Blogging for an Organisation

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A blog site? For my regional service? Although blogging may sound not practical for little companies, it’s actually more rewarding than what it appears like. If you’re buying SEO or just wants to record more leads on your website, blogging is indispensable.

A company blog resembles a salt lick on a farm. It’s the salt deposit that the animals love to lick to boost their food digestion. In this metaphor, your blog is the salt lick and the stock are your leads. You want them to keep returning. It’s either to absorb new details or to obtain your product or service.

Blogging imbibes the simple concept of the requirement to offer in order to get. Should you begin a blog site? Here’s what you need to understand.

Why begin a business blog

Your blog pages are the ideal place to offer ideas, talk about problems, and respond to the questions of your consumers through thorough content.

 

Aside from composing for your customers, blog sites also interest Google crawlers if composed and structured well. If optimized with keywords, blogging will in fact help you rank better on search engine outcomes.

 

When you appear higher on SERPs, you’ll enjoy much better visibility, greater conversion, and brand name acknowledgment. It’s everything that a service wants.

 

Likewise, a great area in SERPs develops your reliability amongst your readers. It’s a big plus point that will trickle down to your profits huge time.

How often do you need to blog

Most services worry too much about publishing lots of articles at a time. Bear in mind that when it pertains to blogging, quality matters the same way as quantity does.

 

Once a month needs to be great, however you’ll certainly enjoy more returns if you do it weekly. The key here is to write the blog sites well and make certain that you talk to your leads. Likewise, don’t simply compose for the search spiders.

 

Remember that costs too much time composing blog site posts means you’re losing time for your company. If you do not have the knack for words, you can tap the aid of a copywriter to help you out.

What should you write about?

Many organisations that are brand-new to blogging would dive directly to writing salesy articles. As much as this might work, your readers will get exhausted of it soon. Worse, they will have a negative perception of your website.

 

It’s best that you also discuss beneficial tips, trends, and other details that your readers can digest without being too salesy. In fact, you can be not too salesy however still transform your readers. This is where a well-structured sales funnel comes in.

 

You can integrate your blog into your sales funnel to bring in leads and increase their conversion rates.

 

Goal to educate your readers and to reveal them that you have the competence on the field you’re operating in. From there, credibility works for you.

Final words

As lots of SEO experts state, content is king. This is the factor why regional organisations must consider blogging. It will assist you connect to your audience and create more leads.

How Can I Get Customers to Edit Their Negative Reviews

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Negative reviews are every business’ nightmare. It can jeopardize their image and affect their sales. This is why a lot of business owners wonder how they can get an irate customer to edit their bad review. It may sound far-fetched, but there’s actually a good way to make it happen.

 

Brands live in a world where their reputation lies solely on what their customers’ say. Potential customers would only trust a fellow customer, no matter how much a company tries to sell their offers.

 

Also, it’s a fact that customers would only deal with a business that has at least four stars. Moreover, customers are more likely to continue patronizing a business if it gets to resolve complaints.

 

In this note, here’s what you can do: Reach. Remedy. Restore.

Reach

This phase happens when the customer puts out a negative review and reaches out to you. And as a business owner, the only way to increase the chances of the review being edited is to reach back to your customer.

Remedy

Reaching out to the customer is your way of fixing the problem. The best strategy here is proactive outreach. Here’s a good example:

 

You’re offering HR services, but a client was unhappy due to the lack of customer support and glitches on the system. He then left a scathing review online.

 

In this situation, the client would likely change the review (or at least his or her perception about your business) if you exhaust all means to make it up to them.

 

For big clients, the head of the customer department should reach out via email, text, and phone call. Make sure that you provide the remedy in the most polite way.

Restore

Most customers will yield if they get to receive what they want and more. This is where the updated review comes in:

 

“Business X has made it up to us by exhausting all means to reach out and fix the problem. The manager went up and beyond to ensure that our system is up and running. They even gave us a limited offer to compensate for the hassle.”

 

From being an unhappy customer, you get to restore the person into a satisfied patron.

 

Key stats that you should know

The above-mentioned tips are general thoughts which may or may not apply to all industries. To help you out, here are some stats about negative reviews and how it can be restored:

  • 70% of bad reviews due to rude service can be restored through second experiences, this time with a caring and polite staff.
  • 64% of bad reviews get restored if the manager, supervisor, or anyone in the position reaches out to them with the remedy.
  • 32% of bad reviews will be restored if the customer received a replacement product or if the service is re-done free of charge.

 

Final words

Negative reviews can be daunting, but it’s all part of running a business. The key here is to be proactive and to offer practical remedies that will restore the trust of your customer.

How to Get Clients to Review Your Business

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Customer reviews are a double-edged sword. It can both be a powerful tool to boost a business’ revenue and a crippling aspect if customers leave negative comments. With potential customers using verified reviews as the basis for their purchasing decision, businesses have to exhaust all means to gain the most coveted positive review.

It could be challenging to encourage a customer to review your business, but you can always do the following tips:

Make it easy for your customers

Every customer wants convenience, especially if you’re running an online store. It’s the reason why you should always make submissions of reviews easy in every aspect.

 

In brick-and-mortar stores, you can set up a review kiosk where customers can write reviews in private. For online stores, emails will do a good job. Make sure that it links toward the review page of your site or store.

Always follow up

When it comes to customer reviews is to ask than wait. Most customers will forget about reviewing the product or service they purchased. It’s your job to follow it up to them. Take note that many customers only need a little nudge.

 

When sending follow-ups for reviews, always be witty and choose the right timing. If the customer raised an issue, solve it first before asking for a review. This way, the review will likely be positive than negative.

Use surveys

Not all customers will take time to type their thoughts about your business. To make it easy for customers to give their feedback, you can use a survey format.

 

About three to five questions should do the trick. Ten questions and beyond are too many. You should remember that online users have a short attention span. It’s rare for a user to finish a 20-question survey without getting distracted.

Give incentives

Customers love it when they get something for free. You can actually do this by incentivizing the person when he or she leaves a review. Virtual coins or a discount on the next purchase are very attractive.

 

The idea of gaining something out of the simple manner of writing a review always works its magic. Aside from gaining reviews, you’re also encouraging the user to purchase another product or service.

Mobile-first is the key

Remember: your review page should always be mobile-responsive. A large portion of shoppers will browse using their mobile devices. If your pages aren’t mobile supported, the user will close and move on with their lives. The same goes for email follow-ups.

Always say thank you

‘Thank You’ is free to say so give it lavishly to your customers. Always reply to the customers who left reviews with personal two to three sentences. Don’t just use a thumbs-up or smiling emoji here. Make it personal so your customers will feel that you’re connecting with them.

 

Do the same for negative reviews. It’s actually your way of fixing the issue and restoring their trust in your business.

 

You can schedule these replies in the morning. It’s best to make it habit so you can also monitor your business reviews.

How to Rank Beyond Your Location 

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Local business owners who invest in SEO usually ask this question: how can I rank beyond my location? It’s one of the most common questions we receive from clients and businesses alike who want to reach a wider audience. It’s common among businesses with multiple branches or locations around the country or abroad.

So should you make a listing for every location? Should you create individual websites for every place? Nope. Here’s what you can do:

 

Boost the geo-signals of your website

Geo-tagging videos, images, and other content to specific areas you want to rank at is a good start. This will let Google know that your website is somehow related to that location, thus crawling your pages to appear on SERPs on that specific area.

 

Also, it will help to add testimonials or case studies on the specific area that you want to rank on aside from your physical location.

 

It will also be great if you can secure reviews on various sites mentioning the location you want to rank in.

Use Google+ Local

You should also consider utilizing Google+ Local. It’s an efficient way to get your business seen on the location where you plan to rank better.

 

In this platform, you can create a listing using a functioning phone number. For multiple business branches, you’d need a unique phone number for each one you plan to list.

Take note that you should meet the Google listing guidelines for your business to be indexed. Once you got this set, expect better visibility on other locations.

Come up with location-specific pages

For businesses with multiple branches or virtual locations, creating individual pages for each one will actually help a lot. Each one should have a unique URL as well as a category organized per state or area.

 

Don’t forget to add these pages on your sitemap to make sure that it will be indexed appropriately. Aside from that, pack these pages with geo-related content. You can leverage this on the title tags, page names, description area, outbound links, and more.

Just use a single domain name

As much as we said that you’re supposed to make an individual page for each location you want to rank it, that doesn’t mean you’re creating a website for each. Standalone domains for each location would only make things confusing and disorganized.

 

What you need to do is to create subdomains under your single domain. That way, Google will associate these pages to your main website. Also, the ranking of your single domain will trickle down to the subdomains.

Perform a comprehensive SEO audit

If you already have these pages and tags in place, a comprehensive SEO audit will help identify the weak points. This will inform you where you’re lacking and what areas you need to focus on.

From there, you may need to create a geo-targeted list of keywords to work on later. This is to boost the geo-signals on your pages while keeping it relevant to your main domain’s content.

 

 

How to Track Your Business’ Local Rankings

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With Google’s continuous updates on ranking algorithms, it can be challenging for local businesses to keep track of their SERPs’ rank. Lately, the biggest search engine on the planet released an update ensuring that the search results will be more local and relevant to the queries of the searchers. This is another reason why local businesses should keep an eye on their rankings.

So how would a small and local business do this? Here are some of the useful tools that you can integrate on your system:

Nightwatch Rank Tracker

This tool allows you to track your business or website ranking in any location you prefer. It has comprehensive features that cater to small and large businesses.

 

Another thing is that Nightwatch Rank Tracker has a very affordable entry-level plan. And if you want to scale up your tracking, you can avail the enterprise-level features for an added fee. No need to fret because this tool will work well, even on startups and micro-businesses.

Pocket Insights

If you want a simple yet very effective tracking tool, Pocket Insights could be the right choice. Here, you can track ten keywords at a time and the tool will generate your ranking on Google. This will send you ranking reports for mobile and desktop on a monthly or weekly basis.

 

The best thing here is that the tool also comes with various metrics. It monitors the queries used to search for your website or business page.

UpCity

For those who are looking for an all-in-one tool, the UpCity won’t disappoint. It’s packed with features like competition citations, keyword rankings, and more SEO tools that you’ll find useful.

 

UpCity also delivers a comprehensive analysis of your most competitive searches. Regardless if you’re still working on your on-page SEO or trying to rank beyond your physical location, this tool will serve you well.

Rank Trackr

Rank Trackr is a great tool to compare your rankings in between regions. It provides a custom report based on the geographic area of your choice. Also, the reports can be customized according to the metrics you’ll set.

 

You’re free to choose a location based on zip code or country-based analysis. It’s a great tool to check your traffic and understand where you’re lagging.

Authority Labs

Authority Labs allows you to automate your ranking monitoring so you can focus on more things that matter on your business. You can set weekly, monthly, or yearly updates about your ranking. Aside from that, you can also set keywords, competition level, and keyword strength that you want to track.

 

It’s a convenient tool that does the job while you sleep.

SerpSuite

Although it’s more expensive than other tools, SerpSuite gives all the things you need to track your rankings. Like Authority Labs, SerpSuite can also create automated reports for your ranking and SEO campaigns.

 

This tool can automatically apply your best keywords so your business can rank better both locally and globally. If you don’t want to babysit your rankings, this is the right tool for you.

Why Small Businesses Should Consider Email Marketing

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Small businesses that want to reach a wider audience as possible will thrive on email marketing. This may sound like an expensive campaign, but it can be cost-efficient and worth it if done correctly. Aside from social media, email is a great way to connect to potential customers.

In fact, businesses that shy away from email marketing are missing out on a powerful lead generator. Here’s why you should consider email marketing for your small company:

Email marketing is budget-friendly

For businesses with barely any budget for advertisements and marketing, email campaigns are the best choice. It requires very little to zero financial investment. Aside from that, an email marketing campaign is undemanding to maintain.

 

You can enjoy the same marketing exposure without having to spend thousands of dollars on fees and subscriptions.

It builds credibility

Email content sends a strong and credible message to your target leads. This platform lets you share informative and useful content, aside from your sales pitch and offers.

 

This is the same reason why brands use newsletter subscriptions for their customers. Aside from giving out information, you’re also capturing their emails for future use.

It builds your brand

There’s no doubt that email marketing is a great way to build your brand. It lets you come up with your identity and customized content based on the demographics and browsing behavior of your leads.

 

Aside from other marketing strategies, email is an indispensable tool that even small businesses should utilize. It allows your business to be seen.

It reaches leads across devices

In this mobile era, email marketing never fails to keep up. In fact, about 48% of emails are opened using mobile devices. Also, 64% of decision-makers will read their emails using a mobile device.

 

Just take note that optimization should also come hand in hand on your emails. If not, there’s a 69% chance that the receiver will delete it.

It drives more traffic to your website

Aside from putting out your products or services out there, email campaigns allow you to direct traffic to your website. Various integrations will let you connect your social media pages and website link to every email. With this, it opens up to better connectivity and variety for your leads.

It boosts sales conversion

Email is an excellent way to nudge your leads into your sales funnel. Once they land on your website, your sales funnel is at work. If structured well, these email-generated leads will actually witness conversion.

You can integrate email with other tools

Like what’s mentioned above, you can integrate email with social media, scheduling tools, AI software, and more. With this, you can launch campaigns and monitor it 24/7 without having to stare on your screen the whole time.

Your competitors are doing it

You might be surprised, but most of your competitors are actually utilizing email campaigns. It’s a tried and tested method, plus it’s very easy on the pocket.

All you need is a little knowledge of the process and how it works. If you can’t handle the campaign, you can tap the help of a lead expert to do it for you.

 

 

Why building regional citations is essential for your service

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If you’ve taken even a passing interest in Local SEO, you’ve most likely heard about citations and the requirement to build citations in order for your service to rank. Why is it important?

What is citation structure?

Citation structure is a regional SEO marketing strategy that sees regional organisations get their company details listed on a number of sites.

 

That’s what a citation is: it’s a reference of your business’ information online where individuals can go and look it up. Traditionally, citations consist of the following details:

 

  • Name
  • Address
  • Telephone number
  • URL
  • Description
  • Opening Hours

 

The most crucial details is your service’ name, phone and address number. This is typically called your organisation’ NAP.

 

What is the point of structure citations?

The entire point of structure regional citations for your business is to rank greater in Google. For the many part, you aren’t doing it so that individuals can see your business on these websites. You’re doing it so Google can see your organisation on these websites, comprehend that the information is right which you have a substantial presence.

 

When sites like Google and Bing see this info, see that your business is noted on numerous sites which all the information is the exact same, they are most likely to deem that your service is legitimate and is worth ranking.

 

When Google sees your company as legitimate and ranks you extremely, consumers likewise see you as legitimate, too. Numerous surveys have actually shown that users considerably trust brands that appear on the first page of Google. When Google trusts your brands, customers also trust your brand name as an outcome.

 

That’s not the only advantage of structure regional citations. Some citations, such as those on big platforms like Facebook, Tripadvisor and Yelp, also enhance your brand’s online presence.

 

What are the other benefits of building regional citations?

Regional organisations that participate in citation structure gain substantial benefits over their rivals. Ranking higher in Google can have a considerable impact on the amount of company that you get. This can result in a lot more advantages for your service that mean you leave competitors behind completely. The more brand name awareness your business has, the more business it will get, too.

 

Possibly what is best about structure regional citations is that it can be a much more cost-efficient digital marketing tactic compared to other alternatives offered to local companies. What makes more sense? Buying pay per click advertising that only ensures a particular amount of visitors pales in contrast to producing local citations that can have a long lasting influence on your company, long after you’ve invest time and cash developing them.

 

If you need help creating citations, we are here to assist. Contact us today to discover out how we can help.

Why Google cares about your business reviews

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We’ve become accustomed to finding reviews for almost anything online. From Amazon to Yelp, you can find millions of user-generated reviews to guide your purchasing decisions. Now Google is becoming more and more concerned about reviews, too.

In almost every search you make, you can find some form of user review. Whether it’s reviews for local businesses or online shopping reviews in Google’s Shopping Ads, Google wants businesses to get reviews and it wants its users to see them.

 

As a result, getting reviews can have a huge impact on your business. Not only can they increase your reputation, they can increase the amount that you show up in Google. That’s right, Google is rewarding businesses that get more reviews. Here’s why and how.

 

Reviews help you rank higher in Google search results

Your business’ organic presence in Google can have a huge impact on sales. Unlike paid ads, which become annoying to users after a while, organic results are overwhelmingly positive for users. In other words, customers aren’t going to get fed up with your brand showing up loads in Google’s organic results.

 

Unfortunately, you have to rank on the first page of Google if you want to get any traffic at all. The overwhelming majority of clicks (almost all) go to businesses listed on the first page. So how do you get to the first page of Google.

One way could be to get more reviews. Whether you are a local brick and mortar store, a national brand or an online business, getting more reviews can improve your organic presence in Google. That’s because Google uses them as trust signals. The better your reviews, the more trustworthy your business is. Google wants to show the best businesses in its search results, so it uses reviews to guide part of this decision.

 

Reviews alone aren’t going to get you to the top of Google, but they are going to go along way to helping you get there.

 

Reviews and off-page SEO

Getting more reviews can also form part of an effective off-page SEO strategy. How? Because off-page SEO is about creating a strong online presence as a brand. Creating presence on sites like Facebook, Yelp and Tripadvisor shows Google that you have a wide-reaching platform. This is another trust signal that Google uses to rank websites.

 

Google might change but reviews will always be important

Google might change how it ranks websites in the future. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go all in on trying to get as many good reviews as possible. Why? Because reviews are always going to be a great way to promote your brand and get the recognition that you deserve. Even if Google suddenly decides to ignore reviews (which is unlikely), all the reviews you have got will still be valuable. Customers will always look for reviews when they want to find out more about a particular product or service.

 

Reviews improve your brand’s reputation. Period

Most businesses spend way too much time trying to please Google rather than improve their brand. By focusing on reviews, you can do both. The more reviews you get, the higher Google will rank you. The more reviews you get, the greater your presence online will be, especially if you build a strong presence on third-party platforms.

 

3 Tips to Increase Organic CTR (Part 1)

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Previously, I talked about The Link Between Organic Click Through Rate and SEO. In the blog post, I stressed the importance of having a high click-through rate because Google uses it as measure whether a search result is useful or not. Today, I will share to some CTR tips in order to help you boost your site rankings in Google.

Page Title

Let’s start with the page title because it is, after all, the first thing the users see. Upon reaching the search results page, they will obviously look for the best title that is relevant to their query. To create an effective title, you need to know your users. You need to put yourself in their shoes. If I am the user, what will make me click?

SEO is NOT just able technical details and industry jargons. To achieve success, you need to understand your audience. What do they want? What do they search? Knowing their purpose of searching is one important factor. How can you serve them well if you don’t know their goal?

As much as possible, you would want to include the keyword you are ranking for in the title. At the same time, you need the title to be captivating.  You need to achieve 2 things here:

  • grab the attention of your audience,
  • and convince them to click your website.

person discussing printed research near laptop computer

According to John Caples’ book, there 4 essential qualities of a good headline. He shared on Tested Advertising Methods the following:

  1. Self-interest: add words that pique the interest of people like a testimonial headline, a free offer, a list of benefits, and anything that offers informational value.
  2. News: feature words like, “New,”  “Finally,”  “Announcing,”  “At Last,” and anything that suggest a date and time.
  3. Curiosity: feed their curious minds by sharing a story, or asking a rhetorical question.
  4. Quick tips: provide easy to digest information such as giving an infographic of important facts and figures, or sharing easy ways to do daily tasks. You can even share travel tips for people on a budget.

Once you get the attention of your audience, it’s easy to make them click. Don’t forget that search engines now support symbols and emojis. If you target the younger audience, adding these timely icons will lure them to your website.

Meta Description

Aside from the title, what else do the user see in the search results? Just below the title is the description section. Of course, an intriguing title won’t suffice you need to provide a short explanation on what the page is about.

Like the title, the meta description has to grab the attention of the people reading it. It will be like your ad placement on the newspaper. You won’t have a huge space to say everything you need so carefully think about the word choices and the length of your explanation.

What can you do here?

  1. Explain the benefits without divulging everything.
  2. Provide an overview and product details.
  3. Manage the expectations of the users.
  4. Ask a question.
  5. Give an excerpt or a snippet.

Lastly, I want to stress the importance of keyword research. Before you go into the technical SEO, do your research first and study websites that are similar with yours. Know what the people are searching, and use keyword tools. There are a lot of free tools online; just refer to SEO Keyword Tools That Are Free to Use.

The Link Between Organic Click-Through Rate and SEO

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From the name itself, you can tell immediately that click-through rate is all about page clicks. To be specific, click-through rate (or CTR) refers to the number of times a user clicks a specific search result. As per Google, click-through is the number of clicks that a website link or ad receives.

The organic click-through rate.

When a website receives natural click from the user, this automatically becomes an organic CTR. In other words, there was no one who influenced the user. He started from scratch and asked the help of a search engine like Google. When he starts browsing for answers in the search results page, he will click on the link that he thinks is best. This process of looking for answers in Google is what is considered an organic click-through rate.

Why is CTR important?

If you browsed through the Google help page I linked earlier, you will know that the CTR is Google’s way to measure how your web page links and ads are doing in the search results page. Each page in your website will have their own CTR gauge.

A high click-through rate would mean that the users find the listed search result to be useful and appropriate. So, if a page gets more clicks, it would mean that they keywords used garnered positive response. If not, you can always look for other keywords. This is why you need to find the relevant keywords that are suitable to your business.

Remember, Google is always after the happiness of the users. By measuring the click-through rate, Google will know if a particular search result satisfies the users’ needs.  After all, Google just wants the best results for all its users. They will aim to get the most applicable, relevant, and favorable information for its users.

As a website owner, you can do the same and use the click-through rate in knowing which keywords rank well. Check out (link) to know more helpful CTR tips.

person researching using MacBook Pro

Identify the right keywords.

In gaining a higher CTR, the first step is to identify the keywords. More than anything else, it’s the keywords that have a crucial role. The chosen keywords should be significant to your website. At this point, doing a keyword research will extremely helpful.

To help you know what people are searching, you can do it manually and perform a Google search. Type in a keyword and check what Google is suggestion. Then, you will know the top keywords. Other than that, you can also automate it and use the different keyword research tools you can find online.

Provide a general overview.

Once a website is displayed on the search results page, you would want for users to click your link. To ensure that yours get instantly clicked, follow these guidelines:

  • Products: If you are selling products online, your potential customers would want to the customer ratings and reviews, the product picture, and the price.
  • Businesses: For actual businesses, users would want to know the exact location. Be sure to provide a map so that potential customers would know where to go.
  • Restaurants: For food places, the users would want to know the type of cuisine, the business hours, the location, and the price range.

Remember, these are only some of the basic guidelines. Hence, it is better that you do your own research and look into similar websites. Study direct competitors and observe how they do their website links and ads in Google.