4 Ways to Improve Your Business's SERP Ranking

4 Ways to Improve Your Business’s SERP Ranking

The higher your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), the more visible your website will be to potential new customers. That’s great if your website is riding high on Google’s first page. But if it’s not, your site will be harder for potential new customers to find.

If you’re unsatisfied with your business’s SERP ranking, you can try various techniques to improve it. And our Orange County SEO agency shares four simple, effective ideas to help you below.

Make the Most of Titles, Meta Descriptions, and Alt Text

Descriptive titles play a key part in achieving a high SERP ranking. Google uses titles (specifically HTML title tags) to learn what a webpage contains, and users may decide whether or not to click through based on a title.

Your titles should be clear and contain one of your main keywords to maximize relevance.

Get Your Linking Right

A solid internal linking strategy can help you boost your SERP ranking. Search engines use internal links to crawl your site and establish relationships between pages. That helps them recognize content related to specific topics, which is crucial for directing visitors to relevant pages on your site.

But external links are important for SEO too. Linking to high-quality websites outside of your own can enhance your site’s credibility, and you’ll provide a stronger user experience if you link to external websites that offer further information on a topic.

Set Up Your Site to be Mobile Friendly

If your site doesn’t display properly on a smartphone or it’s too hard to navigate, users are unlikely to stick around for long. According to Google, almost 50% of visitors will leave a site if pages take more than 3 seconds to load on their mobile device.

The most important steps in creating a mobile-friendly site include:

  • Compressing images for faster loading
  • Simplifying the design
  • Making buttons big enough for easy use on touchscreens
  • Avoiding irritating pop-ups

When your site is mobile friendly, users will have less reason to leave without converting.

Publish New Content and Update Old Content

Publishing new content regularly is important for achieving and maintaining higher visibility. It allows you to add various target keywords to your website in an organic way, and creates backlinking opportunities to show search engines that your site has value.

But you need to update old content to maintain its relevance and visibility to search engines. Content that has become outdated, inaccurate, or irrelevant since publication can have a negative impact on your ranking.

That’s because search engines aim to provide users with the most relevant, valuable results. If they consider your content to be of low quality, that can affect your overall position on SERPs.

When looking for older material to update, consider repurposing content to make something new and exciting.

Increase Your SERP Ranking with an Expert SEO Strategy

If you’re looking to boost your business’s SERP ranking, these four tips should help you. And if you want to work with SEO pros, our Orange County SEO agency will create a tailored strategy to improve your online visibility.

Contact us today to get started!

 

 

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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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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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5 SEO Trends for 2022 You Need to Know About

5 SEO Trends for 2022 You Need to Know About

SEO evolves from year to year, and it’s crucial that you stay up to date with the latest trends to avoid falling behind. With 2022 here already, we thought it was time for our Orange County SEO specialists to share five top SEO trends for the year ahead.

Greater Focus On Website Accessibility

As the Internet becomes increasingly embedded in our lives, every website should be optimized for improved accessibility. Many people may struggle to use your site properly if you overlook this key issue: for example, around 12 million people in the U.S. have vision impairment and approximately 15% of adults experience some level of hearing difficulty.

Enhanced accessibility can provide all users with a high-quality browsing experience, regardless of their capabilities. It will also reduce the risk of dissatisfied visitors leaving your site with a negative impression of your brand.

More Websites Catering to Voice Search

Twenty-seven percent of the worldwide online population uses voice search on mobile devices. This trend will drive more and more businesses to optimize their websites for voice search in 2022, but what does that involve?

  • Incorporate keywords into questions users are likely to ask, especially on mobile devices, such as “where’s the nearest pizza restaurant to me?”
  • Implement long-tail keywords for accurate targeting.
  • Write in a conversational style.
  • Create FAQ pages packed with relevant, conversational questions and answers.

Increasing Popularity of Featured Snippets

Featured snippets appear on around 19% of SERPs, and they give users a faster way to access information. Ideally, a featured snippet will provide an answer but still compel users to click through for a more detailed insight instead of scrolling down.

In 2022 (and beyond), more brands will structure their content to earn featured snippets. One technique is to use more questions and answers in content, beginning with “who”, “what”, or “why”.

Mobile-friendly Websites Becoming More Prevalent

More than 92% of Internet users around the world went online via their mobile devices as of January 2021.So, it’s no surprise that brands will increasingly optimize their websites for mobile devices in 2022 and beyond.

Mobile-friendly websites are critical to deliver the best user experience and prevent frustrated users from leaving your site.

Combining Video and Long-form Content for Better Results

Brands will continue to embrace longer content in 2022. This typically gives readers more valuable information and encourages visitors to stay on your site for longer, unlike a short piece of content.

And video will remain a key part of SEO strategies the world over. Ninety-three percent of businesses win new customers thanks to videos they post on social media, and companies that use video grow revenue 49% faster than those that don’t. Combining long-form content and videos can help businesses improve SEO campaigns significantly.

Our Orange County SEO agency is here to help you achieve better results, whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to overhaul your current SEO strategy. Get in touch to find out how we can help you today!

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What are Featured Snippets

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

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!

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How to Optimize Your Content for Voice Search

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!

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How to Make Thought Leadership Content Work for Your Business

Why is thought leadership content so valuable?

Because it can:

But creating thought leadership content that makes an impact isn’t easy, or every company would be considered an authority in its sector.

So, how can you make thought leadership content work for you?

Our Orange County SEO specialists have the answers …

 

Support Points with Original Research and Data

Conducting your own research is one of the most effective ways to help your thought leadership content stand out. This might be as simple as creating a poll on social media or as complicated as surveying industry experts around the world.

Regardless of its scale, original research provides readers with insights they can’t find anywhere else and ensures your content is unique. You offer more value than a competitor regurgitating others’ data, and establish your site or business as a useful resource.

 

Create Gated Thought Leadership Content to Generate Leads

Most of your thought leadership content might appear on your business’s blog or other websites e.g. industry news publications. But you can create longer pieces as gated content to capture leads.

For example, a free 40-page ebook packed with unique, actionable insights can inspire visitors to submit their email address more than the promise of a monthly newsletter.

Newcomers can check your existing content before deciding whether to sign up or not, and you can incentivize them further with a small discount or free trial.

 

Look at Competing Thought Leaders (and Do Better)

One simple step in creating thought leadership content is to explore your competitors’ output. What blog posts, articles, whitepapers, and even books are they publishing? How do they promote it? Do they use special offers to attract interest?

But remember: your content must be unique. So, be inspired by competitors but focus on establishing a distinctive presence.

 

Make Content Relevant to Industry Changes, Product Releases, and Events

Good content is relevant. Not just to your audience, but to industry changes and events.

That’s why it’s important to create a content calendar and schedule pieces to make the biggest impact. For example, if your business is attending an expo in two months, start gathering material for a deep post as soon as you can.

This might document the creation of a product you plan to reveal or explore said product’s expected market impact.

Whatever the topic, the content can generate interest in the product and vice versa. And both can bring curious new visitors to your site.

 

Thought leadership is a fantastic addition to a content marketing strategy and helps drive traffic. But what else can you do to attract more visitors, build authority, and boost engagement?

Our Orange County SEO experts are here to help. Just get in touch for your FREE Relevancy & Quality Score Report now!

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