 Over 25 percent of eCommerce shoppers during the holidays used voice assistance.
 Mobile voice searches are 3 times more likely to be local-based than text-related searches.
 The majority of smart home device owners are between the ages of 26 and 35.
 Over 40 percent of millennials use voice-enabled digital assistants, compared to only 11 percent of baby boomers.

Why should I adopt a voice search strategy?

If you want to be a stick in the mud, sure, you don’t HAVE to adopt a voice search approach. However, if you believe the customer comes first, it’s then the customer experience one should value. More and more users have voice-enabled tech at their fingertips. When you set up platforms and strategies that facilitate capturing and entertaining the needs of this user base, you’re doing them a service. From a consumer perspective, they find voice search natural and seamless to use, saves time, and is convenient.

How is voice search changing SEO?

Voice search SEO is the first place to look at creating a voice search marketing strategy. Consumers search differently on voice than they do by text. Voice queries, for example, are generally longer, more niche and long-tail keyword-driven in their request, and have a conversational tone to them. Voice searches are also usually given in the form of a question, meaning if a website’s optimized with question-and-answers and long-tail keywords with a conversational tone, you’re far better off than you would be with content meant strictly to be read.

Will voice search make SEO more competitive?

When you search by text, Google provides to you a full page of results. Then, you can click through. If you don’t have that #1 rank but are able to nab #2 or #3, you’re still within the recommended space to get a fair look. On voice search, there is no screen nor page. Any business now has to get the top result for a search term – that’s the only way they’ll get a mention.

What are featured snippets and how do they help voice search?

Featured snippets appear any time you ask Google a question. They appear as collapsible sections on the first page of Google results, with a series of Q & As. If you can get your content listed in this section, it sets you up very well to be potentially returned on a voice search query. Google Assistant in particular uses featured snippets for voice search a lot. If you aren’t already developing content with question-based answers, give it a try. In a matter of a few months, chances are you’re going to notice a difference in your metrics – especially if you have data culled from voice search-arrived users.

How important is local SEO to voice search?

When someone searches through a voice-enabled device, geographically speaking, the algorithms try to give back something local. A lot of expert SEO techies undervalue the importance of local SEO. That’s going to have to change with how voice search is going. When users employ a search with local intent, such as searching for local restaurants, it makes it all the more integral for brands to begin using more geography alongside their SEO keywords. Depending on your service area, this may include the city you’re in, region, province or state, and country.

What are Google Home Actions and Alexa Skills?

Google Home Actions and Alexa Skills, what are they? They are essentially voice search apps. Downloaded onto someone’s voice-enabled device, it gives the user certain functions not previously had. There are more than 4,300 Google Actions and 60,000 Alexa skill available. Businesses can create and release their own voice search app which can help get clicks, attention, and increase traffic. Here are some examples of how brands have used voice applications in attracting users off voice-enabled devices:

 Domino’s gives customers the chance to order a pizza without having to place an order online or by phone.
 PayPal users can use Siri to send money to friends, family, or businesses with ease.
 Nestle provides voice cooking instructions to you as you cook, through a voice search application.
 Tide has a skill that provides advice on removing stains from up to multiple hundreds of substances.

How are Google SEO algorithms changing with voice search?

Last year, Google released the BERT algorithm. This included natural language processing, aka NLP, and advanced machine learning tech. BERT makes it so that their search engine can understand the intent of a phrase, as opposed to understanding word by word. Keyword strategies must keep this in mind, focusing on intent of what’s said more than the specific words used. The most common trigger words in voice search are ‘how’ and ‘why’ as well as ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘why’. These are all question-based.

Whether one’s content marketing and SEO changes or it doesn’t, regardless, the algorithms change which means those who don’t adapt will fall behind. A great example of this is take a keyword like ‘lawyer for wills and estate planning’. This would have been a great keyword a decade ago. Considering the algorithm changes that have happened and what’s potentially coming, a better keyword today would be ‘find a lawyer for wills and estate planning in <my city>’. Think of the language a user will give by voice and match it in supplying the question, answering it, and ensuring the intent of your article mirrors that given by the query.

At UE, you have a digital marketing dream team. We have expertise in voice search local SEO, social media, content marketing, web design, and more. Stay one step ahead of the trend. Competition shouldn’t have the advantage – you should. The base of voice search users is growing bigger and bigger. Now’s the time to pull the ripcord and react. Optimize for voice search, reap the results, and set your brand up with momentum you can carry on long into the future.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1120-do-you-have-a-voice-search-seo-and-social-media-strategy-%E2%80%93-here%E2%80%99s-your-guide.html

Why is My SEO Not Working – See the Reasons Why and How to Fix It

“My website isn’t ranking. Can you help?” We get this question all the time. So you’ve created one heck of a website, packed with engaging content and keywords in what you’ve been told are all the right places. Yet, for some reason, your website is nowhere to be found on Google. You’re not getting the clicks you want and the clicks you are getting don’t relate close to keywords you’re targeting.

SEO is harder than it seems. It’s not just about publishing quality content and a fast, mobile responsive website. Plenty of other variables come into play – a lot you can control but others which cannot. You’re working against competition as well. If you think you deserve a higher ranking than what Google is providing you, let’s look at reasons why your SEO isn’t working and how to fix them.

You aren’t link building

The more high quality websites you have linking to your site, the more authority and legitimacy you’re giving yourself in the eyes of Google. Sometimes in SEO we don’t target links or comparatively, we target low quality links. These don’t work. Enact a link building strategy that focuses on high quality links. Once you’re supporting your website with good quality links, this demonstrates to search engine crawlers that you’re worthy a high rank.

You chose keywords without researching them

It may seem obvious what keywords you want for your website but choosing keywords takes research. You’ve got to look at where a keyword is ranking, its competition, and judge its relevancy to you and your other keywords. By analyzing keyword performance via apps like Majestic, Moz, or Ahrefs, you can find out a lot about what’s most likely to generate a return. Opportunities aren’t created in SEO – they’re found. To find them, you’ve got to plug into data, research, and using these types of programs.

You’re publishing too much content

Let’s be clear – it’s not the quantity of content that is of concern, it’s the quality. When websites publish a lot of content more or less all at once, most of the time, the quality of content is low. Unless you’re sure what you’re publishing is high quality and unique, be careful on how much content’s being published. It makes more of an impact when you publish less content that prioritizes quality, rather than publishing an overabundance of content where none of it is valuable or unique.

You’re not optimizing the design of your content

A certain type of content marketing tends to rank very well on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. If the writing quality is outstanding on your content, this isn’t necessarily enough to get a promising ranking. On-page optimization in design has got to be prioritized as well.

 Any inbound links embedded in the content should be quality ones.
 The length of content should be 1,000-2,000 words, instead of 500 words or less.
 Subheadings under H1, H2, and H3 subheading tags can be used to further emphasize keywords.

You’re using an outdated SEO approach

SEO is not a concrete, static strategy. Search engine optimization changes every time a search engine like Google changes their algorithm. This makes it so that SEO strategies which worked in 2005 may not necessarily produce the same results in 2020. Even year to year, things are in seemingly constant change. This is why many websites prefer connecting with an SEO expert, digital marketing team, or experienced SEO professional. In that, they have a stakeholder monitoring the latest algorithm changes and speak in the SEO community, ensuring your site is established, coded, and written in a way to maximize its potential for success.

Your web design structure and coding isn’t optimized

There’s a lot of technical effort that goes into creating results-driven SEO digital marketing campaigns. Even if what you’re doing on the page is spectacular, if the technical code isn’t managed, your effort could be in vain. Here are some basic technical keys to a quality SEO campaign.

 Titles that are written with high-value keywords in concise, natural language.
 Create an XML sitemap so that Google can easily find and index web pages, as well as to avoid duplicate content issues.
 Meta descriptions are fully written with keywords embedded and no longer than 160 characters.
 Alt-tags with keywords are used at every opportunity, no longer than six words.
 URLs should be keyword-rich and no longer than 100 characters long.

You’re knowingly or unknowingly using black hat SEO practices

Black hat SEO strategies are dated and going to get your site penalized. Black hat SEO are comprised of techniques that some marketers use to cheat the system. Though once very prominent, these days, black hat SEO is always eventually found and when it is, it’s the website that pays the price. Black hat SEO strategies include maintaining private blog networks, paying for links, spamming links, stuffing in keywords, or using hidden text. This is considered wrong and unethical. Don’t pursue this method.

Competition on your target keywords is very high

When competition is high on keywords, the more work you’ll have to put to rank. A new brand shouldn’t be targeting high-competition keywords because you haven’t yet built a website equipped with the authority to take the challenge on. You’ll only be constantly defeated by popular websites with more age and authority to them. The solution evidently is to target SEO keywords with less competition, short-tail and long-tail both. This will help get you ranked on keywords and from there, you can continue building your equity as a website.

Your content is a let-down in quality and misusing keywords

Content that’s poorly written, being stuffed with keywords, and which isn’t relevant to the keywords you’re trying to rank for is the worst thing you can do for your SEO. A ranking website should have high quality content that’s written well and free from grammar mistakes. The discussed topics should always be relevant to the brand’s long-term goals as well as the target keywords. Over-stuffing keywords is also bad practice that could result in big penalties on a website’s SEO. If you’re unsure about why you’re not ranking well on Google, consider your content’s quality simply may not be there to justify a higher ranking than what it’s already received.

You have multiple pages of content that are similar

You may unknowingly product near-duplicate content with multiple pages written with similar content. This often happens when we are designing location-based landing pages or with keyword-specific pages. Duplicate content is a big mark against your SEO on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Every page has got to be unique and original.

You don’t know what your SEO objectives are

When we think SEO is not working, we may think this because we don’t have enough sales, revenues, conversions, email sign-ups, etc. The purpose of SEO marketing is to get the click-through. Once a customer’s clicked, the impetus then is on the website to convert. Choosing objectives for your SEO campaign, be aware of the limitations of search engine optimization. Brands and websites will find more can be accomplished when there’s investment in digital marketing as a multi-channel strategy with SEO being one channel of several, as opposed to counting on SEO exclusively.

You’ve got technical errors you didn’t even know about

When you connect with SEO experts and they conduct an SEO audit on your website, they complete an analysis to find if there are technical issues present. A lot of common technical problems that are found in these audits include improper redirects, slower than average page load times, mobile errors, and unintentional blocked pages. If they haven’t coded the site themselves, a lot of site owners may not even be aware these issues exist. Thankfully, they’re an easy fix.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1116-why-is-my-seo-not-working-%E2%80%93-see-the-reasons-why-and-how-to-fix-it.html

SEO or Content Marketing, What’s Better – See Why Traditional SEO Has Expired!

You may be looking at the terms ‘content marketing’ and ‘SEO’ side by side, and be thinking, “Aren’t they the same thing?” The answer is that though they are very similar, they’re actually quite different as well.

SEO’s as important as ever in generating organic reach for a new or existing website. The truth however is that content marketing’s a stronger investment long-term for any brand. With SEO algorithms always at risk of changing, a traditional approach to search engine optimization is outdated and dangerous to spend a lot of time on. Here’s why your long-term digital strategy should center on content over search optimization.

What is the purpose of SEO?

SEO, aka search engine optimization, is a set of strategies that involve getting your website or content to rank at the top of search engines. Though SEO involves content marketing strategies, it’s primarily technical in the sense that it’s about getting the technical specifications right i.e. descriptions, keywords, meta data, headers, and general coding.

What is the purpose of content marketing?

Content marketing is more advanced than SEO and goes beyond your website to brand reputation management. Content marketing can have many different objectives, ranging from awareness to relationship building – all depending on what a brand is looking to achieve. ‘Content’ is not just text and can comprise of videos, images, eBooks, podcasts, and more.

What your Analytics will tell you

If you have a website with either SEO or content marketing dominating its design, look to your Analytics. If you’ve installed analytics software on your website, there’s a lot of data it can produce, demonstrating whether a given strategy is succeeding or falling short.

As we move further into this discussion on SEO and content marketing, it’s important to let your Analytics guide you on developing new content, revising old content, and posting content already proven to resonate with your audience. The majority of content marketing does not receive a whole lot of attention. This is because there’s just too much of it! To be successful in content creation and SEO, it’s crucial to rely on Analytics to determine where the most value is.

Why content marketing is better than SEO

It’s not necessarily that content marketing is better than SEO, as SEO actually comprises a component of content marketing. This is to say however content marketing is superior to SEO, tagging in more advanced strategies that go beyond targeting search engines, coding, and conducting keyword research. This isn’t 2004, anymore. There are plenty of ways to reach new and existing customers, far outside of search engines. Content marketing provides some key strategies to maximize channels like email and social media as well.

Why SEO has failed

Traditional SEO fails to generate returns at times because competition is high and users are on other platforms. To cut through the noise of every other brand vying for your customer, to contribute a piece of unique, meaningful content is more valuable than writing a blog or producing web design around a keyword.

Content marketing succeeds because it is so adaptable to all kinds of platforms, current and future alike. It involves being creative, one-of-a-kind, telling a story, and to do so across friendly medias.

The impact of social media on SEO

Social media can prove to be a far more attractive, easy, and more investment-friendly way to reach customers. With social media, you can adapt an SEO approach and build around descriptions, keyword clusters, and meta descriptions with your posts.

It’s content marketing however that ties more closely to social media. Content’s easy to share, like, and engage with, contrary to how traditional SEO can work at times. This isn’t to downgrade SEO in any way. A lot of marketers, to this day, consider the ultimate awareness-building digital marketing strategy to involve SEO, content marketing, and social media working together as one.

Put your SEO under the influence of content marketing

A smart move to make is to incorporate content marketing-led strategies in your SEO. This is because the unfortunate truth of SEO is every brand’s at the mercy of Google’s ever-changing algorithms. What Google will prioritize in its algorithm is beyond your control – your content comparatively is fully in your control. If your content marketing game is on point, that works wonders for SEO and on its own merits can help get you ranked higher than you may think.

What’s the best SEO strategy to base my content around?

High quality SEO marketing strategies include to use the right keywords, use keyword-rich descriptions and tags in your content marketing, and to have a mobile-friendly, visually-appealing website ready for clicking. Every piece of content you put out should be optimized with SEO keywords guiding the publishing of these pieces. Quality of content is priority, of course. Don’t sacrifice quality to get the technical elements right. If you need to use less keywords to write amazing content, absolutely, do so.

You may think this will penalize your SEO but in all actuality, with each passing year, Google’s algorithms continue to move more towards prioritizing high quality content over SEO technical expertise. This is great news for a lot of starting brands who have a message with something meaningful to say. This means you don’t necessarily have to be an expert to succeed in generating organic SEO rankings.

If you know you audience, you’re halfway there!

The best content marketing is that which pleases its audience. This involves knowing user intent, what they’re thinking, what they need, their interests, and what their buyer persona is. No brand can intentionally sell to an audience they don’t know about. After all, how can you create engaging content when you don’t know what ‘engaging content’ is to your target audience?

Look at the competition. Do some studying into your existing user base and the audience you might be trying to target. Research is a marketer’s best friend. The information is out there, oftentimes already in your Analytics.

Content marketing statistics to help you build a strategy

 Video marketing is incredibly popular with adults, with videos seen by all ages every day across platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
 There are more users on mobile devices than desktop platforms, meaning content and media should be optimized to these users – just like your SEO!
 Almost half of all online searches in 2020 will be done by voice search. This means how content’s structured should be voice search-friendly, using a mix of SEO voice search strategies to optimize.
 Approximately 96 percent of all mobile search traffic comes from Google. As you can assume, SEO is far from dead! Blend in what works in contemporary SEO with your quality-driven content.

The balance between SEO and content marketing

As digital marketing and consumer behaviour continues to slowly abandon old school SEO, moving to content marketing, the balance between them is important to remember. SEO is technical, organic, keyword-driven, and web design efficient. Content is creative storytelling, engagement-driven, and will reach more people than any SEO keyword can. As a brand, a balance must be found between doing strategy and quality.

 Strategy is to get the technical, paint-by-numbers aspects right.
 Quality is to give your customers content that engages them.

It will be your success at balancing these two priorities that determines content marketing performance on social media, email, and more. There is a lot of overlap between SEO and content marketing, thankfully, so any website leaning more towards the technical SEO aspects doesn’t necessarily have to move mountains to switch to a content marketing-first digital strategy.

Are you ready for a results-driven, high-performance digital marketing strategy? Contact Unlimited Exposure today. Align SEO, social media, email, content marketing, video, brand building, and sales-ready strategies all in one. Reach thousands of people across numerous channels and generate the results your business deserves!

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1113-seo-or-content-marketing,-what%E2%80%99s-better-%E2%80%93-see-why-traditional-seo-has-expired.html

White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO, What You Can Learn From Both

In the world of search engine optimization or SEO as the digital marketing world has come to shorten it to, there is what’s called ‘white hat tactics’ and ‘black hat tactics’. White hat SEO represents good, reliable SEO work while black hat SEO stands for risky SEO hacks that could penalize your site or if Google finds out you’re using these strategies could result in really bad consequences.

For years, black hat SEO was a serious problem. Spammy sites would use black hat SEO to rank high on Google, until the popular search engine started to get smart about it. Algorithms slowly adapted and nowadays many say there’s pretty much no such thing as black hat SEO. This is because if an SEO marketing hacker tries anything of the sort, Google will probably catch it. Unfortunately, there are still some who think they can hack Google’s SEO algorithms and that tends to put your site at risk.

The relationship between black hat and white hat SEO explained further

Black hat SEO wasn’t always considered ‘cheating’. In fact, black hat SEO strategies like blog comment spam were widely used. It was only once Google’s algorithms started to change and the company began to address SEO techniques they would no longer tolerate that black hat strategies became banned.

Today’s black hat SEO specialists try to find loopholes to exploit in the existing search engine optimization algorithms to get a higher ranking. Comparatively, white hat SEO specialist take a less aggressive approach focusing on how to satisfy the algorithm. A white hat SEO approach zeroes in on optimization on-site, keyword research, backlinks, high-value content, and more.

List of black hat SEO strategies

 Using duplicate content to elevate site authority and keyword use.
 Using invisible text and stuffing keywords to falsely elevate the value of a website page.
 Re-directing the user to another site or page unexpectedly or without reasoning.
 Obtaining links from sites with non-relevant content to boost backlinks.

List of white hat SEO strategies

 Creating unique, relevant content.
 Labelling images with keyword-driven captions, descriptions, and alt-text.
 Obtaining and including relevant links and references.
 Writing in complete sentences with good spelling and grammar.
 Using unique and relevant page titles.

Can you find SEO strategies that work?

Black hat SEO strategists built their reputation off of being ultra-aggressive towards achieving ranking. While there isn’t anything wrong with the approach, the means of achieving the result is where the controversy lay.

Don’t be afraid to spend money on SEO strategies that make money and which work. White hat SEO effective strategies in this vein include promoting content via organic links, investing in partnerships with micro-influencers, investing in digital ads that earn you links, and more.

Find high quality, relevant backlinks

Google SEO algorithms prioritize site authority. How to build site authority is through relevant backlinks. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher you will rank.

In the past, black hat SEO specialists would buy these backlinks instead of building them in reputable ways. Comparatively, the right way to find backlinks is to guest blog, do PR, build partnerships, ask others for backlinks, pitch newsworthy stories with a link back to your page, and/or listing your site on third party directories. All these satisfy the goal of getting you relevant links that demonstrate your site’s importance, quality, and relevancy.

Choose keyword research over keyword stuffing

Although it’s not done to the same degree as it once was, keyword stuffing would pack in the same keyword in content in the hopes it would rank a page higher. Instead of quantity, focus on quality. Complete your keyword research, and find short-tail and long-tail keywords you can sprinkle naturally throughout site content. This will yield far better results.

Finding the right SEO keywords involves not only making the right selection but placing them in readable, user-friendly content. Black hat SEO had it right when it came to the importance of keywords. Stuffing them in paragraph after paragraph though is a very weak strategy that will penalize your site. If you dare try it, we can guarantee it won’t lead to positive places. Choose quality keyword research instead.

Internal linking connects your website page by page

Google wants to see websites that link internally. This shows content organization in a way its algorithms understand. If you have pages you can connect, with relevant subject matter, link them. Build an interconnected web that encourages click-throughs.

Internal links are to be included on every page of a website, at an average rate of 2-4 per page. You don’t need to stuff them in or pack them in more than that. Just like you want with the placement of keywords, you want links to come off as a natural fit. If your web page looks like Wikipedia, you’re going to run into problems. You don’t need that many links! It looks like spam. Choose a smarter strategy.

Test your SEO campaign with measurable data

Digital marketing SEO is like a controlled experiment that needs to be measured and tested. Always test your campaign. You can’t simply go forward expecting something to work as expected. Sometimes they don’t, like it or not.

Some testing you may want to run include running two or three content marketing strategies simultaneously, changing linking strategies, using multiple keywords, or using split testing. Implementing analytics software, there’s a lot you can monitor in an SEO campaign. The more data you have on how users are responding to your strategy, the more justification you’ll have continuing with it or making a change.

Choose white hat SEO specialists in Unlimited Exposure. We’ll get you the same aggressive results that black hat SEO strategists once did. SEO is an organic momentum-driver for brands to find optimum first-page ranking. When you’re SEO compliant and being smart about the strategies you’re using, this is the first step towards success in this digital marketing category. Partner with Unlimited Exposure today.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1098-white-hat-seo-and-black-hat-seo,-what-you-can-learn-from-both.html

7 SEO Mistakes Your Blog Might Still be Making in 2019 that we Want to See Go Bye-Bye!

A lot goes into crafting a creative, effective content marketing strategy. For example, Google’s algorithm strategy is based around the trust and authority of the host domain, link popularity of a page, anchor text of external links to the page, on-page keyword usage, site speed and mobile responsiveness, and more. It’s easy to get carried away with everything that goes into it. Sometimes, the best approach is one that’s back-to-basics. Here are 7 SEO mistakes your blog is probably making or has made in the past and how to fix them.

7 SEO Mistakes Your Blog Might Still be Making in 2019 that we Want to See Go Bye-Bye!

Paid links

Accepting paid links on your site is a bad idea. Search engines see it as a strategy to artificially increase SEO rank and they won’t hesitate to penalize your site based off that. Avoid shortcuts. Use SEO blog marketing strategies you know aren’t putting your site at risk.

Non-user friendly copy

Content you put on-site should be light, without excessive jargon, and attention-worthy. Use transition words, insert images and videos when appropriate, and let no more than 400 words go by before you hit your user with another visual. Use headlines and subheadings to help break up longer texts. Make it easy to read.

Bad internal linking structure

Internal linking is oftentimes done improperly or inconsistently. Ideally, you want 3-5 internal links per blog. You may want to conduct an audit to see what links you have and which have the authority. Be sure to create a sitemap as well, to ensure no page is being forgotten about as a site’s being indexed and crawled.

Non-optimized keyword structure

Site content should be linked by topic and keyword. This will help the user navigate more easily and effectively. Then, in the body of your content, use long-tail keywords, question-based keywords, and write to the questions you know your audience will want to hear. Easy to understand headlines including ‘how-tos’ and ‘tips’ articles can easily makes use of keywords to optimize your text.

Plagiarism

When you copy and paste another person’s content, you’re claiming it as your own and that’s a copyright violation. It’s also not going to win you any SEO points. If you use a little of someone else’s words, always cite the source. Also, be aware any use of another person’s content may negatively impact your SEO rank and get you flagged for duplicate content. If there was ever a rule never to be broken in SEO marketing, this is it.

Bad content promotion

One of the most common SEO mistakes is not promoting one’s content properly. Just because content’s written well doesn’t mean it’s going to become the next viral blog. To succeed, you have got to let people know you and your content exists. Easily, social media sharing and backlinks are two of the best ways to do this.

Non-optimized videos and images

Search engines don’t know how to classify videos and images without you telling them what it is. Optimize alt-text with page keywords, ensure files are properly formatted, and with videos, use a video sitemap so that they can be found on search engines.

Some mistakes are worse than others but what’s for sure is that your SEO strategy’s not going to get you anywhere if you don’t have the basics done up. Content marketing, SEO, and social media work hand-in-hand, each having a pivotal influence on the others’ success. Avoid the mistakes mentioned and you’ll be on the pathway to high search engine ranking.

Source  : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1045-7-seo-mistakes-your-blog-might-still-be-making-in-2019-that-we-want-to-see-go-bye-bye.html

Don’t Let Your SEO Campaign Move Forward without These 3 Keys to Great Content

Updated algorithms on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have made SEO more complex and complicated than ever. Add to that key influences on SEO algorithms like site structure, site speed, whether a site is mobile optimized, and the quality of one’s content marketing, and you have a varied web of things that can play a role in where you rank.

A lot of marketers and brands get caught up on the details, leaving behind general SEO basics. Unfortunately, it’s usually the basics that will sink you or sabotage a campaign. If you’re missing even one of the basics, this can have a negative draw on your search engine optimization. Needless to say, these are 3 things you’ve absolutely got to get right. No excuses!

High quality, engaging, and unique content.

Content makes or breaks a campaign. If it’s all paint-by-numbers, low quality, and stuff others have written about, you’re not in good company. Some general tips to creating effective SEO content marketing is to write for the people and not for search engines, to write long and meaningful articles, and to forget about keyword density. Remember, you are competing for clicks. Build content that is comprehensive, that takes a different spin on a subject, that fills in content gaps others have forgotten about, or on content formats that aren’t widely explored.

Using a comprehensive sitemap.

Search engine crawl bots are searching your site to index the content. If you want to get everything indexed, build a sitemap. Sitemap websites get crawled up to 5 times faster. All a sitemap is is an outline of what pages are available on the site and essentially indicates to crawlers where to go. It’s simple but it really gets an excellent result when it comes to SEO. While creating a sitemap, ensure there isn’t any duplicate content. Search engines won’t know which one is original and it can be detrimental to your SEO rank. Keep track of your information and don’t create any unnecessary pages that don’t need to be there.

Writing jaw-droppingly excellent headlines!

Headlines count for a lot. Consumers oftentimes decide the worth of a piece based strictly on headlines. Beyond the wit, humor, and/or style expected, you also want to put in keywords. You will also not want to publish any article without a headline. Another rule – don’t write a headline that’s short or too long. The most compelling headlines are those that are creative, catchy, and which touch upon your keyword in just the right way. Here are some general headline-writing guidelines for SEO-friendly content marketing.

 A headline starting with a number is the most effective headline writing strategy for consumer preferences.
 ‘Reader addressing’ headlines, such as ‘What You Need to know About…’ are extremely persuasive.
 How-to headlines are instructional, informational, and direct. For users searching for straightforward information, these are a winner.
 Questions in your headline are an effective way to address common questions about your brand, products, services, or trends ongoing in your industry.

SEO’s always evolving. These 3 basic elements haven’t changed, despite the many algorithm updates. If you want to outrank the competition, make sure these 3 things are in place. Missing any of these will have an effect.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1039-don%E2%80%99t-let-your-seo-campaign-move-forward-without-these-3-keys-to-great-content.html

Where’s your Organic Traffic? How Aspects of your Web Design Could Affect SEO ROI

If your web design isn’t jiving with your SEO, that could be a problem. Too many brands unknowingly sabotage all the work they put into their SEO with poor web design. If you’re inexperienced with SEO or web design, to rank high on search engines like Google and Bing, design on the back-end and site infrastructure is just as important as what you put on the page.

What do SEO ROI analytics say about how well your strategy is working? If numbers are low, the problem may be with the design of your page. For example, is your bounce rate high? That’s indicative that people are clicking but they’re not necessarily finding what they came to your website for. Are certain pages performing better than others? Is there a spike somewhere in referral traffic? These are signs your SEO is working. Are you noticing any difference between devices? Is your website mobile responsive? If not, you could be giving away a lot of traffic on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.

Web design is all about connecting the dots. That’s how easy it should be to navigate. The navigational menu should be intuitive, as should the site infrastructure. Subtle design choices influence SEO in a big way. The impact all this has on site speed is also something to be noted. Slow websites aren’t going to rank well on SEO, even if your content marketing is top notch and keywords optimized. You want your site to be easy to crawl, use, read, access, and find. When any of these elements are out-of-place, this makes your SEO targets more difficult to achieve. Recommendations with your web design for SEO include the following.

 Drop down navigation menu items should always link to the main category with a site architecture that is easy to navigate and with URLs properly labelled.
 Incorporate alt-text options for image uploads to ensure any image booked on your website’s classified by search engines and not ignored.
 Ensure redirects are properly written so that they lead to the correct location.
 Ensure a mobile responsive web design is implemented, allowing your website to be aesthetically optimized across any and all devices.

Look at what your analytics are telling you. They will say everything you need to know about website design success. If you’re losing prospective customers along the way, your analytics will tell you plain and simple. It’s not all bad news though so don’t be discouraged! Analytics communicate where improvements are to be made. Use this as a guide when re-designing your site. Look at the pages that are over-performing and under-performing. See if there are similar elements. There might be something there.

Today’s SEO strategies generate organic traffic slowly building over a matter of weeks. Search algorithms dictate a lot about success in SEO digital marketing. If you’re unsure about how to implement a strong SEO plan, consider hiring an agency. An experienced, expert-level web design and SEO team knows what they’re doing in connecting design elements with site optimization techniques.

Consumers need to trust your website and if there are unexpected components at play or if the website isn’t delivering what’s promised in your content-based optimization strategies, that’s a problem. Find an agency that works for you. Looking for SEO in Toronto? Hire Unlimited Exposure.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1037-where%E2%80%99s-your-organic-traffic-how-aspects-of-your-web-design-could-affect-seo-roi.html

Increase YouTube Videos with SEO Tactics to Improve Traffic and Get Users Clicking

SEO strategies shouldn’t just target Google search engine results. SEO for YouTube can be tremendous at generating traffic to your brand and site. Google is the world’s largest search engine. Do you know whose #2? YouTube is.

For those who already have videos on YouTube, you’re probably already tapping into certain video and social media marketing techniques. YouTube search engines have a high ROI for campaigns and using a few effective SEO tactics, it’s possible for brands to build organic and cumulative momentum that elevates them to the top of their category.

Optimizing title and description.

Just like you would for a blog post, one should incorporate keywords and strategic long-tail phrases into video titles and descriptions. Every day, billions of videos are watched. That’s a massive amount of traffic and a lot of noise for a brand to cut through. By using keywords and a strategic approach in your YouTube SEO, you indicate to the social platform what your video’s about and what queries to relate your content to. Also, you will notice your YouTube videos increase their rank fast when you keep up on optimizing titles, descriptions, and meta data.

Using closed captions.

YouTube’s closed caption system can also be used to enter in keywords and convert audio content into interpretable text. This will also help YouTube assess your video’s subject matter and to classify it in an appropriate area. Closed captions are a major YouTube search ranking factor. Add closed captions by going to your Video Manager, clicking on your video, and then turning on the Subtitles/CC tab. Remember, like Google’s search bots, YouTube can’t really interpret image or video data. They need text to indicate what a piece of visual media means. Use the opportunity to enter in more text to support your SEO.

Non-YouTube promotion.

YouTube is the ultimate video marketing hosting strategy as it allows you to put this video on your website, social media, in emails, and wherever. Video views are a ranking factor worth playing with, in the sense that you shouldn’t hesitate to promote your YouTube videos on other sites. The more genuine views you can accumulate, the more likely the algorithms will be to promote or share your content on the platform, ranking it accordingly.

Frequent publishing.

More than 300 hours of video footage are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds. New videos receive a boost in visibility to help them drive traffic however this only lasts up to 3 months at most. Ideally, you want to be posting videos semi-regularly – think once a week or once every two weeks, at least. If necessary, split a longer video into shorter pieces which can be uploaded weekly or daily. This YouTube SEO strategy can also help to increase channel subscriptions and consumer engagement.

High quality videos.

For all the fanciful, trendy YouTube search engine optimization approaches there are, if your videos suck, there’s not much that can be done. You don’t need a million-dollar budget to get amazing ROI on YouTube. You just need passion and the ability to put together honest, meaningful, and transparent videos for your audience.

Are you looking to make an impact on YouTube? Let us help. The experts in digital marketing, content development, and SEO are on their way. See big ROI! Contact a representative at Unlimited Exposure today.

Source : https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1015-increase-youtube-videos-with-seo-tactics-to-improve-traffic-and-get-users-clicking.html