search engine optimization

SEO blog category topics discussing tips, strategy, and news related to search engine optimization.

Hire A Sacramento SEO Company In 6 Easy Steps

Craig De Borba

Over the last year there has been a rise in Sacramento freelancers and advertisers hitting the the pavement to round up any local business they could to sell them SEO services and you may have noticed the rise in companies doing Sacramento SEO. Facebook is flooded with so called “experts” who took a 4 week course on selling SEO to Sacramento businesses, many of whom have never ranked a site or generated traffic before.

To help you navigate the spam emails and phone calls your getting daily as a local business owner, I put together some marketing tips to help you hire the right Sacramento SEO specialist to help you increase your organic traffic and rankings.

Trends change, search engine algorithms change, the way consumers use the internet change, it is important to keep up with this in order to stay ahead of the game and be able to deliver great results.

When searching for a Sacramento SEO how do you choose the right company?

So here we are going to get to the meat and potatoes and how to weed through the companies offering SEO services. Some of these may or may not be important to you. Like having the company be Local is pretty big to some business owners I have spoken with and if you think of one that is important to you and its not here, feel free to leave a comment and I will add it.

#1 Results

Q: Is there company ranking for their own market or service?
When you Google the service your looking for (sacramento seo company, internet marketing sacramento, etc) does that company appear in the top 10?
Q: Are their clients on Page 1?
Where are their clients ranking and ask to see proof. Some agencies don’t like to expose their clients rankings especially if you’re a competitor to their client, but any reputable SEO marketing agency should be able to provide you with case studies, verifiable results, and references.

#2 Customer Service and Communication

Q: How big is there company?
You may or may not want to work with a very large SEO company. Many business owners I have spoken with have had terrible experiences working with large companies, because they treat you like a number.
There is no personalization and you more than likely will have an intern or at best customer service account manager that has no clue what is actually being done on your campaign.

Another very common story I hear is that there SEO/web designer/PPC expert/brochure designer disappeared and took weeks to reply to their support questions. So, how responsive is that company?

When you requested a consultation how long did it take for them to respond? You want to make sure that the communication is very high and fast.

#3 Are they Interested in YOU

Q: What questions are they asking you?
Are they trying to learn about your current Sacramento business status, future goals, and current marketing performance or
are they just trying to sell you a package?

A professional consultant will take time to interview you, to get in-depth details about your business, services, and target customers. They will be interviewing you just as much as you are interviewing them.
A professional SEO consultant will want to make sure you’re going to be a fit for them just as much as you want to make sure they will be a fit for you.

They are going to be interested in increasing your revenue and not just selling you a program.

#4 Location

Q: Is the company even located in the US?
This may or may not be important to you but I think it is important to most local businesses. I have spoken to many business owners who are giving me time just because I am here in Sac. They are getting hit with many calls a day from companies not in California and some not even in the U.S.

It is also very nice to meet someone you’re going to be working with, shake their hand, and speak face to face if at all possible.

#5 References

Q: Do they have a few clients past or present that you can speak to?
You don’t need 100 names but a few people to confirm they’re delivering real results and people are happy with them is always nice. Case studies can also fulfill this requirement.

#6 Cost

Q: Are there services really cheap?
SEO companies that offer really cheap pricing you should proceed with caution. By cheap pricing I would say anything under the $500 per month mark. Depending on the geographical region and number of keywords of course, but that is a pretty good benchmark.

Legitimate SEO services are not cheap and behind the scenes the service will have a lot of moving parts. There is content writing, outreach, back linking, research, strategy, management, just name a few.

An analogy I heard from a fellow SEO was that a full-time Starbucks employee has a salary of about $1,500 per month, to make coffee. It is not very real that you can pay someone less than a Starbucks employee to grow your business. SEO is a specialized field.

An exceptional winning service that delivers the best results will cost money and there is no way around that. In the end, it’s the results that matter.

How Successful Businesses Use External Backlinks

Craig De Borba

I still remember the days of link farms where tons of links would be shoved into a single page. It was a mess, but it worked.

Fortunately, what worked back then no longer works today.

This does not mean that external backlinks should be avoided. Rather, when you do use them, make sure that the techniques you are implementing bring you the right type of attention.

5 Paths to Success with External Backlinks

The following 5 strategies are rock solid for 2017. However, they might not be the only options to consider. While reflecting upon the following details, if you find a point that should be included please feel free to share it in the comments below.

Creating Press Releases

A press release introduces new and returning viewers to key points about your local Sacramento business. While you can hire a SEO to help you with this make sure it is newsworthy and not just to increase rankings, it is a strategy that will typically backfire on them.

Done right you can generate quite a positive flow of attention for your brand with press releases. Attempting to tap into the excitement with fake news will not be advantageous for anyone, especially you and the corresponding image that you build.

If you really do have a new product people want to know about or an adjusted business objective that is important to your target audience, you have news worth writing a press release about. Just make sure that its seen as a resource of value in the eyes of your audience.

Guest Posting Advantages

So many people miss the gold when it comes to guest posting. This is not your opportunity to flood someone else’s blog with references to you. It is also not time to offer low quality information that is of no value to their audience.

When you guest post, you are creating content for someone else’s blog. Let’s say they have 100 subscribers a day that come to their site. If your article is posted that translates into a possibility of 100 viewers that find your article, read your content and visit your site as a result.

I’m sure you can see the power of building a traffic funnel like that. However, what if they had 1, 3 or 5 thousand daily visitors?

Building Niched Networks

Another reason to use external backlin

ks involves networking. No one is an island unto themselves, or at least they shouldn’t be. Especially when it comes to business.

The more you connect with industry Influencers within your niche the more they will think of you when referral opportunities arise. Why not offer to swap articles with associated links. Each of you offer high value to the others audience. The result will be quite positive for everyone involved, especially your viewers.

Opting into Sponsored Posts

The business world is full of big and little fish. Are you a little fish? At least smaller than someone you would like to have post a link to your site?

Why not offer to pay them to post your article?

No, I’m not talking about buying links here. At least not in the traditional sense that gets flagged by Google. Instead, as you are building your niched network be willing to sacrifice with real content for genuine results.

Using Local Business Directories

This is a huge opportunity that so many businesses miss. Especially those with a more global focus. Being listed in databases like Yelp, Google+ and the like bring you targeted audiences directly from those platforms.

Increasing the number of local directories, you are listed in means that more people will find out about you, your products and your services. Done right, that’s bound to produce positive results for your business.

Integrating Social Media into Your Solutions

We’ve outlined 5 solid ways to build external backlinks for your web efforts without saying one word about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media network. That ends now.

Once you have these various links built it is time to share them on these platforms and others like them. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?

After all, it increases your ability to be seen which can easily mean even more customers and clients securing your products and services.

Why Worry About External Backlinks

There are several answers to this question with a major one yet to be revealed. The obvious answer is that quality backlink building services increase the amount of people that find out about you. We’ve spoken about this throughout this article.

It takes effort to be seen.

If you aren’t seen you seriously decrease the possibility of people making purchases of your products and/or services.

Be seen.

But that’s not the half of it.

As you are going about building your influence via these backlinks you are being watched.

By spiders!

Algorithm effecting spiders with the chief one of interest being integrated into Google. As your influence increases so do your organic rankings on the search engines. That means more and more people will be finding out about you while they are looking things up on the Web.

Of course, that means more traffic which corresponding leads to greater results in your bottom line ROI.

Concluding Thoughts About Building External Backlinks

As you can see, there are a multiplicity of reasons why businesses today need to be building backlinks. If you aren’t doing things to get out in front of your audience one must wonder if you really are in business at all.

External backlinks are simply one of those things you need to be found doing.

On that note, which of the above strategies have you used with success? Please share your experience in the comments below.

If per chance your still on the fence about the power of backlinks and why you need them, we’d like to hear from you. What are your questions, your concerns, your thoughts? Feel free to share those in the comments below and let’s become the success of the web.

How to Create Natural Backlink Growth for Your Sacramento Business Website

Craig De Borba

As Sacramento business, owners pushing hard to increase your search engine rankings one factor to consider if you’re considering outsourcing your SEO is how do you make your backlink growth look natural even if outsourcing to a Sacramento SEO service? In this video I break down the SEO growth curve of a website, the natural growth curve a website goes through as well as some unnatural curves.

If you think about, what is the first thing you do when you launch your website?

You’ll probably tell some friends, right?

You’ll share on social media and maybe email some people, asking them to come check it out! Then, you’ll get listed in the all the business directories – Yelp, BBB, Google Maps, Chamber of Commerce, etc. And this sharing on social media will continue to occur throughout the growth of your business.

Next, you’ll want to issue a press release to get even more exposure. One of the things most businesses forget is this content should also be share through your social media channels. So now your press releases are getting links. If you’re thinking about hiring a SEO read this post.

In this article from SEOBook they do a great job of breaking down the backlink growth curve.

Image courtesy of SEOBook.com

Our spiky growth curves will most likey occur when issuing a press release, a piece of content goes viral, or some other big promotional effort.

As long as you didn’t spam or hire some SEO for $49 a month, then you’re probably safe. 🙂

Quality backlinks will usually stick (meaning not be removed or deindexed) leaving you with a higher level of backlinks.

Whichever methods of linkbuilding you are doing you want to be aggressive while still maintaining a natural growth and you want to be consistent.

Just building a couple links a month is really not going to get you to where you want to be. You’ll want to keep promoting until you reach the spot where the site is getting good amounts of organic traffic and in the positions for the keywords you want.

Promoting your website is a bit like any other competition. You train, you compete, you train more or you retire. If your business reaches the top position and you stop promoting and building links, eventually one of your competitors whom is still linkbuilding will overtake your position.

Typically SEO campaigns can last anywhere from 6 months + depending on the competition in that market, because it takes a natural growth curve to establish a ranking that will be stable.

And stable rankings is what we all want.

How to Rank Your Google Maps Listing in Sacramento

Craig De Borba

Let me guess: You are looking for that one silver bullet that will get your Google Places page to rank number one in the Google Maps listing, aren’t you?

I don’t blame you.

After all, for a lot of local business owners, ranking number one in the Google Maps listing is the next best thing since sliced bread. Not only can ranking lead to bajillions of sales, but the business owners can also benefit from generating truckloads of leads and brand recognition — all of which are crucial to a business’ success.

And so the question becomes, what are the crucial things that you need to do that will help you improve your Google Maps listing?

I’m glad you asked.

I’m going to share with you 5 tips that will help you with just that.

Let’s hop right in.

1. Add your business in several business directory sites.

Improving your local business’ ranking boils down to Google verifying that your business is legitimate. The more your business name, address, and phone number is listed (or mentioned) in other sites, the more Google will see your business as legit — which ultimately helps you with ranking.

There are several ways that you can go about getting the citations (you can check your citations using Onpoint citations scan) . For one thing, you can look for business directory websites where you can add your business information.

If you aren’t familiar with how to find business directory websites, then you can use these advanced Google search queries:

Business Directory inurl:”About us”

Business Listings inurl:”About us”

2. Be consistent with your NAP.

NAP stands for name, address, and phone number.

While adding your business details on several directory sites is crucial, if you aren’t doing things right, the chances are good that your marketing efforts will end up going to waste.

What do I mean by “aren’t doing things right,” you might want to ask?

Well, for starters, if you aren’t writing your NAP the same exact way on each site that you’re adding your business details to, then you won’t get much out of your marketing endeavor.

If you’ll miss adding your street address (among other details), you will most likely confuse Google. After all, if the business you listed in business directory site #1 is the same as the business that you listed in business directory site #2, then both should have the same business details, right?

If the details aren’t identical, Google might see both businesses as different entities, when in reality, they’re just one and the same business.

3. Use a local telephone number.

Instead of using a toll-free number, you’d be better off using a local number for your Google listing instead. This helps Google verify all the more that you, in fact, have a business in the local area.

If you are keen on sharing your toll-free number, then you can add the information on your website.

4. Optimize your business page.

If you are truly serious about wanting to rank your Google Maps listing, then you need to give due diligence in creating your business page and do linkbuilding.

For example, you need to take the time to optimize your listing’s description by adding relevant keywords to it. Instead of saying, “seasoned digital marketer,” you can say “seasoned digital marketer based in Sacramento” instead.

Doing so will give Google even more confirmation about the identity of your business.

5. Get reviews.

Get others to review your page. When your Google business page has positive reviews, that will tell Google that you are a trustworthy business — one that is worthy of getting ranked.

However, if your business page doesn’t have any reviews, then Google wouldn’t be able to use Google reviews as a gauge to measure how “rank-worthy” your business is.

Allow me to share with you three of the best strategies that my team and I are using to grow the number of reviews on our clients’ pages.

1. Offer discounts or freebies in exchange for reviews.

Imagine offering your customers a 20% discount on their purchases in exchange for reviews on your business page?

Do you think they’ll ignore your offer?

If you’re like most people, then you’d be more than happy to write a review. After all, not only would it only take you seconds to write the review, but you’d be able to save a couple of $$$ (depending on how much you’d purchase) which you can use on more important matters.

2. Straight up ask your customers — the satisfied ones — to leave their reviews.

If you’ve been giving your customers nothing but the best service, then I’m guessing that you’ve had several of them reaching out to you at this point, telling you how happy they are with your company.

While there’s no way for me to tell how you’ve been responding to the positive reinforcements that your customers are giving, I urge you to take advantage of these favorable situations by asking them to leave a positive review on your Google business page.

Considering how they’re pleased with your service, the chances are good that they’ll do as you asked, and leave a review on your Google listing — a positive one at that!

3. Use contests.

Here’s a scenario: You sent your existing customers an email telling them that you are running a contest. You then proceeded by saying that the contest’s prize is an (insert an item that you know they’d die for).

How do you think would they respond if you’ll tell them that the only entry requirement is for them to leave a review in your Google Maps listing?

Do you think they’ll add a review to your listing so they can join the contest, or not?

While there are certainly some exceptions to the rule, I’m sure you’ll agree with me if I say that most of the people will add reviews so they can join the contest.

While there are several methods that you can use to go about getting more reviews, the three tips that I shared above should be deadly enough to move the needle for you.

That being said, be sure to use the tips, and not just read and forget them.

(After seeing the results from having used the points that I shared, you are more than welcome to come back and share your experience in the comments section below.)

What’s next?

If you don’t have ample experience in digital marketing, ranking your Google maps listing can be such a headache. This is particularly the case if you’re a Sacramento based business and your competitors are ranking using SEO and are working with a seasoned Sacramento SEO consultant who know the tricks of the trade of optimizing Google business pages.

If you are sick and tired of not being able to see your business page in Google Maps listing, then allow me to help you with that.

How We Were Able to Get Multiple Positions for a Keyword

Craig De Borba

For a lot of business owners SEO is a must-have, they only think about ranking first in the search results. Not many consider the possibility of getting multiple rankings for a keyword, even though there is so much value to be had from snagging several positions of the search engines’ first pages (on top of getting the number 1 position, of course).

In this post, we’re going to look at the other possible ways to get multiple rankings for a keyword.

7 Ways to get into the Google’s first page:

Paid ad (PPC)
Webpage (organic)
Local map listing (organic)
Video (organic)
Press release (organic)
Directory profiles(organic) (this can be any business directory such as Yelp, BBB, Yellowpages, etc.)
Other 3rd party content such as posts on other sites that may be relevant to the target keyword. (organic)

Allow me to share with you several examples where we’ve managed to get multiple rankings on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) for a keyword.

Paid + Organic Ranking

There are a few rankings where we did some testing with 3rd party sites. For the keyword California SEO expert, we ranked my LinkedIn profile as well as our main website.

I should also note that we haven’t actively promoted for this keyword (or any keyword) in over a year. Although the actual positions do fluctuate (which is normal), they have been pretty consistent.

In the case of the 3rd party social media profile (LinkedIn), I added the keyword to the URL and then optimized the listing with the keyword (or variant) sprinkled once or twice.

Because these domains are already authoritative within themselves, it won’t be necessary to optimize the page too much.

The next step was to get backlinks to the profile page.

To build links to the profile page, we published an article and a press release where we added a link back to my profile page with some variant of the target keyword or just the brand name (LinkedIn) — again being careful not to over optimize.

Ranking through your local map listing.

In this screenshot, we were able to rank #1 organically in the Local Map section, #1 in the organic search results, and then another spot with a video.

Here’s how we helped one of our client’s (in the legal niche) rank his brand in several positions for a keyword.

Pretty amazing, huh?

Can you imagine how much lead (or sales) you’d be able to generate just by ranking your business in multiple slots of Google’s first page?

Now that you’ve seen how taking several spots on Google’s 1st page is possible, allow me to share with you two of the crucial overarching points that you need to remember when creating profiles on other sites to help your profile rank.

1. Optimize your profiles/pages for the right keywords.

Whether you’re in Linkedin, YouTube or you’re publishing your profile in other third party news sites; you need to optimize your pages for the right keywords.

Of course, we’re not talking about keyword stuffing here. I’m telling you to optimize your pages for the search engines AND your readers at the same time.

In one of the screenshots above, I shared one of our videos that are ranking well in the SERPs.

Notice what I did on the video’s title?

Check out what’s written in the video’s description.

Had I not included these keywords, this video would have never ranked in the search engines.

You’ll notice that I also did the same thing with my Linkedin profile.

When your profiles on authoritative 3rd party websites like Linkedin and Youtube (among other sites) are sprinkled with relevant keywords, then the search engine will know upon crawling your profile’s webpage that it is relevant to the keyword that you optimized it for.

2. Strengthen your web pages’ link portfolio.

Here’s how the process looks from a 30,000 ft perspective.

Step 1: Create profile pages for your brand on several 3rd party sites.

Step 2: Build high-quality links for your profiles.

Step 3: Your profile pages on 3rd party sites will rank for the keyword.

Step 4: You’ll get truckloads of leads and sales.

The point of contention lies in step 2. After all, everyone can create profiles on a bunch of websites — even a five-year-old can do that nowadays. However, building links is where things get tricky.

Here’s the thing: You need to remember that link building is an eat all you can buffet — not a $4 Chik-fil-A sandwich that your 10-year old can devour in minutes. I can talk about link building for weeks and still not be able to cover every nook and cranny that needs to be said about the topic. That being said, instead of going through the nitty gritty of link building, I will share with you the one link building method that is proven and tested to help you rank your web pages.

What link building method am I talking about?

Guest posting, of course.

To help you find relevant websites that you can pitch your guest posts on, you can use these advanced search queries:

“Keyword phrase” inurl:”Guest post”

“Guest post” + “Keyword phrase”

“Submit articles” + “Keyword phrase”

“Write for us” + “Keyword phrase”

The search queries above should bring you websites within your niche that accept guest posts.

Once you’ve put together a list of websites that accepts guest posts from within your niche (or the overlapping niches), then you can start short listing the sites to ensure that you’re only pitching guest posts to high-quality sites.

While there are several elements that you can look into when qualifying a website, for starters, you can look into these two elements:

1. Website traffic (you can use Similarweb.com). As much as possible, I don’t go for websites with less than 10k monthly traffic.

2. The website’s Domain Authority (DA). You can use SEOReviewTools’ free DA checker to view a website’s DA. As much as possible, I don’t go for sites with DAs that are less than 25.

Conclusion

With the points we’ve covered, you now have the necessary elements to get your brand multiple rankings for a keyword on Google’s SERPs.

At this point, the only thing left is for you to take action. After all, no amount of sound advice or expert tips can help you rank your website if you don’t take action on what you’ve learned.

What’s next?

Are you looking for a reliable SEO services, that can help you with ranking your website on the search results? If you answered with a “yes,” then reach out to me using this contact form.

7 Ways to Build Off-Page Backlinks

Craig De Borba

When it comes to a search engine optimization process having a strategy for both on-page and off-page marketing is critical.

On-page SEO strategies refers to everything related to your actual website.

Off-page SEO strategies involve everything outside of your website which points into your project. Following are 7 ways you can create these types of properties.

While off-page properties can lead to rankings for your Website, they can also drive traffic directly from the locations identified into your project. Further, they have ranking factors which means that it is quite possible for you to find these properties on the first page of Google along with your own website and or blog.

3 Easy Ways to Build Your Backlinks

Targeting Low Hanging Fruit

Low hanging fruit involves creating content around a given keyword phrase for your targeted niche. At first glance this might not seem like a link building method and is not a linkbuilding service, but it certainly can be.

Here’s how it works.

First, you create an extremely informative article that is full of great content that your niche will be targeted to. This can include images, video and text plus more with the article part being at least 1500 words or more.

The above is all targeted around a designated low hanging keyword phrase that rankings quickly on Google and your niche will love.

Next, you promote this gem out to your network be it social media your email list or whatever relationship strategy you have built. As your article builds momentum and climbs into position on the search engines other Web masters will find it, love it and link back to it from their own projects.

The result will be highly targeted niche authority web properties automatically creating links for you.

Relationship Building

But why stop there?

As you become aware of these link partners, build relationships of value with them. That could and should include brainstorming new ways that can be of positive influence for both of you as you continue to build your branded backlinks.

While you won’t gain value from the direct reciprocal linking approach, there are other methods such as writing a review article for each other that might work great.

Creating Videos

Who hasn’t heard about the idea of creating YouTube videos and how it can be of great benefit to your success online?

If your building anything on the Web today and not targeting videos with your strategy, I believe you are making a mistake. Sure, we all only have 24 hours in a day and we need to be very selective. Just don’t neglect the power of video marketing if you really want to make a difference for your success on the Web.

3 Less Known but Equally Powerful Places to Build Backlinks

Want even more powerful diversity within your work?

Consider working with the following types of properties.

Answering Questions

We already touched on answering questions within forums but that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this strategy. Many people are answering questions on Quora, eHow and Yahoo Answers as part of their off-page marketing strategies.

Sharing Documents

Another option is to create documents that will resonate with your audience. Make sure the content is 100% unique to you and you’ll be welcomed on such sites as SlideShare.net and Scribd.

Here’s how this works:

Let’s say you wrote a 2,000-word article for your blog. After posting it live, you can pull up a tool like PowerPoint and create a slide presentation which covers 5 to 7 key points about that article. After all, the research is already done.

Once you have the slideshow ready upload it and you have 2 properties working for the price of one. That becomes a win-win situation for you.

Submitting Images

While writing that article mentioned above, did you create some images to share with it?

Hope so.

Images can draw a significant amount of attention if they are done right. Since those images belong to you, why not take time to share them out on image sharing sites?

After all, they are already created. It just makes sense.

Here are 4 to consider using:

Flickr
Tumblr
MediaFire
ShutterFly

Creating Infographics

A step beyond an individual image would be infographics that tell your audience your message in a visually oriented story format. Images are very compelling on the Web and infographics are even more powerful.

Here are three places to consider submitting your infographic properties too.

visual.ly
com/r/Infographics
submitinfographics

And if you need a good infographic creator checkout Canva.

What’s Missing and Why?

There’s a type of property that seems like a “no brainer” to build backlinks from which hasn’t been mentioned so far. It’s called social media:

Popular platforms would include:

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google Plus

And the list goes on.

Why haven’t I taken time to include these properties in this conversation?

Or perhaps it has something to do with the reiteration of the above position in tweets that were sent out on June 6^th, 2016.

So why pay attention to these types of properties at all?

No reason other than the massive amounts of traffic that can be realized thus.

While realizing organic ranks for your off-page strategies is important, it should not be your only focus. Whatever you can do to drive visitors to your site from other popular locations should be done.

That’s why we highly recommend including social media marketing as part of your off-page strategy.

Concluding Thoughts About Creating External Backlinks for Your Website

Well, there you have it.

A variety of methods for building off-page power to your Website through the power of backlinks. While many properties have been brought forward for your consideration there are always more that can be included.

That’s where you come in.

Which of the properties identified within this article have you used to drive traffic to your web properties?

Which are you going to start using now?

4 On-Page SEO Strategies in 2018

Craig De Borba

blue and white seo word with hand — Craft perfect titles for enhanced SEO and increase click through in the search engines in 2018.

The world of search, especially Google search, has seen significant changes since its launch on September 4, 1998. With each update, Google comes closer and closer to delivering its viewers exactly what they want on the first page of most any search results.

So how do you, as a professional marketer appease the Google gods in-order to secure your ranks desired within today’s search results?

If your answer revolves around using outdated methods that used to work, then you lose. That’s why you want to be sure to target what Google wants today within each post you send into their index.

FIX #1: Crafting Your Pages Title

Page titles used to be all about getting your keyword into position. In fact, if you use that funny looking pipe symbol [|] you can include your keyword phrase twice.

Yesterday, that worked.

Today, it’s called keyword stuffing and won’t result in your winning favor with Google.

tip to avoid keyword stuffing with seo — Avoid keyword stuffing, it is an old SEO strategy that is outdated.

That’s why I write my content first, think about my niche focus and then create the title reflective of the entire user experience. The user experience that you present is super important compared to keyword stuffing of yesteryear.

It is okay to use the keyword in the title if the flow fits. Just don’t force it into position at the peril of your viewer’s interest.

While creating your title, be sure to keep its length under 65 characters.

Title generators can also be very useful in creating titles that bring the initial spark to your entire project. Here are 7 free title generators that will help you take your post to the next level and beyond in the eyes of your viewers.

FIX #2: Working with Permalinks

Even in days of ole, the permalink often went unnoticed when it shouldn’t have.

Bloggers would focus on the title, content and even meta data thanks to Yoast. However, when it came to the permalink piece many people didn’t even know what it was.

Let’s set the record straight.

Permalinks are the URL identification of each page or post on a person’s site. It consists of a variety of elements.

Here is a full URL:

https://www.onpointinternetmarketing.com/build-a-strong-online-presence

The domain itself is represented by the first part of its structure.

https://www.onpointinternetmarketing.com

content marketing tips and list to help with seo — Use these tips for your content marketing to boost your SEO results.

If a category has been created and is set to show it will be the next portion of the URL. In this case either there is no category or its display has been turned off.

The final piece of the URL identifies the actual page or post being targeted.

build-a-strong-online-presence

It is okay to have the keyword show within this part but more importantly is to make sure that the permalink is very easy to read.

Once the title is put into place the permalink is automatically formulated. I believe that is part of the reason that people don’t think about this when creating a new post or page.

The title for this page is:

BUILD A STRONG ONLINE PRESENCE USING THIS 3 PRONGED APPROACH

If I left the entire title in place within the permalink it would become extremely cumbersome and ugly. However, trimming it down to just a few words like what is presented above will make everything look so much better.

FIX #3: How Content Optimization Changed

Do you think that the best content on the Web includes a keyword density between 2% & 3%?

Do you think that your keyword MUST appear in the first and last 100 words of your page?

Do you think that every image included on your page or post must be optimized to your exact keyword phrase?

Think again.

Those thoughts come from yesteryears Google algorithms and won’t do you any good in today’s organic rankings.

Today, you want to focus on content that is user friendly and contains between 1 and 2K of content, with more being better.

Other points to keep in mind include how your content flows.

Short paragraphs
Bullets and numbering
Bolding

Anything you can do to make the article really come alive in the eyes of your viewer is what you should be doing. If you’re going to include your keyword I would not do it more than twice. Once in the beginning and again anywhere else in your article.

FIX #4: Correctly Formatting Images

Images don’t matter because Google can’t read them, right?

Not exactly.

There is no point to completing caption or description properties of your image. Correct?

Incorrect.

Images are a very important ranking factor for your website. The more attention you take to ensure your media is formatted correctly, the better it will be overall for you and your rankings on Google.

Everything starts with naming your image in a way that identifies it as well as targeting your preferred keyword. This does not mean using the exact keyword but something related to it. This is what is called LSI (latency semantic indexing) and Google likes it when it is used on created posts and pages.

We’ve all heard about naming the ALT tag. It is important.

What you may not know is that the description and caption are also monitored by Google. They are part of Google’s desire for accessibility to the blind as their machines can read what you write in those areas.

Caption’s also drive viewer engagement.

Many people read what is under the images first and base the results of their experience there to determine if the entire article will be a worthwhile read. That’s why I recommend using 2 to 3 sentences under each key image. It drives audience interest.

Final Thoughts About Fixing On-Page SEO Problems In 2018

We’ve covered core components related to on-page SEO strategies in 2018 when creating your content.

Creating titles that matter.
Correctly formatting permalinks.
Content creations that empower results.
Claiming image optimization power.
Invest in a white hat SEO link building service

They all are possible, just think about your client or customer first rather than how your work will affect Google’s algorithms upon their spiders visit. The bottom line point to keep in mind is that you need to get started in-order to see your deserved and desired results come to fruition.

What’s changed in your own SEO efforts in 2018?

What’s remained the same?

Let’s all climb the rankings on Google’s organic search results together.

SEO vs. PPC – What Do You Choose?

Craig De Borba

Over the years I’ve gotten calls from hundreds of businesses and while most want SEO others are completely against paying per click. But, why?

Most businesses start their own Adwords account and then try to run a campaign themselves without having any knowledge of bidding, ad copy, or keyword match types, on top of that they are usually not tracking anything. This is a recipe for failure.
I think this is the reason most develop an aversion to buying traffic, which is completely understandable. Even the most advanced PPC experts are going to have losing campaigns, not every one is going to be a winner, but the skilled person can make changes and create a winner as opposed to the novice whom doesn’t know how to turn it around.

Long and arduous debates continue to rage over whether businesses should do online organic SEO or engage in Pay-per-Click advertising. Each one has its place in the online marketing world, but the trick is to work out which is the best for your company. You have to take into consideration short- and long-term goals and the pros and cons of each. Generating business and new customers are your key objectives, and, of course, getting the right return on your investment. Well, SEO versus PPC, what do you choose?

First, What is SEO?

SEO consists of many activities, such as link building services, choosing the right keywords, developing effective meta and title tags and much more. It is important when you want a steady stream of traffic to your website while remaining in the top rankings of the search engines for a long time, and without paying for every click.

When you want to establish your business as an authority which will be recognized favorably by Google, SEO is the way to go. When you are not actually selling something online and gain revenue in a different manner through your website, SEO is also the best way to market.

Through SEO a business can rank their web page, their yelp review (or other profiles), and even video. Being found on multiple platforms is crucial today for a well-rounded online presence.

In my opinion, SEO is still the best long-term ROI traffic strategy.

What is PPC?

Pay-per-click is where you buy an ad such as on Google with Adwords, and pay each time someone clicks on the link and goes to your website or a landing page. A specific landing page, built specific to the ad and a direct call to action, is the better way to run PPC.

The advertiser (you, the online business owner) chooses certain keywords that you feel your target audience will use to search for your product. When those keywords are typed into the Google search engine, your advertisement with link will show at the top of the page as a sponsored link.

The more you pay for a click, the higher up you appear on the sponsored link section. Very popular words cost more than ones that are uncommon or more direct.

Pay-per-click is useful when there are only a couple of steps from the time someone clicks the link to when he or she can actually buy a service or product.

Okay! SEO vs PPC – Which Should I Choose? BOTH!

You should never focus on just one traffic strategy. To build a stable online business you want to be getting traffic from multiple sources, if something was to happen to one you would still have traffic coming from others.

Secret Sauce: SEO and PPC compliment each other

Using PPC you can drive more traffic to a page faster! This allows you to get DATA faster and thus make decisions and changes to your landing page so it will convert better. You can be producing sales and improving your marketing message while your rankings are moving up, then when you hit the first page of the search results you have a page and message that is producing more customers.

PPC can also reveal the keywords that are converting the most on your offer, then you can optimize for those keywords to rank them organically.

As you start getting more organic traffic you can then decrease your ad spend (if you want to) or keep it going. Why settle for one spot on the first page when you can have 2 or more.

The more you are seen the more your customers will become familiar with your name and the greater chance of them buying from you.

Then after 6 months or a year of SEO (depending on your niche), your organic traffic continuous growing and thus your SEO has more than paid for itself, in free traffic (without cost per click).

With SEO you get more permanent results. When you run out of advertising money, the PPC campaign ends, but your website links built through SEO companies that are there for good. Additionally, it has been noted recently that the majority of clicks happen in the organic results. Now, get those ads running and start optimizing!