SEO

The Importance of Online Customer Reviews To Boost SEO Ranking as a New Business

by

You’ve probably heard it time and time again that listing your company’s review on websites and social media pages  is a crucial step to your ongoing visibility and a great opportunity for customer service. But why is that?

This article will take you through how consumers are influenced by online review, the  importance of online and how that affects your SEO and lastly few cool tips to get those positive reviews flying across all your various channel and straight into your consumer’s heart .

If still  not convinced of the value reviews provides and how that relates your business’ visibility, then this one’s for you.

How Consumers Are Using Online Reviews before Making a Purchase?

Before we get into the data surrounding how online reviews impact consumers’ purchases, it’s important to consider where online business reviews fit into the purchasing cycle for desired products and services.

Typically, by the time someone has started looking at review websites like reviews on your product pages or Facebook, Caroselle, Twitter or elsewhere, they have already figured out what they need and how a business might ideally fulfill that need.

The critical thing to note is that the mental gap between reading a review and making a decision is ridiculously small  and customers typically decide yes or no almost immediately. So, as a small business, your online reputation can directly influence your bottom line.

But, how many consumers actually read online reviews?

According to one recent survey, 84% of shoppers said they trusted online business reviews as much as a personal recommendation from friends or family.

But exactly how many reviews do they read before making up their mind?

About 68% of consumers will read four or more reviews before they can trust a business.

Consumers are also changing their habits when it comes to reading positive reviews. After reading a positive review, customers are now less likely to go on to visit a business’ website straight away.

While that affects your e-commerce traffic, customers who read positive reviews are far more likely to get directly in touch over the phone over via email, or by visiting in person.

5 Main Reasons Why Online Reviews Matters for Your Business Growth?

1) Give you valuable feedback with regards to what your clients actually want

Analyzing both the good and bad reviews people leave for you helps keep your ear to the ground with regards to overall customer satisfaction and public opinion.

Reviews provide insight into how your average consumer thinks about your service or industry, rather than what you think about what you offer.

It provides a unique peek behind the curtain, allowing you to learn about the real value you provide to your customers.

Analysing your reviews  can be a surprising avenue for market research and honing in on your value proposition.

2) Raise your credibility and endorses social proof through words of mouth

Human being are inherently social creatures, and we like to know that someone else has had a good experience with a company before we make a buying decision.

Much like we would ask friends and family for recommendations, review sites allow us to do this online.

Online reviews  are also a valuable thing to pursue if your company is quite new but you have a few happy customers under your belt.

Look at it this way – which company would you rather buy from – one with fifty 3-star reviews or one with five 5-star reviews?

Overall, reviews enable new companies to stand shoulder to shoulder with more established competition, and potentially gain a positive foothold in people’s estimation.

3) Provides other consumer valuable insight that you may not have thought of.

Reviews do not only gives you information on what should be improved but also other new consumer details about your product/ services.

Hence, certain minutiae that you hadn’t given a second thought could be stated which some might find  impressive and attracted to your product/ service.

Negative reviews too help to qualify leads.

If someone mentions that you don’t provide a certain product or service, their review will inform others in need of that service to look elsewhere.

4) Reviews are becoming more significant to people’s purchasing decisions

It is in fact a trend that shows no sign of going away. As the older generation are coming online and the younger generation growing bigger, online reviewing is only set to grow further.

According to Vedanta, 92% of consumers in 2016 read online reviews compared to 88% in 2014. Your business may as well stake its claim within this growing arena!

The more people are attracted by your good reviews and become satisfied customers themselves, the more good reviews you get.

It is as simple as the more good reviews you get, the more people come.

5) Reviews can have a positive impact on search engine visibility

Search engines are acutely aware that online ratings sites provide a popular and usually reliable picture of a company’s quality.

Because reviews have the potential to show prominently on Google search results pages, people may see how awesome you are before they even go through to your listing page or website.

 

Why Online Reviews Matter For Local SEO?

Search engines loves online reviews because consumers love online review

 Review provides consumers with what the believe is the most accurate information which help them predict and make decisions about their future purchases.

The faster they can do that, the more consumers will turn to them time and time again.

Additionally, according to MOZ’s  Survey, online reviews are thought to make up 10% of how Google and other search engines decide to rank search results.

 

Strategical Tips to Get More Positive Customer Reviews on Different Reviews Sites

 

 On your on website

  1. Make it easy for customers to navigate through your website and complete a purchase,
  2. Minimize the number of steps to actually buy your product or services
  3. Try to stick to 1-2 sites to collect a large number of reviews rather than spreading a few reviews across several sites
  4. Start by focusing on the sites where you have the most reviews and create your strategy from there.
  5. Email your customers after they’ve purchased something from you. Send your customers an email from a real person
  6. Follow up your customer after purchase by  opening few lines of communication then politely asking them to leave a review
  7. You can request a review for the specific product they purchased, subtly weave it into an email with an alternative goal, or include a link in your email signature.
  8. Create A Testimonials Page On Your Website
  9. Consider reaching out to past customers to be featured on your testimonials page

Instagram

  1. Use social media platforms like  Instagram to search through your tagged photos and look up branded hashtags for your products.
  2. Send direct messages to the individuals who have posted about your business and thank them for sharing, with a polite request for a more formal review

Facebook

  1. Your reviews and star ranking are one of the first things a user see upon visiting your Page.
  2. To collect reviews, make sure your reviews tab is activated. This is done through your Page Settings under General.
  3. Some companies have private Facebook groups for customers. This would be an ideal opportunity to pop your head in and share a link to the site you’re collecting reviews on.
  4. D not re-target ads on Facebook because it can be useful for encouraging conversions, but not ideal to request a review.
  5. Just be sure to avoid annoying your customers by capping the frequency at which they see the ad.

 

How Keywords Leads to SEO Success

by

Firstly, let’s start off of with what is keywords?

Keywords in the context of marketing are the words and phrases in your web content that make is possible for people to find it via search engines. They are extremely fundamental and significant element of SEO because it is through keywords people are able to find you online. The core idea of modern day marketing is to target audiences using specific keywords or phrases. Hence, keywords work as a bridge to connect you to your audiences. So, as I said earlier keywords are the core of SEO. A proper set of keywords is the key to a successful marketing campaign.

Just before we get into into how keywords boost your SEO standing, let me just emphasize on how important are keywords to boost your SEO standing. If you rank you  site highly for the wrong keywords, you can end up spending lots of time and effort only to find out that you did not generate any traffic. Doing plenty of research before the setting a specific and right set of keywords for your web content is without a question the most important part of the whole process because audiences search for words or phrases that they think will give them the best result for question that they are looking for. Hence, your keywords must stand out. This strengthen the bridges between you and audience and take you a step closer to the ultimate goal which is to get more traffic and generate more profit. Plus, prior keyword research helps you save money  by letting you focus only on the keywords that is delivering the results. In other words, you need to know what your audience are looking for in order to make it easy for them to find you.

This is why keywords are so important because they are directly connected SEO performance.But how to make the most of the keywords? Firstly, by placing keywords in a proper manner that optimizes ranking on your page. This helps you to improve your page ranking on search engines. Always remember, quality is more important than quantity.Therefore, when you optimize the website page the relevance of the keyword is more important than the number of keywords you are actually using. Low keywords relevance may cause a higher bounce rate and hurt the website ranking.So how to know which keyword would work the best for you? Well, that is a very delicate process of just trial and error. There are certain guidelines though which can help understand better in picking the right keyword for your content. Google Adwords Keyword Planner is one of the best tool for this. Google Adwords is one of or I personally think is the best platform for traffic. In order to fully optimize Adwords you firstly need an active running campaign on the app and also spend some good money will is definitely not wasted. There are also other paid apps that is also useful in the mission of finding the right keyword for you.

Keywords are divided into few categories. One of it is Broad Keyword. As the word suggest, this is something short or could even be just one single word which is relevant to your content. For example, if you article is about what drinks you must try in Starbucks the keyword could just be Starbucks. However, finding the one word for the whole subject could be challenging which is why broad keywords are costly and drives less Click Through Rates (CTR).Another type of keyword is Long Tail keyword. Again as the name suggest this are long words and phrases which is relevant to your content. For example, again if you content is what drinks you must try in Starbucks the keyword would be Starbucks coffee or Coffees in Starbucks. In comparison to Broad Keyword, Long Tail Keywords drives more CTR and the search volume is low. However, there’s not guarantee that all long tail keyword will work for you but the traffic is certainly more relevant. Apart from that, there are also Navigational Keyword and Informational Keyword. Different types of keyword serves different type of brands and purpose. So, know which works the best for you.

Most marketers makes mistake here where the only do SEO keyword research once and not bothering to update and expand their SEO keywords list. Plus, another common mistake is using keywords that are too popular. If you to your web content to excel avoid all these instead constantly update your keywords and it is a long tedious ongoing process so do not quit or get lazy. Most importantly, diversity is the key here. You are not going to stand out if you use the same old keywords as your competitors.  Not only should you try new keyword search tools and keep track of the results, but you should feel free to experiment based on your own research. For example like who else uses your keywords? And how do you make yourself stand out?The simplest answer to that is by providing great content that truly answers the questions your prospective customers are asking with their keyword searches.

 

How to make it to the top of Google?

by

The ultimate goal of any article is to generate the highest the number of views.For that you need to  make it to the top of Google search list or at least make it in the top 10. However, to get there is not an easy task but it also within reach with the right amount work and knowledge.

Here my 5 simple and  helpful tips which should help you get on the dream list. The list is based on my personal understanding and thought it not the guaranteed formula to success but it help big time and worth a try!

1)Research

Research is the key here. Before getting started with your article do a research on how many articles or the similar topic has been written and analyze the top 10 of the list so you could also you the same strategy.SEO is an important source of traffic hence it is important to understand it not just for yourself but also your competitors. The goal is to make it to the top so replicating other’s method would be a big help because if it works for the them should also work for you.

2) Metrics

There are some metrics to measure the SEO performance which would again be a big help in reaching the goal. One of it is, website tracking. It basically  means keeping track on number of people visiting the site. This is important because the more people visiting your site increases the credibility of the work and website. Credibility is one of the thing you need in order to be top of the  Google search list. Apart from that, relevance of the article also matters. So, it is important to produce good quality content that is not niche because people are not looking for your article, the just want a good piece of information. So,as along as you produce solid content the reach would be higher and you automatically get to be on top of Google’s list.

3) Apps

There are so many apps out there that can transform your work from good to the best. Some of the best examples are like Google Click through Rate. This is a good app because it shows you the number of people click into the article. According to research, 70% of the click goes to the top of the list and that is why you have to be there. Another example would be Google Analytics which helps you measure traffic. There are plenty more apps that you can find online. Use as many as possible to help you out.

4) Backlink

What is backlink you ask? Backlinks are links to another website. They help you increase authority and also reach. However, not backlinks are created equally. Your goal is to earn quality “do follow” backlinks from high ranking pages in your niche. It is also important to remember to earn these naturally by creating  and promoting content worth linking to. Also, try to find authoritative links in that way you can reach out to those sources to pitch your latest idea or product. Though the response rate is minimum but it is worth trying.

5) Keep your eyes on enemy

The enemy here refers to your competitors. You know they say keep your friends close and enemy closer. Always keep a track on what they are up to so you  know what you are dealing with. Plus, it is also the easiest way to get started with link building. It also helps you in coming up fresher contents too.

So, there you have it, the five simple ways to get yourself straight to the top of Google ranking. Hopefully, this was helpful!

搜索引擎101:搜索引擎排名的优先考量

by

搜索引擎，一个既神秘又熟悉的现代必需品。我们都听过‘内事问百度，外事问谷歌’这句俗语。在一个资讯流动非常迅速的年代，搜索引擎逐渐的和我们的生活息息相关，有疑问就询问搜索引擎已经是现代人的一种惯性。然而，我们还是会对他们的运营模式还是会感到陌生。今天，我们将为你们解开搜索引擎的神秘面纱。

在众多用户们对搜索引擎的疑问中，用户们最大的疑问莫过于搜索引擎的操作方式。他们到底是如何在那么多的搜索链接(Search Link)当中定夺排名靠前的网站或者词条呢？经过了专家多方面的观察还有研究，他们可以总结搜索引擎的优先顺序基本上是基于这几点考量，可信度(Trust)、可靠性(Authorities)以及关联性(Relevance).

我们首先来讨论可信度(Trust)。可信度是很多搜索引擎在鉴定链接的都会做的首要考量。他们必须确保被列在搜索引擎前列的链接都是具有高质量的内容正常运作的网站。这是为了避免用户在搜索的过程中，一些不知名而且缺乏公信力的网站影响他们的搜索过程。一旦用户在搜寻中途搜到了一些不知所谓而且根本没有公信力可言的内容，他们很可能就会立刻终止搜索。因此，为了保障用户的搜索体验，能够被搜索引擎排在前列的网站通常都是具有一定的公信力的。

那么如何来定夺一个网站的可信度呢？首先，网站内所发布出来的内容必须是要有一定的质量的，而不是随便找个人杜撰就好了。他所发布的内容必须经过筛选、校对、审核以及是经过考证的，而不是能误导读者的内容。而且当一个网站能持续的发布高质量的信息，那么他的可信度就大大增高。除此之外，网站的内容可以引用权威的资料来源当作反链接(Backlink)来增加他的可信度。在高质量内容和反链接二者的加持下，该链接在搜索引擎的位置就会提高了。

如果在可信度大同小异的情况下，他们又是怎么在搜索引擎上的排位做排序呢？答案就是可靠性(Authorities)了。至于可靠性，顾名思义就是内容源自于更可靠的来源或自身的内容有极高的可信度，也就是你所发布的内容得到了无数人的认可，并具有一定的参考价值。从文章的专业水平一直到网站本身的权威，这些都是搜索引擎对以一个链接的可靠性的准则。

然而是什么定义了链接的可靠性呢，这个时候所谓的链接和反链接就扮演至关重要的角色了。很多时候很多文章都会引用相关的内容为自己的文章增加公信力，而这些引用必须和自己的专业息息相关。所以当你的文章被他人引用并制造了反向链接，这不仅会增加自己文章的点击率，也自然的会增加文章的可信度。因此当文章被人引用成为链接和反向链接的次数越多，其内容的可信度越高，排名自然就会靠前了。

那么何谓关联(Relevance)？关联性最根本的定义就是链接内所讲述和呈现的东西和用户的需求契合。大多搜索引擎用户都会带着目的来浏览的，他们通常寻求能在最短的时间内为他们的疑惑找到最精准的答案，最好是能立即回答他们的疑惑地。因此，当链接的内容与用户的需求越契合，该链接的排名自然会更靠前。

当搜索引擎在定义该词条链接的时候，不会因为网站的名气而有优先权，因此很多时候我们都会看到许多小型的网站排名都会比维基百科(Wikipedia)来得高。这对许多小心网站来说是一个好消息，他们可以在内容的优良程度和相关性下很多功夫。除此之外，只要你建立的链接是来自有权威的相关网站(相关很重要)，你依然可以在自己网站的链接建立的比他人少的情况下，还能确保自己在搜索引擎较好的排位。

在这个搜索引擎当头的时代，资讯和消息之间的流动将会是前所未有的快。因此了解搜索引擎和排位之间的关系有助于网站负责人更能根据这些关系为用户提供更好的服务。所以在了解和善用搜索引擎的前提下，预祝各位用户能够如愿的满足用户的可信度、可靠性及关联性，并在搜索引擎排位上取得好的排名。

Key Content Marketing Trends that is Dominating 2018

by
Key Content Marketing Trends that is Dominating 2018

As we are now in the second half of the year, some of you may have noticed there are couple of noticeable changes in content creation and distribution. Content marketing has become more important than ever before. So, now let’s take a look at some of these changes and how you can keep pace with it.

First one would be re-marketing. Re-marketing is an advertising strategy that maintain contacts with potential customers who may not have made immediate purchase. It allows to place your ads in front of your targeted audience that has previously visited your website.One the example of remarketing is display ad. Display ads are making the comeback in 2018 and been out pacing growth in search. One of main reason behind the revival is because it is not difficult. For instance, if you have an email list of people who clicked your offer but not bought anything, you can use the data and perhaps send an discount coupon on Facebook. Google remarketing is an ideal advertising tactic as it is a long and competitive market. It works well  Google Adword so all you have to do is add remarketing tag to your website, build ads and start your campaign.

Another emerging content marketing trend is one to one marketing. This is very clever method and personal which can provide a delightful experience for your viewers. Many companies has started this and it is actually working because the viewers feel special and connected. According a survey done by Forrester, 94% believed that personalization is critical to current and future success personalized marketing. Personalization is also another way to build and gain trust because people feel more more connected and comfortable to talk when they feel personal. However, personalizing is not easy and requires a lot of data gathering. The more you know the customer, the more personality the content can be.

A significant change in content marketing would be that now customers are more aware of what is happening hence demands for clear transparency. One of the reason being is that consumers are going tired of brand marketing. For example, claiming that you are green and giving it back to the charity will not be enough to create a good brand image. These are old tactics and consumers nowadays are more aware of things. As, the market grows customers are losing more sense of authenticity to one particular brand. To avoid this make sure the content is clear and not misleading. Make sure the consumer gets to know every detail and again repeating do not mislead!

Lastly, another noticeable trend this year is rise of video contents. Almost all companies today have a promo video for themselves video contents are getting more and more. It is predicts that there will be more video contents in the future. Videos are far more engaging and entertaining than just words which is why more companies started going for video based contents. Apart from video content, how people are viewing video content is also changing. For example, companies now are making videos content that can also be viewed vertical whereas couple years back this was not prioritize. Instead of doing just video content, you can also try newer video formats like Facebook Live, Instagram Live or TV and so on. Live videos are a great way to communicate with your followers and get instant feedback. In a survey conducted by Livestream, 82% of the respondents said they preferred tuning into a brand’s live video than reading its social media posts.Why have video contents became so popular all of sudden? Because videos has always been exciting and live video just made the whole experience a lot more fun.

Last but not least, the most significant change in content marketing this year is privacy control. Everything you do online is a data. From the comment you make to the last purchase you made online everything is collected and stored in the digital reverses. Why? Because this allows websites to identify repeat visitors and offer services based on the visitor’s previous interaction and another obvious reason being is that they can track your record and advertise based on your online media behaviour patterns. However, exchanging privacy for free access has always been on debate. Consumer are getting more and more skeptical over this this and steps has been taken to control the flow of information and data across the virtual medium. The best way to adapt to this change is making sure you let your consumer know what data you are collecting from them and only get information that are relevant to your business.

In conclusion, when it comes the Internet you cannot stick to one strategy. The medium keeps changing and you have to learn how to adapt to these changes. Content marketing itself is field that is evolving so staying updated is a key. The most important part of it all is to understand the consumer and providing them with what they need is the key to success. Hopefully, this article was helpful in that way.

 

SEO in a Nutshell

by

SEO is a very complex content to understand is what most people would say. However, it is much simpler than you think. SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization is the name given to all the activities that attempt to improve your content’s search engine rankings.

All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and so on have a primary search result where each time you search something there’s a list  comes up. The list can go on and on but the first few links actually make it to the top 10 list. So, how is this formed? The ranking is no paid for expect for the ads and it is ranked based on what each of the search engine think is relevant and authoritative. Authority here is measured by the number of links from other pages and this is known as backlinks. So, the more people link to your page to more authority u gain hence Google would think your page is interesting and you can be on top of their list. It’s that simple!

Though search engines like for instance Google rank you based on the authority but it is your job to make your page an authoritative page. How to do this? Simple, just come up with good and credible content to people would find it useful and share in their own pages like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and so on. So, by improving your SEO you can improve your visibility in search engines. This helps you to reach out to more people and builds your brand image and ultimately increase the sales.Okay, now that we know what SEO is let’s look at some of the factors that can affect your SEO ranking. It is impossible to crack the algorithm all these giant search engines sites like Google and Yahoo use to rank the list but by knowing what would get you higher rank you can make your way to the top. The simplest and best way to get your article on to the top is coming up with quality content. Your content drives your traffic. Quality content helps both in attracting the search engines and also building more consumers. The secret to creative attractive contents to both the search engines and your potential customer is to come up with variety types of contents that are not just well written but also something relevant to your audience.

Another factor you should take in note is the ffreshness of the content. There are more than a million articles online of the same topic, so how are you going to make yours  stand out of the rest? The only way to that, is to must make sure your content is fresh and creative. By freshness here, I mean how regularly you post up articles online, consistency matters. Also bear in mind, coming up with new content is good but keeping it fresh matters more therefore always make sure the article is updated and precise and is something relatable to the present time. For example, if your article is about marketing strategy and is written in 2016 most probably it will not work for the time being hence updating it to the current trend would get you more views. It is a very tedious and time-consuming task but it worths the time.

So, now we know the factors that gets you to the top of the list let’s now switch focus to how to make it work. Optimizing SEO can be done in two ways. Firstly, is On-Page SEO. On-Page SEO are those elements that happens within your website which you have control over it. By this it means you can always go back and forth and work on improving it to generate more traffic and sales. Example of On Page SEO are heading and subheading. Heading and subheading provides the consumer with a glimpse of what the article is going to be about and it is also the thing a reader notice. So, if you can keep your heading and subheading interesting yet informative it would really impressed the search engines and also helps your consumer understand the content better. Adding on, another factor that you should consider is internal links. Building internal links or hyperlinks to another content on your page can actually help search engine to learn more about your site.

Another way to optimize SEO is Off-Page SEO. Unlike On-Page SEO you do not have direct control over these Off- Page SEO but there are way where you can get it to work in your favor. One of the of example of Off-Page SEO is trust. Trust is without a question the most important factor to get you on top of search list. Trust is extremely fragile and trust is an important factor especially in Google’s search list ranking. Google determines whether you have a legitimate site that visitors can trust. Best way to improve trust is by building quality backlinks. Speaking of backlinks, it is the most popular Off-Page SEO building factor. But be careful, you do not want to be spamming as that would get you banned from the search engine sites. Instead, start building strong bonds between your reader and customer so that they will link you back in their content.

In conclusion, optimizing SEO is not easy but it is achievable if you put in effort and understand the whole process. However, do bear in mind to not overdo it. For example, over-optimization and excessive use of keywords can led to serious trouble like Google would penalize you for that. Therefore, like I mentioned earlier stick to one or two keywords this helps you to keep your content organized and clear and trouble-free. Also remember, web design is as important as web content. It is only with a good design, search engines can easily scan and browse through to your website. Make it easy to use and make sure it is also unique this can draw lots of attention to your site and attention in marketing is all a good thing.