Broaden Your Digital Reach - Bitly

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Broaden Your Digital Reach June 2018 Broadening a company’s digital reach requires a combination of activities to help ensure that a company may be found within the vastness of the Internet. What techniques are you using to bolster your brand? Here are 10 ideas to help broaden your brand reach

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Broadening Digital Reach Search engines, such as Google, change algorithms all the time to provide better organic results for users. They also change their SEO rules to help keep automated systems from tricking the search system. There is no quick fix to get your website to rank higher in organic search. Today, good SEO requires a combination of marketing activities in order to broaden digital reach: 1. Competitive analysis for keywords 2. On-page content and structure 3. Back-end site structure and content 4. Server configuration 5. Google Analytics and Google Search Console configuration 6. Social media presence and content strategy 7. Listings in Google approved directories 8. Content publishing with links back to the site 9. PPC advertising using the same keywords used for SEO 10. Editorial coverage - a Public Relations initiative is implemented. Note: While you are working on your site’s SEO, competitors might be throwing more resources at SEO to achieve better results for their companies.

1. Competitive analysis for keywords Keyword research helps you identify keywords that appeal to a target audience and expand the reach of your content. When you use keyword research tools, it helps you identify what kinds of content users are looking for on any given topic. Always make sure to prioritize time for keyword research.

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When selecting keywords, you should also keep the purpose of your website in mind. Opt for transactional keywords if the main intention is sales, or informational keywords if your website aims to provide readers with important information. During website redesign, if your agency isn’t giving you spreadsheets of competitive analysis and keyword suggestions, you are paying for a pretty picture. Below are some of the recommended tools to help you research appropriate keywords: Google Keyword Planner: The Keyword Planner is part of the AdWords advertising program. You need a valid AdWords account to use this free tool. You can start searching for keywords and suitable ideas as soon as you register. You can also enter websites and view suitable keywords based on their content. The tool also shows you information about the monthly search volume. Google Trends: This free tool shows you how often frequent search terms are used. The tool also shows you a preview of possible peak demands. Google Trends is well-suited for seasonal and event-related keywords. Keywords Everywhere: Keywords Everywhere is a browser plugin that allows you to assess keywords on a page. Keywords Everywhere also allows access to keyword metrics for any list of keywords and lets you download the list in Excel, CSV or PDF file formats.

2. On-page content and structure Logical user navigation Search engines such as Google take into consideration the natural user flow an individual would take in seeking information. Sites that assist the user with logical user flow are held in higher regard by search engines. Brand4Market.com

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Content Content quality and volume is important. When you consider copywriting for the web, there are three attributes: 1.) What you want to say 2.) What users are looking for 3.) What Google wants Google wants 700-1,000 words per page at this time. Long form content (highly regarded by Google as educational) is up to 2000 words. The average content length for top 3 rankings was about 750 words, while the average content length for position 20 rankings was about 500 words. These data points were gathered by studying more than 600,000 different keywords on a global basis, relying on SEMRush’s more than 1.5 million users in 2017. Your content should be unique and original. Keywords should appear on the page at the start of the sentence in H1 headline, sub-headlines, and body paragraphs. There should only be one H1 headline on the page. Keywords should not be duplicated on different pages, nor should content be duplicated. Duplicate content makes it difficult for search engines to determine the best search result among the different URLs. This is cannibalizing your rankings. The website cannot appear in top rankings since Google is unable to choose the best version. Internal Links Your homepage is most important, and links radiate from the homepage to all other subpages. Ideally, you should distribute links evenly to all other subpages through internal links and easy navigation menus. Uniform internal linking enables you to direct the search engine bot. A logical link structure makes it possible for the bot to systematically crawl and index your

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website, and tells the bot which pages are most important. Some pages on your website might not be linked to any other page. These are referred to as orphaned pages, and if a bot will abort the crawl since bots can only move from link to link. Page Speed A webpage’s loading speed is very important for ranking. Users don’t want to spend time waiting for a page to load; they want to see content immediately. Webpages with high load times have high bounce rates, which often result in poor rankings. The website’s loading speed is even more important for mobile users since the lower bandwidths can further delay the loading of a website. There are many technical ways to optimize the loading time. You can use Google PageSpeed to check how fast your website loads. Mobile Friendly Mobile friendliness is an important ranking factor for search rankings. Increasingly, people are using their mobile devices to surf the internet. In some areas, over 70% of users visit websites on mobile. Every webpage should be optimized for mobile. You should use the Google Mobile Friendly free test to check the mobile performance of your website before and after any changes. The mobile version of your website should be responsive, meaning that the content of your pages should automatically adapt itself to the size and functionality of the respective device.

3. Back-end site structure and content Keywords should be part of site title, page title, and meta description. The first thing a user sees when they search for a keyword is the snippet on the Google Search results page. The snippet includes the page title, URL, and meta description. The title should be short and concise. It impacts your ranking for keywords. Your meta description should accurately describe the content your page offers. Your page URL should align with your keyword, and should be short

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and descriptive. You should avoid “stop words” such as “an, the, a, etc.” (In Wordpress, the Yoast plugin is a convenient tool that helps you manage keywords and descriptions.) Keywords should also be applied to image names, image alt tags, and link alt tags. Using Alt text to describe images allows search engines to understand the image content. Anchor texts describe a link in detail and inform the user about what to expect from the link. Rather than having to click on a URL, anchor texts allow users to click on keywords people actually understand and are redirected by the URL hidden behind the anchor text. The keyword of the landing page should always be used in the anchor text of internal links. The more webpages use the same keyword to point to a subpage, the more signals the search engine will receive indicating that this landing page must be very relevant for this keyword. This in turn means that the page will be ranked better for this and other similar keywords. Avoid using nondescriptive words in anchor texts in internal links and focus more on keywords.

4. Server configuration Before a site can be submitted to search engines, the proper components have to exist on the server including .htaccess file, robots.txt file, and XML sitemap. These files contain instructions for the search engines on what to search, or not search, on the site. The sitemap can be read by search engines and contains a list of all important URLs and meta data on the website. The Google bot uses this list as a basis to go through the website and review the corresponding URLs. The robots.txt is a text file that tells search engine crawlers which directories to crawl (allow) and which not to crawl (disallow). Every bot must first access the robots.txt file before crawling the website. Using the robots.txt file helps you ensure that search engines identify all the

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important content on your website. If important website or JavaScript elements are excluded from the crawling, search engines will not be able to correctly index your website. Check if your website is accessible with or without www., http, or https. If multiple versions are accessible, use 301 redirects to redirect them to the desired version. The desired version should be https which means a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) has been implemented. Google gives more credibility to sites with SSL. Check if your website displays similar content with and without a “/” at the end of the URL. When a user visits a URL that can’t be found on a server, the browser displays error code 404 (file not found). Periodically check for any broken links on your website. Search Console will help you to find the errors and will indicate any interference with indexing performance.

5. Google Analytics and Google Search Console configuration Google offers many free tools to help manage a website, and education programs, and videos to help you to learn to use their tools. Google’s free web analytics service allows you to analyze in-depth detail about the visitors on your website and provides you with valuable insights that can help shape the direction and messaging for your business.

6. Social media presence and content strategy Having a presence on social media serves several purposes including: extending digital brand reach (digital footprint), explaining product and brand stories in a tone aligned with brand values, engaging audiences with the brand for brand retention and satisfaction, creating opportunities for sales conversion, and establishing substantial inbound links to your website and landing pages.

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Your content strategy should take into consideration the brand vision, mission, and values; include policies for sharing content from other sources; and address workflow procedures to make certain activities are aligned with overall marketing initiatives.

7. Listings in Google approved directories Establishing a listing in online directories is important to add records for your company that might be returned in search – both in search engines and in the directory itself. At one point Google had stomped on the exploding number of online directories, but today there are many that are accepted as “valid” by Google. Check the breadth of your digital footprint for free. These directories include your full company contact information, and often accommodate images and a keyword-loaded description.

8. Content publishing with links back to the site When people are building a website, they often have faith in the expression, “If you build it, they will come.” The expression, “inbound marketing,” is often used and it, too, is a bit misleading. The truth is your products and brands require continuous publishing of content crafted to attract the target audiences. Certain approaches are recognized for better engaging audiences (e.g.: thought leadership, creative contests, and altruistic campaigns with community involvement). Your campaigns are an opportunity to position your products and brand for audience retention and recognition. Links back to your site create positive context for Google, as well as generating leads for your business.

9. PPC advertising using the same keywords used for SEO It’s no secret that Google AdWords are directly tied to Google Analytics. In most industries, a monthly advertising budget is required to establish a benchmark and then subsequently

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increase inquiries and sales. Startup costs include configuration of the AdWords dashboard, configuring conversions in Google Analytics, and setting up landing pages.

10. Editorial coverage - a Public Relations initiative is implemented. Editorial placement (e.g.: a radio interview or podcast, magazine or newspaper article, or TV coverage) is still one of the most effective ways to rapidly reach many people through trusted communications. Having an angle, a professional spin that engages the interest of your audience is a great way to make your brand memorable.

Wendy Flanagan, creative marketing executive Brand4Market president Wendy Flanagan helps businesses to grow via social media marketing, collateral design, website design and development, marketing automation, SEO, and email marketing. Her work spans industries such as accounting, auto restoration, banking, construction, digital security, finance, higher education, legal, loyalty and incentive marketing, photo processing, physical security, printing, and retail electronics. Clients include SMBs in both B2C and B2B companies. Flanagan has spearheaded design, marketing, and branding initiatives for Fortune-level companies, often at a national and global level for large clients such as ADT, ADP, Calvin Klein Fragrance, CIT, Ebel Watches, GHI Health Insurance, Howard Johnson, Morristown Memorial Hospital, North Jersey Federal Credit Union, Novartis, Pfizer, Radware, Ramada, Sparta Systems, Tyco, Verizon Wireless, and many others.

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