In the world of digital marketing, even the smallest details can have a significant impact. One such detail is the favicon—a small icon that represents your website in browser tabs, bookmarks, and search results. Recently, Google updated its guidelines to recommend higher resolution favicons, emphasizing their role in enhancing brand recognition and user engagement.
Favicons are the tiny icons displayed next to your website's name in a browser tab. They serve as a visual identifier for your brand, helping users easily recognize and navigate back to your site among multiple open tabs. Originally introduced to improve user experience, favicons have become an essential part of a website's branding strategy.
Google now recommends using favicons with a resolution of at least 48x48 pixels. This ensures that your brand is represented clearly across all devices, from desktops to smartphones. A high-resolution favicon enhances the professional appearance of your site and contributes to a consistent and recognizable brand presence.
Real-World Impact: Consider a local business that revamped its online presence by updating its favicon alongside other branding elements. This small change led to a noticeable increase in user engagement, as customers could easily identify and return to the site.
A well-designed favicon can significantly improve click-through rates (CTR). When users search online, visually appealing results naturally attract more attention. A distinctive favicon makes your website stand out, encouraging users to click on your link over others.
Designing for Impact: Think of your favicon as the face of your brand in the digital space. A vibrant and reflective design not only captures attention but also conveys the essence of your brand, making it memorable to potential customers.
To ensure proper display, favicons must maintain a 1:1 square aspect ratio and be crawlable by Googlebot-Image. These technical requirements are crucial for correct indexing and visibility in search results. Ensuring compliance with these guidelines helps maximize the SEO benefits of your favicon.
Staying Current with Standards: Keeping up with Google's evolving standards is vital for maintaining an effective online presence. Regular updates ensure that your site remains compliant and takes full advantage of new opportunities for visibility.
Consistency in branding builds trust and recognition among users. A favicon that aligns with your brand identity reinforces this connection each time users encounter it in their browser tabs or search results. This consistency aids in brand recall and strengthens user interaction.
Emotional Connection: Familiar logos evoke emotional responses from consumers. A well-designed favicon is another tool to ensure your brand remains top-of-mind, fostering loyalty and encouraging repeat visits.
For business owners and marketing professionals, understanding the role of favicons in SEO is crucial. While they don't directly affect rankings, their indirect benefits—such as improved CTRs—are invaluable. Optimizing favicons enhances online presence without overwhelming audiences with technical details.
Integrating into Broader Strategy: Favicons are part of a comprehensive marketing strategy that includes various digital touchpoints. They contribute to a cohesive theme that enhances overall brand recognition.
Creating high-resolution favicons involves more than resizing an image; it requires thoughtful design to ensure recognizability at smaller sizes. Our team guides businesses through this process, ensuring favicons meet Google's guidelines while enhancing branding strategy.
Guided Implementation: We offer step-by-step support from concept to implementation, helping you design a favicon that reflects your brand and resonates with your audience.
In today's competitive digital environment, every detail counts. Adopting high-resolution favicons can enhance your website's visual appeal and SEO performance. Reach out today to start improving your brand's online presence and stay ahead of the competition.
Favicons play a crucial role in the technical ecosystem of your website by contributing to overall metadata and ensuring brand visibility across platforms. In our multi-device world, having a high-resolution favicon ensures consistent brand representation on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
Mobile Optimization: With increasing mobile traffic, it's essential that favicons look great on smaller screens. Users expect quick, visually appealing results; an optimized favicon enhances professionalism across all devices.
User experience is critical in web design. The favicon is one of the first visual elements users notice; it appears in tabs, bookmarks, and browser histories. A high-quality favicon makes it easy for users to identify and revisit your site among numerous open tabs.
Navigating Digital Noise: In a crowded digital landscape, a memorable favicon helps users navigate back to your site easily, driving repeat visits and increasing engagement rates.
Real-world examples highlight the benefits of high-resolution favicons. For instance, a tech startup revamped its favicon during a website redesign. The modern icon improved user recognition and engagement significantly compared to competitors.
To gauge the impact of favicons on SEO and branding efforts, track key performance metrics using tools like Google Analytics. Analyzing user engagement related to favicon updates allows businesses to refine their digital strategies continuously.
Data-Driven Decisions: By tracking how favicons influence site interactions, you can make informed adjustments across your entire brand strategy, fostering continuous improvement aimed at increasing engagement rates.
Favicons contribute to the broader SEO picture by influencing user engagement metrics like CTRs and repeat visits—signals that indicate value to search engines. An optimized favicon can positively impact these metrics, benefiting overall SEO performance.
As digital standards evolve, so will favicon guidelines. Businesses must remain adaptable to these changes. Future designs may trend toward interactive or dynamic favicons that engage users more effectively.
Staying Informed: We are committed to ongoing education about these trends, ensuring strategies reflect best practices to keep businesses at the forefront of the industry.
High-resolution favicons play an essential role in digital strategy by enhancing brand visibility and user experience. Investing in an optimized favicon improves online presence amidst growing competition in Reno and beyond.
Consider how these updates can benefit your business through improved visual branding. Start with small steps that define larger strategies for success—partner with us on this journey toward remarkable online achievement.
In the ever-evolving world of search engine optimization (SEO), staying ahead of the curve is crucial for businesses looking to maximize their online visibility. One of the most powerful tools in an SEO professional's arsenal is structured data, implemented through schema markup. This article will delve into what structured data is, its history, and how it can be leveraged to influence how Google displays your website listings in search results.
Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying its content. It's a way of organizing and labeling content on websites so that search engines can better understand and interpret the information. By implementing structured data, you're essentially speaking the language of search engines, helping them to comprehend the context and meaning behind your web pages.
Schema markup is the code used to implement structured data. It's a collaborative effort between major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Yandex to create a common vocabulary for structured data. This vocabulary, known as Schema.org, defines a set of standardized types and properties for describing various entities, actions, and relationships on the web.
The concept of structured data for the web isn't new, but its widespread adoption and importance in SEO have grown significantly over the past decade.
In the early 2000s, microformats emerged as one of the first attempts to add semantic markup to HTML. These were followed by RDFa (Resource Description Framework in Attributes), which provided a more flexible way to embed metadata in web documents.
In 2011, Google, Bing, and Yahoo! jointly announced Schema.org, a collaborative project to create a common vocabulary for structured data markup. This marked a significant milestone in the evolution of structured data, as it provided a unified approach that was supported by major search engines.
While microdata and RDFa are still supported, JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) has become the preferred format for implementing schema markup. Introduced in 2014, JSON-LD offers a more flexible and less intrusive way to add structured data to web pages.
Implementing structured data through schema markup offers several benefits for your SEO strategy:
Schema.org provides a wide variety of schema types for different content. Some of the most commonly used types include:
While there are various ways to implement schema markup, JSON-LD has become the preferred method due to its simplicity and flexibility. Here's a basic example of JSON-LD markup for a local business:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "OCG Creative",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "6100 Plumas St., Suite 100",
"addressLocality": "Reno",
"addressRegion": “NV",
"postalCode": "89519",
"addressCountry": "US"
},
"telephone": "(775) 324-1644",
"url": "https://ocgcreative.com"
}
</script>This code would typically be placed in the <head> section of your HTML document.
To maximize the benefits of structured data, follow these best practices:
While basic schema markup can significantly improve your search listings, there are advanced techniques that can further enhance how Google displays your content:
1. Nested Schemas
Nested schemas allow you to provide more detailed and interconnected information. For example, you could nest a Product schema within an Offer schema to provide comprehensive details about a product and its availability.
2. Aggregate Ratings
For businesses with multiple reviews, using the AggregateRating schema can display an overall rating in search results, potentially increasing click-through rates.
3. Breadcrumb Markup
Implementing breadcrumb markup can help Google understand your site structure and may display the breadcrumb path in search results, improving navigation for users.
4. Sitelinks Searchbox
For larger sites, implementing the Sitelinks Searchbox schema can enable a search box directly in your Google search listing, allowing users to search your site without visiting it first.
5. Speakable Schema
As voice search continues to grow, implementing Speakable schema can help identify sections of your content that are particularly suitable for text-to-speech applications.
As search engines continue to evolve, the importance of structured data in SEO is likely to grow. Here are some trends to watch:
Structured data and schema markup are powerful tools in the modern SEO toolkit. By providing explicit, machine-readable information about your website's content, you can significantly influence how Google and other search engines understand and display your listings. While implementing structured data requires some technical knowledge, the potential benefits in terms of improved visibility, click-through rates, and overall search performance make it a worthwhile investment for any business serious about its online presence.
At OCG Creative, we understand the nuances of structured data implementation and its impact on SEO. We don't just generate and paste code; we strategically implement structured data to maximize its benefits for your specific business needs. By staying ahead of the curve with advanced techniques and best practices, we ensure that your website takes full advantage of every opportunity to stand out in search results.
Remember, in the ever-changing landscape of SEO, structured data is not just a nice-to-have feature – it's becoming an essential element of a comprehensive and effective search engine optimization strategy. By embracing structured data and schema markup, you're not just optimizing for today's search engines, but also positioning your website for success in the evolving digital landscape of tomorrow.
In today's intricate digital landscape, SEO isn't just about driving traffic; it's about guiding potential customers through a well-curated journey. For many businesses, the task of optimizing their digital presence becomes daunting due to the rapidly evolving nature of the internet. This is where OCG Creative steps in, offering affordable yet comprehensive SEO services tailored for businesses of all scales. In this post, we'll explore the myriad of options available for those seeking to enhance their digital footprint without burning a hole in their pocket.
Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO, has become a cornerstone of digital marketing. With businesses often spending over $5,000 on SEO alone, it underscores its importance in the ever-competitive online space. SEO is not the endgame; it's merely the beginning. Social media, review websites, online videos, and seismic shifts in consumer behavior have transformed the digital marketing landscape into both a challenge and an opportunity.
0Recognizing the diverse needs of businesses, OCG Creative has designed a suite of SEO plans:
Bare Essentials ($399/monthly): A foundational package including a 5-page website, Google Business Profile, technical maintenance, keyword research & planning, and onsite optimization for up to 20 keywords.
Social Media Essentials ($799/monthly): Building upon the Bare Essentials, this package integrates a holistic social media strategy, spanning from platform audit to engagement & management.
Structured Data Essentials ($799/monthly): A specialized plan focused on leveraging structured data for enhanced SEO. With SERP analysis, competitive research, and JSON-LD coding, it's designed for businesses looking to harness the power of rich snippets and more.
Premium Essentials ($999/monthly): The ultimate package, combining the best of all plans with enhanced features for businesses aiming for a dominant online presence.
All plans come with an annual SSL Hosting requirement priced at $199, ensuring secure and reliable website operations.
Beyond these, OCG Creative understands that businesses may have specific needs. Hence, they offer add-on features ranging from staff listings, photo galleries, and in-depth copywriting to designing additional pages.
Tracing back to 1994, OCG Creative was among the early birds entering the digital realm. From its inception as a traditional advertising agency, OCG has transformed into a leading digital marketing agency, rooted deeply in technology. While they still cherish their traditional marketing routes offering print, media advertising, and brand development, the heart of OCG lies in the ever-evolving digital space.
OCG's strength stems from its diverse team of engineers, designers, data analysts, strategists, and content creators. Their ethos is simple: nothing is "good enough." They strive for excellence, ensuring their clients stand out in the crowded online arena.
The concept of a digital marketing agency has morphed over the years. While they traditionally offered services like web design, SEO, email marketing, and social media management, the current landscape demands a broader skill set. Marketing automation, advanced analytics, CRM, and landing page optimization are just a few arrows in a modern digital agency's quiver. The challenge is discerning the optimal mix of strategies to maximize growth.
The Internet today is akin to a labyrinth, a network where every click, search, or scroll can trigger a multitude of responses. This interconnectedness, termed cross-channel marketing, might seem eerie to the average user. Ever wondered why after browsing shoes online, you're suddenly flooded with sock ads? That's the power and precision of cross-channel marketing. The digital realm is watching, learning, and tailoring experiences in real-time.
Navigating the digital world might feel overwhelming, but with partners like OCG Creative, the journey becomes less daunting. Offering a gamut of services that extend beyond mere marketing, they promise peace of mind and a healthy work-life balance for their clients. As the digital tide continues to rise, ensuring your business remains buoyant is paramount. And with OCG, you're not just staying afloat; you're cruising.
Dive into the digital future with OCG Creative. Start your plan today.
In the forward march of progress, online presence has become a critical cornerstone for businesses of all sizes. However, crafting this presence is a task that demands commitment, dedication, and a wealth of resources. This is where OCG Creative steps in. As a Reno digital marketing team, we are here to ensure your business shines brightly in the digital arena, allowing you to focus on the heart of your operations.
In this ever-evolving world, keeping pace with marketing trends can be an uphill struggle, and crafting an effective marketing strategy can seem like an impossible task. This is where our team, armed with expertise and creativity, stands ready to make a difference for your business. Partnering with us means having a dedicated team of marketing specialists, wholly committed to driving real outcomes, not just ticking boxes.
Small businesses often grapple with a host of digital marketing challenges. From lead generation and sunken costs to grappling with the intricacies of marketing technology and managing time effectively, the hurdles can be overwhelming. Few business owners have the resources, bandwidth, or keen interest in digital marketing to achieve the level of effectiveness offered by a skilled team like ours. By outsourcing to OCG Creative, your business saves valuable resources including time, money, and staff.
As a marketing agency in Reno, our primary role is helping businesses generate leads. Our approach begins with assessing your market and competitive landscape, and then devising a strategy that elevates your business above the rest. Despite the complexities of web design and digital marketing, our role is to unravel the technological knots and build and execute a plan to meet your goals.
Our team of experts, assembled specifically to match your business needs, includes strategists, designers, SEO specialists, social media experts, and photographers/videographers. We’re the engineer you need on call, the designer, the copywriter, and the social media specialist, all packaged in an a la carte fashion. Partnering with us provides the perks of a full-service marketing team without the expense, frustration, or risk of hiring several full-time employees.
OCG Creative is rooted in providing technical expertise alongside creativity. We not only deliver a sleek, aesthetically pleasing website but also dedicate our efforts to maintaining that site and boosting its rankings on Google's algorithm. Our team excels in implementing unique web designs, expert Reno SEO, curated content, and specialized strategizing that align with your business needs.
The magic of web design comes alive in our meetings with clients. This is where we collaborate to understand your vision and translate it into reality. Our designers craft custom pages and design elements that not only ensure your business stands out but also make your website user-friendly and enticing to new visitors.
SEO and social media are invaluable tools in making your online presence felt. Our copywriters and SEO specialists employ critical keywords to bolster your online visibility and drive the right traffic to your site. Additionally, our social media experts adeptly generate leads through targeted social media posts.
Account strategists at OCG Creative serve as the backbone of your marketing strategy. We assess your business needs and goals, using this information to craft a marketing plan that truly delivers. Alongside generating outcomes, we provide backups, CRM, and server network disaster recovery, as well as SSL and security monitoring.
In the end, we're not just about checking off tasks; we're about making a difference to your bottom line. Our goal is not just to generate outcomes but provide the KPIs that lead to those outcomes.
Experiencing our dedication to your success is only a phone call away. Don't just take our word for it; reach out and experience firsthand what it's like to work with a Reno digital marketing team that's committed to your business goals.
Contact OCG Creative today and let us guide you to a prosperous digital future.
Not too long ago, the internet was uncharted territory. Put your website out there, and people would stumble upon it. It felt like a great equalizer, and search engines seemed fair. Fast forward to the present, and digital marketing has evolved beyond recognition. But how does this affect your small business? Let's find out.
Today, more than half of website traffic springs from organic search, leading to a whopping 40% of online revenue. Amid shrinking mobile search results, even desktop displays less than ten results on average. In this era of rapidly changing digital dynamics, an expert guide like OCG Creative, a Reno-based digital marketing agency, could be the compass your business needs.
Did you know, for instance, that most businesses spend over $5,000 on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) alone? And that's just the tip of the digital iceberg. Your online presence includes social media, review websites, online videos, and more, all of which have transformed the digital marketing landscape into an opportunity-rich, yet challenging, field.
Given the pervasive and powerful impact of the internet, establishing a strong online presence is a prerequisite for competitive success. It's worth noting that more than 90% of your in-store customers would have researched your website—and likely your competitors'—prior to their visit. If a business lacks a website, or if the website doesn't support its growth goals, it's not merely sidelined—it's essentially unseen.
That's where OCG Creative steps in. Our digital marketing Reno agency helps businesses build websites that aren't just aesthetically pleasing but also contribute to bottom-line growth. With 51% of website traffic coming from online search and only 10% from paid search, your business needs to be everywhere. As your dedicated digital marketing partner, OCG Creative ensures you're not only present but also visible.
Did you know the average content length of a Google first page result is nearly 2,000 words? Given that 'page one' generates 91.5% of all organic website traffic, at minimum you'll be writing that many words for every search phrase you're competing for. Plus, let's not forget social media. You need to be at least as visible as your top competitors. Depending on your market, that might require multiple posts per day across several channels. Sounds exhausting, doesn't it? That's where we come in. We'll do the heavy lifting so that you can focus on your core business.
In the digital era, your competition isn't confined to 'normal business hours.' You're competing around the clock, across time zones. You may not get to choose how you compete, but you can choose who helps you compete. The OCG Creative team is your team. We're more effective than any freelance marketer and most company’s in-house teams.
Effective SEO isn't just about keyword stuffing. It's about relevance. Search engines, especially sophisticated ones like Google, analyze hundreds of signals related to your website to determine its relevance. It's not just about having the most relevant website or page for the keyword—it's about being the most relevant and interesting.
Web design and internet marketing are complex, multifaceted activities. Consider the digital marketing landscape as an ecosystem comprising your website, key social media channels, email marketing, CRM, marketing automation, online and traditional advertising, direct response marketing, event marketing, and more.
The good news is, you don't have to navigate this landscape alone. We employ expert internet marketers in all areas of marketing, especially digital and data-driven platforms. We're also home to top web designers and strategic engineers.
Digital marketing is no longer an option—it's a necessity. Whether you're new to digital marketing or looking to optimize your current efforts, our team is here to help you navigate this new frontier.
Ready to begin your journey into the wild world of digital marketing? Contact OCG Creative today. We'll be your expert guide on the road to online success. Together, let's conquer the digital landscape.
In the digital realm, the first page of Google search results is often considered a holy grail for businesses seeking online visibility. Such was the aspiration of Reno Pro Services, a company offering a comprehensive array of professional furniture services. The challenge? The digital sphere is crowded, making visibility a steep mountain to climb. However, they chose not to navigate this complex landscape alone – they turned to the experts at OCG Creative, and the rest is an SEO success story.
In today's bustling online marketplace, standing out from the crowd is no easy feat. Reno Pro Services recognized that a robust digital presence was critical for growth. However, capturing the attention of potential customers amidst a sea of competitors was an uphill battle. The mission was clear: to increase their website's visibility, drive more organic traffic, and ultimately, convert this traffic into loyal customers.
OCG Creative accepted the challenge with a clear plan: to leverage SEO best practices and transform Reno Pro Services from an invisible entity into an invaluable service provider in the eyes of search engines and customers. The agency identified keywords relevant to the client's business that held the potential to drive meaningful traffic and conversions. In this example, we will focus on the 5 following keywords:
"Furniture assembly reno"
"Reno furniture relocation"
"Furniture repair reno"
"Furniture assembly and repair reno"
"Reno commercial furniture installation"
OCG Creative's SEO approach was both technical and creative. They curated keyword-optimized content, focusing on relevancy, engagement, and quality. The agency also built high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites, boosting Reno Pro Services' domain authority. Additionally, they meticulously crafted metadata to ensure that every webpage communicated effectively with search engines. This blend of techniques ensured that the website was not only search engine friendly but also compelling and intuitive for its visitors.
The impact of OCG Creative's work was nothing short of transformative. Their expert strategies propelled the targeted keywords from obscurity to prominence. "Furniture assembly reno," initially with zero ranking, saw a significant rise in just a few months. "Reno furniture relocation" experienced similar success, climbing from zero to an impressive ranking of 48. This pattern of exponential growth was mirrored across all the targeted keywords, cementing Reno Pro Services' robust online presence.
OCG Creative's contribution to Reno Pro Services went beyond mere SEO. They played a crucial role in shaping their client's marketing strategies. Through their consultancy, they provided insights into customer behavior, identified market trends, and advised on effective promotional strategies. Their expertise enabled Reno Pro Services to refine their marketing efforts and establish a strong brand presence.
Furthermore, the agency ensured the website remained updated, user-friendly, and secure through regular maintenance. By prioritizing the site's health, they not only improved user experience but also furthered the SEO efforts, as search engines favor well-maintained, user-friendly sites.
The collaboration between Reno Pro Services and OCG Creative is a tale of digital transformation. By leveraging advanced SEO strategies, comprehensive marketing consulting, and continuous website maintenance, OCG Creative transformed their client's digital landscape. This case underscores the power of effective SEO, the role of an expert digital marketing agency, and the profound impact they can have on a business's online visibility. Whether you're a business owner seeking to enhance your digital footprint, a prospective client of OCG Creative, or a reader fascinated by digital marketing triumphs, this success story offers compelling insights and inspiration. Come to the Reno SEO experts for all your digital marketing needs.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has emerged as a critical element in the digital marketing landscape. With an ever-increasing number of websites competing for the attention of users, businesses are investing heavily in SEO to improve their visibility and drive organic traffic. However, achieving success in SEO is not an overnight process, and it can often be a long and challenging journey. This article delves into the various factors that make SEO challenging and explains why it requires time, patience, and consistent effort.
The algorithms that govern search engine rankings are constantly evolving. Search engines like Google continuously update their algorithms to provide the most relevant and high-quality search results to their users. These updates can have a significant impact on the SEO strategies that businesses employ. To stay on top of these changes, marketers need to monitor search engine announcements, industry trends, and best practices, and adapt their strategies accordingly. This requires a considerable investment of time and resources.
SEO is no longer solely about optimizing your website with the right keywords. Over the years, the number of ranking factors has grown substantially, making the task of SEO more complex. Some critical factors that impact search engine rankings include site speed, mobile-friendliness, content quality, user experience, and backlinks. To be successful in SEO, businesses need to optimize their websites holistically, addressing all these aspects. This multi-faceted approach demands time, expertise, and consistent effort.
Creating high-quality, relevant, and engaging content is one of the most crucial aspects of SEO. However, content creation can be time-consuming and requires ongoing effort. Moreover, the content must be optimized for search engines, incorporating relevant keywords and ensuring it is easily accessible to search engine crawlers. Additionally, with the growing importance of voice search and natural language processing, optimizing content for conversational queries is becoming increasingly important.
Backlinks, or links from other websites pointing to your site, are a key factor in determining search engine rankings. They signal trust and authority to search engines, which in turn improves your website's visibility. Acquiring high-quality, relevant backlinks is a challenging and lengthy process. It involves outreach, relationship building, and crafting valuable content that other sites would want to link to, which can take months or even years to achieve.
As more and more businesses recognize the importance of SEO, the competition for the top search engine rankings intensifies. Depending on your industry, you may be competing against established websites with strong domain authority, making it harder to outrank them. Analyzing your competition, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and developing a tailored SEO strategy to outperform them requires time, expertise, and persistence.
For sure, SEO plays a pivotal role in the realm of digital marketing. However, it is crucial to recognize that attaining success in SEO is a long-term endeavor rather than a quick win. The constant evolution of search algorithms, the increasing intricacy of SEO factors, the ongoing necessity for content creation and optimization, the significance of backlinks, and the highly competitive landscape all contribute to the challenges and time-consuming nature of SEO. By exercising patience, adopting a strategic approach, and maintaining consistent efforts, businesses can progressively enhance their search engine rankings and ultimately benefit from increased organic traffic and visibility.
The trick is finding those people.
Your website, social media, email and others provide access to millions of potential customers.
There are hundreds of tools to find people interested in your products or services.
However, getting people’s attention can be a challenge.
Your competitors have access to the same marketing channels you do. It is estimated the average American is exposed to 6 to ten thousand marketing messages every single day.
That’s a lot of noise!
Of all the marketing channels available, online video is suited to make connections in a deeply personal way.
With video, you not only show what your business does, but you also signal what your business is like.
According to Forbes, it costs fives times more to attract a new customer than it does to sell the same product or service to a repeat customer.
Partly this is due to fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of being ripped off.
Fear of wasting time or just being a bad fit.
Video provides a perfect ice-breaker. Through video, you can take viewers inside your business and let your glowing personality shine. People like to do business with people they like. Words on a page will never capture the same experience, no matter how skillful the writer is.
Learn More about our Video Production Services
Online video has other benefits. Most videos posted online will show up in search results almost immediately after being published. Embedding videos in related web pages and posts can shorten the time it takes for search engines to index those too.
Also, videos increase the chances your business will be represented in more than one of the top ten organic search results. That’s more visibility and one less competitor on the page with you.
Finally, few businesses engage in online video at all, so you’ll gain a serious competitive advantage.
If you want to launch into online video but aren’t sure how to get started, we’d love to help.
SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of curating website content to achieve top rankings in Google, among others.
In the past, SEO stuffing keywords into every possible location—something we used to call the “SEO Top 5.” These include the HTML Title, Meta Description, Headings, Body Copy and Anchor text.
Google’s own documentation suggests—and even states directly—that most of these have little impact on rankings.
But is SEO really dead?
Search engines have one goal—to provide the best, most relevant results for a given keyword search. As a website owner, your goal should be to provide that best, most relevant web page. The trick is to understand how search engines make the choice.
You should always include an HTML page title and meta description, because these are usually visible in the search results. And, yes, you should use your target keyword here as well. But, write them to be helpful to humans. That way, you’ll increase traffic and help search engines learn what your website’s about at the same time.
The same is true for page content. Write your website content to be useful and engaging to visitors to your website. Use keywords appropriately, but don’t overuse them in an attempt to boost rankings. Keyword stuffing doesn’t work and may even hurt your rankings.
To get you started, here are a few things every website owner should do;
But, there are hundreds, if not thousands of signals search engines use to decide which websites are worthy of those coveted top spots.
There are literally thousands of ways to ruin a website. A website can be beautiful, perfectly branded and use all the latest browser technology—and yet still suck in a profusion of ways. Let’s examine a few favorites.
Topping the list is a website that’s too slow to load. Not only will your slow loading website turn away visitors at a rate of about 12% for every second you make them wait—you’ll also be signaling search engines that your website offers a poor user experience. As a rule, a bad user experience equals bad rankings.
Next up, your website has to be mobile friendly. All major search engines place priority on a website’s mobile experience over the desktop. And for good reason. Over two thirds of online searches are mobile. Desktops don’t even make up the remaining third.
Coming in at number three—hard to find contact info. There’s no point putting time and energy into the perfect web experience if your website visitors can’t figure out how to contact you. Put contact info on every page, and encourage users to reach out to you using whatever method they prefer. Forcing visitors to fill out a web form might just force them to look for somewhere else to do business.
Perhaps more important than being easy to contact is giving your visitors a reason to contact you. Not providing enough information on your website encourages your visitors to continue doing research. In the end, they’ll probably choose a competitor that provides lots of details about their company and the products and services they offer.
Finally, it is impossible to overstate the importance of organic search engine rankings. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of making your website content the best candidate for coveted top spots in Google among others. Earning the number one position for the right keywords is a competitive advantage you can’t achieve any other way.
To recap, your website should;
Veronica Romney is an experienced entrepreneur and incredible thought-leader in the IM industry, currently serving as the President of LoSoMo. In 2014, Veronica and her husband, Scott, founded LoSoMo, an online marketing agency that specializes in location-based marketing. This was not her first venture into building a business from the ground up, Veronica founded and managed 4 online businesses prior to opening her company.
With over 10 years experience in the IM industry, Veronica has become an expert in SEO, SEM, PPC, Web Design and Development, Email Marketing, and Reputation Management. Prior to co-founding her own company, Veronica worked for industry leaders such as Ancestry.com, Crexendo, 180Fusion, and Entrata. She held various marketing positions at these companies like SEO Account Manager, Director of Business Development, and Director of Marketing Suite Products.
One of Veronica’s greatest passions is connecting with fellow internet marketers and speaking at conferences. She has spoken at a wide range of conferences including Advanced Search Summit, Digital Growth Unleashed, and most recently Unbounce’s Call to Action Conference. At CTA 2018, Veronica spoke about marketing through Facebook ads and how to make them work for your business. She showed how to dive deeper into Facebook advertising with various targeting techniques and how to properly find data in Google Analytics. In addition, Veronica explained the benefits of layering Google Ads and Facebook Ads to create the greatest impact. Veronica’s presentation provided a fresh look into advertising through Facebook. Read more about other Internet Marketers of the Week similar to Veronica Romney!
Let me begin with a story. We have a client that went through half a dozen Internet marketing agencies prior to working with us. Those agencies did all the standard stuff: social media, PPC, landing pages, SEO… you name it. In every case, the agency added to the costs, but failed to make even a tiny impact on sales. Given that history, it is surprising that we are able to tell this story. Even as we were signing contracts, the client told me point blank that he didn’t believe our experience would be any different that what he’d been through with other marketing agencies. Fast forward a year… In about 12 months, we managed to place about 150 keywords on page 1 in Google. Those, by the way, are just the ones we’re tracking. There are probably another 300-400 top performing, related keywords that we don’t track. I’ll save an explanation of that for another article. Now, with hundreds of page one (most in the top 3) keyword rankings, you might expect tens of thousands of new visitors to the website. In reality, it’s closer to 4,000 per month. Big deal, right? Seems like a lot of work for 4,000 visits. Maybe, but here’s what those 4,000 new visitors mean to our client. From their own numbers, website form fills alone have lead to a little over $550,000 in revenue so far this year (FY17, as of August 1st.). Including web generated phone calls pushes YTD web-generated revenue close to a $million. Here’s the thing. For that $million in revenue, the client pays nothing to Google, and very little to the agency. The obvious question—What did we do differently? How is it that OCG Creative was able to tack on an extra million dollars in top-line revenue, after all the other agencies failed? The answer: Keyword selection. Well, keyword selection, coupled with being very good at SEO. Of course, you also have to provide your website visitors with what they were looking for when they decided to click, but it starts with optimal keyword selection.
There are three primary factors to keep in mind when selecting keywords for SEO. Lets examine them. User intent: A good way to look at this is to ask, what kind of problem is the searcher trying to resolve? When asked, clients typically suggest keywords (key-phrases) that are very broad. In SEO terms, we call them “short tail” phrases. An example of that would be “school supplies.” Short tail phrases tend to have the highest search volumes. In fact, 60,500 people search for “school supplies” every month. Compare that with “minecraft school supplies”, which receives about 720 searches per month. That’s just 1.19% of the search volume when you take away the word “minecraft.” It’s what we call a “long tail” keyword or key-phrase, and a virtual guaranteed better performer than “school supplies” by itself. The problem with short tail phrases is that they are nearly impossible to match to the problem your website visitor is trying to resolve. “School supplies” can be anything from soap for the nurses office to copy paper. The individual looking for “minecraft school supplies” probably has a 10 year old boy that’s into minecraft. (That’s a video game for those of you without a 10 year old boy.) The problem the searcher has is her kid wants minecraft themed stuff for school. (We can safely assume it’s a mom, because dad would try to make him get by with last year’s supplies. Let’s hope those karate lessons paid off, because any kid rolling into 5th grade with his 4th grade pencil box is the guaranteed object of ridicule.) The point is, regardless of the tiny relative search volume, “minecraft school supplies” is almost certain to make a sale. That very same mom conducting an initial search for “school supplies” is going to forced to keep searching. To further that point, we can generally assume about half of people searching for any given phrase will click on a result. Roughly a third of those will click on the top result. Number 2 gets about 20%, and #3, maybe 12% to %15. That works out to 120 website visits if your site is number one in the SERP (search engine results page). A highly targeted phrase is also going to have a high conversion rate. I’ve seen conversion rates as high as 70% for some keywords! Let’s aim lower, 25%, which would lead to 30 visitors making a purchase. To make that a little more digestible, I’ll break it down. Search volume, “minecraft school supplies”: 720 Searchers that clicked: 360 Click share for #1 in SERP: 33%, for 120 website visits Conversion rate: 25%, for 30 sales Let’s say the average sale is $50. That’s $1,500 per month in sales from a single keyword. Annualized, that’s $18,000 per year from one keyword! If you can identify 100 key-phrases like that one, similar numbers will produce $1.8M in annual revenue. It doesn’t even have to be 100 products. There might be 20 or more keywords different searchers use to find the same item. Since each searcher is a unique individual, the result is cumulative.
Shift your thinking from broad-match, high volume phrases, to long-tail phrases, highly focused on user intent. These are far easier to optimize for rankings, and will provide a directly measurable ROI. When selecting keywords, have a specific customer in mind that will take a predictable action. Know what problem the searcher is trying to resolve when searching that phrase, and provide the solution. Finally, set expectations for every keyword you choose to optimize. At minimum, include your anticipated click volume, conversion rate and average sale for each, and track them monthly. By planning your SEO efforts around specific keywords, selected based on user intent, you’ll be able to forecast their ROI. You’ll find it easier to achieve top rankings, and get a massive jump on your competitors.
