Last month we talked about blogging to improve your local SEO efforts. But words alone aren’t enough to help propel you to the top and keep you there. A truly robust localized content strategy will include text, graphics, and of course, video. We rarely think of video as geographically-specific, but with proper YouTube optimization, you can use your videos to boost your local SEO efforts.
SEO
Is Video Optimization Part of Your SEO Strategy?
A successful SEO campaign has to be diverse in order to be successful. As “SEO” is becoming more and more synonymous with “content marketing,” many businesses are slowly beginning to catch on. But they are typically putting out text-based content like e-books and white papers. There is nothing wrong with these forms of content marketing, but if you scan the websites and blogs of your industry, you’ll probably find the same information rehashed over and over again. In a saturated marketplace, you have to come up with new ways to capture attention.
One of the most effective ways to differentiate yourself is through video optimization. Agencies have responded to calls to diversify by pushing image marketing with infographics and other types of pictures. Video optimization, despite tons of research on its effectiveness, isn’t usually in someone’s bag of marketing tricks. And that’s understandable. Words and pictures are far more economical to create. Video takes time, energy, and money. But adopting a solid video optimization strategy now can put you leaps and bounds ahead of your competitors.
SEO Checklist for New Websites: A Beginner’s Guide
Starting a new business usually means running yourself ragged. You’re trying to set the world on fire and probably trying to pinch pennies at the same time. The last thing on the minds of many new business owners is the condition of their website. Often, new businesses will slap up a single page site as a place holder until “they find the time” to deal with it. This typically means that a year into your business, your website is still holding a place and not really doing much to help you develop customers and sales. But having a strong website and working through a basic SEO checklist will give you a solid footing online and can pay real dividends as your business develops.
But remember, SEO takes time to generate returns, so the earlier you start, the better.
We’ve put together an SEO checklist for new businesses and new websites that need to gain traction online. None of these tasks require a PhD to enact, so you don’t have to worry about hiring a big gun to get your new website ready for search engines. They do, however, take time. So be sure to carve out a little time each day to tackle one or more items on the list.
Is This Why You Failed at Local Internet Marketing?
Local internet marketing is a dirty business, especially if you’re in a competitive niche. Many local companies do everything right – practice good organic SEO, have a well-organized and optimized Google Place page, have updated profiles on Yahoo, Yelp, YP, Foursquare, etc. And yet…these same local businesses don’t rank well for local keywords.
So what’s going wrong?
Mapping Keywords to Your Website: A Quick Guide For Beginners
When you’re trying to manage SEO yourself, figuring out how to map keywords to your web pages can be a bit of a chore. This is especially true if you’ve recently decided to overhaul your target keywords, or if you’ve only just begun paying attention to keywords. Once you’ve figured out your main targets, mapping keywords is important to give your website a sense of structure and purpose, in addition to helping you rank in search engines.
Are Multiple Domain Names a Good SEO Strategy?
Multiple domain names as an SEO strategy has always gotten mixed reviews. At one time, it was a decent plan of attack. Buy up several domain names that match up to the services of your business. A typical domain portfolio for Vandelay House Painting in Pittsburgh might have been: vandelaypainting.com, pittsburghhousepainers.com, pittsburghpainting.com, pghpaitningcontractor.com. Seems to make sense, right? These guys are targeting some of their keywords in their domain names, which would theoretically allow them to pick up lots of traffic. And for a time, tactic could yield good results.
This strategy is still relatively prevalent, especially among local companies like our Vandelay Painting. But is it wise?
Keyword Research For People Who Don’t Have Time To Worry About Keywords
For the average business owner or marketer, keyword research can be a bit like stepping into quicksand. You can easily get caught up for days, weeks, even months trying to hammer out the perfect keyword targets for your website. To complicate things even further, it seems that every (expensive) tool used for keyword research seems to send you down a slightly different path. The process can get very overwhelming very quickly.
So if you don’t have endless hours in the day, if you aren’t an SEO Guru by trade, and if you’d rather visit your dentist than tackle keyword research, what can you do?
Six SEO Myths That Are Ruining Your Internet Marketing Efforts
SEO is confusing. One expert will tell you to employ one strategy, while another says, “Don’t do that!” This agency tells you that keywords are critical while that one says they don’t. Perhaps you’ve followed the advice of an SEO guru only to find your website penalized during one of Google’s mood swings. With all of the SEO myths and supposed SEO golden rules, it’s nearly impossible to keep up.
But in the vast expanse of information floating around about SEO, there are some very common misconceptions that you should abandon if you have a website to market.
Shady SEO Techniques Sure To Get You Banned From Google (And How To Avoid Them)
SEO is a constantly changing landscape. A technique that was solid for building rankings one day can get you banned the next. But most shady SEO techniques that will get you banned fall under the old “black hat” category, meaning they were strategies that were designed to trick search engines in order to boost rankings. They were (and still are) typically employed by agencies who were only interested in collecting big fees for fast results. These agencies take advantage of the fact that the average person doesn’t know much about search marketing and their goal is to fill their own purse, not to create a solid SEO campaign that will yield long-term results.
The first step to understanding whether or not your site is in danger is to learn what these shady SEO techniques are so that you can avoid them at all costs.
This is Why You Need a Video Strategy for SEO
If you pay any attention to the world of SEO, you know that things have changed quite a bit in the last few years. Tactics that could once skyrocket you to top rankings can now get you banned from SERPs. It’s no longer about how many links you can build. Algorithms are becoming more and more advanced, rewarding sites with quality content that acquire links naturally over time.
Most people immediately think of text when they hear the words, “quality content,” but text alone isn’t the best SEO strategy. Sure, awesome blog posts and informative white papers and eBooks are important, but if you’re leaving video out of your SEO strategy, or if you are using video but aren’t making it a top priority, you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle. When you properly develop a video strategy for SEO, it can make a significant impact on your results.
