5 SEO Strategies to Improve Rankings

SEO Strategies-What Happens on Your Website Shouldn’t Stay on Your Website

You’ve taken all the right steps to optimize your website for great search engine results. But don’t stop there. How your site interacts with the rest of the Internet can significantly elevate its placement on search results pages. by using the following SEO Strategies you will have taken the first step to moving up the SERPS.

Links

An inbound link (when another website includes a link to yours) is like a letter of recommendation. The more links/recommendations you get, the higher your Google relevancy score. But for heaven’s sake, don’t buy links; this is specifically contrary to the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Obtain links honestly, through requests to relevant websites and a reciprocal outbound link on your own site.

Social Media

Set up your pages so that any new content added to your website is automatically posted on your social media, and vice versa. Linking back to your site from FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. can exponentially increase your site traffic, which will also look great in the Google analytics.

Off-site Content

Get known as an industry leader by contributing to forums, social media groups and website comments pages, answer sites and review sites. Google tracks your author statistics so this activity alone can improve your SEO. Plus, most of these places will allow you to include a link to your own website in your post, thus attracting new visitors.

Review Solicitation

Ignoring your online reputation is no longer an option; Yelp, Google+, TripAdvisor and similar sites have made and broken businesses. In addition to mitigating any negative reviews, you can also encourage customers to post opinions. This will not only generate inbound links, it will also add the review site’s SEO clout to yours.

ACS Creative Review Request Sheet

ACS Creative Review Request Sheet

 

Search Engine and Directory Submission

Submitting your URLs to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Business.com, DMOZ and other directories may get your website pages indexed faster (but there’s no guarantee). Beware of paid directories, though; they’re mostly worthless.

As we have seen, improving SEO Strategies for your website may begin at home, but it shouldn’t stay there. Incorporate off-site tactics to complete the picture of a successful SEO Strategies.

The Must-Have Essentials for Proper Website SEO

SEO-What Visitors Never See Can Mean Your Site Will Never Be Seen

 

We’ve discussed how you can develop content to improve SEO (search engine optimization) for your website. But if the site isn’t designed, built and maintained correctly, Google will give it a low ranking and your content efforts will go to waste. Here are 5 things Google needs to see in order to display your site in its search results.

 

  1. Sitemap.

The sitemap makes every page of your website visible to search engines, even the pages with few or no elements that they could find when crawling the Internet. Create both XML and HTML versions. A clear site structure and sitemap will also improve your chances that Google will show site links for specific pages in addition to your main URL.

ACS Creative Web Design SEO Samlpe Sitemap

  1. Meta data.

Title tags and meta descriptions incorporating keywords will help prove your relevance to search engines. Make sure they’re on every page of your site, and that they’re written to Google specifications: not too short, too long or duplicated on multiple pages.

 

  1. Coding.

Make it easy for Google to understand your website with current site building technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets. By minimizing the amount of HTML coding on each page, you not only increase text readability, you also improve the text-to-code ratio which Google uses to assess site quality.

 

  1. Navigation structure.

The more frequently pages are linked within your site, the higher your Google page authority flow. Make those links plain text; search engines can’t recognize image or animation links. It’s also important not to let pages with no chance of getting a high search engine rating (such as the contact page) drag down the site’s overall ranking. Add a special code that tells search engines not to index those pages.

 

  1. Web host.

You may think you’re getting a good deal by going with the cheapest provider. But if that web server also hosts sites Google doesn’t like, such as pornography, you could get tarred with the same brush and sent to the bottom of the search engine results pages.

 

These 5 tips barely scratch the surface of back end techniques that can improve SEO for websites. And there’s no getting around it, you really need to be an expert to do it right. If you’d like to learn how our experts at ACS use state-of-the-art SEO technology for building and maintaining websites, please give us a call.

6 Keyword Strategies Used by the Pro’s

Using Proper Keywords In Your Content to Improve Rankings for Your Website

 

Content is king when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). And for business-to-business websites where most of the content is probably text, getting your keyword right will be the single most important thing you can do for SEO.

 

 

  1. Define your keywords.

First, put together a list of the words and phrases people enter in Google’s (or other search engine’s) search field when they’re looking for what you’re selling. These keywords will be sprinkled throughout your website, SEM ads (paid search engine placements) and other marketing media, creating the query relevance that search engines love.

 

  1. Cover all the bases.

Think of all possible variations on your keywords, such as word plurals and words people commonly misspell. Depending on the goal of your SEO campaign, decide whether to focus on short tail (one or two word) or long tail (three to five word) keywords. Generic, short tail keywords (i.e. “web design“) will deliver a larger, wider response; specific, long tail phrases (“web design Washington D.C.”) a narrower but more relevant response.

 

  1. Test, analyze, refine.

You can hire a pro to help you determine the most popular keywords, or you can use one of the basic free keyword testing tools on the Internet. For your SEM ads, Google AdWords offers a free tool for coming up with keyword ideas and estimating how they may perform.

 

  1. Watch your density.

How you incorporate your chosen keywords into the text can either help or hurt your search engine results. Websites that try the old trick of keyword stuffing or packing will find themselves heavily downgraded, if not excluded altogether. Sentences should flow naturally, and there should be no more than three keywords per website page. Add more pages if necessary to fit in all your keywords.

ACS Creative Keyword Density Formula

Keyword Density Formula

  1. Hidden keyword placement.

Don’t forget the opportunities offered by website meta descriptions, title tags, URLs and source code. Although meta tags no longer affect Google rankings, they can still improve your click-through rate.

 

  1. Keep it fresh.

As part of its mission to prioritize websites that offer good user experience, Google looks for sites that regularly update with new content. A good example of this is a blog, which not only gives Google (and customers) what they want, it also expands your keyword opportunities with every new post.

 

Another ongoing task will be to assess the performance of each keyword on your website, either manually or with automation software, and revise any keywords whose results are dropping.

 

With keywords chosen, placed and tested correctly, you should see measurable improvement in the SEO of your website.

3 Ways SEO Builds a Business Brand

An Optimized Website Kills 2 Birds with 1 Stone

You expect your SEO efforts to pay off in higher search engine rankings and increased quantity and quality of traffic to your website. But there are additional rewards that, although they don’t appear as statistics in SEO tracking reports, can have an equally important impact on your business.

1. Brand awareness.

How many of your potential customers know you exist? Which is another way of asking how much business you’ll be doing in the future. An SEO website is more visible, thus more likely to be remembered and sought out when prospects are ready to buy. Increased brand awareness may not be reflected in more sales or leads right now, but it will pay off in the long term.

How can you tell if SEO is improving your brand awareness? Honestly, it’s very difficult to measure. But one tracking number you can look at is search impressions (as opposed to click-throughs). That’s the total number of people who saw your website in their search results; they may not have clicked on it, but they have become aware of your existence.

2. Brand opinion.

Getting prospective customers to know your name is only half the battle: you also want them to have a favorable opinion of you. SEO tactics can help with this aspect of your branding strategy as well.

Your off-site SEO campaigns will play the major role in establishing your reputation as a good company to do business with: knowledgeable, caring and reliable. Posts on industry forums, social media pages, etc., not only fulfill their original purpose of driving traffic to your site, they also help sell that traffic before you even make contact.

3. Website opinion.

It’s well documented that a business is judged by its website. If that website is slow, hard to read and hard to navigate, visitors are likely to assume that the business is also unprofessional, outdated, difficult to work with. So, while you’re SEOing your site functionality, you’ll also be improving users’ opinion of your entire brand.

Google paradigms for good user experience include fast and complete page loads, simple navigation and intuitive layouts. Content should not be duplicated on multiple pages. Page titles and meta descriptions should be optimized to give users an accurate overview before they click through.

These 3 “side-effects” of search engine optimization won’t show up as numbers in your Google Analytics report. But when you’re asking yourself, “How can I cost-effectively build my business brand,” an SEO campaign is an excellent answer.

5 Content Marketing Success Stories

Leverage Sales with One of the Hottest Marketing Trends

There’s a reason why content marketing has been called the strategy of the century: its phenomenal success. The key is to choose what type of content is right for your business and marketing goals. Let’s look at 5 popular types and how they brought success to organizations of all sizes.

1. Blue Apron: FaceBook community.
Blue Apron’s subscription delivery of 5 star recipes and ingredients enables home cooks to be gourmet chefs. The start-up spread the word about their innovative service on their FaceBook page, which now has 1.2 million fans who share tips, comments and photos of their results.
Success: In 2015 Blue Apron grew by 500 percent, delivering 5 million meal kits per month.

2. ADP: white papers.
This business processes outsource provider created a collection of white papers on human resources topics, and a website search engine that allowed users to select articles related to their industry.
Success: $1 million worth of new leads in the first three months.

3. Callaway Golf: YouTube how-to’s.
Instructional videos on game techniques have been a big hit for the golf equipment manufacturer. Even though they contain no product sales messaging, the videos convince viewers of the company’s expertise and customer service.
Success: One video alone received 30,000 views in one year.

4. Crowe Horwath: B2B infographics.
The accounting and consulting firm targeted financial institutions with $1 billion or more in assets using a variety of infographics, case studies and executive briefs. The informative materials received a large volume of views, shares and contact requests from corporate decision makers.
Success: One infographic generated close to 800 new contacts, two of whom brought in $250,000 in new business.

5. Red Bull: live streaming events.
Well known for its innovative content marketing tactics, the energy drink scores its biggest win by live streaming extreme sports events from all over the world. This content isn’t directly related to their product at all, but rather to the things their customers are interested in; thus proving that any content that delivers real value to the customer can pay off big.
Success: Audiences actively seek out Red Bull’s content, which generates triple the sales of its nearest competitor and attracts third party advertising.

Additional content marketing options you could consider range from blogs and newsletters to webinars and product demonstrations. What’s not an option is to get left behind as this marketing trend goes on to an even bigger and brighter future.

Small Business Start-Up to Scale-Up in 5 Steps

Building a Business to the Next Level

Your small business may have started in one room, with a few friends for employees. But no matter how successful you’ve been so far, this business model won’t allow you to grow into the enterprise level company of your dreams. It’s time for a clear look at what has to change.

1. Focus on resale value.
Like a real estate investment, your business should be desirable to future buyers. Even if you have no intention of ever selling, you may someday want to obtain financing for a growth project, form an enterprise partnership or issue public stock. Outsiders will be evaluating your company, and you’ll want them to like what they see.

2. Analyze your processes.
Are your billings/receivables a tad slow? Employees consistently putting in overtime to meet deadlines? Equipment at maximum capacity? Areas where you’re just managing to squeak by now will completely break down under heavier demands in the future. Give them room to grow with more staff, better software, outsourcing, etc.

3. Pick customers’ brains.
You’ll never know how well you’re really serving their needs unless you ask. And their needs may not be the same now as when you started the business. Use their input to guide your company’s next moves and grow in the right direction.

4. Hire for expertise, not friendship.
Your buddies gave it their all to help your business get off the ground. But to grow to the next level, you’ll need true specialists in key positions, from sales to accounting to production management. Find ways to redistribute responsibilities so that new hires can contribute effectively to the long-term growth of the company.

5. Get everyone on board.
It’s one thing to identify what needs changing, another to put changes into practice. You may decide to introduce a new CRM system, a platform that automates routine tasks, or a process that prevents duplication of effort. In almost every case, you will then encounter resistance to the learning curve, elimination of jobs or risk of failure. You can minimize this by making sure everyone involved understands the benefits of the change to the business as a whole and each of them as participants in the company’s future success.

Top 5 Marketing Trends in Web Design

5 Functionalities Your Site Needs to Stay Competitive

As the internet continues to evolve, user expectations of quality and efficiency are rising right along with it. Here’s how your website should perform now and in the year ahead.

1. Responsive Design
This is the single best way to ensure that your site won’t be unusable anytime soon. A responsive site automatically adjusts to the size and shape of screen it’s being viewed on, from a 25″ desktop computer to a 5″ smartphone. Whatever new web-enabled gadgets come on the market, a responsive website is ready for them.

2. Speed and Efficiency
Slow loading web pages are not tolerated anymore. If you haven’t captured visitors’ interest in less than three seconds, they’ll be gone. Likewise, it’s not enough to have good content: that content must be presented in a smart design that allows for fast and easy comprehension.

3. SEO through Content Marketing
The keyword stuffing tactics of yesteryear are dead as a doornail, thanks to ever-improving search engine algorithms that screen out the garbage. To get high search engine rankings now, your website content must be truly valuable to the user. And keywords must not exceed 2% of the total word count.

4. Video Content
Video has everything today’s users want: it’s faster than reading and more dynamic than blocks of text. Even for business-to-business websites, a video is pretty much a must if they don’t want to be left in the dust, as these statistics show.

  • 81% of businesses feature a video on their brand website
  • 69% of marketing, sales and business professionals have used video marketing
  • 96% of B2B companies plan to use video content marketing in the next year
  • 59% of senior executives choose video over text on website pages that have both
  • The word “video” in an email subject line increases open rates by 19% and click-throughs by 65%

5. Interactive Content
Nothing engages users like an experience they can participate in rather than just take in. Forums, quizzes, opinion polls, contests and 360-degree (walk-through) videos are some of the most popular forms of interactive content that you can add to your website. There’s another benefit as well: when users share their needs and preferences, you can use that (free!) information to make all your marketing efforts more effective.

ACS Creative New Site Launch: InsuraLease

ACS Creative launches Insura-lease.com, the only “Lease Here Pay Here” dealer insurance program.

Insuralease puts you in total control because it’s YOUR policy. You offer lessees the opportunity to buy in, and they reimburse you for the premium. Use our proprietary website to monitor policy status, add/delete vehicles, get a quote and close the sale with just a couple of clicks, 24/7. It’s a whole new level of convenience and security … for both you and your lessees.

Insuralease is a computerized system that makes the process of issuing insurance to the lessee simple and streamlined. We have been running a similar insurance program for large fleet management companies since 1995. These companies lease cars to businesses that need hundreds of vehicles at a time for their sales forces. We took the fundamentals of this program to develop an insurance program specific to Lease Here Pay Here dealers that has never been done before.

 

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