Scottsdale SEO – 7 Easy Steps on Gaining Positive Online Reviews

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Verbally recommending a restaurant is good, but customers, nowadays, will still Google a business to read more online reviews. Without a doubt, online reviews are now crucial in every business’ success.  So, how do you actually make sure your business gets reviews?

  • Do your job well.
    • Just do it and the chances of getting more reviews will increase. Ask for a review after every transaction. On all your email communication, don’t forget to add link to your Facebook fan page, Yelp review page, and/or official online store on your email signature.
  • Complete your profiles and maintain an active status.
    • Know your industry well. Where are the other businesses signing up? Signing up on all social media accounts is unnecessary. Just know where your audience is at.
    • Having a business page on Yelp really helps. There are over 150 million reviews on the website. Make sure to complete important details like complete address, map, phone number, website, and operating hours. So, when other people search for your business, relevant results will show up and guide them to the right path.
Two Person Shaking Hands

build relationships with your clients

  • Know who to ask and what to ask.
    • First of all, remind yourself that not everyone will NOT be willing to give your business glowing reviews. Perfect 5-star reviews are elusive so be careful on who you ask.
    • There are reviews that are very upfront. Be the first one to ask customers for reviews. Because the moment they post it online, you will have NO control over it. If it’s a negative review, it will greatly affect your business.
    • You can ask a review through email. This way, you know what people think without going public. Learn from these honest reviews and improve the points presented. When someone endorses you, reply to these positive reviews. It’s a big deal and it could give your business a huge boost. So, be thankful and don’t just ignore it.
  • Know the right timing.
    • You also have to know when to ask. Find the right timing of asking an honest review. Ideally,  you should ask your customers while their pleasant experience is still recent and fresh in their minds.
  • How to ask?
    • There are many ways to ask for reviews such as like phone calls, emails, and face-to-face conversations. Whatever you choose, make sure it is convenient for your customers. After all, they are putting their reputation on the line. Be sure to be polite in asking.
  • Be precise and make it easy.
    • Asking a review is not enough. You have to be specific and ask for details. Make it as smooth as possible i.e. the answers are provided and customers will just have to tick a box that applies to them.
    • The review questionnaire should be clear and easy to understand. After this, you can also request the customer to publish the review on Facebook. If the customer answers yes, leave a link to your Facebook Business Page along with some instructions.
  • Give an incentive.
    • Lastly, your customers cleared their schedule to accommodate your request. As a way to say thank you, you can give an incentive such as a discount code they can use on their next transaction. It can also be a gift card or a voucher. Make it clear that the incentive is just a token for their honest review and not some form of payment.

Scottsdale Web Design – Why Your Website Needs a FREE SHIPPING Feature

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FREE SHIPPING boosts your website more than you think. In fact, Gian Fulgoni mentioned during his Comscore’s webinar that 75% of the online shoppers surveyed revealed that they would switch to another website if shipping was NOT free during shipping and payment process.

Additionally, Forrester Research did a survey in 2008 and the conclusion of the study was that online retailers expanded their web department by 18%. However, 40% of the customers mentioned that they very surprised at the high cost of shipping their items. Thus, they decided to abandon their carts. Unfortunately for these online retailers, many customers did not continue with their orders.

Brown shopping bagsHow Free Shipping Saves the Day?

In order to avoid the problems presented on the Forrester Research survey, many websites now offer FREE SHIPPING. This strategy could make customers shift and try shopping in different websites. Rather than choosing  Amazon, where shipping rates are calculated per item, a lot of customers opt for websites such as Wordery and Book Depository. These online businesses offer “free worldwide shipping.” With this, people will seriously consider to transfer. The free shipping strategy is pretty hard to resist.

These are the different ways to offer FREE SHIPPING to your customers:

  • FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER X AMOUNT.
  • Amazon may not offer free worldwide shipping, but the website uses another shipping strategy. Amazon will unlock the free shipping option if and only if you reached their minimum requirement. If your current order is over $25, you can now click the free shipping option during the checkout process. The free shipping feature only applies to the 50 states of the U.S.
  • FLAT-RATE SHIPPING FEE.
  • There’s also another strategy that is NOT weight-based. Flat-rate shipping will only require a uniform shipping fee without considering the quantity and weight of the order. The USPS’ flat-rate shipping option starts at $6.70. The shipping fee is fixed as long as the package does NOT exceed 70 lbs. The Priority Mail Flat Rate packaging includes USPS Tracking when you send it to any U.S. destination.
  • FREE SHIPPING ON SELECTED PRODUCTS.
  • Offering free shipping when you are selling a bundle is ideal. It encourages customers to try out the product bundle. Instead of just buying a piece, you are enticing them to get a bundle + FREE SHIPPING. For example, you can offer a jewelry set that includes a necklace, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet. Group products that complement each other and offer them as a bundle to take advantage of the FREE SHIPPING offer.
  • LIMITED-TIME OFFERS DURING SPECIAL OCCASIONS.
  • Limited-time offers are a way to cross-sell other items. It’s a subtle way of saying to your customers to browse these items that will sell out soon. So, the customers will start hoarding these items and will be adding more items to their shopping carts.
  • Aside from that, it’s an efficient way to get rid of overstocks. It’s an ingenious strategy to encourage people to purchase multiple copies. A common example is to offer a buy 2, get 2 free.

These are only some of the popular FREE SHIPPING options. Some websites even utilizes all three strategies. In designing a website, it’s crucial to study your customers. You need to know what products sell the most, the sales that were able to attract many customers, the CTA buttons that get clicked the most.  The results are important and it can help you improve your online store.

Scottsdale Web Design – How to Revamp Your Website for Valentine’s Day

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The holidays are over and it’s now the start of a new year. The next thing you’ll know is that it’s going to be  Valentine’s Day. Websites should discard the Christmas decorations and start filling their websites with hearts and flowers. Valentine’s Day is the time where people go the extra mile to show their love for their loved ones. For websites,  it’s the perfect time to spread love. Valentine’s Day promotions are going to pop up anytime soon. So, here are 3 tips for your retail site this upcoming Valentine’s Day:

  • Tip #1: Prepare In Advance.

  • January is the ideal time to start organizing a Valentine’s Day plan. Whatever your business may be, it’s imperative that you should start early. After the Christmas break, you can begin planning what you might want to do this Valentine’s Day. You need time to spread your website campaigns. Even with the help of the internet, promotions and sales will popularize in a snap. Plus, you need to give people time to save up enough money to splurge on this special day.
  • Another reason to start early is that other websites may have started with their own marketing campaigns If you won’t plan now, you will only be left with hardly any customers. Take the first step and start knocking on their generous hearts (no pun intended!)
Heart Cutout on a Coffee Cup

It’s going to be Valentine’s day soon!

  • Tip #2: Use Images to Get People Ready for Valentine’s Day

  • It’s such a happy and joyous occasion. Since it’s Valentine’s day, add hearts, flowers, teddy bears, and chocolate to your marketing ads. Website reminders and email messages just won’t do it. Each time you have a website sale, like on Valentine’s day, make sure to add happy and  lively pictures.
  • You should also follow a certain template. Whether it’s a special photo you took yourself, the cheery banner, or the social media advertisement you carefully planned, there should be a sense of uniformity. All the materials you prepared should use the same color scheme, font, and style. Not only that, it should also contain your logo, your website link, and your various social media accounts. So, people can easily know where to find your products that moment they see the ad.

  • Tip #3: Spread the Word by Spreading LOVE!

  • How do we exactly do this third tip? You spread love through giveaways! It’s time to let your customers do the marketing for you. By conducting a variety of giveaways on your different social media accounts, people can easily spread your Valentine’s day sale.
  • Whether your customers are mainly on Facebook,  Twitter, or Instagram, you start a simple “like and share” giveaway.  Anyone interested to WIN freebies from you will just repost an image or a status update. This way, the giveaway can trigger a ripple effect. So, people are inspired to share and spread the word about your Valentine’s day promotion.
  • Lastly, you DON’T have to do a giveaway at all times. Other strategies include: offering a FREE gift to anyone who reaches the required minimum purchase amount. Just remember that during these special occasions, every online business is brainstorming of a one-of-a-kind strategy to convince people to buy.  If every website similar to you is having a  buy 1, get 1 free, why not add something like an all-expense-paid Valentine’s day date? That additional prize will surely make you stand out from the rest. It’s doesn’t have to be at an 5-star hotel. People will still appreciate having a date at a cozy restaurant. It makes the date more meaningful and more memorable!

Scottsdale SEO: Why You Need to Understand User Intent

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The world of SEO is constantly changing. Technology evolves, algorithms update and the strategies that we use to rank websites change, too. It is important to keep up with these changes and that’s one of the main reasons to hire an SEO agency if you are serious about ranking your website highly.

Perhaps one of the most significant changes in recent years has been the ability for search engines to identify user intent. They can now tell what a user is trying to get out of a search — whether that is buying a product, learning more about a topic or trying to find reviews — and will tailor search results to that intent. Because this is changing the way that websites are ranked, it is crucial that business owners understand how intent works and how to optimize for it.

What is searcher intent?

Searcher intent encompasses the reason behind the search. What is the searcher trying to achieve? In most case, this will be informational, they want to find out more information. But it can also be commercial and transactional.

Informational intent is when the searcher is seeking to answer a question or learn more about a topic. This is the most common form of intent and has the highest search volumes.

Transactional intent is when a user wants to make a purchase. They know what they want to buy and they are trying to find somewhere to buy it from. In some cases, they may even know where they want to buy it from as well.

Commercial is a hybrid of informational and transactional. The user is looking for more information on a purchase and is probably wanting to read reviews or product specifications.

Categorizing your keywords by intent can help you to understand what pages should be showing and how you can optimize your pages to be more likely to rank.

Optimizing for intent

If you have categorized your keywords you should now start optimizing your pages for these intents. The best place to start is by looking at the current results in Google and seeing what kind of pages show up. Are they blog posts? News articles? Product pages?

Now, if the content showing in Google for your keyword doesn’t match your page’s content, there’s a good chance you aren’t going to be able to rank your page highly. You can’t rank a blog post on a Google search that shows only product pages, for instance. Conversely, if your page is the same type of page as all of the pages ranking in Google, there is every chance you can get it to rank highly and you should invest time and money in doing so.

You can also use intent to optimize your on-page SEO and your call to actions. So if your users’ intent is to find information, make sure you use heading tags to answer questions. If they want to make a purchase, make sure you have CTAs that reflect this.

If you’re serious about getting your pages to rank well and to make money from them, it is crucial that you understand intent.

Scottsdale SEO: What’s a canonical URL and when should I use one?

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There are a lot of benefits that occur as your site gets bigger and bigger. The more pages you have, the more keywords you can rank for and the more traffic that you can get. All of this will result in more money for your business. But there are a couple of issues that come with larger websites, too. One of these is duplicate content issues. When you have a large site, particularly an e-commerce website, it can be very difficult not to create duplicate or near-duplicate pages—different pages that have exactly the same or very, very similar content. When these occur, they can cause problems for Google and other search engines who don’t know which page to give priority to. This can lead to penalties or a loss of rankings. The good news is that there is an easy way to solve this. And that’s by using canonical URLs.

What is a canonical URL and how does it work?

A canonical URL will tell Google which page that it should rank when it comes across two very similar pages. For example, if you have two very similar product pages with almost the same products on them but different URLs, they are probably ranking for the same keyword. You don’t want both ranking, you want Google to rank one and not another. This is essentially what a canonical URL does. It tells Google not to rank a particular page that it is crawling and to rank another one instead.

The key thing to note is that a canonical URL is not a redirect. The end user will not be redirected to a different page when they land on a page with a canonical URL. In fact, they won’t even know it is there. Only Google will see that there is a canonical URL and be redirected to the correct page.

How to use canonical URLs

If you’ve found pages that need a canonical URL, you’ll need to know how to add them. Start by choosing the page that you want to take precedence and to rank in Google. Then head to the other page and access that page’s code. Please note that there are several SEO plugins for WordPress that you can use to add canonical URLs without having to access the code.

If you are adding the code yourself, however, you’ll want to add the following code in the <head> section of your page:

<link rel=“canonical” href=”ENTER MAIN URL”>

When should you use canonical URLs?

It can be hard to decide when to use canonical URLs and 301 redirects. But if you aren’t sure, you are almost always best off using a 301 redirect. You probably won’t go far wrong by doing so, but you can mess up your site’s SEO by using a canonical URL. That being said, if you aren’t sure, you should really consult an SEO professional before making changes to your website.

Scottsdale SEO: Monitoring for Negative SEO

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If you are listed at the top of Google for just one keyword, you should be wary about negative SEO. Sitting atop Google means that you effectively have a target on your website’s back. Everyone wants to take your spot and some will use any means necessary to do so. A lot of SEOs will look at the tactics you have used and try to copy them to achieve the same success. There is no harm in this and they are unlikely to succeed. Others, however, may resort to negative SEO in order to get your website penalized by Google.

Negative SEO involves a third party trying to ruin a website’s off-page SEO, such as its links through spam techniques. The hope is that Google sees the spam, thinks the top-ranking website is at fault and punishes them, causing them to fall in the rankings. Here are the most common negative SEO techniques and how you can watch out for them.

Spam link building

This is the most common negative SEO technique and the most likely one to be used against your website if you become a target. It involves negative SEOers creating hundreds or even thousands of spam links on a network of poor quality websites and directing them towards your top-ranking site. The idea is that Google will penalize your website for poor quality links.

The good news is that this is easy to watch out for and identify using a leading SEO tool. Most comprehensive SEO tools will track your links so you can see spam links as soon as they appear. If you do see them, you can use Google’s disavow tool to make sure the search engine doesn’t take them into account.

Duplicated content

While this is a less common negative SEO tactic than spam link building, it can still occur. Another way to get your site penalized by Google is to create content issues, so negative SEOers will copy and paste all of the content from your website and add it to their network of spam websites. You shouldn’t have to worry too much about this tactic, however, as Google will usually take the content that it found first as the original and give you preference. If you are worried, however, you can use a content monitoring tool to notify you when your content is copied.

Fake business reviews

Some negative SEO tactics will be aimed at your business, rather than your website. If you are a top ranked local business, other business owners or negative SEOers may take to leaving negative reviews about your business on Google and other websites in the hope that it pushes your ranking down. These can be incredibly damaging, not least because some fake reviews can be hard to remove. It is crucial that you check Google, Yelp and any other reviews sites regularly and report fake reviews as soon as you see them.

While you are unlikely to be the target of a negative SEO attack, it is important you are aware of what they are and what to do. The more you know, the more you can do to stop them.

Scottsdale SEO: Making the most of your internal links

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The concept of internal linking is not a hard one for business owners to get their head around. It’s simply just linking from one of your website’s pages to another. While it is easy, it is also incredibly important to get right (and easy to get wrong). That’s because internal linking is a powerful SEO technique that can give your website a huge boost in the rankings. Read the following tips below if you want to take your internal linking to the next level or if you need a helping hand getting started.

You need loads of content to start

You can’t build internal links if you don’t have loads of content on your website. At a minimum, you’ll want at least 20 blog posts and you’ll want to be adding more content every single week. It’s not enough to have 5 or so good pages. Otherwise, you’ll be linking back to the same few pages every time. Neither your users or Google want to see that. That’s why creating content is the very first step you should take.

Make your links in the text

When you come to start creating links, make sure that you are using anchor text and not images. Links within a blog post or piece of content are more valuable than image links and are more likely to get clicked on, too. Using text also gives you the chance to use keywords within the link. But be careful not to overdo it. It’s better to have natural looking links rather than ones stuffed with keywords that are hard to read and unlikely to get clicked on.

Link to deep pages

There’s no point building links to your homepage, your contact page or any of your other top line pages. If your website has a menu bar, you are already linking to all of these pages on every single page that you create. Instead, you want to build links to deeper pages, ones that wouldn’t get found by people naturally searching your website. Internal links to these pages are going to be much more powerful than ones to your homepage and will likely provide a bigger SEO boost.

Use follow links

When you link to another page, whether it is on your site or someone else’s, there are two types of links that you can use: follow links and nofollow links. Nofollow links are ignored by Google and don’t pass any SEO benefit to the page being linked to. They are used in adverts and where the linking page doesn’t want to credit the other page. Follow links are normal links and they pass link juice to the other page. These are the links that have an SEO benefit and so they are the only type of link that you want to use.

Don’t overdo it

When you start internal linking it can be hard not to overdo it and add 05 links on every single page. Don’t. This will create a terrible user experience for your visitors and it will seriously devalue the links that you build. Instead, stick to adding 5-10 good links to a page and think carefully about where they are best added.

Scottsdale SEO: How to write the perfect meta description

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A decade ago, your page’s meta description was an incredibly important ranking factor that Google used to rank pages. Unfortunately, this led to people stuffing their meta descriptions with keywords making them unreadable and of no use. Now they aren’t a ranking factor, but they are still an important part of Google. That’s because Google still displays your page’s meta description on results pages. The new role of the meta description is to persuade people to click on your page.

The more persuasive your meta description is the more people that will visit your page. Even if you are 4th on Google, a good meta description can mean more people click on your link than the first result. There’s a second, compounding factor, too. Because Google uses SERP click-through rates as a ranking factor, the more people clicking on your link, the better the chances of getting a higher ranking in the future. As you can see, it’s very important to know how to write great descriptions.

5 tips for the best meta descriptions

Get to the point

Your meta description shouldn’t really be longer than 155 characters. That’s the most Google will typically show on a results page. On some devices, like mobile, that number can be even smaller. That means you have little room to ramble on. Instead, get straight to the point and make sure you get all your key points in those 155 characters.

Give a command

If you’ve ever written a call to action for your website, your meta description should be very similar. It’s not enough to tell the user what’s on your page, you need to give them a little nudge to click. Phrases like “find out more” and “try for free” are great endings to your meta description.

Get the keyword in there

Your meta description must contain your page’s focus keyword. Not only will Google make it bold (and therefore make it more noticeable), the search engine will also be more inclined to use your own meta description rather than create their own.

Make sure you tease the content

You want to give users a taste of what they can find on the page but you don’t want to mislead them. So make sure that whatever you write in your meta description is a fair reflection of what is on the page itself. Otherwise, you could end up with high bounce rates — another factor that Google uses to rank websites.

Make it unique

All of your meta descriptions should be unique. Even if you have very similar pages and very similar page titles, the meta descriptions should all be unique. Otherwise, you are providing a poor user experience for users and for Google. If you think you may be tempted to re-use meta descriptions it is better to leave them blank, Doing so will mean that Google uses the content on your page to create its own.

Scottsdale SEO: How to write a great blog post

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We don’t have to tell you how valuable blogging can be for your website and your business. But even if you know blogging is the best thing you can do, knowing how to write a great blog post is a different thing altogether. If you aren’t sure how to create a great blog post or are looking for tips on how to improve your writing, this is the post for you.

A great blog post starts with a plan

No great blog post was ever written without a plan. It doesn’t matter how good of a writer you are, a plan is essential for gathering your thoughts, writing clearly and effectively and making sure that you stay on topics. Your plan starts when you brainstorm topic ideas and it should include keyword research as well as topic research. Once you have completed all of your research, you’ll want to create a brief outline of your blog post that includes subheadings and briefly highlights what will be said in each section.

Think carefully about the headline

A lot of people will read a blog’s headline and nothing else. That’s because they use the headline to get an idea of what the blog is about and whether it will be interesting. Boring headlines turn off readers. That’s why you need to spend time creating a short, punchy and engaging headline that grabs readers’ attention and forces them to read the rest of the post. If you need help creating headlines, look at online news websites like Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post.

Write the post

This is the easy part. With your outline to hand, writing the post becomes very simple. You just need to build on the ideas that you already have. Make sure to keep your writing clear and simple. Use short words and short sentences. You should also use lots of subheadings to break your writing up and avoid long paragraphs as these can be a turn off for online readers.

Add images to your post

Images are an essential part of every great blog post. Not only do they break the post up even more and make it more visually appealing, they also add context to your writing and can be used to explain certain points. There are dozens of websites that you can use to find free pictures online. Just make sure to keep file sizes small and to add alt tags to every image that you use.

Edit carefully

Once you have finished writing your blog post it is best to take a break before heading. This will give you time to freshen up and take your mind off the post, therefore making it easier to spot errors you couldn’t see when writing. When it comes time to edit, make sure that you read your blog post slowly and out loud. This will make errors more obvious and help you check the flow of your writing. If you can, have someone else read your blog post, too.

That’s all there is to it. Writing a blog post doesn’t have to be a daunting process. If you break it down into smaller manageable chunks, anyone can write a great blog post.

Scottsdale SEO: How Service Area Businesses Can Improve Local SEO

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There are three key factors that every business needs to take into account when ranking local. They are relevance, prominence, and proximity. The better known your business is, the more relevant you are to the search phrase and the closer you are to the search area, the higher your business will appear in Google. This is a pretty straightforward concept for local businesses with physical locations like shops. But it gets a lot trickier when you are a service-based business like a tradesman who doesn’t have a physical location but instead travels around an area providing their service.

If this is you, then you are probably aware that Google gives you the opportunity to list as such a business in Google My Business, and define the area in which you work. Initially, Google did this by requesting your address and then forcing you to set a mile radius in which you would be willing to work. Naturally, this wasn’t a perfect solution, particularly for people who lived near the coast or in areas with poor road infrastructure. It meant service-based businesses listing for areas that they didn’t work in or missing out on areas that they would be happy to make the trip too.

The good news is that Google has changed how Google My Business works for service-based businesses. You are now able to submit the exact area you operate in by city or ZIP code. This makes Google My Business a lot easier for service-based businesses to manage.

That is not all that has changed, either. If you are willing to pay for local ads, Google is also testing service ads that come with a Google Guarantee. As a result of a fee to Google, the search company will vet your business and guarantee your work if they like what they see. This gives customers an added incentive to click on your ad and use your business.

How else can service-based businesses get Google clicks?

There are a couple of other things that service-based businesses can do to get higher rankings and increase the number of clicks they get from Google.

Get more reviews

The more (and better) reviews that a business gets from customers on Google, the higher that business is likely to rank and the greater the chances that a user will click on their listing.

Enter more directories

Directory listings are another ranking factor that Google uses to rank local businesses. Therefore, the more directories you are listed in and the more consistent your listings are (same name, address, and phone number, for instance) the better you will rank.

Use a Local SEO expert

Ranking in Google Local is hard. There are all sorts of issues that you could come across that even veteran SEO experts may struggle with. That’s why if you’re serious about ranking it is always best to hire a local SEO expert in the long run.