SEO Basics That You Need to Know

preparing average sales report PA9MK86 Easy Resize.com

Now that digital marketing has been around for more than a decade, most people are familiar with the term “search engine optimization”, or SEO. Even if they don’t fully understand what it means.

SEO is critical to the success of your business website. Without SEO, it’s practically impossible to get your web pages ranked high on the most popular search engines.

And if your customers can’t find you, they can’t spend their money on the products and services you offer.

On-Page and Off-Page

Here’s something you probably didn’t know about SEO: There are actually two different types, on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO includes the things you do within the content of your web page to improve its rankings. It includes things like including keywords in the optimal places.

Off-page SEO means doing things on other people’s sites to attract visitors to your pages. This includes things like participating in forums and promoting your web pages on social media.

SEO Basics – Page Titles Are Primary

If you do nothing else to promote your page, make sure your page title includes the optimal keywords that best describe the content you offer.

Search engines will look at all of your content when assigning a page ranking. But the element they look at first and give the most weight to is your page title.

The page title can be found at the very top of your browser on the tab. It’s also what pops up on Google when people search for sites like yours.

SEO Basics – Keep Meta Descriptions to 155 Characters

Like Twitter postings, meta descriptions for your web pages need to be limited to a certain number of characters, in this instance 155, including spaces.

Meta descriptions also need to be persuasive and compelling because these are what appear under your link on Google and other search engine results pages.

Use these SEO secrets to improve your page rankings and you should see an immediate improvement in your traffic flow.

Choosing a Domain Name for Your Website

online shopping spending marketing internet concep PHHTRMY Easy Resize.com

When creating a new website, one of the first decisions you need to make is what it’s going to be called. The domain name is going to be both the “official” name of your website on the internet as well as the address that people — or programs — are going to type in when they want to be directed to your web page.

So how does a website get a domain name that the rest of the world uses to find it?

Buying a Domain Name

Like anything else having to do with your business, if you want a domain name you have to buy it. Or more precisely, rent it.

In the same way that your home mailing address is different than anyone else’s, your domain name online also has to be unique.

Fortunately, the cost of registering a domain isn’t very high. It ranges from about $10 to $30 per year, depending on where you register it and how far in advance you are willing to pay. A domain name can be registered for one to ten years usually.

Where to Register Your Domain Name

When it comes to registering your domain name, there isn’t really any difference between any of the official registry sites. Typically, after your web address is registered, the place where you bought it doesn’t have much to do with maintaining it — other than possibly sending you a reminder when it’s due to expire.

There are many places that will register your web domain name. The most popular is probably GoDaddy.com, but there are many others.

Your best bet is to shop around. By spending just a few minutes comparing offers, you can save money on the cost and possibly negotiate additional services for the same money while you are at it. Many registries will give you a discount for registering more than one domain name, for example.

Set ‘SMART’ Goals for Your Business Website

marketing department UVL8TDK Easy Resize.com

What do you hope to accomplish with your business website? Specifically?

Building and maintaining effective web pages isn’t cheap. While there are lots of ways to attract “free” traffic, in reality, the business owner typically pays hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to draw customers to their online business sites.

How can you tell if the investment is worth it? By having “SMART” goals for your business website.

Making Web Pages Worthwhile

“SMART” is an acronym that describes successful goal-setting. It stands for:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Agreed Upon
R – Realistic
T – Time-Based

These five criteria are an effective way to measure if the investment you make in your business’s online web pages is worth it.

Launching a website and then sitting back to wait to see what it will do isn’t a successful business plan. Instead, you need to have SMART goals for your website that tell you — in practical, black and white terms — if it is doing what you need it to do for your business.

The Measure of Success

Your goals need to be specific: How much traffic should your website be getting per day, per hour, or even per minute. It needs to bring in “$X” amount of additional revenue. And so on.

The objectives also need to be measurable. “I want people to enjoy my website” isn’t specific enough. “I want to receive 100 “Likes” per week on my Facebook page” is.

Creating unrealistic goals for your business’s online presence will only lead to disappointment. Instead, keep your goals attainable then consistently grow on your success week after week.

Finally, the goals you set for your online website, social media campaign, or other online enterprise need to be time-based. Open-ended goals aren’t measurable or specific enough.

Instead, using deadlines to motivate your and your team to success is a time-tested approach to achieving your objectives.

Website Development & Coding

If you have never worked with web design or page creation before, all the technical terms related to coding can seem a little bit intimidating.

Like anything else, however, once you start to work with a design program, it becomes quite instinctual. To help you get started here’s a breakdown of some of the most basic terms you will encounter once you get started.

What Is HTML?

One of the first terms you are likely to encounter is HTML, which is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language.

In layman’s terms, HTML is what provides the basic structure of websites. HTML is a markup language, rather than a programming language. That means it uses tags to identify content.

HRML is enhanced and modified by other technologies, such as CSS and JavaScript.

What Is CSS?

Okay, then. So what is CSS?

CSS is basically a list of rules that can assign different properties to HTML tags. These rules can be applied to individual tags, multiple tags, entire documents, or multiple documents.

In other words, CSS is what you use to control presentation, formatting, and layout.

Website Development & Coding – What is JavaScript?

The last term you need to know is JavaScript. No, it’s not something you read for a film while drinking a cup of coffee.

Instead, JavaScript is used to control the behavior of different elements on your web page. It’s a programming language that was first introduced in 1995, making it a relative newcomer to page design.

Today, however, JavaScript is supported by every major web browser and is used on nearly every website on the internet. It’s the language that allows web developers design sites that are interactive with the people who use them.

Most of the interactive elements on the web pages you visit are powered by JavaScript.

Now that you are familiar with these three important terms, web design should be less intimidating for you!

Customer Recognition Programs Pay Huge Dividends

laptop with blank screen in office VSU3NE2 Easy Resize.com

Have you ever had the experience of walking into a local store and having the proprietor come out and greet you by name? If so, it’s probably something you haven’t forgotten.

It’s also a huge motivator for you to return to that business again and again. Why? Because people have a natural desire to be recognized. It makes people feel special and is one of the simplest, fastest, and most affordable ways to build loyalty bond between your customers and your business, brand, and products.

Digitally Recognizing Your Customers

Every online business is constantly seeking new and innovative ways to capture a larger and larger market share. One of the best ways for your business to do this is to launch recognition programs for your existing customers.

While you may not be able to physically replicate the experience you had when you were recognized by the owner of a local business, there are many steps you can take to build those same kinds of positive emotions within your online customers.

For example, one simple way to do this is to remember the preferences of your customers who visited your business online. With just a few lines of code, you can capture your website visitor’s preferences and remind them of what they looked at the last time they visited your online store.

Customer Recognition Programs Pay Huge Dividends – we recommend customizations

Another effective way to interact with customers so that they feel recognized by your online business is to make personalized recommendations of products you think they might want.

Streaming video services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu already provide this service this for their subscribers, recommending TV shows and movies they think they might like based on what they watched in the past.

This type of affordable software is widely available for online businesses as well. By making recommendations to your customers about products or services you think they might enjoy, you can reinforce the loyalty bonds that are the key to repeat business.

Use the Web to Attract Customers to Your Florida Business

While the internet connects people worldwide, many local businesses are still very much dependent on local customers.

Attracting people in your area to your local business requires a technique called “Local SEO”. Basically, local SEO involves using specific geographically specific keywords to send traffic to your business website.

How to Use Local SEO on Your Website

Basically, local SEO works like this: If somebody goes online searching for a business like yours, they probably are going to use specific keywords.

For example, let’s say you own a dry cleaning business in Tampa. People looking for a local dry cleaning business who type in the keywords “dry cleaners” into their search engine probably would get results that include dry cleaning businesses all over the US, or even the world..

But if these same prospective customers type in the keywords “dry cleaners in Tampa”, they will get results that include only local dry cleaning businesses in Tampa, Florida.

Optimizing with Local SEO

How does that happen? Google, Bing, and the other big search engines scan and rank websites for specific keywords. When they find a web page for a local Tampa dry cleaners, they will include this in their rankings for those specific keywords.

But search engines will rank near the top of the search results those sites with the exact keywords “Tampa dry cleaners” in their headlines, subheads, first 100 words of the text, last 100 words of the text, photo descriptions, and other places.

That’s what local SEO means. By including geographically specific keywords in specific places in your web pages, you can get your web page ranked at or near the top of the list anybody gets when they type those keywords into the most popular search engines.

And given the fact that most people use their mobile devices to search for local businesses, local SEO is only going to become more important as time goes on.

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks

3 Simple Steps To Attracting The Best Clients

As marketing analysts we’re constantly thinking about the most optimal way to target our potential customers. With so many metrics to keep tabs on, figuring out whether or not you’re getting it right is often easier said than done.

To help shed some light on the situation, the folks at WordStream released a detailed new study on Google Ads industry metrics. The study reveals a ton of helpful industry-specific benchmarks for both search and display ads, including average clickthrough rate (CTR), average cost-per-click (CPC), average conversion rate (CVR), and average cost-per-action (CPA).

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks – Average Conversion Rate

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks – Average Click Through Rate

How Virtual Reality Could Help Your Business

The latest trend in web-based technology is virtual reality. This is an immersive experience in which the viewer appears to be completely inside a complete world.

Virtual reality requires the use of a special headset. Many companies have recently introduced their own versions of these VR headsets and more are on the way.

Types of VR Viewers

Some more expensive headsets come with their own special screens. Others allow the viewer to use their existing smartphone, which fits inside a special holder, which is sometimes made of cardboard.

In both instances, once the user puts the headset on, their entire field of vision is filled with whatever appears on the screen. It’s sort of like seeing a movie in an IMAX theater.

What makes virtual reality different, however, is that as the viewer moves their head, what they are seeing moves with them. The can look up, down, sideways and behind them.VR provides users with a 360-degree perspective, which is why it seems like viewers are immersed in a totally new world.

VR provides users with a 360-degree perspective, which is why it seems like viewers are immersed in a totally new world.

How Virtual Reality Could Help Your Business – VR and Business

If you aren’t already thinking about ways you can incorporate virtual reality experiences into your marketing, you should be.

The technology that enabled VR has been in the works for years. But the bandwidth required to support the platform has been too large until recent technology developments enabled it.

Now that it has arrived, it will soon take over as the new, go-to format for everything from movies and sports to education and tourism. In the very near future, virtual reality will move from the fringes of technology to the mainstream of marketing, much the same way as streaming video or social media did just a few years ago.

While developing a VR campaign may be cost prohibitive right now for all but the biggest corporations, the costs of developing VR promotions will only come down as the platform becomes more widely used. Developing ideas now for ways your business can use VR in the near future will help you prepare for success.

Top 4 Qualities of Effective Web Design

Learning how to design attractive, effective web pages is just like learning any other new skill. It requires a basic understanding of the primary elements.

Once you learn the basics of good web design, you can build on this knowledge and, combined with your experience and practice, begin to create better and better pages that reach a wider and wider audience.

The basics of top-quality web design fall into four categories: Layout, f0nts and typography, color, and images.

Layout

Layout refers to where the different elements of your website are located on your web page.

People have certain expectations when they arrive on any web page. They want to be able to navigate your page intuitively. If you try to get too fancy or creative with your web page layout, it can backfire on you.

It’s better to stick with the basics and give your page visitors what they expect.

– Fonts and Typography

The type and size of the fonts you use on your web page are important. Make your text too large or too small and it can turn away visitors.

A good approach is to use standard fonts and standard sizes. If you aren’t sure what these are, visit the web page of your most successful competitor and use what they are using.

Top 4 Qualities of Effective Web Design – Color

The color of your web page generally needs to fit with your business or brand. If you have a logo, it’s usually smart to use those colors, or colors that are related or complement your standard colors.

Color is one of the most important factors in web design because it communicates with visitors on a non-verbal level.

Top 4 Qualities of Effective Web Design – Images

Images are arguably the most important element of your web page design. Try to choose images that are appealing but still communicate the purpose of your page.

Think Locally But Market Globally

flatlay business background 38BFGMF Easy Resize.com

The transition from traditional marketing to digital marketing isn’t just a shift from newspapers, TV, and radio to the internet and social media. It’s also a shift from local to global.

When you promote your business online, people from anywhere in the world can view your web pages, social media posts, digital advertising, and other online marketing. And that literally opens up a whole new world for your business.

Think Locally But Market Globally – Unintended Consequences

Owners who don’t think their business appeals to prospective customers outside their local market are often mistaken. With the internet, you never know who is going to land on your website, view your social media posts, or come across your advertisements.

For example, let’s say you own a cupcake shop on South Beach. You might think your only customers are those in your immediate area, most of whom are probably walking by and coming into your store on impulse.

But if you have an optimized website, your business is likely to be found by cupcake enthusiasts worldwide — especially those who are planning to visit Miami in the near future and who may make it a point to put a visit to your business on their trip’s itinerary.

Think Locally But Market Globally – Thinking Big

That’s why it’s always a good idea to think globally when designing your online marketing and promotions. The likelihood that people from other states — and other countries — are going to find your business using specific search keywords (“South Beach cupcake shops”, for example) is high.

Even if you don’t do mail order, the global reach of the internet allows your business to be found by people anywhere, and at anytime.

So don’t limit your business’s potential by playing by the old-fashioned rules that applied to outdated traditional marketing. Today’s business owners need to act locally, but think globally when it comes to their digital marketing.