If you’re at all aware of what it takes to run a business, you probably have at least a basic understanding of what search engine optimization (SEO) entails and why having a solid SEO strategy is so essential. But even with all we know about SEO, there’s still quite a bit of mystery involved. We have a clearer picture about what Google wants to see and what tactics actually improve search rankings. But for some, those two things may not always line up well enough for their liking. This is typically where we see a divergence between white hat SEO and black hat SEO.

The goal of both black hat and white hat SEO is to make certain a company is visible on the internet. But the way these strategies are executed can make all the difference.

What is White Hat SEO?

White hat SEO refers to the act of improving your website’s rankings and SEO score naturally. This can be done through quality content, user experience, on-page SEO, and more.

What is Black Hat SEO?

On the other side of the coin, you have black hat SEO. Black hat SEO is a set of unethical practices that violate search engine guidelines. Some elements that are involved in black hat SEO include keyword stuffing, buying backlinks, hiding content, article spinning, and more.

Why White Hat SEO Wins the Day

The two types of SEO are aptly named. Their hue tells you everything you need to know about which side is which in the battle of good versus evil.

Following Google’s guidelines should result in better rankings and increased traffic. This ethical approach is what white hat SEO is based on. The idea here is that if you follow the rules, you’ll likely be rewarded in the end.

With white hat SEO, you’ll generally see the use of relevant keywords and descriptive meta-tags. The keywords used in web copy, blog posts, and back-end development should be versatile and targeted without seeming spammy or unnatural. They need to integrate naturally into your content. Most of all, they should be used to tell both Google and website visitors about your business in a way that’s easy to understand and that doesn’t seem off-putting.

White hat SEO also involves the creation of original, helpful content. Your goal here should be to inform, to entertain, and to satisfy user needs. Generally speaking, long-form content (~1,200 words or longer) tends to perform better because it keeps users engaged and on the page. It also provides more opportunities to optimize and to entice others to share what you’ve created.

And speaking of sharing, white hat SEO has some hallmarks for that, too. The practice of guest posting — building relationships with other website owners by contributing content of value that benefits both parties — is common here. It’s an excellent way to diversify your backlink profile through referring domains in good standing with Google. The passing of links, which refers to a reputable website essentially giving an endorsement to your own, can play an important role in determining your site’s reputation.

All of these tactics are considered to be allowable by Google. Combined with a responsive web design that provides a consistently positive user experience for visitors, these white hat SEO techniques will ensure you’re thought of as one of the good guys.

With Black Hat SEO, You’ll Risk It All

Anything worth doing well takes a bit more time — and the use of white hat SEO will take a bit more time to show results. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who believe they’re entitled to all the glory. Plus, they’re often willing to take enormous risks to get it.

Black hat SEO readily uses manipulative tactics and outlawed tricks in an attempt to rise to the top. Instead of creating useful content that’s totally original, black hat SEO might publish auto-generated content that’s stuffed to the brim with keywords. The result is a lot of posts that make absolutely no sense to human readers. Another option is the use of duplicate content. This means posts are published in multiple places on one site or are stolen from other sources without permission.

Websites that use black hat SEO might also provide inconsistent user experiences that aim to fool both human and bot visitors. The use of doorway pages (sending visitors to pages other than what’s indexed by Google) and the practice of cloaking (presenting different content to humans and to bots) are dishonest and unethical techniques that Google won’t abide. Hidden text and links also fall under this category.

Reliance on spammy backlinks, irrelevant keywords or content, or negative SEO campaigns (e.g., using black hat strategies to sabotage a competitor) are all outlawed by Google, too. Essentially, anything that someone can do in an attempt to cut corners and boost their rankings in a way seen as being dishonest. In turn, these things will probably be considered to be black hat SEO.

Don’t Do the Crime If You Can’t Do the Time

These SEO offenses will come at a hefty price. If those who use these techniques are caught, the consequences can be pretty dire. In exchange for blatantly flouting Google’s rules, sites may be penalized. This means that your search ranking (and subsequent traffic share) will take a huge hit. In extreme cases, your site may be completely banned from search results altogether.

At the end of the day, it’s simply not worth it to take a chance with black hat SEO. You might momentarily see a surge in traffic, but the price you’ll pay once you’re found out could be more than you can bear. You may put your entire business at risk simply because you refused to follow the rules — which were put into place for everyone’s benefit.

If your business is on the up-and-up, your SEO strategy should reflect those values. When it comes time to craft your SEO strategy for your site, make sure that every technique being used follows Google’s guidelines and your own personal ethics. That’s really the only way to truly win.

Author bio: Brennen Bliss is the founder and director of the marketing agency, PixelCutLabs. From making websites and apps at age 13 for family and friends in his bedroom to partnering with organizations like the College Football Playoffs a few years later, Brennen has bootstrapped a company that is now recognized by UpCity as one of the top 10 SEO agencies in the United States, and one of the top SEO agencies in the USA by the global search awards.

The post What is White Hat SEO? appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

If you are looking to increase your online presence and optimize your site for conversions, a website audit is essential. A site audit looks at the many aspects of your website to identify what’s working and where there is room for improvement. There can be many different goals behind site audits. With Beanstalk, a comprehensive site audit examines the following in detail: 

• Site Health – user experience, functionality, site speed
• SEO – the on- and off-site elements that make your website visible to searchers
• Traffic – the number of people visiting your site, and how relevant they are

Auditing your website will help you inspect your site’s technical framework and infrastructure, assess search engine optimization, and analyze how easy it is for users to navigate your site. 

All of these things help you check your website performance, boost conversions, and help you improve your SEO. The ultimate goal of a site audit is to uncover anything that Google might penalize you for so that we can address it and help you to conquer the online marketplace.

Here are some elements of a site audit and what they reveal about your site:

Site Health

• User Experience
  A simple look at your site can help identify snags in the user experience. You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to perform the action that you want them to make on your site, while still making it seem like it is their decision. Have someone unfamiliar with your site poke around and write down everything that might be a conversion limitation as they flow from page to page.
• Functionality
  This search is to confirm that your site is linking to the secured version, you have no 404 error pages, and that each page on your site is operating as it should. All of the technical aspects that make up your site, such as asset minification and caching will be assessed.
• Site Speed
  Running a test for site speed allows us to see if there are any opportunities to improve the speed of your site. Slow site speed is something that Google will penalize you for, and it can often be a one time fix. Some ways to speed up your site include enabling compression, minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, and reducing redirects; to mention a few.
• Site Security
  Cybersecurity is of the utmost importance in today’s technological age. Consequently, running a site audit can help you notice any vulnerabilities on your site to potential security breaches.

SEO

• We scan your site to make sure that each page has a focus keyword, properly optimized meta titles and meta descriptions.
• In addition, we make sure that each page only has one H1 heading. Finally, we make sure that each asset on the page is cached.
• We also make sure that each image has an image alt tag and that the URL structure of each page is clean and short.
• Equally as important as the scans mentioned above is making sure that there is little-to-no duplicate content on your site.
  • What is duplicate content on a website? Duplicate content is defined as content that appears in more than one location on the internet. Google heavily penalizes sites with over 20% duplicate content. Keep your pages and posts original!

Traffic

• Finally, when performing a site audit, we take a look into the traffic on your site via Google Analytics. We like to understand the demographics of your site. Who is visiting? Which pages they are visiting? What is their page flow (what path users take)? Which devices are they using? What channel are they finding your site through?

Hopefully, now you understand why auditing your site is so beneficial. From measuring website performance to improving your SEO to boosting conversions, audits can be a game changer. All of these things combine to help give you the upper hand in the online marketplace in which we all operate today.

The post What a Site Audit Can Uncover About Your Website appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

In the fast-paced digital marketing sector, enterprise SEO for major corporations is essential for bolstering their online footprint. This specialized SEO, distinct from conventional methods, targets the specific requirements of sizable companies by providing scalable and robust solutions.

The Critical Role of SEO in Large Organizations:

For substantial enterprises, this advanced form of SEO is more than a trendy term; it is a vital part of their digital marketing framework. The extensive nature of their web properties and the intricacy of their internal structure necessitate a dedicated approach to search engine optimization.

Strategic Implementation in Enterprise SEO:

Applying this level of SEO involves a deep comprehension of both the breadth and particularities of a large entity. This process includes extensive keyword analysis, all-encompassing content strategies, and an emphasis on the technical aspects of enterprise SEO at a scale appropriate for such sizable enterprises.

Addressing Unique Challenges:

Handling SEO for large-scale operations comes with its own set of challenges. The main hurdle is overseeing the vast expanse and complexity of the project. Websites with a multitude of pages demand considerable resources and advanced tactics for effective optimization.

Differences from Standard SEO:

Though there are similarities in the ultimate goals of standard and large-scale SEO, the strategies differ substantially due to the complexities involved in bigger organizations. This high-level SEO concentrates on wider strategic objectives, merging with the overall business strategy and aligning with the organization’s overarching goals.

The Evolution of Enterprise SEO:

As digital environments transform, the approach to SEO for large businesses also shifts. Keeping pace with new trends and algorithm changes is crucial for these companies to retain their edge in the digital domain.

Assessing the Impact of Enterprise SEO Efforts:

The success of enterprise SEO strategies at this scale can be evaluated through various metrics, such as organic traffic, search rankings, and conversion rates, which provide insights into the return on investment of these initiatives.

The Importance of SEO for Large-Scale Online Visibility:

For large companies, understanding and implementing effective enterprise SEO strategies is crucial to maintain a leading position in digital marketing. This focused approach ensures that they remain at the forefront of evolving online trends.

Got questions regarding enterprise SEO? Get in touch with Beanstalk today and let’s chat.

The post Enterprise SEO: Navigating Large-Scale Optimization Complexities appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

The truth is the pandemic changed the way people hire and search for job. Most people looking for jobs are doing so online. While everyone’s criteria for a potential employer are different, the first thing most people do is dig into your reputation online. If all they see are complaints, whether they hold merit or not, candidates will likely move on. On the positive side, if your brand has an excellent reputation from past and present employees, customers, and partners, they will continue to explore an opportunity with your company. To summarize, everything said online about your company will affect a potential employee. 

Your employees are your best offerings. Your digital marketing should showcase your longest-tenured, happiest employees. This will not only showcase your company culture but also allow potential employees to hear how great it is to work at your company. 

Similar to how inbound leads are the most effective, the same remains true with applications. When candidates apply for a job, this means they are genuinely interested. Inbound marketing is most effective when you have intentional content catered to your ideal customer. Similarly, when potential employees are searching for jobs and openings at your company, you should appear at the top of Google’s search rankings. 

Social media is another key to harnessing the power of digital marketing for your hiring efforts. If you identify where your ideal hires are online, you can determine which social media platform makes the most sense for you. LinkedIn allows you to promote job listings, as does Facebook/Instagram. Paid job postings are often a great way to help companies get the highest number of applicants, though they may not be the most qualified. On the other hand, recruitment marketing is advertising on Google, socials, etc., that can be inbound or outbound and will generate more qualified leads for your job listing. 

Digital Marketing Hiring Methods

1. Share employee stories on social – This will allow you to showcase your organization’s unique identity and show why someone should work at your company.
2. SEO for career pages – As we discussed above, inbound prospects are going to be much more qualified and have a genuine interest in your company. Making sure your positions appear for Google searches is vital as this will increase leads to your career page.
3. Run hiring ads for specific positions – We’ve tackled the inbound hiring methods above, but if you need those positions filled quickly and have a few dollars to spend, try an outbound method. You can utilize social media to advertise open positions, whether you’re utilizing a sponsored job post or not. You can also run a lead gen ad where applicants can directly apply on Facebook via form fill.

So when hiring for digital marketing, it’s important that you’re considering your online presence as well as the listings themselves. Then consider running outbound ads on social media and inbound ads on Google.

Whether you’re hiring new staff or customers, the same applies to both. An effective inbound and outbound strategy will help your business in both avenues!

Retention Marketing Methods

Retention marketing is also essential to digital marketing and how your brand can work for you. It’s much cheaper to retain existing clients than earn new ones. Similar to hiring, customers of all kinds are moving online. They expect a certain level of interaction and personalization before, during, and post-sales process.

Build Customer Trust and Foster Long-Term Relationships – To build this customer trust, you should start by listening to your customers. Through listening to this feedback, you’ll discover how to deliver customized experiences that speak to them. 

Leverage Customer Data – Sure, a survey is great, but you should know the answers without having to ask customers. Once you have this data, such as purchase history and customer needs, you can identify where your business objectives overlap. This overlap occurs with the wants and needs of your customers.

Marketing Automation – Maybe the biggest opportunity from a retention standpoint, marketing automation technologies can work without you having to do much of anything. This can be done in various ways, from email marketing to re-engaging leads with personalized offers. Email marketing allows you to upsell, supplement during your sales process, or re-engage lost leads. AI software can recognize when users abandon their carts. It then sends them texts or emails with personalized offers, such as 10% discount, for the items in their cart.

Conclusion

While hiring and retention are two very different things, it’s important that you’re fully optimizing your digital marketing strategy for both. Whether hiring new staff, gaining new clients, or retaining customers, it all starts with understanding where your target audience is and catering content to them. The most important point is understanding your applicants’ or your potential customers’ needs and identifying where they overlap with your business objectives.

The post Hiring & Retention Marketing Strategies appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

Let’s be honest — there is plenty we would like to leave behind from the last few years, and that includes outdated digital marketing strategies. We have compiled a list of the top strategies you should consider ditching in 2022 and what to focus on instead to stay growth-oriented and reach your goals. Here are five outdated digital marketing strategies you should be pivoting away from:

Stop Using Traffic as a Metric for Success

It’s easy to say your goal is to get more traffic to your website. If you get more traffic, you should see an increase in leads and sales, right? Unfortunately, that’s not how things usually pan out. Especially online, where getting traffic is cheap and easy, getting more traffic won’t help you unless you are focusing on getting the right kind of traffic. 

You need traffic that’s in your target audience and engaged in order to drive online leads. Instead of focusing on growing your audience, pay attention to how potential customers are interacting with your brand. Look for opportunities to boost engagement and the quality of your traffic. A small amount of really high-quality traffic is going to be much more helpful than a large amount of traffic that will never convert. 

Don’t Buy Likes, Reviews, or Email Lists

In the same vein, buying followers, reviews, and likes is a poor strategy for growing your online presence. While it may be tempting — especially for businesses that are just beginning to build their online presence — buying these kinds of interactions is obvious and can even turn away genuine potential customers.

Instead, focus on growing your brand organically. Natural growth is much more genuine and leads to higher quality online traffic that’s sustainable in the long run. Make sure you continue to interact with the following you do have, no matter how small, to foster trust in your brand and nurture potential customers toward a sale.

Quit Ignoring Your Online Reputation

With more people than ever before turning to the Internet to conduct shopping, online reviews are more important than ever. You may think that you can’t control what people say about your business online, but that’s far from the truth. When you ignore online reviews, you leave the fate of your online reputation up to your most impassioned customers, positive or negative.

Instead, make sure to ask satisfied customers to leave reviews. Good reviews cultivate a positive reputation online and can help persuade potential customers to buy your product or service. It is also important to respond tactfully to negative reviews. Check out our blog post on how to respond to negative reviews for more tips.

Don’t Give Up on Potential Customers Who Don’t Convert Right Away

Consumers today don’t make purchases after viewing a single advertisement. With so much available at a consumer’s fingertips, most people browse a variety of related products or services before making a purchase. If you’re relying on a single marketing channel, like Google Ads or Facebook Ads, to fulfill all of your marketing needs, you’re missing out on leads.

Consider remarketing as a way to supplement a strong marketing campaign. Remarketing ads are display ads shown to people who have already interacted with your brand online. For example, if someone has visited an important page of your website or placed a product in their shopping cart yet failed to convert, we can target them with remarketing ads to keep them interested and encourage them to convert later. Remarketing ads are a great strategy for boosting conversions. Learn more about how effective they can be here.

Stop Focusing Only on Gaining New Leads to Grow Your Business

It is far cheaper to keep a current customer than to gain a new customer. If your digital marketing strategy is laser-focused on gaining new leads, then you’re not taking advantage of all the opportunities to boost your ROI. Instead, focus some of your marketing efforts on the leads you already have.

Email marketing can be an excellent way to re-engage customers who have already done business with you. We are fans of marketing automation, or creating workflows that deploy emails based on certain signals of your choosing. A particular benefit of marketing automation is that you can segment your audience into groups based on their stage in your sales funnel. It helps keep your product or service top of mind for far longer than a social post or Google Ad. And, once it’s set up, it automatically runs; you don’t have to do anything.

–

Going into 2023, it’s important to take a holistic approach to marketing. In order to compete in the highly competitive online space, you need to create an authentic and trustworthy online presence. You can no longer rely on a single strategy to be the magic bullet for sustainable growth and success. Nowadays people have an enormous quantity of information and businesses available to them at the tap of a button. To be heard against the noise and get on a path toward sustainable online growth, you need to provide quality and authenticity.

Ditch your outdated digital marketing strategies ASAP. Contact us to find out how you can keep your online presence fresh and growth-oriented in 2022 and beyond.

The post 5 Outdated Digital Marketing Strategies to Ditch in 2022 appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is central to many effective business strategies. But did you know you can take it one step further and localize your SEO efforts? It’s true — for certain businesses, local SEO can make a big difference in the amount of qualified leads search engines send their way. Here, we want to dive into the benefits of local SEO to help you determine whether it’s a good fit for your business.

Before we get into all that, though, we’ll have to get some definitions out of the way.

If you’re unfamiliar with the entire concept of SEO, this post is probably not the best place to start (we’ve got a better explainer here). However, if you’ve already got the basics down pretty well, learning about local SEO is a great next step.

Local SEO is a collection of strategies you can use to boost your local search result rankings. There are some searches where any website from anywhere in the world might fit the bill, but there are others that are going to be best answered by results in the searcher’s area. If you’re looking for a place to eat, for example, you’re going to want somewhere close by. Those kinds of searches are prime targets for local SEO.

Some businesses would greatly benefit from appearing near the top of the results for those types of searches. Others not so much. Let’s look at a few examples.

Good Example: Convenient Canteen

Like we mentioned before, restaurants are a great candidate for local SEO efforts. To make it clear why, let’s imagine a scenario: It’s 12:34 p.m. and you’re hungry. Haven’t-eaten-all-day hungry. In-desperate-need-of-something-greasy hungry. So, like all good digital citizens of this 21st century, you take out your phone and Google, “best pizza.” Your strength is fading fast, so you didn’t have the energy to add in your location or “near me.” 

Here’s the best part: This is still a great local SEO opportunity. Our robot overlords at Google already know where you are and that you want a result in your neck of the woods. Don’t let it freak you out too much — remember that it means you instantly get some tasty and convenient pizza recommendations. 

Local SEO works well for many businesses that have a brick-and-mortar focus. If you want people to physically visit you, they’re going to have to be in your area. And that goes the other way, too — if you offer a service where you have to go to your customers’ homes (like plumbing, for example), then you’re going to want to target people you can feasibly get to. That’s another area where local SEO can be a powerful tool. 

Bad Example: Online Only

As great as local SEO can be for the right business, it can be equally unhelpful for the wrong one. Let’s say you’ve come up with an awesome design and you’re selling your own t-shirts online. You don’t have a physical storefront, just a website, and you’re running the whole operation out of your garage. 

Even if you’re the toast of the town, local SEO isn’t going to be the best fit for you. Online-only ecommerce shops are generally better suited to a more broad SEO approach. Plus, if you’re operating out of your home, you probably don’t want to blast your address to the whole internet. These are things to keep in mind when deciding where to focus your SEO efforts.

Local SEO Strategies

After reading those examples, you should have a better idea of how local SEO can work for you (or not). If you’re still interested in local SEO and want some action items, here are some of the easiest. We’d be happy to help, too — we’re skilled in local SEO and can manage many of these items for our clients. 

Set Up (& Optimize) Google My Business

This is a free tool that helps businesses manage how they’ll appear in Google search results. It’s also one of the biggest factors in local SEO. That makes it a great place to start.

The first step in setting up your Google My Business account is claiming your business and verifying your address. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways: By phone, email, or physical postcard. Whatever way you go about it, Google will get you a code that you’ll use to prove that you’re the business you say you are.

This is a big local SEO step, but it’s far from the end of the road. You need to optimize your listing. After you’ve claimed your business, you should edit your business’ information to make sure the listing is accurate (and that the information is the same as what’s on your website). Don’t forget about the pictures in your listing — if you can get better, more eye-catching photos of your establishment to go along with your information, you’ll probably see better results. 

Keep in mind that setting up and optimizing a Google My Business listing isn’t a one-and-done type of solution. You’ll want to keep checking in with your account, making sure all the information stays up-to-date. It’s always a good idea to keep your listing fresh, which brings us to our next point…

Ask Clients to Leave Reviews

Your customers can supply a lot of fresh content for your listing in the form of reviews. Some people are ready and primed to do this and love making their voices heard, but others might need a little prompting. That’s okay — it’s a good practice to encourage your customers to leave reviews (especially your happy customers). 

This needs to be an ongoing effort to be most effective. If you get a sudden influx of reviews and then think you’re covered for a while, think again. You want a constant stream of reviews to keep your listing looking fresh — old reviews aren’t as valuable in local SEO. 

Many of these reviews will probably be on Google, and you should encourage that, but you also want to find out which review sites are relevant to your industry and ask customers to review you there. 

If your business works with other businesses, consider offering a review swap. You write them a stellar (but honest) review, and they write you one. Everybody wins.

Interact With Your Customers

Once you get those reviews, you’re not done. Interacting with reviews is another big piece of the local SEO puzzle.

Whether the review in question is glowing or gloomy, you should still respond. As long as you can do it professionally, that is. Responding to reviews can be beneficial for more reasons than just SEO — you have the opportunity to win back an unhappy customer. If you can address their complaint in a timely and effective manner, they might change their mind about their experience and come back. It’s at least worth a shot. The quicker you can respond, the better, but make sure you’re not replying in the heat of the moment. Shoot back a calm and professional reply offering to make things right (if possible), and try to do it the same day the customer leaves the review. 

On the flip side, it might not seem necessary to respond to a positive review. You won’t have anything to refute or change their mind about. However, you should absolutely drop them a quick thank you at the very least, especially if you asked them to leave the review. It can be a short and simple message. The important thing is to show that your business is active. It’s also a great opportunity to throw in some keywords you want to improve your rankings for, which leads nicely into our next point…

Use the Right Keywords

Deciding which keywords to target is a key (ha ha) component of any SEO strategy. In local SEO, you have the opportunity to use those keywords in your directory listings, and like we just said, you can also include the keywords you want to rank for in your replies to reviews.

But how do you find those keywords? There’s a multitude of ways to do it. Here at Beanstalk, we conduct keyword research with software and a hand-crafted formula. But if you just want a few simple ideas for local SEO specifically, a good place to start is the tried-and-true “service in location” construction. Think about what services or products you offer, and then tack on the location you serve. It’s really that simple. 

Typing that phrase into Google and looking at the autocomplete results can be a great jumping off point for finding more keywords that’ll boost your local SEO efforts. You can also always take a look at what your competitors are doing.

Here’s a little extra tip: If you’re in a small town, consider targeting a bigger city close by. There’s going to be more search volume where there’s more people. 

Watch Your Ratings

You’ll notice that with these reviews come star ratings. These will be aggregated into an overall rating for your business. Do watch your rating, but don’t be too worried about it. You don’t want to manipulate it in any way.

It’s true that Google might filter you out of certain search results if you’ve got a rating lower than 4.0, but don’t despair about every mediocre review. It’s generally a good idea to shoot for an overall rating of 4.5. As everyone’s favorite pop superstar Hannah Montana put it, nobody’s perfect — people tend to be suspicious of a perfect 5.

Google expects you to get a few negative ratings every now and then. It’s completely normal, and in moderation, it can actually increase your credibility. But if you’re getting boatloads of one-star reviews, maybe take a look at what’s going wrong.

Keep an Eye on Other Directories

Lots of these Google My Business best practices go for other directories, too. You want to keep all of your listings up-to-date and accurate. Pay special attention to making sure your information is exactly the same across all of your listings. We’re talking about catching any misspellings, differing abbreviations, or omissions of details like suite number. Making sure Google (and customers) can find the right information about your business is paramount.

Along with that, if you get reviews elsewhere, respond to them with the same level of professionalism as we’ve described above. 

All SEO (including local SEO) focuses on Google because that’s where the overwhelming majority of internet users start their searches. But since most search engines try to copy Google anyway, what’s good in Google’s eyes is good for other engines, too.

Optimize Your Own Website

Up until now, we’ve been giving you advice for what to do on sites other than your own. Here, let’s talk about changes you can make to your website to boost your local search rankings.

This will depend on what type of business you have, the state of your website, and what kinds of locations you serve. For example, if you have physical stores in multiple locations, you can add a page to your site for each store. You can also write blog posts relating to your specific location, using those keywords you identified in a previous step.

These suggestions are truly just scratching the surface when it comes to local SEO on your website, but they’re great places to start.

Get Started on Local SEO Today

So, now you’ve got all the basics down. You know to start by setting up your Google My Business account and making sure all the information there is accurate. You’re ready to respond to reviews, both positive and negative, and you’ll always keep it classy. You’ve done some preliminary thinking on the kinds of local keywords you’d like to target, and you’re ready to start using those phrases in your listing and replies. You know that Google is the main player here, but you also know which directories and review sites are relevant to your industry, and you’re ready to apply these concepts to those sites, too. In short, you’re ready to get started with some high-powered local SEO efforts. 

We hope we’ve given you all the knowledge you need to get started. However, if you’re feeling a little more hesitant about this whole thing, we’d be happy to help. Reach out to us here to start that conversation.

The post How a Local SEO Strategy Can Work for You appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

When it comes to creating websites that drive conversions, the call to action is quite literally the most important component to get right. Even the best, most conversion-optimized website can fall flat when paired with a weak call to action. Creating a compelling CTA can result in a massive improvement in conversion rates and ROI for your marketing efforts. Yet, so many websites still rely on uninspiring, stale calls to action to drive leads.

At Beanstalk, we understand that creating an engaging call to action can be intimidating. You might think that your business isn’t creative enough to pull off a bold call to action. Or maybe the classic “Submit” button is just the way you’ve always done things. We encourage creative thinking when it comes to writing calls to action because it is a move that can pay off hugely in leads and conversions.

Writing a compelling call to action doesn’t have to feel like reinventing the wheel. Take a look at the following six common calls to action. We’ll explore what makes them less-than-ideal, why you might want to consider changing up your calls to action, and some best practices for conversion-optimized calls to action.

Classic Call to Action Mistakes

1. The “Send” or “Submit” Button

Send and Submit are generic calls to action that don’t inspire anyone. If people are filling out your form, they know that they are submitting or sending their information. The only time you should be using these calls to action is to submit a test or send an email. Otherwise, you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect to the people that view your form.

A call to action should inspire action. A send or submit button doesn’t. Try swapping the send or submit button at the bottom of your contact form for something more interesting. Even if your conversion is just a simple contact form, you can frame that form in an interesting way that shows viewers the value they can expect to receive from filling out the form. Check out these contact form examples for inspiration.

2. The Single Word Call to Action

Buy. Sell. Join. Shop. Subscribe. Download. While none of these are inherently terrible, they can come across as forceful and impersonal. Single-word calls to action fall flat when they fail to highlight the benefits of your offer. Why should a potential customer buy, sell, join, etc? Furthermore, these single-word calls to action are vague enough to miss some valuable conversions despite being clear action verbs.

In most cases adding another supporting word can give the necessary context to win more conversions. CTAs with the highest conversion rates are clear, specific, and interesting.
Opt for calls to action like “Buy Now,” “Join Our Team,” “Shop Shoe Styles,” or “Subscribe Today” to give context to these types of calls to action.

3. The Learn More/Get Started Button

Again, these calls to action aren’t inherently bad – in the right context they can even be decent. But they aren’t going to inspire people who don’t already have an interest or familiarity with your product. Without the right context, these calls to action can seem ambiguous. It can be unclear what to expect by clicking buttons that say learn more or get started.

Try testing out a call to action that offers something specific to your audience. Let them know what they can expect to learn more about. In place of “Get Started” use a more specific call to action, like “Schedule My Free Consultation” or something to let a user know what the first step of “getting started” entails.

4. The Guilt Trip

Offering something like a discount, free trial, or exclusive access can be a great way to inspire people to convert. Making them feel guilty for not taking you up on your offer is annoying. We’ve all been in a situation where a CTA pops up on the screen and the only options available are a “Get 10% Off Your Order” button or a “No Thanks, I Don’t Want to Save Money” button. At best, these types of last-ditch attempts to get someone to convert are annoying; at worst, they come across as offensive.

A successful call to action allows potential customers the opportunity to convert, not the obligation. People should convert because they want what you’re offering, not just because they feel guilty. You may get more conversions with this approach, but they won’t be the most qualified. Stick with calls to action that are polite and offer something intriguing instead.

5. The Buried Call to Action

If your only call to action on a page is at the bottom of the page, most of the people who visit your website are never going to see it. Make sure to convey the importance of a call to action by including it somewhere “above the fold,” in a place where people don’t have to scroll to get to it. If there’s a sitewide call to action you’d like to encourage, include it in the header so people can reach it from anywhere on any page.

For example, our CRM partner SharpSpring makes it clear from their homepage that their main goal is to get visitors to schedule a demo. “Schedule My Demo Now” is the first thing your eye is drawn to when you reach their homepage, and the similar “Get A Demo” CTA is clearly displayed in the header menu. No matter where you go on the site, the schedule a demo button is always clear and accessible, so if you want to schedule your demo at any point, you can easily do so.

6. The Super Long Form

The best calls to action give potential customers a simple, clear, and easy way to convert. Hiding your call to action at the bottom of a lengthy form can cause potential customers to pause, get frustrated, and leave without converting. Your form shouldn’t feel like a college application.Long forms can be useful for getting super qualified, relevant leads, but they’ll also turn a significant number of people away. If you’re looking to boost your conversion rate, take a look at your form and see what fields are really necessary and where you should simplify to create a better user experience.

Some Best Practices for Writing a Call to Action that Converts

• Make Your Call to Action Clear and Obvious

Your call to action button or form should be the loudest thing on the page. It should be what a potential customer’s eye is drawn to, and it should be clear to them that your call to action is, in fact, the action you want them to take. Use colors that contrast with the rest of your website, and make sure your call to action can’t be missed. Don’t miss out on potential conversions just because people scroll past your call to action.

• Consider Context

Your call to action isn’t simply a button people click at the bottom of a page. The surrounding images and text influence whether or not people click it. If your call to action is a stray form or button floating at the bottom of your website, people aren’t going to feel compelled to take action. Make sure the context surrounding your call to action is all oriented toward convincing potential customers to take action.

• Offer Customers Value

People will not convert if they feel like they have to give up something. Make it clear that your calls to action are a mutually beneficial exchange by offering an incentive for people to give up their information. Instead of making a call to action just a sign up for a newsletter, add context to show how someone will benefit. Calls to action that convey exclusivity, time sensitivity, or value often perform better than those that do not.

• Avoid 2nd and 3rd Person CTAs

It seems obvious that calls to action should inspire action. Writing calls to action in first person can feel more dynamic and compelling than CTAs written in second or third person. Something like “Find My Local Rep” is going to catch more people than “Find Your Local Rep.” Swap “View Our Plans” for “Pick My Plan.” While it may seem a little weird or unnatural at first, first-person CTAs have been shown to have a 90% better conversion rate than those written in second or third person, so it’s worth a shot.

• Optimize for Mobile

This one should be a no-brainer, but all of your calls to action should be optimized for mobile devices. If people have to wait until they get to a desktop computer to fill out a form, they’ll abandon it. Calls to action that work seamlessly on mobile devices lead to higher conversion rates and capture more people at the moment they are searching, no matter where they are.

• Make CTAs Accessible, Not Overwhelming

Ever visit a website and get bombarded with popups asking you to do different things? Sign up for the newsletter and schedule a demo and download a helpful ebook and follow them on social media? It quickly becomes overwhelming, and it’s a huge turn-off for people who are looking to take a quick and simple action. Giving people more opportunities to convert isn’t necessarily better. Make sure that any calls to action you include are easy to find and obvious on your website, but don’t overwhelm visitors with too many options.

• Plan Your Follow Up

Make sure you plan a follow-up for when people complete your call to action. If people fill out a form with contact information, be sure to contact them as soon as possible. Even if your call to action is something simple like downloading an ebook, you can schedule a follow-up email to make sure you

• A/B Test Different Options

What works for your business and industry may not work for every business. The only way to know for sure that your call to action is performing its best is hard data. Try out a few calls to action to see which gets the highest conversion rate.

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Writing quality calls to action can have a huge impact on the performance of your marketing campaigns. The right call to action will inspire people and get you more leads. If you are struggling with creating the perfect calls to action for your landing pages, talk to an expert at Beanstalk.

The post Don’t Make These 6 Mistakes When Writing Your Call to Action appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

Search engines run our lives. Feel a twinge? Look up what ailments could be causing that pain. Hungry? Search for recipes with the ingredients currently in the refrigerator. Going somewhere? Find directions and have your helpful little pocket robot talk you through each step. Search engines are a staple of modern life. As such, optimizing how your business ranks for relevant searches is vital to a healthy customer flow. An SEO company in St. Louis (like Beanstalk!) can help you do just that. But before we get into all that, let’s define some terms.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the art of organically getting your website in front of more eyeballs through search engines. As you’re probably already aware, Google is the biggest player in the search engine game, and its algorithm is the main focus for pretty much everyone in the SEO business. 

If you’re going to contact an SEO company in St. Louis, you’ll probably want to have a baseline understanding of the terms they like to throw around so that you’ll all be on the same page. Read on for our (non-comprehensive) basic SEO dictionary.

Algorithms

We just used this one a few paragraphs ago, so it seems like an excellent place to start. In the context of SEO, algorithms are the programs search engines use to give you results for your search. The algorithms take different factors into account to decide which pages are the best fit for what you searched, and knowing what those factors are is key to SEO. Algorithms also get updated regularly. To stay up-to-date on best SEO practices, it’s prudent to keep track of those algorithm updates. Of course, not all of those updates will be groundbreaking, but staying on top of them is a great perk of working with an SEO company in St. Louis — they’re pros at keeping track of algorithmic changes.

SERP

The acronyms are killer in the SEO world. This one stands for search engine results page, which is just what you see after you type something into the search bar and hit enter. It’s a list of websites the search engine thinks are relevant to your search. Where your site lands on this list is called its ranking, and you want your ranking to be close to the top. The basic premise of SEO is that there are certain things we can do to convince the Google algorithm to put your website closer to the top of the list on those search terms you care about. 

Crawling

You’ll probably hear a lot about a page getting “crawled.” This term is a little less straightforward than some of the others on this list, but don’t worry. It’s not that complicated! Basically, the job of search engine crawlers is to examine every page on the internet to determine which pages should rank the highest. The goal of “crawling” your website is to figure out what your website is about so that it can rank organically for relevant search queries. When crawlers find new content on the internet, it gets added to the search engine’s index. Essentially, this is the library of content it can pull from to give a searcher a result. 

So, if you want your pages to have any chance of getting in front of people through a Google search, you have to make sure they can be crawled and indexed. Any SEO company in St. Louis can help you optimize the pages you want to be crawled and indexed. And, if there are pages you don’t want crawled, there are steps you can take to prevent that from happening, as well.

Organic

If an SEO company in St. Louis starts telling you about organic traffic, they’re not saying it’s free-range and grass-fed. Organic traffic is simply traffic you don’t pay directly for, so traffic you’re getting from your SEO efforts. Paid traffic (the opposite of organic traffic) comes from ads.

Backlinks

These are links to your website from other ones. Getting other sites to link back to you is one way an SEO company in St. Louis might try to increase your ranking, because search engines see backlinks as a vote of confidence in your content. As long as the site linking to you is good and reputable, backlinks can be greatly effective. A natural next question would be, how do you know if the site is reputable? That’s measured in a metric called domain authority. You can use different online tools to check it.

Do be wary of any SEO company in St. Louis that proposes sketchy ways of getting more backlinks to your site. These methods are considered “black hat,” which just means they’re frowned upon and might leave you open to being penalized. 

As a final note, be careful not to confuse backlinks with internal links. These are links on your site that lead to another page on your site. An SEO company in St. Louis might recommend adding more internal links to your site, but that’s mostly to beef up its structure. Recall the crawling process — links show the crawler where to go next, so adding internal links can help more of your pages get indexed, which is always a good thing. 

Keywords

This is what people type into the search bar, the things you want to rank for. When somebody searches for a keyword relating to your business, you want your page to rank close to the top of the SERP. (Are you getting the hang of the SEO vocabulary yet? It definitely takes some getting used to. A little practice should make any conversation with an SEO company in St. Louis much easier.)

Anyway, keywords are a huge point of focus for any SEO company in St. Louis trying to improve your rankings. They’ll do keyword research into what things your potential customers are looking for, when they’re looking for them, and how they’re trying to find them. All of this information can be really useful when deciding which keywords to target. 

You might have some ideas already about keywords you’d like to rank for, and that’s a great place to start. However, you should still go through the research process, because it will likely unearth better keywords. Different factors, such as how competitive the keywords are, will heavily affect how much sense it makes to go after them. An SEO company in St. Louis will know how to decide which keywords are right for you in terms of specificity and popularity.

Why Hire an SEO Company in St. Louis?

So, now that you’ve read through some of the common SEO terms (and believe us, this has barely scratched the surface), maybe you think you’re an expert. Why would you want to outsource it? Or, maybe you’re overwhelmed with all of the different SEO elements to consider and want to forget about the whole thing. Either way, hiring an SEO company in St. Louis to help you out might be a really great move, and we’ll prove it to you in this section.

Grow Traffic

This is the big one, the one that probably got you interested in SEO to begin with. Obviously, increasing traffic to your website is the place to start trying to grow sales. The idea is that the closer you are to the top of the SERP, the more people will see and click on your site. An SEO company in St. Louis would use all their expertise to make that happen for you.

Build Brand Awareness

This is one is a less obvious benefit, but it goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. The more often people see your website near the top of the SERP, the more aware of your brand they will be. People also tend to trust the things they see on the first page of Google more than what they see on, say, the sixteenth page. 

Save Time

So, maybe you’re sold on the idea of focusing on SEO but not on the idea of paying somebody else to do it for you. Maybe you think that learning a few terms has made you enough of an expert that you could go it alone. Well, hold your horses. Think about how adding SEO duties to your plate would impact the rest of your responsibilities. It’s an ongoing, time-consuming process, and odds are, you have other things you could better spend your time on. Contacting an SEO company in St. Louis to handle it for you saves your valuable time for other ventures.

Better Results

Let’s face it: You can’t learn everything there is to know about SEO in one blog post. An SEO company in St. Louis will have a wealth of knowledge on the subject that it would take you years to build up. It’s what they do! They’ll focus all their expertise on getting you results.

Keep in Mind, Though…

Obviously, we think hiring an SEO company in St. Louis is a great decision, but it’s important to note that it’s not the best choice for everyone. Consider the following limitations:

Resources

Ask yourself if you have the resources necessary to partner with an SEO company in St. Louis. 

Make sure it’s something you can work into the budget, but also know that an SEO company is probably going to want to be a true partner with you, and you’ll have to have the time to confer about how to move forward. Having an up-to-date website is also a must for effective SEO efforts. Spend some time looking at all angles of your online presence, and decide if you’re really ready to go all-in on SEO.

Long-Term

If you’re looking for a quick cure-all to get more traffic to your website, SEO is not the way to go. It’s a long-term solution. There are other digital marketing strategies an agency can pursue to get you a quick bump, but SEO is not one of them. Make sure your goals for any SEO undertaking are realistic before you take the plunge, and any good SEO company in St. Louis should be honest with you about that.

Other Marketing Strategies

SEO alone is not a magic solution to pin all your hopes and dreams to. Even if you’re patient and committed to the long-term nature of SEO, it’s not wise to sit around and wait for your SEO efforts to completely transform your business. You might be waiting for, well, forever. 

Instead, consider pairing SEO with other things a digital marketing agency can do for you, like ad campaigns. When reaching out to an SEO company in St. Louis, make sure to ask what other services they can provide. The company might specialize in SEO, but odds are, it can help you out in other ways, as well. Really think through the scope of what you’d like to do before you jump in.

Contact an SEO Company in St. Louis.

Getting an SEO company to help you out can be a great step for your business. It can help you grow traffic, build brand awareness, and ultimately increase sales, among other benefits. After you’ve gotten familiar with the basic premise of SEO, you’re ready to start contacting agencies to see if they’d be a good fit. An SEO company will save you time and use their expertise to get you the best results possible. However, you’ll want to make sure any company you work with is a good fit before you get started. Weigh how patient you’re willing to be and how many resources you can devote to the project against the potential benefits.

Even with all of those limitations in mind, we still think reaching out to an SEO company in St. Louis is a great idea for your business. If you’re convinced, too, and are looking for a place to start, look no further! We here at Beanstalk are experts in all things SEO. We’re happy to walk you through the kinds of services we offer. Contact us today to get started!

The post Why You Should Hire an SEO Company in St. Louis appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen some fairly dramatic changes in Google’s search algorithm. Some of these have been slipped into updates unannounced, but others, like mobile-first indexing, were publicly announced before being released as major algorithm changes. The digital marketing community must decipher many aspects of Google’s algorithm. But we have seen that the changes that Google does announce are usually some of the largest, most critical changes. Google’s latest major update introduced Core Web Vitals.

Core Web Vitals

Google’s Core Web Vitals include three metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), & Cumulative Layer Shift (CLS). To simplify, these can be respectively defined as load speed, interactivity, & visual stability. Essentially, Google is encouraging sites to be faster and more user friendly than ever. 

Previously Known Ranking Signals

If you’ve worked with us on your website or marketing efforts in the past, you’ll likely remember us talking about site speed & mobile-friendliness quite a bit, as these have been two of the most important site aspects in terms of SEO & site functionality. Google’s new Core Web Vitals take the mobile-first indexing further, an expansion of mobile-first.

Along with the above signals, it is also important to ensure that your website has a valid SSL certificate, has Schema.org markup & metadata that support your content, and provides valuable information to your users, resulting in good user experience signals sent to Google for ranking consideration.

What These Mean for Your Site

Although LCP, FID, & CLS are technically new ranking signals, they build on the foundation that Google has been building for years – search results that return the most relevant & useful information to users, and metrics to track the success of that goal. As long as you have been following best practices for SEO (or having us manage that for you), you should not see large changes in your rankings or SEO health. White-hat SEO techniques have a strong, proven track record of building true, relevant SEO. These strategies move your content further up the page, leading to more relevant traffic & quality leads for your business. Quality content & link building will likely always be pillars of Google’s algorithm, but they are moving the bar up in terms of user experience.

If you’re not sure where your site stands, it is never a bad idea to log in to Google Search Console for a quick wellness check – all of these metrics as well as several other helpful tools are readily available and free to use. And if you happen to find yourself in over your head, we’re always here to help!

The post Core Web Vitals: What Google’s New Ranking Signals Mean For Your Site appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.

If your work is keyword-based, then you should be aware of the SEO tool, Google Trends. Most SEO experts don’t use Google Trends to its full potential and end up missing out on some amazing benefits that this tool brings to its customers.

In our article today, we have discussed how you can maximize the benefits of this tool and use it to its full potential. Dive in to learn all about Google Trends and more!

What is Google Trends?

In a nutshell, Google Trends is a tool that helps you research your keywords and optimize them for SEO. You can search the most trending words on Google through the tool and incorporate them into your content to help it rank higher. The tool not only shows trending keywords, but it also shows image search, trending news search, and YouTube search as well.

Keywords are terms that people type on their search bars when they are seeking products and services. Since keywords come directly from people. They are extremely useful for finding out trending topics and other details that help to improve ranking.

When anyone searches for a keyword or phrase on Google, they get a list of related websites or relevant articles. For example, if you want to purchase coaxial cables, you may search for vendors on Google. Once you press enter, Google is going to show you millions of results, but only a few are going to be on the first page.

These top results are handpicked by Google for several reasons, most notably their usability for the reader. Every business wants to appear in the top results because let’s face it, nobody cares about the results past the 2nd page. However, you cannot appear on your user’s search result unless you know the keyword they will search for and incorporate it into your content. This is where Google Trends comes in.

How Does Google Trends Help To Improve Your Site’s SEO?

The past few years have seen an increase in the usage of this amazing tool as an aid to optimize SEO. However, before you use any tool to improve your ranking, one should learn the basics of SEO and how Google’s algorithms work. We already mentioned that keywords are an important aspect of content creation, and Google Trends makes it easier than ever to search for the most trending keywords.

Google Trends will tell you what your users are searching on Google. For example, it will tell you that COVID-19 is trending nowadays. This tells you that your users are interested in reading about the Coronavirus. With this information in hand, you can modify your content strategy to appeal to your target audience. Staying in touch with the changing trends is extremely important for Digital Marketers and SEO experts alike to make their marketing efforts pay off.

Here, we have discussed a few ways through which marketers can use this tool for their ad campaigns.

1. Paid Campaigns

Google Trends helps you access a large repository of data that you can use to strategize and plan your campaigns. Moreover, this tool will also help you separate trending words that are either irrelevant or have a negative connotation. By separating these terms from your campaigns, you can ensure that your campaign is focused and fulfills its purpose.

2. Content Creation and Marketing

Google Trends helps you gather the information that is generated by user queries. Creating content that is in high demand can help increase the traffic to your website. This is especially important for those businesses whose sales are based on seasonal trends. The trends generated can be used in two ways:

• You may create content that aligns with sales peaks. If you are a brand that sells air fresheners, your product will be sold mostly in summer. Google Trends can help you validate these facts, and you can work around your campaigns and budget accordingly.
• Secondly, you can prepare your webpages before the “peak season” hits your website. Preparing them means optimizing them and making them SEO friendly. You could prepare your campaign in a way that you get an ample amount of time to build links, update Meta descriptions, etc. to attract traffic to your website.

3. Creating Advertisements

Being aware of the trending topics and incorporating them into your advertisements can improve your ad campaigns and increase user engagement and reach. What’s better than reaching out to a wider audience and being able to increase your brand presence? Yes, Google Trends can help you achieve that, and even more!

4. Plan Your Content Calendar

An important aspect of social media campaigns is planning your content calendar. Google Trends can be used to help you schedule your posts and select your topics. Here is how to do it: Let’s suppose that you run an E-Magazine, and you post about the Oscars quite often. Since the Oscars take place in March every year, it would make more sense to post the content related to Oscars during that time since people would be most interested then. This is the power of planning out your content calendars in advance!

5. Dig Deeper into “Related Queries”

Most marketers using Google Trends ignore the related queries section entirely. If utilized in the right way, this section can reveal the biggest secrets that can help you overtake your competitors. Firstly it helps you learn more keywords which you might have been ignoring previously. Secondly, it can help you understand the purchase journey that the customer is making. You will eventually be able to plan better campaigns!

Conclusion

Google is one of the most popular search engines that is used all over the world. It is not surprising that more than 90 percent of the total search engine market share is owned by Google. This makes the tools launched by Google handy as they show results that are aligned with their search engine.

Identifying keywords through Google Trends helps to increase website traffic and improves SEO, which later helps to rank the sites higher on Google search engine results page (SERP). Learning how to use this tool in the right way can bring unimaginable benefits for your business!

The post Google Trends: A Useful Tool for Keyword Research appeared first on Beanstalk Web Solutions.