Category Archives: SEO

Apr '20

6 Unconventional SEO Tips for 2021 (Boost Rankings + Traffic)

SEO can be helpful to businesses throughout the United States. However, it is also one of the least trustworthy businesses out there. Why? Because an SEO is a person who guesses for a living. While those guesses may be educated and based on real-time data, there are times when they are manipulative and selfish.

Another problem with “SEO” as an industry is that it is vulnerable to groupthink, rumor, and innuendo. Since nothing is empirically provable in this industry, and because Google is always tweaking their precise ranking factors, theories and rumors get perpetuated for years, when the tactic may not even work anymore.

That’s why unconventional SEO tips can be exciting and a berth of fresh air. Check out Nolen Walker’s unconventional SEO tactics:

1) Focus More on Brand than Content

While content is certainly important to the SEO game, an unconventional approach is to value brand above content. Why would you do this when content is one of the most important aspects of a sound SEO strategy.

Brand is one of the most valuable marketing tools there is. It can be seen in the biggest companies out there. When thinking of computers, Microsoft and Apple are the names that come to mind. For fast food, it’s McDonald’s.

But a brand is so much more than just a logo and a tagline. Building a brand takes consistency, subtlety, and a distinct message that you want to convey. Most importantly, it means sticking to your color scheme and using secondary marketing to promote your message across your website, business cards, print marketing, etc.

There are far too many companies out there that have no synergy between their logo and the rest of their website. The colors should be complementary and should be present throughout. Secondary marketing is taking aspects of your logo and implementing it throughout the rest of your website.

Establishing your brand is getting your audience to recognize your brand even when they can’t particularly pinpoint why they do. It is with that secondary marketing – that consistency in color, image implementation, and overall delivery of your message and brand – that the most successful brands thrive.

Develop your brand and make it your main focus and it will go from an unconventional SEO tip to a major anchor for your business.

2) Let Quality Services Drive Reviews

Reviews are definitely not an unconventional SEO method. As a matter of fact, having a successful SEO strategy means that you have a litany of positive reviews across several review sites. You can post them on your own site, but being able to refer to them on those review sites is what really makes your website stand out.

More importantly, reviews building brand trust with your target audience. And that level of trust is one of the most valuable things that a brand can have with its consumer base. But like garnering quality reviews, it takes time and quality services.

The single best way to get positive reviews is to deliver positive work each and every time. Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews if you feel you have provided exemplary service because your customers will be more than willing to leave a positive review if you’ve done a good job.

Building up those positive reviews will be one of the pillars of a quality SEO strategy. It may be “unconventional SEO” but really it is just about developing consistency in the quality that your company provides.

Feature those positive reviews proudly, let visiting users see them so that they can be aware of the quality of work that your business delivers. There is no taking shortcuts in the business world and there truly is no shortcut when it comes to getting positive reviews for quality work.

3) Ignore the SEO “Experts”

There are a ton of so-called SEO “experts” out there proclaiming that they have what it takes to put a business at the top of its class for the keywords that it is targeting. But the fact of the matter is that there is only so much real estate online and everyone and their mother is likely practicing the same methods.

Sure, there are definitely tried and true methods for raising your overall search engine ranking, but those same methods being implemented by everyone will level out your results. This means taking a unique approach and trying some unconventional SEO methods.

That isn’t to say that you should ignore everything that has proven to be successful when it comes to SEO. But throwing in some unconventional SEO methods into the mix can give you a unique SEO perspective.

Having that unique approach – so long as it is effective and done consistently – can give you an edge on some competition for some keywords that you are targeting. Any kind of leg up on the competition gives you an edge, an advantage.

While there are a few true professionals out there that can definitely deliver results each and every time, taking a unique and personal approach to your own SEO strategy can help your company stand out not only from an SEO standpoint, but as a business in general.

4) Start a Podcast

While it certainly seems like everyone and their mother has a podcast (spoiler alert: they do), podcasting is proving to be an effective marketing tool and an unconventional SEO method. The thing about it is that SEO does not have the kind of impact that traditional SEO does.

Still, there are more than a few ways that podcasting can help with your SEO strategy. The most direct impact that you can see is if you place a player on your website. Those listening to the podcast on your webpage will stay around longer, helping your bounce rate.

If your podcast has well-written show notes that accompany your episodes, the text side of it can have some impact through traditional SEO. Keep in mind that any SEO benefits felt here are not directly from the podcast but from related content.

Another thing that can help is if you have an easy to remember name for your podcast on iTunes and other podcast directories. When your podcast is easily searchable, it gets your target audience searching for both your podcast and website.

Not only that, podcasting makes for an excellent possible marketing opportunity. The fact is that the podcast advertising market still has not been saturated like other forms of marketing. There is room to target the 18-49 demographic that is so coveted in the marketing world.

When you combine all of these things together, podcasting can be an extremely effective if unconventional SEO method. In any event, it will have very real benefits for your website (and the podcast will benefit from it all, too).

5) Comment on Other People’s YouTube Videos

This unconventional SEO method is not quite as effective as some others, but there are definitely benefits to be had if it is implemented properly.

The strategy works as such: open up YouTube videos for relevant keywords. Commenting on these videos with links to your page, website, or video can help to create unique, organic traffic if done properly.

One thing to keep in mind is that you want to be careful and not overdo it. Should you overdo it on the commenting, it will come across as spam and that will lose credibility in the eyes of not only the creator of the video but other users commenting as well.

Use this practice sparsely and you can get unique, organic additional traffic. This is more of a method for smaller online ventures that need all the exposure that they can get. Don’t put all of your eggs in this basket as it is not meant to have major results.

When implementing with discretion and an eye to avoid being labeled as “spam”, this is just another unconventional SEO method that can add some organic traffic to your numbers and potentially develop some backlinks that could prove valuable to your SEO strategy down the line.

These are all strategies that offer their own unique benefits to your overall search engine rankings and can help make your business and website as unique as possible in a crowded marketplace.

6) Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

Ultimately, the only thing that matters is how SEO applies to your business. Something that works for many other people, may not work for you. In an industry like SEO, you cannot fear experimentation. If you find that a particular tactic works for you (like not blogging at all) then you shouldn’t start blogging because someone told you to.

The success of your campaign should be measured in dollars. If you are generating quality leads online, continue to do it “your” way as long as it works. The upsells in the SEO industry are ridiculous as companies will try to make you pay for stuff that you don’t actually need.

As a business owner, you may not have the knowledge to begin an SEO experiment, and that’s ok. The key is investing in an SEO company that you actually trust to put you first. They might experiment with certain tactics that have worked for other clients, even if some guy on Twitter thinks it doesn’t work.

Apr '20

Which Industries Need SEO The Most in 2021

If you have a website and an online business, there is little to no doubt that you have heard all about SEO at some point. It is preached that SEO is an essential part of any business online and that’s because it is the truth.

SEO is there to help give smaller businesses a fair shot at generating consistent organic traffic through related keywords. Being able to capitalize on a strong SEO game means keeping your business competitive even with the smallest of budgets.

Still, there are companies out there that do not need SEO as much. For these businesses, digital marketing channels like Facebook ads, PPC ads, or organic social media followings can generate more clicks and revenue than even the strongest SEO game.

The thing is that there are definitely some industries that rely more heavily on SEO than others. Understanding which industries need SEO can provide you with the information necessary to ensure that your business, should it fall into that category, meet proper SEO standards.

It is all about return on investment (ROI) for your business. Getting the greatest bang for your buck means finding methods of reaching your target audience without having to break the bank to do so. This is why determining which industries need SEO is so important.

Which Industries Need SEO?

As it stands, there are so many marketing channels available to businesses, both on and offline. This can range from television ads and billboards to more modern methods like interactive video or PPC ads. The point is that there are a ton of different ways out there to spread the word about your business to garner new customers.

But it is important to keep in mind that different industries will get different results from different types of advertising media. Knowing which industries need SEO means determining what kind of product or service that you are offering, where your target audience is spending their time, and a whole other list of factors.

There are industries, however, that are so highly regulated that their methods of advertising are severely limited. Knowning which industries need SEO is so important: it helps to mitigate the limitations put forward on those regulated industries.

Home Services

Home services like plumbing, roofing, and HVAC all need SEO to survive. They generate many of their leads through Google’s Local Map Pack and would be unlikely to survive in today’s climate without some sort of optimized online presence. Other examples of home services include water restoration, construction, garage door repair, lawn care, tree trimming, etc.

Lawyers

Law firms need SEO in a highly-competitive field. The reality is that lawyers can be ruthless and that includes their SEO campaigns. As is the case with home service businesses, lawyers will show up on the Local 3-Pack for relevant search queries. The difference in review generation, listing optimization, and website optimization can determine which lawyer generates the most local leads.

Dentists

Like law firms, dental practices tend to go after SEO pretty intently. SEO for dentists is a growing business and many practices have found measured success that would have not been otherwise possible. Building a dental website for SEO is fairly straightforward if you know the basics. With that said, local optimization will be just as important, as it is with home services and local law firms.

Other SEO Industry Options

Low-Competition Industries

If there isn’t a ton of pre-existing competition, the search engine results pages can be ripe for the taking. When it is easy to rank for low-competition keywords that also reflect the intent of what your audience is planning to buy, investing in SEO is definitely something to do.

Understanding which industries need SEO comes down to a variety of factors, but access to keywords is one of the biggest. If you’re in a hyper-local market, you can achieve better rankings through a local SEO effort instead of striving for those national rankings that can be difficult to obtain.

But if you are in a low-competition industry, implanting a strong SEO strategy is an excellent decision to make. It keeps your business at the forefront of those localized searches and makes your business the one that comes up for those relevant Google searches.

Brick and Mortar Businesses

Local SEO is a great way for those geographically restricted businesses to better reach their target audience. Instead of competing for national rankings, sometimes with heavyweights within a given industry, targeting that local audience can be highly beneficial.

Determining which industries need SEO might be a bit of a broad stroke. Think of it like this instead: local businesses definitely need SEO. After all, it is the quickest way into the minds of your target audience as that target audience is localized.

SEO can be a great source for brand new, localized customers and can be beneficial for businesses of all kinds across all industries. If your business is brick and mortar, you don’t need to know which industries need SEO; you definitely will need to.

There are a ton of examples of why local SEO is so essential for those brick and mortars. Maybe you’re a local service company. When toilets overflow and pipes break, people will get onto Google and find the nearest repair service.

Using SEO, your business can be on the first page for those local searches in your given area. That is a major asset because more and more people are performing Google searches for needs like these and choosing from options on the first page of results.

This applies across a number of industries as well. Again, people are getting onto Google to either find a business for a service they haven’t needed before or looking to find more information about a business that they have considered using.

With SEO, you can get into the consciousness of those users as they Google for relevant results. This is a great way of bringing in new, organic traffic to continue building your customer list.

Niche Online Retailers

Of course, determining which industries need SEO can also cover niche online retailers. E-commerce is extremely popular for small businesses and since there is no physical storefront, using digital marketing and SEO can be the driving force when it comes to getting new customers to visit your shop.

Using SEO can be a huge part of that. And since most online stores aren’t these massive entities like Amazon or eBay – where something for everyone is offered – using SEO to attract that niche audience is a must.

Because there is no brick and mortar involved, it becomes less about local SEO and more about finding factors like shareable long-form content that is meant to funnel into purchases. This is what has the biggest impact on the bottom line of these e-commerce shops.

Ultimately, determining which industries need SEO is a good place to start to know if your business needs to be implementing SEO strategies. In any event, it can’t hurt to do so but it can be much more beneficial in some industries as opposed to others.

Those strong SEO strategies can make all the difference for small businesses from those specific industries.

Mar '20

Does Google Still Use PageRank in 2020?

It is not out of the norm for Google to make substantial changes in the way that their search engine rankings, as well as other aspects of their search algorithms, operate.

And in the 1990s, there was a tool that they had implemented known as Google PageRank. There have been rumors that Google PageRank has died off, no longer implemented by the search giant in any way, shape, or form.

The short answer, according to Google itself, is that Google PageRank is still used internally. We will get more into what Google PageRank is, its importance, and any other pertinent issues surrounding its existence.

Source: Twitter

What is Google PageRank?

Putting it simply Google PageRank is a mathematical formula that is used to judge the value of a page by looking at the quality and quantity of other pages that link up to it. This method is meant to determine the relative importance of a given page in a network like the World Wide Web.

Google PageRank was created in 1997 in a research project at Stanford University and was created to improve the quality of web search engines. And that is because search engines back then were nowhere near as efficient as what Google is today.

The aim of Google PageRank was to solve the problem of indexing and washing out “junk” results that didn’t have anything to do with what the user was looking for. It attempted to do this by making use of the “citation (link) graph of the web”.

The inspiration for Google PageRank was derived by the way that scientists gauge the importance of a scientific paper or the number of other papers that referenced them. This ideal became

How Does Google PageRank Work?

We won’t give you the formula and explanation provided in the original paper from back in 1997, instead offering a little bit simpler of an explanation. Essentially, Google takes three factors into account when calculating the PageRank for a web page.

Those three factors are the quality and quantity of inbound linking pages, the PageRank of each linking page, and the number of outbound links on each of the linking pages.

Google PageRank also has what is known as a “damping factor” that is meant to simulate the probability of a random user continuing to click on those links as they browse. The perception here is that it will decrease with each link that is clicked.

Put it another way: Google PageRank thinks of links as votes and a page linking to another page is essentially like casting a vote. This makes linking to relevant content important and the pages with more links tend to be a lot better resources than those pages that nobody links to.

Google PageRank also looks at the importance of the page that contains said links. Pages that have higher a higher Google PageRank will carry a heavier weight in their “voting” than pages that rank lower. But don’t think that more links means a better rank. Pages with fewer links actually have a higher weight than those with a ton of links to them.

How is it Important?

Here’s the thing: Google PageRank is just one of many factors out there that will determine where your page appears when it comes to search results ranking. If all things were considered to be equal, PageRank actually could have a pretty significant impact on all of your rankings.

That being said, there are certainly flaws within Google PageRank. Whenever there are implementations in the ranking system, people will inevitably exploit the data involved. You may have heard of Google Bombs; this is a form of Google PageRank manipulation and Google acts to take precautionary measures to change their ranking formula.

There is also the method of “link farming” in order to manipulate the Google PageRank listings. This is the practice of linking without considering the relevance of the pages being linked. Not only that, link farming is generally automated as well.

You may have run into a webpage in your time on the web that seemed like a random collection of links to other websites; this is exactly what a link farm looks like.

Seeing and Increasing Your PageRank

Everything in Google PageRank is measured on a 1-10 scale. Not only that, it is assigned to individual pages instead of whole websites. It is a rarity to find a page that has a Google PageRank of 10, especially when you consider the ever-increasing number of pages on the internet.

In order to increase your ranking on Google PageRank, you need to have relevant backlinks from other relevant websites around the web. The best way to achieve this is to have quality content that others around the net want to click on. This is often not something that can be achieved overnight and takes consistency to pull off.

Google has admitted that they do not use PageRank as they originally did back in the 1990s. They use it more for internal measures, though just how much it is used is still a bit unclear. Google’s John Mueller has said that they use Google PageRank more as an internal signal than anything else and that they use it in accompaniment with other aspects.

While there are certainly a wide array of measures that determine the overall Google ranking, it appears as though Google PageRank has maintained a level of importance, though it appears to be dwindling with time.

The general principles are still important – creating backlinks from other relevant websites around the net, a practice that can’t be manipulated quite like it could back in the early days. Still, it isn’t a perfect system and it is just one factor in a plethora of factors that determine where a webpage and website rank in Google’s search rankings.

Adhering to the principles set forth by Google PageRank is a great idea for web pages as a general practice to ensure that the right practices are being implemented to allow for the best possible page rankings.

Feb '20

14 Tips to Improve Bounce Rate in 2021

Wondering how to improve bounce rate in 2021? You aren’t alone.

When it comes to operating and maintaining your business website, there are so many factors to take into account. Especially when it comes to the arena of SEO, there are items that can make or break your website, driving away traffic or driving it in.

One of those things is bounce rate. For those who don’t know, bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking action. This means they don’t fill out a form, click on a link, or make a purchase. This is important for a few reasons and improving bounce rate is essential.

If someone bounces from your site, it means they didn’t enter the sales funnel, let alone complete it
Bounce rate Google ranking factor, and it can potentially impact your rankings

Here are a few helpful tips for how to cut down on that bounce rate and turn more clicks into more conversions for your business.

1) Showcase Credibility

One of the most important things visitors look for in a website is how trustworthy it seems. When they land on your website, they are looking through the content to see how reliable and trustworthy your website seems.

Being able to build credibility and increase trust with your visitors is imperative to improve bounce rate. Include things like positive reviews for your products or services and showcase any special deals that you may have going on. This makes your site more trustworthy in the eyes of the consumer, decreasing the likelihood of them bouncing away from your website.

2) Blog Frequently

Content is hugely important in the world of SEO these days and if you can speak intelligently and authoritatively on a certain topic, it can help you to retain those visitors who come to your website.

Creating fresh content can keep users coming back again and again, even if they don’t plan on using your service or product. This can help to generate organic traffic to your website and keep those visitors from bouncing away after a moment, introducing them to other areas of your website and keeping them from leaving in short order.

3) Optimize Your 404 Page

There are few things quite as annoying as visiting a webpage only to be met with a “404 page not found” message. That doesn’t really give you any insight and leaves you feeling frustrated more than anything else.

You should be able to provide your users with a helpful 404 page, one that offers alternatives for the user to navigate to. This way, when they see the 404, they don’t simply vacate the page and move on to another one. 404 pages can have a huge impact on the bounce rate of a website and should be addressed accordingly.

4) Make Links Open in a New Tab

When you are creating a sound internal linking strategy and have links to other pages within your own site, you need to make certain that those links open into a new tab. This helps to potentially increase the time that a user spends on your site given that they will have multiple pages open at once if they click on a link.

This is a bit of a trick when it comes to improving bounce rate, but it can be effective at keeping users on your site for longer than if you had links that stayed within the same tab in your browser.

5) Focus on Internal Linking

One of the biggest factors in SEO today (and for a long time) is internal linking. You need to focus on keeping the user on your website and having links to other pages on your site is a hugely important key to this.

It ties into the last tip, too: being able to open new tabs in their browser means that they stay on your site longer. This will help reduce your bounce rate and improve your overall rank in the category.

6) Identify and Correct Broken Links

User experience is more valuable than ever and there are few things that will aggravate a user more than things like broken links. Not only will it chase off users, increasing your bounce rate, but it will create a sense of dissatisfaction in users that will likely keep them away from your site for good.

There are tools online that can help you locate broken links on your site and keep them to a minimum. That will help to improve the overall user experience, keeping them around on your website for far longer and limiting your bounce rate.

7) Emphasize a Call-to-Action

Having effective call-to-action is one of the most essential aspects of a website. After all, you want that user to do something when they visit, likely purchase a service or product. This is where the call-to-action comes into play.

Not only that, the user should be able to find the CTA within seconds of landing on a page, any page. The CTA should be compelling but not pushy giving the user an enticing reason to click on it. Using different colors, fonts, changing up the verbiage, etc. can have a huge impact on how that CTA is received and the effect that it has on traffic.

8) Avoid Intrusive Popups

If there is one kind of ad out there that is universally hated, it is the popup ad. It is safe to say that, generally speaking, users do not enjoy invasive popups. They usually lead to even more popups, which creates a frustrating experience on the whole for users.

They are highly irritating and frustrating and can create a disrupting experience for users. If popups occur, a user is highly unlikely to ever go back to that website again and that defeats the purpose of your bounce rate.

9) Limit Distracting Ads

This is kind of in the same wheelhouse as popups. The more distracting ads, the more irritating they become to the user. When this happens, the user is highly unlikely to come back to your website ever again and that defeats the purpose.

Having ads is fine; websites need to make money somehow. But Keep them to the side of the page so that the user’s attention isn’t being pulled in several directions. This just increases the likelihood that they won’t focus where you want them to focus and that they will ultimately leave.

10) Target a Relevant Audience

Sure, it would be great to appeal to everyone but that just isn’t feasible. The best way to reduce bounce rates is to focus on your target audience. These are the people that are most likely to use your website and not just leave in a matter of seconds.

Identify your core audience and the keywords that related to them. Try variations but don’t get too broad; keep your focus on the specific group of users that will make up your target audience. This will help keep users on the page for longer.

11) Diversify Your Content Topics

One of the best things that improves the bounce rate for a website is to keep readability. This means implementing various forms of content, not just text. Users may be dissuaded if they feel like there is too much text, leading to higher bounce rates.

Use video content and high-quality images to help keep those users around for longer. Imagery can be attention-grabbing and engaging, making it a highly valuable tool for your website and keeping those valuable users around for longer.

Always make certain that these mediums are implemented in high quality; low quality will cause just as many bounces.

12) Keep Paragraphs Short

Another way to improve readability is to keep your paragraphs and content length short. If there are big walls of text, users won’t have the patience to read through them; they will simply skip to a different page or another website entirely.

Keep your paragraphs short and digestible and make certain to break them up with headings and images to keep the user engaged. This will keep them around for longer, too, meaning that your bounce rates will become significantly better thanks to the highly digestible content.

13) Ensure a Mobile-Friendly Website

More and more searches and online experiences are beginning on the mobile platform. This makes it essential for your website to be compatible with mobile users. If you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, users will likely not even bother with you.

Not being mobile-friendly means leaving a lot of potential users on the table. If you want your website to grow and reduce those bounce rates, being mobile-friendly is a great way to do that.

14) Create a Catchy Design

One of the main aspects for any user that is browsing a website is a catchy design. Sure, they may not have that as a reason in the forefront of their mind, but a catchy, intuitive, beautiful design will keep users around simply to look at the appealing aesthetics.

If your website is bland or difficult to navigate, users will click away very quickly. The design is just as much a part of the user experience as anything else and can be hugely valuable for drawing in those users who may be uncertain about your service or product.

Bonus Tip: Incentivize Users With Value Propositions

Users spend time on your website at the expense of other tasks and activities. Because of this, you must give the user a reason to stick around and make their time spent exploring your business, a worthwhile one. For this reason, immediate displays of value are critical to making a user feel like they are in the right place.

We talked about some ways you can showcase value, whether it is an urgent Call to Action or a showcase of your business credibility. Other avenues through which to create value propositions include, video content, downloadable coupons, live social media feeds, and original and unique photos of your employees at work.

Jan '20

SEO for Churches

Many pastors, priests, ministers, and general clergy members fail to realize just how vital SEO for churches is. If you already have a website up for your church, then that’s a great start; but it’s not enough.

People now find churches in different ways. If you want a thriving congregation, you will also need to change the way you reach out to the local community and beyond. SEO for churches is even more critical as we are now starting to recover from COVID and people feel more comfortable filling the pews.

In the following post, we will be highlighting some essential tips on how churches can utilize SEO to reach more people. If you would like to start optimizing your church’s website as soon as possible, get in touch with us here at Nolen Walker.

1) Be Active on Local Listings

As a church, you may be listed on local business or community directories. If you’re not, that’s something you will want to do as soon as possible. If you are, though, it’s imperative to keep up with it. There are a couple of reasons for that:

It is an excellent way to keep an eye on your NAP
It is a perfect way to keep an eye on reviews.

Allow us to explain. NAP stands for Name Address Phone number. Incorrect NAP listings can adversely affect your church’s local search rankings. Search engines don’t like inconsistent information and will rank your church’s website if they find conflicting information on it in various corners of the web.

Examples of conflicting information include inconsistent church name, physical address, or phone number listings. So go through any site where your church is listed in an online directory and make sure that all the information provided is accurate.

Some local directories allow people to leave reviews. The second reason it’s essential to be active on local listings is so that you can reply to these reviews and manage them. The fact is that people will perceive your church with a higher degree of trust if you respond to their reviews, whether they be good or bad. So be sure that you are checking in on your local directory listings often and replying to reviews in a warm, kind, and inviting manner.

2) Let the Locals Find you

Local SEO for churches is crucial. After all, the people who fill your pews aren’t likely to be from two counties over. They are likely to be from the neighborhood. So you need to make sure that people in your area can find your church.

One of the most effective ways to do this is to register your church on Google My Business. Millions of people use Google My Business every day to find local businesses, but they also use it to find local businesses and institutions. That includes churches.

Google My Business is also an excellent way for people to find perhaps the essential information when researching churches: service times. Be sure to fill out your church’s GMB profile as completely as possible, including service times, contact info, and high-quality pictures.

3) Be Specific

What do people search for when they are looking for a new church? They will be looking for a specific denomination, a specific geographical region, and they will probably include the word “Church” in their search.

If you want more people to find your website and learn about your church, you will have to be specific with the content. It’s easy to assume that people know what denomination your church is. After all, it’s on your signage, and everyone in your congregation knows.

This assumption can cost you, however. If you aren’t specific about what denomination your church is and where it is, you could be decreasing your online visibility. So, where do you include this information?

For written content on your website, start with your home and about pages. Clearly state that you are so-and-so denomination and where you are located (street address, city, and even state). Then try to include it naturally in other pages on your church’s website and even in the page titles themselves.

4) Start a Blog

A blog is a great way to increase your church’s visibility online. It provides content for people to draw value from and allows you to use strategic church keywords that will help you rank higher on searches.

Think of your blog as a mini-sermon that you can offer in digital format. It’s not only important to start a blog; it’s essential to post regularly. Search engines love fresh content, and they will prioritize it. Try to publish a new blog post on your website 1-3 times a week.

5) Be Mobile-Friendly

Did you know that almost 60% of online searches are conducted on a mobile device? It’s true, but the important thing is to ask yourself this question: is your church’s website mobile-friendly? We end our list regarding SEO for churches with perhaps the most important tip: optimize your church’s website for mobile.

This means keeping image files as low as possible, compressing them, downsizing actionable buttons, keeping your most important content on the top of each page, and much more. A mobile-friendly website design is hugely important in 2021 – especially if you want to reach the youth.

Mobile website design may not be your forte, though. Still, there’s no need to worry or miss out on mobile users. That’s because here at Nolan Walker, we provide complete SEO services, including mobile website design for churches. We can make sure your church’s website is fast, responsive, and has everything that mobile users need to know about your church.

That’s only the beginning. We offer a full array of digital marketing services, including SEO for churches specifically. Grow your congregation by reaching out to us.

Jan '20

Marina Marketing: 8 Tips To Generate More Yacht Service Leads

What is Marina Marketing?

Marina marketing is the process of promoting a marina or yacht service to generate more leads. It can include online and traditional advertising and modern digital marketing techniques such as SEO, content marketing, social media promotion, and local directory submissions.

Why Marketing Matters for Yacht Services

Businesses that find themselves in a niche have distinct advantages and disadvantages when attracting customers. The advantage is that it can be easier to corner that market when people are looking for your services.

The downside is that getting people to look for your niche service can be difficult. If your product or service is centered around something that people aren’t looking to use regularly, finding new and unique ways to reach out to that audience is a must.

That is why marketing is so important for small, niche businesses. Most people aren’t even aware of that niche, let alone the business filling that niche. So, what online marketing services can be undertaken for yacht services to capture some of that audience?

How To Generate More Leads for Your Marina in 2023

The whole purpose of marina marketing is to generate more leads. If your marketing fails to produce a return on investment (ROI), it is not serving its intended purpose. Below, Nolen Walker shares lead generation tips for marinas.

1) Build a Lead Generation Website

There is still a portion of business owners that believe that you don’t need a website. And sure, if you have an outstanding relationship with a small, localized community, maybe you can carve yourself out a nice little piece of real estate.

But without a website, there is a pretty good chance that you will be fighting to simply stay alive in the face of competition. This is because just about every business has a website. And why wouldn’t they? Just about everyone will visit a website before they actually visit that business.

The thing is that your website should be the place where you direct your potential customers. It gives the first impression of your business, and any valuable information potential customers may need to make an informed decision about it.

Most of all, you should have a website as an easy, hassle-free means for customers to book services. Making things as easy as possible for the customer is the key to making a sale that may not have been there previously.

2) Get Social With Social Media

Much like the crowd that doesn’t think websites are necessary, that same group also thinks that social media is unnecessary. But the fact of the matter is that social media has become an integral marketing tool for businesses of any size.

Look at Facebook. With a Facebook business page, you can display all of your pertinent information and photos of tours where customers are having fun to show those potential customers what they are missing.

Twitter and Instagram allow you to reach users directly by posting any updates to the site, deals that are going on, or responding to any problems that customers are experiencing. That direct customer interaction can be huge; when customers see that you are available and attentive, it leaves a positive mark.

Social media has graduated from a potential marketing tool to an absolute must. There are about a million other reasons that it is a great marketing tool, but the two reasons listed above should make it a clear case.

Get your yacht business on social media to begin tapping into the audience that you hope to reach.

3) Research Keywords The Modern Way

One of the most important aspects of digital marketing is a focus on search engine optimization (SEO). This is essentially the list of best practices that Google uses to rank websites for relevant keywords.

Those keywords are essentially how search engines separate sites into relevant results. If Google wasn’t doing its job on that front, searches would be useless because they would not generate results. The focus on those keywords is what will make your website appear when a user types in that relevant keyword.

Using those keywords smartly throughout page content is how you can best use them. Simply spamming them on your website no longer works; Google will filter it out or ban you if they think it’s worth a ban.

Utilizing these keywords can make your business one of the featured results for your geographic area. But you have to focus your SEO campaign on those keywords properly.

4) Distinguish Yourself From Competitors

While digital marketing is something that every business, big or small, needs to focus on, one thing needs to be considered: being unique. The simple fact of the matter is that the competition is stiff in any given industry.

This is because just about everyone is offering similar services. So, to stand out among those competitors, you need to make your business unique. Set yourself apart from the competition. What makes you a better choice than the competition? Figure that out, and you will have a leg up on the competition.

This can be achieved by looking at your business model and focusing on your strengths. While you should always work to improve weaknesses, building on your strengths is what can make your business stand out.

Besides, focusing on those strengths means understanding what your audience appreciates and making it more readily available to them. Customers definitely appreciate that.

5) Focus on Creating Quality Content

It might seem like there are topics that have a finite amount of information or content that can be written about them. But the fact of the matter is that content is one of the biggest factors in Google’s SEO rankings.

Google emphasizes content because they want to display the most informative, authoritative results for users every time. This is why your website needs to exist and have informative content that users crave.

Making your site an authority within the industry means giving that audience a reason to visit your website. This can be achieved through blog posts where you offer relevant DIY tips, share videos, and other such things.

You don’t have to have daily posts to achieve this, but regular content will help keep you near the top of the search rankings for your keywords.

6) Use Engaging Visuals to Highlight Content

One of the most underutilized assets that any website has is its imagery. This entails both pictures and videos. The former is imperative because 63% of social media comprises visual content. This means that it shares pictures and videos more than anything else and is a part of the online culture.

Additionally, there have been studies that have shown that our brains process images faster than words. This makes images a far more effective and efficient way of communicating with an audience. Having a catchy image that draws your audience’s attention can mean the difference between a lead and another passerby.

And perhaps the biggest reason to implement images into your digital marketing campaign is this: using images on social media increases the likelihood of your content being viewed by a whopping 94%. This, of course, is under the assumption that your pictures are clear and of the highest quality.

Not only that, videos have become the newly chosen avenue for sharing content. Writing can get you so far, but a section of the audience just doesn’t want to do it. That is where having interesting, informative videos can take you a long way.

Best of all, creating videos is far cheaper and more easily done. You can shoot videos on your smartphone and post them to your website easier than ever before. This is a must-have aspect of marina marketing online.

7) Open The Lines of Communication

One thing that some marina or yacht services struggle with in terms of their online marketing is inconsistent messaging or communication. Mixed or inconsistent messages can confuse or dissuade your audience, making them move on to another website or service.

When your messages are consistent, it reinforces that message across all platforms. That sense of authority and consistency is not lost on your audience; it will reach them subliminally and draw their focus to your business whether they realize it or not.

This can be achieved by ensuring that your staff is on the same page regarding a message. This way, no one gets confused or loses the message, and you can keep that consistency that is so valuable.

8) Reviews Are Everything

Perhaps the most important aspect of Google’s SEO ranking is the importance of reviews. Simply put, quality reviews and many of them can boost your SEO ranking substantially. But reviews can do so much more than that.

Reviews boost the level of trust that the audience has in you. With plenty of positive reviews, people can feel like they know your business. Most of all, they feel as though they can trust your business. That is a huge battle that all businesses wage, and most don’t win.

The key here is not to hide or ignore negative reviews. If anything, an amicable response can help improve your authority in the eyes of your audience. When a customer sees that you handled a negative response with professionalism and courtesy, they won’t be so quick to dismiss your business because of that negative response.

If you use website software to manage your reviews, you will have a leg up on the competition and also encourage more feedback from previous customers who may not have the patience to go through the review process on Google or Facebook. The software will streamline that process with minimal effort on their part.

Marina Marketing From Nolen Walker

If you operate a marina and want to market your services online, consider consulting with Nolen Walker in 2023. As an experienced SEO professional, Nolen can help your yacht service rank higher. So contact us today to rank on Google search and bring in new customers consistently in 2023.

Dec '19

6 Great Veterinary SEO Tips To Grab New Customers in 2022

Let’s talk about veterinary SEO. It can be a challenge for vets to establish an online presence if they don’t have the tools or resources at their disposal.

What is Veterinary SEO?

SEO for veterinarians is the process of refining digital web content to increase your clinic’s position on search engines. When your website and other digital entities rank higher on search results, more people engage with your business and become qualified leads, as a result.

What Veterinarians Should Know About SEO

Animal owners will need the help of a veterinarian at some point in time. This can be routine care like a shot all the way up to emergency services in a time of need. No matter what, veterinary care is routine when it comes to having a pet.

Clients often stick with the vet that they have seen for years. But it is that competition for those loyal clients that is so tough for local vets. This is especially true in the digital age, where digital marketing is now integral to making your business visible.

One of the best ways for veterinary offices to bring in new animal owners is by making their service easier to find online. This requires a process that is known as search engine optimization or SEO.

SEO has been a staple in search engine rankings for years, and Google keeps refining it with time. Knowing the best ways to optimize your website so that it shows up in Google’s local search rankings can mean the key to growth for a business in 2022.

Having said that, there are a few things that veterinary offices can do to grow their SEO game. Follow these six tips, and you could see more clients than ever before.

6 Veterinary SEO Tips to Grab New Customers

1) Link Building for Vets

One key to building your website’s SEO is making your site more authoritative. This is determined by how many credible sites link back to yours. Your ranking only improves when you can get plenty of credible websites to link to you.

Search engines will know that your veterinary website is not only trustworthy but one that other reputable blogs, sites, and publications will link to. This will get your website ranked far higher and make it generate more traffic to your website.

However, building links is one of the most challenging aspects of site building. It takes more than just changing the headings and titles on some of your pages. Reaching out to other site owners and explaining why your website is worth linking to is just part of the process.

Once you get those important linkbacks, you should see a marked improvement in your overall SEO analytics. Again, this is just part of the process of building your overall SEO for vets ranking.

2) Keyword Research for Veterinarians

For the longest time, keyword research has been one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Before fully optimizing your website for those search engines, you must determine which phrases and words pet owners use when searching for the kinds of veterinary services you offer.

You don’t want to waste your time optimizing your pages for terms that none of your audience is actively looking for. Thankfully, you can do keyword research to find the most relevant keywords for your specific website.

You can implement several tools to help identify how people search for those specific veterinary services and how difficult it is to rank for a given keyword.

Another thing to focus on is long-tail keywords. These are longer and more specific keywords that are a bit easier to rank for. These long-tail keywords might not get as many searches as a standard keyword, but they will ultimately bring in more potential clients and qualified traffic to your website.

Because of the amount of competition regarding keywords, it is unlikely that your website will rank just on keywords alone. There are a few other aspects you need to consider for your website to rank properly.

3) On-Page Optimization for Vets

When you have successfully determined the keywords you want to target, the next step is incorporating them into different elements throughout your website. It is important to note that Google will now punish you for spamming those keywords, so don’t try doing that.

A good rule of thumb is to target one keyword per page; you can include that keyword in that page’s headers, title, meta description, and even the body copy. This will help the search engines better understand what the page is about and will show in the search results.

The key here is to only use that keyword where it fits naturally. Search engines might rank your pages, but the human readers are the ones that want that information. If your keywords don’t make sense or feel unnatural, it won’t make sense to the human readers who are the ones looking for your content.

Don’t stuff your copy full of keywords that don’t make any sense. Not only will your readers think that it feels forced, but it will also ultimately hurt your search engine rankings. This will make all that you have done to optimize your website worth little to nothing. Be smart about your keywords and how often you use them.

4) Content Creation for Veterinarians

Over time, Google’s algorithms have evolved to the point where content is king. One of the ways to make your website authority within the industry is to ensure that you have informative and original content. This will draw visitors to your website, making it appointment surfing.

When people have questions about their pet care, you, as a veterinary expert, are uniquely qualified to answer those questions. One of the easiest ways to answer those questions and create unique content is to create a blog.

Creating posts based on common questions your audience asks is the key to that unique, attention-drawing content that will often bring visitors to your website. Answer common questions like “should I brush my dog’s teeth?” or “what kind of food should I feed a puppy?”

Then, you can optimize these pages for those specific keywords you targeted so that when users search for those keywords, they will find that information on your website. Again, content is king.

This works in several ways. The first and most obvious is that it attracts traffic to your website. In the end, that is the point of your website: to bring in traffic that will see your products or services and eventually spend their money on those products and services.

That traffic also generates potential leads. Those leads are users who are considering using your services but have not made that jump for whatever reason. These leads are imperative to any business as they can become your business’s dollars.

Perhaps most importantly, that information helps to build your website into a trustworthy source. Even if their question isn’t one that will warrant an immediate visit to the vet, they will certainly remember your clinic when it comes time to make an appointment.

Building trust is one of the most important aspects of any business and having an informative, content-driven website is just one of a few ways that you can achieve that level of trust.

5) Meta Descriptions and Title Tags

In general, many veterinary practices and businesses don’t pay much attention to their meta descriptions and title tags. The fact of the matter is that this is a huge missed opportunity for businesses trying to optimize their websites.

These title tags and meta descriptions are a very large determining factor regarding search engine rankings. They also have a high degree of influence regarding click-through percentage. Your title tags and meta descriptions are imperative.

One goal of improving your website should be optimizing every single page on the website. Your home page is the most important, though. Your title tag should be just a few words describing who you are and what you do.

Meanwhile, the meta description should be just a sentence or two that includes a quick proposition of value, any basic services you offer, and what location(s) you serve.

6) Clean Up Veterinary Directory Listings

One of the biggest factors in your SEO rankings is backlinks. What most website owners don’t realize, however, is that many of your backlinks to your website come from online directories. A significant portion of your SEO depends on the accuracy of these online directory listings.

Check into your directory listings to see how you are doing. Some tools will generate a score to see how you are doing with your listings. If you are under 90%, you need to spend time entering the correct information into directories where you might have incomplete or inaccurate information.

It cannot be overstated how important directories are. Google uses them to determine their SEO rankings, and they help pad your overall trustworthiness. And remember that trustworthiness is one of the most important factors in SEO rankings.

Make these tweaks to your website, and you will significantly change how your site ranks locally. And then, you should see a significant effect on your business’s bottom line.

SEO Resources for Veterinary Clinics

Veterinary SEO Keywords

veterinary services
vol: 2,900

veterinary specialty services
vol: 1,000

veterinary services near me
vol: 1,000

veterinary services usda
vol: 390

veterinary services inc
vol: 260

vitality veterinary services
vol: 260

vet near me
vol: 550,000

vet near me emergency
vol: 74,000

vet clinic near me
vol: 49,500

veterinary clinic near me
vol: 22,200

(- data from ubersuggest -)

Veterinary Client Appreciation Ideas

Run social media/email marketing campaign inviting families and pets to a sporting event
Promote pet of the month on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
Give out treats to animals after visits
Do a free pet food giveaway every few months

SEO Strategies That Can Make a Positive Impact on a Veterinary Practice

Several marketing strategies can improve your vet practice. SEO is a single acronym, but it involves so many avenues to boost your online presence. Everything from on-page SEO to off-site SEO can really make an impact. Aside from veterinarian SEO services, paid advertising can also help. Running Facebook and Instagram ads for your clinic can allow you to target demographics like people with pets. Another strategy is to link your website to your Google My Business listing in the Map Pack.

Map Pack From Local SEO for Veterinarians

Map Pack For Vets in Plano, TX

Ways to Promote a Veterinary Clinic

Veterinary SEO
Facebook Advertising
YouTube Advertising
PPC Advertising (Google Ads)
Email Marketing
Google My Business Optimization (Local Map Pack)
Newsletters
Business Cards
TV / Radio Commercials

Sample Veterinary SEO Marketing Campaign

Step 1: Register a domain name for your veterinary business website

Step 2: Claim your business on Google My Business

Step 3: Create or invest in a website design

Step 4: Perform keyword research

Step 5: Publish a page for each specific service based on keyword volume

Step 6: Write original content that explains your business

Step 7: Insert original images of you and your staff

Step 8: Link your website to your GMB and social media profiles

Step 9: Ask satisfied customers to leave a review on Google My Business

Step 10: Run promotions on your social media

Dec '19

SEO for Breweries: 9 Expert Google Ranking Tips for 2022

SEO for breweries is a powerful digital marketing tactic that allows beer makers to rank on Google for craft beer keywords and other phrases that drive new business. At Nolen Walker Academy, we know something about helping business owners improve their online presence, generate brewery leads, and increase revenue in 2022.

The following post outlines nine effective brewery SEO tips to boost your online presence in 2022.

What is SEO for Breweries?

Brewery SEO is a digital marketing strategy that increases organic traffic to a business website or listing. For example, implementing an SEO strategy on your brewery website can rank your company for thousands of craft beer keywords, driving relevant traffic and ultimately increasing sales and revenue.

Do Breweries Need SEO in 2022?

Search engine optimization is a key part of any website strategy online. This is because a study has shown that a whopping 93% of online activity starts with a search engine. That means ranking well for certain words can mean the difference between a successful business and one that isn’t around much longer. This is especially true for a niche business like a brewery.

How your company ranks for certain keywords is dependent on your domain authority; this is also affected by other brewery SEO factors as well. The thing is that most search engines, like Google and Bing, are continuously making changes to their search algorithms to create a more refined search experience for each of their users.

For this reason, it is imperative that business owners use up-to-date SEO tricks and tips if they want to remain near the top of the search engine rankings. Here are a few things you can do as a business to rank near the top SEO rankings for breweries.

Brewery SEO Tips from Industry Experts

1) Speed up Your Brewery Website

One of the most overlooked SEO tricks is site speed. Google has been using website speed as one of its SEO ranking factors since way back in 2010. According to Google, users expect a website to have a load speed of 2 seconds or less, with many of them completely abandoning that site if it does not load within 3 seconds.

This is indicative that website speed is a decisive factor not only in SEO rankings but for users who might not bother coming back to your website if it takes too long to load. The thing is, there are a few different things that contribute to overall site speed.

One of the biggest impacts that site speed has is on your images. If you compress your images, you can cut the page size by a huge margin (30-40%). This results in a much faster loading time for your website visitors.

2) Secure Your Craft Beer Website With HTTPS

Making your website secure is another thing that many companies don’t even consider. If you haven’t done so already, make the switch over to HTTPS. This is because HTTPS is a more secure version of what is known as the HTTP web protocol. HTTPS works in tandem with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to communicate information much more safely.

While improving your website’s security is the obvious benefit, it also has some perks regarding your SEO. This is because Google prefers HTTPS, and, as of October 2017, Google will warn Chrome site users that visiting non-HTTPS sites is not secure.

That warning message could cause visitors to your website to turn away before they even get there. Besides that, Google has included this in its ranking factor as a part of its search engine algorithm since it wants to provide the safest experience possible.

3) Optimize for Beermaking Website for Mobile

For a long time, most brands have treated having a mobile-friendly website as something nice to have. But the truth of the matter is that Google is making it more imperative than ever for these brands to have a website that caters to those visiting on a mobile platform.

Beginning back in 2015, Google now prioritizes mobile responsive sites when it comes to its search results. This should come as little surprise, given that 57% of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices. That means you are leaving many potential visitors on the table if you don’t optimize for mobile.

The key is to remember how keywords rank for mobile versus desktop. This is why optimizing content that is friendlier for those reading it on the go versus those who are using traditional desktop screens is so important. Quick and easy-to-read is the best bet for quality mobile content.

4) Increase Engagement Metrics for Your Brewery

There has been plenty of evidence that suggests that Google will reward those websites that have strong user engagement. This is measured by the amount of time a user spends on your site; the more time they spend there, the more likely they are to have been engaged by the content they find.

Better site engagement has been shown to have a correlation with lower bounce rates as well. These factors show that users engage with specific content because they find it more valuable. And since search engines are trying to provide the best and most relevant results for their users, they will reward those sites with higher engagement.

This means engaging and relevant content that will keep users around for a longer time. When you do this, your website will be more optimized than ever.

5) Focus on User Experience for Brewery Consumers

Not only is the user experience an important part of the SEO rankings, but it is also important when it comes to lead generation and conversion efforts. Making certain that your website is easy to use means that visitors can find the information that they are looking for and move to the next step in the buying process.

There are several things that you can do to make your website a better experience for users. Try having simple menu navigation with categories that are clearly listed. Site users should be able to navigate to the pages they want without jumping through hoops.

Make your site design simpler. This also lends to helping users find what they want; clean, easy-to-read fonts and color schemes make this easier than ever. This improved experience means that users will stay on your website for longer.

Featured Snippets get you to the top page of search results.

6) Create Engaging Brewery Content

Content marketing is another huge factor in improving search engine rankings. This content allows you to target specific topics and keywords that are ideal for buyers, but it also presents an opportunity to connect with readers and to provide the kind of value that can really set you apart from your competition.

Creating valuable and engaging content is the key here. You need to find out what topics your audience cares most about and provide the quality content that can set you apart. Making yourself an authority on the matter is the key to being recognized as an authority by your audience.

Content remains king, so having original, unique, and quality content in a long format can really do wonders for your overall search rankings. You can sprinkle in relevant keywords, but the content itself is what is most valuable these days.

7) Establish a Brewery Social Media Presence

While social media seems more like a marketing device than anything else, it impacts your SEO strategy. This is because your social media profiles rank in search engines. As a matter of fact, for most companies, their social media profiles will actually appear in the top results for their search listings.

Another reason that social media is so important is that sharing your company’s content can actually help to boost your search rank. Sharing that quality content through your social media account is a huge boon for your SEO rankings and can drive traffic straight to your website.

Ensure that you put the proper amount of informative content on your social media accounts, and you will see a noticeable uptick in your search engine rankings. Not only that, you will be able to drive valuable traffic to your website.

8) Incorporate Long-Tail Craft Beer Keywords

One of the most fundamental SEO tricks is the use of long-tail keywords. These are keywords or phrases that are longer and more specific than broad, common keywords that are limited to a single word or two. This is important to use in your SEO strategy as it can help bring in more specific traffic and qualified leads.

Focusing on long-tail keywords improves the chance that your site will rank on the first page of Google’s results for relevant phrases and keywords. And landing on that first page is the key to serious traffic to your website.

9) Optimize for Craft Beer Featured Snippets

Google now has Featured Snippets which show snippets of information at the top of their search results. This allows users to get the relevant information they need without having to click through several results to find what they are looking for.

These featured snippets are a great way to show up on the first page of search results and they make it easy for Google to extract the content they need for the snippet itself. Using lists, graphs, and tables is a great way to get these snippets to appear in Google search rankings.

Any way you can improve your chances of landing on the top page of Google search results is a great way to drive valuable traffic to your website and convert those leads into actual sales dollars that will impact your bottom line.

Learn Brewery SEO at Nolen Walker Academy

Nolen Walker Academy provides a proven blueprint for brewery SEO success in 2022. Why pay an agency $2,500 per month when you can get better results yourself? At Nolen Walker Academy, we reveal an SEO blueprint used by our actual agency. We are brewery SEO experts rather than gurus, allowing us to deliver industry professional courses to all our academy students. We help business owners take control of their digital marketing and drive results through search engine optimization.

Dec '19

How To Optimize for User Intent in 2020

If you have a business or have been thinking about starting one, there is no doubt you know about how important digital marketing is. And in that same vein, you may have heard about things like conversion optimization and search engine optimization. These are imperative for growing your business and your overall online presence.

More and more, it is believed that Google and other search engines look far beyond the typical ranking factors like titles, meta tags, keywords, etc. when assessing websites. SEO is valuable, but there is one other thing that is really having an impact: user intent.

When you put together a strategy for your content marketing, it is still very much important for you to do keyword research, make proper use of long-tail keywords and links, and write the kind of content that is properly optimized for SEO rankings.

But keeping your audience in your thoughts and understanding the context of your chosen keywords is just as important. And so is understanding what users are really looking for when they enter certain keywords; this is user intent.

What is User Intent in 2020?

There are plenty of times where we as users go to search for something but don’t really know what we are looking for. For instance, let’s say that you are looking for a specific song from a specific show. You ask your Google Home to play the song from that show. Google Home finds it even if it is called something else.

This is Google looking at the search query as a whole so that it can find the best match for the user. It is trying to understand precisely what the user is looking for and ensuring that the content behind the keyword is what the user is actually looking for.

Matching user intent to these search queries is critical as people continue to switch from laptop and desktop to mobile and voice-activated devices and services. Understanding that intent can close the gap and allow users to get a better overall search experience without having to be as specific as possible.

How User Intent Impacts SEO

More likely than not, you have been relying on your SEO to keep your content ranked as highly as possible in SERPs. Then, suddenly, you see some of your most consistent performers start to slip with no explanation of why in terms of SEO.

This could be when it is time to take a look at your existing material, even as you take a look forward to new content, to ensure that you have properly captured user intent.

How Does User Intent Change Search Results?

When Google, or another search engine, assess a website for ranking it on a SERP, it will look at the relevancy of the content but it also has to take a number of other factors into consideration to determine if that content is relevant.

These factors include the linguistics behind the query, the location of the user (especially if the search is navigational), the context of the query as a whole, and whether or not the user’s search is navigational, informational, or transactional.

A transactional query is a straightforward one that signifies commercial intent like a user looking for a specific brand or company. Think about it like this: if you are looking for the Home Goods website, Google will give you the home décor company’s site first because Home Goods has domain authority and because the keyword matches.

After that, you would generally see more results that have to do with smaller local businesses that might actually have the same name. Then, you would get home décor content that has the same keyword phrase of “home goods”.

For your navigational services, if you happened to search for something like home décor stores, Google would then give you those brick-and-mortar stores that are most relevant to your area, as well as those online brands. This is because Google believes you are looking for something local, not necessarily something online.

And for informational searches, you might have a search of trendy home accents or home decorating trends, expecting to get the most relevant results in order to help you do some research. Home decorating trends is a term that is pretty straightforward.

It is trendy home accents that Google might treat a little differently. If you’re searching for this term, you are most likely looking for accent pieces in order to update your home. You would not be looking for accents in trendy homes or different languages and Google has to understand that through its algorithms.

Google also uses both bots as well as human reviewers to make sure that the content matches the keywords that come up. It will crawl your content for titles, metadata, and subheads; these are elements that will signal to it whether or not your article is actually about trendy home accents.

One big thing that human reviewers will look at your content for is called EAT: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This is because you need to show that you know what you are talking about or that the sources you have cited understand what they are talking about. This is called showing authority in that subject area and showing that you are trustworthy.

Lastly, Google will also take into consideration how well-received the content you present is received by users. Things like how long they remain on the page and how often they bounce through. If they tend to bounce quickly, it could be a sign that your content isn’t satisfying their intent when they are searching.

These can all help you better understand just what user intent is and how it can have an impact on the way that users search.

How To Merge SEO Strategy With Consumer Needs

It should go without saying that at this point, user intent and SEO go hand in hand. When marketing your content, user intent should be at the very top of your mind in determining how to best reach that target audience.

You might also be wondering if this is the end of keywords. Be assured that, no, it is not the end of keywords. They still have a place in searches and it is one method that Google and the other search engines will use to match search queries with content.

Keywords remain a way to target your audience as well as focus your content. Those primary keywords provide the structure of your strategy and the content provides the depth. You still need to have secondary keywords and terms, but that primary keyword is the foundation of your piece.

So, how can you align that user intent with your SEO to increase your overall rankings in SERPs? Start with a marketing persona. Understand what it is your audience wants and get a clear understanding of who your audience is.

In the aforementioned home décor example, you have to determine if your audience is made up primarily of women or men, baby boomers or Gen Z, rural or urban dwellers, and the litany of different possibilities that exist.

This helps to inform you not only of the keywords that you need to target and what kind of content that you need to create around those keywords that will ultimately satisfy your users’ search intent the best.

As you create the content for your site, you need to make certain that it covers a topic from every possible angle. If you can’t do this in one piece and need to create a topic cluster, that is okay so long as you provide authoritative content.

How To Modify Existing Content To Satisfy User Intent

The good thing about optimizing for intent is that you can not only do it going forward but you can actually go back through your old content to make certain that they are performing to the best of their abilities.

You can create a list of your strongest pieces, including keywords, length, topic, and any relevant analytics and pull a spreadsheet like this using your analytics tools like Google Analytics. You can then take a look at this information and perform what is known as a content gap analysis. Ask yourself what keywords and topics that you might be missing that would ultimately satisfy the intent of the audience that you are trying to serve.

You can also compare your pieces to those of your competitors. Note how they are covering the same topic or if they have missed any of the angles. There are multiple ways to do this, including by hand or using a marketing tool to analyze that content semantically.

Then, you can go through and optimize your best prior pieces so that they will perform better going forward. Your keyword and SEO research is as integral to the success of your marketing strategy as anything else. Do your homework, look for trends, and keep your content relevant.

These are just a few things that you can do to optimize your website going forward and be among the most relevant in the eyes of search engines.

Nov '19

6 Real World Reasons Tampa Businesses Need SEO

When people say Tampa SEO, what do they mean?

Search engine optimization for a particular city like Tampa is the process of showing up on Google search results for users within the Tampa Bay area. Without a specific city attached, it is simply known as local SEO.

When you own a business in a larger city, whether its a law firm or dental practice, it should go without saying that the landscape is quite crowded and makes it difficult to stand out. Tampa Bay is one of those big cities where it can be difficult for a business of any sort to distance itself from the competition.

This is generally where SEO (search engine optimization) comes into play. For businesses to become more identifiable to search engines online, their websites must be as optimized as possible. This allows those search engines to pick them out of the crowd more easily if they are relevant to a specific search and or location.

What makes it difficult for some less tech-savvy business owners to really grasp SEO is how it has real-world applications on their business. Sure, there are the obvious benefits that you might see in a digital format, but what about the ones that actually impact your business in real-time?

Here are six reasons that have real-world applications as to why businesses in the Tampa area need to make sure their SEO game is strong.

Becoming a local authority

The way internet searches are done has changed. Because of the sheer number of businesses and keywords out there, it would be impossible to not compartmentalize based on location. But this is where a small business can benefit.

When you optimize your website, you are fighting in the rankings based on a keyword but also based on location. This is huge when considering that you as a business don’t have to fight everyone. When your website is optimized, you become one of the focal results for that area and that is huge for a small business.

Brand recognition

What most businesses are looking for is their target audience to identify their industry with their business in specific. When competing on a global scale, this is nearly impossible. But with the aforementioned location-based searches, you can become the recognized name in your particular field based on location.

If your business serves the Tampa area, your rankings will focus on that area and appealing to the audience in that area. This makes your brand more recognizable with not only that service in particular, but with that area. This is the kind of recognition of one’s brand that is incredibly difficult to do in any other circumstance and can be hugely valuable for a small business in a given region.

Take advantage of that fact and use it to make your brand the most recognizable in your area.

Cost savings

Let’s face facts: it is expensive to properly market a business, even in a niche industry. This is because traditional mediums are not only expensive to use, they are limited in their overall reach. Traditional newspaper and television advertising remain but they do not have the reach and impact, nor the bang for the buck, that they once had.

That is why optimizing your website can be such a big deal. The big companies can afford to buy ad space online because they have the funds; when smaller businesses enter the foray they depend heavily on their website SEO to deliver users to them.

Save money by making sure your website is more easily found by search engines.

Improved engagement

This goes a bit hand-in-hand with your website traffic, but there is a little bit of a difference here. Your website traffic shows the number of people who are visiting your website. But being able to engage those visitors and convince them not to click through is the biggest challenge.

With improved SEO rankings, you are likely optimizing your website with relevant content in a way that makes your website a draw to potential customers. This means that you are engaging those potential customers and providing enough value that they aren’t leaving right away.

Those extended looks and that engagement is the biggest key to turning those leads into actual sales. Drawing attention to your product is one thing; converting those leads into sales is an entirely different beast. With a website that is properly optimized, you can give your business a much better chance to convert those leads.

Keeping up with technology trends

This might not seem like a huge benefit, but keeping up with relevant technology can have far-reaching effects on a business. The internet is constantly evolving and is oftentimes center stage when it comes to the latest technologies (think about the impact that smartphones have had on the internet as a whole).

When your company is concerned with optimizing its website, you ensure that you are staying on top of the latest technological trends. You ensure that you are not left in the dark when new platforms become prominent and the way that businesses are moving.

Keeping an eye towards these relevant trends can go a long way towards helping your business to adapt to the times and more successfully and consistently reach you’re their target audience. Don’t let technology trends slip by you; you could find your business trailing behind and being left in the dust.

More Traffic

More traffic to your website is one of the most important aspects of having a digital presence for your business. This is because, in this day and age, your website is often the very first place that prospective customers will go before they make a decision about your business.

The more traffic that you can drive to your website means that there are more eyes that are potentially interested in either using your service or purchasing your product. And that’s the idea, isn’t it? Though traffic to your website does not automatically mean sales for your business, these are the leads that your business needs to not only grow but survive.

Those numbers that you see on your analytics page then begin to have far more depth and feel to them. Instead of just being numbers on a screen, they become the number of potential customers that have at least shown enough interest to look into your business. That is the kind of awareness that every business wants.