4 local SEO strategies for small and medium businesses

For small and medium businesses who want to compete on the same playing-field as much larger corporations with greater resources at their disposal, having a strong local SEO strategy is crucial.

Irrespective of what industry you’re in, you’ll always have at least one competitor who has been around longer and has allocated more budget and resources to building their visibility on the web and in search engines.

It may feel futile to try and compete with them in the realm of SEO.

But local SEO plays by slightly different rules to the regular kind. You don’t need to have reams of funding at your disposal or hundreds of links pointing to your site to be visible and relevant to a local audience – you just need to understand the unique characteristics of local SEO, and apply a few simple strategies to cater to them.

In this article, we’ll explore four cost-effective strategies that small and medium businesses can use to give themselves the best chance of ranking locally.

Verify your business’ Google Plus page

Your first step is to link your business’ Google Plus page with Google My Business. Google My Business allows SMEs to update their information across Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Plus in one fell swoop, to ensure that a potential customer can find you wherever they are and whatever device they’re on.

Local searches lead to more purchases than non-local searches, and verifying your Google Plus page makes it possible for you to monopolize the majority of the search results pages for your brand name, especially for the Local Business Card on the right.

Business owners need to realize that anyone can edit your business listing and this includes your competitors. Once you have provided Google My Business with all your details, it is very important to login to your Google My Business dashboard regularly to ensure that no one has attempted to make any unwanted changes to your listing.

Take advantage of the many interesting features available to businesses on Google My Business such as Google Posts, booking button feature, messaging, Questions & Answers, and more. The possibilities are limitless, get busy!

Pay-Per-Click advertising

Launching your website is only the first step. Implementing a marketing strategy that includes Pay-Per-Click advertising is an important part of small business success within the digital landscape.

Virtually every small business can benefit from implementing a pay-per-click marketing strategy to build its web presence. The idea is to identify targeted, relevant keywords, understand your target audience and develop a strategy that will drive the right types of leads.

Selling a product or service that is difficult for consumers to find locally makes your business a great candidate for PPC advertising campaigns. People often rely on internet searches to locate unusual or rare products.

On top of this, many local searches with high purchase intent take place on mobile, as consumers search for a business or service “near me” while they’re out and about. As PPC advertising dominates a greater proportion of screen space on mobile, having paid search ads in place will give you the best chance of appearing in front of consumers in these moments.

Learning to combine the strengths of both search and social media, pay-per-click will effectively round out any small business’ paid advertising strategy. Understanding the difference and when to use each platform will increase visibility and decrease cost.

Host user-generated reviews

Google sees reviews as a major factor for ranking on the new carousel design; however, more than anything your reviews are for Google users who see your company on a SERP. Peer-to-peer reviews are powerful because they give your potential customers a good sense of what it’s really like to use your goods or services.

In this regard, the internet has leveled the playing field for small businesses across the globe through the power and exposure of online user-generated reviews.

Search engine spiders like content that is unique and frequently updated, and user reviews are an easy way to create more of this. Content generated by users is often unique to the user, therefore, it is different from the generic content mostly used by e-commerce sites which is the same thing as the manufacturer description.

This, combined with the fact that the words and phrases used by reviewers are often the same as those used by searchers, increases the chances of ranking well for search queries that are relevant to your product.

When you consider that 88% of shoppers consider product reviews before making any purchase, it’s a safe bet to assume that more and more consumers will be searching for the name of your product along with the word ‘review’, or related words like ‘ratings’.

Get your visitors started by simply putting a button on your webpage to facilitate leaving a review, prompt visitors to leave a review after purchasing something or visiting a particular landing page, or talk directly with people in your store or company about leaving a review.

Optimize your images

Optimization for local SEO is not limited to text. Due to the increasingly blended nature of search results, you can now see images on the search listings page, so it’s important to optimize your imagery for search engines.

Ensure your images are search engine-friendly. It all starts with the file name. There are a billion and one images out there, so you don’t want to use a generic image file name like ‘image12345.jpg’ that will guarantee your business gets lost in the pile. Instead, you want to use something descriptive to make it easier for your images to compete in rankings.

Search engines can’t read images, so it is up to you to use alt tags to help describe your image to ensure it pops up during relevant queries. Write a concise, relevant description that contains the appropriate keywords. Don’t forget to write content above and below the images on your website, using keywords where appropriate; the more the text is related to the image, the better.

Most importantly, if you want your images to rank for localized keywords, make sure you add local keywords wherever you can for blended results optimized for a specific local area.

In short, there’s no elevator to rise to the top of the search engine rankings, especially when there’s a massive competitor lingering on the scene. But with a strategy that leverages your geographic location, you can selectively overcome your competitors in specific key areas.

Give yourself an advantage by narrowing your topic and keyword focus and increasing your location-specific relevance. You might not rank for as many keywords as the big players, but you will be able to surpass them in relevance for your chosen focal points.

If you want to dive further into local SEO strategies after reading these tips, the following articles will take you more in-depth:

• How to create a kickass link-building strategy for local SEO
• 6 ways to market your local business online (beyond Google Maps)
• How creating relevant experiences can boost your clicks on local search ads
• How to optimize Google My Business listings for multi-location businesses

Pius Boachie is the founder of DigitiMatic, an inbound marketing agency.

from https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/02/20/4-local-seo-strategies-for-small-and-medium-businesses/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/171120661889

How can you determine your website’s authority, and what can you do to improve it?

One of the most important and influential SEO metrics many marketers, and specifically content marketers, pay attention to is Domain Authority (DA).

The Domain Authority metric was developed by Moz as a means of quantifying your website’s relative importance as a whole – its authority.

It provides an insight into the SEO “strength” of your website, and its likelihood of ranking for certain keywords. Essentially, the higher this number is, the higher you’ll rank in the SERPs, and the more traffic you’ll have.

Like most SEO metrics, this number fluctuates based on several factors, and to improve your authority, you first need to determine where your website stands among the others online.

Not sure where to start? Compiled below is a guide to help you determine your website’s authority and improve your score.

Understanding Domain Authority

Before you determine your website’s authority, you should first understand the key components of DA. Domain Authority is scored on a one to 100 scale with 100 being the highest score a website can attain.

Here are some of the ways Moz determines your Domain Authority:

• MozRank: In short, MozRank takes into account the number of links your website has, as well as the quality of those links. For example, if a website has 100 poor quality links, their MozRank score will be lower than that of a website that has 50 high-quality links within their website.
• Root domains: Moz also looks at the number of different links your website has. The more websites you have linking to you, the higher your score in this area.
• Search engine friendliness: We’ll look at technical SEO later on, but this factor takes into account how well your website interacts with search engines. Ultimately, Moz looks at how user-friendly your website is based on its overall structure.
• Quality content: Google and other search engines take into account the quality of your website’s content. This is also the case with your Moz Domain Authority score. The higher quality content, the better your website will perform in this area.
• Social media signals: When determining your Domain Authority score, Moz takes into account social media signals. The algorithm looks at how many times a piece of content has been shared, liked, or commented on via social media platforms.

How to determine your website’s authority

There are several places you can locate your website’s authority score: Open Site Explorer, MozBar, or the Keyword Explorer all show you your score.

Here’s an example of Search Engine Watch’s domain authority score in Open Site Explorer. You’ll notice the score is 86 out of 100, which is a relatively high-ranking score on the scale.

Next to the domain authority score you’ll find the page authority score, which ranks an individual page, as opposed to a whole website.

How to improve your website’s authority score

Improving your website’s domain authority isn’t as simple as changing your meta tags. It requires heavy research on your end.

However, there are ways of improving your domain authority. Before you take these steps, make sure you’re getting rid of bad links first. Removing any low-quality links first improves your website’s authority.

Work on your technical SEO

In order for your domain authority score to raise, ensure your technical SEO is up to par. This is the foundation of any SEO tactic when you’re trying to improve rankings in the SERPs. This includes doing a full audit on your meta tags, word count, keywords, alt tags, and site structure.

Here are some quick ways to work on your technical SEO:

• Keywords: Make sure you’re not stuffing keywords into your content. This not only helps your SEO, it makes your content easier for your audience to read and process.
• Meta description: Always make sure your meta description is filled out. Include your main keyword in your description.
• Image optimization: Optimized images make your website load faster, and boost SEO.
• Heading tags: This is basic, but it should be mentioned—use your H1, H2, and H3 heading tags for your main talking points.

Create content that’s linkable

Content marketing is another foundation that determines how high your DA score is. For this tactic to be successful, you need tons of content that’s shareable and linkable. If you’re not creating content that others want to link to, you won’t have any strong backlinks in your profile.

Start by creating long-form, quality content that’s informational and relevant to your industry or niche. But your content shouldn’t start and end with written content. Infographics and video content are also linkable and can help your website gain traction.

Creating lots of content requires manpower and budget, but it’s one of the most effective SEO tactics that also improves your DA score.

Link internally

There’s a lot of push to get marketers to focus on backlinking. Backlinking does help your DA score, but so does linking to other pages within your website. This is another place where your large amount of content comes into play.

The more content you produce, the more you’ll be able to link to other places on your website. Interlinking builds a strong foundation that helps search engine crawl bots determine how authoritative your website actually is.

Share on social media

Because social media signals are a huge factor, it’s important to share your content on all your social media platforms. Not only does this help your domain authority score, it also brings more traffic to your website.

It helps to add social media link buttons to all of your content—this makes it even easier for your visitors to share your content on their own social media pages.

The takeaway

Your domain authority score is based on several factors. If you look at those factors, you’ll notice two trends—technical SEO and content marketing. These are two of the most important themes to follow when improving the quality of your website.

Make sure your website is optimized for both the user and search engines by focusing on good technical SEO. Create engaging, quality content that’s easily shareable by your audience. Follow these steps and your domain authority will increase over time.

Is there anything you would add to this list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer for No Risk SEO, an all-in-one reporting platform for agencies. You can connect with Amanda on Twitter and LinkedIn, or check out her content services at amandadisilvestro.com.

from https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/02/20/how-can-you-determine-your-websites-authority-and-what-can-you-do-to-improve-it/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/171093114739

How to Create an Engaging Facebook Cover Photo

By now I’m sure you know how important it is to have an active presence on social media.

You’ve been posting more often and trying to engage with your followers. This is great, but you need to make sure you’re not overlooking the small stuff.

Often, I see business pages with cover photos that look like they were created without much thought.

This is a huge mistake.

Your cover photo is the first thing your audience sees when they view your Facebook page. First impressions can make or break the public perception of your page, which is why you need to put some time and effort into your cover photo.

Incorporating the right visual elements into your marketing strategy is important. You need to look at your Facebook page as a marketing channel.

Marketers recognize the importance of this. That’s why 74% of marketing experts use images and other visuals to enhance their social media marketing strategies.

Furthermore, 37% of marketers named visual content as the most important marketing channel for their businesses.

Creating more engaging content and coming up with visual content is a top priority for B2B marketers:

If you’re trying to improve your visual content, your Facebook cover photo is the most logical place to start.

That’s because Facebook has over 2 billion active monthly users. This user base is growing at roughly 17% every year.

No matter what industry you’re in or what your company does, it’s safe to say your target market is active on Facebook. Now, it’s time for you to reach them.

I’ll show you exactly what you need to do to create a Facebook cover photo that engages with your followers.

Know your audience

The first thing you need to do is understand who is following you on Facebook. You may think you already have some idea because you’re assuming your Facebook audience is the same as your existing customer base.

However, this isn’t always the case, and you need to find out for sure.

How do you go about this? Facebook has awesome analytics tools built right into their platform. If you’ve never used them before, here’s how you can find out who is following your page.

Step #1: Navigate to the “Insights” tab on your homepage

If you’re used to regular Facebook profile homepages, you’re probably not familiar with this tool. Business pages and fan pages have more options than personal profile pages have.

You’ll notice a row of tabs at the top of your screen. Select Insights to continue.

Step #2: Select the “People” option toward the bottom left corner of the Insights menu

Your Insight menu has lots of options. You can check out various actions on the page and manage videos, events, page views, and more.

One of those choices is the “People” menu. Select that to get one step closer to seeing your audience.

Step #3: Click on the “Your Fans” tab

Now you’ve got complete access to everyone who likes your page. You can view the numbers for these demographics based on categories like:

• gender
• location
• primary language

You can use this information to come up with a cover photo that speaks to your primary audience.

For example, let’s say you discover that 85% of your fans are female, 80% of your followers speak Italian, and 75% of your fans are between the ages of 45 and 55.

If that’s the case, you should probably create a cover photo that speaks to a middle-aged Italian woman. Simple, right?

This information can definitely guide you in the right direction, but make sure you take it with a grain of salt. The data probably won’t be 100% accurate.

People lie on Facebook. In fact, research shows that more than 75% of people have lied in their social media profiles.

That said, this shouldn’t drastically skew your results. It’s still a good indication of your primary audience.

Simplicity is effective

I’ve explained in the past why websites with simple designs have higher conversion rates. The same concept can be applied to your Facebook page.

Don’t overwhelm your followers. Your image should be clear and simple. If you try to fit 20 different elements into one picture, your message will be lost.

Instead, try to come up with a clear point of focus. Your audience’s eyes should be drawn to just one element so they don’t get overwhelmed.

Here’s a great example from the Acura Facebook page:

Acura has an entire fleet of vehicles. They sell a variety of sedans, sports cars, luxury vehicles, and SUVs. But notice that their cover photo is very simple.

Instead of bombarding their followers with 20 different cars in one image, they selected one. It speaks volumes and makes the audience think.

What is so special about this car? If you click on the photo, you’ll learn that it’s a new prototype of the Acura RDX.

Users would be less likely to click to find out more if there were many cars in the picture.

This is also related to the paradox of choice phenomenon. The more choices you give someone, the lower your conversion rates will be.

That’s why simplicity converts.

Let’s take a look at another well-known brand to see how they approach their cover photo.

Adidas is recognized across the globe. They sell clothing, shoes, and sporting equipment. Their customer base is men and women of all ages, who participate in a wide range of sports.

How can they come up with a simple cover photo that encompasses all these elements?

They don’t even try, which is a smart approach. If they tried to include every sport in one picture, it wouldn’t be very effective.

In this instance, they decided to pitch their soccer cleats. It could be related to part of their overall marketing campaign.

Or maybe they used analytics to determine that the majority of their fans live in areas where soccer is the most popular sport. It might even be a combination of multiple factors.

Regardless of their reason, Adidas made the smart decision to keep things simple.

If their marketing goals change, I’m sure their cover photo will be adjusted accordingly. But I’ll discuss this idea in greater detail shortly.

Make sure you follow Facebook’s guidelines

Regardless of how you decide to approach your Facebook cover photo, it needs to follow the Facebook Cover Photo Guidelines.

Facebook is pretty strict when it comes to their rules and regulations. It’s imperative your photo abides by these guidelines, or you’ll have problems.

The last thing you want to happen is to have your account suspended for a breach of their rules. That will crush your social media marketing campaign and defeat the purpose of what you’re trying to accomplish here.

I’ll quickly summarize what you need to know.

Your image should be unique and relevant to your page. For example, if you’ve got a restaurant, an appropriate image would be something on your menu.

Cover photos must be properly sized. Here are those dimensions:

• at least 400 pixels wide by 150 pixels tall
• 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall for smartphones
• 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall for computer screens

Your cover photo will load as fast as possible if it’s an SRBG JPG file that’s less than 100 kilobytes, 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.

If you need help resizing your photo to meet these standards, you can use photo-editing software such as PicMonkey:

Facebook’s rules also state that your photo can’t mislead or deceive your audience. The image also can’t infringe on someone else’s copyright.

Your photo can’t encourage or promote users to tag themselves or their friends either. It’s prohibited to tell your followers to upload your cover photo to their timelines.

Make sure you review all the Facebook Page Terms to ensure you’re not in violation of any policies.

Change it up

Don’t be boring.

Just because you came up with an awesome cover photo that fits everything I’ve talked about so far doesn’t mean you should use it for the rest of eternity.

Changing your cover photo will help keep your audience engaged. Think back to some of the examples we looked at earlier.

Acura isn’t going to promote that one car forever. Adidas won’t be promoting soccer cleats all year either.

Your photo should change based on the goals of your company and overall marketing campaign.

Try to include highly relevant images based on the season or current events. For example, you could have a red, white, and blue themed cover photo around the 4th of July.  Or maybe use an image with a pumpkin and witch close to Halloween.

Check out this example from Bose. They do a great job of accomplishing exactly what I’m referring to:

With NFL season coming to a close, Bose changed their Facebook cover photo so that it’s related to the Super Bowl. This image is perfect for this time of year, but it wouldn’t be as effective in May or June.

If you don’t update your cover photo regularly, your followers may think you’re not monitoring your page.

Your cover photo should represent the overall image of your company

What’s the goal or mission of your company? Your cover photo should tell that story.

If your company works with charitable organizations or helps people in need, use an image reflecting that.

Again, first impressions matter. The first thing people see on your Facebook page should tell them what you stand for.

Your cover photo should also try to entice people to follow your page:

Try to create brand awareness through your cover photo. If your followers like and comment on it, the image will appear on the timelines of their friends as well.

This increases the exposure of your company and improves your chances of getting more followers.

Conclusion

Your social media marketing campaign isn’t complete without an effective and engaging Facebook cover photo.

Don’t rush. Take your time and come up with something unique.

Your cover photo needs to speak directly to your audience. Use the insights feature on Facebook to find out who follows your page. Tailor your image toward those people.

Keep it simple. Your company does a lot, but your photo doesn’t need to encompass it all. Pick one theme and go with it. You can always change it later.

Make sure your photo follows Facebook’s guidelines. Otherwise, your account could get suspended.

Whatever you decide to do, keep in mind your cover photo should reflect the overall image of your company.

Follow these tips, and you’ll get more engagement with your audience on Facebook.

What kind of Facebook cover photo do you use?

from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Quicksprout/~3/HldAVHuL2Mw/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/171084707349

How videos generate quick SEO results

In January 1996, Bill Gates published an essay titled ‘Content is king’. Seeing where content is right now in the online space, you wouldn’t be wrong in calling Bill Gates a soothsayer.

But he couldn’t have foreseen the kind of content that would dominate the online space: video.

Videos have a hegemonic online presence.

But, why video?

People are more inclined to watch a video. Do this little experiment:

Search for Red Bull or Monster Energy or Vice in Bing. You are sure to get video results right at the top. That’s because these brands have focused their branding on video content, and hence are more likely to be popular as more and more people watch videos.

Now search for Lockheed, Gatorade or Bose, in Bing and you’re way less likely to find a first-page video result.

Not to take anything away from these brands and their popularity, but it shows when your content strategy isn’t as video focused or oriented towards emerging internet consumer trends.

Red Bull and Monster Energy have become inescapable names because they have tapped the potential of video content and published an innumerable variety of content not related to sports and other fields.

What’s in it for you?

You might not be a media and content-oriented company, but you should still consider the perks of having videos for your products and services. According to MWP, online video now accounts for half of all traffic on mobile alone, and 59% of senior executives say that they will opt for video when given the choice between video and text. 

Incidentally, in understanding the ‘why’ of video popularity, we’ll also get the answer to how videos generate great SERP rankings.

Why are videos so popular?

Strong emotional connection

A video is very accessible, easy to consume and engages the audience’s attention for longer periods of time. A video contains much more information than text and images.

It conveys emotions, actions and can explain concepts and idea very easily. No wonder videos have 41% higher click-through rate than plain text, and high conversion rates and ROI on top of that.

How does it help SEO? 

The ease, accessibility, and immersion of video means that people spend a longer time watching content that you produce.

If you can make an engaging video, people spend more time on your webpage, increasing the what is called the ‘dwell time’. Dwell time was mentioned in a Bing blog way back in 2011.

Source: Bing blogs

More dwell time directly translates to Google recognizing your video and the page it’s featured on as something of value. The more dwell time you have, the better your pages will be ranked. Sweet!

According to Martech.zone, a well-optimized video can increase your chances of getting featured on the front page of Google by as much as a factor of 53.

The inherent engaging qualities of video also means that it has an astounding worldwide audience penetration.

Which brings us to:

The inescapable reach of video

Source: YouTube for Press

YouTube alone has over a billion users across continents consuming content in 76 different languages. Its reach is enormous.

Video is the go-to, easy to consume, preferred form of content for many people. According to research by Hubspot, 62% of people thoroughly consume videos, and 53% people expect more video content from any platform.

Internet video traffic is expected to grow four times and constitute 81% of ALL consumer traffic by 2021.

There is a natural inclination for search engines to favor videos due to the consumer trends in video consumption.

With so many people watching videos all the time, aided by mobile phones and ever-developing tech and techniques, video content is bound to surge your overall brand image to the top of the search results page.

Video advertising was started in Yahoo and Bing as far back as in 2015, and has been massively effective for them and their clients. But you don’t have to spend money on video ads. Simply having a market-relevant video means that your name is more likely to get featured in a top search listing.

How videos are featured in the SERPs

Google has been rolling out and beta testing many video-related features. A mere 7 months back I started noticing Google showing ‘suggested clips’ for various search results. Now, it’s an all-out feature to list relevant snippets of videos in SERPs.

A great way to feature in ‘suggested clips’ results is to make how-to videos. Your brand can be a hundred different things, but there is always room for making how-to videos.

Don’t know what to record?

Make a behind the scenes video of an event or your daily office happenings. Get some groovy editing and publish it with a ‘How to run an (industry name) office’. Whip in some humor and you’re sure to get your name thrown around SERPs.

Google’s image content readability is scarily good, and now it’s in for videos as well.

Still in beta, Google has been experimenting with identifying elements of video content to show relevant search results. It’s sure that this will be a part of their regular algorithm.

Source: The Verge

Your video content will have an immense impact on what the end user gets in their search results. This is perhaps the next peak time for getting your video content published regularly.

You might have seen a variation of this image identifying feature in other places.

If you own an Android phone, you might have come across the Google Photos app grouping together similar faces, places, and things. Or you might have seen various CAPTCHAs across the web asking you to identify sign boards, cars, buses and what have you.

Expect similar machine learning to be applied to video content, if more sophisticated. One single video can carry thousands of image elements. When Google’s Video Intelligence API catalogs all those keywords, that would give your video a huge SEO advantage. Just make sure to include elements in your video catering to the industry or keyword you are targeting.

Source

There are reasons aplenty and means uncountable to get better in video marketing and to get featured in top results. There are many nitty-gritty details to take care of, but through it all, there are some very basic rubrics that establish the foundation for good video publishing.

Up next are some simple ways to phenomenally increase the chances of getting your video content to the top of the SERPs.

Best practices for getting your video higher up the SERP

Make short videos 

Aim for 1-2 minute videos. You can easily shoot up to 4 minutes, but anything after that means you will start losing significant viewership.

Source: Wistia

Transcribe your video script

Even though Google is getting pretty darn good at parsing video content for context-based searches, transcribed text helps its bots crawl your content with more accuracy. Means you are more likely to get featured for a much broader variety of internet searches.

Social shareability and multi-platform hosting

More platforms mean more reach. Make sure your content is omnipresent. Upload your videos to YouTube, Wistia, Facebook, Twitter, your own hosting platform, or cross-share between all the other platforms to ensure your video content is always there when needed.

Source: YouTube

Cross-share only if you can’t natively upload to other social media platforms. You will gain phenomenal relevance, recognition, organic traffic, and SEO from native uploads and virality.

One study actually showed native videos in Facebook getting ten times more shares than YouTube video links.

Optimizing videos

Keep your video metadata relevant and updated. Add relevant titles, subtext, add descriptions, tags, make transcriptions and subtitles so your video is efficiently crawled by search engine bots.

XML sitemaps

Submit a video sitemap to Google along with some information using webmaster tool. It helps you to index your page better.

Custom, high-quality thumbnails

Make custom, high-quality, topical thumbnails that catch the eye. Click-bait thumbnail images might net you immediate views, but are bad for your reputation in the long run. You can even include text to give some context for the viewer.

Conclusion

Great immersion, endless capabilities, conveys emotions, global reach, occasionally no language barriers: videos are your cornerstone for a great marketing strategy. They give you front page results, get more conversions and are rising to be the most consumed online content.

You see, in many ways, a video is much like a trebuchet.

You might have a capable marketing force that gives results, but a trebuchet enhances your tactical abilities. It lets you mount a market assault with ease, from a safe distance and gives great results. Besides, a well-made trebuchet looks pretty, much like a well-made video.

Videos are your trebuchets. They look good, carry huge SEO value and make your brand a force to reckon with. Get them.

from https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/02/19/how-videos-generate-quick-seo-results/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/171068031589

The 2018 guide to rich results in search

Over the past few years, Google’s SERPs have become progressively more enhanced and detailed.

Users require as much information as possible before deciding which result to place their trust in and click through to. It’s therefore no surprise then that rich results have become increasingly prominent.

Rich results are essentially a way of highlighting your website’s content in the SERPs.

They are the search results which have a little extra panache, in which Google displays more information about the result rather than just the traditional title, URL and meta description. This could include a star review, specific product information or even recipe details.

In this guide, we’ll look at what’s new with rich results in 2018, as well as how to give yourself the best chance of getting them.

Benefits of rich results

Previously known as rich snippets, rich cards, or enriched results, Google have now put an end to the terminology confusion and allocated ‘rich results’ as the preferred term. You are probably already aware that these fancy pants search results require the implementation of structured data on your site.

But before we look at the how, let’s look at the why. The benefits of using structured data markup are clear to see:

• Easier for search engines to crawl your site and understand the page, enabling them to return more relevant and detailed results. Frankly, anything that makes a search engine’s life easier is a win.
• Increased click-through rates due to an enhanced appearance in the results. Information is more clear and it is a way of standing out from other results.
• Decreased bounce rate due to the improved relevancy of results.

At the time of writing, the general consensus is that structured data is not a ranking factor. However, the combination of more relevant results, increased CTRs and decreased bounce rate are all factors which can indirectly lead to a rankings boost. At the very least, they will lead to increased website traffic, which is not something to be sniffed at.

Structured data & schema markup

Structured data is essentially information about a webpage and its content. There are three commonly known types of structured data: JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa.

JSON-LD is the most recommended structured data type, primarily because it is the most clean and readable format. Given that it is personally recommended by Google, it’s really a no-brainer to deploy JSON-LD as the standard format.

Wait, so what’s schema markup? While JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa are the formats, schema is the language (or semantic vocabulary). It’s the universal code for structured markup that all search engines can understand.

Structured data can be tricky to get right, especially if you’re not particularly technically-minded. Before you stand any chance of achieving those sought after rich results, Google will analyse and assess your markup to ensure it is correct.

However, it’s important to clarify that getting it wrong won’t harm your organic traffic, as long as you don’t use the markup to refer to hidden content. If you get it wrong then your rich results simply won’t show, so you’ll be no worse off than you were to begin with. Don’t be afraid of structured data, it doesn’t bite.

Rich results test

In December last year, Google announced the launch of a Rich Results Testing Tool. The primary function of this tool is to let you know whether your page is eligible for rich results.

Simply plug in your URL, hit submit and then preview the different rich results available for your page. Another handy function is the ability to share results – perfect for showing off your markup prowess to your boss, or highlighting some essential SEO flaws to a new client. Plus, if your pages are eligible for rich results, you can also Submit To Google via the testing tool.

It is important to note that the tool is still in beta mode and therefore does not provide comprehensive results as yet. This will undoubtedly be expanded on in the near future.

Currently, only the tests for recipes, job postings, movies, and courses are supported. As a result, if your structured data markup falls outside of these categories then the test may not yet be suitable.

Until the full version is rolled out, however, don’t forget that you can still use the original Structured Data Testing Tool. Although this won’t tell you whether a page is eligible for rich results, it will tell you if your markup is valid. You can therefore address any issues with the structured data quickly and efficiently.

Patience is a virtue

One of the slightly frustrating aspects of implementing structured data is that it can take 2-3 weeks for a page to appear as a rich result. However, if you ensure that you are re-indexing your pages following structured data implementation then this will speed up the process.

On top of that, there is no guarantee that your structured data will correspond to a rich result at all. By implementing structured data, you are enabling the rich results functionality, but don’t have a right to it.

Of course, there is a whole array of other reasons why rich results may not be displaying. This could be to do with the accuracy of your structured data, including hidden content in the markup, or failing to follow the guidelines. Whereas previously you would have to wait a few weeks to know whether your markup has done the job, you can now use the new testing tool.

Final words

In short, implementing structured data should be a priority for your SEO campaigns in 2018, if you haven’t already.

The benefits of rich results are plain to see, and the launch of Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool is a further testament to the importance being placed on these enhanced search results.

Providing as much relevancy and detailed information as possible to the user in the SERPs will always be a priority to the search engines. If you can be a part of this then your website will be in the best possible position to benefit from rich results.

from https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/02/19/the-2018-guide-to-rich-results-in-search/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/171068031299

11 Ways to Increase Conversions for Your Ecommerce Store

Ecommerce platforms rely on sales to survive. If you operate one of these websites, you know how important sales are for your business.

Whether you sell products exclusively online or have an ecommerce site in addition to your brick and mortar store, you need high conversion rates to be successful.

What do you do when your sales plateau and your conversions drop?

You need to analyze your website. What you’ve been doing in the past may have worked, but it’s imperative for you to constantly optimize and improve your ecommerce store.

After reviewing your site, you might realize certain elements are killing your conversions.

Fortunately, you’re in luck. If you want to improve your conversion rates and generate more sales, all you need to do is make some changes.

Through research and my personal experience consulting businesses, I’ve identified and outlined the top ways to increase ecommerce conversions.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Simplify your website

Websites with simple designs have higher conversion rates.

Depending on your company, you might have hundreds or even thousands of products for sale on your website. But trying to cram all of those products onto one page is ineffective, and it’s crushing your conversions.

Clutter overwhelms the customers. Instead, focus on your top selling products or items with the highest profit margins.

Let’s look at a globally recognized brand as an example. Here’s Apple’s homepage:

When in doubt, it’s always a great idea to look at successful companies as examples. Apple is an industry leader, and their website is about as simple as it gets.

Think about the number of different products they offer. They have all kinds of different desktop computers, laptops, phones, and other electric accessories, not to mention the digital products like software and music.

If they tried to fit everything they sell on their homepage, it would be an absolute mess.

Instead, they promote one product and have a navigation bar at the top of the screen that lists different categories.

This makes it really easy for shoppers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

In the fourth quarter of 2017, Apple reported $52.6 billion in revenue— a 12% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2016. It’s safe to say they don’t have a problem with conversion rates.

2. Use high quality images

One of the most difficult parts of online shopping is the lack of direct access to the products shoppers consider buying. They rely on photos to get an accurate idea of their options.

It’s up to you to make sure you have lots of high quality pictures for every product.

You should have a photograph from every angle. Zoom in on features. Have pictures of models using or wearing what you’re selling.

This will make it much easier for shoppers to make a decision.

Here’s a great example of what I’m talking about from the Nike website:

They’ve got six different pictures of just one white hoodie. If you click on the other colors for this product, you’ll see even more photos.

I realize this takes time. It’s not necessarily the easiest process to take half a dozen photos of everything you’re selling.

But in the long run, it’s well worth it. Now shoppers know exactly what this product looks like from every angle. They’re more likely to buy it if it fits their needs.

3. Include a detailed product description

In addition to photos, you’ll want to thoroughly describe what you’re selling. With items like clothing, it’s usually self-explanatory.

However, if you’re selling electronics or something that has a bit of a learning curve, an accurate and detailed product description could help you close the sale.

Think of it like this. If a customer were to walk into a physical store, there would be employees to answer questions and help explain how different products work.

Shoppers don’t have that luxury when they browse online. It’s your job to make sure they aren’t confused about a product.

Even if you’re selling something simple, such as a t-shirt, point out how it differs from others. Does it keep you cool when it’s hot? Does it keep you warm when it’s cold?

These are things that can’t be determined from a photo alone.

Check out how Amazon accomplishes this with one of their TV wall mounts:

Just like companies in our previous two examples, Amazon is another industry leader across the globe. They know how to sell products online.

While the photos are helpful, the description really helps the consumers.

It explains which kinds of TVs this mount is compatible with as far as size and weight are concerned. The description also covers the various mounting patterns based on what kind of TV you have.

Without the description, you wouldn’t know how far off the wall the mount comes or how close to the wall you can push it.

Not everyone is an expert in mounting televisions. The majority of people probably never have to do this. And unless you install home theater equipment for a living, it’s probably not something you’ll do more than a few times in your life.

For a unique and somewhat niche product like this, accurate descriptions can really help drive the sale.

4. Show video demonstrations

This element takes our last point a step further. Instead of telling the consumer what your product does and how it works, show them.

If you haven’t been using video content to increase sales, you need to start right away.

Why?

Well, for starters, 64% of people are more likely to complete an online purchase after watching a video about a product. Furthermore, 90% of consumers say that videos help them make a buying decision.

Consumers want videos, so give them what they want. Thule recognizes this. That’s why they include videos with all their products on their website.

The video is super helpful. It gives the consumer way more information than they could get from just a photo and a description.

In this example, the customers learn how to properly fold and assemble the stroller for transportation and easy storage. The video also shows how to safely secure a child in the seat.

It’s an effective way to give your website visitors a more accurate description of the product. They can see it being used instead of just reading about it and looking at pictures.

5. Offer easily accessible customer service

As I briefly mentioned earlier, there’s nobody there to assist the consumer when they’re shopping online, unlike in a physical store.

Do your best to replicate that customer service experience. You may have photos, videos, and a great description, but customers will still have questions.

Make sure you give them several options to reach a customer service representative:

• phone
• live chat
• email

Offer as many options as possible so each customer can contact your company based on their personal preference.

You also need to have support ready at all hours. As an ecommerce platform, I know you’re aware that customers all over the world have access to your website 24 hours a day.

Let’s play out a scenario. A customer is interested in one of your products but has a few simple questions. They try to contact customer support but don’t get an answer.

They won’t complete the purchase process. But if their questions get answered right away, your conversion rates will improve.

6. Don’t surprise your customers with extra fees

Consumers are sensitive to price. You have to be upfront and totally transparent with the prices on your website.

The customer expects to see the same price for the same product on all pages, including in their shopping cart.

Adding hidden charges, taxes, and shipping fees will crush your conversions.

Look at the top reasons for shopping cart abandonment:

Extra costs are the number one reason why consumers abandon their shopping carts.

Look, I realize you’ve got to pay sales tax and shipping isn’t free. But rather than surprising the customer when they check out, include those costs in the original price.

You’ll still get paid enough to make a profit, and the customer won’t be surprised with extra fees. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone.

Plus, it will reduce cart abandonment and improve your conversion rates.

7. Send shopping cart abandonment emails

Let’s continue with our last point. While you can certainly do things to improve your shopping cart abandonment rates, some customers still won’t always complete their purchases.

You can’t ignore this.

Someone was just a click or two away from buying something on your website. They identified what they wanted and added it to their cart.

It’s going to be much easier to try to get this customer to convert than to find a new customer.

This person is already familiar with your brand and obviously interested in at least one of your products. Sometimes they just need a bit of extra motivation to complete the sale.

Send out a shopping cart abandonment email to remind the consumer of your products. Here’s an example from Oakley:

This product will still be fresh in the customer’s mind—they just left it in their shopping cart. They wanted it, but for one reason or another, it just didn’t happen.

Receiving this email could be enough to trigger an impulse buy.

8. Include all your contact information

On top of providing customer service, you should have as much information as possible about your company available on your website.

Clearly display your:

• address
• phone numbers
• fax
• email

If this information isn’t on your site, it could appear sketchy. Customers may think you’re not a reputable company.

What if they have a problem with their order? If your contact information isn’t available, how will they get their issue resolved?

That uncertainty could prevent people from buying things on your website.

9. Run promotions

As I said earlier when talking about extra fees and costs, consumers are price-sensitive. It’s important to be aware of this.

One way to get people to convert more on your ecommerce site is by running promotions. Offer sales, discounts, or other special offers that sound enticing.

It just needs to be worth it. For example, if you’re offering a 5% discount on orders over $200, it’s not going to make anybody rush to make a purchase.

But on the other hand, if you’re offering 25% off everything on your website, it will boost your conversions.

Just make sure you have all your numbers worked out. You don’t want to slash prices so low that you’re not turning a profit with each sale.

The best way to go about this is by jacking up your prices initially, then constantly running sales.

Check out all of these different promotions on the Macy’s website:

They have some discounts as high as 50% off. This is a great way to drive sales.

Just make sure you’re careful with this strategy. Once you start offering discounts and promotions, customers may be less likely to buy things at full price. They’ll just wait until the next time you run a sale.

If you’re going to incorporate discounts, markdowns, and other promotional offers into your ecommerce marketing campaign, be prepared to do it often.

10. Accept as many payment options as possible

I realize some credit card companies charge you higher fees than others. But that’s no reason to exclude those payment options from your website.

You can’t assume every customer visiting your website has a Visa card. You need to accept all major credit cards, including Mastercard, Discover, and American Express.

Even if they have a card you accept, it doesn’t mean they want to use it. They might have better benefits or a lower balance on a different card.

You should also take alternative forms of payment, such as PayPal, Venmo, or Apple Pay.

Offering more options increases the chances of the customer being able to pay with their preferred card or method.

It’s also important that the checkout process is completely secure. That way your customers feel safe about entering their credit card information.

11. Recommend products to enhance the shopping experience

If your site is using cookies to track browsing behavior, you can recommend products to your customers based on what they like. Use their previous order history as well to personalize recommendations.

This shows the consumer you care. Their browsing experience is different from everyone else’s.

Here’s an example from Bed Bath & Beyond:

You can also try to upsell to your customers when they add something to their shopping carts. For example, if they buy a pair of headphones, you can recommend a carrying case for them.

Again, it reflects their personal experience. This strategy works.

Research shows that 49% of consumers said they bought something they weren’t initially planning on purchasing after seeing a personalized recommendation.

Conclusion

Whether your business is brand new or has been around for a while, there is always room for improvement.

You can make simple modifications to your ecommerce website to get more conversions.

These 11 tips are the best place for you to start. Refer back to the examples and the data I showed you for guidance.

I’m not saying you need to implement all of these strategies overnight. In fact, you may even have a couple of these in place already.

But over time, you need to optimize your ecommerce website if you want to get as many sales as possible.

Follow these tips, and I’m sure you’ll see an improvement.

What elements of your ecommerce website have you changed to increase your conversion rates?

from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Quicksprout/~3/y6RymrkV9gE/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/170955359744

Pinterest Lens one year on: Where is Pinterest’s visual search tool now?

It’s been a year since Pinterest announced the launch of Lens, its new visual search tool. How has it evolved since then?

When Pinterest Lens launched in 2017, it was the latest – and boldest – step in Pinterest’s evolution from a visual social network into a powerful visual search tool.

Pinterest knew that there was great potential to blend its “inspiration”-focused online platform, full of enticing DIY, craft, beauty and recipe ideas, with the offline world to help its users make their ideas into reality. The goal was to offer a camera search that helps you discover online what you come across in the offline world.

The idea seemed ambitious, but Pinterest made it clear at the time that its Lens technology was still developing, encouraging users to help it build a powerful tool:

“Lens is still learning, and doesn’t always recognize exactly what you’re looking for.

Lens will stay in beta as it gets even better at recognizing all the things. And that’s where you come in!

If you get results that feel a little meh, tap the new + button to add feedback and help Lens get better at finding ideas inspired by whatever you just Lensed. As more and more people help teach Lens about more and more objects, soon it will earn its way out of the beta zone.”

A year on from this announcement, how has Pinterest’s visual discovery evolved – and what has the impact of Pinterest’s Lens tool been on the wider industry?

The evolution of Lens

In a news post celebrating the one-year anniversary of Lens, Pinterest revealed some significant stats about the growth of Lens:

• There are now twice as many Pinterest users who use Lens every day, compared to 6 months ago
• People carry out more than 600 million visual searches with Lens every month, which marks an increase of 140% year-over-year

According to Pinterest, the more people searched, the better Lens got. Several new developments over the past year have also contributed to Lens’ growth:

• Lens was moved to the front of Pinterest’s app and they have also created shortcuts to facilitate the fast search
• Pinterest introduced Pincodes, a QR-code-esque technology, to help users seamlessly switch between Pinterest and the offline world
• Lens your Look has also been launched to “bring together text and image searches in one query”, and encourage people to use Pinterest for outfit inspiration
• A partnership with Samsung brought the Lens to the latest smartphones worldwide, while Target activated visual search to their products
• The visual search technology now understands more than five times as many things as it did a year ago. This means that you can now search for recipes, clothes, and countless objects for your home with increasing accuracy.

What’s next for Lens

Pinterest has announced that their next step includes an enhanced image search that also allows you to include it in your text search. Starting with iOS apps, people will be able to include an image to their text search to make their discoveries easier.

This will help users find exactly what they’re looking for by benefiting from all the elements of a consideration journey. They can start with an object they’ve come across in an actual shop, they use Pinterest’s Lens to discover it and if they are not able to purchase it directly through a pin, they can use the image to include text search and find more details about it.

This feature is also expected to roll out to Android users soon and it aims to make visual search even more useful. It is a clever way to include the benefits of visual and text search to help both the consumers, but also the retailers in strengthening their customer journey between the online and the offline world.

The future of visual search

The growth of Pinterest Lens shows how visual search is steadily gaining traction as a genuine tool and not just a novelty. Pinterest is also not the only player in this space: three months after the launch of Pinterest Lens, Google debuted its own version of the tool, Google Lens.

Soon afterwards, Bing released an update to its visual search capabilities which allowed users to search for a specific object within images – a noticeably Pinterest-like feature. 

Pinterest is clearly blazing a trail in the visual search space which has left the other big players in search scrambling to catch up.

Above, Pinterest’s “search within image” feature, and below, Bing’s strikingly similar capability

Pinterest seems to be aware of its product’s value, and is heading in the right direction to make it profitable.

Pinterest already had a strong business proposition which capitalized on the fact that its users would come to its platform for inspiration on everything from fashion to design, food to furniture. With the introduction of Shoppable Pins, Pinterest was able to monetize this, allowing users to actually buy the components of their new dream house, garden or outfit. 

Now, Pinterest Lens has made that possible in the offline world, too.

Business Insider has foreseen a bright future for mobile visual search technology, releasing a new report which cites “strong evidence that mobile visual search technology will take off in the near future, including growing access to technology, strong usage rates of camera-related apps, and early indication of potential revenue growth”.

By getting into the visual search space early and investing heavily in developing the technology, Pinterest has put itself in an excellent position to be the leader in visual search going forward.

While visual search has yet to truly cross over into the mainstream, the foundations have been laid, and the statistics shared on Lens’ one-year anniversary paint a positive picture for the future.

from https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/02/15/pinterest-lens-one-year-on-where-is-pinterests-visual-search-tool-now/

source https://kateninablog.tumblr.com/post/170915353019