That’s not it. 38 percent of online users in the US first read online reviews and then make a decision.

Data shows us that Google My Business (GMB) reviews matter, which is why you need to encourage your customers to leave reviews more often as a business. The better reviews you gather, the higher your rank on Google and the more traffic you’ll get. Eventually, it’ll lead to higher revenues and recurring leads.

If you want to learn more about GMB optimization services and how to use them to get more Google reviews, keep reading.

Why are Google My Business Reviews Important?

Google reviews are a game changer for businesses. They bring an abundance of benefits, including increased visibility and higher ranking, without spending any money.

Here are a few benefits of GMB reviews:

Increased Transparency

People value transparency, and Google reviews provide just that. Consumers are still a little skeptical about online shopping. Knowing other people have bought the same product and service as they’re seeking gives them peace of mind.

That’s why users tend to search for a business and read its reviews before purchasing anything from them. Research shows that positive reviews create trust, increase confidence, and persuade the consumer to take action.

Increased Online Visibility and Improved SEO

Google My Business reviews have an impact on search results. Google’s current algorithm goes over customer reviews and checks their posting frequency, quantity, and diversity.

A business with all three elements will have a higher chance of landing on the first page of local search results. This increases your chance of being discovered organically, especially if you use other SEO practices like GMB optimization, keyword use, and SEO content development.

When done right, Google reviews will show your business on the location map and display your content information, site, ratings, and reviews for the customers.

Allows You to Improve

Google reviews give you direct input on what customers think of your product and service. You get insights about your customer experience, where customers were happy and when they were not, and what products and services they’ve been opting for.

Monitoring this can tell you which areas need improvement and what you’re doing right.

Higher Conversion Rates

Consumers who see positive reviews about your business on Google are more likely to trust you. This will, in turn, give them the confidence to buy from you and leave a positive review themselves.

How to Get More Google My Business Reviews

Now that you know the importance of Google reviews, you may wonder how to increase them. Here’s what you can do:

Focus on Providing an Exceptional Customer Service

Need to compel your customers to leave a review? Make them love your product or service. If they’re blown away by the service you provide and see that their needs matter to you, they’ll become loyal customers who want to leave a positive review about their experience with your company.

Ask for a Review Directly

Want to increase your chances of getting a Google review from your customers? Ask them! Customers might not think of leaving one, so a reminder can encourage them to leave one. You can direct them to the review page by sending them a link.

You can also ask your employees to ask the customers for a review every time a purchase is made. However, make sure you aren’t too pushy.

Respond to Negative and Positive Reviews

Don’t ignore the negative reviews you get. When you respond to the positive and negative reviews you get, you’re showing the customers that their voice matters. It also builds a lasting customer relationship where they are encouraged to post more reviews because they know they won’t be ignored.

Leave Something Behind

It’s also a great marketing tactic to give your customer a little something to contact your business if they need to. With their product, leave a business or feedback card or a phone number to contact you. If you’re an online business, you can do this digitally.

Don’t Lose It at Bad Reviews

You won’t always get positive reviews. If your first reaction is to attack the customer, stop! Don’t come up with excuses; instead, tell them you’ll make things right.

When your customer can see that you read the reviews and work on them, they’re more likely to choose your business over the competitors.

Use CTAs to Encourage People

Sometimes customers just need a reminder to go write that review. For that, you can add Calls to Action (CTAs) in multiple places on your website or physical store. A simple “Like something? Leave a review!” will give them a nudge.

Let Them Know It’s Simple

Customers can be lazy. So, let them know it’s easy to leave a review and takes little to no time at all! You can ask them to leave a star rating and write a sentence or two about what they think of your product or service.

Try Email Marketing

Need more reviews? Try email marketing! Be straightforward. Ask them to write a review for you, and if they’re happy customers, they will be encouraged to do so. Since the process of writing a Google review is pretty simple, you’re very likely to get a response.

Use Social Media Platforms

Have a social media following? Don’t ignore them! Social media platforms are a great way to build a communicative relationship with your customers. You can include a link to the Google My Business reviews section and ask your followers to add in what they think of your business and the experience they’ve had with you.

The post The Easiest Way to Get More Google My Business Reviews appeared first on SiteProNews.

If your website lacks navigability or user interaction, your users won’t have the opportunity to interact with your site as you would like them to. A lack of navigability means that there’s no way for users to browse through the content on your website and find what they are looking for. On the other hand, user interaction refers to how your users can interact with and navigate your website. If these two things are not present in your website design, then it is useless, no matter how well-designed it may be.

Let’s look at a few things you can incorporate into your custom website design to make the experience more enjoyable.  

The Hamburger Menu

When it comes to responsive web design, navigation is key. One of the most popular ways of navigating through pages is with a hamburger menu, a small graphical button consisting of three horizontal lines in the shape of a burger. A drop-down menu appears by clicking on this icon that gives users quick access to all the different sections within your website. So what are some benefits of implementing this feature?

Hamburger menus are accessible for custom web design services and developers to implement because they have only one layer. They also provide an ergonomic benefit for touchscreen interfaces by eliminating the need for scrolling, reducing digital eye strain from prolonged engagement with digital screens, and distributing content more evenly across the page.

The Breadcrumbs

This is usually known as a secondary navigation aid. It helps visitors comprehend the relations between a higher-level page and their location on the page.

The homepage is typically displayed first. This indicates that it is the entry point for browsing, searching, or navigating through content items such as categories or tags. It may also be used as an anchor for other pages to provide navigation back to it should a user wish to return there later.

The Parent Page is listed next. Parents are typically used to navigating between content categories (i.e., from Food & Drinks -> Beverages -> Coffee). They are also used when linking to multiple children pages, where the parent page will have more detail about all of them (i.e., Products -> T-Shirts -> Women’s T-Shirts).

This can continue with subpages beneath each level for sites with many levels of hierarchy. A child’s path would start at its parent category page (Products -> T-Shirts) and drill down from there using its siblings until reaching its child page (Women’s T-Shirts). Subpages could also exist in any place on the tree.

This is not necessarily hierarchical because of how these pages are laid out on your site; they’re just direct paths to specific content. You want to ensure you provide enough navigational cues, so people know how to get around easily, especially if they have never been there.

The Search Function

If you want your custom website design to be interactive, the search function must be easy for people to use. The more they have to click around or type in words, the less likely they will find what they want.

It’s a good idea to ask professional website design services to integrate a search bar at the top of every page so visitors can easily find what they’re looking for without having to scroll through your content.

You should also ensure that when someone searches, you show them related content on other pages so that it doesn’t seem like the user found nothing. Users will quickly get frustrated if they search but don’t find anything.

The Call-To-Action Button

An important element of web design is the call-to-action button. It tells the user what they need to do next. The more buttons you have, the more cluttered your page becomes. When designing a button, make sure it stands out against the rest of your page by making it larger and having a different color scheme than other elements. This will help users know that this is where they are supposed to click for the next step in their process.

Most importantly, keep your navigation menu simple. People should be able to find everything on one page without feeling lost or like there’s too much going on.

An example of poor navigation design would be requiring people to scroll down through 20 pages just to find what they are looking for. If someone takes the time to scroll down, chances are they’ve already given up on finding what they were looking for and might not return soon.

The Contact Form

Another way of improving navigation is through a contact form. A contact form allows website visitors to contact you directly without leaving your website. Contact forms are also a great way of improving user interaction by providing visitors with an easy way of contacting you.

If the visitor has any questions or needs clarification on anything they see on the site, this is the best place to get in touch. By using a contact form rather than e-mail addresses or phone numbers, you can eliminate the potential for spam messages from bots and spammers.

Principles for Improved Navigation

1. Follow Established Standards

Avoid trying to reinvent the whole website. Adding too many details might overwhelm the visitor, and it won’t take them long to abandon the website. If you want to get creative while working with custom website design services, try to stay on the minimalist side so that the visitors can easily find menus and understand the purpose of your website design.

2. Use Responsive, Expandable Menus

59% of all website browsing happens through mobile phones, so having a mobile-friendly responsive menu is a must for every website. Instead of cluttered menus with too many categories, ensure that the web design services you’re working with implement expandable menus.  

3. Use White Color and Spaces to Separate Navigation From Other Elements on the Webpage

It should be clear to your visitor where the navigation starts and ends. A good way to do that is to use white color and spaces to separate the navigation menu from the content on the webpage. It doesn’t matter how creatively you have integrated the menus in your website if the visitor can’t find the navigation button to browse through your website.

4. Use the User’s Language

Instead of creating content on your webpage with fancy words or using custom web designer language, try incorporating words that a user will look for on your website. Try to keep the user search intent in mind when you’re creating categories and sub-categories.

The post Improving Navigation and User Interaction Through Web Design appeared first on SiteProNews.

Google My Business marketing has become a modern-day necessity for businesses as it helps potential customers make a decision if they want to choose your product or service or one from your competitor. This article the reasons to set up a GMB profile.

What Is Google My Business?

At its core, Google My Business is a search engine that helps customers locate businesses based on their keywords and their searching location.You can add photos, hours of operation, contact information, and more, which helps potential customers learn more about your business before even visiting your website. You can also select your business category. This will help Google to better index your website. Claiming a listing on Google Maps is easy as well as free.

Increases Visibility

A good business person knows that the more visible their brand is in the eye of the consumer the more leads it will be able to enjoy. With a Google My Business profile, you can increase your visibility in search results, which can lead to more customers finding and using your business. Google My Business can also help you manage your online presence and control how your business appears across the web. Overall, setting up a Google My Business profile is a good way to increase your visibility online and attract more customers thanks to local maps SEO.

Helps Customers Locate Your Physical Address

A Google My Business profile helps customers find your address in the real world. They will also get to learn through it your hours of operation so that they can have a hassle-free experience. Also when customers learn you have a GMB listing, they know the business is legitimate. This helps them stay clear of various frauds online.

Improves Local SEO with Google Maps Integration

Google Maps marketing profile helps to improve your local SEO by integrating with Google Maps. It also allows customers to easily find your business and leave reviews.

Google My Business profile makes it easy for customers to leave reviews about their experience with your business. These reviews can not only help attract new customers, but they can also give you valuable feedback about what you’re doing well and what areas need improvement.

They also help to build trust with your target audience and increase your credibility in the industry. Stakeholders such as banks and the government will also be able to see that your business is legitimate which can help to improve your dealings with them.

Helps to Understand Your Target Audience

The Google My Business account can also help you understand your target audience. You can use this precious information in your marketing campaigns as well as your keyword research. If you feel overwhelmed to explore the GMB ecosystem yourself then you can also have the whole process outsourced to an experienced Google My Business optimization company. 

Business owners will be able to see different metrics such as how much of their content such as posts, photos, and profiles are being viewed and which content isn’t generating much traffic. This will help improve your content and identify weaknesses in your content. GMBs are also a rich source for keywords as when people search online you can discover specific long-tail keywords that can position your business for success.

You can also use these keywords across various content channels such as to help improve your website and social media campaigns. A Google business profile will also help you understand your audience more deeply. You can discover important variables such as their location, gender, age, etc. You will also see information related to conversions. For example, how many people used the link to visit the website, and how many from there went on to actually buy your product or service.

Tips to Improve Google My Business Optimization

• It’s important that you use relevant keywords that attract the attention of the reader and act as a hook. Take the help of powerful tools to discover the right keywords as this can help improve the chances of your business being found.
• Always use a localized phone number as this shows Google that your business is real and focuses on a particular geography. This will help Google’s algorithm to connect your business with the right customers in your area.
• Make sure that the business description you write is accurate. When you set up your GMB listing, pick the correct category that best describes your commercial enterprise. This will help ensure that potential customers are finding the right businesses when they do a search on Google. It also needs to be compelling with a strong call to action. Don’t forget to mention your hours of operations during special days such as holidays.
• Add high-quality photos and videos. This can help distinguish your business from your competitors and create a perception of quality in the minds of your target audience. When people see photos and videos of your products or services, they will see them as social proof and would want to learn more about your business.
• Always make sure to regularly update your information such as website address and phone number. If Google discovers broken links they could penalize you in their rankings. This will also harm your reputation.

The post What is Google My Business & Why Should I Set Up a Profile? appeared first on SiteProNews.

Regardless of the content type, the quality is what matters the most. Sometimes, the best of the content strategies fail once launched because they don’t drive value for your customers. Converting audience into customers is every SEO manager’s top priority, and if you’re one of them, we reckon you go for the guest blogging method. Guest blogging, AKA guest posting, is a primary way to increase brand authority.

Guest blogs are research-intensive, value-adding, and extremely focused on a particular domain. It’s written by industry experts that have the right and authentic information about their field of work. Ultimately, the target audience of guest posts is also niche, consisting of those who want to delve deeper into the offerings of a particular business.

All in all, guest blogs are a reliable source of information that drive benefits for the readers and the business.

Important Guest Blogging Statistics You Must Know

According to credible reports, 3% of the total online blogs feature almost 100 guest blogs per month. A good guest blog contains somewhere between 1,000 to 1,500 words. These blogs are replete with strategically placed keywords and unique information. There are two things that guest blogging has a direct impact on: brand authority and domain authority.

Brand authority is a term used to describe a business’s market standing. Increasing brand authority means that you’re trying to set yourself as an industry expert. Whereas increasing domain authority maximizes your chances of ranking high on SERPs.

When it comes to guest blogging, SEO experts need to understand that it’s not similar to writing articles and blogs for a website. Guest blogs need to be backed with strategy, purpose, and an objective. Without clear goals and objectives, guest blogs cannot drive domain or brand authority. Using the right backlinks, keywords that generate leads, and incorporating field-specific information are ways to maximize guest blogging results.

Here are some more ways in which guest blogging can increase your business’s online authority.

Amplify Brand Awareness

It’s a no-brainer that guest blogging is a key way to increase brand awareness. By providing pragmatic, research-backed, and stat-linked data to the target audience, businesses can improve their market standing and exposure. Guest blogs are published on different platforms that contain posts from industry experts on diverse topics. Using this tool can be a game-changing initiative for any business that wants to make a mark on digital platforms.

Leverage guest blogging opportunities to attract niche customer groups and to let them know what your company is about, its offerings, and how it’s making a positive impact.

Provides Prompt Exposure to Targeted Traffic

Guest posts, whether they’re linked to a business’s website or not, can be the pinnacle for creating brand exposure and gaining higher traction. Guest blogs can easily engage customers and pique interest in them to learn more.

A top-notch guest post can drive customer traffic, and then, there’s no going back. Once you get the hang of using guest blogging as your content strategy, you’ll be better able to optimize landing pages and CTAs to compel the interested audience. This ultimately plays a pivotal role in improving the conversion rate.

Guest Blogging Shortens the Sales Cycle

Yes, you read that right. Guest blogging can significantly reduce the sales cycle, making it easier for businesses as well as their customers to buy and sell products and services. In marketing, the sales funnel is a tool that allows businesses to calculate the total time required to fulfill orders.

This concept also applies to content marketing strategies. Meaning: the sales cycles on online platforms will comprise the total time between posting content and converting a reader into a customer.

This is where guest blogs can influence readers much faster than blogs and articles or any other form of content. Guest blogs build an immediate brand persona and allow the target audience to understand the brand’s value proposition, ultimately shortening the sales cycle. As long as content marketers are careful about using the right keywords, backlinks, and compelling CTAs, there’s no other reason that can cause guest blogging failure.

However, one factor may create some trouble for brands: spam bloggers. These bloggers pay platforms to get their guest blogs published. And in contrast, a business’s guest blogging strategy needs to be genuine, relevant, and educating.

Some of the other benefits of guest blogs that can drive traffic and increase brand authority include:

• Network expansion
• Grow social media following
• Increase brand awareness and exposure
• Increase conversion rate
• Quality lead generation

With the increasing popularity of Guest Blogging Services, more than 76% of writers and editors plan to publish at least five guest posts per month. It means that now’s the time to start strategizing guest blog plans as the competition is all set to get cut-throat in the next few years. After all, it’s true what we say in the content marketing industry, “Content is the King!”

So why not leverage the power of guest blogging, newsletters, white papers, influencer marketing content, and website blogging to stand out?

The post How Guest Blogging is Excellent for Authority Building appeared first on SiteProNews.

In short, website SEO matters. 

As one of the most critical aspects of digital marketing, website SEO services can take a business from diminishing visibility to impressive traffic generation.

At this point, you may be thinking that SEO is the be-all and end-all of digital marketing, but it’s only half the battle. While optimizing content for search engines is essential, optimizing content for users is equally important. 

This is where website conversion steps in. 

Sound complex? Don’t fret! We’re here to break it down for you. 

A website conversion occurs when a visitor takes an action on a website that’s favorable to a company. 

This generally includes:

• Making a purchase
• Signing up for a newsletter/emails
• Filling a form
• Sharing content (blog, infographic, video, etc.) or a product/service on social media/messaging platforms
• Clicking a specific button
• Posting a positive review
• Interacting with the content by leaving a positive comment
• Creating a profile or joining a forum

Of course, it doesn’t end there. Depending on the industry, sales cycle, and products/services, a website conversion can take many forms. 

But why does any of this matter? And how does it relate to SEO? 

Here’s the lowdown:

Website Conversion: Why It Matters for SEO

You’ve optimized your content by using the right keywords, title tags, meta description, alt text, canonical tags, and header tags. 

What a mouthful! 

Sounds like you’re done for the day, right? 

Not quite. 

While optimizing content for search engines is a great way to climb SERPs and attract quality traffic, it doesn’t guarantee website conversion. 

So, if you’ve written (and optimized) a value-added, engaging, and informative blog but your website takes ages to load, you’re doing a lot of harm to conversion potential. Not only are visitors less likely to engage with the blog, but they’ll also develop a negative perception about your brand. 

The outcome? 

Poor sales, little to no brand growth, and deteriorating brand identity. 

Focusing on SEO and CRO (conversion rate optimization) is a great way to not only attract visitors, but also to ensure they complete the desired action. 

We suggest calculating your website’s conversion rate to determine where you stand. 

The formula is pretty straightforward:

CR = [Total visitor conversions/total visitors on your website] * 100

To simplify things further, calculate the total number of people who visit your website and engage in a favorable action. Concurrently, calculate the total number of visitors that access your website. 

Say you received 2,000 email signups in a selected timeframe. However, 4,000 people accessed the email signup page in total. 

Divide 4,000 by 2,000 and multiply the result by 100 to calculate your website’s conversion rate. 

In this case, your conversion rate will be 50%.

Taking strategic measures to boost website conversion is a great way to increase your score and do your SEO efforts justice. 

But how do you go about it? 

We’ve rounded up some of the most effective ways to increase website conversion to help you get started!

1. Web Design and User-Friendliness Matter More Than You May Think… Leverage Them!

• Over 75% of customers admit that a website’s design is the leading factor that helps them determine a brand’s credibility
• 38% of visitors stop engaging with a website if the layout or content is unappealing or slipshod
• 40%of people will opt for a different search result if a website isn’t mobile-friendly

In a nutshell, web design and user-friendliness are essential. 

If your website appears undone, nondescript, or unattractive, you’ll most likely end up with a poor conversion rate. 

Turn things around by focusing on visuals and ensuring user-friendliness. 

We suggest opting for eye-catching, clean, and engaging web design that instantly draws the visitor in. Avoid going overboard; nobody likes a sensory overload. Instead, opt for moderation when it comes to website audiovisuals. 

We also suggest ensuring your unique value proposition stands out. 

Chick-fil-A’s clear and compelling sign up strategy is a great example of how to go about this!

Pringles’ vibrant, refreshing, and trendy approach is also emblematic of a visually dynamic and interactive landing page. 

Their powerful incorporation of popular TV show characters is a master class in modern and relevant web design.

Incorporate pop culture references in your web design to stand out from the crowd and make a statement. 

Depending on your target audience, customizing your website accordingly will go a long way in boosting website conversion. 

We also suggest simplifying your website’s navigation to ensure visitors can easily find relevant information. 

2. Work on Your Website’s Load Time

According to a recent survey, a whopping 47% of users expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. 

In fact, even a one-second delay in loading speed can reduce conversions by up to 7%!

Working on your website’s load time is a surefire way to ensure your SEO efforts don’t go to waste. 

We suggest using a website speed test tool to test your website’s load time. Alternatively, you could also hire website optimization services for expert assistance.

Here are some ways to speed up your website and improve conversions:

• Minimize HTTP requests
• Load scripts like CSS and JavaScript asynchronously 
• Cache your web pages
• Optimize images
• Run a compression audit
• Reduce server response time
• Opt for the right host
• Reduce redirects
• Start using a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

3. Create Short, Easy, and Unintimidating Forms

Creating long forms that require a ton of information is bound to double or triple your bounce rate. 

Instead, reduce the number of form fields to keep things short. 

In addition, opt for clean, visually engaging, and refreshing graphics to maximize the number of form submissions. 

Ban. Do’s contact page is the perfect example of a colorful but not-too-colorful, minimalist, and engaging contact page. 

Of course, the short and to-the-point form only helps their case that much more!

4. Make the Call-to-Action (CTA) Button Pop!

If your CTA button doesn’t stand out, you’ll end up leaving a ton of visitors unconverted. 

To convert visitors into quality leads, make sure your CTA button stands out and demands a click! 

According to research, changing the CTA button from green to red can boost conversions by a whopping 34%! 

Not bad at all, right? 

In addition, your CTA should be optimized (more on that here) to further increase the chances of a potential conversion. 

We also suggest keeping the CTA brief while using engaging terms that incite urgent action. 

Actively test and refine the CTA to ensure optimal conversion and sales. 

Employing these strategies will help you make the most of SEO and CRO!

The post What is Website Conversion and Why is It Important for SEO? appeared first on SiteProNews.

If you haven’t been paying any attention to the blog section on your website, you’re missing out on an SEO goldmine.

Why are Blogs so Important?

If you’re running a plumbing service in Atlanta or a luggage storage service in Austin, you might wonder why any prospective customer would waste time reading a blog on your webpage when they’re looking for a plumber or a luggage storage facility.

Well, according to TechJury, if you add a blog to a website, your traffic can increase by 434%—and that’s a whopping statistic on its own. Over 5,000,000 blogs have been written—and these are only on WordPress!

Why do you think businesses are spending resources on hiring professional website optimization services and content creators to blog for them so aggressively? It’s because people definitely read blogs and because blogs go a long way in helping traffic grow and in helping push a website’s ranking higher on SERPs. 

TechJury contends that 77% of all users on the internet read blogs, and we’re compelled to agree. Not only do blogs help with SERP rankings, but they also increase both traffic and revenue. This is because people read blogs:

• To see if you’re an industry leader
• To see if you’re running a legitimate business: usually, spam websites and fraudulent service providers will either have no blogs or badly written word vomit on their website, which is a major giveaway
• To find out more about your product and service
• To see how personable your brand appears—blogs written in friendly tones invite messages and queries 

We think that’s enough said about the why of blogging on your website—because something else that’s equally important is the how. How do you do blogging in a manner that can:

• Increase engagement with your readers?
• Go from visitors to conversions to customers?
• Boost traffic and tap into new target markets?

Here’s how:

1. Creating Viral Content

No matter how consistently good the content you create is, it’s all about the viral posts that can propel you to the zenith of fame. 

Think back to the most memorable posts you’ve seen on social media: these were not the posts you remember for their authenticity or information. The ones you remember are the ones that had infectious content.

So how exactly do you create viral content? It’s actually a pretty easy formula if you’re active on social media websites, especially Facebook and Twitter. All you need to do is know what’s trending, what biggest “memes” are making the rounds, what person is being celebrated or admonished, etc., and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what people are generally concerned about. You can then create blogs and orient your content around this awareness.

2. Evergreen Content

This is in some ways the antithesis of viral content, since it’s supposed to be free from the constraints of a particular time or place. 

With evergreen posts, you’re aiming for something that people will be sure to come back to. It could be funnily written content or something that gives people a tidbit of information that they never had. 

What you’re aiming for here isn’t a regurgitation of old content or clichéd balderdash. You’re looking for originality, creativity, innovation, and interaction all in one. 

3. Long Tail Keywords are Long-Lasting

There’s a reason why SEO specialists pay so much attention to long tail keywords. It’s because they have remarkable long-term efficacy with regard to rankings. 

When you begin, make a spreadsheet. Use one of the many keyword tools available to carry out your initial keyword research. Soon enough, you’ll have a list of keywords that are high ranking or some that have been trending lately. These definitely go into your arsenal. 

Not only should you be optimizing your content for long tail keywords, but you should also be optimizing everything else in your blog post: this includes the media (images and videos), the URL, the meta tags et al. If you want your blog post to show up on the prized top positions on SERPs, make sure you’re making a hard effort to get there.

4. Males Still Matter

We meant mails, of course, the homophone was just to get your attention. And now that we have your attention, here’s an interesting bit of information: 293.6 million emails were sent out last year. And if you think email marketing is dead, then here’s another interesting bit of information: if you’re spending a dollar on email marketing, you can expect to make $42 back on average. 

So when you’re focusing on making your blog interactive, make readers subscribe, and once they do, don’t lose touch with them. Send them personalized emails or respond to their queries. This is especially important if you’re a small business just starting out. For example, sending out emails about a new blog that’s up will definitely boost traffic. 

5. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a pretty great technique for people who want to get their websites to rank higher but haven’t a clue about how to get backlinks from authoritative resources. 

Guest blogging involves writing an informative, authoritative piece for a blogging website that’s already established, one that’s already being crawled and indexed by Google and other search engines. 

While professional link building services are definitely the better option, guest blogging works too. If you have a blog that you’d really like to increase traffic on, hyperlink to it in the Call to Action for your guest blogging posts.

6. Invigilate and Make Changes

Never ignore your blogs once you have published them. Always keep a close eye on the number of visitors you’re getting and whether you’re getting engagement or not. 

While performing an SEO audit is definitely one way of doing this, there’s another way: checking the comments. This is done even more easily if you’re posting on a social media platform such as Facebook.

Reading the comments of your readers gives you pretty great insight into how your blog is doing, without even performing an SEO audit. In the worst-case scenario, you might not have many readers at all—but at least that tells you something.

Observe consumer behavior and expectations in this manner and then re-structure and re-shape your content. Start over. 

7. And Finally, Interact

Communication is the key to success. Make sure you’re maximizing your use of comments and emails and queries. 

One great way of keeping your viewers coming back is to turn their questions into posts. If you feel like one of them has asked a question that others might have and that might make for a good blog post, go write about it. 

The viewers will feel connected, you’ll get a lot of good rep and shares, and it will definitely lead to more conversions and traffic on your site!

The post 7 Ways to Improve Your Blog’s Readership, Increase Participation and Enhance Blog Authority appeared first on SiteProNews.

A great website is streamlined, professionally built and designed, pleasing to look at, and SEO-friendly. And effective SEO isn’t restricted to the blogs you create for your website either; it extends to the website at large. But how do you make your website SEO-friendly? Do you add keywords to the copy? Do you add CTAs? Or is there more to website SEO than meets the eye?

Before we begin, let’s have a look at the landing pages of two different websites. Here’s the first one.

And here’s the second:

It doesn’t take rocket science to understand which one has more of a chance to rope in and retain prospective customers. 

The first is clunky, full of gaudy colors and bad color combinations, uses several kinds of fonts, employs absolutely bizarre imagery, and has a sizeable amount of text that can’t be read. 

Even though they do get some things right—such as a live chat option with a very catchy slogan (Chat with Matt) and they do have pricing info for their products, there’s nothing else to write home about. 

Their navigation banner clearly shows that they have a separate page for their products, and yet, they show up on their home page as well. They’re also still pushing a Christmas offer when the holiday season ended quite some time ago; this indicates that they aren’t too serious about updating their website on a regular basis. Their content is also poorly written—so on and so forth.

The second, however, does things quite differently. It has one big banner image that’s clear and high-quality. Their slogan is readable. The color combination works for them, and the sparsity of text makes for good design. The website stands out—but why?

What Makes a Website Stand Out?

It isn’t just your products and services that make you appealing to prospective customers and online shoppers. It isn’t just your promotions and discounts either. 

Your website is potential customers’ first channel of exposure, and smart business owners know they need to nail web design if they’re serious about succeeding in the long-term with savvy online shoppers—which is what makes up the future consumer pool.

Established businesses and reputable brand names keep up with the latest in web design, and stay busy targeting these trends all-year-round. But it’s not established businesses with mature websites that need to pay attention to web designs; it’s small businesses and startup gigs—especially those in big cities with tons of competition to go up against. 

The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that more than half of all American citizens have a small business. Small businesses amount for 2 in every 3 jobs in the U.S. Clearly, small businesses are big; but there’s a catch: there are just too many of them. And whenever there’s too much of something, you need to stand out to have a shot at even being noticed.

There isn’t one thing you can do to make your website look immediately better than your rivals’. From listing your social media accounts to using the right images and employing great JavaScript code, the list is long.

Here are seven things you should look out for:

1. List Your Social Media Accounts

Millennials aren’t the only group that loves social media. Search engines rely on social media too, and they’d love it if you list your social media accounts on your website. More than that, add backlinks to them, and include recognizable icons alongside. 

Make sure you’re going for the most popular social media channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Other channels—such as LinkedIn and Pinterest—work as well. 

But keep away from lesser known social media websites such as Chirp or Medium, or anything that prospective customers might never have heard of. 

Listing your social media accounts gives your business a more personable aura. 

2. Using the Right Images

SEO isn’t just about content. It’s for images too. Optimized images automatically improve your SERP rankings. Images shouldn’t be too large because huge images slow your website down. 

If you’re adding text with the image, select a keyword. And add relevant images that look like they belong on the site.

3. Proper Use of JavaScript

Often, web designers go with JavaScript for the entire website. This is a mistake. Search engines will crawl through the website before it can be indexed. 

A website that’s loaded with JavaScript becomes difficult to read for them. JavaScript also doesn’t work terribly well on smart phones. Remember, you’re looking for simplicity and ease of use—and excess JavaScript won’t make your website very user-friendly. So use it sparingly. 

4. The Keywords

No talk about websites and SEO is ever complete without some mention of keywords. Keywords are important all-round, and not just where it concerns content. 

Incorporate keywords into every aspect of web design—such as optimized images, in the titles, in the H1 and H3 tags, in the meta descriptions and slogans, in your CTA, in the footer and navigation banner, and even in the URL.

5. The URL

How can SEO make sure your website’s URL appears in the first results when a prospective customer is Googling for something you sell?

Here’s an example of how that works:

If a prospective customer is looking for electronics and types in “best electronics” in their Google search bar, these results will show up. 

Focus on the URLs here—all of them contain the keywords top electronics/best electronics/buy best electronics, etc. So optimize your URLs based on your business.

If you already have an established business, you may want to buy an alternative URL that redirects to your website.

6. Don’t be Noisy

While having a chat bot appear after a visitor has spent some minutes on your website is fine, an intervention that’s too glaring can be very distracting. 

Excessive flashing elements will make visitors annoyed and will lead to people moving on from your website. This will have a detrimental effect on your bounce rate.

7. Accessible Design

It’s important to note that people aren’t just sticking to desktops for online shopping or browsing anymore. Desktops are used alongside smartphones and apps. 

Your website, therefore, needs to be optimized for both. This doesn’t just mean your website should be mobile-friendly. It means that your website should run just as efficiently on a smart phone as  it does on a desktop.

Why is Good Website Design So Important?

Psychology Today has weighed in on what is called online persuasion. They found that everything from background images to the color scheme on websites plays a role in a prospective shopper’s decision-making process. 

The reason for this is the fact that we might think we’re making rational decisions when we’re shopping online, but our subconscious also plays a huge role. 

Take McDonald’s, for instance, with its recognizable red and yellow Pied-Piper colors. The colors work because they have the desired effect on prospective customers: red triggers appetite and yellow triggers joy. 

Website design affects purchase intent when it comes to online shopping because the more streamlined a website’s design, the more trust it generates in viewers. A professional-looking, readable, well-built website that doesn’t take more than two seconds to go from one page to another will have a positive effect on viewers, showing them that you’re serious about your business. 

Website optimization, accessible and aesthetically pleasing design, and SEO-friendly practices will instantly help your website stand out from the crowd. 

With professional SEO services Seattle and a sound business strategy to fall back on, you’re well on your way toward easy success.

The post Is Your Web Design SEO Friendly? 7 Things You Should Check Right Now appeared first on SiteProNews.

Evidence of how important SEO services are in this day is evident with the amount being spent on the same. A current forecast suggests that an excess of USD 80 billion will be spent on SEO services within the US alone by the year 2020.

How Can I Tell if the SEO Services I am Investing in are Worth It? 

The SEO industry, like the digital world in general, is one that is fast changing. Apart from known current trends in SEO, clients need a way to gauge whether or not the services they are investing in are doing their business any good. We’re going to elaborate on a number of metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you gauge the level of the SEO services you are receiving. 

A Little more on Metrics

For those of you who may be unclear on what we mean by metrics or KPIs, we’re talking about standards of SEO success that can be measured and hence, can also be quantified. The data points we elaborate on below are ones that can help you judge how effective or not the SEO work being done for you is or isn’t. 

Organic Web Activity/Traffic

This relates to the number of visits or hits you get on your website via general web browsing as well as information on user activity while logged in to your site. The reason this is an important indicator as opposed to the total web traffic is that SEO services are meant to help your company or business rate higher via Google rankings when relevant keywords are searched. Higher rankings mean your site link and meta details will show up on the first page (ideally) of Google search results and higher up on the list of results. 

This helps generate organic traffic; hence, good SEO services can translate to an increase in organic web activity. You can use Google Analytics to easily track your progress in this area and see if your organic traffic correlates to your SEO efforts. 

CTR

Your CTR (click-through-rate) is indicative of how many people proceed to visit your site against how many people ran search queries where your details showed up. A poor click through rate may indicate to a need to improve aspects of your SEO. 

Aspects you can work on to improve your CTR include page content and even more importantly – meta tags. A high CTR means your meta tags and other site information is catchy enough to generate attention or curiosity. 

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is the term used to measure the number of site visitors who do not stick around on your page and leave after viewing the first page they click on. This could mean that your SEO is lacking once again by way of web content or even by way of overall website design. 

A low bounce rate would mean that people are clicking on your links and continuing to explore your site which means you have managed to hold their attention. 

Page Speed

If you have a highly optimized website, one of the things you will need to be mindful of is page speed. Your page speed may be inversely affected by certain site additions, which is why it is important to keep ensuring that your site can take the load of whatever is being added. 

A reliable SEO service provider will also help ensure that your site speed isn’t affected. Efficient site speed means higher usability and user retention. 

Keyword Rankings 

Keyword rankings are quite changeable hence most reputable and competent SEO companies make sure their professionals are up to date on the same. Luckily, as a business owner who is investing in SEO, keyword rankings are also something you can look into yourself. Relevant Google searches will tell you exactly where the keywords being used rank in the general scheme of things. 

If you find the SEO company you have hired is consistently using low ranking keywords, this might just be a red flag. 

Domain Authority/Relevance 

Domain authority or relevance describes how the Google engine algorithm/interface reads and perceives your website. Relevant and up to date content and SEO strategies result in higher domain authority. This means you rank higher and will also have access to an automatically generated knowledge graph. Though it is not easy to gauge your domain authority, you do have online tools that can help you with the same.    

Fresh Back links/Referring Domains

The term incoming links is used to describe the general body of web-based links which direct users to your main site or page in their entirety. Referring domains, on the other hand, refers to domains that are not directly related to your site and hence can be described as unique. 

References and links from external or unrelated sites improve your overall domain authority and any good SEO service will ensure that these are in adequate supply! 

Winding Down 

The metrics or KPIs mentioned above are the ones most easy to gauge and understand as a user or client. There are other indicators that you could also look into such as crawl errors and local visibility. Other metrics such as conversion rates require setting up of priorities and goals, which is in a sense one of the most important things to do when it comes to your SEO. 

Proper search engine optimizing is a specialized process; working with an experienced and competent SEO company is of utmost importance. If the SEO services you receive are up to the mark, the benefits it will bring to your business are immense. The points discussed here should help you determine whether or not the company you have chosen is really on the ball!

The post The Key Metrics for Gauging SEO Services in 2019 appeared first on SiteProNews.