What questions should businesses ask before introducing SEO to their site

What questions should a business ask before introducing SEO to their site?

10 questions every business should ask before kicking off an SEO project.

People always come to me asking, what I should ask my agency before I get them on my site SEO? Being an important question as is, I always mention that it really depends on the offer itself.

Yet there is some basic Q & As that should be considered by all business before any online engagement of that type.

Before we start with the list, it’s important to know that getting someone to do your SEO is like giving them the keys to your backdoor. It is important that you trust that person, or that company is of high authority in the market.

One of things that frightens me, is when I do SEO for a client and I discover that the person who did their SEO prior left some back links of the other clients he was servicing. Not only this is illegal, it will also negatively impact your site authority and cause lose of SEO juice.

That being said it is important for you to know that you are dealing with the right person.

Let’s start with the main question you should ask your SEO agency:

  1. What is the most recent Google algorithm update and what should I be considering when it comes to my site?
  2. What is the process that you will follow when it comes to optimization ?
    1. The brief answer should be as follows:
      1. Audit
      2. Meeting
      3. Recommendations
      4. Optimization
  3. Can you give me a list of the keywords that you optimized for and what did you rank for?
  4. When will I start seeing results?
    1. The best answer should be 5 to 10 months depending on the size of the site and the level of the competition in that industry.
  5. Who will be implementing the optimization?
    1. It is preferable that you do your own implementation if it is your first interaction with this agency.
    2. Yet the option of having the agency implement these optimizations will ensure full liability on them. And it will ensure that everything is done professionally.

It is your call on this one.

  1. Make sure that they integrate the SEO strategy with content strategy at hand.
  2. Make sure that they integrate the SEO strategy with the social strategy at hand.
  3. Make sure they address both off-page and on-page optimization.
  4. How often will the agency be following up and updating you, is really important.
  5. Who will be responsible for reporting?
SEO agencies tool box

SEO tool box

Even if this is brief it will already show the agency that you know what you are doing.

Finally and most importantly, make sure that you have a proper scope of work and a quote that matches it.

 

Source/Reference: 

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/20-questions-to-ask-before-you-hire-an-seo-agency-in-post-pandapenguin-era/62504/

 

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Tips on Conducting a Site Migration Without Losing Rankings, Traffic and SEO Strength

SEO friendly site migration tips and avdvice

Site migration is the process where you move a site to a new domain or directory.

Migrating happens to almost every company out there,and more often than we tend to realize.

All Marketers and Digital Specialists aspire and aim for a site migration that does not create any loss in traffic, revenue, SERP rank, or SEO strength.

What I hear most often is that it is as simple as redirecting the old domain to the new domain with a simple 301 redirect – SEO friendly redirect. This is a good start and better than nothing. But it is important to follow a more detailed procedure that will allow you to make this transition without losing value, while getting rid of any mistakes on the current site.

So How to conduct a smooth SEO Friendly site migration while maintaining good rankings on Google, Bing or any other Search engine ?

1. First step is understanding the objective behind an SEO friendly migration.

The main Goals you should keep in mind are the following:

  1. Maintain Traffic
  2. Maintain Rankings
  3. Seamless User Experience and Transition

2. Second step is to know what to pay attention to.

Understand that there is no magic Bullet. we need to do the best we can to ensure that we maintain the highest ranking possible.
And here are Main Factors to pay extra attention to as an SEO Specialist:
1. URL structure
2. Duplicate content
3. Canonicalization
4. Indexed pages

3. Understand the process

Here are the 3 different phases that make an SEO friendly site migration:
  1. Premigration
  2. Migration
  3. Post-migration

 

Phase 1: Pre-Migration Phase

Here is what to account for and work on:
• Know what you have on your current site/platform
For an ideal SEO friendly site migration; the best place to start is with an SEO audit of the site on hand. It is important not to bring the current site’s mistakes with you to the new one.
• Understand and map current site architecture
Download your current sitemaps, and export the list of indexed pages from the Google Search Console.
This will allow you to know the pages that should be redirected to the new site.

• Understand and map new site architecture
This will allow you to understand what URLs you will be matching from the old site to the new site.
• Account for technical limitations
In some situations while moving domains, directories, or hosting, it is important to understand if the new site can support all the changes being made.
• Create a URL redirect map
Map out all the old URLs to the new URLs on the new site.

Additional Things to Account For:

• URL structure
Ensure the new site is well structured and categorized, so that there is a consistency across all the pages, posts and properties.
• Content – avoid duplication
Ensure you are using the right tags on the new site to avoid any duplicate content.
• Messaging/New design/Site
As there is a new design and there is a new domain, we tend to get too familiar with it that we forget to notify our visitors about the changes made.
It is important that you have a notification mentioning the changes, and if it is going to affect your visitors in any way.
Smart marketers turn new designs into marketing advantages, by creating a buildup, a release date and a feedback request.

Phase 2: Migration Process

• Keep the old site (in parallel while using the right redirects and SEO tags)
The most common mistakes I see in this market is when an old site is put down by the time it is redirected.
The ideal approach is to keep the old site and the new site running in parallel after performing the redirect.
• Tag the new site page properly to avoid penalization
It is important to have all the pages canonicalized to the new site before your redirect, to avoid any duplicate content.

Phase 3: Post-Migration

• Perform an audit for the new site (Fix any broken links, loop, or missing URL)
Check your Google Search Console and Bing Web Master tools.
This will allow you to discover: crawl errors, mobile usability, pages indexed, top keywords driving traffic, organic search traffic.
• New sitemap, new robots, and submit new site for indexing
Submit the new site map and robots.txt file to search engines, and keep an eye for any errors, broken links, and redirects.
• Check redirects
As a final check on the new site, check redirects to ensure there are no redirect loops or inconsistencies.
Also, ensure that all the redirects are 301 redirects. The 301 status code means that a page has permanently moved to a new location.

Site migration might be a bit of a tedious process, but it is crucial that is done correctly.
As it is done once every couple of years, it is best to pay extreme attention to details through out this process. If one is not vigilant in the process, they can suffer a loss in visitors, or SEO strength that might take a much longer time to bring back.

 

Sources:

 

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The Integrated Approach of Content Marketing & Search Engine Marketing

Are SEO and Content Marketing supposed to be separate?

Should we be treating our Search Engine Marketing and content marketing projects with different strategies?

I get a lot of client calls asking the same question, which is normal. And more specifically, where do we draw the line between content and SEO.

Well, the problem is this:

Most of the clients, currently and historically, seem to hire 2 different agencies, 1 for SEO, and 1 for Content marketing. In a situation like this, the creative agency will be the one with less technical skills, and with a lot of content writing experience; while the SEO will be optimized by a more technically oriented agency.

Solution:

Clients and agencies should work together to integrate your SEO and content marketing efforts. The benefits of marrying search engine tags with content will yield a bigger reward and a higher ROI to clients.

SEO - Search Engine Marketing using content

An Integrated Strategy

3 important quotes on this matter:

Successful SEO, is the one that is done with Content and the Client in mind.

Successful SEO is the one that is created with real human readers as an audience, and not Bots.

Successful content marketing is the one the embraces SEO completely.

What should you know as a marketer of a business owner?

Content marketing is a great way to establish trust, authority and build a strong relationship with your clients and partners, it will help position you as an expert in the subject matter, a reference.

Most of the people will come across your brand, with a question, and looking for an answer. Make sure that you are there for them with the right information, listed and categorized.

How will they find you?

  1. Through search engines
  2. Social Searches/Social timelines

How will you rank?

  1. By using good content
  2. Using the right content in the right spots
  3. Tagging the right content with the right tags
  4. Getting the right (high search volume) keywords to best describe your content

How to stay ranking?

  1. Use engaging content, Content that will keep people on your pages for more than just 10 seconds.
  2. Use visuals, infographics, graphs, pics, etc.
  3. Use videos
  4. Use strong references

So where do content marketing and SEO actually converge?

How to use content marketing and SEO

Content Marketing and SEO Working Together

 

What can Content and SEO build together?

Transforming how your marketing works, into a more successful mix.

Integrated Content Digital Marketing

Transforming from Traditional Digital Marketing to Advanced Integrated Digital Marketing

Conclusion:

It is important for all of us to start looking at SEO and Content as Allies, and not rivals.

These 2 should work together, and there is no point in the future that one will replace the other.

Yet content will continue to drift more to become more technical, and SEO will continue to drift to become more resourceful and creative.

 

 

Resources/Sources

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/seo-is-content-marketing/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/combine-seo-content-marketing-explosive-results/97157/

http://searchengineland.com/content-marketing-seo-bigger-picture-219796

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/combine-seo-content-marketing-explosive-results/97157/

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What Every Business Should Know Regarding PPC and SEM

What should managers know about SEM/PPC before launching a campaign?

What should a client or a brand manager be aware off when it comes to an Ad Words campaign?

Let us start by explaining what is PPC advertisement; PPC stands for Pay per Click, the most popular method of PPC is on search engines, on platforms such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc…

The most popular tools used to manage the PPC on these search engines are

  • Google AdWords
  • Bing Ads (manages both Bing and Yahoo ads)

What do you do on these platforms?

  • Buy listing
  • And these listings will appear as sponsored/paid results

How do you buy listings and ads?

  • Ads are bought using an auction
  • The higher you bid, the more you increase your chances to rank. This is not the only determining factor, there is also a quality score
Adwords and Bing ads all you need to know as a client

Pay Per Click – SEM

What is quality score?

Quality score is a variable used by Yahoo, Bing and Google that can influence your ad rankings; it accounts for the quality of your landing pages, ads and keywords. Most importantly, it accounts to how relevant your keyword is to your ad, and how relevant the content in the ad is to the landing page.

What makes a successful PPC account?

  1. Proper Geo targeting, whether local, international or national
  2. Proper Demo-graphical targeting
  3. Clarity
  4. Backing your ads with something to offer – ensuring that whoever is looking for you, will find value
  5. Using the right keywords
    1. The most successful keywords are the ones that have a high search volume and low competition.
    2. As a marketer, you are required to utilize all the tools that you have at hand to ensure that you are providing the most relevant keywords, with the right amount of completion based on the client’s budget.
  6. Have clear KPIs and proper conversion tracking
    1. PPC is not only about getting traffic, it is about getting the searcher to click, stay and buy.
    2. It is important that you integrate all the tools that you have at hand, such as google analytics and google tag manager with your AdWords campaign, to ensure that you are optimizing not only based on your visits, but on your conversions.
  7. Creating ads with proper calls to actions – CTAs
  8. Use the right time frame
  9. Bid properly
    1. Base your bidding on the right time, area, CTA, ad, keyword, landing page.
    2. Make sure that all your bidding whether automatic or manual yields the best results for the clients.
Increasing Businesses ROI with SEM

Creating opportunities and ROI for Businesses and Clients

As a business owner, or a brand manager, you need to know some basic terms.

  1. Campaigns
  2. Ad groups
  3. Campaign types
  4. Keywords
  5. Impressions
  6. Ad rank
  7. Mobile ads
  8. Ad extensions
  9. CTA
  10. CTR
  11. Optimization
  12. Landing pages
  13. Bid strategy
  14. Daily budget
  15. CPC
  16. CPM
  17. Headline
  18. Display URL
  19. Destination URL
  20. Side ad and Top ad

All of which are provided explained in this great article by wishpond.com : http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77287406414/google-adwords-25-glossary-terms-you-need-to-know

 

Sources/References:

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77287406414/google-adwords-25-glossary-terms-you-need-to-know

http://www.portent.com/services/ppc/pay-per-click-explained

 

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What Can Marketers Learn From the Movie Industry?

The movie industry is one of the most competitive and engaging industries when it comes to marketing.

This industry requires quick adaption, seasonality, buildup, a lot of preparation and planning, which makes it a learning ground for marketers who want to get better and want more challenge.

Here are 12 things marketers can learn from this industry:

1. Do something that is worth talking about

Creating quality content, visuals and videos. Most of us tend to create OK content, and then pay for ads that will send people to this channel and wind up. While the right way to do marketing is to create amazing things and amazing content and then market that content.

2. Capitalizing on “Build-up marketing” 

Most consumers check a product or a service before it is released. Based on a Google study, most customers look for a movie a month before its release. The same thing happens for new product releases, as a marketer you should capitalize on both pre-release and post-release moments.

3. Local targeting, Geo-targeting and I-beacons.

Most promotions associated with movies are mainly done using geo-tools, this helps marketers reach certain areas with higher theatre density and denser population with more ads.

As for I-beacons, marketers are now creating location-based games and mobile apps, associated with movies themselves, that viewers can play while in the theatre, making the promotion more native and in-place.

4. Language tailored creatives and promotions:

Due to the fact most movies contain different languages and subtitles. Marketers make sure that the right creatives reach the right group, in the right area, with the right creatives.

5. Creating engaging and compelling landing pages

We are more willing to stay on a page if we connect with something familiar. Marketers need to capitalize on this, emphasizing logos and brands.

6. Creating interactive social campaigns

Smart marketers create campaigns that rotate around the audience and concentrate on their involvement while using all social channels with the same theme.

They also ensure the story rotates around the viewer by capitalizing on social competitions and quizzes.

7. Using interesting partnerships aligned with their brand

8. Utilizing paid media across search and social channels

It is important to use the search and social channels in an integrated manner, ensuring that all creatives and promotions are aligned perfectly.

9. Capitalizing on YouTube :

4 out of 5 movie lovers go to YouTube (source: thinkwithgoogle)

10. Looking at the big picture, and understanding their viewers:

Knowing and using the interests of their viewers, and targeting them accordingly

11. Using online and offline marketing in a parallel and integrated strategy

12. Using exclusivity in state of the art email campaigns:

this helps in maintaining brand advocacy and loyalty

Conclusion, there is always something that marketers can learn from other industries, especially the ones that are more seasonal and versatile. As a marketer, keep an eye out, dare your industry guidelines in the name of innovation.

Sources:

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The Un-obsolete SEO Guide for Entrepreneurs and Businesses [Infographic]

How often do we hear that SEO is dead, obsolete, or not as important as it was a few years ago?

It is true that the Search Engine Marketing industry is in a constant change. There are continuous updates and algorithm changes across all the search engines every couple of months. That makes it seem like more of a challenge to keep up, and small business owners and entrepreneurs can easily get overwhelmed.

But the challenge does not make the practice obsolete. The use of search engines to find products and services has certainly not decreased. As long as people continue to use search engines, optimizing to rank well will continue to be a solid and smart investment.

Over the past 7 years, I have worked in SEO for agencies, Fortune 500s and small businesses. In that time, I’ve learned that there are some SEO factors that never change.

If you are hesitant about ‘keeping up’ with the latest in SEO, at the very least ensure you are capitalizing on these 6 constants.

6 Un-obsolete SEO Tips for Entrepreneurs

1. Optimizing for humans, not search engines

Although “SEO” stands for Search Engine Optimization, the optimization you do truly is more for humans than search engines. After all, the people are your customers. Not the engines

To rank well, think about the human experience rather than the search engines. Focus on human engagement, relevancy to searchers, what will be most attractive to the people, rather than stuffing in keywords just to appeal to search engines.

2. Focusing on what makes you different

What makes you different from anyone else selling a product or service? Be clear on what makes you different. Ensure you have content on your website and in your SEO strategy that highlights it. Your differentiator is what will stand out and attract attention when someone is doing a search.

I always tell my clients that SEO is more about you than it is about technical optimization and upgrades. It is about showing your business, service, product, values and unique selling point with the right content while tapping into the searcher’s intent. To do that, ask yourself, “What is my target persona thinking when they are searching for my specific product or service?” Your answer will often tell you what to highlight.

3. User experience

Always look at your own site from a visitor’s perspective.

People spend more time on sites that are easy to navigate, drive value and educate them. More time on site increases the chances of conversions (i.e. more clients/customers).

As long as there are users, the user experience will never go out of style. Make sure your site is responsive and fast to load, creating a seamless user experience.

4. Clean site structure

Clean and organized goes a long way, especially in search engines. You can know a lot about a site just by looking at the URL. Any unconventional characters, a mix of upper and lower case characters, parameters, and excessive categories and sub-directories all make for a messy site structure.

Have a structured site and clean URLs. This makes it easier for search engines to navigate your site and index your pages.

5. Abiding by the rules

Search engines are smarter than we think they are. Whatever trick you are thinking of pulling on Google… trust me, Google has seen it before.

Avoid playing tricks, or any black hat SEO. More often than not, it’ll end up getting your site penalized by search engines. And that is hard to recover from.

Creating value and driving traffic through hard work is rewarding and effective.

Don’t put yourself or your client in a bad situation or at risk of getting penalized for petty rankings.

6. Creating great content and driving value

“Content is king!” Ten years ago, marketers and SEO specialists lived by this mantra. And it is still true today. Great content is simply great SEO.

Content is not only text. Content is video, images, slides, white papers, pdf, etc.

When you have a valuable piece of content that will educate your client, share it and tag it properly.

Take Away

When it comes to investing in SEO, don’t hesitate to invest out of a mistaken belief that SEO has little impact, or that what you do today will be obsolete tomorrow. SEO is an integral part of digital marketing. The six factors above don’t get a lot of airplay these days, only because they aren’t shiny and new. They are tried and true tactics for ranking well. Use this article as a guide for your SEO efforts and the investment into your website will pay for itself many times over.

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The Easy SEO Guide: How to do a DIY basic site audit without using fancy tools

,

The Easy Audit: A guide to auditing your site SEO without tools or magic

Nobody likes an audit. Any kind of audit! And when it comes to an SEO audit, digital marketing specialists have a tendency to overcomplicate things.

The truth is, most of the big-ticket items impacting your SEO are things you can easily look into on your own to see where you stand and what you need to do to bring your site up to par. You do need to know your metadata from your messaging, but you don’t need to be a digital ninja/guru/magician.

Digital SEO Audit for my business site

Here are the 6 most important factors to look at in your basic SEO audit.

1. Page Titles, Descriptions, & URLs

I said it would be easy. I didn’t say it wouldn’t be a bit tedious! Yes, you need to look at these things for every page you are intending to audit.

The page titles, descriptions and URLs are what appear in Google, Bing or other search engine results pages.

Title

  1. Is it between 40 to 70 characters?
  2. Is it informative (Does it adequately describe what the business does or the content of that page)?
  3. Does it include the keywords you want to rank for?

Description  

  1. Is it between 120-155 characters?
  2. Is it informative?
  3. Does it include the keywords you want to rank for?
  4. Does it intrigue the searcher to click on your search result?  

URL

  1. Is it HTTPs? HTTPs is preferred over HTTP across the whole site.
  2. Is it informative?
  3. Are all characters lowercase?
  4. Are you using hyphens instead of underscores? Hyphens are preferable.  
  5. Is it free of any unconventional characters?
  6. Are all URLs across the site free of inconsistent parameters?

2. Content Quality

Keywords are a start. But there’s more to quality SEO content than hitting the right keywords. Relevancy, consistency and value to the reader are all critical elements of good SEO content as well. When auditing your content, look for the following quality factors:

  1. Is there a consistent use of keywords across the site and in tags?
  2. Is there a good keyword density?
  3. Is there both dynamic and static content?
  4. Is the content relevant to the industry/product/service?
  5. Is the content share-worthy?
  6. Does the content drive value to the reader?
  7. Are you targeting a select number of keywords vs. keyword stuffing?

3. Content Quantity & Diversity

The amount of unique content on your site is also a factor.

  1. Is there a good amount of text on each page?
  2. Is there a good text to code ratio?
  3. Is there a diversity in which content is shown?
  4. Are you capitalizing on text, PDF, video, images, slides, etc?

4. Site Structure and Index-ability

We’re moving into a more technical territory, but everything here is fairly simple to look into without any fancy tools.

  1. Are the pages, posts, and properties mapped properly?
  2. Is there a clean and up-to-date sitemap?
  3. It there a proper interlinking approach implemented on site? (i.e. linking to other pages, and posts within your site.)
  4. Are you using your robots.txt file properly? The best way to check is to type www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt into your address bar. This file will show you if you are accidentally de-indexing your site.
  5. Is the site free of broken links? Broken links are a sign that your site may need technical optimization.

5. Page Speed and Functionality

  1. Does each page load quickly? To see if something is slowing down your site, try the Google Page Insight test.
  2. Is the site free of broken links?
  3. Is everything on the site loading properly? (images, videos, forms, menus, etc.)
  4. Is the site mobile friendly? To check, try Google’s Mobile Friendly test here: https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

6. User Experience

Last, but not least, ensure your site is easy to use.

  1. Is the site easy to navigate?
  2. Is there proper internal linking?
  3. Is there a call to action and/or a clear message on the site?
  4. Can visitors easily and quickly understand what your business is about?
  5. Do you have the most important elements on your site above the fold?

 

Takeaway:

You don’t necessarily need a specialist or a set of pro-tools to audit your site. All you need is some attention to detail, a little time and to know where to look. The time you invest in your audit and any optimizations based on your findings will pay off, big time. If you are intending to take things to the next level, then consider hiring an SEO expert.

If you are looking for more advice on how to audit your site feel free to reach out :)

Email: t@rimanagency.com

Twitter: @tarekriman

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How Do You Explain Digital Marketing to a 92 Year Old?

I was recently invited by a networking group to give a presentation on how digital marketing is impacting the way we market and do business.

As I began the presentation, I introduced myself and what I do, then moved into an explanation of search engine optimization, search engine marketing and the ins and outs of this constantly changing market.

About 25 minutes into the presentation, as I immersed the crowds in details of digital marketing and how I use it to make brands and businesses grow and increase their online presence, I saw a shaky hand emerge from the audience.

I assumed the hand indicated a question about my current slide. I welcomed the question.

The gentleman attached to the hand took his time standing up. He looked at me with a blank face, seeming hesitant to ask his question.

He then uttered these 4 words: “What is digital marketing?”

You had to be there to see the surprise on my face. I wasn’t expecting this question at all, especially not so far into the presentation. And not because the question was wrong to ask. In fact, this 92-year-old gentleman was brave to ask it.

I was surprised because, while I have answered this question many times, for many different people (even an 8-year-old!), I was not prepared to answer it for a 92-year-old.

There I was, onstage, trying to put myself into a 92-year-old mind. What kind of marketing has he been exposed to in his lifetime? What kind of marketing would he be seeing today? Where would he go when looking for a product or a service?

With more than a 60 year age gap between myself and this gentleman, it was a challenge.

I decided to start answering what I knew – comparing traditional marketing to digital marketing and explaining the difference.

“As marketing throughout the 60s,70s, 80s and 90s was mainly through TV, radio and newspapers, that is considered ‘traditional marketing’. Digital marketing is done through more recent technologies such as mobile phones, computers and tablets, while utilizing different channels such as search engines and social media.”

The blank stare persisted. Except now, it looked even blanker.

I was trying to find something in my mind that this fine gentleman could relate to.

Suddenly, I had an epiphany.

I remembered helping a friend’s parents move. I clearly remembered seeing stacks of Yellow Pages as we moved boxes of books and magazines from their basement. I asked why they kept them, to which they replied that they wanted to ensure they had the numbers and contacts of everyone from year to year, as advertisers tended to vary annually. To them, it was a coveted database of contacts.

Back in my onstage moment, I took a deep breath, smiled and said to the gentleman,“Remember in the old days when you wanted to find something or someone, your first instinct was to look for them in the Yellow Pages book? Nowadays, all you have to do is search them up on search engines such as Google.”

As soon as I said this, he smiled. His whole face lit up.

To him, digital means that the coveted Yellow Pages book and its wealth of information are now online. Advertisers that once used the Yellow Pages as a channel to increase their presence now use search engines and social media to do the same.

You see, the game hasn’t changed. Only the field. Marketing has always been about getting your message where people will look for it, find it, see it, consume it.

So the next time you are sitting down with Grandma and Grandpa and, out of nowhere, they throw you an unexpected question on any digital-related matter, you will know exactly how to answer them. Start with the playing field they know.

Follow Tarek Riman on Twitter @tarekriman

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How to Use Google Analytics to Create Better Content

How to use analytics to create good content.

Are You Missing the Boat on Data-Driven Content Marketing?

Do you want high performing content? Don’t we all!

In working with a variety of companies, from small startups to Fortune 500s, I’ve learned that analytics is a tool not capitalized on enough, especially when it comes to content marketing. Even big companies, with huge marketing budgets, are missing the boat.

Interestingly, analytics (whether Google Analytics or another tool) tends to be looked at only after a paid campaign, end of the season, or before the end of the year. Sadly, most companies don’t even consider looking at data pre-campaign, which is a huge missed opportunity.

The more I work with analytics, the more I realize this powerful data should be considered in all phases of a campaign, especially when it comes to content marketing.

Why? Because analytics doesn’t just tell you what worked, it can also help you predict what will work in the future and what to use to make it work… if you look in the right place!

That’s why, when the time comes to create relevant, engaging content, I look to 5 main Google Analytics metrics.

Here are 5 ways to use Google Analytics in your content marketing strategy:

1. Site Content

In Google Analytics, just under Site Content, you can see the pages on your site that get the most visits. This gives you insight into your most popular topics or content types, allowing you to predict the topics and formats that are most engaging and appealing to your visitors.

Look at your bounce rates, exits, and avg time on page as well.

With this data, you will be able to plan future content either by using similar content structure, similar topics, or even a similar general approach.

Site Content Report from Google Analytics

2. Site Search

If you have site search capabilities built in, Site Search metrics is the best way to see what people look for once they arrive on your site.

Are people searching for something you don’t have a lot of content on? Or maybe you do, but they’re using different terms and not finding what you have?

Knowing what people are looking for is like having a crystal ball, telling you what content to create or enhance.

This can tell you how to cater to new visitors, align your content strategy with current customer needs, and know what content to use in ads and promotions.

Site Search Report

3. Audience Details

What type of people are visiting your site? This can help you determine the type of content to deliver. For example, you may discover you have a large millennial or baby boomer audience you can tailor content to. Perhaps you have high traffic from a particular country and you can adjust some existing content to have a more local flair.

When it comes to audience details, there can be many factors to consider.

To make better sense of the numbers, I usually look at at least 3 months of data to get more content-worthy metrics, and look at these key metrics:

  1.       Demographics (age and gender).
  2.       Interests (affinity categories and in-market segments), which help me understand the general and related interests that my visitors have, allowing me to create better content and target them in my social or search campaigns.
  3.       Geo (language and location). Pay close attention to language. Over time, you may notice a growing traffic segment associated with another language, or that there is potential for expanding your market.

Knowing these metrics will help you create the right content, for the right age group, at the right place, at the right time.

Demographics (age and gender)

 

4. Channels

‘Acquisition’ is the way in which you acquired visitors. It is where you will find the top sources of traffic to your site. For example, you can acquire visitors from Google, referrals from other sites, article mentions, newsletters and more.

Knowing how you got your current visitors will help you understand how your content is being shared, searched and viewed, and which content is best at drawing people in.

Knowing this empowers you to create content catered to the different visitors in your different channels, and create even more of the type of content that is best at bringing new visitors to your site.

 

 

5. Search Console

Under ‘Acquisition’ in Google Analytics, there is an important section called ‘Search Console’. This section is functional when you link your Google Analytics with Google Search Console.

Search Console reflects traffic from organic search, meaning you can see which keywords or queries in Google are leading people to your site. You will also see how well you rank for these keywords, and the number of impressions you get for them.

This data will allow you to assess what is working as far as search goes, help you further capitalize on these topics, and empower you to work on better and more relevant content for your site.

Google Search Console Tools Report on GA

Takeaway

Analytics can be a big part of creating great content. Taking advantage of analytics BEFORE creating or modifying content makes it part of a truly powerful cycle of creating content, seeing how it works on your web properties and sites, realigning your content strategy in accordance with the data gathered, and back to creating content. The big difference being, your content gets better, more relevant and more engaging each time.

If you use analytics (and you should), make sure you are using it to its fullest potential and your fullest advantage. Always check your data and analytics. Listen to what they are telling you. Make them an essential part of your overall marketing strategy and you will begin to see your content performing better than ever before.

 

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5 Lessons on Local Business Listings

5 Local Business Listings Best Practices.

8 years into my journey as a digital marketer, I have developed a habit of assessing the local listings of any place I show up to.

Every time I go to a restaurant, coffee shop or retail store in a rural area, I do an assessment of the business’s local listings. I make it my mission to help out, as my drive to be a supportive digital marketer kick in.

What has become apparent in recent years is that, no matter how small the community, online local listings and local business strength are increasingly important. Even your neighbour is pulling up listings on their smartphone and that is impacting their purchasing decisions. Yes, even if your business is right next door.

In going from place to place, assessing listings as I go, I have noticed several trends in how businesses handle (or don’t handle) their local listings.

Here are 5 of my top observations, and what you can do about them:

1. Google is not everything

As important as your Google listing is, you will still have considerable traffic coming from other listings and search engines.

Here are the top traffic drivers that you should be aware of:

  • Google My Business – https://www.google.com/business/
  • Bing Places – https://www.bingplaces.com
  • Yelp – https://biz.yelp.com
  • Yellow Pages – http://m1.adsolutions.yp.com/free-listing-basic-benefits
  • FourSquare – http://business.foursquare.com
  • Whitepages – https://www.whitepages.com

These services are all free and can potentially drive significant traffic. If you have not properly set up your listings on these services, it would be in your best interests to do so or find someone (like a digital marketer) who can do it for you.

2.Make sure your listings are complete

What constitutes a complete listing is different from one platform to another. Yet, there are some basic elements that should be included in each and every listing, across all platforms:

  • Name
  • Tagline
  • Description
  • Address
  • Phone
  • Site URL
  • Hours of operation
  • Categories
  • Photos and videos

Then there are a few “nice to have” elements:

  • Alternate phone numbers
  • Social channels
  • Payment methods accepted

Make sure all your listings are as complete as possible.

3. Make sure your listings are consistent (down to the letter!)

The key to successful local SEO (search engine optimization) is consistency. Accurate and consistent information across all your listings will improve your SEO reputation, which is an important factor in how well you rank in search results.

For example, Google has a measurement index called “listing accuracy”. This index relies on the consistency of your information across these listings.

Do an audit of your online listings, including everywhere in your own website and/or blog that lists such information. Ensure all information is consistent, down to the letter, with your current business status.

4. Avoid duplicate listings

Having more than one listing with different information is a red flag to Google and other search engines that your data is not accurate.

Also, since search engines pull information from many different sources, duplicate listings will dilute your ranking position (i.e. you may rank lower in search results pages).

Did you or someone in your business accidentally submit two listings to Yellow Pages, for example? Make sure there is only one and that it has accurate and consistent information.  

5. Search Console

There is nothing more discrediting than seeing a local listing with 10 reviews, all of them 5/5 and all of them left by people with the same family name. It’s nice to have a supportive family, but it’s important to get impartial, authentic reviews as well.

When in the pursuit of reviews, make sure that you are inviting your actual clients to leave reviews and not just family members. This authenticity really does matter to potential clients or customers.

Also, make sure that you are UpToDate! If you change your business hours, your location, storefront, phone number or any other essential details, make sure to update your listings as well.

Takeaway

Local listings are used to ensure that your visitors find your business. View this as a positive thing and use it to your advantage.

Drive value in the best possible ways by providing relevant, up to date and consistent information about your business.

For local businesses to thrive, online marketing is a must. Searching online is now the number one way people find the products, services and businesses they’re looking for. You need to make sure they’re finding you and getting the most relevant information when they do.

Read more on Local SEO here.

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