Without proper search engine optimization (SEO), no one will ever find your website. There’s simply too much competition now. This is why it’s vital to find (and use) the best SEO keywords for your niche.

Of course, finding SEO keywords is easier said than done. Keep reading for some helpful tips to help with your keyword research.

What Are the Best SEO Keywords?

For your SEO results to be successful, you need to choose the right keywords. The three components to focus on are:

• Relevance (how well and thoroughly your site answers the user’s question)
• Search volume (how many people search for that term on a daily or monthly basis)
• Competition (how difficult it is to rank well for the keyword)

Generally speaking, long-tail keywords are more relevant and easier to rank for than shorter, generic keywords.

As an example, you’ll never rank for the keyword “travel” — there’s too much competition. But a keyword like “best travel backpacks for teens” is targeted, specific, and likely to boost your SEO.

How to Do Keyword Research

So then, where do you find these magical SEO keywords for your site? Here are some popular tools you can use for keyword research.

1. Google Related Searches

Type in any search term and scroll to the bottom of Google’s SERPs. Here you’ll find a list of related terms that people use when looking for something similar to your query.

Using the same example above, you might find terms like “lightweight backpacks for travel” or “best travel bags 2021,” which you can use to optimize your site content.

2. Google Auto-Populate

When you start to type in a search term, Google will automatically make suggestions that complete your thought. For example, if you type in “travel,” Google may suggest long-tail phrases like “travel requirements Thailand” or “travel insurance companies.”

If some of these terms are related to your products, you can include these in your site content as well.

3. Google Keyword Planner

Even if you’re not planning to run paid Google advertisements, you can still use their free research tool to locate relevant keywords.

Simply type in your chosen keyword and you’ll instantly see valuable data to help you decide whether to use it. You’ll see the number of monthly searches and the suggested bid price for an ad, which reveals how competitive the keyword is.

4. Other Keyword Planning Tools

If you want to conduct more in-depth research, there are many tools (both free and paid) that will help. These include:

• Google Analytics
• Google Trends
• Keywords Everywhere browser plug-in
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
• Ubersuggest

Finding SEO keywords takes time and effort, so don’t give up. You may need to cross-reference several sites and tools before you find the best SEO keywords for your niche.

SEO Tips and Tricks: Finding SEO Keywords

Search engine optimization is an ever-changing process, and finding the best SEO keywords is a vital component. Use the tips above for finding SEO keywords and you’ll soon enjoy the benefits of SEO.

Looking for more SEO tips and tricks? Need help with your online reputation management? Keep browsing our site for more helpful insight.

The post How to Find the Best SEO Keywords for Your Website appeared first on ReputationResults.

To help them rank in the organic search results, businesses will use search engine optimization (SEO). But for many companies, local SEO services are also essential too. 

What is local SEO and how does it differ from organic SEO?

In this article, we’ll take a look at the difference between local SEO and organic SEO. 

What Is Organic SEO?

Organic SEO is the process of improving the position of your website on the search engine results page. It’s about making your site more visible in the search results without using paid ads. 

There are many facets to SEO, but the main areas of interest are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. 

On-page SEO relates to anything that you do to raise the profile of your site while creating content. Off-page SEO relates to everything you do to promote that content away from your site. Technical SEO refers to anything you do to the backend of your site to improve your rankings. 

Organic SEO could refer to the way that you use keywords to garner clicks, the way that you use backlinks, or optimizing your website for mobile devices. 

An SEO company can help you optimize your content to appear higher in the search results pages. Look here for more information on one such company. 

What Is Local SEO?

Now that you understand organic SEO, we can take a step forward and look at local SEO. This is where you optimize your site and your business brand to appear in local searches. 

The fundamental difference between organic SEO and local SEO is that instead of trying to rank at the top of the search results page, you are trying to rank on Google’s Local Pack. This is the map section that appears at the top of local searches. 

To get onto the local pack, you’ll need to use Google My Business to create a listing. You should also use as many other listing sites as possible to help your business in the local rankings. 

In addition to this, you’re also trying to rank for locally relevant keywords. If you run a plumbing business, for instance, you’d want to rank for keywords such as “plumber near [city]”

Organic vs. Local SEO: What’s the Difference?

If you run a local business, you should take advantage of both organic SEO and local SEO.

Organic SEO will be harder to compete for as you’ll be up against thousands of websites the whole world over, while local SEO will help you as you’ll only be up against other similar local businesses. 

For more great articles, check out the rest of the site. 

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But with so much competition, how do you optimize your website to rank on page 1? First, you need to know the importance of onsite vs. offsite SEO and why both matter in the race to the ranking top spots.

Here, you’ll learn the difference between offsite and onsite SEO and how to optimize both for your website. 

Onsite SEO

Onsite SEO is about everything you do on your website to ensure it is well-optimized. Search engines will crawl your website to determine the rank, so the content must be search engine friendly. This is your on-page SEO. 

Onsite SEO starts with optimizing metadata on your website, such as titles, descriptions, and image alt tags. When you optimize this data for your main keyword, that will help you rank well for that keyword on Google.

Of course, what you select as your preferred keyword is also a critical part of onsite SEO. A good keyword must be relevant to your content. For most businesses, you’ll want to avoid choosing the most competitive keywords. 

Onsite SEO is also about the quality of your content. That means creating meaningful, in-depth content that is relevant to your keywords.

The other aspect of online SEO is technical. These factors include site speed or site security that Google uses to determine if you are a good quality site that it should list high in the search rankings.

If you need help understanding how your onsite SEO is currently performing, you can hire experts to conduct an audit. For example on site SEO can be done here. 

Offsite SEO

Offsite SEO is all about everything external to your website that will help you rank on Google. Offsite is about your reputation, and building up your reputation online will help you with your long-term keyword rankings.

That reputation starts with backlinks. When other sites refer to your content with a link, that counts as a backlink. The more reputable that website is, the higher Google will value that backlink. 

Reputation comes with age and website quality, and in SEO terms, this is known as the DA (Domain Authority). So the most well-known websites around the world, such as CNN or The New York Times, will have a high DA. 

Of course, you don’t have to depend on websites to discover you and link to you if you want to improve your offsite SEO. You can be proactive by writing guest posts on websites with a high DA score. 

Tracking Offsite and Onsite SEO to Rank In 2021

Getting your offsite SEO up to speed with quality backlinks is only half the battle if you want to rank in 2021. You need to assess the quality of your website and ensure your onsite SEO is just as good. 

Want more SEO tips? Read through our most popular blog posts for more advice on how to rank on Google. 

The post Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO: What’s the Difference? appeared first on ReputationResults.

That’s not all; it’ll also give you the opportunity to distinguish yourself from your competitors. Remember, the goal is to showcase your expertise—only then will you be able to attract customers.

Thinking of creating a site? Looking for some tips for building websites for small businesses? If so, you’re on the right page.

We’ll be sharing a few pointers below. Keep reading to learn more about the topic!

1. Make Sure That It’s Mobile-Friendly 

More than half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. Given that, it’s crucial that you make your business website mobile-friendly. If anything, it’ll allow you to reach a wider audience.

Not only that, but it can also help with your search engine ranking. Take Google, for example, they’ve amended their search algorithm so that mobile-friendly pages will rank higher than those that aren’t. In other words, you’ll gain more organic traffic, which will result in more leads.

Need some help? You can always hire a professional for your small business website—they’ll know exactly how to optimize your website. For example, you can check out this web design company. 

2. Pay Attention to Page Load Speed

The longer a webpage takes to load, the higher your bounce rate will be. In fact, research has shown that 53% of mobile users will leave a site if it doesn’t load within three seconds.

Fortunately, there are many ways to speed things up. For example, you can optimize images, minify Javascript and CSS files, use website caching, and reduce redirects.

The type of hosting that you use matters as well. Ideally, you want to pay for VPS or dedicated hosting; they’ll be faster as you won’t have to share resources such as RAM and CPU with other websites.

3. Have a Contact Page 

Always include a contact page; you want customers to be able to reach you easily. For example, they might have an inquiry about a product. Providing them with a contact method will increase the chances of them conducting business with you.

More specifically, you want to include your phone number, e-mail address, and physical address (preferably with a map). If you want, you can even include a contact form. That way, they’ll be able to send you a message directly through the site; they won’t have to go through the trouble of creating an email manually.

Building Websites for Small Businesses

And there you have it—three things to consider when creating websites for small businesses. Why not do what you can to make yourself stand out, right?

Looking for more tips like this? If so, be sure to check out the rest of our business section! 

The post 3 Essential Tips for Building Websites for Small Businesses appeared first on ReputationResults.

If you are a company not using digital marketing, you aren’t reaching your full potential. You need to be where your customers are, and that’s online.

Read on to learn about the benefits of digital marketing.

1. Powerful Form of Marketing

One of the benefits of digital marketing is that it is a powerful form that can transform the way you engage with your customers. In a matter of weeks or months, effective digital marketing implementation can do wonders for a business.

2. Increases Customer Loyalty

Working with a digital marketing company can lead to retaining existing customers and establishes loyalty. However, this is not an easy concept to complete.

The best way to retain customers is by contacting them through digital marketing. The types of digital marketing that can increase customer loyalty include personalized email offers and engagement on social media.

When you learn about customers, you can send them personalized offers through email to make them feel valued. It also drives repeat sales.

To start engagement through social media, you must encourage customers to follow you. Once they do, you can access them daily and stay engaged with them through relevant content.

3. Target the Right Audience

A lot of digital marketing platforms allow you to target a specific group of people. Online tools can provide you with demographic information where you can place display ads and more.

A digital marketing firm can help you find the right target audience. This is essential to get your business moving in the digital sector.

4. Have Better Conversion Rates

Digital marketing services are more affordable than traditional advertising. It also makes conversion rates easier to obtain.

Every interaction online is tracked so you can know who and how often people are viewing your content. This means you can post at peak times to ensure you are converting.

5. Accurate Results

Another one of the benefits of digital marketing is that the results are more accurate because they can be easily tracked. When you use print advertising, it is difficult to know how many people you are really reaching. Prioritize the most important data with key performance indicators (KPIs).

6. Gain Credibility

Because of the digital world we live in, brands gain more credibility when they actively use digital marketing. When you provide interesting and useful content, you are going to gain the trust of your customers.

7. Save Money

Compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing is a more affordable option. Since it yields high ROIs, it is worth it to try to build an online presence. If your budget cannot cover SEO or PPC advertising, you can build your audience in other ways with digital marketing.

Benefits of Digital Marketing Explained

This guide is just the beginning of the benefits of digital marketing that a company can receive. With little investment, you can watch your company grow through social media and digital advertising. Whether your business is big or small, you need digital marketing to reach your goals.

Advertising and marketing tips are not all we provide. Check out our other blog posts for more insightful information.

The post 7 Important Benefits of Digital Marketing appeared first on ReputationResults.

But how do you make sure your website gets as many users as possible? Or course ensuring you have a great product or service at a great price are both important factors. Word of mouth, even in these days of the internet, still counts for a lot.

But other more technical aspects affect a Google search ranking. Here’s everything you need to know about Search Engine Optimization or SEO for beginners.  

1. Mobile Optimized 

You need to make sure your page is optimized for mobile. Many people think that mobile doesn’t matter but increasingly mobile is the main way users are accessing websites.

Be sure to make sure you have to build a separate website that loads when opened on phones. Many of the leading mobile phones such as Apple’s iPhone allow users to choose if they want to use the traditional website that you see on a desktop computer but they will load the mobile site by default. 

To make a great mobile-optimized website tidy away all necessary text and menus so that the user is left with the basics they need to navigate the site and get the information they need. 

2. Page Loading Speed 

Loading times are all about expectation. 15 years ago it could take an age to load a page but this was the norm so people accepted it. With 5G internet and instant access to information that we want, people expect their pages to load within a few seconds.

You need to make sure your website loads fast or people will click off. You can improve this by making sure you include smaller size pictures and not large file sizes. Be sure to include a caching feature so that regular users get faster load times. 

If you’re struggling with how to do this then be sure to hire a seo company to do this for you.

3. Jargon Free Copy

The copy itself is still important. Avoid using long words or sentences which run on. Generally copy of 1,000 words is a good size for a blog post or website. Anything more than this and your users will get lost.

You also want to avoid technical terminology. This can confuse and alienate readers and Google doesn’t like this.

Remember that keywords are no longer king so avoid keyword stuffing which can reduce the impact of your copy.

If you want to check the reading age of your copy use a free service like Hemmingway which can give you suggestions of how to improve your writing and make it appropriate for your website. This is SEO basics. 

Google Search Ranking: Great Load Times and Sparkling Copy

If you want to increase your website search ranking then be sure to work on your website’s load times so users don’t get bored and click off. Then make sure you hire a great writer who can add some magic to your work with some sparkingly copy.

If you are interested in learning more about improving your Google search ranking be sure to check out the rest of our site. 

The post What Factors Affect Your Website’s Google Search Ranking? appeared first on ReputationResults.

This means that when you’re creating content, you need to think about social media with SEO in mind. Don’t know how to do that? We’ve got tips below. 

1. Focus on Organic Reach

We know you’re probably tired of the term “organic” when it comes to marketing. It’s what we all want, but it’s the hardest type of exposure to get. Right now, that’s just how the algorithm cookie crumbles. And yes – organic reach is essential for using your social media with SEO, too. 

2. Use Quora

Do you really want that organic traffic? Quality content is content that people are actively searching for – and you can find out what that is by using sites like Quora. It’s a platform where people ask questions and post their answers. You can think of it like the old school search engine Ask Jeeves or an updated Yahoo Answers. 

Not only will you be able to learn what your customers are curious about here, but you’ll get an idea of what keywords to target without paying for any analytics service. There are questions on there from all niches, from things like “what’s the best semiconductor equipment auction” to “what kind of blender is best for making cookies?” Even the most specific businesses can use this tip. 

You could even post answers to questions as a company – though they’d need to answer the question and not just use it as a chance to make a sales pitch. 

3. Focus on Quality 

When you create something for social media, you should create it with one goal: to make it as shareable as possible. If that means you post three times a week instead of four so you can focus on the quality over the quantity, then fine. That’s what needs to be done. As you start figuring out what your audience likes, creating content will take less time and you’ll be able to up your number of posts. 

Your social media with SEO should focus on quality over quantity – just like all your other SEO methods! 

4. Find Your Platform 

Different demographics are on different platforms. If you’re marketing to millennials, your best bets are Instagram and Reddit. If you’re looking for the younger crowd, TikTok and Snapchat will be a better fit. Facebook is losing popularity with the younger crowds, so post there if you’re looking to target people over 35. 

Posting where your audience saves money, gives you a higher ROI, and, as they say on TikTok it, “just makes sense”. 

5. Use Your Analytics 

Every social media platform gives you some version of analytics – so use them! That way you can tell what’s working and what isn’t when it comes to content. Depending on the platform, it can also tell you which ads were “swiped up” or clicked on, so you know what to focus on more in the future. 

If you need help reading those analytics, browse our blog for answers. 

Social Media With SEO Considerations 

If you follow these tips your social media will inform your SEO ranking. It’s not one and done – so make sure you’re focusing on your other SEO strategies just as much. And don’t forget that you can always double dip – use your blog post you just wrote with your new keywords as a “swipe up” option on Instagram, or post a quote. 

When it comes to social media with SEO, you can be as creative as you want! 

The post 5 Best Ways to Combine Social Media with SEO for Startups appeared first on ReputationResults.

If you want to make the most of your website, local SEO is essential for getting new visitors. Below are four local SEO ranking tips that will help you get to the top of the search results.

1. Focus More on Voice Search

People don’t always sit at a computer and key in their search terms any more. With voice recognition technology getting better every year, more people are beginning to ask their devices to search for them.

The problem for SEOs is that people don’t ask questions the same way when they speak. They use different keywords, so your typical search phrases might not get picked up in the results. Optimizing for these voice search phrases will help you appear in more search results.

2. Optimize for Mobile

You can’t get away with ignoring mobile devices these days. Sure, it might cost more money to create a mobile design. The problem is that you’ll likely alienate over half your potential customers.

Google is smart enough to know when your site isn’t optimized, as well. It tries to promote websites that provide the best experience for users. If you don’t offer that to them, you’ll hurt your chance of ranking.

3. Set Up a Google My Business Account

It isn’t enough to rank only for keywords if you’re a local business. Most search result pages have map results at the top. If you don’t take the right steps, you won’t show up for search users.

A Google My Business account will help you get on map results. Google will mail you a PIN code to your business address. Enter this on your account page, and you’ll be able to set up your listing.

4. Target Local Keywords

There are a lot of keywords out there that get thousands of searches per day. Sure, you can target them to get a lot of traffic to your site. The question is, will this be traffic that is likely to buy your services?

You’re better off targeting the local versions of these keywords. They have less search volume, but you’ll target more likely buyers. You can do this by targeting generic informational articles and discussing what services you have to offer in your area.

This helpful article will tell you more about how to target better local search phrases that people type in Google.

Local SEO Is Necessary for Every Business

When so many people research companies online before making a purchase, you can’t afford to ignore local SEO for your website. The tips above are the perfect place to start when getting your SEO strategy in order. Local SEO ranking can take a while, so start now instead of waiting until the future.

Of course, web traffic alone won’t be enough to get more sales. Check out our latest articles to learn more about building your website to get more customers.

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One thing you’ll hear a lot about is “landing pages.” What is a landing page, and why might you need one? Keep reading to learn more!

Landing Pages: A Simple Definition

First things first, let’s start with a simple definition. A landing page is a standalone web page that is created for a specific advertising or marketing campaign. It’s where visitors “land,” after clicking on a link they came across in their email, on social media, or elsewhere.

What is a Landing Page Used For?

Conversion is the primary purpose of a landing page. This is a fancy way of saying that the visitor does what you want them to do.

For example, you may want them to sign up for your email newsletter. Your landing page may offer a really cool download in exchange for them completing the sign-up form. If a visitor ends up on the landing page, fills out the form, and submits it, this is considered a conversion.

Websites vs. Landing Page

The difference between a regular web page and a landing page is that a landing page has one single goal. This is also known as a call-to-action (CTA). 

A website’s homepage often has many different links and a variety of actions a visitor can take. A landing page, on the other hand, typically only offers a visitor a single action. This lack of distraction is what makes them so great at converting visitors.

Still not completely clear? Spend some time browsing through these landing page ideas. Often, exploring landing page examples is the best way to find some inspiration.

What is a Landing Page Funnel?

Okay, now that you’ve got the basics, let’s take this one step further. While a “landing page” is just a one web page with one CTA, a “sales funnel” is a series of web pages that funnels a customer towards their final purchase decision.

This typically includes several upselling options in addition to the initial item they’re trying to purchase. This means that each sales funnel will include multiple CTAs.

These are a bit more complex to set up and are only appropriate in certain situations. However, when used correctly, they are very effective.

What is a Landing Page? Now You Know

Now that you know the answer to the question “What is a landing page?” you’re well on your way to becoming a marketing guru! The best thing you can do as a beginning marketer is to constantly keep learning.

We can help! Take a look at some more of our blog posts. We’ve got lots of information about digital marketing, blogging, SEO, and more!

The post What Is A Landing Page? You’re Questions Answered appeared first on ReputationResults.

Mac startup programs are one of the first things you should learn about after buying a new Mac. They make it easier to have your favorite programs open right away.

The problem with these time-savers is that they can slow you down if they’re not properly managed. Having too many programs open right away taxes the system and decreases its efficiency.

The good news is that changing which programs run at startup is a straightforward process. Adding, removing, and changing them is something both new and long-time Mac owners must know how to do.

Read our guide to learn more about what startup programs are and how and why you should manage them.

What Are Mac Startup Programs?

A startup program opens as soon as you turn on your computer.

Setting your favorite apps to open immediately can save you time and effort. Instead of having to search for it and wait for it to open, it’ll be ready to use when you are.

There are several types of startup programs for Mac devices, including:

• User login items
• Launch agent
• Application login items
• Daemons
• Monitoring apps

Most of these types help other programs and run in the background. Not all of them can be deleted but most can be managed and changed.

Startup programs can become a serious issue if you have too many. Ensuring that the right programs open at startup is one of the best things you can do for the speed and overall performance of your computer. 

How Can I Manage Mac Startup Programs?

It’s worth knowing how to manage Mac startup programs because of the improved performance and efficiency it provides. It’s a simple but multi-step process that every Mac user must understand.

Managing startup programs involves finding and editing them, ensuring that only the necessary apps open immediately. There are also other related ways to improve your Mac’s performance such as disabling certain features and using designated apps.

Finding Startup Programs

The first step in managing Mac startup programs is knowing where to find them. There are several places where they might be stored, including the dock and your Mac’s system directories.

Your Mac’s dock is the bar at the bottom of the screen where you store the apps that are most important to you. Any of them can be made into startup programs.

Another common method is to go from System Preferences to Users and Groups to Login Items. This is the simplest way to access and edit startup programs on a Mac.

Two system directories known as /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems exist in most Mac devices. They may contain system files like daemons and agents but are usually empty. Anything you find there can be deleted.

Managing Startup Programs

There are several ways you can change Mac startup programs. Some of the most important to get the hang of are adding, deleting, and hiding.

Once you’ve found them, it’s easy to add or delete startup programs on Mac devices. The steps you’ll need to take depend on how you’re accessing them.

If you’re in System Settings, it’s easy to change which programs run at startup. Choose the plus or minus button to add or remove them from the list.

It’s even easier to add a program from your dock. Right-click the app, go to Options and choose Open at Login. This can turn your web browser, calendar, or any other important application into a startup program in minutes.

Removing daemons and agents is a bit trickier and should only be done if you know the exact name and purpose of what you want to delete. It’s still possible and can improve overall performance.

First, go to the Finder and select the main library with your username and a house icon next to it. Next, press Shift, Command, and the period key at the same time to show hidden folders. Finally, select Library and Launch Agent.

Deleting Mac startup programs is not always necessary. You can also hide them by checking the box next to their name. They’ll still run on startup but only in the background, using less computing power and potentially speeding up performance.

Other Ways to Improve Performance

Changing startup programs on Mac devices isn’t the only way to improve performance. Other methods include delaying apps, disabling the Resume feature, checking program-specific settings, and using apps or programs.

Delaying means that an app starts when you boot up the Mac but won’t run immediately. This ensures they open quickly without hurting performance. The best way to achieve this is by using a designated app.

The Resume feature helps you get right back to where you were when restarting your Mac, but it can also drain the life out of our device.

Before shutting down, uncheck the box next to the words “Reopen windows when logging back in.” This turns off Resume and ensures that only programs you’ve designated as Mac startup programs open when you turn the device on again.

Some programs require you to open them and change their settings to determine if they open on startup. Open the program, check the Preferences menu, and enable or disable its version of the Launch at Startup setting.

Apps and programs are also an effective way to control startup programs on Mac devices. Setapp offers a full suite that includes uBar, CleanMyMac X, and iStatMenus. You can check it out here.

Where Can I Learn More?

Mac startup programs are a handy way to ensure that the programs you use every day open immediately as soon as you power on your device. The only disadvantage is that running too many of them slows you down and affects performance.

Managing your startup programs is a simple process that can make your workflow much more efficient. Make sure that only the necessary programs run right away, and your Mac will thank you for it.

Read the rest of our content and keep checking back for more information.

The post Mac Startup Programs: How They Can Help Your Business appeared first on ReputationResults.

With universal outreach potential, advertising in specific ways to specific markets can be quite challenging, especially when you factor in privacy laws and the overall customer experience.

However, there is a tool that can help narrow the focus of your advertising without sacrificing one market for another.

You can identify potential markets and determine how to best sell to them with the power of IP targeting. Keep reading to find out what you need to know.

What Is IP Targeting?

IP targeting is a process that allows marketing companies and ad agencies to pinpoint a user’s IP address location. This in turn enables the company to advertise in region-specific ways.

For example, say you are running an ad campaign in October. Rather than putting the same generic ads out to the entire world, IP mapping can help you to pinpoint a user’s location so you can market specifically to the population of that region during that time. You wouldn’t want the seasonal background of Canada to be shown in ads to Brazil.

Marketing that meets people where they are is more effective than generic marketing that tries to cater to everybody.

How IP Targeting Can Help Your Advertising

Using IP mapping software is one of the best things you can do to help your advertising campaign.

If you are a local company, marketing to one region in one way is not a big problem, but if you have expanded into other markets or hope to, then you need to look into IP targeting.

Marketing in region-specific ways will broaden your reach of influence and help your campaigns to be more successful. People are more likely to purchase products that have relevance to their community. If you only show your brand being used in your local environment, you hurt your chances of being successful in other markets.

Your target audience is more likely to trust your brand if they see themselves in your marketing. They want to see people that look like them living in the environments that they live in. IP targeting will help you to better deliver these kinds of ads to all of the markets you are advertising in.

IP Mapping During COVID-19

COVID-19 has affected many businesses in some pretty drastic ways. People are no longer traveling, which can drive sales down. However, there are ways that IP targeting can actually help your marketing overcome the struggles of the pandemic.

With people no longer traveling, they are easier to locate. If people remain in one place, then you can better market to the region they are staying in.

Marketing during COVID-19 has not been easy, but it isn’t impossible. Your business can get through this, and IP mapping can help.

What’s Next for IP Targeting and Your Business?

There are many advertising apps that provide IP targeting services, and we hope that your business will consider utilizing these services in your marketing campaigns.

You never know just how beneficial it may be until you give it a try.

Please be sure to check out some of the other great articles on this website to learn additional tips!

The post The Ultimate Guide to IP Targeting Software for Your Business appeared first on ReputationResults.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization has forever changed the digital marketing world. Trading keyword stuffing for quality content, savvy business owners recognized they have to remain proactive to stay competitive. 

Taking a look at the different strategies and digital marketing advancements that have occurred over time and the overall importance of SEO in today’s industry.

SEO in the Beginning

In the late ’90s, as search engines grew in popularity so did the excess of useless or misleading information online. 

Internet users would often find themselves lured onto a site, stuffed with a variety of keywords. Although the site gained traffic, the problem with this marketing strategy was that often users would exit the site and never return.

When Google founders Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin thought of turning the wild west-like mentality of the online search world into a structure search paradise. As Google aimed to provide quality search results for users, marketers and business owners were forced to find new ways to advertise online.

Because the early adaptation of the Google PageRank system strayed away from searching for keywords only, Page and Brin had unknowingly given birth to what we know today as Search Engine Optimization. 

By 2005 all major search engines were cracking down on websites filled with keyword stuffing spam. By the end of that year, new digital marketing trends arose thanks to a new tool that allowed marketers to track and measure traffic and users, google analytics. 

SEO Now (Local and Social)

In 2014 a new digital marketing trend started to emerge and again Google changed the landscape of digital marketing with a more intuitive, relevant, and accurate way to search locally. 

Local SEO

Since the introduction of Google Pigeon, businesses have found themselves optimizing their online presence to draw in more local traffic via search engines. According to SEO Tribunal, over 95% of people learn more about local businesses online.

Although Local SEO marketing tips and tricks have helped bring new customers, this method of marketing pails in comparison to the power of Social Media SEO.

Social SEO

Whether it’s searching for relevant hashtags or live-tweeting breaking news events as they happen, the social media arena has evolved immensely. 

When you visit your favorite search engine, it’s likely that you’ve made your inquiry on a mobile device. If you have a mobile device it’s also likely that you are following your favorite brands on one or more social media platforms. 

Users can now use their social media search the same way they would on a search engine. Inturn brands are their social media for easier communication with their customer base. 

SEO in the Future (Voice)

SEO has slowly but surely moved from dominating the online space to being a major player in the auditory space. 

In 2004, Google released an early version of voice search technology. A user could simply search google by voice with a quick telephone call. At the time, the technology had lots of kinks to work out and didn’t catch on with users. 

Fast forward to today when companies like Google, Amazon, and others are creating smart devices to use SEO with voice search. Now voice search results load in under five seconds, cutting the usual web page load time in half, according to Banklinko.  

The appeal of voice search is it doesn’t even require you to look at a screen. As voice search algorithms improve so will the conversion of voice search users. Search engines will begin negating google’s first page results in lieu of direct from site answers.  

In the beginning, the move from website to voice search will be slow, however, if the history of the digital marketing landscape has proven anything, it’s that smart marketers are always shifting their perspective to look ahead of the curve. 

Diving Into Digital Marketing Advancements And The Importance Of SEO

Take this opportunity to develop your business’s future digital marketing strategy. When users are searching for services you or your business provides, you want to emerge as the market leader regardless of where they’re searching. 

Understanding where users are gravitating towards is key to maximize your digital marketing pull. Search our blog for marketing trends, tips, and professional advice. 

The post Diving Into Digital Marketing Advancements And The Importance Of SEO appeared first on ReputationResults.

This simply isn’t true. People ask the question: ‘Is blogging dead?’ The answer is no. Blogging hasn’t slinked off into the bushes to die. Blogging has just evolved.

For people and businesses that want to stay current and relevant online, it’s simply about adapting your approach and responding to trends and the way in which the internet is moving.

In this article we will explain why in 2020 having a blog is still important. And how exactly to structure and format your blog to make sure you are getting the most out of your platform. Read on to find out more.

The Statistics of the Internet and Blogging

There are over 1.5 billion websites on the internet, with numbers increasing every day. Over 500 million of them are blogs. This can make for depressing statistics when wanting to make your blog stand out from the crowd.

However, over 77% of internet users read blogs on a daily basis. In fact, they are often the go-to places to find out answers to questions or for example, looking at reviews of businesses, services, or travel decisions.

Blogging is a wide umbrella term now which incorporates a range of brand sponsoring, content marketing, revenue streams, and working with different brands and businesses.

The way in which content and products can be marketed and broadcast to the internet is endless and not in short supply. Blogging is still an incredibly useful tool to drive traffic and hit revenue streams.

And let’s not forget the strength of individual communities such as parent blogs, makeup bloggers, or food reviewers. They have built up followings and communities since the early 2000s.

Many of them have obviously made the transition to other platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. But often they directed their followers back to their blog for longer think pieces on the topic that they are discussing.  

So how can you make sure your blogs are still relevant in 2020 with all the other competition out there on other platforms?

Think About the Length of Your Blog

Getting across your point and message to your following can be difficult to convey sometimes.  It may be confusing how much to write and when to know when to call it quits.

Sometimes you can often go on for too long or not go into topics with enough depth. It can be hard to strike a balance. It’s important to get that clarify and engagement right so that it makes your followers want to read on. 

If you are at all unsure, have a look at this blog post about the length of blog posts in 2020. Read on here to have all your questions answered concerning length!

Avoid the Clickbait Headings

Now it can be tempting to put a catchy heading on your blog post which will entice people to click on to it to find out more.

The fact of the matter is that this might work for a one time reader but it doesn’t help to build a lasting readership in your field. 

If you are promising sensationalism and then don’t deliver on your promised headline you aren’t building any faith in your consumers. It can cheaper your brand and your overall blog.

Deliver on your content and have faith in what you are putting out there. Don’t use cheap marketing tricks to try and lure readers in. Rely on your skills in connecting with your audience without clickbait.

Know Your Niche and Stick to it

Don’t overload your blog with topics and opinion pieces on absolutely everything. People aren’t expecting you to be an expert on a hundred different interests and fields.

Know your strengths and topics and stick to them. People will come to your blog for a certain reason. It is confusing and contradictory if you aren’t being consistent with your message and topics.

Also if you are trying to write about too many things it will get exhausting. It’s always better to be knowledgable in one area than a bit-part in several.

Your content needs to be specific and helpful, not generic and ill-advised.

Quality not Quantity 

People wrongly assume that the way the internet works you need to be posting all the time to stay relevant. This is not strictly correct.

Yes, of course, you do need to post reasonably regularly, but not at a cost to the quality of your postings. 

Make sure you are choosing topics that are interesting and thought-provoking. If you are grasping for ideas out of thin air, take a day or so to come up with a quality blog post.

It is better to wait or hold off on writing a blog post if you aren’t confident you have a ‘solid idea’.

Your readers will be much happier with fewer blog posts of higher quality than more blog posts written without proper care and attention.

Update Old Content

Make sure that every few months you go through your content and update things that are perhaps no longer relevant or are now out of date.

Also, check on your links and pages. Do they still work? Are they still relevant? Giving your old content a bit of a once over just makes sure that all your blog posts are still important and easy to read, not just the newer ones.

Is Blogging Dead? Where To Find Out More

We hope you have enjoyed this article on asking the important questions in blogging, such as, ‘Is Blogging Dead’? The answer, of course, is no!

There are still plenty of ways to blog successfully in 2020 with a couple of handy tips. Blogging is in no way an obsolete field!

If you would like to find out more or read some more articles on marketing and business, why not check out our previous blog posts? 

The post The Long and Short of It: Is Blogging Dead in 2020? appeared first on ReputationResults.

However, as a healthcare professional, you may be wondering how to use social media in healthcare. How can you use these popular platforms to improve your reputation and trust within the community? 

Keep reading for everything you need to know about healthcare social media marketing.

1. Post Valuable and Engaging Content

One of the best ways to build credibility with an audience is by offering them valuable information. When posting articles, videos, images, and more, think about what your audience will most benefit from.

For example, in response to the novel coronavirus, you should be posting helpful tips about how to reduce exposure, what symptoms to watch out for, what to do if people think they are infected, etc.

2. Respond Quickly to Messages and Comments

Similarly, people need to know that you hear them. More importantly, they need to know that you care about their needs. When your profile receives comments, questions, and messages, you should make it a priority to respond within 24 hours (ideally less). 

Simply put, if you want people to engage with your social media account, you need to engage back.

3. Raise Awareness About Public Health Concerns

One of the most important areas where social media and healthcare can work together is in raising awareness and spreading information. The current climate is a perfect example. People want to stay informed and constantly updated about the novel coronavirus. 

Use your platform to keep people in the know, especially during times of crisis or pandemics.

4. Address and Correct Misinformation

While it’s important to use social media in healthcare to keep the public calm and informed about certain events, it’s also a valuable tool in squashing misinformation. 

Social media in the hands of the public can often lead to a lot of false information being spread around. News and events are either sensationalized or completely fabricated. People will respect the truth if it’s coming from a reliable source, such as a healthcare facility and healthcare professionals.

5. Know When to Hire a Professional

Finally, one of the best practices for social media in healthcare is accepting when you’re in over your head. As a healthcare professional, you may not have time to learn how to optimize your social media accounts or create content. 

If this is the case, you may want to hire a content marketing agency to lend a hand. While we understand you need to think about your bottom line, social media can be a major source for bringing in new patients, but only if it’s used properly. 

Looking for More Marketing Tips for Social Media in Healthcare?

If you’re looking for more advice on improving your reputation and results, you’re in the right place. We cover everything from social media in healthcare to SEO and online reputation management tools. Be sure to check out some of our other articles before you go!

The post Build Trust & Reputation: 5 Best Practices for Social Media in Healthcare appeared first on ReputationResults.

You’ll need a strong SEO strategy, first. 

With this digital marketing advice, you can increase traffic to your site. You can then turn those visitors into sales or leads. 

Here are seven SEO marketing tips that can set you up for success. 

1. Start Researching

In order to use these SEO marketing tips, you need to know who you’re trying to target. Start building a strong SEO strategy by researching your target audience.

Make a list of target keywords by using SEMRush and Google Keyword Planner. You’ll use these keywords for your website content. Make sure to prioritize long-tail keywords, which are more focused.

2. Utilize UX

Over 80% of consumers check their phones before making a purchase. In order to really utilize these SEO marketing tips, make sure you’re mobile-optimized.

Google uses mobile-first indexing when determining SEO rankings. If you’re not optimized for smaller screens, your ranking will suffer for it. 

On mobile devices, make sure:

• Buttons are easy to click on
• Your site is easy to navigate
• Text is easy to read

Make these changes before using the rest of these SEO marketing solutions. 

3. Place Your Keywords

Once you start creating content, it’s important to know where to place your target keyword. Each post’s target keyword should appear in the:

• Page title
• URL
• Opening paragraph
• Closing paragraph
• A header
• Body text
• Alt image tags
• Meta description

Make sure your keywords read naturally within your content. For more help, this SEO company can help improve your overall SEO strategy.

4. Focus on Value

As you begin writing blog posts and creating content, don’t focus on selling. Instead, you want to show readers the value you have to offer.

Consider developing a thought leadership strategy. Show your target audience the experience and expertise you have to offer. By focusing on your company’s value, you can build brand trust and boost conversions. 

5. Build Links

Link building is an important component of an effective SEO strategy. Using high-authority links to other sites will show Google you’re an authority, too. 

Try adding stats and research in your blog posts to use relevant links.

6. Get Social

As you use these SEO marketing tips, don’t forget to share your work. Get social by posting your optimized blog posts, infographics, and vlogs on social media. 

Once social media followers see your content, they’ll visit your website, giving you the chance to increase conversions. 

7. Love the Locals

Don’t forget to focus on your local customers, too. Local SEO allows you to reach customers in the area.

First, update your Google My Business listing. Then, create page content using location-specific keywords. 

Improving your local SEO can help you attract more foot traffic to your business.

Rank Higher Than Ever With These SEO Marketing Tips for Success

Reach the top of the search results. By using these seven SEO marketing tips, you can boost your ranking and attract more traffic, which should help to boost sales.

Explore the Business section of the blog for more helpful tips.

The post Amazing SEO Marketing Tips To Help Give Your Business A Leg Up appeared first on ReputationResults.

Knowledge of the latest SEO trends will give you a competitive advantage. Google keeps changing the search algorithms that lead to shifts in SEO. You need to know most of these changes and how they affect your business ranking.

If you’re wondering if there are SEO trends in 2020 that could impact your business, you’re in the right place. Click here to learn 2020 SEO trends that will grow your business. 

1. Consolidation of SERP

Search engine results pages are becoming more consolidated. There has been a notable increase in ad share. Snippets and answer boxes are getting more clicks, and the ‘ask’ boxes are gaining relevance.

With the rise of zero-click searches, users don’t have to visit a site to get the results. For website owners, this trend will make SEO tougher to crack. The consolidation of SERPS means that your site is less likely to get visitors unless you upgrade your game.  

So, what can you do to ensure that your site doesn’t run short of traffic? Diversification and creativity. It’s about time you considered long-tail keywords and probably omnichannel marketing. 

While at it, research on tools that can help you evaluate each page. Some of these tools are essential in increasing your organic traffic. Nonetheless, this trend shouldn’t make you give up on utilizing other optimization tactics. 

2. Quality Content 

While it almost sounds like a cliché, content is king. Content is central to SEO. If there’s a trend that has remained timeless, it is quality content. 

One of the top SEO trends that you’d want to prioritize is creating valuable and relevant content. If you can’t write top-notch content, hire professionals. The content on your website has a significant impact on your ranking on search engines.

Valuable content will impress your site visitors. What’s more, you’ll be in a better place to have long-tail searches, which plays a critical role in building your site’s authority. Quality content that focuses on solving a need will get you on Google’s good books.

You can check this guide to SEO to know more about content. Note that you need to combine quality content with other SEO features to have an impressive rank.  

3. Mobile SEO 

If your mobile site is a mess, you might need a website to revamp in 2020. When developing a site, start by ensuring that it is mobile compatible before even thinking about desktop usage. This approach will ensure that your site has a speed that will keep users engaged.

Going by the World Advertising Research Center report, about 3.7 billion people will be accessing the internet through their smartphones. As such, mobile SEO should be a priority. Seek to know more about the kind of optimization that will get you real results. 

In 2015, Google made changes that favor mobile-friendly websites. The trend has continued to gain momentum with the increasing use of smartphones. For sites that haven’t embraced mobile-friendliness, the ranking lowers automatically.

4. Voice Search 

Voice search is among the 2020 SEO trends that will influence Google ranking. Internet users are taking advantage of Google’s ‘search by voice’ to get products or services. People use voice search the same way they would type a query. 

The advent of voice-based technology has increased the relevance of direct questions, which will be a critical part of SEO in 2020. Trigger words search as ‘how’ and ‘what’ have been ranking highly in search engines. It would help to optimize your site for voice optimization as it is becoming prevalent.

Voice searches are often longer and conversational. You can leverage this feature by using long-tail keyword phrases. Giving well-researched and rich answers will also enable your site to have a higher rank. 

5. Video for SEO Strategy 

Video marketing ranks amongst the top SEO trends that will impact digital marketing in 2020. The consumption of video content is rising steadily. Going by the number of people watching videos each day, you can’t afford to ignore this trend. 

Videos are quite engaging. Having them as part of your SEO strategy will improve the interaction your audience has with your brand. This approach will increase leads to your website. 

You can start by using engaging thumbnail images that prompt users to click through to your website. Include proper captions and transcripts to your videos. You can also post the videos on several platforms to increase the number of viewers.

6. Data in 2020 SEO Trends  

Structured data is gaining more attention in 2020. Your SEO strategy requires an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. The assessment of this kind of data will assist you in tracking users’ behavior, which will enable you to adjust your site optimization as necessary. 

You’ll need data science to analyze this information. Using data will help you evaluate some actions, such as the preference for particular products. Therefore, the data will be a great resource when making marketing decisions.

Structured data has significant impacts on analytics. This data will play a role in product development and marketing. Ensure that you’ve researched the right software to analyze your site’s data.

7. Keyword Research

Keyword research is here to stay! Keyword research has been central to SEO since its inception. However, there have been some changes in the way web pages use keywords.

With tools such as SEMrush and Google Keyword Planner, you can have a keyword list that will make your site rank highly. It would also be advisable to have secondary keywords to help in your ranking. More importantly, consider keywords that will get your site multiple clicks. 

Knowing the 2020 SEO Trends Gives You Leverage in Your Digital Marketing 

SEO is the future of digital marketing. If you want to increase traffic on your website, knowledge of top SEO trends is paramount. It would help to know some of the 2020 SEO trends that will impact your business. 

Please explore our site for more content on digital marketing.

The post Grow Your Business! 7 2020 SEO Trends You Need to Know appeared first on ReputationResults.

Now it’s a site filled with content from authority figures and corporations, as well as related advertisements. 97% of B2B marketers rely on LinkedIn for lead generation because it outperforms other social media platforms. If you know how to use LinkedIn, you’ll not only generate leads but also connect with companies you once thought out of your reach.

Take your content marketing to the next level by establishing a foothold on LinkedIn. Here are some strategies that make the most of the LinkedIn website.

1. Optimize the Company Page

Like other content marketing mediums, search engine optimization lays the foundation for success. You’ll find opportunities to optimize for SEO even on your company’s LinkedIn page.

Although the process is straightforward, some companies skimp on the basics and then pay for it later on. For example, always upload a professional company logo. Failure to do so will result in a significant amount of lost traffic.

But the most important section – and the one with the most SEO mistakes — is the About Us snippet. With only 2,000 characters available, every word counts. And the first 150 characters are where it counts the most.

These characters will serve as the Google metadata on search engines. It will not only impact your rank on the SERPs but also the click-through rate. Choose your keywords and insert them throughout the About Us description, especially its introduction.

Congratulations! This simple step put you ahead of your competitors in the LinkedIn marketing game. Be sure to fill out all aspects and fields in the company profile, as more information is always better for both customers and SEO.

2. Leverage Your Employees

Now that you’ve published your company page, it’s time to give it some life. Let’s establish some strong social signals that lend credibility and improve your company reach.

To do that, you want followers. On the LinkedIn website, followers work just like those on other social media sites. These are the people who will get content and page updates as soon as you make them.

Before you earn outside followers, why not make use of your connections? Encourage your employees to follow the company page on LinkedIn. Every time someone follows, you expand your reach into their LinkedIn networks.

That’s a gift that keeps on giving. Convenient links and mentions in internal correspondence could be enough to earn a sizeable following. Even better, incorporate the follow button on your email signature and you’ll give vendors and business partners a subtle nod to join in.

3. Publish Content, Content, and More Content

Finding success on LinkedIn follows the basic tenets of content marketing. By publishing a deluge of thoughtful blog posts and infographics, you’re providing value to your followers. If your content is worth keeping up with, page visitors will become followers, share your links, and expand your reach.

But it’s important to understand the LinkedIn audience has different expectations from those found on other social media platforms and company blogs. 

After all, LinkedIn is inhabited by industry professionals and pundits. You’re not likely to find everyday customers looking for basic advice.

What does this mean for you? Avoid the sales talk. Instead, get technical and focus on some common issues and solutions related to your industry.

In general, you want to publish five blog posts a week. Your post can contain images and video in addition to the text itself. Always take advantage of a multimedia approach whenever possible.

Also, remember this is a social media website. Sharing is part of the process. Keep an eye on other industry leaders and share their content on your company page when you think it’s worth a look.

4. Sponsor the Good Stuff

When one of your content pieces really starts taking off, it may be worthwhile to use Linkedin’s sponsored content function. It’s an easy way to promote a blog post and gain visibility beyond your immediate followers.

Is it the cost? Oh, it’s worth it. Since LinkedIn users relinquish most of their personal information, the LinkedIn platform is unbeatable when it comes to deploying targeted and retargeted advertisements.

Sponsored content isn’t the only advertising option on the LinkedIn website. For a closer look, check out these Linkedin marketing tactics.

5. Start or Join a LinkedIn Group

On the LinkedIn website, Groups are communities of like-minded professionals. They serve as a forum for individuals to ask questions, debate, and share relevant content with other members.

Groups exist across countless industries and many number in the tens of thousands. Where’s yours? Becoming an active contributor to ongoing industry conversations will build authority and traffic to your company page when other Group members want to see what you’re all about.

For the most part, you want to use a LinkedIn Group the same way you might use Quora. Don’t promote yourself and focus on the topic at hand. If you find yourself talking in the first person, that’s a quick way to get relegated to the promotions section of your group.

If you can’t find a LinkedIn Group for your industry or believe you can build a better one, then consider creating your own.

Mastering the LinkedIn Website

In the last few years, LinkedIn has emerged as a serious content marketing platform. B2B businesses will have a hard time finding better results anywhere else. Stick to these straightforward tips and you may be surprised at how easy it is to generate leads through the LinkedIn website.

Whatever you’re looking for, you’ll find it here. Search our blog for the latest trends, tips, and professional advice. 

The post Tips for Marketing Using the LinkedIn Website appeared first on ReputationResults.

SEO is the foundation of a business’s digital marketing strategy. Thanks to search engine optimization (SEO), your website gains a ranking. The better your SEO is, the higher your ranking will be.

But how much will it cost you?

In this SEO pricing guide, we’ll give you a quick rundown on the typical rates of SEO services. 

1. SEO Industry Standard

There’s no industry standard yet for what an SEO agency can charge. Often, SEO pricing gets determined on the scope of the project. This includes the services you need and the type of SEO pricing you’ll choose.

Many SEO agencies offer one of four standard types of SEO pricing. The four types include rates that are per month, per hour, project-based, and performance-based. Each one of these SEO plans and pricing has its pros and cons.

2. Monthly SEO

Let’s begin with the advantages of monthly SEO services. It lets you hire an agency to manage the campaign from beginning to end, which lets you focus on your business. It works best for those who want to out-source and have integrated teams for SEO.

However, monthly SEO packages may include features or services you don’t need. Even though they’re unneeded, you’ll be paying for them anyway as part of the package. Also, monthly retainers often expect you to commit for at least 6 months.

SEO agents will tailor their services to your needs. Prepare a budget of at least $1000 to $3000 for this SEO package.

3. Hourly SEO 

Paying for hourly SEO allows you to pay predictable costs. It also makes tracking for accountability and transparency easy. However, it gives slower results, and it’s not a result-oriented approach.

These hourly SEO pricing packages work well for small websites. They’re also great for business owners who want to DIY their SEO projects. Expect the average price range to be $75 to $150 per hour.

4. Project-Based SEO Pricing

Project-based SEO packages let you pay a one lump sum and give you a clear project scope. Yet, expect SEO companies to overcharge you or have poor flexibility. This solution works best for websites with specific needs.

The typical SEO pricing for this is $1000 – $5000. It will depend on the scope of the project. Invest in this if you want to build meaningful results. 

5. Performance-Based SEO

Performance-based plans give you minimal risk exposure as a client. If your ranking doesn’t improve, you don’t have to pay. Also, the rates for this type are up-front.

This is perfect for small business owners that want to focus on local SEO. It also works best for eCommerce websites. Note that your monthly spending may vary. Also, a disadvantage of this type is that it won’t accept all keywords.

Get the SEO Package Best Suited for You

Now, we hope you know how much of your budget you need to put aside for your SEO marketing.

While we gave rough estimates on their prices, note that various agencies have various price ranges. As we mentioned, it will depend on the scope of the project and the type of SEO package you want.

Now you have a better understanding regarding SEO package pricing. We hope you picked up the information you need about SEO pricing. If you want to see more guides on SEO, see our other posts now.

The post How Much Does Search Engine Optimization Cost? An SEO Pricing Guide appeared first on ReputationResults.

Search engine optimization is vital for businesses of all kinds. They can be especially important for local businesses that rely on the surrounding community to thrive. Without SEO, most of your customers will never know you exist.

But don’t worry, we’re here to help straighten things out. Keep reading for our top seven marketing tips for those new to SEO.

1. Understand the Concept of SEO

First, you need to know what SEO is and how it works. In the most simple terms, SEO is the algorithm of search engines used to find the most relevant information based on your keyword search. For example, if you type in “how to get stains out of a carpet,” the search engine will crawl the internet looking for the most viable answer.

2. Use Multiple Forms of Media

To improve your website’s SEO, be sure to use various forms of media. Studies show that we prefer visual data – we process it faster and remember it longer. 

Use plenty of imagery and videos on your website and embed them with SEO content (keywords, meta descriptions, and alt text). This coding is used in the SEO algorithm.

3. Don’t Let Your Website Become Stale

Few things in business are “set it and forget it.” Your website is no different. While it’s important to have a fantastic, user-friendly layout, that alone isn’t enough. 

Make sure you stay active on your website and keep it updated. Otherwise, it will become irrelevant in SEO terms.

4. Keywords Are Very Important

If you’re new to SEO, you may not appreciate how important keywords are to your business’s success. The keywords on your website pages are what attract search engines to your website. For example, if you post an article on your blog with the keyword phrase “how to find a good dentist,” your website will come up when people ask Google that exact question.

5. Local SEO is Vital to a Local Business

You must keep in mind that location is everything for local businesses, even in terms of SEO. When people search for products or services, they almost always include their area or the phrase “near me.” Even without that localized verbiage, our devices know where we are.

Your SEO will help search engines direct people in your area to your website and business if you have optimized your local SEO. For example, because of this reason, local SEO is effective for drug rehabs trying to reach out to people in their community.

6. Use Mobile Optimization

In the US, 81 percent of us own smartphones. We use them for everything – texting, phone calls, playing games, shopping, researching, and more. 

This is important because it means people are going to be visiting your website through their phones. This user experience can be crushed if a website isn’t optimized for mobile use.

7. Prepare for AI

Finally, AI technologies such as Alexa and Siri are sweeping the nation. As a result, people are using more natural speech patterns to search for things online. Instead of typing “fitness centers in ‘x’ county” into a search box, people are asking their phones “Siri, what fitness centers are nearby?”

If you’re new to SEO, you may not understand that these consumer trends dictate how you should be wording your SEO content. You need to anticipate the questions consumers will ask and the way AI software will find relevant answers.

Are You New to SEO?

If you’re new to SEO and digital marketing, this may all feel a little overwhelming. But don’t panic, we can help you. We specialize in improving your online presence and reputation.

Check out some of our other articles or take advantage of our free website audit. Good luck!

The post 7 Marketing Tips for Startups New to SEO appeared first on ReputationResults.

SEO is something that many people focus on because it allows them to bring in more traffic to their websites. However, many people are questioning whether SEO is relevant due to the many changes that Google and other search engines have gone through.

People will ask how many internet searches per day they should be receiving instead of searching for ways to improve their content. Today, content plays a key role in the performance of a website because search engine algorithms can detect a website’s engagement.

So is SEO dead? Keep on reading to learn why it’s still relevant and what you can do to improve your site’s SEO!

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process that involves getting website pages to rank high on search engines like Google. The higher the ranking a site has, the more traffic the site will receive. 

Many strategies are used to rank sites higher than others, including the use of keywords, layouts, and content. SEO strategies are often being changed to adapt to Google’s algorithm, which is constantly being updated.

In the past, SEO was simple and a site only required certain keywords to rank high. Today, Google’s algorithm will scan websites to see what kind of content they have, how accessible they are, and whether they have relatable keywords.

For example, Google will see if a site about home improvement has words that relate to home improvement. This allows the search engine to filter out sites that don’t provide meaningful content.

Why SEO Will Never Go Away

It doesn’t make any sense when people say, “SEO is dead.” SEO will always exist because, if it didn’t, search engines wouldn’t be able to find relative results. If you were to search up how to build a treehouse, Google would use those words to find sites that also have those words.

Search engines need to scan through content to find sites that users are looking for. SEO will never go away because there will always be a way to include information on a site that will make it show up on Google.

Create High-Quality Content

When you work with a digital marketing agency or start researching the best SEO strategies, you’ll find that creating high-quality content is something most people recommend. Search engines can’t tell what good content is, but they can see how often people are interacting with something and for how long.

Creating high-quality content will ensure that people are sticking around on your site. As people stay on your site, Google and other search engines will see that people are regularly using it. This will give you a better ranking because Google will think that you have a good website. 

Just like keywords, you can’t use content that isn’t related to what your site’s about. Although you may have high-quality, entertaining videos and other forms of content, people won’t interact with them if they have nothing to do with the site. 

Research Topics

As previously mentioned, long gone are the days of jamming a website with keywords in the hopes of boosting a website’s SEO. While keywords are effective for making a high-ranking site, they need to be researched.

One of the most common SEO strategies is to plug popular (related or competitor) sites into a keyword finder and see what they’re using. Providing that the keywords are related to the content of the site, a website can bring in more traffic when using them.

If you’re hosting a site that publishes blogs, you’ll want to get whoever is writing the articles to start using keywords that revolve around the content. Researching topics will make it easier for the writer to come up with engaging content.

Some sites will publish a ton of articles that don’t provide much useful information but are filled with keywords that relate to the topic. Although the keywords are related, your SEO could be hurt if people aren’t staying on the site to read the articles.

Focus on a Long-Term Plan

The key to boosting a site’s SEO is to focus on creating a long-term plan. Instead of worrying about how many searches you get within a week, you should worry about how many searches you get over several months. Focusing on the long-term will allow you to connect with an audience that keeps coming back.

If you create content that people enjoy, you should continue to make similar content for awhile. You’ll have to mix up the things you put on your site at some point, but your SEO will improve providing that people keep visiting the site.

After your site starts growing, you’ll find that your site is coming up in more people’s search results. This will also improve your site’s SEO because Google’s algorithm will see that people are trying to find it.

Is SEO Dead? No, and It’s Here to Stay

Search engine optimization will continue to be a primary focus of web developers and content creators alike. As the internet evolves, we’ll come up with new ways to get our websites to the top of the search results of Google and other search engines.

You now know how you can improve your site’s SEO, so be sure to explain these reasons to anyone that asks, “Is SEO dead?” SEO won’t be going anywhere for as long as the internet exists, it’s simply up to you to stay on top of the latest strategies.

Browse our articles to learn more about SEO and the best strategies!

The post Is SEO Dead? Top Reasons Why SEO Is Still Relevant in 2020 appeared first on ReputationResults.

Not only do people make purchases online, but they also shop around online and read reviews before going out into the world and buying things. We’ll cover a few reasons that your business’ online presence is so important, as well as ways that you can boost your credibility on the web. 

The Importance of an Internet Presence

While everyone would love to have an excellent presence online, not everyone understands the different levels that work together to form that presence. 

We’ll start with the most important level:

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) allows people who use the internet to see your site. Search engines are the medium through which people search for things they need. If you can manage to rank highly in the search results, you will get vastly more traffic to your site. 

SEO is complicated and sometimes requires a professional to execute. That being said, there are a number of things that you can do on your own to improve your standing in search results. 

There are four main tenets of SEO. Optimize your content for the keywords relevant to your niche. There are a number of keyword research tools that you can use to do this. Additionally, you should do your best to accumulate links from other websites. 

The more connected you are to sites within your niche, the more likely you are to be well received by search engines. You should also strive to create regular content that is optimized. The easiest way to do this is through your blog. 

Finally, make sure that your site is arranged well. Your content should be laid out hierarchically, and be easy for your users to navigate.

Customer Reviews

It should go without saying that good customer reviews are key to your internet presence. The more people that say they love your product, the more people there are that will want to try it. 

The trick is motivating customers to leave online reviews. This is typically done in a number of ways. First, try giving a decent incentive to leave an online review. 

You could start by offering customers the option to receive a discount on their next purchase if they leave an online review. Any incentive that’s paired with leaving a review will work in your favor. You should also utilize the mailing list. 

Send out reminders to recent customers and incentives to ones who may not have stopped by in a while. Generating reviews from people on your mailing list will be a huge help. After a while, your presence will improve and you’ll get customers from the positive reviews as well as the increased exposure through SEO.

Need Help With Your Web Presence?

An internet presence is important for virtually every business these days. Unless all of the people in your town love your store and you’re satisfied with their business, it’s likely that you’re going to benefit from internet traffic.

We can help you improve your presence and generate more traffic to your site and your store. Visit our site to learn more. 

The post Why Is an Internet Presence so Important for Businesses to Have? appeared first on ReputationResults.

Let’s look at some tips for measuring success for your search engine optimization strategy.

Start With Your Goals in Mind

Before you launch your SEO campaign, you should have some goals in mind. Do you want to get more leads, sell directly to your visitors, build a reputation in your market, or something else?

There’s no point in optimizing your website in a way that doesn’t help you reach your goals. For example, if you don’t sell products on your website, getting a lot of traffic from people who are looking to buy something online isn’t very valuable.

Use the SMART technique for setting your goals. They should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

In other words, what do you want to do, can you measure the results, is it a reasonable goal, does it matter to your business, and when do you want to reach it?

Measuring Success Through Engagement Metrics

When a visitor lands on your website after clicking a link in the search results, you want them to be engaged so they stay on your site longer and take whatever action you want them to take. There are several metrics you should be tracking to see how engaged your visitors are.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who end up taking the action you want. This could be clicking a link for more information, signing up for an email newsletter, calling you for more information, or buying something.

The higher the conversion rate, the more valuable your SEO efforts have been.

Pages Per Visit

Highly-engaged visitors tend to click around your site looking for more helpful information. The more pages they visit, the more engaged they are but a higher pages-per-visit number isn’t always better.

You might prefer them to visit fewer pages and take the “most wanted” action sooner. Tracking this stat will help you optimize the flow of traffic on your site.

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who immediately click away from your website after getting there from the search results. In most cases, this means they didn’t like what they saw for some reason and clicked back to try a different result.

A high bounce rate not only means you’re losing visitors but can also hurt your rankings. Google tracks how many searchers click back to the results and try another option and if it happens a lot, they consider it a sign that your site isn’t giving searchers the information they want.

Tracking Your Site’s Traffic Sources

Engagement is important but you also want to know where your traffic is coming from. Are they coming from Google, another search engine, or from a link on another website? And if they are coming from Google, what keywords are searchers using to find your site?

Websites and Search Engines

Knowing where your visitors are coming from lets you optimize various things to increase the number of referrals. For Google and other search engines, this means improving your SEO (search engine optimization), whether you do that work yourself or you find an SEO provider.

If you’re getting referrals from other websites, it could be that a site linked to yours in a review, article, or other content. Once you identify those sites, you can reach out to them and see if you can partner in some way.

Keywords

Keywords are the building blocks of SEO. Whenever someone searches for something on Google, they use a keyword or keyword phrase. SEO means optimizing your website in a way that helps your pages rank for the terms people are searching for.

Knowing what keywords people are searching to find your site lets you improve your SEO for those to increase your rankings. It also tells you what keywords you’re aiming for but not ranking for so you can do more optimization on that front.

Keyword Rankings

On top of tracking the keywords that are referring traffic to your site, you should also be tracking where your site ranks for those keywords. The amount of traffic you’ll get changes significantly based on where you rank.

If your site doesn’t rank on the first page of Google results, you’ll get very little traffic. And even if you rank in the top 10, your position can make a big difference. Ranking in the top 3 is important to get a significant amount of traffic and ideally, you want to rank in the number 1 spot.

Tracking your rankings helps you identify which keywords to focus your SEO efforts on. And as your rankings change, you’ll see how those changes affect other things like conversion rates and clickthrough rates.

Clickthrough Rate

The clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that click on a link to your site. If 1,000 people see the link and 100 of them click on it, that’s a 10 percent CTR.

Google doesn’t give you this number explicitly but you can estimate your CTR by using the search volume for a given keyword. If it’s estimated that a particular keyword gets 1,000 searches per day and you get 50 visitors from that keyword, you can estimate your CTR at 5 percent.

How to Track This Information

Two of the most effective tools for measuring your SEO campaign are free services from Google:

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console

Google Analytics is a powerful analytics tool that will let you track all kinds of information. You can set up special tracking links to measure particular keywords, links from other sites, engagement in email newsletters you send, and many other things.

It gives you a bunch of helpful reports that will show you traffic trends, stats for individual pages on your site, bounce rates, and much more. You can also use its reports to identify things like potential browser issues with website traffic by combining different bits of data.

Google Search Console gives you more technical information about your website and how it ranks in the search results. You’ll see keyword information here as well as problems that could be hurting your SEO.

Track Your SEO Results So You Know What to Focus on

If you’re not measuring success, you’ll never know if you’re reaching your goals. Getting a tracking system set up takes some time and effort but your ROI will be huge. Spend the time to get your tracking in place at the beginning so you have actionable data from day one.

Then use that information to find gaps and opportunities to improve your SEO and drive more visitors to your website.

Did this post help you see the big picture of tracking your SEO? Be sure to check out the rest of our site for more helpful articles like this one.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Measuring Success for Your SEO Campaign appeared first on ReputationResults.

This is enough to give anyone pause. Perhaps even make you decide you’re going to ditch Facebook altogether. But, that’s not as easy as deleting the app from your phone or computer.

To make sure all your information is also erased from the Facebook database there are additional steps you need to take. Sick of your information feeding the machine?

Read on to find out how to delete everything off Facebook for good.

The Difference Between How to Deactivate Your Account vs How to Delete Everything off Facebook

If you’re on the fence about deleting your Facebook and think you might want to get it back at some point, deactivation is the way to go. Deactivating your Facebook allows for a few fail-safes in the event that you change your mind.

When you deactivate your Facebook you’ll still be able to:

• Reactivate your Facebook account anytime you want
• Keep your timeline and friends but not be searchable or viewable by any other users
• Maintain Facebook’s access to your information and data which will all still be there when you decide to log back in

The main drawback to deactivating your account is that some of your data will still be available to see. Things like messages you’ve sent, and other direct interactions with other users, will remain visible. So, you won’t truly be eliminated from the Facebook landscape.

Zuck it! I Want It Gone

On the other hand, deleting your account means everything you have ever done on the platform goes away. It’s like you never existed in the Facebook world.

Bye-bye memories of 5 years ago. Goodbye, cute pictures of your daughter when she was just learning to crawl. See you later mushy threads between you and significant others of the past. They no longer exist.

But, none of your user data can be used for advertising and such either. No one will be able to find any trace of you on the monster of a data hoarding social media mecca. So, depending on the results you want it is a win for your privacy and a loss for Lord Zuck.

Here are the results of a deletion:

• Facebook gives you a grace period where you can change your mind. Kind of like a forced “Why don’t you sleep on it, we know you’re addicted” sort of grace. You can reinstate simply by logging in again during this period.
• As we said, there is no way to regain any of your Facebook data once the deletion is confirmed and the grace period has ended.
• Your data won’t be fully wiped from the system and all of Facebook’s backup servers for about 90 days. However, none of it can appear in search results either
• Some of the information, like messages you have sent, will remain visible because they aren’t technically stored in your account.
• Facebook will keep copies of some of your data. But, they say all of your personal identifiers are removed from it. Take that with as big of a grain of salt as you’d like.

Still want to go through with it? Great. Let’s walk you through the process.

The Steps on How to Delete Everything Off Facebook

So, you’ve made the decision that complete disintegration is in your best interest. Cool. But, how do you accomplish it?

You’ve got to remember that this is a major step. Your social media presence is an expected thing across all parts of our modern lives. Future employers, new friendships, all may look at you, aghast when you say you have no Facebook account.

But, ok, ok you made up your mind.

Here are the steps on how to delete your existence from Facebook.

1. Download your Facebook data in case you’re feeling nostalgic
   1. Click on “Settings” in your drop-down menu
   2. Scroll down and select “Download my Facebook Data” underneath the “Manage Account” menu
   3. Wait a few days to receive the information
2. Make sure you “Clear Your History” so you don’t have any lingering Facebook data out there on the web
3. Once you’ve got your backup, or if you don’t care about getting a backup, move onto step 3
4. Finally, click on this link and select “Delete My Account”
5. Confirm this is the route you want to take and let that grace period countdown start rolling

Once the grace period is over. That’s it, see ya Facebook, a life of freedom from the matrix begins. For a different take on how to accomplish this, check out https://setapp.com/how-to/permanently-delete-facebook.

Let Your Freedom From Facebook Begin

Now that you’ve decided to cut the cord, sit back and relax in the peaceful silence and bliss. No more notification bings from your phone, no more worrying about being tagged in a bad photo, and no more stress that your future boss may see those pictures from Cabo in 2012. 

Remember that internet privacy is your right but you must protect it. By reading carefully the terms and conditions of any, and every, site you sign up for you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into. Now that you’ve deleted Facebook don’t let your data get roped in by one of the countless other social media machines out there in the vast internet landscape.

Want to always have great content like this at your fingertips? Check out the rest of our blog for regular updates and fantastic new articles.

The post Oh, Zuck It! How to Delete Everything off Facebook appeared first on ReputationResults.

It’s vital to get the SEO basics down as they underpin every part of this broad subject. As SEO is dependent on the whims of search engines, it’s also a skill that evolves over time. With the foundations under your belt though, you’re already halfway to being an expert. 

If you work in marketing or just want to give your own website a boost, SEO is the single most effective way to do it. With SEO, you might have the best business in town but no one will know you’re there. SEO gives you the opportunity to be found. 

Ready to get found? Keep reading to discover these 9 essentials of SEO. 

1. Load Speed and Mobile Optimization

Search engines want to provide their users with the most accurate results and the best possible experience. The easier time a user has finding what they’re looking for, the more likely they are to keep using that search engine. 

If a site doesn’t load quickly, you’ll lose that user. As the internet becomes faster, we all become more impatient and a slow-loading site isn’t going to impress anyone. 

Search engines, like Google, rank fast-loading websites higher than slower sites. 

Mobile optimization is an increasingly important ranking factor too. Mobile has now overtaken desktop as the primary way users access the internet. That means that if your website isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, search engines may down-rank it. 

2. Clear Navigation

Search engines want websites to load as quickly as possible but they also want to know that users will be able to navigate around the site easily.

How do search engines know this?

Search engines are like the eyes in the sky, they see everything. They can see how long a user spends on your website, whether they moved to other pages or left straight away, and much more. If users aren’t clicking on other pages on the same site, search engines take this to mean it’s neither easy nor enjoyable to navigate around. 

To fix this, UX design needs to be on top form and the content should draw users to other internal pages. 

3. High-Quality Content

Content is one of the best ways to make the most of SEO’s power and draw in an increasing amount of traffic. Often in the form of blog posts and articles, quality content provides invaluable information to your audience. 

By filling a site with good content, search engines can see that the site is regularly updated. Judging by read time, length, and keywords, search engines can also make judgments on the quality and importance of the content. 

Websites with regular content tend to rank higher, receive more attention, and build bigger audiences. 

4. Yoast SEO 

There’s a lot involved in SEO and remembering to check off everything all the time is tricky. There are a host of SEO companies that provide plug-ins for websites to help optimize their posts and pages. 

Yoast SEO is one of the most popular and comes in two forms. Most marketers start with the free version but you also need to weigh up if Yoast Premium is worth it for you. 

With Yoast, you’ll be able to see how your SEO is doing and fix any problems quickly. 

5. Build Backlinks

Search engines look at a lot of factors when judging how high your site should sit in results. The factors often revolve around how other sites and users interact with a website. 

Backlinks are hyperlinks on one website that link to another. Websites with more backlinks pointing to them tend to rank more highly as they are deemed to be more popular and have more authority. 

Building backlinks the right way means developing high-quality content worth sharing and guest posting on other websites. 

6. Social Media Presence

Social media platforms are search engines in their own right and having a strong presence on several platforms can boost a website’s SEO. While search engines don’t admit to using social channels as a ranking factor, it can still help in other ways. 

When users follow your social accounts, they’re likely to click through to your website to find out more. This increase in traffic (through a backlink, no less) shows search engines that your site is valuable. 

7. Focus on the Long Term

One of the mistakes many marketers make when trying to implement SEO techniques is to think about the short term. There’s no good way to trick search engines or artificially zip up the rankings. 

Instead, by building an easy-to-use site, creating great content, and caring about your audience’s needs, you’ll do better with SEO. Search engines know real businesses grow over time, so they’ll be suspicious of artificially high traffic or followers numbers. 

8. Image Alt-Tags

The alt-tags in images are easy to forget and seem inconsequential. They actually play a role in SEO though as they tell search engines what the photographs on your website are of. 

You can use SEO keywords in your image alt-tags and tell search engines clearly what your website is about. 

9. Multimedia

Video is now the primary form of internet traffic and yet many businesses are underusing it. Or worse, not using it at all. As users love video, search engines rank websites containing relevant videos higher up the results. 

A mixture of writing, images, and video is the best way to boost SEO through content. People enjoy different forms of content so providing multimedia content is a strong move. 

Nail These SEO Basics to Get Results

SEO is a multifaceted system but with these basics, you can go a long way. The key to good SEO is to provide a genuinely useful and usable website that helps your audience. 

With these SEO basics down, search engines will be able to see what your website is about, that it provides value, and is enjoyable to use. With that in place, you can continue building great content over the long term and see your rankings rise even higher. 

Follow us for more advice on making the internet work for you. 

The post 9 SEO Basics All Marketers Need to Know appeared first on ReputationResults.

As a business owner, this tells you one thing: you need to take your business online. If you stay offline, you’ll lose out on the vast majority of your target market.

While taking your business online is simple enough – just create an ecommerce website – standing out from the crowd is the biggest challenge. This is why most online businesses invest in search engine optimization.

But SEO isn’t a layman’s game. It needs expertise, which means one of your options is to us SEO outsourcing services.

Continue reading to learn the benefits of outsourcing SEO to the experts.

1. You Are (Probably) Not an SEO Expert

If you’re anything like most small business, you know zilch about search engine optimization. Of course, some owners resolve to take the DIY path, but the truth is if you’re an SEO novice, trying to optimize your business website for search won’t bear any tangible fruit. You’ll only be wasting your resources (time and money).

Outsourcing your SEO enables you to hand over the task to the experts. The SEO service will audit your site, identify gaps, and implement a strategy that will get your business website ranking highly.

2. Focus on What You Do Best

As a small business owner, you’re certainly running on a shoestring budget. Consequently, you wear multiple hats to cut costs.

This isn’t a bad thing when you’re starting out, but as your business grows, taking on multiple tasks, including digital marketing, can take its toll. You need to focus on your primary task. If you’re an inventor, for instance, wearing multiple hats takes away time you should be spending on bettering your product or service.

Search engine optimization is a time-consuming task. Outsourcing it will free up your time so you can keep your eyes and hands on what you do best.

3. Make Cost Savings

When looking for professional SEO services, you have two options: hire an in-house expert or outsource to an agency.

Both options have their pros and cons, but as a small business, it’s cheaper to outsource than to bring in an employee.

When you hire, there are recruitment costs, and the worker will be entitled to at least the minimum wage and other benefits for as long as they are your employee. On the other hand, you just need to pay for the services of an SEO agency. Once you’re satisfied that you’ve reached your SEO goals, you can terminate their services or secure them on an as-needed basis.

4. Gain Access to a Wide Range of Digital Marketing Services

SEO is just one aspect of digital marketing. There are others, including web development and design, and social media marketing.

Most agencies, like SEOclerks, offer several digital marketing services under one roof. As such, when you use SEO outsourcing services, you’ll likely get more than just search optimization. You won’t have to look elsewhere when you need other digital marketing services.

SEO Outsourcing Services Offer Many Benefits

Yes, the best SEO outsourcing services charge a premium for what they offer, but the return on investment is worth it. At a time when every business is going online, an SEO outsourcing service will give you an edge over your online competitors. The only thing you need to do is find an agency that’s worth the money.

Keep reading our blog for more tips and insights.

The post The Top 4 Benefits of Hiring an SEO Outsourcing Service appeared first on ReputationResults.

If you’re considering creating a customer portal for your business but a little unclear on what it might actually entail or if you really need one, you’re in the right spot. Keep reading to learn a little more about customer portals and why you really should consider creating one for your business.

What Exactly Is a Customer Portal, Anyway?

A customer portal is a secure website that you provide for your customers to give them access to information that is relevant to them. It’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, allowing them to access their information even when your business is closed.

Customer portals can be made mobile-friendly or you could create an app-specific to your business. This gives customers even greater access to the site, as they can access it from their phone or tablet.

Research has found that customers want a self-service option and want the ability to solve issues on their own when they can. A customer portal gives them the ability to do this.

But, this isn’t the only benefit!

Benefits of Customer Portals

It’s no secret that we are busy. People don’t have the time to call into a business, wait on hold, or leave a message for someone to get back to them. They want answers to their questions immediately, and a customer portal can help make that happen.

The benefits of a customer portal include increased customer satisfaction, improved communication, and the removal of time-consuming data entry for your employees.

The cash flow of your business can also improve with a customer portal if you make it possible for customers to pay bills online. Those payments are essentially instant, versus sending a paper bill, waiting for someone to fill it out with their credit card information or write a check, find a stamp, and mail it back. Make it easy for your customers to send you money!

You can also integrate your other systems, such as an accounting or CRM system, allowing them to share information with each other in real-time.

Do I Really Need One?

Well, no, but why wouldn’t you want one? Given the benefits and the increased satisfaction of both customers and your employees, why wouldn’t you want to add this to your company website?

You likely will save money by giving customers the opportunity to handle issues on their own, on their own time, without having to use resources to address the issues. When customers are having issues, they are going to be much more pleased with addressing them if they can fix them simply on their own.

Have We Convinced You Yet?

Are you considering a customer portal yet? If not, what is holding you back? This isn’t something you have to take on yourself. Hire a professional firm to get your portal up and running and revel in the satisfaction of your customers.

For more useful articles, explore some of the other sections of our blog!

The post What is a Customer Portal and Why Does Your Business Need One? appeared first on ReputationResults.

Traditional web design principles still matter, but they need updating, so here is what you need to know.

1. White Space Does Not Equal Readability

We get taught in college that white space makes a web page more readable, but it is not strictly true. A lack of white space may make a web page less readable, but that is as far as the rule goes. Concentrate more on where the eye lands and where it is led because even very cramped web pages can be cleverly laid out so that it is very readable.

2. Stick to Website Design Basics and Conventions

Do not try to break conventional rules or the basics of web design because it makes your website less usable. For example, people expect to see a search bar in the top left or right corner, so do not put it on the sidebar. People expect to be able to click text that is underlined, so do not underline text unless it is a link, (WordPress removed their underline function for that very reason).

3. Bold Colors Should Not Be Part of Your Design

It is fine having bold colors for your images and ads, but they shouldn’t be part of your overall website design. The only way you can get away for using bold colors for your website design is if your pages are only meant to be viewed for a few seconds.

For example, the Nickelodeon website uses bold colors, but its web pages feature almost no writing/text/ It is all embedded videos and advertisements.

4. Integrate Traffic Generation into Your Designs

There are many ways you can generate web traffic, and it is important that you integrate as many into your website design as possible. For example, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a big player, so your designs should have easily accessible meta tag areas that can be filled in later.

The web design principles are that a website should be responsive, social media ready, easily shareable, and should even have things like the Ads.txt page already installed so that the new owner need not worry about it.

5. Make Branding an Aftertaste

The problem with using websites for transforming brands and businesses is that branding is often overstated. There is no need for a massive home page title, nor is there a need for the company logo to be plastered all over the screen. Page branding should be subtle and lasting, like the aftertaste of a delicious meal.

What Do You Hate?

If you are looking for the most important website design basics, then consider what you hate about other websites and make a point of not including them in your website.

Some people love infinite scroll matched and lazy loading, but are you sick of trying to find something on a web page and hate having to scroll down an ever-loading web page? You are probably on the internet quite a lot, so consider what you hate about your online experiences and eradicate such annoyances from your own website designs.

We have other articles on marketing and web design. If you are interested, then read some of the other articles on ReputationResults.com.

The post Web Design Basics: 5 Key Principles All Web Designers Should Know appeared first on ReputationResults.

It’s no secret that having effective landing pages can convert your page visitors into customers, but how do you create an effective landing page?

Check out our five landing page ideas and implement them into your next campaign!

Landing Page Ideas For Your Next Local SEO Campaign

Before we get started let’s first address some key landing page tips. 

Promoting your brand on your landing page is critical but remember your landing page should have a simple, clear, and concise layout. Which means using: an effective CTA, fewer words, and more images. 

Another tip for a successful landing page is to offer your visitors something for free. Everyone likes to think that they are getting a good deal, so why not offer them a free e-book, email with exclusive advice and tips, or free trial. 

Now let’s get to how to make a good landing page:

1. Compelling Content

Landing pages need to have some content. But as we discussed earlier, this content needs to be short. Between 5 and 7 words should be enough. Which means your content and CTA needs to work double time to grab the reader’s attention. 

Make sure your ad copy and your headline are similar – this enables a smoother transition for your visitor, which lowers your bounce rate.

2. Speed Up Your Loading Time

Visitors who click on websites that load slowly are more likely to leave and find another website that is similar (i.e. your competitors). Having a speedy loading landing page ensures that your potential customers get to find the information or services they are looking for faster. 

3. Show Your Visitors What You Want Them to See

An effective landing page design draws the visitors eyes towards something you want them to see or do.

So if you want them to sign up to your emails, then include a colorful button that they can click on. Try using eye-catching and warm colors, such as red, green, orange, or yellow. 

Other ways you can encourage your visitors to sign up to your emails is by using an arrow, effective CTAs, or by offering them an easy to fill in form. 

4. Visual Aids

Visual aids are what your visitors want to see. They want clear and high definition images. Your visitors also want their experience to be made easier.

If you have any videos explaining what you are offering your customers make sure you add this on your landing page. Relevant videos can increase conversion rates by 86%. 

5. Consider Your Colors

To ensure you have an effective landing page design, spare a thought for your color. Color can help to drive your conversions because it can evoke emotions in your visitors. 

Color contrast is also a very important design feature to consider. You want to have content that people can easily read. Which means you can’t have a dark blue background and black writing. Instead, you could have white writing, which will make it stand out more. 

Learn more about how BlackLight Media can help your business improve its digital marketing. 

Landing Pages That Convert

Finding the right tricks that work for your business and customers is all about experimenting, so try out some of the above landing page ideas and see what works for you.

Do you want to get more positive reviews about your business? Contact us for more info about setting up your reputation management service and getting more customers.

The post Landing Luck: 5 Impressive Landing Page Ideas for the Best Local SEO appeared first on ReputationResults.

People rely on the internet now more than ever, especially when it comes to making consumer decisions. If your company doesn’t have a strong web presence, you are missing out on a ton of potential customers and clients.

But simply having a business website isn’t enough. With so much competition out there, your business needs to stand out from the rest. That’s where strategic design comes in.

Are you wondering how to make your website work its best? We’re here to help! Continue reading for some important tips on how to successfully design your website.

Determine Your Brand/Image

Before creating your website, you need to make sure you have a clear brand or image. Otherwise, people won’t remember your company.

When you think of the biggest companies in the world, such as Google, Starbucks, or McDonald’s, you immediately see their brand colors and logo. 

Your goal should be to create an identifiable and memorable brand that people will gravitate towards. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to utilize custom web design tools to implement your brand all over your new website.

Start Creating Content

One of the major aspects of your website should be your business blog. Why do you need a blog?

Well for starters, consider this: there are over 1.8 billion websites in the world. Even if you have a very specific niche, odds are, you have thousands of other websites to compete with.

Having a quality blog can help improve your search engine optimization (SEO). The better your SEO is, the higher you’ll rank on Google, and the more visitors you’ll get. And visitors=customers.

In addition to SEO, having a blog also allows you to show off your expertise. If someone is trying to decide between your company and your competitor, having a blog full of quality content can pull them towards your business. 

Prioritize UX

There’s nothing more frustrating than visiting a website that is difficult to use or simply doesn’t work. You’re number one priority when making a new website should be to make it easy-to-use.

Have a dropdown menu with an “about us” section, your services, staff info, locations, and a contact page.

Make sure your contact page is functioning properly and include links to your social media profiles (yes, you should definitely have a Facebook page for your company).

Strategic Design Pays Off

There’s no doubt that every small business should be making a website if they don’t already have one. But don’t haphazardly create a website that doesn’t benefit your business.

By using a strategic design plan, you can make your website work for you and pull in an entirely new customer base. 

Now that you’re on your way to making a new website, you may be wondering if your business should have its own app. Luckily for you, we’re here to help answer that question! Check out our blog today for more info.

The post What Is Strategic Web Design? Your Step-By-Step Guide to Designing a Website for Success appeared first on ReputationResults.

Over a third of the top 1000 sites use WordPress to power their websites, and WordPress 5.0 brought about many big changes to the CMS at the end of 2018.

It’s almost like adapting to an entirely new content management system (CMS). There’s a lot to learn and unpack in WordPress 5.0. Want to find out what the changes are and how they impact your WordPress site?

Let’s get started!

What’s the Big Deal About WordPress 5.0?

Why did half the internet have a collective heart attack at the end of November 2018? That’s when WordPress rolled out the 5.0 update to the CMS.

If you’re familiar with WordPress, you may have come across the Gutenberg plugin before the rollout. That plugin served as a preview for what was to come in the latest version of WordPress.

What exactly is the big deal? Blocks.

Really, blocks.

OK, it’s much more than that, but block are at the heart of WordPress 5.0.

In all previous versions of WordPress, the CMS functioned as a text editor, not too far from working in a Word document. If you wanted to add something special to your page like an image or a quote, you’d have to add shortcode or HTML.

That’s not a bad way to create a website, and it’s a heck of a lot easier than coding an entire site manually.

What WordPress 5.0 did was completely change the CMS, so instead of the standard text editor, you have content blocks.

Gutenberg is named after the inventor of the printing press, as it’s designed to make it much easier to publish content. It’s not too different from what the printing press did for publishers. If you want to find out what Gutenberg means for your business website, find more info here.

Using Block Editing

Some themes have already incorporated block editing. Themes from Elegant Themes, for example, have long incorporated block editing.

Block editing takes a bit of getting used to, but after a while, you’ll find that it’s much easier to use than the text editor.

Basically, you have blocks that perform certain functions – text, images, quotes headings, and more. 

If you decide you want to move an image from the right side of a text block to the left, it’s easy to do. Just grab the block and drag it to where you want it.

WordPress Twenty Nineteen Theme

Every year, WordPress releases a standard theme with its CMS. In 2019, we get the Twenty Nineteen theme, which is built with block editing in mind.

The biggest surprise in the Twenty Nineteen theme is simplicity. There’s not much to it, just a page with “Hello World!” That’s because this theme is meant to be customized.

In the past few years, standard WordPress themes could be used “out-of-the-box.” They had images, and you just needed to switch them out.

With this theme, you’re supposed to use the blocks to do the heavy lifting for you.

Do These Things Before You Install the WordPress Latest Version

If you’re ready to install WordPress on your site, there are a few precautions you should take. As with any brand new software, there could be conflicts with your theme or plugins. You want to make sure you don’t lose your site if the new installation causes something to break.

The first thing to do is to make a complete backup of your site. You can do that through a plugin such as UpdateDraft Plus or make a backup through your host’s CPanel account.

WordPress will notify you if you need to upgrade to the new version when you log in to the CMS. You’ll just hit update WordPress and that’s it.

Do You Have to Use Gutenberg?

What if you install WordPress 5.0 and you find that you absolutely hate Gutenberg? Again, it does take a while to get used to, so you want to give it a chance.

If you find that you absolutely hate it, or you’d rather use another block editor, you can disable Gutenberg.

You can install the Classic Editor plugin, which will revert your CMS back to the standard text editor that you’re used to. The developer community does work quickly, and you’ll be able to find other plugins that allow you to disable Gutenberg for certain post types and users.

The most drastic response would be to leave the WordPress community altogether and switch to another CMS.

What’s Next For Gutenberg?

Gutenberg is being rolled out slowly by WordPress. Now that it’s rolled out to users, the focus is now on customizing themes and plugins.

The next phase will be to include a collaborative environment into the CMS, followed by support for multilanguage sites.

Will Gutenberg Impact Your Site’s Reputation?

One of the most common questions is whether or not Gutenberg will impact things like your online reputation, reviews, and SEO.

Gutenberg is just a content management system, that’s it. It runs on the back end of your website, so the impacts to your site’s hard-earned reputation and search rankings are minimal.

There are things that you want to check when you install WordPress 5.0, just to be sure that it’s functioning properly.

Many e-commerce sites and food blogs rely on onsite reviews to drive sales and help with SEO. You want to check immediately that your site’s reviews are intact. It’s a small chance that there’s an issue, but you want to be sure that there’s not a conflict between your e-commerce plugin or recipe plugin.

WordPress 5.0 Is Here to Stay

The one thing that web developers, business owners, and bloggers love about WordPress is its ease of use. There’s also a fantastic developer community supporting the CMS.

Those things aren’t going to change. What will change is how WordPress continues to evolve to provide an incredible experience for both creators and end users.

Once you have your new, shiny WordPress latest version installed, you’re going to want to protect it. Check out these tips to make sure your website is secure from hackers.

The post WP 5.0: What’s New in the Latest Version of WordPress? appeared first on ReputationResults.