Sites Worldwide

https://sitesworldwide.org/ - Helping You Hit the Market and Stand Out from the Competition!

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How Social Media Can Benefit Your Business Beyond Marketing

Social media can certainly be helpful in regards to getting your business more exposure online and attracting positive attention to your site. But, social media doesn’t have to only be used for those purposes. It is so much more than a tool to browse dank memes or show off your company. Rather, it is a way to truly connect with your consumer, and at SitesWorldWide we are here to tell you how. In fact, social media acts as the first bit of contact between a company and consumer in many situations. So let me break it down for you individually.

Product development

As a business owner, your company is shaped on the sale of a product. After having sold a few products and receiving some feedback, you are able to shape that product specifically to the consumer’s needs. Any positive or negative feedback is going to prove helpful as it can mean the difference between a loyal customer that stays with your company as long as they need said product while recommending it to others and gradually losing dozens of customers at a time. It can be as simple as making the font slightly larger on your one of a kind T-shirts or changing up your products entirely to please the greater majority of your consumers. It’s hard to please people, but that job becomes so much easier when you are literally given the advice for how to do it.

Testing content

Naturally, your marketing strategy should extend past the internet. While the bulk of people will see your advertising efforts online, there is still a strong consumer base that can be gathered through means of brochures, commercials and even at conferences. Let’s say you recently posted an infographic to your Facebook page. You received a lot of positive feedback on the image as many people shared it, commented on it and liked it. This means you hit the nail on the head in terms of marketing your business to your target audience. This infographic doesn’t have to die here though. Something that created that much buzz online can certainly have a similar effect in real life as well. Why shouldn’t you take advantage of quality content to recycle through flyers, brochures and other hands-on marketing materials?

Whether you are taking your marketing strategies to the next level by bringing it out into the real world or even just barely testing the waters online, there is still a lot more you can learn. When it comes to expanding your online presence and creating a more positive view of your company online, you should opt to hire a leading internet marketing team. The professionals at SitesWorldWide are ready to help you out in these regards.

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At SitesWorldWide, we know that your brand is one of the most important aspects of your successful business, and that is why it is important to make sure to avoid common mistakes that may damage your carefully crafted image. If your branding strategies aren’t the best they can be, they may be ineffective or, worse, they may drive business away and cost you valuable profits. There is a lot of bad advice out there regarding branding dos and don’ts, and it can be confusing to know what to believe, but by following these simple rules you can avoid damaging errors that can prevent your company’s reputation.

 Keep It Simple

You don’t want your brand to be muddled or bogged down by sending an unnecessarily complicated message that won’t resonate with your target market or catch on. When it comes to elements such as taglines, logos, and jingles, you’ll want to keep your message simple. A well-designed logo can provide you with a professional look as well as making your company and its reputation instantly recognizable, and you will also need to focus on creating a simple slogan that doesn’t bog your clients down with unnecessary information. It may pay to invest in the services of a professional designer to create your logo, because they are specifically trained in brand recognition.

 Keep It Consistent

When creating a brand, your primary purpose is to provide consistency so you will have enough time to build recognition and to develop your reputation. While it is true that over time you will make adjustments to your brand to help it evolve with the current trends so it remains fresh and relevant, you don’t want to stray so far from your original message that your company will no longer be recognizable or relatable to your existing customer base. Your mission should be clearly stated, and once you have developed a following built on that mission you will need to stay true to your original vision if you want to keep your clients.

 Be Honest

Many companies make big promises they will not be able to deliver on, and this is a serious mistake that can cost you your business. When your customer base’s expectations do not live up to your hype they may feel like your products and services can’t be counted on or that they were deliberately deceived. Your claims regarding quality, service, timeframes, and benefits need to be backed by data that proves you can really deliver on your promises. You don’t want to stake your company’s reputation on factors you do not have the budget, the manpower, or the ability to control, so make sure you will be able to stay true to your word.

 Be Original

While it may seem at first that trying to copy certain elements of your successful competitors’ brands is a good idea, this is both a mistake and a wasted opportunity. Your brand is your chance to stand out and to show why you are different from the competition. Your brand can bring you new customers, and increase customer loyalty and sales, but only if you give your clients a reason to choose your company over a more successful or well-established competitor. If your brand is essentially the same but you are not as known, they will have no reason to give you a chance. At SitesWorldWide we know that by spending time and effort to make sure your brand is truly unique, you will be able to have the best possible chance of becoming the next leader in your industry.

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3 Techniques to Be More Generous and Grow Your Audience

Being generous with your audience is one of the basics of any clever content marketing approach. To increase your audience and achieve better results for your business, it may be time to increase your content past blog posts, podcast episodes, or newsletters and find additional means to be really generous. The goal is to not hold back. Don’t be stingy and don’t take the easy way around things. Just be generous and give freely. Working to become a “giver,” as opposed to a “taker?” Learn more about why generosity works and how you can give your audience increased value from Sites Worldwide.

Giving Generously is Effective

How in the world does giving generously help a business to grow? Generosity is effective when you are marketing your business because it:

·         Directs people toward your message and your business. You attract the perfect customers and clients to your free content.

·         Launches you as a go-to expert and reliable advisor in your field. They recognize you as someone to be trusted and relied upon.

·         Assists you to receive more referrals. You’re in front of your audience regularly which means they remember your company name when they need a product or service similar to yours.

·         You can interact without pitching. When you don’t give generously, your options for conversations are limited to one tremendously limited topic: selling. With this, you can just speak on an important theme.

Choosing What to Give Away

There are the usual content possibilities, blog posts, videos, webinars, podcast episodes, and ebooks. You can also consider giving:

·         Live appearances, group discussions, and Q & A sessions

·         Quick consultations when a service provider

·         Introductions to other beneficial sites in your community

·         Advice and content on social media groups, such as Facebook

·         Records of helpful resources, tools, sites, and blogs

Think about the perfect client or customer for your business and ask yourself: “What could I provide her that would certainly improve her life, or at least make it simpler?” With some ingenuity, you’ll be able to craft high-value resources which don’t damage your current business standard.

Stop Worrying About Giving Away Too Much

People often worry over which content they should sell and which they should give away for free. Of course, this will involve a great deal of subjective judgment. However, the good news is that we at Sites Worldwide have yet to find an example of giving away too much. It isn’t likely that you’ll be too helpful or too generous, as long as you manage your time and effort, and so long as people know you are in business. Don’t be scared to give generously on a consistent basis. No matter how much you release for free, there will still be those who need execution advice or further products and services. Before you sell to your potential clients and customers, they will need to see you an authority and providing free content assists you achieve that. For more about the benefits of free content click here.

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Why Being a Thought Leader Isn’t All That

We all want traffic to our websites and to build interested audiences who are responsive to our offers. So, many think being a thought leader is where it’s at.  Maybe even more sought-after than “going viral,” thought leadership is that indefinable, impressive prize. Most of us know not to self-identify as thought leaders. But it would be cool if other people called us that. The thing is, while it’s smart to publish the kind of content people pay attention to and give good advice, thought leadership suggests that you have some new insight which no one has voiced before. It can’t just be stimulating, well-reasoned, and valuable, it has to be new. But new is not always better.

Novelty is not Knowledge

Pursuing and implementing existing thoughts which make sense is extremely beneficial. People who claim totally new insights about how the world essentially works are lying to themselves. Newness is created in one of two ways: repackage old advice, which marketers do all the time, or they make up some nonsense. If you are the owner of superior, unique wisdom that no one else has heard about, you’ve either reinterpreted an old concept or it’s a bunch of BS. Sites World Wide are aware this same advice could have been given before and that’s fine. We just want to make it more accessible and easy to understand. That right there gives it value.

Everyone is Wrong About Something

Another problem with the idea of thought leaders is that their audiences begin to see them sort of like cult leaders. We assume an authority to be educated about their subject. Financial authorities should be educated about the economy. Diet authorities should be educated about nutrition. We expect thought leaders to be revolutionary figures, blessing us with their deep thoughts and philosophical insights, and presenting us with their unique, sacred path in life and in the world at large. Understood in this idea of a thought leader is the idea that you require someone to tell you how and what to think. That really isn’t a promising idea. Everyone has information gaps and some “leaders” may not be as well versed as you think.

The Thought Leadership Bubble

The last issue we’ll discuss with thought leadership is that it’s a catchphrase for a bubble which doesn’t need to be strengthened. The world is made up of quite a few distinct types of people. They come from various places, look different, do different things, and have different family lives, social circles, and work histories. However, thought leaders all look spookily similar. Do we really need more Business Insiders telling us what to do? Many of these people are pulling information from the exact same sources. It’s often better for us to take in the information provided by credible sources and determine what to do with it for ourselves. When have you seen these types of tactics used to hook people in? Let Sites World Wide know in the comments.

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3 Ways to Get Links to Your Site

“Link building” can be very helpful because it can increase traffic to your site. However, generic emails which just follow a template and tell a person they’ll be compensated for their link don’t work. So, if you’re looking to get links to your site for all the advantages that come with it, including enhanced placement on sites like Google and Yahoo, try a different approach. Below we at Sites Worldwide have complied three techniques that can help you to get links without using the email approach, which frankly annoys most of the people you send the messages to. Let’s check them out.

Guest Posts

Not new, but guest writing for relevant, respected publications is a fantastic way to gain exposure. You’ll want, at minimum, a bio link back to your site in exchange. You may remember Google speaking against this for placement purposes. Spammy sites delivering spam to spammy sites isn’t smart however that’s not what we mean. You’re searching for a place where you can contribute regularly. The audience will start to get familiar with you and the publisher will value and trust you. If a publisher doesn’t allow back links move on. If a reader is interested in more of your work, they should be able to click a link. If you only get a bio link, see if you can point to something more beneficial than the home page.

Podcast Interviews

The explosion of podcasting is a potential boon for exposure and links. Podcasters need guests, and you should position yourself as a feasible option. The links appear in the show notes and can be a terrific way to get links to your home page, your valuable content, and your most impactful articles. Podcasters are often looking for new guests, outside of their own echo box. The key, of course, is to do remarkable work. Then do some research:

·         Find pertinent podcasts.

·         Research the show, its audience, and its host.

·         Send a friendly note about why you would be a good interview.

Tribal content

Tribal content is all about connecting strongly with those who believe the way you do on a specific issue. For instance, one of Sites Worldwide chief tribal themes involves the hazards of digital sharecropping, or publishing solely on digital land which you don’t own or control. In these discussions, we’re likely to be mentioned. It works the other way, too. Whenever we see a solid piece of content warning against digital sharecropping, we share it on social. If there is a significant worldview within your niche that other online publishers share, they’ll want to make the case to their audiences. With tribal content, you offer an important message which supports their editorial strategy in addition to your own. That’s how the truly influential links to your site occur.

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Steps to Building Web Literacy

Even if a business isn’t make the most of the web, the web still reaches out to find it and catalogue it. These businesses can appear in business directories, with name, address, and phone number taken from the phonebook. A customer sharing their thoughts about the company on a review site also gets them out there. For those of us occupied on the Web every day, it can seem strange to not be actively pursuing online avenues. Yet there are numerous business owners who haven’t seen a need to have a homepage, or considered the idea of looking up their business name on Google or Yahoo. When working to build web literacy, we at Sites World Wide have complied ways to increase your web skills.

First Things First

You would choose a physical site without checking it out, so before you begin building a Web site, look at the places who can help you build a website and investigate what they offer. Also, when you want to find a business, look at Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Live Search, or Ask Local. This is how many people will find your business. Try this out on a cell phone as well. This way you can see what the benefits of a mobile-friendly platform are. If you don’t have an email, set one up. Your internet provider often gives you one but you can also set one up on Google, Yahoo, etc. which may offer a few more perks than the one your internet provider gave you.

Diving in Head First

Participate in a form related to your business or interests. You may want to observe for a while before you actually post and that’s totally fine. Look at more than one forum too, each has their own characteristics and rules. Educating yourself about online etiquette will help you when you join a forum related to your business. Visit business review sites such as Yelp. Write some reviews of your own and consider what people might write about your business. Search for reviews of products online, Amazon is great for this. Write some reviews yourself. This all helps to get you familiar with the web and create your own presence so you can be found later.

Final Touches

Check out news online. Certain sites let you create alerts for news about your industry and even your actual business. Alerts can be helpful in learning when your business, or the industry, appears in the news. Try out some blog searches for your industry. Subscribe to a few and take note how often and what they post. Consider starting your own blog, for your business or personally. Several businesses start blogs to assist them to communicate with clients and possible customers. Trying out a personal blog first will give you a place to learn and mistakes won’t hurt your business. This is just the beginning. Dive into what the web has to offer and you can really promote your business. Let us at Sites World Wide know how these tips worked for you in the comments.

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Serif and Sans Fonts for Print Text

Here at SitesWorldWide, we’d like to tell you why It is important to understand the concept of serif vs. sans serif when it comes to your business website and subsequent design efforts. When you come to better understand these concepts, you are going to be considerably less stressed and overwhelmed when it comes to making typeface decisions regarding your website. Serifs are more easily identified in certain fonts, and it is widely believed that they make texts more readable and easy on the eyes when utilized in specific fonts. Utilizing these factors can give results of which the opinions could vary from person to person, when they are visiting and checking out your website.

 What is more commonly used in the various forms of media? Serifs tend to be the more common option when it comes to printed media. There are a number of reasons behind this, including their use in books, newspapers, and the majority of magazines out there today. Things that are shorter elements of what you are dealing with, like graphs, credits, captions and the like can make use of a sans serif style typeface; this is ideal in a number of situations. You must also take your audience under consideration when it comes down to this all; many factors go into choosing what you should decide to use!

 What Works Best Where?

 If you are creating something that is primarily going to be read by young children who may be just barely learning to read, it is best to go sans serifs. This is because the forms of the letters will be simplified and more easily recognizable. It is important to do research before you make any big decisions here. In this circumstance, a typeface that is free of serifs is definitely going to be the way to go, thus making the material more accessible to the target audience.

 You also need to take under consideration how well your text is going to be reproduced on the actual web page. Viewing examples of this early on is all the more vital. The more delicate of serif designs are actually very difficult to reproduce accurately and faithfully via the Internet on web pages; patterns tend to break up, and printing in CMYK will give the impression of weak and fuzzy edges. It is all the more important that you get an idea of what you are working with and how it will come out looking in the end.

 So, what should you do in the long run? Once more, this differs between circumstances, and you need to get a better idea of just how much good one or the other could do for you, as well as who your intended customer base is. What color are you going to have for your text, and for the background? All of this can strongly impact what you are doing; this is a big part of your marketing endeavor, and as such, it needs to be done in a manner in which it will appeal to your customers! This is SitesWorldWide, hoping you will check back soon because we have more business website advice to share with you!

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Top Corporate Instagram Campaigns

Instagram has over 600 million users, and they share an incredible 100 million photos and videos each day. This social media site is constantly improving their platform so that they can stay ahead of the latest content creation trends, and that makes them a valuable resource for any small- or medium-sized business. When it comes to visual content marketing, you won’t get better results anywhere else on the web. If you are looking for inspiration so you can get started or so you can take your campaign to the next level, check out SitesWorldWide’s list of the best corporate campaigns from the past year.

 Amazon

When it comes to customer appreciation, Amazon went above and beyond the call of duty when they ran an Instagram campaign to thank their users for rating them #1. One thing that really drew people to this campaign was the fact that they offered a discount, which made users want to engage so they could save money. This is the kind of customer service that can keep people visiting your site again and again because they feel appreciated. Consider using Instagram to offer your clients a discount, and you may be surprised by how many of them decide to take you up on your offer.

 Starbucks

The genius of Starbucks’ #WhiteCupContest campaign is that the brand did not have to create much of the content themselves. Their white cups offered their customers a blank canvas on which they could essentially create content for the coffee giants, and seeing the results of their efforts posted on Instagram was incentive for them to go all-out. Starbucks made it easy for their customers to promote them by tapping into their own desire for exposure, and if you want to do the same, think of an interactive campaign idea that will allow your clients to become a part of it.

 Adidas

Everyone wants to have the hottest new athletic shoes, and there is a lot of competition between brands like Adidas and Nike. One way Adidas tried to stay ahead of the game this past year is by using Snapchat to promote their campaign on Instagram, which led to publicity and engagement on both platforms. By offering users a chance to find a hidden phone number on Snapchat that would allow them to enter a raffle to win a pair of their NMD Pitch Black sneakers. By using one platform to get users to engage with the other, they not only spread awareness of their products but also set themselves up for success in future campaigns on both. Here at SitesWorldWide, that’s what we call brilliant.

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What Are Backlinks?

The simple explanation of a backlink is one website mentioning another and linking to it. It isn’t merely referencing the site or its address; it has to be a clickable link using a tool called an href attribute within the code or computer language. They are usually visually seen with a blue or different color text to differentiation, and an underline. Thre was a time when you could launch a website and create a whole lot of links from all corners of the web and have incredible exposure, but today things have become more complex, and SitesWorldWide would like to help you keep up to date.

What are the downsides of backlinks?

They eventually developed a bad reputation in the industry and it was believed that Google gave less credibility to the use of links. Buying backlinks is frowned upon in general, and as a result your website could take a hit without any warning. This can put your website out of business permanently, and that could be the worst thing possible. They also give less value than natural backlinks especially if it is not relevant to the topic. They are also time-sensitive, breaking or disappearing after a short while.

How do I get quality backlinks?

One of the best ways to get quality backlinks for your blog is to write awesome articles. If you do, people will naturally link to them. Tutorials and top-ten list articles are a couple of great examples of the types of posts that have great potential. They are based on proper research and practical examples. One of the other ways is to comment, which is an excellent, easy and free way to get backlinks. It helps you get solid one-way backlinks as well as more traffic and better search engine visibility.

What are some of the benefits?

You can build your brand authority, with high quality links on popular websites. It helps attract consumers to your brand simply by association. This also helps to present your company as an information source within your industry, and can even result in websites linking to your content, giving you natural backlinks. From there it can also help create new relationships, from joining your newsletter or performing some other measurable action on your website. They might connect and follow your social media profiles or they might read your blog and then bookmark it or subscribe to your RSS feed.

I’ve tried everything, but nothing’s working, help!

If you have tried buying backlinks, writing quality articles, and commenting with relevance, and you don’t seem to be able to get any visibility, you may want to consider the other possible options for successful backlinks. From creating a real-life photo op, like Lyft when they sent an Ecto- 1 ghostbusting vehicle around for the pickups to getting involved with in person events like hosting a small panel, sponsoring an event or even just attending it. These activities will help you get links when publishers and bloggers promote the event, and when attendees review their experiences and create online posts with links back to your site.

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What is content marketing and how do I use it?

When you have a business and a website, chances are you need to understand a few things about how to bring customers to your site and make sure that they have a quality experience. Traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute, as a forward-thinking marketer, you know that there is definitely a better way. One of the best ways to get this going is content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing content and ultimately to drive profitable customer interactions. There are more than enough benefits to using this to your advantage and here at SitesWorldWide, we will make sure you know what you need.  

Impossible

No matter what type of marketing tactics you use, this should be part of your process, not something separate. What if your customers looked forward to receiving your pamphlets or flyers? What if when they received it, via print, email, website, they spent lots of time with it? What if they anticipated it and shared it with their peers? The most important thing is to make it valuable. It’s what changes this definition from one that could describe almost any form of advertising.

Websites

There are many different types as there are types of content. What’s the difference between a normal webpage and one with content marketing? There are many tools and tricks to get it started. There are many companies to help you and your company get ahead of the game and first on Google. Traditional advertising and marketing is great, but you want to make sure that it is bringing awareness to a customer’s unknown need and presenting them with a solution to that problem. From there your website should take it from looking at your products, to the consideration, comparing different products from different vendors.

Extra help

As you look at the options for your future website, you will look at companies that can help with these things, especially PR or other items. If you’re simply too busy to do it yourself and aren’t ready to manage it in-house, then hiring a firm may be your best option. An effective content marketing strategy is built on two pillars that you should have already: A set of robust, strategic personas, and an understanding of your typical buyer’s journey. Brands are spending the time and money to publish more content, but that begs a crucial question: How effective is it?

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Pump Up Your Online Brand

Today, having a strong online brand is one of the most essential ways to keep your business growing. That means need your finger on the pulse of all things internet that not only affect your brand image but tell you who your competitors are and how well they are doing. There are many tools available that help you choose the best brand-sensitive key words, monitor your hits, follow what people are saying about your business and most importantly, keep your site secure. Needless to say, you must also stay on top of the latest trends, and make sure your visual brand is consistent.

Use Google Alerts

One of the easiest tools to monitor your brand online - and it’s also free - is Google Alerts. This handy device lets you know the instant you come up in a search engine and from what source. After you set it up (just follow the Google instructions), you can plug in important search queries like [My Name] which tracks mentions of your name; [My Company Name], that monitors the company name mentions, and [mycompanyname.com] to monitor domain mentions, which includes backlinks.  Other tools to add to your repertoire are Brand Mentions, Buzzsumo, and Hooks, which is a mobile app which lets you see your brand mentions on your phone.

Use the Best Keywords

Although it is not rocket science to use the best keywords, researching the best brand-sensitive keywords is a skill you must develop. You need to research all the variations on keywords your brand name and stay on top of the rankings. You can find one of the best and fastest “growth hacking tools” at https://serpstat.com/ , which allows you to enter a keyword, choose what country to google, and hit “search.” Also, play around with your key words, to make sure they are not overly competitive.

Grace Under Fire – Handling Negative Mentions

As the owner of the company, be your best representative. Don’t try to fool viewers by giving yourself five stars like you are a happy customer. Be a confident and authentic voice, and take a more gracious position of you can help customers solve their problems, even if you can’t please all of them.  And, instead of blocking or deleting negative comments – which could backfire on you big time – handle each issue with a sense of humor. If the customer slams something about your product or service, you can come back with an apology and a promise to fix or replace it in a lighthearted manner.  Remember, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

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How do I get more people to my site?

If you have a shop, website, and product to sell, but you are sitting in front of a computer, lost and confused, starting can seem like a daunting task, but there are easy solutions and wonderful ways to improve and market your store and brand without becoming an expert in coding or other technical jargons. The breadth of the lingo alone is on the verge of becoming a dialect of its own and I know that it can be extremely overwhelming. However, you can start with easy things, like making your local audiences able to find you, fostering loyalty and so much more.

How does local searching help my brand?

It was revealed that over 40% of mobile queries have local intent over the last several years thanks to many studies that have been published. Google has also recently indicated that one in three US mobile queries are now ‘local’ and 87% of people use their phone when on the go. This search engine has also found that over ninety percent of mobile users look up local information on their phones and the primary functions are calling or visiting a business. In order for search engines to serve users with the most relevant information using the vast amount of data they have on us, local based results will become more and more prevalent.

What does loyalty do for my brand?

Have you ever been talking to someone about a great meal or piece of clothing and immediately been able to say “I love how helpful they are,” or “Their chicken and dumplings are out of this world?” This word of mouth is invaluable. Nearly all happy customers referenced either a specific great experience or an ongoing positive aspect of the business. These memories, if impressive enough, are what drive good reviews and help customers to remember to return for further good experiences. Then there’s the flip side — experiences so negative that they can drive a customer away forever. So keep an eye on your reviews and improve your business constantly.

What advantages does a small business have?

It can be a frustrating idea to try to compete with big brand names websites when you are a simple one hundred person or less company and do not have the same access to the huge budgets. But you have targeted opportunities and natural advantages. It can be hard to compete with the sheer numbers that they produce. They have writers on their teams to help rank their content that much higher with the diversity of backlinks that they are able to provide. The trust that these brands have as well makes it a Herculean effort to overcome, but you can, with a few simple tips.

Irresistible

All the promotion in the world won’t build a thriving audience if your content sucks. Truly incredible content, products or services can be your best marketing tool. Everything you do online has to start with creating something incredible. Another thing, don’t be afraid to say what everyone else is thinking but not saying. Other people are probably thinking about it too, and they’ll love you for being brave enough to say something. Writing on the other blogs, it is still one of the most effective and underused strategies for building your own audience. You can make yourself visible with minimal work and maximum output.

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How SERP Features Can Help You Drive Traffic

With millions of web pages available online, SERPs are more important than ever before to business owners. As your SERPs get lower on the page, it becomes less likely that anyone will click on your website, and this is why determining your SERP competition is crucial if you want to place yourself at the top of your industry and get maximum exposure. Search engines first appeared in the 1990s, and they have remained in constant change since that time. If you want to make sure you are getting the exposure you need to succeed, then you’ll need to stay on top of the trends.

What is SERP?

Search engine result pages, which are otherwise known as SERPs, are important to any online marketing effort because they optimize results, giving you the chance to get your company’s name out there so that it comes up first when people are looking for the services and products you offer. Because competition on these pages is fierce and many other businesses are also trying to get to the top of the same results, today more than ever before it is important for the owners of small- and medium-sized businesses to understand how they work and what they can do to make sure they end up on top.

 What is the User’s Intent?

The results you get from maximizing your performance via SERPs will depend on what the user is looking for. This can be broken down into three basic categories: informational, navigational, and transactional. In other words, does the user need general information about your industry, are they looking for information that might lead them to your company, and do they need to purchase the products and services you provide? Researching the most popular search terms for your industry is a great place to start. By learning what users really want, you will get the conversions and the new customer base that you are looking for.

Organic Results vs Paid Results

There are two types of search results: organic and paid. Organic results will be based on user’s queries, and this is why they are also known as natural results. Paid results, however, are essentially advertisements. They are not created naturally but instead are deliberately placed there by advertisers so they will appear when someone does a related search. Even if your optimization is successful enough to push you to the top spot organically, these paid advertisements can still push you back down the page, and this is a common problem for people who own smaller or mid-size companies that may be competing with giant in their industry.

 Why Ranks Matter

Approximately 64% of website traffic comes from search engines, and Google processes over 40,000 searches per second. Today’s consumers rely on these results for many of their day-to-day needs, and that is why you need to begin implementing strategies to improve your ranks right away. If you aren’t tech-savvy enough to do this on your own, there are many companies that can help you out, and they are well worth the financial investment and the time you will invest in working with them. Your customers are already telling you want through their searches, and with a little research and effort, you will be in a position to deliver.

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How do I make my website searchable?

The process of getting your website to show up naturally on search engine results without having to automatically pay for it, also called search engine optimization. The earlier your website stands in the list of results, the higher the chances that your site will gain new visitors. The way to do this is to utilize your titles, descriptions and general data that you have added to it. When you have created a brand new website there is no way anybody can know about it. If you are ready to make it discoverable, the easiest way is to use the add URLs, or submitting it through Bing, or even the Webmaster Tools through Google.

How do I know if it’s time to use an extra service to make it found?

Has your company grown to that spot where cannot handle all of your online marketing yourself, with single marketing and being able to hire an entire in-house team? You have reached that point with too much to do, but not enough to afford a full time experienced manager with all of the skills, and the other necessary members of an online marketing team. You do not want to spread yourself too thin. This will be the best time to hire outside help even if you are just looking for fulfillment on some aspects of the campaign. It will help get the work done while still focusing on everything else.

Can I use an extra service to save my reputation?

Reputation management is often one of the most difficult tasks of keeping your website visible. If you have to combat other sites attacking you, your site is going to get buried. You want to rank highly and you want to get the negative things off the front page. The attacks may have even indexed your website on Google the way you don’t want it. A company, that specializing in reparations, can and will respond directly to customers, through social media or review sites and make sure that you are always putting the best image out there and spend more time developing your reputation.

How do you know if the extra service is helping or hurting?

You may have trusted your website to an outside agency, but suddenly you are having it all but destroyed by black hat techniques. You want them to have something to show you. You have a right to ask for deliverables. You should also be wary if they do not ask for your help, like editor or admin access to your site or your social accounts. They could be merely adding backlinks from their vast network of spammy sites. Run far if you hear this “Well, we do a variety of things, but it involves basically optimizing your site for search engines.”

What’s the best way to work with an extra service?

You want to ask the company about the types of changes they recommend for websites. Just making a website pretty or awesome looking, does not mean it is SEF. Your site may need a complete overhaul while others just need some help on the coding side. Transparency is crucial to success and this should mean giving you procedures and give reports on keywords for both you and your competitors.  Quality products are a partnership that should be formed and nurtured for long-term success and growth. Guarantees and “secret sauce” are red flags for you to run for the hills as fast as possible.

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The Effect of Website Engagement on Search Rankings

Let me start out by saying that Google engineers have categorically denied that they use bounce rate in determining search rankings (bounce rate is the percentage of users who click your link in the search results and immediately hit the back button on their browser). However we do know that they track this metric along with dwell time and that there is a correlation between both numbers and position on search results. If Google isn’t using those numbers to determine rankings, then what the heck is going on?

The Occam Explanation

Occam’s razor would suggest that the simplest answer is most likely correct. In that case we could just drop the line about correlation and causation like it was a hot mic and get off the stage. It might in fact be that higher rankings lead to higher engagement metrics, not the other way around, or that a third unknown factor is causing the data to perform in a way that suggests causation. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter because higher engagement rates are even more important for a different reason: they lead to higher conversion rates. If you are selling widgets, you don’t get paid based on the number of people that visit your website; you get paid by the number of people that buy your widgets. High bounce rates and low dwell times mean you got a lot of people to walk through your doors but none of them bought your widgets. So even if improving your engagement rates doesn’t help your search position, it will help your bottom line, and that’s the ultimate goal of online marketing in the first place.

Secondary Impacts

There is a way that bounce rate and dwell time could be secondarily impacting your search rankings, based on the algorithm that scores your website on click through rates (CTR). We know that high CTR scores will improve your ratings, but is that the end of the story? Google could temper the CTR rates by comparing them to bounce rates and dwell time in an effort to determine what is click bait and what is delivering genuine content to the users that want it. After all, Google’s ultimate goal is to put content that is relevant to the user’s intent behind the query front and center. Penalizing sites that use click bait to artificially drive up their CTR scores is a good way to keep useful content on top and would be in keeping with Google’s overall philosophy.

Ultimately, providing high quality relevant content is the name of the game. Some of it may directly impact your search results and some of it provide indirect signals and some of it may not affect rankings at all, but good content will improve your conversion rate and that’s the real prize.

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How can I make my website faster?

Have you ever been searching for something, found a result and clicked on a page where nothing happened? It not only is frustrating, but, if you are a business, that means that you will be losing out on potential profit. During peak traffic periods, more than three fourths of consumers left for a competitor’s website instead of suffering a delay. But it’s not a secret to how to fix that. The problem is that there is a whole lot of misguidance out there that makes it hard for site owners like you and me to identify the solutions that really work.

Get rid of the extra stuff

There are many tools to analyze your site speed, like Pingdom, Google PageSpeed insights, Yahoo!Yslow and WebPage Test. These scoring tools let you look at potential issues and advise on best practices, but they will not solve your site’s problems for you. Unnecessary plugins and add-ons can reduce your website speed by a lot, and it’s especially important to pay attention to them if you use blogging CMSs like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. It’s very important to note that it’s not just about the number of plugins you have installed on your website but about the quality as well; generally, you want to avoid plugins that load a lot of scripts and styles, plugins that perform lots of remote requests and plugins that add extra database queries to every page on your website.

Enable Caching

A cache is a place to store something temporarily in a computing environment. In computing, active data is often cached to shorten data access times, reduce latency and improve input/output. Caching ensures a much faster experience for your website users by storing a version of your website on their browser and serving them that version until your website is updated or until you instruct it to refresh the version of your website they are served. Studies show that doing this can reduce the website loading time from 2.4 seconds to less than one second which again means the difference between successful hits to your website.

Get a better web host

Most sites are hosted on servers in the US, and while these websites will generally be faster for people in the US or people visiting with a US VPN, your website will be a slower for people from other parts of the world. If everything you’re doing to make your website faster isn’t working, or you’re only noticing little, insignificant difference in site speed from following best practices, perhaps it’s time to change your web host. A slow website is bad not only for the end-user, but also for search engine optimization so if you are investing in these services, you may be throwing money at something that will never work.

Adjust your theme

Bad code means a bad site, end of story. This is why you need to choose a crisp, clean theme. You want to keep your plugin folder and everything else as clean as you can. Try to keep only the plugins that you need for essential functionality. Even the best server configuration will not save your site and coding if you use a crappy theme with bloated code; make sure you also consider performance when looking for a website theme, not just aesthetics. And of those, keep only the ones with solid, proven code behind them that are actively supported.

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Is an S Corporation Right for You?

Business owners who wish to incorporate their enterprise face a wide variety of options to choose from, each with different advantages and responsibilities that follow. If you are the owner of a small but growing business, you may have considered whether an S-corporation is the right choice for your enterprise. There are a number of unique advantage that come from this structure when compared with other types of incorporation, such as LLCs or C-corporations, and depending on your needs you could find that the benefits offered by an S-corporation are just right for your current situation and future goals. Once you learn all about what an S-corporation can mean for you, you could be ready to take your business in the direction you want so it can thrive for years to come.

Benefits of an S-Corporation

While LLCs and C-corporations have become popular forms of incorporation over the years, the S-corporation remains less common and in some ways more specialized for business owners. However, it offers a range of powerful advantages compared to the other structures that could be ideally suited for a wide range of businesses. S-corporations have many of the benefits of corporations yet face a tax structure similar to that of partnerships. With an S-corporation you are able to avoid double taxation for earnings and losses and can pass them through your business to personal income. This can be especially useful to businesses during the start-up phase, when many businesses will lose money for months. You could use this to reduce your effective income and the tax rate you will have to pay at the end of the year. Another benefit to an S-corporation is that only one person is needed to start one, unlike the two people often needed at a minimum to start an LLC. S-corporations have a number of restrictions on ownership relative to C-corporations or LLCs, and ownership of the company is limited to 75 stockholders. However, unlike in an LLC, ownership of stock can be transferred freely without requiring the consent of other owners. In addition, an S-corporation will also persist even after its original owners and founders have ceded control, while the existence of LLCs are contingent on the continued participation of their owners. An S-corporation is also able to issue stock, however, this is limited to one type of class. While this can present limitations to those who seek to raise capital, it can also simplify ownership and allow new investors to easily enter as old ones exit. One of the best advantages of an S-corporation is its ability to pay investors and owners through stock and “distributions,” which are not subject to taxation as wages provided they are within “reasonable” limits. However, this type of corporation requires a yearly filing fee as well as the necessary paperwork which is required to be filed within the first two months and fifteen days of the year for your business to qualify, so you’ll want to make sure to stay on top of your responsibilities or your company’s status could lapse.

In Summary

An S-corporation provides a wide range of potential benefits to its owners, and combines some of the flexibility of partnerships with the protections that are afforded by corporations. They have a unique ownership structure that makes it easy to transfer control between investors and to new owners should you decide to sell, and are ideal for start-ups thanks to their ability to pass through income and expenses directly to owners. If you think they might be the right one for you, you can get started on the process for incorporation today.