How To Get Your Business Listed On Google Places
Last year Google made an important search engine update that integrated Google Places listings (ie Google Maps listings) within the organic search results. Businesses that did not have a Google Places listing found that their rankings for location-based keywords fell out of the top 10 spots in Google instantly. Conversely, businesses that did have a Google Places listing suddenly found themselves on the first page.
Any business that wants to rank for location-based keywords (eg mortgage broker sydney) must setup a Google Places listing for their business. Here is the step-by-step process of doing so…
3 Simple Tips For Improving The Performance of Your Website’s Home Page
Your website’s home page is the window to your website and your business. It is often the first interaction a prospect has with your business, and is critical to the performance of your online marketing. Yet why do so many businesses get it wrong?
Here are 3 simple tips you can use to improve the performance of your website’s home page…
1. It’s A Snapshot
What should someone understand from the first impression of your Home Page? Should they understand the entirety of your business in the blink of an eye?
Is this even possible?
The answer is, “Kind of.”
The trick is to provide a snapshot of your business by displaying a core message backed up by an exciting overview of your business, all the while utilising great imagery and strong messaging to draw the eye.
Technically, of course, the navigation is your access to the entirety of the site however there’s a limit to how exciting or descriptive navigation can be.
That being the case you need to use strong banner design in terms of imagery and message and follow that same theme and combination throughout the Home Page utilising icons, images, points of difference and success, to generate interest in a blink of an eye and tell a brief but compelling story about your business.
Which brings me to point two.
The 5 Biggest SEO Mistakes That Can Stop Your Website From Ranking
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is hard enough when everything is implemented correctly. SEO becomes virtually impossible when you do things wrong. Here is a list of the 5 biggest SEO mistakes website owners make, that make achieving SEO rankings virtually impossible…
iFrames
Google ranks pages, not websites. iFrames are pages within other pages on a website. Because iFrames display the content of a page within the ‘frame’ of another page, the search engines do not have enough information to rank either page – the outside page contains the navigation, the sidebar and the footer… the inside page contains the content. Unfortunately, one without the other is not enough to rank.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can occur a number of different ways. It can occur when one web page has the exact same wording as another web page, for example when multiple ecommerce sites use the same wording provided by the manufacturer. Or it can occur when there is not enough wording on the page to differentiate itself from all the other pages on the Internet. If Google can’t differentiate your web pages from others on the Internet, you will find it very difficult to rank those pages.
How to Create Compelling Status Updates For Facebook and Twitter
Setting up a Facebook page and Twitter profile for your business is easy… the hard part is creating the information you need to share to make social media marketing a success. So, how do you write interesting, engaging and informative updates to share with Facebook and Twitter followers?
What You Should NOT Do
1. Don’t fly blind.
Before posting your first update on Facebook and Twitter it’s important to have a goal for what you want to achieve. If don’t have a goal when entering this new marketing channel, then you have no framework to work within and no clear strategy for how you will convert your followers into clients. Sit down with your team and brainstorm topics you can share through your updates, why you want to share those topics and what level of engagement you expect to achieve.
2. Don’t self promote.
It’s great to share updates about your products or services, but it must be done subtly and should not be overtly promotional. Self-laudatory statements about your business can come across as arrogant and can cause disengagement with your social media followers.
3. Don’t forget about the character limit.
For Twitter, the character limit is 140 and Facebook is 420 (including spaces). With Twitter make sure to be concise and communicate your entire message in a single update rather than breaking it up. With Facebook it’s important not to make your update too long… because if it is too long, your fans will need to click on ‘expand’ to see all of the information, and this can affect the click-through-rate of people reading your updates. Experiment to see what works and identify the ideal character count formula for your business.
Hire An SEO Company or DIY SEO?
Need SEO for your business but unsure whether to hire an SEO company or just do it yourself? We’ve taken a look at the Pros and Cons of each to help you make your decision.
DIY Pros
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It’s $0 p/month! Essentially you are getting SEO for free by doing all of the work yourself, saving you and your business thousands of dollars. Of course, we aren’t counting the value of your time. |
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It’s relatively easy! The most difficult part of SEO is developing the strategy. Once you know the exact process and have been shown how to do it, you don’t have to be a genius to implement the strategies, as it’s all step-by-step. |
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It’s a great learning experience. Some SEO companies take advantage of the fact that people have limited knowledge of how it all works. The best advantage you can give yourself when it comes to SEO is to educate yourself on it. And let’s face it, once you get your website climbing the ranks on Google and see yourself higher than all of your competitors, you’re going to feel like a pro. |
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Plus it’s fun! Like pizza – sometimes it just tastes better if you make it yourself. |
