SEO (Search Engine Optimization) optimization plays a crucial role in helping your new website succeed in several ways:

Increased Visibility in Search Engines: SEO optimization improves your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). When your website ranks higher for relevant keywords, more people are likely to discover and click on your site. This increased visibility can lead to higher organic (non-paid) traffic.

Quality Traffic: SEO helps attract relevant and targeted traffic. By optimizing for specific keywords and phrases related to your business or content, you can attract visitors who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. This leads to higher engagement and conversion rates.

Credibility and Trust: Websites that appear at the top of search results are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy by users. SEO optimization can help establish your website as an authoritative source in your industry or niche.

Cost-Effective Marketing: Compared to paid advertising, SEO is a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website. While it requires an initial investment in terms of time and resources, the long-term benefits often outweigh the costs.

Improved User Experience: SEO involves optimizing your website’s structure, content, and performance. These optimizations can lead to a better overall user experience. A user-friendly website is more likely to retain visitors and convert them into customers or leads.

Competitive Advantage: In today’s digital landscape, most of your competitors are also investing in SEO. By optimizing your website, you can stay competitive and even surpass your rivals in search engine rankings.

Targeted Keywords: Through keyword research, you can identify the specific terms and phrases your target audience uses when searching for products, services, or information. By optimizing your content for these keywords, you can align your website with user intent.

Local SEO: If you have a physical presence, local SEO optimization helps you appear in local search results. This is essential for attracting local customers who are searching for nearby businesses.

Mobile Optimization: Mobile optimization is a critical aspect of SEO. With the increasing use of mobile devices, search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites. SEO optimization ensures your site performs well on smartphones and tablets.

Analytics and Insights: SEO tools and analytics platforms provide valuable insights into user behavior and website performance. You can use this data to refine your content and strategy, making data-driven decisions for your website’s improvement.

Long-Term Sustainability: While SEO requires ongoing effort, the results are sustainable over the long term. Once your website ranks well for specific keywords, it can continue to attract organic traffic without the need for constant paid advertising.

Global Reach: SEO allows you to reach a global audience. If your products or services are not limited by geographic boundaries, SEO can help you tap into new markets and expand your reach.

Content Quality: SEO encourages the creation of high-quality, relevant, and valuable content. This not only helps with search engine rankings but also enhances the user experience, establishing your site as a reliable resource.

In summary, SEO optimization is a fundamental strategy for increasing your website’s visibility, attracting targeted traffic, and establishing credibility in the digital landscape. It’s an investment that can lead to long-term growth and success for your new website.

Are you interested in learning how to optimize your URLs for SEO success? If you are, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’re going to show you how to do just that. But first, let’s take a step back and answer the question: what is a URL? A URL is the specific address of a website or a specific page on a website. It’s what you type into the search bar to find a specific website. Now that we know that, let’s get into how to optimize your URL for SEO success.

What is a URL?
A URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is a string of characters that identifies a particular location on the internet. It is commonly referred to as a web address and is made up of a series of components such as a protocol, domain name, path, query string and fragment identifier. It is important to note that not all URLs are the same, each has its own structure and purpose. The protocol of a URL defines how the page is accessed. A good example of a protocol is “HTTP” or “HTTPS”. The domain name is the name of the website or webpage, such as “example.com”. The path refers to the specific page or location within a website that is being accessed. The query string contains additional information about the page. And lastly, the fragment identifier is a part of the URL that is often used to link to a certain part of page.

Why are URLs important for SEO?
URLs are a fundamental part of any website and are an important factor in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as they help search engines determine the relevance of a particular website or webpage. When search engine crawlers are indexing the web, they use URLs to identify and retrieve content. Similarly, when a user searches for a keyword or phrase, search engines use the URLs to determine which web pages are relevant to the query. URLs are also important for creating human-readable links. When users are searching for a specific page, having a URL that is easy to understand and remember can help the user find it more quickly. Additionally, having a descriptive URL allows the user to quickly gain an understanding of what the page will be about. This can be extremely useful for search engines and users alike.

Tips for optimizing your URLs
When it comes to optimizing your URLs for SEO success, there are several things you should consider. The first is making sure you have descriptive URLs that are clear and easy to understand. This will make it easier for search engines to understand the content of the page and increase the chance that it will be found by the right user. Second, keep your URLs short and concise. Long URLs can be difficult to remember and can confuse search engines. Additionally, make sure your URLs are lowercase and contain no spaces or special characters. This is important because some web browsers may interpret certain characters differently, which can lead to issues with SEO. Finally, use keywords in your URLs as this will help search engines identify the relevance of a page. For example, if you are creating a page about cats, the URL should contain the keyword “cats” and should ideally avoid using generic words such as “page”.

In conclusion optimizing your URLs for SEO success is an important part of any SEO strategy and can have a significant impact on the results of your SEO efforts. To do this, make sure your URLs have descriptive words that are easy to understand, don’t add any extra spaces or special characters and include keywords so that search engines can easily identify the relevance of the page. Following these tips should result in better SEO results and happier users.

 

If you are interested in a new website or updating your old website contact us! (937) 232-1155

Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO” for short, is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of your website in search engine results pages.
SEO can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it is often essential for any business that wants to draw attention to its website and products or services online.
There are many methods and tactics involved in SEO, and it is constantly evolving as search engines change their algorithms. However, there are some basic principles that remain constant and are essential for any business that wants to improve its search engine ranking.
The goal of SEO is to improve the visibility and ranking of a website in the search engine results pages, in order to attract more visitors.
At Atomic Interactive we can be sure your website and your business reaches the most people possible!

If you are interested in a new website design and wanting to learn more about SEO contact Atomic Interactive at (937) 232-1155

SEO for Bing & Yahoo

What if I told you that your business may be missing out on almost 35% of customers. Now that I have your attention, let’s talk search engines. Everyone knows Google is king when it comes to search, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect the others. According to ComScore, Bing and Yahoo hold 35% of monthly searches and that number is sometimes as high as 80% depending on the industry. Obviously that’s not as much as Google’s 64%, but that is still a significant number of searches that you could be showing up for. That means your online marketing strategy shouldn’t only be limited to SEO for Google, but other search engines as well.

So you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Are you saying I now need to do 3x the work; are you kidding me?” Don’t worry, Yahoo uses Bing’s algorithm and index to determine who shows up for what. If you type in keywords, you’ll see Bing and Yahoo almost show identical results. So you don’t have to do that much.

Let’s Talk Statistics:

Now that you’re breathing at a normal pace again, let’s talk about how to adjust your strategy to include a focus on Yahoo/Bing. In 2010, Yahoo began using Bing’s algorithm so they’re essentially the same other than some minor differences. Bing is the primary search engine for Microsoft computers and iPhones. Fun fact: Siri (iPhone’s virtual assistant) is powered by Bing. Furthermore, Firefox uses Yahoo as their primary search engine. With that alone, you’re talking about a large number of users with Bing & Yahoo at their fingertips.

How to SEO for Bing and Yahoo:

So how should you go about making sure your site shows up on Yahoo & Bing? The first step is to make sure you are being Indexed. To ensure your site is being indexed, go to Bing.com and type in “Site:yoursite.com.” This will let you know what pages are being indexed and how you should adjust your SEO and online marketing strategy.

The next step is to have Bing crawl your site more frequently. While you’re tackling your SEO strategy, tell Bing to crawl your site using Bing Webmaster Tools so it will continue to pick up on the changes you’re making.

After you have your site indexed and crawled more frequently, begin your on-page and technical SEO. Be sure to use direct keywords because unlike Google, Bing likes straightforward keywords so be direct and to-the-point.  Keep in mind Bing considers H1 & H2 headings, SEO titles, and meta-descriptions to be highly important. In addition, your content and pages should include some geographical reference so you appear in local search results.

Final Thoughts:

If you search for your site on Yahoo or Bing and nothing shows up, it would be prudent to begin incorporating the steps mentioned above. It’s understandable if Google is your main focus, but to lose out on a third of customers can be make or break for your business. Just imagine what another 33% of customers would do for your business.

Content is King, but Keyword Research Takes the Crown

Most people are familiar with keyword research, but for those of you who don’t, keyword research is when you research various words and phrases that people may enter into search engines. Keyword research is important because these terms can help you formulate an effective content and marketing strategy. Without proper keywords, search engines won’t be able to determine what content is most relevant to the person searching. Even for those of you who are familiar with keyword research, some of you don’t know how to go about it. I am going to outline 3 basic steps that will help you implement a successful marketing strategy and get people to find your business online.

Keyword Research Step 1:

Determine the topics associated with your business and Come up with a list of keywords based on those topics

Brainstorming is the first step in any successful keyword research. By coming up with topics associated with your business, such as products and services, it will allow you to narrow down what keywords you should be considering. Once you have your main topics you want to cover, come up with a list of keywords that not only you, but your customers will be searching for. A great idea is to wear your buyer’s shoes. Take into account what they would be search for since they are the one’s you’re trying to target. A way to do this is to take a look at your buyer persona’s (given you have already done them) because that will give you a better idea as to which customers will be searching for what. You should also consider talking to other employees, customers, and even friends to determine what they would type into Google if they were trying to search for your product or service.

Keyword Research Step 2:

Look at other relevant search terms on Google and see what keywords your competition is using.

Google is your best friend in this process. Google is where you’re trying to appear so looking at Google before any other software can save you a lot of time. With those keywords you compiled in the last step, begin typing those into Google and see what comes up. This will help you determine who’s ranking for what and whether it’s your direct competition or not. If it appears some keywords may be more difficult than others and you need other ideas, scroll down to the bottom of the page and take a look at Google’s related search terms. This will help you compile a larger list and once typed into Google, analyze whether those keywords would be more effective.

Keyword Research Step 3:

Use software to help you figure out the best keywords

There are many tools out there that will help you determine keyword difficulty levels and search volume. What we like to use is Google’s Keyword Planner and SEMrush. Use these softwares to plug in various keywords and flag any terms that are too difficult to show up for or have too low of a search volume. These tools will also give you estimates on whether your business has a chance to show up for the list of keywords you compiled in the previous steps.

Final Thoughts

Once you finish step 3 and narrow your list down even more, you’re finished. Now it’s all about tackling your on-site optimization and content. Incorporate these keywords (without stuffing) throughout your SEO titles, meta-descriptions, page URLs, and content. Just remember, keywords aren’t everything. Even if you get people to your site, if your content isn’t valuable, you won’t see any return. Use your keywords and content as your yin and yang in your marketing strategy. Once you do that, nothing will be able to stop you!

3 Common SEO Mistakes

Ranking your web pages on search engines are usually the foundation to any digital marketing strategy. Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to properly execute a solid SEO plan. This article is meant to provide you a quick and easy list that addresses the top 3 SEO mistakes and how to fix them.

SEO Mistake #1: Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is one of the most seen problems with a website’s SEO. Webpages are considered duplicate if they contain identical or nearly identical content. Excessive duplicate content may confuse search engines as to which page to index and which one to prioritize in search results. Using duplicated content across multiple pages may lead to traffic loss and poor placement in search results, and it may even provoke search engines to ban your page. Keep in mind, duplicate content can obviously be due to writing the same content on various pages, but it can also result from duplicate pages or internal issues.

How to fix duplicate content:

  1. Provide unique content on the webpage.
  2. Remove duplicate content.
  3. Add a rel=”canonical” link to one of your duplicate pages to inform search engines which page to show in search results.

SEO Mistake #2: Duplicate and missing meta-descriptions

A meta-description tag is a short summary of a webpage’s content that helps search engines understand what the page is about and can be shown to users in search results. Duplicate meta descriptions on different pages mean a lost opportunity to use more relevant keywords. Also, duplicate meta descriptions make it difficult for search engines and users to differentiate between different web pages. It is better to have no meta description at all than to have a duplicate one.

How to fix duplicate and missing meta-descriptions:

  1. Remove duplicate meta-descriptions and provide a unique description of the page
  2. Provide a unique, relevant meta description for each of your webpages.

SEO Mistake #3: Low text-HTML ratio

Your text to HTML ratio indicates the amount of actual text you have on your webpage compared to the amount of code. This warning is triggered when your text to HTML is 10% or less. Search engines have begun focusing on pages that contain more content. That’s why a higher text to HTML ratio means your page has a better chance of getting a good position in search results. Less code increases your page’s load speed and also helps your rankings. It also helps search engine robots crawl your website faster.

How to fix low text-html ratio:

Split your web page’s text content and code into separate files and compare their size. If the size of your code file exceeds the size of the text file, review your page’s HTML code and consider optimizing its structure and removing embedded scripts and styles.

In Conclusion

There are a significant number of other issues that can arise when optimizing your site for search engines, but begin addressing the one’s mentioned above and you’ll notice a difference. Just remember to take your SEO fixes one step at a time. Patience will go a long way when it comes to SEO.

If you don’t have these 4 things, you need a new website.

Online shopping has become one of the easiest and efficient ways to shop. That’s why more and more people are going online to look for products and services rather than going to a physical location. That means your company’s website is crucial to keep up with the times and capture your consumer’s business.

First impressions are everything

I’m sure you’ve heard that expression before. The same goes for your website. Consumers need good experiences so if someone goes to your website and it looks outdated or they can’t find anything, they will more than likely go somewhere else. You may not be hearing complaints about your website, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. If you had an updated website, you could be getting even more traffic, leads, and sales. What we tell customers is to redesign your site every 2-3 years with periodic updates to ensure you’re giving your customers exactly what they want: content, user-experience, and appealing design.

Is your website optimized for mobile?

If not, you need a new website. Something to keep in mind is the importance of mobile. Whether you’re a manufacturing company or a retail company, your customers have phones. There are a vast number of searches every day on mobile devices so that means your site must be designed as such. Responsive design for mobile devices will ensure your consumers have a good experience wherever they look at your website and services.

Is your site SEO capable?

If not, you need a new website. Search engine optimization, or more commonly referred to as SEO, is where your site will appear on search engines. Consider this, you have a solid website, enticing brand messaging and a cool logo, but your website isn’t optimized so no one will ever find you to even see that. That makes all your previous efforts meaningless. Having a site that is ready for SEO is huge so if you don’t have a site that gives you that ability, you are already way behind the game.

Does your website take forever to load?

If so, you need a new website. If your site is slow, your rank on Google will be drastically lowered. Not to mention, people want things exactly when they want them. If your page takes forever to load, people will bounce off your site and onto your competitor’s.

Can you link social media on your website?

If not, you need a new website. We mentioned people go to your website to look at your services and may look up your website on their mobile device, but we haven’t talked about the power of social. A large number of people also want to know what other people have to say about you and whether they want to do business with your company. That means they may go to social platforms to make their decision. It’s important to be on social to funnel your potential customers back to your website. If you aren’t on social, that’s an opportunity to gain even more business, but if you are on social and don’t have a website that links with them, that’s just as bad!

Final Thoughts

There are plenty of reasons to update or get a new website, but if you don’t believe us, just look at your competitor’s website. Technology is always changing and so is the way people do business. If you want to ensure your business is future-proof and continues to do solid business, you may want to consider updating your website.

How do You Get People to Review Your Business?

For most industries, it can be difficult to get positive reviews. This is most certainly something to focus on considering Google’s algorithm penalizes your company’s organic search results if you have negative reviews.

Bounce Back From Negative Reviews

Have you ever went to Amazon to buy something but looked at the reviews and because most were negative, you decided not to make a purchase?  Most of the time that’s because your customers don’t usually review their gym, grocery store, retail store, and most especially, B2B companies and their products. Most consumers typically review when they have a negative experience.  So what does that mean exactly? Is your company and/or products tarnished for life or will those negative reviews hurt your sales or reputation? The truthful answer is that it absolutely can, but there is also good news: you can bounce back from it. All you have to do is ask for positive reviews from happy customers. Sounds easy, right? Well, let’s take this one step at a time.  

Tip The “Review-Scale”

Capitalize on your happy customers and have them fight on behalf of your brand. As mentioned earlier, i’m sure you have been to Amazon and saw a product or company that had a significant number of negative reviews. I’m also certain you saw negative reviews at one time, but you decided to purchase anyway because the positive reviews drastically outweighed the negative ones.  It’s all about tipping the scales back in your favor and making sure the bulk of your reviews are positive.

Ask for Reviews in Person:

The best way to get reviews is by asking in person. Asking for reviews in person is much more personal than an online initiative, especially if you and the customer had a great experience. For example, let’s say you walked into a health and wellness store, but you don’t know what products would be best for you. When you ask an associate for help, they steer you in the right direction and you two have a lengthy conversation that included anything and everything. If that customer asked you to give an online review so it helped him and  others who are researching where to shop, you would probably be more inclined to do so.

Another way to gather positive reviews is by providing incentive. Research has shown most people respond to free incentives and give-a-ways. For instance, you could start a campaign that gives the customer a chance to win $100 (You may want to do something else, but that’s a start.)

Ask for Reviews via Email

Another way is by asking via email. If you already met the customer, there shouldn’t be a problem reaching out through email. Obviously, if the customer wasn’t happy with the experience then it’s best to leave that person out. You can find out by pre-screening your customers by survey so you don’t rack up the negative reviews (though, let’s hope that never happens.) Email may not perform as well as asking in person, but is still a valuable option to gain positive reviews.

Here are some of the best practices for your email request letter:

  1. Have the email come from a real person’s email address (Even better, have it come from a name they’d recognize, such as someone they worked with).
  2. Have the email written as a personal request from that same person.
  3. Have a very clear call-to-action link/button. Remove random social media or website footer links — just as with good conversion rate optimization, have a singular goal of users clicking the review button.
  4. Test using a plain-text email versus an HTML email.
  5. Test different subject lines: We’ve found that using the person’s name in the subject line works well in many instances but falls completely flat in a few others.
  6. Test different email copy to see what performs best.

One way to ensure success of any review-gathering initiative is to make sure everyone in the organization is on board and stress its importance. Ways you can do this is by:

  1. Making better reviews a top-down focus; executives need to communicate the importance.
  2. Obtaining organizational buy-in on the importance of reviews by helping employees understand the direct impact they have on the business.
  3. Training key employees on how to ask for reviews.
  4. Developing a scorecard that tracks reviews by locations (similar to our SERP score, but for reviews).
  5. Providing bonuses and awards for the locations that have the best online reviews.

Final Thoughts

As with any good campaign, you must strategize and go through a series of tests. See what works best for you and your customer base. Just make sure you’re focusing on gathering  positive reviews, you’ll thank yourself that you did.

Should your B2B company be using social media?

The answer is a resounding yes. I hear this question all the time, especially when talking to companies about their marketing. Most B2B companies have hopped on the social bandwagon and know social media is a valuable marketing outlet, but they don’t know how it fits into their business model. Most B2B business owners or presidents make the mistake of thinking they don’t need to be on social media because they sell products that aren’t for the everyday consumer. When thinking this, they are forgetting some of the crucial ways why social media is important. It’s not all about selling a product or creating brand awareness, it’s about much more.

It’s About SEO.  

I’m sure you have all heard the term SEO before; some marketing person telling you something about Google and how it’s important. In defense of the marketing person, it is important – better yet, it’s imperative. Despite being a B2B company, social media can be used in correlation with SEO. SEO is all about getting your website and other media on the first page of Google. This is important because it pushes your competitors media and website farther down the page and provides more outlets for your customers to contact you. There’s much more that could be said, but let’s move to the next reason.

It’s About Your Brand Story.

Utilizing social media allows you to push your brand out to the digital landscape and let people know exactly who you are and what you stand for. It’s somewhat difficult to show why you’re different and why companies should be doing business with you just from your website. With social media, you can create and push out content that is engaging and shows why companies should do business with you and only you. That’s not all though, there’s more.

It’s About Brand Integration

This may go without saying, but Integration on social media is key. Look at your website as your foundation or digital hub of sorts. Your social media allows you to have other outlets to funnel or lead the customer to your website. This gives you more opportunity to capture leads and make sales.

Final Thoughts

These are only a few ways how social media can benefit and be used by a B2B company. Just remember, simply creating social media isn’t enough and if not used properly, it can actually hurt you. It’s also a problem If you create social media and post, but the consumer doesn’t find the content valuable. Making sure you utilize the platforms and provide content that engages the audience helps with SEO, funneling your consumer to your website, and ultimately leading to more sales and business overall. Don’t be left behind while your competitors take advantage of what’s out there. Be better than your competition!

If you’re tapped in to the SEO-verse, you’ve probably noticed some commotion in the past couple of weeks. On September 26, Google announced the birth of Hummingbird, a major update to its search algorithm. Hummingbird is perhaps Google’s most significant update since 2001, and was thought to replace all previous algorithm tweaks, like Panda and Penguin. Then on October 4, another update to Penguin rolled out. Huh?

What the heck is Hummingbird? What did it do to poor Penguin and Panda? And what does it all mean for your SEO strategy? Allow me to explain.

First off, it’s probably time to stop losing our minds every time Google releases an update. The company actually changes its search algorithm between 500-600 times per year—and we almost never know the difference. Developers following SEO best practices, in particular, should rarely take a turn for the worse after an algorithm change.

I choose you, Hummingbird

When an update is major enough to affect a significant percentage of searches, however, Google will make an announcement—usually in the form of a tweet from Matt Cutts. But Hummingbird got way more than 140 characters to declare its arrival. Hummingbird was announced at Google’s 15th birthday party—but in fact, it had already been active for more than a month without anyone knowing.

Google’s search wizards didn’t release much detail about how Hummingbird actually works. But we do know that it’s a response to our shifting reliance on search: more users are speaking questions into their smartphones (“Where can I get Chinese food nearby?”) rather than browsing at their desks.

Hummingbird is geared toward “conversational search” (also called “semantic” or “entity” search)—responding to full questions rather than random strings of keywords. It’s designed to be better than ever at sorting out irrelevant stuff—and giving users the answers they need, as quickly as possible.

What about earlier algorithm updates?

As I’ve explained before, Google’s Panda and Penguin updates were built weed out to low-quality and spam-filled sites, respectively. So did Hummingbird’s razor-sharp beak and motor-fast wings tear cuddly Panda and Penguin to shreds? Hardly.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land explains it this way: think of Google search like a car engine. It might be high-quality, but over years of use, it will simply become outdated. Hummingbird is like a brand-new engine. Penguin and Panda, in contrast, are like an oil filter and a fresh batch of coolant: they still help the car run its best. But they can be swapped out easily without affecting the whole system.

That means we can still expect to see Panda and Penguin updates, even with Hummingbird now in place. So no, you’re not suddenly off the hook if you’ve been using black-hat tactics—you’ll still be penalized for tricks like spammy backlinks. (Penguin 2.1, released October 4, particularly zeroed in on this issue.)

What’s an SEO to do?

We don’t know much yet about how Hummingbird actually works. So it’s hard to say how to make the most of it. Because Hummingbird seems to favor content written as answers to potential search queries, it might be tempting to frame every page title in the form of a question. Eric Ward, also at Search Engine Land, cautions against this—as past updates have taught us, there are consequences for going overboard or trying to game the system. He does offer a few tips for how you might use Hummingbird to your advantage and integrate it naturally into your site.

Above all, there doesn’t seem to be much cause for concern. As Google’s been telling us for years now, we should stop obsessing over the algorithm’s particulars. Instead, create awesome content that’s helpful to users, and traffic will follow.

Does your site match up to Google’s latest guidelines? Give Atomic a call, and we’ll get you up to speed.