Tuesday, 26 December 2017

Why Blogging Is Important

One of the most important reasons why blogging is important, however, is because it can boost your SEO results. Search engine optimization (SEO) involves a series of activities that optimizes your content in order to improve your organic, or “free,” traffic. The better you optimize your blog posts for SEO, the higher your webpages will be listed on search engine result pages, so more people can find your website and get to know your business. In fact, companies that blog typically gain at least twice as much web traffic as those that don’t blog.

Posting Fresh Content on Your Website

Search engines love websites that are updated frequently. This shows them that the websites are fresh and relevant, rather than outdated. Search engines don’t want to list irrelevant, outdated webpages for their users. They want to post the most up-to-date and new content possible to ensure that it’s as useful as possible.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many chances for you to update the other areas of your website. Your company’s history and about us page will never change. Your price page and product pages will only rarely change, if ever. You might update your home page content a couple times a year, at the most.
Starting a blog gives you the opportunity to continuously publish new posts on your site. You can post multiple times a day if you want to. The more fresh content you post, the more pages you’ll have for search engines to index, which means more opportunities to take the #1 spot on search engine result pages.

Using Keywords Strategically

Every blog entry you post gives you a new opportunity to use SEO keywords in your content. By performing keyword research, finding the keywords and phrases that searchers looking for a company like yours would most likely use, and then using those keywords strategically in your blog posts, you can really improve your search engine optimization results.
To improve your outcomes, use long-tail keywords that your target audience will likely use during their research as part of the buyer’s journey. But remember to avoid keyword stuffing.
Backlinking

It pays to build relationships with other organizations and websites. Blogging offers you the chance to include links to other relevant websites. As a return, these organizations may link back to your site, which will help you generate even more web traffic that you couldn’t otherwise generate on your own.

It’s important to build relationships with reputable and high-quality websites that fit your niche when backlinking, however. Otherwise, you could be penalized by search engines.

Increasing Your Popularity Rank

Sometimes, SEO is a popularity contest. Search engines will move up your rank on their result pages if they notice that your blog entries are shared frequently and clicked on often. The best way to win this popularity contest is to commit to only publishing high-quality content that your audience will actually want to read. Sharing your blog however you can and suggesting that others do the same can also help.


Why Online Reputation Management Matters

How you look online directly impacts your career. Negative items showing up online can damage your career whereas having a positive online reputation leads to career opportunities. There are 4 main reasons why building & managing your online reputation is so important:

1.            People are looking you up online & making decisions about you based on what they find. Every day, over one billion names are searched on Google and 77% of job recruiters are required to look potential employees up online during the hiring process. While you may not have looked yourself up, it's certain that someone else has - and they are making judgments about you based on what they find. 45% of people have found something in an online search that made them decide NOT to do business with someone.

2.            Anyone can say anything about you online without getting in trouble, whether it's true or not. If you upset anyone–an ex, a fired employee, someone you received a promotion over –they can go virtually anywhere online and trash you. It happens all the time and there are very little laws in place to protect people under these situations.

3.            Everything we do is now recorded online forever, which means we need more tools to make sure this doesn't harm us. We do everything online and we now have the technology to track and store all that activity. That means everything we post on Facebook or Twitter and every item we search for, website we visit, online transaction we make and conversation we have through text or messenger exists somewhere. A Facebook status update you made year ago may eventually get you fired. Even more scary, a private email or message you sent to a friend — even if you deleted it — could come back and bite you. We've seen hackers invade the privacy of everyone from celebrities on snapchat to major politicians running for president. But, it isn't just hackers you need to worry about. Outdated laws that have not kept up with Technology — like the ECPA — make it easier than ever for people to access information you thought was private.

4.            Having good content online helps you, but most people don't know how to do it: In an increasingly competitive economy, more and more companies, schools and customers are looking for positive information about you on the web. However, most people don't know what they can do to increase the positive footprint they can have on the web and build a positive online reputation.


Wednesday, 20 December 2017

SEO VS PPC

"Should my business be using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads or an organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy?" I get that question all the time. And of course, my answer is, "It depends. What are your goals?
What? You mean it's not a straight "yes" or "no." Of course not. The answer is significantly dependent on what your company goals are. Are you selling a new product or service? Is there a great deal of education involved in purchasing your product or service? Is there a large barrier to entry for your product? Are you well-known in your industry? These are just a few of the questions you need to answer before looking at PPC or SEO.
SEO VS PPC ANALYSIS
SEO is not only about optimizing your website and content to rank higher in organic search results for targeted keywords on the most impactful search engines; it's also about being an authority on the problem at hand and the solution you provide. The major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing look at how people interact with your site, if they come back, and if other sites are linking to your website pages (along with a few hundred other factors).
PPC (Pay Per Click), on the other hand, is all about paying for advertising space for specific targeted keywords on search results pages. But make no mistake, there is a great deal of search engine optimization when creating a paid ad campaign.
Here is a screenshot of a Google search for the phrase "Water Heater Boise". The PPC ads show at the top of the search results page with the yellow tag labeled 'Ad'. Below the top ad space you will see the natural search (SEO) results displayed in the main area of the search results page.
As this screenshot clearly reveals, you can pay for presence on keyword phrases through PPC or you can earn your presence with SEO.
IS ORGANIC SEO BETTER THAN PPC?
Again, it depends. Your long-term web marketing strategy should always include search engine optimization. The major advantage of SEO is that statistically it brings you better quality traffic leads. In fact, many users have subconsciously trained themselves to ignore "paid results" entirely when browsing the web or searching on Google.
There are mountains of data that suggest "Natural Search" visitors to your website are far more likely to trust you, your business, and your products & services. Ranking highly in Google for a keyword or phrase is a clear sign that you are a credible source and that you are an important player in your industry.
But do NOT fool yourself into thinking that SEO is free. No matter how you look at it, SEO comes at a cost. Whether it's your own time or hiring an outside vendor to manage your SEO strategy, SEO does come with a cost.

SO YOU'RE SAYING DON'T USE PPC?
Don't shrug off PPC yet. There are quite a few advantages to PPC over organic searches. For example, if you set up your campaign correctly, you can see significant returns on your investment. And it's not just a matter of who pays the most to be in the number one ad spot. Always remember that the search engine's number one priority is to return the BEST results for the user doing the search, not the company paying for ads. For example, if Google always put the highest bidder on top, but the ad didn't offer a solution to the problem the user was searching, that user would simply start using another search engine. Google didn't get to be the most used search engine by always displaying the highest bidder.
Another advantage to PPC is the ability to advertise on other sites that have a significant amount of traffic that fit your buyer personas. If a user sees your ad on a search (and does nothing), but then later that day is reading their favorite blog and sees your ad again on the sidebar of that blog... well, there's a good chance that user will consider your product again.
FINAL ANALYSIS
In response to my original question of "Should I be using PPC or SEO for my business?", my answer is still the same: It depends.
Pay-Per-Click is a great way to jump-start your business' digital marketing efforts with immediate traffic. To get the most out of PPC, it is wise to take the time to get the right training and certifications. Google offers this training in their certification process for both Google Adwords and Google Analytics, which is free for all businesses. If you don't have time or resources for this, it's important to hire someone with the experience and training in PPC. Just be conscious that when you turn off PPC, the traffic goes away too.
Search Engine Optimization is highly important and does take some time to build page authority and be indexed for the right search terms. Also, count on many fluctuations in your rankings, especially if you are in a highly competitive market. You never know when one of your competitors is going to step up their game and become an authority in your industry.
Do not be discouraged, because a long term SEO strategy is going to bring you the most qualified leads. Additionally, your SEO efforts (improving page content, backlinking, titles, meta descriptions, etc.) will directly help your PPC results as well.
When done correctly, both PPC and organic SEO can get you on the front page of the search engines for targeted terms. However, each has its respective benefits and costs. Good luck!

Monday, 18 December 2017

When To Use Which Search Marketing Method

When Is It Best To Use SEO?
SEO refers to a group of techniques that are aimed to propel a website to the first page of the major search engines.
SEO is very important for online businesses, as statistics show that 80% of the traffic that can be generated for any website will come from the search engines.
The biggest search engine is undoubtedly Google, which garners more than 3.5 billionsearches per day; hence, most SEO campaigns target this specific search engine.
So, when should you use SEO techniques over PPC? Below are some circumstances when SEO would prove highly beneficial for an online business.
•             When consistent results are desired. SEO has a relatively long gestation period. Getting to the first page of search engine results won’t happen overnight or even in a week. Getting to the top of the SERPs will take time. However, once your website gets there via SEO, you will enjoy sustained traffic. Also, if you keep up with your SEO campaign, working to maintain and improve results, you can stay on top for a long time and reap long-term benefits.
•             When you wish to build an authority site. An authority website is an established resource center for a particular niche. It is the “go to” website whenever members of that niche need certain information. An authority website, once it gets going, will be able to generate lots of traffic based on URL recall alone. The best way to establish an authority website is by sustainably generating traffic to your pages, eventually building up a reputation until it becomes popular enough to dominate its market. The only way to sustainably generate the traffic required is through clever content powered by smart SEO planning.
•             When you want to increase the value of your website. Websites are virtual real estates. If you’re planning to sell your website for a premium price, you have to increase its value. There are many factors that can contribute to increasing its value. Among them are amount of traffic generated, consistency of traffic generated, page rank, search engine rankings over a period of time, link popularity, and the like. All of these fall in the realm of SEO.
Keep in mind that SEO isn't "Free Clicks". It's a tremendous amount of work in creating and promoting content which takes a great deal of time and money.
When Is It Best To Use PPC?
Now we go to the other side of the SEO vs. PPC debate.
Pay-per-click marketing is a method of advertising on search engine results pages. Basically, you bid to have your ads appear in the sponsored results when someone types in a query including your keywords.
Why is it named “pay per click”? Because you have to pay for every user who clicks on the ad you are promoting.
Popular PPC advertising platforms include Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook’s advertising platform. Niche-specific PPC systems also abound.
So, when should you use PPC marketing? Below are some circumstances when PPC would prove highly beneficial for an online business.
•             When immediate results are desired. PPC will deliver results fast. Very fast! You can count the minutes before a rush of visitors come cascading to your pages. This is because the moment your PPC campaign is approved (provided that your bids are high enough to merit priority placement), your ads will immediately be displayed for millions of people to see. The traffic will almost be instantaneous. Hence, PPC works amazingly well with product launches, squeeze pages, CPA marketing and affiliate marketing involving high converting offers, joint venture (JV) projects, seasonal promotions, event-focused marketing, and analogous online business campaigns.
•             When highly targeted traffic is sought. Unlike SEO, PPC marketing will allow you to narrow down your prospects based on their demographic data. Many PPC platforms, like social media sites, allow you to promote to the age range, gender, income bracket, education level, and even marital status of the people who will be able to view your ad. Popular social media sites like Facebook also allow you to target people based on their hobbies. These make PPC a powerful way of reaching the narrow band of people your business needs, and leading them to your web pages.
•             When promoting a time-sensitive offer. Marketing products, services or events with an expiration date is always a race against time. Often, the long gestation period of SEO campaigns would produce belated results. For these time-sensitive offers, the expedience of PPC marketing would be perfect. Promoting an offer that will end in 2 days? No problem. PPC can deliver the traffic you need in a matter of minutes.
•             When your website isn’t designed for SEO. SEO requires content-rich websites that are regularly updated. This is the only way to 1) inform the search engines that your site is relevant, and 2) remind the search engines to keep your site at the top of the pile. Some websites are not designed for this. Squeeze pages, for example, won’t have the required content to even merit a second glance from Google. For websites such as this, traffic can be generated from PPC campaigns.
•             If you want to dominate search results for your keyword category. PPC results are displayed above the organic search results. This prominent position means that in many cases, as much as 50% of the search traffic goes to the top 3 sponsored links. By being absent from PPC you're conceding loss of all those clicks to your competitors. If you're serious about maximizing your click-share of available searches for keywords relevant to your business, you absolutely must engage in PPC!
These are some situations when you might have a preference toward one marketing method or the other. I personally believe one shouldn't be thinking in terms of SEO vs. PPC - but rather that both SEO and PPC are important, and complementary, parts of an online marketing strategy.

Difference Between SEO & SEM

As marketing has evolved, so has the language we use as marketers. We're all guilty of tossing around various jargon and acronyms on a daily basis that often leave our clients confused. And in fact, we as marketers are probably confused ourselves at times on what certain terms and acronyms mean as well.
An example of this are two terms and acronyms that are often used interchangeably without clear understanding of how they're related and how they're different: SEO & SEM.
What is the Key Distinction Between SEO and SEM?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has traditionally been thought of as a component of the umbrella term, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), encompassing both paid AND organic tactics. Today, SEM is used to refer exclusively to paid search. According to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Marketing is “the process of gaining website traffic by purchasing ads on search engines,” while Search Engine Optimization is defined as “the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial or natural search results on search engines.”
So, rather than viewing SEM as an umbrella term encompassing SEO, it’s more accurate to view SEM (paid search) and SEO (organic search) as separate entities to use as part of your Search Marketing arsenal.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The industry and discipline of SEO is continually evolving to keep up with Google's ever-changing algorithms, but one thing is constant: SEO is made up of on-page and off-page (aka "on-site" and "off-site") activities as its two main pillars.
On-page SEO consists of:
•             Optimized meta data, including the page title tag, meta description, heading tags, and image ALT tag, which incorporate target keywords
•             Well-written and optimized page copy that incorporate target keywords
•             Simple and well-formatted page URLs with selective keywords
•             Optimized page speed
•             Social sharing integration within your content
Off-page SEO consists of:
•             Link building to attract and obtain quality inbound links (aka "backlinks")
o             This makes up the majority of off-page SEO
•             Social signals (e.g., increasing traffic to a website from social media sharing)
•             Attracting attention from social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg and Stumbleupon
A large part of SEO is creating valuable, high-quality content (e.g., blog articles and web page copy) that your target audience will find helpful. Over time, this results in increased organic traffic to your website, more opportunities for inbound links and, most importantly, more conversions.
Be sure to pay attention to these on-page and off-page tactics to ensure your landing pages, web copy and blog articles are optimized for search.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM strictly involves earning search visibility through paid advertisements on search engines like Google. While these advertisements are commonly referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, there’s a slew of additional terms used for paid search or SEM activities—cost-per-click (CPC) ads, paid search ads and paid search advertising.
PPC advertising allows you to target potential buyers through relevant ad copy and keywords that match their search queries. These ads show up in the search engine results pages (SERPs) next to organic listings, which gives your company the opportunity to increase the visibility of its web pages, landing pages, blog articles and more.
What Are Some Examples of SEM Activities?
Google AdWords is far and away the most popular platform for hosting ads, but there are some key activities needed for successful SEM on the platform, such as:
•             Launching ad campaigns with a specific audience (e.g., geographic) in mind
•             Creating ad groups that consist of target keyword variations
•             Writing relevant ad copy using these selective keywords
•             Setting an ad budget
•             Monitoring metrics like clicks, impressions, click through rates and average cost-per-click

There are several other intricacies involved in launching and maintaining an effective paid search ad campaign, but these five activities are especially important for any beginner to master. If you’re thinking about ramping up SEM efforts to complement organic SEO, be sure to take a look at Google Adwords’ Search Ads page.
So, Which is Better? Strict SEO or SEM?
Advocates on either side could argue one is more effective than the other, but I like to view high-quality SEO as a prerequisite for high-quality SEM. SEO lays the foundation for SEM through well-optimized content that prospects and customers find helpful. Without landing pages, web pages and blog content optimized for search, your SEM efforts will fall flat due to poor quality, and visibility in the SERPs will be extremely difficult. Organic SEO is also less costly long-term as you establish search credibility, as long as you maintain it with the consistent creation of quality content and social media usage.
On the other hand, if you’re just launching your first website and initial online footprint, you’re likely going to need some immediate visibility in search until you build up some organic credibility. With a strategic PPC campaign, you'd be able to achieve this. What you shouldn't do, though, is rely strictly on PPC long-term while ignoring organic SEO.
So, evaluate what's best for your specific needs but make sure you fully understand the differences and how you'll maintain your efforts long-term.
To learn more about organic SEO and PPC advertising, download our Organic SEO vs. Pay-Per-Click Comparison Guide below!

Monday, 11 December 2017

Online Reputation Management – Part 2

Write a Guest Blog

Writing an article or blog post as a guest can be a very helpful but not as much as in the past—be sure to work only with blogs and ones focused on your industry .  Start by following blogs and topics that are appealing or relate to your business and eventually pitch them an idea for a blog topic. This is a great way to get links back to your site.

Build Links to Your Site

Links pointing to your web site help drive traffic and shows search engines such as Google that you are a noteworthy, good site, thus helping your ranking. Developing a good linking strategy can be extremely time consuming but is worth it.  Never buy links: as Google continues to weed out bad links, you’ll quickly get blacklisted and ruin your reputation further.

Make Comments on Online Communities, Forums

Follow and good, interesting and online sites, forums and communities specific for your industry.  Check them frequently and commit to making one comment daily to show that you are a “thought leader.”  Also be engaging.  Don’t just say, “Good article,” which sounds “spamy,” but put some thought into the comment.

Monitor Google Alerts

Monitor your online reputation by signing up for free Google Alerts. Note that you need a Google account, but you should have one already—if you don’t, get one immediately.  Here you simply enter the word or phrase you want to monitor and when it shows up online, you’ll get an email notification.  Usually, enter your name or your business name.  If it’s a common name, you can include an attribute about your name, such as, “Jane Smith Finance”.  You can also select how often you want alerts (select immediately) as well as other options.

Give a Talk or Speak at Conferences

Being visible in public is a way to generate positive news about you and build an excellent reputation, so pick some topics that you are an expert in and contact a local library, club or business organization and offer to give a talk.

Create a Reddit Account and be Active

Reddit is an extremely popular site that aggregates news and comments on various topics.  It can sometimes be hard to add a comment or link because it is geared to block spam or frequent additions.
Google+

Although Google Plus is on it’s way out, it still can be helpful since it’s a Google property and post and comment daily.  Follow influencers in your field and engage with them.  Since it’s a Google platform, it will be indexed very quickly making it a great online reputation management tip.
Create Yelp Reviews for Others

Yelp is a very popular review site, and having a presence there is a way to boost your online reputation.  Create some legitimate reviews for places you genuinely like, and avoid the temptation to write a glowing review for yourself posing as someone else—it’s illegal and if you get caught, this could damage things further.

Bonus: Be Active in Meetups

A Meetup is a great online and “offline” reputation management tip.  It is free to  participate in a Meetup group, so join several in your area and post comments after attending a meeting.  If you’d like to create a Meetup, it costs about $79 to start a group for six months. Managing a group can be time consuming to create frequent group meetings but focus them around your expertise.  Remember to announce the Meetups on your social media platforms.

Bonus: Create Infographics

An Infographic is a clear, graphic representation of an idea, and is a very popular way to share information.  Generate an infographic based on a blog post using a tool such as Visual.ly.


For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at Social Media Marketing, Search engine marketing, Search engine marketing India,  Online Marketing New Delhi & Online Marketing Companies India

Online Reputation Management – Part 1

Remember, however, that online reputation management is usually a long term process, and could take about six months or more to complete, requiring about two or four hundred hours of consistent work.
Create A Website
Making a website or updating a site with quality content and using your name or business as the domain name is very helpful. Be sure to add legitimate information reader or client will truly find valuable. Also, the site should be updated with new content frequently. I highly recommend WordPress and it’s thousands of free or low-cost templates.
Write a Blog
Writing a blog is probably one of the best solutions. Posting instructive and engaging articles weekly or very frequently is crucial.  It is best to use a catchy title, have good images (don’t swipe it: purchase it or use a Creative Commons image), use headings to break the piece down into easy-to-read sections, and insert one or two links back to your site.
Be Active On LinkedIn
For business connections, nothing beats LinkedIn.  As with any social media site, completely fill out the profile and make sure you include web site links in your contact information.  An additional online reputation management tip: customize your URL with your name or business.
Attempt to Remove Negative Links
Removing the negative post, link, image or blog post is possible but frankly, however, it’s usually extremely difficult to delete content once something has been published.  Politely contact the author or webmaster and professionally state your case and request the item to be removed.  Be sensitive that you don’t want to open a “hornet’s nest” by reaching out to the author, however. There might be options that an online reputation management specialist might have, such as reaching out to Google too.
Create a Wikipedia Entry
A Wikipedia article is extremely useful and since it is highly valued by search engines, it will usually rank on the top of the first page of Google and thus is a powerful online reputation management tip.
Creating one can be problematic, however. The entry must be truly noteworthy backed-up with verifiable sources.  One approach is to focus on major recognizable accomplishments that can be documented, such as lectures giving, awards won and articles published.  Also note that your article could be taken down by administrators or other editors/readers if your achievements are not substantiated. Be aware that if negative articles just came out, you could be “adding fuel to the fire” by creating additional unwanted attention.
Create a YouTube Video
YouTube and videos are extremely powerful ways to repair an online reputation.  Create one that focuses on you and the positive things you do.  Keep it brief and as professional as possible, and offer useful information. Using your smartphone could be fine so long as your are authentic or provide great content.
Stay Clear of Negative Comments
Don’t comment on negative content such as a review on RipoffReports.com because it will only push its ranking higher. Tempting as it might be to tell your side of the story, this will only make things worse so avoid it.
Make a Presence on Industry Platforms
Follow and identify good, interesting and useful platforms specific for your industry, and add your online presence there. Be sure fill out all the profile information, including links to your site and blog, your photo, and links for key articles.
Write a Whitepaper
You are an expert in your field—whether it be mortgage backed securities, rental properties in the Hamptons, or contemporary emerging art galleries in Chelsea.  Create a detailed whitepaper or thoroughly written informative document on a topic of your choosing, and then post it to a well regarded site.
Get on Relevant Blogs
Follow and good, interesting and useful blogs and online sites for your industry, and add your online presence there.
Join Alumni Groups
Add yourself to undergraduate or graduate schools alumni sites. Usually, sites with “.edu” domain extensions are ranked highly by Google.
Update Your Web Site with Meta Tags Title and Descriptions
Be sure your web site is optimized, ideally for the negative term.  This could be complicated and might involve an SEO or ORM expert but make sure your name or your company is included in the title metatags of some of your pages.  The page’s Title is the link that Google displays when searching for you, and without it set up properly, the good information about you won’t be found.
Be Active On Facebook
Be very active on social media sites such as Facebook by posting good content.  These should not be purely promotional but should be geared to engage with your friends.  Add images, ask questions, and comment on other’s post at least once a day.
Tweet Daily
Google is using cues from social media engagement more and more so after Facebook, Twitter is an excellent online reputation management tip.  Gain good followers, put out helpful information, and link back to your site.  Tweet consistently several times a day.
Add Images to Pinterest
Adding visual information to Pinterest can also be very powerful. Comment on others, “like” and “Pin” compelling images.  The best times to post images are after 8pm or the weekends. Look to gain Followers too and develop Boards that are clear, colorful and have a specific niche.
Post Images to Instagram
Although slightly depending on your industry, activity on Instagram can vary, but minimally make an account and add your website in the Profile section. Comment on others, “like” and add your own images you take ranging from cityscapes, vacation photos, meetings locations, etc.
Complete Image Information
As mentioned above, images are more important than ever to Google, and having a properly named image file is crucial.  Be sure when adding images to blogs to make sure all additional fields are completed.


Tips For Building Your Brand On Instagram

Create a Profile
You need to create a separate business profile on Instagram which posts content that is relevant to your business.
Adding a call to action along with a link in the bio is helpful in getting your target to visit your website, your landing page, or a contact page. You need to showcase the core value proposition of your business in the profile bio.
Link to Other Social Accounts
You can repost your Instagram posts to other social accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr and Foursquare. You can link these accounts to your Instagram account and get more reach on your Instagram posts with simplified sharing on these accounts.
Be Regular
Like any other social media platform, you need to post to Instagram on a daily basis to ensure your followers can engage with your business, actively. You can also promote your Instagram account on other channels like Facebook and Twitter to get more followers on it.
Influencer Outreach
This is one of the most popular strategies for promoting your business on Instagram. You need to search for influencer accounts on the platform which have a larger number of followers. Make sure these people belong to your business niche. You need to contact them to check whether they will be willing to ‘shout-out’ your business on their profile. They may do this without a cost depending on the number of followers they have. You could also end up with a barter deal where you promote their account in return.
Using Hashtags
Hashtags are the best way to obtain search traffic on Instagram. You need to use a maximum of 3-5 hashtags in your post caption to improve the visibility of your posts. You can find some popular hashtags on Websta, but use them only if they are relevant to your business. Add relevant keyphrases to the tool to find their popularity and then make a wise choice.
Professional Images
Instagram is a visual medium and the quality of your images plays a vital role in developing your brand’s desired reputation. You could hire a professional photographer while sharing product images on your Instagram page. Tasteful stock images, such as those from Unsplash, can also be used to share engaging posts relevant to your business. Use Instagram image filters to make your pictures look trendy. You can look at competitor posts to understand which filters work best. The standard square image size for posting on Instagram is 1080px by 1080px.
Getting More Followers
You can get more targeted followers on your Instagram account by engaging with them. You need to look for accounts in your niche. These could be those who are following your competitors, or just prospects. You need to follow these accounts, like and comment on their posts and tag them in your posts.
Organize Contests
Instagram contests are a useful way to improve the level of interactivity among your followers. You need to create a contest hashtag and then ask prospective participants to upload eye-catching images using the hashtag along with a unique caption. Pick a few winners and give away prizes that they would like. These could be goodies like your company branded coffee mugs, gadgets or anything that the target group will find useful.
Use Geo-Tagging
Instagram allows you to add the location of your images to your posts. You can use this feature to tag the site of an event your business is participating in or organizing. The feature also helps in showcasing the location of your business. You can also get your contest participants to use this feature in the case of contests that are organized in your business location.
Create a Teaser
You can build excitement around upcoming contests, events or product launches by adding posts that just provide a hint of what’s going to happen. You can ask your followers to take a guess, to build engagement around a particular event. The tactic is helpful in building a buzz among your prospects and followers.
Schedule Your Posts
You can easily schedule your Instagram posts with Later. The tool helps you share posts from your desktop. You can start using this tool for free. Make sure to analyze which posting times are getting the highest reach and engagement so you can optimize your scheduling in the future.
Post Videos
Instagram has increased the video length limit from 15 seconds to 60 seconds. You can benefit from this feature by adding videos about your services. These could range from introductory videos to promotional ones or tutorials. Make sure the video quality is good and visually appealing to your target group.
Embed Images
You can add photos from Instagram to your website or blog using embeds. These could be images added from your account or followers’ accounts. You can embed contest posts shared by participants to a separate ‘contest showcase’ landing page. Embed your Instagram videos to your website and improve their views.
Run Paid Campaigns
You can easily connect your Instagram account with your Facebook page and business manager account to start running paid campaigns on Instagram. You can create your ads using the Facebook power editor and run campaigns targeted to specific audiences. Paid campaigns can help you build a good follower base that you can engage with on the account.
Content Calendar
You need to have a content calendar while posting on Instagram. It can be based on events and festivities that are popular in your industry. You can also add product-based promotions depending on business requirements.
Use Instagram Stories
‘Stories’ is a recent addition to Instagram that was inspired by Snapchat Stories. The feature allows you to add temporary photos and videos to your profile. These stories will be shown to your followers for 24 hours before they disappear. You can add doodles and filters to your stories and engage with your audiences in a unique way.
Use Notifications
Instagram allows you to receive notifications if somebody in your network adds a post. You can use this for your business to engage with specific accounts that have a high following. Just turn on the post notifications on their profile.
Instagram Direct
With this feature, you can send a direct message to up to 15 of your followers at a time. You can include an image or a 15-second video to convey your message. You could select your most active follower and send them an offer or a product promotion with this feature. The feature can also be used to reach out to prospects of a particular location.
Create a Style Guide
It is important to create a style guide while building a brand on any platform. The same goes for Instagram. Your guide should specify the rules around your color palette, use of the logo, image design, font usage, and captions and hashtags. A guide for video posts can also be included if videos are being frequently used. This helps in achieving consistency in your posts, which strengthens your brand image.
Measure and Analyze
You need to analyze your Instagram marketing activity to understand which content is doing best with your targeted audience. This will help your content to make it more relevant and engaging for your audience. You can use tools like Simply Measured, Iconosquare and Sprout Social to track the required metrics. Using these tools you can analyze at which times your posts are performing best, rates of engagement, follower analysis and more.


Sunday, 3 December 2017

What Advanced Seos Need To Know About Algorithm Updates

Times have changed. Gone are the days of yearly algorithm updates that would upend the search results and leave us scrambling. These days, it’s common to see ranking and traffic changes on a daily or weekly basis — and when it comes to algorithms, Google rarely even confirms updates. In fact, according to Olga Andrienko, Head of Global Marketing at SEMrush, of the 28 updates SEMrush tracked this year, only two have been confirmed by Google.
What does this mean for SEOs? Without guidance or transparency from Google, how should we react to ranking changes or possible penalties, and what should we be aware of?
Search experts at SMX Advanced last week tackled these questions in a session titled, “Dealing With Algorithm Updates: What Advanced SEOs Need To Know.” Andrienko and fellow panelists Marie Haynes (Owner, HIS Web Marketing) and Jeff Preston (Senior Manager, SEO, Disney Interactive) provided some tips and checklists to help SEOs better identify penalties, assess traffic drops and take action when needed. Let’s take a look.
According to the panelists, just because you saw a big traffic or rankings loss on a day where an algorithm update hit, that doesn’t mean you were penalized. In fact, it’s probably not a penalty at all.
As both Haynes and Preston noted, there are a number of things that can lead to a sudden decrease in traffic: site redesigns, site updates, analytics adjustments, and more. When in doubt, it’s probably you, not Google.
Before assuming you were penalized, identify any changes that were made on your site. Talk to the QA team, check tech team activity, talk to the content team — whoever has the power to make updates to the site should be your first line of communication.
Speakers also noted that it’s important to know your data to be able to make a true assessment. Haynes gave us a checklist of things to look into:
•             Check Search Console. If you are assessed a manual penalty, you’ll see it in there.
•             Determine which pages saw traffic drops. If you are just seeing one page being impacted, it’s not an algorithm change.
•             Check all organic traffic data. If you were impacted by an algorithm update, you should only see an impact in Google.
•             Look at your competitors. Did your competitors see any changes? Algorithm updates tend to target certain types of search results and industries. Take a look at competitor rankings.
At the end of the day, you may not have been hit with a penalty at all, and it’s important to look at all of the other factors that might lead to a drop in traffic first.
Tools are a good way to track site performance, and while it’s always interesting to see the changes in SERPs, make sure you are looking at the big picture. Look beyond your own site to see how your overall industry is performing and being impacted. And as noted above, just because a tool shows us SERP fluctuations, it doesn’t mean you were penalized.
Be liked & be valuable
If Google can figure out which sites you like, why can’t they figure out what sites everyone likes? I loved this idea from Haynes and what it implies: Google wants to provide users with the best possible experience. It wants to give users what they are looking for, and the updates we are seeing now are geared to do that.
Case in point: Preston noted Disney removed 80,000 low-quality pages and got a boost in organic traffic. Most sites that remove content don’t see a jump in organic; however, because the majority of these pages were low-quality and receiving ~1 visit per month, they weren’t helping the site in any way.

Content Development Tips

As Google makes their updates and other search engines come into play, it’s a great time to think about how you can stay ahead of the game in 2018. Do you know if you’re producing quality content? If you’re selling a product that can be bought elsewhere, how do you separate your approach from your competition? Do you offer real value that consumers won’t find anywhere else? What do you do to get people to read your content? These are some questions you should be asking yourself when it comes to SEO content development. Check out our 5 tips for SEO content development below:
1. Keyword Research
Before you start creating great content, the most important factor is performing keyword research. There are online tools that you can use to find out what people are searching for online in your local area. Make sure you do thorough research of keywords to find out how often those words are searched in an average month. With this information you then want to use those keywords to produce content that effectively “answers” their search query. These are now called your target keywords.
2. Use of Keywords in Page Content
No matter if you have the quality content already written or if you’re going to start creating, you should look for opportunities to implement your target keywords within the content. The key here is to make sure your content is original and sounds natural. Be sure to not keyword stuff or use any other black hat SEO practices. Write for the reader, not the crawler.
Be sure your website has the following pages and include your keywords within these pages:
•             Homepage – The content on this page should include your main goals and what your site is offering.
•             Category Pages – You should have separate pages for each of your services. If you combine them onto one page then it makes it harder for Google to understand what that page is about, which can affect your ranking.
•             Product Pages – Be sure to include separate, SEO-friendly landing pages for each of your products.
•             About Us & Contact Page – Include a page that has your business hours, directions, locations and any contact information. This page should be easily found on your website.
3. Page Layout
Remember good content is great, and more of it is even better. Longer copy not only gives you a chance to talk about your services or products, it’s also good for search engines. The more information, the greater the opportunities search engines have to crawl the content on your page. But keep in mind – quality always comes before quantity! If you don’t have quality content, then you’re wasting your time.
Also, keep the reader’s attention span in mind; focus on being clear and more conversational than over the top informative. Using bullet points and lists can be a great way to help organize your content and keep it to the point. When it comes to laying out your page, make sure it first and foremost makes sense and it’s easy to read, but also make sure to include the following when applicable:
•             Keyword-Rich Headers – Separate the content with keyword-rich headers and use H1 or H2 tags. Keyword-rich headers further help search engines identify what your page is about.  When writing headers, it’s important to make sure they are engaging, influential and keyword-rich. This will also help the reader quickly identity what the content is about.
•             Image Captions – Entering a caption and ALT text for your images is a great way to add more copy on the page. Ensure that you include your target keywords in the captions and that those target keywords match the keyword strategy for that specific page. This is yet another great opportunity to optimize your webpage.
4. Keep It Fresh
People are online every day reading articles, searching for information and looking for products. The only way to really attract people and to stay ahead of the game is to provide new fresh content. Make sure you continue to improve the content on your website; this is an ongoing process. Also, be sure to include a blog either within your website off link to it from your website. Blogging is a great way to stay on top of sharing fresh content.
5. Tracking Engagement
How engaging are you? What do you do to get people to actually read your content? Ultimately, you want to make sure the interactions with your content on your website are meaningful. You’re probably thinking, what does that mean and how do I know? An easy way to track engagement to your website is by using Google Analytics.
When it comes to measuring page engagement, there are two important metrics to watch for, your bounce rate and your pages per session. The bounce rate is a percentage of single-page visits; which tracks the visits in which the person left your site from the arrival page without interacting further with the site. A high bounce rate could be a sign that your page content or layout is not engaging or user-friendly. A good way to measure how people move around your site is by tracking how many pages a person visits per session. If someone visits multiple pages on your website you can most likely assume that they’re engaged and interested in finding out more information.

Saturday, 2 December 2017

Creating And Growing Your Personal Brand

Why Personal Brands Are for Everyone
Personal brands should be important to everyone. Personal brands are not only for the entrepreneur that owns their own business. It is the secret sauce that can make you stand out of a stack of resumes.
If you don’t develop your own personal brand others will do it for you. Developing your personal brand is the proactive way of controlling your career development and how you are perceived in the marketplace.
A strong personal brand will impact your ability to get the right jobs, promotions, and increase your ability to attract talent and capital.  So, let’s look at these tips that can help you in creating your own personal brand:
1. Build Your Platform
If you are going to have a personal brand you will need a website in order to create your virtual platform.  Your website should be your name. You will also need social media accounts that represent your brand.
 You will use these platforms to share your voice.
2. Identify Your Uniqueness and Your Strengths
Think about the characteristics and strengths you’ve built in your career. If you are stuck thinking about that “one thing” that everyone says you rock at. If you're still stuck, ask others.
3. Own Your Space
Once you’ve identified your uniqueness and strengths, perfect them.
Learn all that you can and become the expert in that area. You can never stop learning. Read, absorb, and teach.
4. Share Your Knowledge
It’s not enough to learn it; you have to teach it and share your knowledge by helping others. Do this through videos, social media, and writing both online and offline. This is where you prove you know your stuff and gain exposure from doing so.
5. Be Yourself
Find your own style. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing and just follow the crowd. Use your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire. When I think of this tip I’m always reminded of Gary Vaynerchuk and how he built his brand by doing videos sharing wine reviews and tips. No one else was doing it and now look around hundreds of people are following in his footsteps. Find your own style and create a new set of footprints for others to follow in.
6. Identify Your Values and Set Your Priorities
It’s important to have a clear picture of your personal and professional goals, both short and long term. This will help you to not only identify the most important things to spend your time on but will also have something to align new projects with. Use your values and priorities as a compass that guides you both in action and your decision-making process.
This will ensure you stay on track.
7. Craft Your Personal Brand Persona
This will help in creating your brand. Your persona can be created by:
•             Identifying your emotional appeal. What are your personality features? This can be as easy as saying you have a crazy sense of humor or that you are obsessively organized. Take a few moments, why do you think people are attracted to the brand of you?
•             Describing yourself. When it comes to your brand who are you and why do people enjoy working with you?
•             Identifying your specialty. What do you do and what do people want you to do for them?
Use these exercises to create a strong personal brand persona that you can always refer to when it comes to creating materials that support your brand.

Friday, 24 November 2017

Tips For All Of Your Content

Designed to help you rank well in search engines and enjoy a wider audience, writing content for SEO is a critical part of becoming a well-known blogger in your given field.
Write your page to load quickly.

While it’s not an element of on-page SEO necessarily, page load time is a huge factor in the world of SEO, and there are certain steps you can take during the writing process to streamline load times. 40% of people abandon web page when they take more than 3 seconds to load, so it’s essential to keep load time in mind as you craft your pages.

•             Optimize your images. Images are an important part of a good blog, and they’re critical for SEO, as well. When they’re too long, though, they can easily harm a page’s load times. With this in mind, optimize your images to load more rapidly. This involves adjusting your image sizes so that they’re not excessively large, uploading speed-friendly image formats (JPEGS are the best options), and inputting image src codes to prevent the browser from surveying the page directory in an attempt to “read” the image.

•             Keep redirects at bay. Redirects can destroy your page load time, so it’s important to keep them to the bare minimum. As much as you can, avoid citing URLs in your content that redirect to other URLs. This will help enhance your load time and create a better user experience.

Make your headlines powerful and attention-grabbing.

The headline is a huge asset when writing content for SEO. In addition to the fact that the headline is the first thing people see, it’s also one of the primary things that Google evaluates when ranking your sites. To ensure that your headlines are performing well and drawing readers, be sure to do the following:

•             Include relevant keywords. For best results, input your keyword phrase at the beginning of your headline to make it as prominent as possible.
•             Keep them the correct length. Current stats say 65 characters or fewer.
•             Use action words. Action words make readers want to act. When your headline asks someone to click, share, or download, they’re more likely to do just that.
•             Address the reader directly. Addressing the reader directly makes your headlines more personal, and can grab a reader’s attention from the depths of the SERPs.

Optimize your meta description.

Meta descriptions are the small snippets of descriptive text that show up in Google’s SERPs. If you want SEO juice, you CANNOT ignore this part.

Include keywords (but not too many).

Keywords used to be all the rage in the world of SEO. Today, the buzz has quieted a bit, but they’re still an important piece of on-page SEO. With this in mind, you’ll want to include relevant keywords in all of the writing you do, but take pains to not go too far with them and “stuff” your content like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Use links to beef up your SEO strategy.

Links are a powerful tool to help improve your SEO. While internal links (links that point back to your own content) can help direct users to your other material, external links (to high DA sources with a score of 50 or above) will help communicate to Google and other search engines that your website is authoritative and relevant, and that you value quality connections to other online content.


Content That Supports Good SEO

1. Structure the content in your head before you write it.

While nobody is saying you need to sit down and create a “brain map” of your various ideas, content that supports good SEO is the opposite of an impressionist painting. Instead of being random and sudden, it is methodical and categorical. Because of this, brainstorming content is a powerful way to ensure that you’re including all of your main points and topics, and that you can use the content to input links, keywords, and other important SEO elements.

To this end, think about all of your content, with these questions, before you write it:

•             Who are you trying to reach?
•             Which keywords will you include?
•             What’s the overall point of your material?
•             What do you want the content to communicate?
•             By thinking through the course and structure of your content clearly, it’s easier to publish great content that lends itself nicely to SEO.

2. Structure your content for easy readability & long-tail keywords.

Great blog posts rely on great structure, and good SEO does, too. With this in mind, consider mapping or outlining your blog posts before you write them. In addition to giving you a structure to abide by, this simple task will also help you lay out your introduction, body, and conclusion, and ensure that your content is easy to read, which, in turn, makes it more reader- and search engine-friendly.

Long-tail keywords are your best friends in terms of optimizing for keywords that won’t break the bank (take too long or too much $).

3. Format all of your content into short chunks.

A large brick of text is intimidating to readers, and it will push people away. With this in mind, be sure to divide all of your content into readable chunks of text, with a beginning, middle, and end.
As a general rule, paragraphs should be only 3-4 sentences in length, and you should do your best to insert subheaders at intervals of every 300 or so words. This makes your content easier for readers to approach and helps keep it from feeling intimidating on the page. It also has the potential to improve your click-through rate, which can boost your overall SEO scores.

4. Make your headings descriptive.

Beyond just using headings, you need to know how to make them descriptive and useful. Headlines are meant to guide readers through your blog post, and headlines that are highly descriptive and include target keywords will do the best job of this. They’ll also work as a sort of advertisement on Google’s search engine results page and, if they’re written well enough, will draw more people to your content.

5. Nail the transition.

Transition words are important to your writing, and they can go a long way toward making it smoother and easier to understand for readers. While this sounds simple, it’s important to remember that good content is the foundation of good SEO, and content your customers can’t read doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of ranking well.

With this in mind, don’t hesitate to use transition words and phrases like “However,” “Secondly,” etc. These help your readers keep pace and will work wonders to streamline your writing.

6. Have other people proofread your posts.

While you may be an effective writer and editor, having other people read your posts will cut down on errors and improve your writing. With this in mind, hire an editor or another writer to help you look over your post before you publish them, and don’t ever make a habit out of publishing something you’ve not adequately proofread, since this is a recipe for mistakes and sloppiness, both of which can damage your rankings.

7. Make sure your articles are long enough to provide ample main content.

According to Yoast, every article you post should have at least 300 words. The reason for that is that content shorter than that doesn’t provide enough of what Google, in its updated Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, calls “main content.”

While it’s true that longer articles tend to perform better in the world of SEO, the main priority you have as a writer is simply to ensure that your articles provide enough main content to be useful to search engines and people.


The Importance of Color in Website Design

Color deeply influences the overall look and feel of a website and can form the first impression about a company for visitors. Color is one of the top three most important factors in a purchasing decision, according to an article by the Touro College Journal.

What do consider when developing a color palette

Companies and clients will often have a set of colors used in the corporate logo that they want implemented in the site design. It’s the web designer’s job to educate the client about how those colors will fit into the site’s style and gently encourage changes if necessary.
Colors have different meanings in different cultures and countries, so understanding the meaning of color in your target market is important. Here are some general guidelines for color codes:

•             Blue is associated with stability, trust, and confidence. It is an excellent color for credit card website or other sites needing to inspire confidence.
•             Black represents elegance, wealth, sophistication, and mystery.
•             White symbolizes peace, purity, and simplicity.
•             Orange represents warmth, enthusiasm, or warning.
•             Red is associated with strength, power, love, and desire.
•             Green can represent nature, health, vigor, and community.
•             Yellow is often associated with brightness, happiness, idealism, and hope.

Text colors

Text is harder to read on a monitor than on paper so the choice of background and font colors is supremely important. Readability of text is the primary concern. If the text is light colored, then the background must be dark and vice versa. White and black are the most common combination and red and blue are useful for link and highlighted text. Contrast is important for making text readable, so avoid dark backgrounds with text of too similar a tone.

Browser-safe colors

A common problem when attempting to build a web design around an established set of logo colors is that Pantone colors do not always reproduce accurately in browsers. When a non-browser safe color appears in a website, browsers will adapt by shifting the color. Some computers with aging graphics hardware may also fail to display colors correctly.

The best way to avoid this issue is to stick to the “browser-safe palette” of 256 or 216 colors (for really conservative designers). These colors are designed to be accurately displayed in all browser and hardware environments. While some designers (and clients) may find this limiting, it is the only way to ensure that a site is always viewed at its best. By limiting colors this way, designers can ensure that file sizes are smaller and that the site will load quickly.

Color psychology

Designers of all stripes know that colors can be organized into groups based on the feel they give a viewer. They fall into three basic categories, and sites incorporating colors from each group can have a more balanced feel.


Thursday, 16 November 2017

Everything You Need to Know on Social Media for Small Business

You’ve launched your website, opened your doors and created a Facebook Page for your new small business, but what’s next? It’s time to get people aware of your brand and what better way than social media?
There’s a reason why roughly 94% of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool, but doing it effectively is a whole other subject. Paid ads, organic reach and posting relevant content across your social media channels is not the easiest thing do while running a small business. However, there are ways to rule the digital space, even as a mom and pop.
Find Your Core Social Networks
A big mistake small businesses encounter is trying to tackle every social channel at once. We love your eagerness, but let’s face it–you have to take your time and invest in a few of the essentials first. Unsure what networks are right for you? We’ve got you covered with our small business guides for each main network.
Facebook for Small Business
The first channel nearly every small business jumps to is Facebook. And that’s OK. With over a billion daily active users, you have one of the largest pools to generate an audience. However, you want to be strategic with Facebook especially when it comes to paid and organic content, targeting your audience and engaging your followers. Read more on how to get started with Facebook.
Instagram for Small Business
While other social channels are staples to marketing, the fastest growing network is Instagram. Brands are rushing to Instagram to visually showcase their product or service to younger audiences. But do you fully know your Instagram demographics, what features users prefer or how to monitor hashtags? This guide outlines everything you need to know as a small business using Instagram.
Twitter for Small Business
Many smaller brands are still unsure of their need for Twitter or fear it will take too much time to manage. Let us break the common myths of Twitter for small business and show you how to scale the unscalable in this guide. Learn how to use Twitter to promote, communicate and engage on a small scale that’s perfect for your business.
Understanding the Value & Cost of Social Media
Figuring out the value of social is no easy task, which makes it hard for brands with little to spend know how much it costs to market or advertise. Your marketing and advertising department might just be you, so catch up on the best practices to learning the value and cost of social media.
How to Make the Most of Your Social Media Budget
If you’re trying to plan your social media spend, you’re heading in the right direction. But sometimes, smaller businesses are unsure how to make the most of their budget. While it’s good to be cautious with your budget, it’s just as helpful to know where you can spend. Read this guide to get the most out of your social media budget.
How to Measure the Value of Social Media
What is the value of a like or comment to your business? How much return do you earn from Retweets or mentions on Instagram? These are tricky questions to ask, but there is value to your business when you focus on traffic, awareness and leads within your social marketing strategy.
Ultimate Guide to Measuring Social Media ROI
One of the biggest struggles for businesses of all sizes is to measure social media ROI. But it’s not as impossible as you think. You simply need to look in the right places and understand what you’re tracking the value it brings specifically to your company. Learn more about social media ROI in this helpful guide.

Tactics To Improve Search Engine Rankings

SEO is a big topic and many web site owners are overwhelmed, feeling like it’s simply too much to handle, getting “fire hosed” with information from consultants. As a result, they look for bite sized chunks of information – tactics. Sometimes these individual tactics can make a dent in the problem, but not considering the overall picture including current site, competition, online marketplace, resources, ongoing marketing and analytics can result in lost opportunity and bottom line lost revenue.
The smart answer to the question about “top three SEO tactics” to focus on starts with an evaluation of the site in question to see if there are any immediate, high impact opportunities such as unblocking search engine spiders from crawling the site or assessing the content management system and any other major possible barriers to getting crawled and included.
Assuming those questions are solved and the market for the web site is well understood, the next thing is to make sure the site content is targeting the right keywords. Understanding what potential customers are looking for and applying that insight with a content creation and promotion strategy is instrumental for optimal search engine visibility.
The second thing to do is to apply the keyword research you’ve done to the web site and content being published to the web.  Make sure each web page contains unique, descriptive text using relevant and popular keywords. The key on-page influences of keywords on search engine rankings include:
* Keywords in the title tag
* Keywords in text links to your web pages from other relevant web sites
* Keywords in the copy of your web pages
* Keywords used in links between pages of your site

The last thing I’d recommend (I guess this is 4, not 3 tips) is to tell other sites related to your topic about your site and attract links. The bottom line recommendation with link building is to create content worth linking to. But then you need to tell other web sites about it or they won’t know to link to you. This is especially true with new web sites.
Be a resource for your industry and create content of value to potential customers to make the job of finding, evaluating and buying your products/services easier.  It’s also important to create the kind of content that other influential web sites and blogs will want to link to.
The top 3 or 4 things to focus on for improved search visibility (in my opinion) are:
1.            Make sure search engines have no difficulty in finding and understanding your web site
2.            Research the keywords that are most meaningful for your customers
3.            Use those keywords in your content
4.            Create content and promote content that makes it easy for customers to buy and easy for influential to link to your resources