How to Reach Customers Near You with Good Local SEO

How to Reach Customers Near You with Good Local SEO

Local SEO can help nearby customers find your business online, whether they’re using their smartphone, their laptop, or smart speaker. But what does a good local SEO strategy involve?

Here are four great tips from our Orange County SEO agency to help you get started.

Target Local Keywords

Focus on local keywords for effective local SEO. For example, if you’re targeting parents and caregivers looking for kids’ clothes near you, one location-specific keyword might be “child’s clothing store in Orange County”.

When creating your content marketing strategy, focus on local events, community news, and any other topics likely to appeal to nearby customers. This ensures you can pepper plenty of local keywords throughout your site organically.

Take Advantage of Your Google Business Profile Listing

Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) is a free tool that can help your company be more visible on SERPs. Use it to set up a distinctive local profile for your business, featuring key information, images, videos, and reviews. To avoid missed opportunities, update your Google Business Profile whenever your contact details change.

It’s crucial that you claim your Google Business Profile as soon as possible (if you haven’t already), or someone else could. Fortunately, you can reclaim it if that happens, so don’t worry!

Welcome Customer Feedback and Reviews

Feedback and reviews can make a big impact on your local visibility. Positive feedback alongside your results on SERPs will give you more credibility, which is vital for small enterprises.

Almost 70% of online shoppers read 1 to 6 customer reviews before they decide whether to buy something or not. If you have a selection of varied, honest, but ultimately encouraging reviews to your name, a large number of potential customers are likely to check them before they do business with you.

Ask customers to review your products and services after each transaction. Make the process as quick and simple as possible to reduce the risk of people giving up.

Optimize Your Website for Voice Searches

Voice search plays an important part in local SEO. Imagine a potential new customer asking their virtual assistant “where’s the best pizza place near me?” while walking within two minutes of your new Italian restaurant.

If your site is optimized well for local SEO, you have an invaluable opportunity to bring someone new into your venue, impress them, and convert them into a repeat customer.

Here are a few tips for voice search optimization:

  • Use conversational keywords (“where’s the nearest towing company in Orange County?”).
  • Include clear but detailed answers to common questions in your content (e.g. in an FAQ).
  • Design pages for easy use on mobile devices (critical for good local SEO).

Start Reaching Local Customers with Our Orange County SEO Agency Now

Our Orange County SEO agency is ready to help you boost your visibility and reach more local customers with a bespoke SEO strategy.

To find out exactly what we can do for you, get in touch today!

 

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What 2024 SEO Trends Do You Need to Know About?

What 2024 SEO Trends Do You Need to Know About?

A new year brings new changes to the world of SEO. And staying up to date with the latest shifts, whatever they are, is crucial to maintain or improve your SEO performance.

To help you do that, our Orange County SEO agency will look at 5 of the top SEO trends for 2024 below.

Mobile-Friendly Websites are Critical

According to Pew, more than 83% of people use their mobile devices to access the internet in the U.S., and this is the only way 15% of Americans can go online.

Consumers’ increasing reliance on smartphones and tablets for browsing the web means that optimizing websites for mobile devices has never been more important. Creating responsive sites is vital to ensure that they’re properly formatted and usable on any screen, so a mobile-first approach will continue to be a priority in 2024.

Optimizing Websites for Voice Search

Voice search has grown and grown in recent years with the rise of virtual assistants and smart speakers. And that looks set to continue in 2024, as voice search optimization remains an important element of SEO.

Using long-tail keywords that are more natural and conversational is vital to match the way people speak when performing voice searches (such as “Chinese restaurants near me”). Creating an FAQ section on your site is a simple and effective way to cater to voice queries.

Video Content Will Stay Prevalent

Videos commonly appear in search results, covering everything from tutorials to news reports. Businesses will keep using video content to boost SEO rankings in 2024, which is a great way to build brand awareness and engage potential customers.

Companies can use videos to showcase their new products in a dynamic way, show how their services work, and generate wider interest.

The Persistent Power of Analytics

Businesses can learn a lot from analyzing the wealth of data generated through digital marketing, and analytics will remain a valuable aspect of SEO in 2024.

Google Analytics, for example, offers a comprehensive insight into website performance, visibility, and more. You can use this data to learn more about your site and what changes you need to make to improve your SEO performance.

Personalization of Search Results

In 2024, personalization looks likely to become more commonplace as AI helps search engines improve the relevance of results.

Personalization is key for delivering the most relevant search results based on a user’s online activity. That reduces the amount of irrelevant content, products, and services presented to users, and offers a more satisfying experience overall.

Want to Improve Your SEO Performance?

If you want to take your SEO ranking higher in 2024 and beyond, working with a professional team of SEO experts is the simplest, most effective solution.

Our Orange County SEO agency is here to help you improve your rankings and reach the right customers. Contact us today to get started!

 

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What Can Video Ads Do for Your Digital Marketing

What Can Video Ads Do for Your Digital Marketing?

Video ads are a staple of digital marketing. Any time you watch a video on YouTube or browse your favorite social network, you’re sure to run into at least one video ad promoting a business, product, or service.

If you’re not already using video ads as part of your marketing strategy, what can they do for you?

Join our Orange County digital marketing pros as we explore four ways video ads can benefit your business.

Engage Users with Different Types of Video Ads

Google Ads offers a range of video ad formats to choose from based on your digital marketing strategy, budget, and goals. These include:

  • Skippable In-stream
  • Outstream
  • In-feed
  • Non-skippable In-stream
  • Bumper

By giving you a choice of formats for video ads, Google Ads allows you to take a flexible approach to your video advertising and discover what works best for you. However, the variety of formats can be daunting for beginners.

Fortunately, Google launched its Video view campaigns (VVC) program in September 2023, which can make setting up your ads easier.

Promote Your Business Across Diverse Channels

Using video ads helps you expand your digital marketing campaigns across various channels. They will increase your chances of building brand awareness and growing your audience.

You can reach viewers on YouTube, with the formats discussed above, as well as on other social media channels —- TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook to name just a few. Your video ads will also play on sites that belong to the Google Display Network.

Show Your Products and Services in Action

A photograph, even a great one, can only do so much to make your products and services appealing to customers. But videos are a more dynamic way to show why your business is the best choice.

For example, if you run a plumbing company, why not demonstrate your team’s unparalleled skills with footage of a real job? Video ads that focus on your products and services can make a stronger impression than static images alone.

Add Credibility to Your Business

Visually appealing ads that are easy to understand can make your company more credible to newcomers. They don’t need to look as sleek as the latest blockbusters, but they should at least show that your business takes digital marketing seriously.

Whether your video ads are filmed by a professional crew or by your own team, they should have a clear message and address a particular pain point. The more engaging and specific your ads are, the more likely they are to impress your target audience.

Start Building Ads that Boost Your Digital Marketing

Video ads can be a powerful part of any successful marketing strategy. You have multiple formats to choose from, you can boost engagement across multiple channels, and you can demonstrate products in action to whet customer appetites.

Not sure if your PPC strategy is as good as it should be? Our Orange County digital marketing agency is ready to help you with campaigns tailored to your goals, audience, and budget. Contact our team now to get started!

 

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How to Set the Right Digital Marketing Goals for Your Business

How to Set the Right Digital Marketing Goals for Your Business

A good digital marketing strategy is a must for any small business today. There are more than 33 million of them in the U.S. and competition is often fierce, but strong marketing campaigns can help you reach the right people, in the right places, at the right time.

But to get the most out of your digital marketing, you need goals. And setting ones that suit your business, your budget, and your resources can be tough.

So, join our Orange County digital marketing agency as we explore a few ways to make it easier.

Define What You Want to Achieve

Think carefully about what you want to achieve with your digital marketing. Why are you prepared to invest precious time and resources into it?

Common digital marketing objectives include:

Defining your reasons will help you get off to a stronger start than if you dive straight in. Don’t worry if they seem vague or abstract at first — you can make them more specific later.

Try the SMART Goals Approach

The Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART) goals framework is popular in digital marketing. It can help you create a clear, focused plan. Let’s break it down.

Specific

Your digital marketing goals should be specific. You want to boost conversion rates? Focus on what that means in real terms, such as getting more visitors to sign up for your newsletter. When you define a goal in plain terms, you can start taking actions to achieve it.

Measurable

Measuring your progress is essential. Otherwise, how do you know if you’re doing the right thing?

Set a specific goal, with a figure or percentage attached, so you can see how close you are to hitting your target over time (e.g. increase traffic to your website by 10% in 3 months).

Achievable

Setting achievable goals for your digital marketing is a must to avoid pushing yourself to hit impossible targets.

Be too ambitious and you’ll become demotivated when you fail, even if you’ve made great progress along the way. Still, try to make your goals just ambitious enough to inspire you to work at your best.

Relevant

Make sure your digital marketing goals align with your long-term business plan. Otherwise, you could waste time, effort, and money chasing objectives that offer little value.

Timely

Set a specific deadline for your digital marketing goals. That’s vital to motivate you and to make sure you can measure your progress accurately within a set period.

Consult a Digital Marketing Agency

Last but by no means least, working with a professional team is the most effective way to set the right digital marketing goals for your business.

Our Orange County digital marketing agency will create a bespoke marketing strategy for your business, encompassing SEO, Retargeting, Display Ads, and more. Contact us now to get started!

 

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How Can Retargeting Ads Help with Abandoned Carts

How Can Retargeting Ads Help with Abandoned Carts?

Why do customers abandon their carts?

Reasons vary. For example, in 2021, 37% of North American shoppers abandoned a purchase because estimated shipping times were too long. Other factors include finding a better deal elsewhere or getting distracted.

Identifying the most common reasons why users are abandoning their carts will give you the insight you need to create a better experience for new visitors and increase conversions gradually.

But building effective, persuasive retargeting ads can help you bring those shoppers back to your site to complete their purchase sooner rather than later. How does this work?

In this post, our Orange County digital marketing pros will explore retargeting ads and how they help with abandoned carts.

How Do Retargeting Ads Work?

Retargeting ads are a simple way to re-engage visitors who showed an interest in your site.

To get started, you add Google’s remarketing tag (a piece of code) to your website to track users. You can use it to track page visits and actions, such as putting a product into a shopping cart.

When the tag is in place, you’re all set to target potential customers with ads that promote your business or specific products and services they showed an interest in. Your ads might remind them that they have one or more items in their cart on your site. And if they return and complete that transaction, you’ll have your retargeting ads to thank.

But even if they don’t lead to a fast conversion, retargeting ads are valuable for building brand awareness too. They can help your business linger in a potential customer’s mind long after they visit your site.

How to Make Your Retargeting Ads More Effective?

Creating retargeting ad campaigns that bring potential customers back to their abandoned carts isn’t easy. But putting time and effort into retargeting ads will pay off if you get them right.

Here are a few tips to help you make yours more effective.

Grab Attention with Discount Codes

If a visitor has shown enough interest in a product to add it to their cart, even if they left it there, you could whet their appetite by promising a discount in your retargeting ads.

Use Time as an Incentive

If you notice that certain products are left languishing in carts more than others, consider putting them on sale for a while. Create retargeting ads that promote these “limited-time deals” with a sense of urgency, and potential customers may feel more inclined to take the plunge.

Be Sparing with Ad Frequency

Avoid showing your ads to the same potential customers too many times each day or you’ll put them off your business. Sensible frequency capping will help, but knowing when you’re showing ads too little or too often is tough.

Make it easy on yourself: let us take care of your retargeting ad campaigns for you. Our Orange County digital marketing agency will build tailored campaigns to help you reach the right people with the right ads.

Speak to us today to get started!

 

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How to Create Your Content Marketing Strategy

How to Create Your Content Marketing Strategy

A clear content marketing strategy is a must for any business trying to engage and expand its audience. But a survey by the Content Marketing Institute revealed that only 40% of B2B marketers have a clear strategy. Meanwhile, 33% had an undocumented one, 20% planned to set one up in the next year, and 7% had no such plans.

So, do you have a strategy for your content marketing?

If not, or if you’re looking to develop a fresh one, our Orange County SEO agency has a few helpful tips.

What is a Content Marketing Strategy?

A content marketing strategy covers the planning, creation, and distribution of your content. It encompasses everything relevant to how your business uses content to reach customers, grow your audience, and achieve your objectives.

Building a detailed strategy will clarify how you can help readers, viewers, or listeners better than anyone else.

Creating Your Content Marketing Strategy

Confirm Your Content Marketing Goals

What do you want to achieve with your content?

Identifying your goals can be a time-consuming process, but when you know what they are, rank them in order of priority. That will make it easier to create the right content for your business (and ideally your audience) in the short and long term.

Research Your Audience

To create the most valuable content for your audience, you need to know who they are. What types of content do they enjoy? How long do they prefer blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other content to be? And what content do they want but struggle to find?

Answering questions like these will equip you with the information you need to craft high-value content. You can use the following methods to research your audience :

  • Surveys
  • Social listening tools
  • User behavior analysis
  • Focus groups

Developing a content marketing strategy without research may be a little faster, but you’re more likely to miss the mark.

Brainstorm Concepts, Topics, and Exciting Ideas

Use your marketing goals and data gathered through your research to brainstorm content ideas. You can try various techniques, such as a mind map: write a topic in the middle of a whiteboard and surround it with anything that comes to mind.

Create Personas

Personas can help you create targeted content that’s more relevant and engaging to specific audience segments. They include concise information on a fictional reader representing a group, such as 30 – 40 year-old professionals with lots of disposable income and no kids. In-depth audience research is essential for building accurate personas.

Build your Content Calendar

Setting up a content calendar will enable you to stay consistent, organized, and aware of upcoming topics. That’s ideal if you need to research a subject or book a space for filming a video. It’s also helpful for promoting content via social media and email before it’s published.

Good content is fundamental for any digital marketing strategy. And if you need help with your digital marketing, including SEP and retargeting, leave it to our Orange County SEO agency.

How can we boost your online visibility? Get in touch to find out!

 

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Create Better Content with Personas

Create Better Content with Personas

Personas are a popular tool in digital marketing. A software business, for instance, might build user personas to understand who their new product is for. That can reduce the risk of launching a new program that fails to deliver the features that the target users need most.

Similarly, creating a persona for content marketing can help you bring the right information to the right people. You’ll find it easier to build content that engages the relevant audience segments and remains consistent.

But how do you create a persona for your content? Our Orange County digital marketing agency shares some tips to help you get it right

Research Your Audience

To create a persona, you need to know as much about your audience as you can. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind:

  • Send surveys to customers asking their opinion on your current content, the content they like to read, and what they find least appealing about content in general.
  • Chat with sales and support staff about common pain points. What drives customers to contact your business? What issues do they face? These insights can help you develop accurate personas.
  • Check your leading competitors’ content. What types of blog posts published on their site achieve the highest engagement? Which formats do they use most often, and how do readers/viewers react? You might learn more about what your shared audience likes and dislikes.
  • Pay attention to social media conversations related to your industry, business, and content. Social channels give you a direct connection to different audience segments, and can be vital when building personas.

When you gather information on your audience and how they engage with content, you can start crafting your personas.

Consider Your Target Readers’ Goals and Challenges

Use the information you gathered through your research to build a brief character study of your target reader, viewer, or listener. A content marketing persona should include essential details such as:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Occupation (mainly for B2B companies)
  • Goal (what they’re looking for when they come to your content)
  • Challenges (what’s preventing them from getting what they want)
  • Social media channels

You only need to provide basic details in each area — personas should give you and your team at-a-glance breakdowns of the target individual.

Understand What Each Persona Needs at Different Stages of the Customer Journey

Content is important throughout the customer journey, so bear that in mind when planning your publication schedule.

For example, a potential buyer will find certain blog posts invaluable at the start of their journey (the awareness stage), such as a concise overview of a specific product or service.

Your content marketing personas can help you understand different readers’ goals and challenges at each stage of their customer journey. Consider how your content can engage them and encourage them to become loyal buyers. Brainstorm content ideas for each stage of the customer journey across your audience segments.

Our Orange County digital marketing pros are here to boost your business’s visibility on search engines through SEO, SEP, retargeting, and more. Contact us today to get started!

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Mobile SEO Tips: How to Help Your Website Rank Better

Mobile SEO Tips: How to Help Your Website Rank Better

While online, consumers all over the world spend more than half of their time browsing websites on a mobile device. But users may not be able to find your website in the first place if it’s not optimized for mobile. And that can have a serious impact on your rankings.

What can you do about that? Our Orange County SEO agency shares a few ideas to inspire you below.

Responsive Design is a Must

Mobile devices generate more than 60% of organic search engine traffic, so customers should be able to visit your site and enjoy a user-friendly experience on any device. Otherwise, you risk losing them: one survey found that 60% of consumers abandon transactions because of a poor user experience.

That’s why using responsive web design is a must for every mobile SEO strategy. Images, text, and other key page elements will be scaled to the appropriate dimensions for the user’s screen.

As Google gives preference to mobile-friendly sites that provide a positive user experience, responsive web design can help boost your SEO ranking.

Maximize Page Load Times

Page speed is critical. If your pages take longer than three seconds to load, you risk losing visitors and their business. Google also considers page speed a major aspect of quality websites and a positive user experience. If your pages take too long to load on mobile devices, it’s time to fix that.

You can increase page speed by:

  • Compressing images
  • Reducing redirects
  • Caching pages
  • Decreasing JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code

These are just a few ideas to help you get started. Keep making improvements until you get load times down to three seconds or less.

Target Local Customers

“Near me” searches have increased dramatically in the past decade, as smartphones and smart speakers allow consumers to find local providers with minimal effort.

More than 75% of people visit a brick-and-mortar location within 24 hours of running a local search on their mobile device, and almost 30% of those searches lead to a purchase.

Optimizing your site for local searches can increase your visibility on mobile. Create content with a local focus, set up a Google Business Profile, and enable customers to review your services. All this can make your site easier to find for local searches.

Create Mobile-Friendly Content

All content on your site should be easy to read and view on a mobile device. It also needs to keep visitors engaged enough to stay on your site and explore.

Try these tips:

  • Keep paragraphs concise to help visitors skim text
  • Embrace white space for easy readability
  • Use brief, punchy headlines
  • Break up text with videos and images (compressed, of course!)

Mobile-friendly content is essential for a great user experience, so optimize yours to boost your ranking.

Need a little help to take your rankings higher? Leave it to our Orange County SEO agency!

We’ll create a bespoke SEO strategy to increase your visibility and deliver a stronger user experience. Get in touch now to learn more!

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Struggling for Content Ideas? Here are 6 Simple Tips

Struggling for Content Ideas? Here are 6 Simple Tips

Generating ideas for new content can be a challenge, but our Orange County SEO team has six tips for you to try!

 

Stay Updated on News Stories in Your Industry and Local Area

Tracking the latest events in your industry and local area can provide you with exciting content ideas.

For example, new regulations may come into force that require your business to adjust the way you work or the services you provide. You could write an in-depth post about the reasons for these changes, how they’ll affect customers, and other key points.

Similarly, an event taking place in your area — such as a business expo or conference — could inspire a number of posts. Could you interview any thought leaders in attendance? How about covering your business’s role in an important community event (e.g. raising money for a local charity)?

 

Listen to Podcasts Related to Your Niche

Podcasters discussing topics related to your industry, products, or services can provide you with valuable content inspiration. And with more than 2 million podcasts from all over the world, you have plenty to choose from.

Can you expand on what has already been covered in a podcast or approach a topic from a fresh perspective? Mention any podcasts that inspire you directly in your blog post, video, or podcast for transparency, then share your own thoughts on discussions or news.

 

Repurpose Old Content

Take a look at a blog post, how-to guide, or video you published months or years ago. Can you make something new out of it?

Let’s say you have a blog post offering advice to startups trying social media marketing for the first time. You could take any tips that are still relevant and use them as the basis for a new video or podcast. Repurposing your content will help you save time that you would otherwise spend trying to generate entirely new ideas.

 

Welcome Ideas from Across Your Company

Don’t just look to your content team to generate ideas: invite everyone in your company to suggest ideas. People from across different departments will have experience, insights, and opinions that could inspire a wealth of new content.

And your content may be less likely to become repetitive or stale as a result.

 

Check Comments Sections for Helpful Reader Insights

How do readers or viewers respond to content? Read their comments on your site, YouTube, Facebook, etc. to harvest ideas. You may see a question or criticism that inspires a new blog post or video.

 

Study Your Best Content to Discover What Works

Identify the highest-performing content you have published, and explore those posts, videos, or podcasts in detail. Why do they work so well? Why have they attracted so much attention? Consider how you can build new content around your findings.

 

Conclusion

Try these tips when brainstorming new content ideas to make the creative process easier. Want to get your content in front of a bigger audience? Need help with identifying strong keywords? Our Orange County SEO team is ready to help you!

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Keyword Research: How to Get It Right

Keyword Research: How to Get It Right

In-depth keyword research is an essential part of building a successful SEO strategy and campaigns. Keywords tell search engines what each page on your site is related to and when it should be presented to searchers.

Not spending enough time on keyword research is a common SEO mistake. Without the right keywords, your website is less likely to appear when potential customers are looking for the exact products or services that you provide.

But researching your keywords will help you understand how to gain visibility on SERPs and get your site in front of buyers. Still, keyword research can be a complex, time-consuming process and difficult to get right.

To help make it easier for you, our Orange County SEO pros share four simple tips below!

 

Generate Ideas Relevant to Your Business and Industry

Start by brainstorming topics related to the products or services you sell, and your overall industry or niche, to generate ideas for potential keywords. For example, these might be topics that you already cover in your blog posts and videos, such as ‘home security’ or ‘beauty products’.

This process can help you get into a buyer’s mindset, and prompt you to think about what users will search for to find specific products or services.

 

Consider User Intent

User’s search intent is categorized into four types:

  • Informational: The user is looking to learn about a topic.
  • Navigational: The user is looking for a particular website or business.
  • Transactional: The user is ready to buy an item or use a service.
  • Commercial: The user is researching a product or service and needs a little more time to consider their purchase before they commit.

The user’s intent will affect the search terms they use, such as ‘how do I make chocolate cake’, ‘best men’s sneakers for basketball’ or ‘women’s jeans free shipping’.

Think about what type of search terms your target customers are likely to use at each stage of their journey.

 

Take Advantage of Tools

The right tools can make keyword research a little easier, especially if you’re new to the process.

You can use keyword research tools to find out what keywords competing websites use, for example, and they can help you turn your initial ideas into effective keywords. Free ones, such as Google Keyword Planner, are available, as well as paid platforms.

 

Work with SEO Pros for a Simpler Journey to Success

The most effective way to get your keywords right is to leave it to a professional team of SEO specialists.

They’ll handle every aspect of researching the best keywords for your business, whatever your industry and target audience. And you can leave everything else related to your SEO campaigns in their hands, too!

 

Our Orange County SEO experts are ready to boost your online visibility and help your business reach your ideal customers. Get in touch with our team to find out more and to receive your free Relevancy & Quality Score (RQS) Grader, packed with expert insights!

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