What are Featured Snippets on Google and How Can They Help You?

12/22/2021 mwon

Google continually develops new ways to help searchers find the information they need. That’s one of the many reasons why it’s the most popular search engine, with a market share of more than 86% as of September 2021.

And featured snippets could be considered one of the best additions to Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) in recent years. But they’re more than just a convenient way to deliver bite-sized answers to queries — featured snippets can help your business increase its visibility and attract clicks too.

Featured Snippets Explained

Featured snippets appear at the top of the organic results on a SERP, and display a few lines of text from a website. This snippet should answer the user’s question concisely, but the link to the website is included underneath if you want to learn more.

In this example, Google answered our question with a snippet from USA Today and a few images. This provides a concise answer with multiple options if we want to explore it in more detail.

What Featured Snippet Types Appear on SERPs?

Google displays four types of featured snippets on its SERPs:

Paragraph
Table
List
Video

Let’s take a closer look at each:

Paragraph

A paragraph snippet presents a carefully selected extract from a site that matches the query best.

Table

A table snippet presents data in a reader-friendly format, ideal for comparing figures or statistics.

List

A list snippet breaks information is the simplest way to answer some queries. Lists may be bulleted or numbered (e.g. a step-by-step guide).

Video

A video might offer the most appropriate response to a query. If so, that will appear at the top of the SERP, ready to play. This can be particularly useful when searching for visual directions, such as makeup tutorials.

Benefits of Featured Snippets on Google SERPs

Here are three benefits of owning a featured snippet:

Boost Brand Awareness

Having a snippet from your site featured on a Google SERP creates an opportunity to increase awareness about your business, even if users don’t click on the link to your website immediately.

Attract More Clicks

If Google presents an eye-catching snippet of information from your site with a link to the relevant page, users are more likely to click on it than if it were further down the page (or on another page altogether). It can help you get to the top of the organic results instantly.

Adds Credibility to Your Site

When Google chooses your site to answer a user’s query with a featured snippet, that implies that your company is the most relevant resource online. This can build credibility and trust.

You can optimize your website for featured snippets, but it’s a complex process demanding in-depth research. That’s why it’s best to leave it to the experts.

Our Orange County SEO specialists can optimize your site to increase its visibility, authority, and conversions. Get in touch for your free marketing analysis now!

5 of the Best Ways to Repurpose Your Content

11/12/2021 mwon

Do you struggle to create content that engages your target audience and helps you climb the SERPs?

If so, you’re not alone: 65% of marketers feel the same.

But a successful content marketing strategy isn’t just about producing new material — it’s knowing how to make the content you’ve already created go further too.

How?

Here are five ideas for repurposing your old content and making it fresh.

Collect articles, interviews, or case studies as ebooks

Gather content on a similar theme (e.g. hiring employees, sales techniques) and collect it into an ebook. You can use articles, interviews, or case studies — just make sure there’s a clear reason to bundle them together.

When you’ve made an ebook, you can offer it as gated content to generate leads.

Build a podcast from old blog posts

Around a quarter of the U.S. population listens to a podcast each week, with 16 million Americans describing themselves as “avid podcast fans”. That’s why a podcast can be such a fantastic addition to your content marketing strategy.

Whether your business has an existing podcast or you want to produce a one-off episode, your blog posts are a terrific place to source material.

But don’t just read them aloud into a microphone: look at the posts with fresh eyes and consider how you can break them down into an audible format.

And invite one or more people on to make the podcast into an engaging, insightful conversation rather than a monologue.

Expand and refresh existing content with new data or perspectives

New research may have been published on a specific subject since you wrote a blog post or article on it. Your work might appear outdated or even irrelevant to a newcomer looking for reliable information.

But you can fix that by updating old content to align with the latest insights. You won’t need to start from scratch, and you can keep inaccurate information off your site (which could harm your credibility).

Transform data into shareable infographics

Infographics convey information (such as statistics or tips) in a visual format, so they’re quicker and easier to digest than a blog post or article. And they’re highly shareable on social media, especially when they cover material your audience will value.

If you have stats or other data from research, bundle them into a colorful, eye-catching infographic. Bloggers or other businesses may use it and add a link, driving traffic back to your site.

Make a Q&A video from social interactions

Videos are a must for any content marketing strategy, and can help you improve engagement on your site.

You should find ample inspiration for videos in the questions visitors ask on social media or in comments on blog posts and videos. A brief Q&A video will provide useful information in a quick, visual, shareable way.

Want to take your content marketing to the next level?

Our Orange County SEO agency is here to help. Get in touch to find out how we’ll build the right content marketing strategy to increase your business’s visibility, reach, and engagement!

Link Building: The Do’s and Don’ts You Need to Know

10/11/2021 mwon

Link building is one of the most important parts of any effective SEO strategy, and it looks set to stay that way: more than 90% of marketers expect links still to feature in Google’s ranking algorithms in 5 years. But getting external sites to link to yours can be tough, especially if you’re experimenting with link building for the first time. That’s why our Orange County SEO team has created the following list of 4 do’s and 4 don’ts for successful link building.

4 Link Building Do’s

Create High-Value Content Other Site-Owners Love

Good content is a must to generate links and boost your ranking — you need to give site-owners a reason to direct their visitors to your site.

This might be:

A thought leadership post that establishes you as an authority
A well-designed infographic featuring original research
A comprehensive white paper offering detailed tips or insights
A professional video featuring an interview with an industry leader, a tutorial, or anything else of value

Write Guest Posts for Relevant Sites With a Solid Audience

Creating guest posts for industry websites or blogs relevant to your business, products, or services is a simple but effective tactic. This will introduce your brand to an established audience likely to have an interest in your brand.

Source Links from Satisfied Clients

If you run a B2B business, ask satisfied clients to link to you: for example, they may mention that your web design agency built their site or that you supplied IT hardware for a key project. A reputable company endorsing your services helps build trust and credibility.

Focus on Quality First

Prioritize building links from respectable sites that have good reason to connect to yours — even if this means a slow-and-steady approach. Set a realistic target for building good links and stick to it.

4 Link Building Don’ts

Don’t Write Content for Irrelevant Sites

Remember when we recommended writing guest posts for relevant sites? That’s crucial to reach prospects likely to visit your site, but don’t write for sites with no relation to your products or services just to place a link. If your business specializes in men’s shoes and you publish a post for a blog covering French cuisine, readers won’t be fooled. You may waste your time and energy on a task that leads nowhere.

Don’t Experiment With Black Hat Tactics

Engaging in black hat schemes to build links and climb the SERPs is always a bad idea. Avoid paid links, cloaking, injecting links, and anything else that could put you in Google’s bad books.

Don’t Give Up Before You See Results

Link building for SEO takes time, commitment, and patience. You can’t expect your ranking to improve instantly. Stick with it and be willing to adjust your strategy as new opportunities arise.

Don’t Spam Blog Posts or Forums with Links

Never write comments on blogs or forums just to leave a link. Users and search engines will see right through it. You could damage your reputation and face penalization.

Follow these 8 tips to hone your link building strategy and achieve better results. Want to know more? Have no idea how to build a better linking plan? Our Orange County SEO specialists are here to help — get in touch now!

How to Use Videos on Your Website to Improve Engagement

07/19/202107/19/2021 mwon

Videos are one of the most common, popular forms of online content — and it’s easy to see why:

Around 65% of users are more likely to purchase an item online after watching a video
Businesses that use video achieve 41% more traffic than those that don’t
Video posts have 135% better organic reach on Facebook than posts featuring photos only

But with so many videos online, yours have to be good if they’re going to attract visitors, engage them, and keep them on your site.

Below, our Orange County SEO team explores four simple ideas to help you get started.

Introduce your business with a concise video

Yes, you already have an About Us page and pictures of your team at work on your website. But an introductory video can summarize your mission and values in a more dynamic way.

Show us footage of:

your products in action
your employees working together
your customers using your services

Present the human side of your business in an honest, straightforward way to earn trust and build credibility.

Help customers get more out of your products with tutorials

Product tutorials or demonstrations can help existing customers get more out of their purchase and entice prospects to try an item for themselves.

The video might involve a member of your team showing how to navigate a software product or use a gadget properly. Users may prefer to watch this instead of flipping through a manual or contacting support for advice.

But product tutorial or demonstration videos should be easy to understand — avoid confusing jargon or unclear progressions from one action to the next.

Include customer testimonials for effective social proof

Text testimonials lend your business credibility and reassure new customers that they’re paying for legitimate, quality goods or solutions.

But video testimonials take it further. You can present visitors with first-hand insights into how your products/services have benefited existing customers for added authenticity.

Keep these brief and to the point. Include the customer’s name, city of residence, and the name of their business (if necessary).

And consider adding a customer testimonial video to a relevant landing page — videos on landing pages can boost conversions by more than 85%.

Demonstrate thought leadership to help your business stand out

Thought leadership content has grown increasingly important in the past few years, especially for B2B brands. Amazingly, around 60% of decision makers claim that thought leadership content led them to do business with a company.

But while we tend to associate thought leadership content with blog posts and articles, it can include videos too.

Consider interviewing a thought leader in your sector for a video on your homepage or relevant product/service page. Or a member of your team could create a detailed presentation on a specific issue, including original research and statistics.

Both can help to establish your business as an authority to be trusted.

Engaging visitors and converting them into customers can be difficult — so leave it to the experts instead!

Our Orange County SEO team is here to help your business with a tailored strategy. Get in touch to find out what we can do for you!

What are the Most Important Types of Content for SEO?

06/16/202107/19/2021 mwon

Content is fundamental to any effective digital marketing campaign, with more than 90 percent of marketers using it to reach customers. Small businesses that publish blogs tend to achieve up to 126 percent higher lead growth than those that don’t.

But over 60 percent of marketers find it tough to create content that engages readers and performs well on Google.

A key part of building an effective content marketing strategy is understanding the most important types of content for SEO. Join our Orange County SEO experts as we find out what they are.

Blog posts

Blog posts are a fantastic way to engage users, build brand awareness, and earn customer trust.

They’re also a terrific platform for sharing thought leadership content that establishes your business as an authority in a specific area.

Posts can be long or short, but they should always offer readers value. For example, a brief list of tips to help them do something better or a long-form piece covering the history of a product or service.

Find out how to generate great new blog post ideas here!

Videos

Video will account for more than 82 percent of online traffic by 2022. That’s a LOT of video watching.

Why so popular? Because it’s sometimes easier and quicker to watch a video than to read a long blog post or article.

Videos can also be more engaging thanks to the magic of sound effects, music, and dynamic visuals.

Videos can cover:

product demonstrations
behind-the-scenes tours of your office, production floor, restaurant, etc.
how-to guides/tutorials
webinars
interviews with industry figures

These are just a few ideas. But whatever you do, focus on creating informative videos that look and sound professional.

Lists

A reader can scan a list in a matter of seconds. But if it’s good, informative, and helpful, they might just stick around to explore the rest of your site.

Lists should include visuals and plenty of white space to help the key details leap off the page.

Infographics

More than 80 percent of businesses that use infographics find them to be effective.

Infographics present information in a visual format, and can cover almost any topic.

They’re hugely versatile. They can be serious or humorous. They can be designed for readers of any age. And they’re a great way to recycle content in other forms (blog posts, articles, etc.) to make it go further.

Guides

One of the many joys of having the internet at your fingertips is that you can find instant advice on almost anything, from baking a cake to painting your home.

And a well-researched, well-written guide is a terrific resource for curious readers.

Include images and even videos to illustrate key points. Make guides easy to scan and mobile-friendly for users looking for help on their phones — that’s essential when 54 percent of global online traffic is generated by mobile devices.

These five content types can play a significant role in a successful SEO campaign, but only when they’re done right.

Think carefully about what your target audience wants to read, what questions they need answered, and what’s likely to resonate with them.

At Nett Solutions, our Orange County SEO experts will create a bespoke strategy to help your business climb the SERPs — get in touch today to find out how!

6 Tips to Enhance Your SEO Performance with Images

05/14/202105/14/2021 nettsolutions

Do you optimize images to improve your SEO performance? Or do you never consider their impact on your ranking?

If you aren’t taking the time to optimize your images, you could be missing an opportunity to drive more traffic to your site and boost your SERP position.

With the ongoing rise of visual search, images are returned for around 20 percent of Google searches. That’s why we named it one of our top SEO trends for 2021.

But what can you actually do to improve your SEO performance with images?

Be clear when naming image files

Descriptive file names are a must. Vague or generic names (e.g. “image001”) won’t help Google understand exactly what an image shows.

Think carefully about how a file name can help a search engine recognize the contents of an image. Be specific, descriptive, and include keywords (such as “men’s-black-Nike-sneakers”).

Take advantage of alt text

On a similar note, alt text brings a wealth of opportunities to increase an image’s visibility. Alt text is required under the American Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure users with visual impairments understand what images contain (via screen readers or text-to-speech solutions).

But alt text also helps search engines clarify the contents of an image and the page it’s on. As with image file names, focus on clarity and precision. Include relevant keywords but be subtle (i.e. no stuffing).

Pick your image format carefully

JPEG and PNG are two of the most common image formats online (along with GIF and TIFF). But each has its advantages and drawbacks.

JPEG images tend to be of a lower quality but load faster than PNG. And with PNG, quality is higher but file sizes are bigger. So, choose carefully.

Always compress images before you publish

Uploading uncompressed images can have a serious impact on user experience: images, and the pages they’re on, will take longer to load. And users are more likely to abandon your site if they’re waiting too long — bounce probability rises 32 percent when page load jumps from one second to three seconds.

Various tools and plugins can compress images for you. Aim to keep images below 100kb to reduce the risk of performance issues.

Incorporate images into sitemaps

Sitemaps are crucial for good SEO, as they help search engines discover a site’s pages.

Including images in your sitemap will increase the likelihood of a search engine indexing your images. And that could bring more traffic your way.

Either add images to your existing sitemap or create a new one just for your pictures.

Keep images mobile-friendly for smartphone users

Responsive images will scale to align with your site’s size on any device. This is so important when so many of us use smartphones to find products or services. For example, half of mobile users are more likely to use a business’s mobile site when shopping instead of downloading their app.

If you overlook responsiveness, you could chase users away with slow load times and poor overall performance.

Nett Solutions is an Orange County SEO agency with years of experience helping businesses just like yours rank higher through tailored campaigns. To find out how we’ll optimize your site and increase your visibility, get in touch today!

7 Possible Reasons Why Your Search Rankings Have Dropped

03/10/202103/10/2021 mwon

Your site’s search rankings have plummeted?

You’re not pulling in the same traffic you once were?

Don’t panic!

There are plenty of possible reasons why your figures have changed. And here are seven of them to get you started.

Making big changes to your existing content

Removing blog posts, articles, or other types of traffic-fueling content may contribute to a dip in your rankings. This could be the result of trying to reduce the number of older posts on your site, particularly if they no longer align with your products, services, or values as they used to.

Check the performance of a piece of content before you remove it, and replace it with something likely to perform just as well (if not better).

Your pages are too slow

New or older pages on your site could be to blame for a drop in rankings. For example, if you’ve added multiple videos or lots of large images to a blog post or service page, this could noticeably reduce its speed.

Bounce rates are higher on slower pages: the probability of a bounce rises 90 percent when a page takes from up to five seconds to load. So the sooner you resolve the issue, the better.

Search engine algorithms have been updated

Algorithm changes can disrupt rankings in some cases (remember Mobilegeddon?). That’s why it’s so important to keep your digital marketing campaign spread across multiple channels, including Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Your competitors are reigning supreme

Your site’s search rankings could drop if your competitors start offering users a superior experience, utilize more effective marketing techniques, or enjoy a sudden spike in traffic through successful promotional events.

Keep track of your competitors’ marketing activities and performance to reduce your risk of becoming inferior without warning.

Your website needs updates, fast

Updating your content on a regular basis will help you maintain or improve your rankings. And if you leave too much time between updates, your visibility may start to fall before you realize.

Create a realistic content calendar and focus on publishing valuable pieces multiple times per week.

Sites linked to yours are no longer online

You might notice a change in your rankings when sites linking to yours, such as those on which you published guest posts, go down. This can be frustrating if you worked hard to secure a spot on an authority site and are no longer receiving the traffic you expected.

If the linked site is down temporarily, you may start to creep further up the results pages again when it returns. But if it’s permanent, you might need to look elsewhere for quality links.

You have server issues

Your server could be to blame for sinking rankings. For example, a sudden spike in traffic may push the server too hard and trigger a crash, whether related to your site or one on a shared server.

If this happens more than once within a short space of time, it may be time to reassess your hosting situation.

Our Orange County SEO experts are dedicated to helping businesses just like yours improve your rankings and gain greater online visibility. How can we make this happen for you?

SEO Trends 2021: What can You Expect to See?

12/22/202012/22/2020 mwon

New SEO trends emerge each year, but what can you expect to see in 2021?

Our Orange County SEO specialists have picked five of the SEO trends you need to know about as we enter a new year.

Greater focus on analytics to understand customer behavior

A deeper dive into analytics is just one of the biggest SEO trends 2021 is set to bring.

Sure, it’s been crucial to study user/customer data for some time now, but intensive analytical research is likely to become increasingly prevalent. Businesses will delve deeper into:

what users/customers are doing
how they’re behaving
how products/services can improve their lives

This will help teams create more relevant, engaging content, and deliver a more tailored service overall.

Voice search optimization will help brands rank for hands-free queries

Smartphones, virtual assistants, and smart speakers have transformed search across the past couple of years. Users can get the number for their nearest Mexican restaurant, find local shoe stores, and browse media without having to physically interact with their devices.

And this is expected to grow even more popular in 2021, with around one in four American adults owning a smart speaker. That means businesses of all sizes will need to optimize content for voice search more effectively.

It’s not just voice search optimization that will matter more in the new year, either …

More detailed image search optimization to increase visibility

Many consumers may not even realize image search exists, let alone use it regularly. But images are returned for around 20 percent of Google searches. It’s also believed that brands redesigning websites to support visual search (along with voice search) could boost their revenue by 30 percent.

That’s why brands should be optimizing their images to help increase their visibility in 2021.

Featured snippets will become a more competitive SEO technique

Featured snippets are a common sight, and they’re an effective way to achieve first-page results. But only if you have the right information for the right query.

Brands should start to optimize content to answer questions and provide clear directions or advice when relevant. This increases the chance of displaying a featured snippet and, potentially, securing the user’s click.

Increasingly comprehensive mobile SEO for a better user experience

Mobile sites are the first port of call for countless users, with mobile accounting for around 50 percent of global internet traffic in 2020’s third quarter. This is likely to keep increasing as smartphones become more advanced and capable of delivering a better user experience.

Brands will need to focus more on creating the most user-friendly mobile site they can, rather than simply making it functional on smartphones. That means understanding what visitors want out of your site and how your web design can make that as easy as possible on any device.

Refining your SEO strategy to align with new trends or even starting from scratch can be a challenge for any business or organization. But our Orange County SEO experts are here to help you boost your rankings, visibility, and engagement through tailored campaigns.

Get in touch now to learn more!

4 Simple SEO Tips to Optimize Your Site

10/21/202010/13/2020 mwon

A solid SEO strategy can increase your busines’s visibility and drive traffic to your site. But actually putting one together can be tough if you’re new to search engine optimization.

In this post, our Orange County SEO experts explore four simple SEO tips to help you optimize your site and reach a bigger audience.

Take Advantage of Video

Video is a key element of most successful marketing campaigns today, and you can utilize it to boost your SEO. It’s estimated that 80 percent of all online traffic will be video by 2021, and it’s an easy way to increase a page’s ability to engage visitors.

Try to create how-to videos, product demonstrations, roundtable discussions with industry experts — content that offers real value. Just make sure you keep the quality high.

Optimize your video content by creating keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions. And don’t just upload them to your site: share them on social media and create a YouTube channel too.

Keep your content well-organized and easy to read

One of the most important parts of any effective SEO campaign is getting your content’s structure right.

Keep your content easy to read and scan. Users don’t want to wade through blocks of dense text, and they’ll click away if they can’t find the information they’re looking for.

Use plenty of whitespace and make paragraphs short, usually just four of five sentences each. Headers (H1, H2, H3) create a clear hierarchy and enable search engines to understand your content better.

To return to our first point, include videos to elaborate on text content in a more dynamic way (e.g. showcasing a product you’ve described).

Optimize Your Content for Voice Search

Voice search is increasingly important as more and more people use their mobile devices to find products or services. It’s actually the second-most popular way to conduct searches on a mobile device.

These are often phrased as questions, such as “where is the nearest Mexican restaurant?”. So, implement questions and answers into your content to increase your visibility.

If you run a local business, include geo-targeted terms to target prospects who might be looking for the exact products or services you offer. They could be around the corner from your company with big money to spend!

Target Mobile Users

Google’s mobile-first indexing means websites optimized for smartphones and tablets are more likely to rank higher than those that aren’t.

That’s no surprise: think how often you use your own mobile device to shop, find information, etc. Make sure you use a responsive web design to provide visitors with a positive user experience on any device, and run regular speed tests to understand how long users need to wait before pages load.

Follow these four simple SEO tips to optimize your website and boost your visibility. Want to work with Orange County SEO experts and discover the benefits of a tailored search engine optimization campaign?

Contact our team today to learn more!

How to Optimize Your Content for Voice Search

10/13/202010/13/2020 mwon

How often do you use voice search on your mobile device?

Chances are, you do it regularly. Half of all searches are expected to be voice-based by the end of 2020, and 30 percent of people browse the web without using a screen at all.

That means businesses and organizations need to make sure their content targets voice searches effectively, but how?

Structure keywords to fit phrases

The proliferation of voice search is driving an increase in content designed to answer questions and suit specific types of phrases.

For example, you might unlock your phone and ask Siri where the nearest vegan restaurant or movie theater is. You’re looking for a fast answer for an immediate issue, rather than a specific product or service. Content intended to suit voice search should be written with question-focused searches in mind.

Pay more attention to local SEO

If you operate a business that caters to the local community primarily, take advantage of local seo techniques to increase your reach. So, if a user asks “what time does Local Coffee Shop open on Saturday?”, your content should help them find your business hours within moments.

Make sure your company profile’s details are correct on Google and cover all the information customers might need to know.

Optimize your site for mobile devices

Your site should be optimized to be mobile-friendly across devices. Otherwise, people may click through but leave when they realize half the content is missing. Even if a page takes too long to load, prospects might lose interest and try a competitor — the probability of users bouncing rises 123 percent when a mobile page takes 10 seconds to load.

Mobile pages should load quickly, be easy to browse on small screens, and display all media properly. Your content must be easy to scan, allowing users to scroll down to find relevant details easily. Follow proper content hierarchy and position the most important information at the top of the page.

Incorporate FAQs into your content

As question-based searches are increasingly common, one simple but effective way to boost your content’s compatibility with voice queries is to add FAQs.

These should answer questions directly and concisely, so anyone who navigates to your site to read them finds the information they’re looking for. While there, they might be impressed by what they see and decide to stay longer. This could translate into conversions, whether that’s a purchase or registration for a newsletter.

Think about the sort of questions prospective and existing customers may have about your business, products, services, etc. For a little inspiration, check out your leading competitors’ websites to see what they’re addressing in their FAQ pages.

Follow these simple tips to optimize your content for voice search and increase your visibility.

Want some expert help to achieve better results? Find out how our Orange County SEO agency can help your business succeed today!