Category: SEO

A competitive analysis is a critical part of any business marketing plan. It refers to the process of identifying and evaluating your competitor’s marketing strategies and comparing that information with your own approach.

 

An online competitive analysis is not an attempt to “spy” on the competition; it is a method of discovering the strengths and weaknesses in your own marketing efforts. It is a helpful method for uncovering new opportunities and it gives insight into whether a strategy worked for a similar company. Performing a competitive analysis can be an extremely complex or very simple process.

 

8 steps of a thorough competitive analysis:

 

• Identify your competitors
• Identify products and services that align with your business
• Determine the winners (who has the biggest market share?)
• What are the winners doing now and what have they done in the past?
• What tactics are they using currently? (digital and traditional)
• Identify strengths and weaknesses of each competitor’s offerings
• Identify any threats your competitors pose to your business
• Identify the opportunities that may be available to you based on your analysis

 

How to use the information from your competitive analysis to develop new marketing strategies:

 

Once you’ve started gathering and bucketing information the true analysis begins. Sometimes a simple comparison chart is the best way to start. A comparison chart will help to visualize the differences between products and depending on what you offer, it might be a good chart to use to market your product. This can also be done on a company basis as opposed to a product differentiation. You can list each competitor across the top and along the right hand side list out important information about each company such as: products offered (price, size, method, etc.), delivery options, current marketing tactics, estimated budgets, areas served, and customer service options among others. Once the competitor analysis grid is set up it will become much easier to identify areas of opportunity and weakness. The business leaders can use this information to make marketing changes as well as overall business changes if the need is great enough.

 

Remember, your competitors are analyzing you as well.

 

Remember, there is a good chance your competitors are looking into what you are doing as well. We live in a free market and there are always going to be market changes. It could come as new competitors, changing competitors or just plain old industry changes. That’s why a true competitive analysis is not a one and done type of analysis. It should at least be done on and annual basis. The information garnered from the analysis can help shape your future success. Making the data available to everyone throughout the company can have major benefits including a better understanding of the business and the contribution of fresh new ideas from employees.

 

Understanding your competitors is often times the first step to better understanding your own business. It helps reinforce your strengths and find solutions to your weaknesses. It will also help indentify industry threats and possible opportunities. Making the investment of time and resources into developing a thorough competitive review will be wealth forth the time and effort.

Technical SEO refers to coding and technical elements that the major search engines analyze to understand the purpose and health of your site. If you are performing technical SEO correctly, your website will be running smoothly, meaning that you will not have 404 – or ‘page not found’ – errors, your site will be load quickly and all of your pages will redirect properly.

Applying appropriate technical SEO techniques has a major influence on your search engine ranking. In other words, it is unlikely that websites with poor technical SEO will experience first-page status on Google and the other major search engines. In addition, a website with flawed technical elements will certainly frustrate its visitors and lead to an increased bounce rate.

Technical SEO differs from the more recognized SEO aspects such as link building and content creation. Below we discuss seven fundamental technical SEO elements.

If you wish to see your website on Google’s first page, make sure that you can answer “yes” to the following questions.

Is your robots.txt file set up correctly?

The purpose of the robots.txt file is to thwart search engine spiders from crawling specific Web pages. It is critical that you ensure the file has been set up properly. Many webmasters set up the robots.txt file incorrectly and block entire websites from being crawled and indexed.

Google Search Console will tell you what URLs that are being blocked.

Are your title tags unique?

It is importance that your <title> tags are exclusive. If you use the same title tag on multiple pages, Google may perceive these pages as duplicates. Having duplicate content on your website can hinder your SEO efforts.

Do not make multiple pages that discuss the exact same topic. Your title tag should be no longer than 70 characters and should contain the keywords that summarize what the Web page is about.

Are your URLs descriptive?

One of the most effective and simple ways to improve your chances of securing first-page ranking on Google is to have brief and readable URLs on your website. For example, if your URLs look like this:

Yoursite.com/object?cat=34&type=8&order=b

…it will be difficult for Google to understand what your web page offers. URLs should be explanatory and understandable. The best practice is to use your targeted keywords. If you have a Web page that is dedicated to selling kitchen appliances, your URL should look similar to this:

Yoursite.com/buy-kitchen-appliances

Are your pages being indexed?

If your Web pages are not being indexed, you will not show up on Google search. One of the easiest ways to make sure that your pages are being indexed is to simply look them up on Google. Copy and paste the URL of your page into Google and search for it. Does it show up? If not, it could either be that Google has not yet indexed the page or you have blocked the page from being crawled.

If you wish to view all of your indexed pages, simple search for the following query on Google:

Site:YourSite.com

Make sure that you upload an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console. This way, you can quickly see how many of your pages are crawled vs. how many are being indexed. This will allow you to quickly identify any issues that your site may have.

Have you set up an XML sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a simple list the Web pages that you wish to index. This feature makes it easier for Google to find your pages. Every page that you want to index should be included in your sitemap. Make sure that you submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.

Do your Web pages redirect properly?

A redirect is a method of sending your users and search engine spiders to a separate URL from the one they originally visited. There are three primary types of redirects:

• 301 = “Moved Permanently”
• 302 = “Found” or “Moved Temporarily”
• Meta Refresh

If you decide to delete a Web page, it is important that you redirect it to a page that is still active. If you do not, you will create a broken links. Websites with many broken links may experience reduced search engine rankings.

We recommend using 301 – or permanent – redirects because it passes all of the ranking power of the original Web page.

Does your website load quickly?

The speed in which a website loads is a major factor in SEO. If the site loads rapidly, it will be crawled more exhaustively and it will be more likely that the pages will rank high in the SERPs. Additionally, a website that loads slowly will see most of its visitors leave – or “bounce” – and visit its competition. You can check the speed of your site by using the Site Speed report in Google Analytics.

➤ Click here if you are in need of Minneapolis web design services

As a website owner, it is important to recognize that online videos can truly push your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) success to the next level. There are simple steps that you can take to secure higher search engine rankings for Vimeo, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, and YouTube. Video SEO will help you get your message in front of more search engine users, resulting in more customer conversions via your brand’s website.

What Does Video SEO Involve?

YouTube considers several elements when it judges how it will rank your video. These elements include:

• How long you can hold your audience.
• How many people subscribe to your channel.
• The number of video comments, likes or dislikes your video acquires.
• Your use video tags, titles and descriptions.

In order to produce a video that has the potential to go viral, you need to ensure that your video content is entertaining, useful, educational, inspirational, and-or shocking. It should grab a user’s attention and motivate them to watch more of your videos.

In order to keep your viewer engaged, it is recommended that you post videos that are no longer than five minutes in length. In fact, the most common length of YouTube’s most popular videos is three minutes. Remember, your goal is to encourage viewers to watch the whole video. Keep in mind that with the abundant amount of information online, the attention span of a given user is most likely very limited.

Video SEO Tips:

Page title. It is crucial that both your title and your thumbnails are related to the keyword / phrase associated with your video. If your video ranks well on YouTube, it will no doubt rank well on Google.

Let’s say that you have posted a funny video of your cat (after all, ‘pet’ videos are extremely popular online). Your title is: “Jeffery the Cat Plays Hopscotch.” Although this video title explains what is in the video, users will most likely search for “cat” and “Hopscotch” in the same query.

You goal is going to be to write a title that is relevant, but will have words that people are likely to search for. In the case above, you would have a better chance of acquiring viewers if your video was titled “Cute Cat Acts Like A Person Playing Hopscotch.” Why? It is because this title has the phrases “cute cats” and “acts like a person.” These two phrases are searched for much more often than “Jeffery the Cat” or “Cat Plays Hopscotch”. Of course, your title must not be misleading; it must be relevant to the subject matter yet optimized for popular search queries.

Let’s apply this to business and pretend that you run a car cleaning service in Minneapolis. You have created a YouTube video to promote your company. Your instinct might be to make a “catchy” title such as “Wow! You Can Have a Squeaky Clean Car in Minutes.” While this title is certainly inviting, it will not help you appear in many relevant searches.

In order to improve the visibility of your car cleaning service, you should be more specific in regards to your service and your location. Your video would obtain a wider audience if you titled it, “Minneapolis Car Cleaning Service.” Although this video title may not be as glitzy, YouTube and Google will give it priority and it will be easier for Minneapolis users to find. This is because the video contains keywords that Minneapolis residents will actually use when looking for a local car cleaning service. If you would like to get creative, you could blend your advertisement with education. You could create a series of educational videos, such as “5 Car Care Tips From Sam’s Minneapolis Car Cleaning Service.”

Video thumbnails allow users to view a short snapshot of your video. Make sure that the image use is captivating and visually appealing in order to interest the user’s attention.

Video descriptions. Your video description should be very in depth and contain links back to your site. You are responsible for informing search engines what your video is about. You have 980 words to describe your video. Associations have been found between video length and how well it ranks. Our advice: use as many words as you can to create your relevant description. If you run a business, include your company name, address and phone number.

Video tags. YouTube offers many video tag options. You are allowed 500 characters. Do not misuse the tags that YouTube provides you. Make sure that they are relevant to what you offer in the video.

Call-to-action. A call-to-action is a well-defined action that you want your viewers to complete. YouTube allows its users to add a call-to-action button within the video. In order to obtain customers or build you followers, you should always include this button.

When you implement an organic search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, you are employing strategies in order to secure a high ranking on a major search engine results page. These placements are not obtained by paying Google, Yahoo! or Bing. They are obtained by utilizing certain techniques that adhere to the search engine’s algorithm.

Organic SEO techniques include pursuing specific keywords related to your business, adding quality content to your site and obtaining backlinks from authoritative websites.

Websites that devote resources to organic SEO have a much better chance of securing a high placement for given search queries. For example, if your company or organization provides IT services and you utilize organic SEO strategies, you have a strong chance of appearing above your competition when a Google user searches for “IT Services.”

What Are The Benefits Of Organic SEO?

The benefits of organic SEO include:

• Organic SEO = more clicks / more traffic to your website.
• Organic SEO results in longer – even permanent – placement on a given search engine’s top listings.
• Organic SEO strengthens your brand’s reputation.
• Organic SEO is very cost-efficient when compared to paid advertising.

Performing organic SEO can be a very tedious and long process. It is not a one-time endeavor. It requires consistent and endless work. When you stop implementing SEO, your online visibility will diminish. However, you get from it what you put into it and if it is done correctly, you can experience permanent benefits.

Properly-applied organic SEO will lead to higher placements on the major search engines and increased traffic to your website. By using SEO, you have the chance to avoid spending your money on expensive advertising campaigns. Securing first-page placement on Google means that Google will continuously advertise your site on your behalf.

What Are The Strategies Used To Improve Organic SEO?

The results that a search engine presents to its user reflects its ability to deliver quality content. For example, if you are searching for IT services, Google will show you what it perceives as the best IT services-related websites. If Google consistently showed low-quality websites in its results, its users would begin using a different search engine. SEO is the practice of convincing Google that your website is trustworthy and offers useful, high-quality content.

Search engines use several key factors when they consider a website’s placement. The primary factor is how relevant a website’s content is to the subject matter it claims to focus on. If the home page header on your website says “Landscaping” but you provide IT services, it is unlikely that Google will promote your brand.

To perform organic SEO correctly, your site’s content must be relevant for what a user is searching for. Organic SEO is accomplished by:

• Featuring well-written, high quality and informative copy on your site.
• Writing abundant copy on your site (the more copy you feature, the more search queries you will rank for).
• Having a good link structure.
• Applying technical SEO tactics, such as meta tag placement and increasing your site load speed.
• Obtaining quality backlinks to your site.

If you study organic SEO, you will no doubt run into the term black hat SEO. Black hat SEO refers to aggressive and sometimes dishonest tactics that webmasters use to boost their website’s ranking. By using black hat SEO strategies, you are concentrating solely on satisfying the search engine and not your human visitors.

Examples of black hat SEO techniques include:

• Overusing the keyword you wish to rank for (otherwise known as keyword stuffing).
• Using hidden links.
• Duplicating or even stealing content from another user (or from your own website).
• Buying links from low-quality websites.

Although black hat SEO techniques can increase a website’s search engine placement for a short period of time, they usually result in an eventual drop in rankings. In fact, the overuse of black hat SEO can result in your website being banned from a search engine altogether. In addition, a website that uses black hat SEO techniques will usually not appeal to its visitors and will have a harder time converting potential clients.

If you would like to learn more about how organic SEO can benefit your website, please contact the SEO professionals at DigitalParc by calling 612-845-5590 or by emailing hello@digitalparc.com.

You have started a business. It is nothing massive, but you are finally realizing your dreams of owning your own time and throwing your energy into something you are passionate about. While many small business owners are thrilled by what seems like the opportunity to be free from the corporate structure, it is crucial to remember that within the current structure of information and communication networks, small business players will always be operating within a matrix drawn by large business players.

 

While it may seem that this point is irrelevant to small businesses that are not competing with large corporations, understanding the ramifications of this insight is key to establishing a viable business in its early stages.

 

Think about it like an ecosystem: biologists have pointed out that certain natural systems come to dominate ecologically by reaching “tipping points” after which the system’s dominance comes to be self-reinforcing. Biologists call this phenomena positive feedback. Many changes in ecosystems appear to be sudden because of positive feedback. When part of a system increases, another part of the system changes in a way that makes the first part increase even more.

 

Put most simply, success makes it easier to continue succeeding, and creates systems in which successful entities become massively dominant. The same dynamic can be seen in almost any competitive system. Take your iTunes “25 Most Played Songs” playlist. While songs may reach that playlist by virtue of being played only a few more times than other songs, once they reach the playlist, they tend to stay there. Every time you play the Top 25 playlist, the songs are played again, increasing the total number of plays and ensuring that the top songs stay on the top.

 

Search engine results function in precisely this way, through positive feedback loops. Certain links get more clicks, resulting in higher search ranking, resulting in more clicks.

 

Success creates success. As a result, no matter how innovative your new business idea may be, it will inevitably “go extinct” unless you come up with strategies to break the positive feedback loop of Internet search results.

 

Think about SEO consultants as trained web ecologists – they know the detailed mechanics that can be manipulated to prioritize your web site in search results, and can help break market dominance by disrupting the success-creates-success loops. More importantly, SEO consultants can give your business the push to create your own self-reinforcing positive feedback loop.

In the fast-paced, technology-based world that we live in, reliance upon the Internet is a daily and a common occurrence, whether it entails users searching for an address, a phone number or for information about a particular business or service. When individuals are in need of a legal professional, the Internet is one of the very first places they may turn.
 
When it comes to the success of your law firm website, these three key factors will help you stand out from your competitors:
 
1.) Web Design
2.) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
3.) Conversion
 

Law Firm Web Design

 
A good legal website design will have the ability to initially draw potential customers in by utilizing correct keywords and search engine optimization. A strong law firm website design will keep potential customers engaged and on their page by utilizing outstanding graphic design, simple navigation and the power of the first impression to develop trust and entice the visitor to view all of the site’s content.
 
A powerful legal website design includes a landing page or a home page that compels the visitor to stay on your site but does not overwhelm them with too many details or too much text. By providing succinct summaries of your legal expertise, offering examples that build the trust of the visitor, and applying conversion tactics to encourage the visitor to contact your law firm, your website will be ready for long-term performance and optimal results.
 
Proper law firm website design will not only allow you to demonstrate your general legal expertise; it will permit you to exhibit your specific legal services. You can do this by creating an easily navigable website that features landing pages dedicated to specific areas of your legal expertise. (Note: you should mention those areas on your homepage as well).
 
“Establishing trust and credibility – especially in the legal profession – is incredibly important and your law firm website design should be able to convey your expertise and experience quickly,” said Thomas Beedem of the Beedem Personal Injury Law Office. “You can attain trust by highlighting important cases that you have worked on as well as displaying your legal associations, legal accreditations, professional memberships and any awards or accolades that you have received as an attorneys.”
 

Benefits of SEO for Law Firms:

 
Competition within the legal field is very aggressive. In fact, in the United States alone, there are roughly six million searches lawyers every month.
 
When considering the exceptionally niche consumers that are seeking legal services, search engine optimization (SEO) becomes critically important when it comes to standing out from your competitors in the legal field.
 
Search engines analyze critical data on your website such as your geographical location, meta tag data and your use of keywords. If your law firm website is properly optimized, you will experience an increased flow of qualified leads. This will result in gaining new clients.
 
Website navigation is also very important to attain high SEO. For example, you may have a section for personal injury cases. In this case, you could highlight – or sub-categorize – different forms of litigation that your legal firm has worked on within that niche, such as auto-accidents, injuries, medical malpractice, etc.
 

Law Firm Website Conversion

 
The ultimate goal of your legal website is conversion. This refers to the processes by which you gather information about potential clients and convince them to contact your law firm for more information on the legal services you offer.
 
Law firm websites with the highest conversion rates include the following conversion tactics:
 
Engagement. Strong yet simple website design will keep your visitors engaged and entice them to contact you. It should be easy to locate your contact information on your website. You should consider placing calls to action on every page that are not too flashy or distracting, but that offer simple ways to email or call your law firm.
 
An offer of free legal case evaluations. By offering free, no-hassle case reviews for potential clients, you will gain their appreciation and will encourage them to reach out to you.
 
Live online legal advice. By offering web chat services that allow visitors to contact you with generic legal questions in real-time, you are far more likely to increase customer conversion. Make sure that you are not too “pushy” as this might result in potential clients moving away from your website. You should employ a friendly, knowledgeable and professional tone that establishes trust and legal expertise.
 
In this digitally driven age, website design and search engine optimization (SEO) are key components to successful marketing & integrated marketing for all businesses. When considering the exceptionally niche consumers that are seeking legal services, SEO becomes critically important.
 
In addition to positioning your law firm at the top of search engines, proper website design and SEO services should also generate a steady stream of organic traffic to your site. When potential clients search the web for legal services, our marketing firm analyzes critical data such as geographical location, meta tag data and keyword searches to provide you with highly qualified leads that result in gaining new clients.