We are super excited that Instagram recently made ads available to everyone. We’ve been pretty pumped since Instagram announced ads earlier this year, and now we are finally able to take advantage of them. Facebook has added the ability to create Instagram ads in the Power Editor, which you would normally use for Facebook ads. I think this is great because it’s now all in one place for both platforms.
Have you ever wondered why one website gets more visitors then another? It’s not necessarily because one costs more money, has great photos or has been around longer. It often comes down to one very simple but often critically overlooked step – using the right key words, title tags and meta descriptions.
Key Words Count
The first thing you should do – whether setting up a new website or optimizing an existing site – is to research and create a list of key words that are relevant to your company and industry. A good rule of thumb is to approach it from a potential customer’s perspective – what words would they be typing into a search engine if they are looking for your company? A good way to build a list of key words is by using tools such as Ubersuggest, which recommends relevant words and phrases based on the key words you enter.
Social media can be a powerful tool for marketers, and Facebook is one of the most influential social media sites around. One simple way your company can harness the power of Facebook to boost your business is by sharing posts from your blog on your business Facebook page.
This will help you in many ways, including:
For SEO professionals like us, search algorithms drive our entire process. Staying on top of trends and changes helps us help our clients’ websites rank higher and attract more visitors. On April 21st, Google announced that its algorithm will now give greater relevance to mobile-friendly websites and app content in its search results viewed on mobile devices. If you follow trends in SEO on any level, you’re probably already aware that the use of mobile devices to search and view webpages has steadily increased over the past several years and will only continue to grow and even surpass desktop in search volume.
This means that any business that wants to stay the most relevant and on top of their customer base needs to have their websites optimized for mobile devices.
Why optimize?
If you work in an industry where mobile traffic makes up only a small portion of your business, you might be asking yourself why you need to spend the time and money to make your site mobile-friendly. Aside from the global growth of mobile search, Google has found that 70% of mobile users use click-to-call, a feature that desktops don’t have.
With the April 21st update, Google is recognizing the already documented trend of increasing use and relevance of mobile devices as a platform for both web search and e-commerce through both apps and traditional search engines. If you’re serious about keeping your business relevant in today’s fast-moving digital economy, you need to optimize.
Bottom line, having a responsive website is the key to staying in the game and being competitive online.
We all know how important it is to protect your personal identity online, but are you also protecting and monitoring your business’s brand online? Do you know every little thing that is being said? All of the positive and all of the negative? If you answered “No”, you really should consider finding out what is being said. It can potentially be what makes or breaks your business and your reputation.
Thanks to everyone that attended the Social Media Breakfast Maine: Speed Dating Style on 8/25/2011. We were delighted to be the SEO Expert on-hand to help answer everyone’s questions. Below is my SEO cheat sheet on link building which was one of the most popular questions.
SMBME: Speed Dating Style – SEO Expert
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When we are working with a client and re-vamping their website, or building a new one from the ground up, we always ask “Would you like to blog on your website?” We have found that question is one that many people are very quick to say “No.” But after we explain the benefits [original content, content, content is king in the eyes of Google!] and the idea resonates for a while, we usually get the “What does blogging entail, how hard is it and is it REALLY going to benefit myself and my business? question.
If you have taken a jump into the land of SEO [search engine optimization] only to find yourself completely overwhelmed and not sure if the SEO techniques you are currently doing or reading about will only end in you being black-listed by Google, which means your business’s is dead on the Internet. Did you just find out that “Yes!” you can be black-listed on Google? If the company or individual you hire is not practicing what we call “White Hat SEO” AKA the good SEO techniques, you will end up in the one spot you don’t ever want to be… Not a friend of Google!
So you just signed up for Twitter… Now what? Remember that Twitter is about building relationships and starting conversations, and MOST importantly, listening. In fact, you will probably spend more time listening [or reading tweets] as you begin using Twitter to build your business and/or brand. Twitter is all about finding real time conversations and injecting your brand when it’s appropriate.
Here are 3 ways to help you find related Twitter followers to engage with:
Hopefully these three ways will help you find related Twitter followers to engage with. Remember that listening is more important than shouting your brand’s message online. It takes time, patience AND consistency, but by breaking up the time into small chunks, it’s feasible!
By now you are probably familiar with what SEO [search engine optimization] is and how incredibly valuable it is to you and your business. In fact, it is getting to the point that if you website isn’t optimized correctly, you are probably missing out on many, many valuable clients/customers.
Did you know that 20% of all the searches that Google processes are related to local search? This means that at least 20% of users are now adding a location to their search. Since there are so many people that are looking for Google’s recommendation on local services, there is a huge opportunity for those local businesses to increase their online visibility, even if they don’t already have their own website.
There are some things you want to make sure you include when you are doing local SEO for your Maine small business:
Local SEO for your business is only one piece of the inbound marketing puzzle, but a very important one. Too many business owners over look taking the time to verify their listings across all of the various sites and don’t fill them out completely. If you need assistance with your local SEO efforts, whether you’re not sure if your listings are verified or want to fill them out completely with pictures and video, give Mainely SEO a call today for a free consultation.
Below are the slides from my recent presentation on Local SEO for 2013 at SMBME.