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September 5, 2020 By Benjamin Porter Leave a Comment

4 Common SEO Mistakes

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Common SEO Mistakes

 

Spending time and money on digital engagement and online marketing is necessary for any business in the 21st century. To help ensure that your money is being well-utilized, it is important that you at least have a basic understanding of how online content works and how you can ensure that your marketing efforts actually reach the right audience. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a powerful way to enhance your efforts. With that in mind, here are 4 of the most common mistakes to look out for in your SEO plan.

  1. Keywords Over Content

Keywords are a very important part of your SEO strategy, but they are not the only consideration. Search algorithms have become much more advanced than they ever have been before, and just because a keyword appears often enough does not mean that the page will rank highly. Instead, these algorithms look for an overall theme to the page.

For example, a restaurant in New York shouldn’t just focus on the keyword “New York restaurant.” The pages should also contain phrases like: dining experience, eating out, expert chefs, best hamburger, etc. These words all lead the search engine to relate the page to a restaurant.

  1. Focusing On Links

Link-building is important, but quality of content and quality of links are both more important. Put differently, if you have links coming in from poorly-designed and poorly-ranked websites, it is not going to help very much. Similarly, if people are linking to your sub-standard content, don’t expect it to help out very much.

  1. Building Lots of Pages

Having more pages on your website can certainly be helpful, but if you do not pay attention to the quality of your content first, then you might just be wasting time. Notice a trend here? Quality of content always comes before anything else!

The truth is, building pages is helpful to increase ranking, but some pages are not even indexed, which means they do not affect your search position at all. If you can build plenty of quality pages, go ahead. If you’re just adding pages for SEO purposes, you may want to reconsider.

  1. Using the “Computer Guy”

While your tech person may be quite skilled in a variety of technical aspects, online marketing is a completely different ballgame. It is essential that you understand there is a different approach required for proper digital engagement than for your other technical needs. With this in mind, it is important that you hire a professional SEO company rather than simply try to use someone in house.

If you can avoid these 4 major mistakes, you can be certain that you are better equipped to deal with the current SEO marketplace. This will ensure you a better ranking on search engines, and ultimately lead to more website traffic.

Filed Under: Brand Engagement, Digital Engagement, Online Brand Management, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Keywords, Links, Online Marketing

September 5, 2020 By Dawn Walnoha Leave a Comment

Why You Need to Avoid Guaranteed Placement Companies

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Business Placement

 

There are few things as exciting as starting your own company, especially when various salespeople start calling to vie for your business. However, it is important to be discerning when choosing what services you will use to market your company, especially if you are looking to expand your marketing efforts and do not understand how online marketing works. As a general rule, the one type of company you want to avoid is the one offering guaranteed search placement.

The Placement Myth

Contrary to what the marketing rep might say, there is no foolproof way to quickly get a company to the top of a Google search. Many unscrupulous individuals use this strategy to get a business owner’s attention. They claim to be working for or with Google and offer to help get your company at the top of the search results. Of course, none of them can explain exactly how they would do this, but they sure charge a pretty penny for it.

When you receive these types of calls, it is important to remember that this is simply a myth. Google, and every other search engine, uses a specific algorithm to sort search results–there is no short cut to the top of the results. Instead, you must utilize the latest search engine optimization tactics, which takes time and understanding of how the algorithm works.

Building Custom Content

In reality, one of the most powerful ways to increase your search ranking is to create plenty of keyword-optimized, custom content. This content will get indexed by search engines and help improve the rank of your page. More importantly, quality content is more likely to get picked up by bloggers or other web owners and linked to their site. These incoming links will improve your page rank and help to boost your search engine position.

The simple truth (which most experts are afraid to admit) is that online marketing is not an exact science. There are measures that work, but it is not realistic to think you can determine how quickly or how effective they are going to be. That said, when you engage a true marketing professional you can be assured of more traffic to your site and more traffic that can be converted to leads. At the end of the day, that is what everyone is looking for.

Filed Under: Brand Engagement, Digital Engagement, Online Brand Management, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: customized content, Online Marketing, SEO, SEO tips

December 12, 2014 By Benjamin Porter Leave a Comment

Making SEO Work for You

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Making SEO Work for You

Some of the biggest companies around spend millions of dollars in online marketing and digital engagement to ensure that their brands remain at the top. In many cases, this money is spent on paid advertising and expensive campaigns. Many smaller business owners wonder how they can ever keep up with this and hope to become competitive. In reality, the question they should be asking is not how to compete with these giants, but rather to separate themselves from these giants. Fortunately, SEO (search engine optimization) gives businesses the opportunity to do just that. (more…)

Filed Under: Brand Engagement, Digital Engagement, Online Brand Management, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Keywords, SEO, SEO Strategy

November 21, 2014 By Benjamin Porter Leave a Comment

Search Engine Optimization: Why Do Keywords Matter?

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Why Do Keywords Matters?

For a business owner in the digital age, some of the technical terms floating around can be somewhat intimidating. Naturally, you are familiar with business jargon, but when social media experts start throwing all of these terms out there is can be somewhat confusing. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of those terms that leaves business owners scratching their heads in confusion.

Even if you read articles on the subject, you usually end up walking away with more questions than you started out with. You might read about Google Penguin, Panda, or Hummingbird and find that there are really no actionable steps to take. The truth is that this is done intentionally. Rather than toil through article after article of technical jargon, a better first place to start is with keywords. (more…)

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Keyword strategy, Keywords

May 23, 2014 By Benjamin Porter Leave a Comment

Three Benefits of Blogging You Might Have Missed

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Three Benefits of Blogging You Might Have Missed

 

Most business owners now understand the importance of blogging in terms of raising the profile of their business, both online and in their local community. But even those who were early adopters of blogging as part of their marketing strategy for their business don’t always think of the following three benefits:

1. Ward off competition

It’s true: Blogging can help your business stave off a competitor. Let’s say you run a small consulting firm specializing in helping companies save money on their telecommunications bill. If you’re doing it well, your blog is full of stories of satisfied customers and tips that make it clear that you’re the expert in a particular niche. Why would a potential competitor want to have to try to prove that she is more awesome than you when you’ve already cornered that market?

2. Attract investors

In the same vein, having this record of your thoughts and experiences can also lead to someone saying, “That company has a great business model and is led by a fabulous person. I’d like to meet with them and see if I can be part of their future success.” And once you sit down with this potential investor, they already feel as though they know you, your dreams and your company’s raison d’être.

3. Organize your own thoughts (and get feedback!)

Kind of like keeping a journal, a business blog helps you keep track of ideas that you’re considering for your company. Better yet, they’re ideas that your audience can weigh in on. Say you run a small chain of coffee houses in a tri-state area and you hit upon an idea: What if your stores hosted an open mike night or a poetry slam? By blogging about it, you can both record your idea and gauge potential interest in these events. Maybe your readers aren’t that interested in either idea, but they would like to see you make room for a mother/daughter tea event. There’s extra revenue, just like that.

We know what you’re thinking: “Man, I have GOT to get on this blogging thing, even though I have no time!” Don’t worry… we can help you out. We work closely with our clients to go beyond informative blog writing — we study your industry, learn its acronyms, talk about your dreams. In short, we capture your voice.

So when it’s time to finally start that blog, or turn your existing one over to a professional who can be sure it gets updated more than once a quarter, give us a call at (800) 299-5498 or shoot us an email at hello [at] brandsplat [dot] com. We’ll have your blog working for you in no time!

Filed Under: Blog Content Management, Blog Marketing, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: blogging as part of their marketing strategy, blogging for business

November 28, 2013 By Dawn Walnoha Leave a Comment

Great Content Will Always Rule: SEO, Meet OAO

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Here’s another little something we’re thankful for this Thanksgiving: The emergence of an acronym that might finally help us beat back the demands of search engine optimization (SEO). Online Audience Optimization, or OAO, echoes what we’ve been saying all along: Write it well, and they will come.

Essentially, OAO utilizes a massive realization: People like to read and learn and explore, not just search. You know this. We here at Brandsplat know this. And now it seems the rest of the Internet is catching on, too. It really is as simple as it should be: Write something worth reading, worth sharing, and then step back and watch it fly. So unless you are uploading a catalog and want Google to know that your super-special square lacquered trays come in fifteen different colors, including aubergine, tangerine and aquamarine, you don’t have to count characters or cram all the keywords into the first half of your sentences. 

So what do you need to know to take advantage of this new approach?

1. Relevance is an inside job — OAO allows us to focus on our message rather than playing a game of cat-and-mouse with our prospective audience members. If something is key to communicating with your audience — be it a single word, a phrase or a philosophy, it ought to be communicated first to all members of your internal team, including your webmaster and content writer. Every word on your website should be relevant, says Linda Ruth at Media Shepherd — to your audience, not just to Google’s algorithm of the week. By sharpening your vision, YOU ensure that you’re as relevant to your audience as possible.

2. Yes, Virginia, you really can stop obsessing over keyword density — Google’s most recent update, Hummingbird, continues the company’s quest for its algorithms to act as human as possible, meaning it now looks increasingly for organic content that provides real information rather than list a bunch of words. Yes, you could go out and learn all about long tail subjects, but wouldn’t it make more sense to continue writing as a human for other humans? Why not stay one step ahead of the machine?

3. Audience participation remains vital — Either way you slice it, both SEO and OAO reward time that your audience spends interacting with your brand. SEO puts that amount of time into a calculation which boosts your search results ranking, while OAO’s rewards are more intrinsic (visitors stick around and buy! Imagine that!). Either way, your site is strongest with fresh content that gets visitors talking, be it through comments, polls or sharing across platforms on social media.

4. You’re still not expected to do it all yourself — One potential catch related to the rise of OAO is that many people will make the mistake of believing they now can handle all of the content production for their company. After all, they’re human, and they know how to write for other humans. And certainly this is the case. But what they probably don’t have is more time than they used to before they heard the term “online audience optimization,” meaning that no matter how human they are, and no matter how well they write, they’re still going to have just as much work in their inboxes as they did before. That’s why the smartest of humans hire us to assist them. You direct, we execute, they visit and BAM! Everybody goes home in a limousine.

But you tell us, dear readers: What is it you’ll miss the least about translating your thoughts into Googleze? Sound off in the comments section below!

Filed Under: Brand Engagement, Digital Engagement, Online Brand Management, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing

October 3, 2013 By Dawn Walnoha Leave a Comment

How to Instagram Like the Big Brands

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Social media experts seemed a bit confused by Instagram when it first launched back in 2010. Would people actually care about photo sharing? Moreover, could this kind of platform really be social? And could brands find ways to make Instagram work for them? Three years later, the answer to those questions is a resounding “Yes!” Instagram has fast become the darling of social media marketing, and a new study shows just how Fortune 500 use Instagram. Turns out, the Instagram habits of the big boys are things every company can try.

According to the study conducted by TrackMaven, the best time to post on Instagram is, well, anytime. Marketing types often think social media ends with the workday, but TrackMaven found that user activity stayed virtually the same on Instagram on weekends as it was on the weekdays. As far as filters go, Fortune 500s used #nofilter the most on their Instagram photos, but the “Mayfair” filter performed the best. Also, Fortune 500 companies seem to be loving Instagram’s version of Vine  new video feature. Nike, Starbucks, Foot Locker, Apple and Ralph Lauren are the top five most active Fortune 500 brands on Instagram. Yet it should be noted that while 123 of the Fortune 500 companies have Instagram accounts, only 22 percent have active accounts.

For small businesses who want to get better at Instagram marketing, these are fascinating things to hear and chock full of lessons. For starters, post on Instagram all day, every day. Since photo sharing often happens from events (which happen whenever), normal business hours should be happily ignored. In fact, Instagram photos posted on the weekends have a better chance of getting “likes” with more folks off work and on their phones. Also, go crazy with the hashtags. As Mashable’s Jessica Lee puts it, “It’s often considered a social media faux pas to use more than two hashtags in a tweet; however, on Instagram, that rule can be thrown out the window. The data prove otherwise for bigger brands, showing that four to 11 hashtags can increase up to on average 77 interactions per Instagram post.” Lee also reminds us not to clog the bottom of the post with hashtags; rather, we’d do well to pepper them seamlessly throughout the post instead.

Finally, in order to have big-time rocking Instagram success, you actually have to use the darn thing! Pictures from trade shows, mouth-watering snapshots of the day’s specials and exclusive backstage photos make for great Instagram posts. Remember, the top five only became the top five because they were inspired by Instagram’s endless ways to connect by sharing amazing, funny and interesting original images. 

Filed Under: Online Brand Management, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Management, Twitter Management, Twitter Marketing, Video Content, Viral Marketing

September 20, 2013 By Dawn Walnoha 1 Comment

5 Things for September 20: Kit Kat, James Franco and SMS

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Hooray for Friday! If the week flew by and you wonder what the heck happened, fear not. We scooped up some of the most inspiring, most entertaining stories from the world of online marketing and put them on a little platter we like to call 5 Things You Might Have Missed. 

1.) Instagram Slam: In lieu of swirling rumors about his sexuality, actor James Franco did some of the best social media marketing of the year when he posted Perez Hilton-esque photos of himself on Instagram. The phony pictures are littered with Hilton’s signature Microsoft Paint graffiti. In one fell swoop, Franco managed to take a pointed and well-deserved jab at online gossip hounds while establishing himself and his brand as an online force to be reckoned with.

2) Hope Floats: We enjoy a twerking fail video just as much as anyone else. But we also love when online video creation can be used to enlighten us on campaigns helping make the world a better place. This video for Hope Soap, a campaign to help kids in South Africa remember to wash their hands, does precisely that. The project distributes bars of soap to areas in need. Each bar contains a must-have toy that kids can only get to once the bar is all gone. 

3.) The Power of 4: Kit Kat is suddenly the coolest candy bar on the planet. Not only did the brand recently pair with Google Android, it’s also come up with a mobile-centric site that has a good time making fun of smartphone and technology ads.

4.) SMS not RIP: If you’re looking to expand your mobile marketing efforts, this piece from ReadWrite might help fire your imagination. The post says that although overall text usage is down, SMS is still an incredibly effective way for brands to reach and touch followers. 

5.) Oodles of Doodles: Closing out the list this week is the Doodle Project. According to the New York Egotist, “The Doodle Project is a collaborative doodle video where each frame was passed on to a different illustrator, designer or artist.” The result is a mind-boggling and beautiful piece of video art that bridges the gap between design, advertising and online filmmaking.

Filed Under: Digital Engagement, Facebook Management, Facebook Marketing, Five Things You Might Have Missed, Online Brand Management, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Management, Twitter Management, Twitter Marketing, Video Content, Viral Marketing

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BRANDSPLAT creates articles, blogs, social media, and all written content in the voice of your brand. Our clients include entrepreneurs, personalities, mid-size companies, and some of the world's biggest brands.

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