Monthly Archives: April 2020

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How SEO and Search Trends are Impacted by COVID-19

COVID-19 will undoubtedly have long-term impacts on the economy and global market as a whole, with its effects possibly spanning far into the future. Unfortunately, some businesses may never recover from the detriment it has caused. When hopefully, in the coming months, businesses begin to reopen and we attempt to return to a normalized state, one has to wonder what that state will look like in the aftermath of COVID.

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How I Recovered from A Google Penguin Penalty

This entry was posted in Penalty Updates, SEO on by .

Imagine your website having a decent amount of traffic, then suddenly, that traffic is gone. I know how it feels given the amount of work you put into it to acquire traffic and ranking. Just like other site owners who were hit with the penguin penalty, you would probably think it something temporary, until you start seeing your traffic dropping lower and lower in the SERPs. Good news – recovering your site’s traffic lost after Google’s Penguin update has penalized you is difficult, but not impossible. This is how I recovered from a google penguin penalty.

  1. Find all your backlinks

Creating a list of all your backlinks is the first step to performing penguin penalty recovery. There are many different tools that you can use to build this list, including Google Webmaster, Ahrefs, and many more. If possible, draw your links information from three tools so that you can compare your data. This will ensure you are not missing some links.

Most of these tools have an export option. So, to stay organized, export this list to a spreadsheet. This list will not only be useful now but will help in the future to monitor your backlinks to ensure Google does not penalize your site again. Hoping you understand and differentiate between a useful link and a bad one, you can then go to the next step.

  1. Analyze your links for quality

Do you know why you were penalized? Here is when you get the answer to that question. The reason why you are penalized is likely because you have a lot of unnatural links pointing back to your site. However, this doesn’t mean that all your backlinks are bad. By analyzing your link list, you should be able to determine the good links and bad links.

Pluck out all the links coming from spammy sites. These are some of the links that Google tend to scrutinized, and that should be removed from your list:

  • Links from websites with low page rank
  • Links from non-indexed sites
  • Links from irrelevant and untrustworthy sites

Depending on the number of bad links, this process can be time-consuming. Once you have the list of links that need to be removed, you have to contact their webmasters and ask for link removal. To automate the process, you can use tools that can find email addresses of each domain’s webmaster and contact them for you.

  1. Disavowing Links

The process of contacting link webmasters does not bear much fruit, as most of them may end up not removing their links. And other links cannot be removed manually. Fortunately, you can use the Google disavow Links tool to get the remaining links removed. All you need is to create a text file with all bad links and submit it to Google webmaster tools. When your site is re-crawled, Google will know to ignore these links, and gradually regain your ranking.

This process may take longer but will help you with penguin penalty recovery.  Once you recover from the Penguin penalty, it’s essential to make sure you don’t get hit once again by actively keeping track of your links.

6 Tips for Choosing the Best organic SEO Company

This entry was posted in SEO on by .

Picking the right SEO company can be daunting, since making a wrong choice can be disastrous. With the market flooded with SEO companies, settling for one can be overwhelming since you want something reliable and dependable. However, with these six tips, you can choose the best organic SEO company for your business.

  1. Think beyond SEO

There is nothing wrong with focusing on SEO when you start, but, as a business owner, sales and revenue are your priority. Because of this, choose an SEO company that not only focuses on driving traffic to your website but also converting the traffic to subscribers and sales.  Also, the company should have a conversion optimization process that improves your site continually to maximize sales and leads from the traffic you get. For instance, ask how the company tests headlines, button copy, colors, placement, and land pages to gain insight on how they work.

  1. Verify past results and case studies

A good track record can help you decide whether a particular SEO agency is right for you. It proves that their strategies work. Ask for samples of sites the company has worked on and see how they are performing. If possible, reach out to some of its clients and get insight into their experience with the agency. Client testimonials are a great indicator of good results.

But, working with other clients is not enough. Go a step further and check how long ago they worked with the client. An agency that performs will have a stream of clients in their portfolio and should provide testimonials and case studies from clients they have worked with for a while and new clients as well. If they give a case study from seven years ago and have nothing from the past year, take it as a red flag. Also, a company that has been in business for a while will know the ins and outs of SEO, which places them in a better position to handle your online marketing needs.

  1. Regular Reporting

Before hiring, make sure you understand where you fit in the whole process. You want a company that keeps you informed and up to date about how everything is progressing. It is also a sign of transparency and openness. They should provide you with clear directions and a highlight of what’s great, what needs improving, and what needs to be dropped and why. Check against the KPIs you set with the company and see if they have achieved at least 90% of what they promised. Remember, though, building sales and increasing traffic is a marathon, not a sprint, so don’t go in expecting results within a week. Also, learn the industry jargon to make it easier to understand reports when they are presented to you.

Your business deserves a reputable, experienced, and dependable SEO agency to help expand your web presence. Hopefully, with these tips, you can choose the best organic SEO company for your needs.

SEO: Using a local agency for Local SEO

This entry was posted in Advertising, Local, Marketing, SEO on by .

Local search is vitally important, not only to your website page ranking but to your business in general. Consider this statistic from Google: Forty-six percent of all searches have “local intent.”

So, what exactly is local search?

Think about it as owning a pizza restaurant. You might be able to rank for a search query such as, “How to make the best pizza sauce.”

However, residents in your area are more likely searching for phrases like, “best pizza restaurants near me.” This lets the search engine know your intent, so the ensuing local search engine results page (SERP) results will include local pizza restaurants.

That’s why local SEO is so important, as it’s a reliable and proven way to promote your business, product or services to local customers when they look for them.

And a local agency will know how to get the most out of your specific local search needs.

 

Optimize your Google My Business (GMB) Listing

Google feels comfortable sharing information and content that it can support and authenticate. GMB is the tool that does that. If Google can authenticate and verify your business, the search engine rewards you with an envied sidebar space in your local search.

When customers use Google Maps or search to find your business, they will have access to the correct information about your business address, phone number, website, hours of operations, and other critical information. Local agencies will optimize your GMB listing to enable Google to give you the desired public identity and presence.

 

Hyperlocal keywords

This is when you’re targeting a small, very specific region – and it’s a bit tricky, especially for very small areas that might not have much (or any) volume data. Work with your SEO provider to find out how they can provide you with volume data for those small communities because even if you’re only getting a dozen searches per month for that term, those are 12 potential customers.

 

Ensure your website is Mobile-friendly

Mobile search and local search go hand in hand. That’s because research shows most mobile searches aren’t necessarily done from home. And since most cell phone users share their location, search engines are prioritized to those mobile searches. From business locators to mobile coupons, you and your SEO provider should anticipate the requirements of mobile users, then ensure those needs are met on big-screens and small.

 

Optimize your website

From URLs, headers, tags, images, meta descriptions to content, SEO agencies are experts in this field – and local agencies can give you area-specific insight.

 

Making use of local SEO services in Ventura is a vital part of any SEO strategy. Opening a new business in Oxnard? Local SEO ensures you’re more likely to be seen by potential customers in southern California.

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Wooing Google Online Through Reviews

When you think about it, creating a website is much like dating online – you create a public profile in the hopes of meeting potential mates, or in this case, potential customers. When you put yourself out there, other people now have the opportunity to weigh in with their opinions – and what they say online can have a far-reaching impact on your reputation.

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