Author: Trish Saemann

7 Must-Haves for Your Law Firm Website

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People use the internet to search for all kinds of information. Where to shop, who to date, the weather report; the possibilities are truly endless. The ubiquity of the internet search has made web searchers more savvy and impatient when it comes to the sites they choose in their searches and also which sites they choose to continue to read before clicking away.

Law firms have an even more difficult challenge because most of the searchers who look for your practice have a legal issue. This makes them urgent, impatient, and self-conscious and they haven’t even picked up the phone to contact you yet. So how does a law firm ensure that its site will be intriguing and helpful enough to keep its visitors’ interest?

Here are some fast ways to tell if your website has staying power.

The Hero Section

The #1 mistake I see on modern law firm sites is this: The firm fails to make their clients the hero of the story. Don Miller of StoryBrand fame crystalized this idea and he’s spot on. If the homepage of your website has a picture of just you or you and your team, you’re missing a major opportunity.

The law is intimidating. If your clients see someone with whom they can identify on your home page, you are infinitely more likely to get them to continue reading on. They want to see themselves finding a solution with your firm. Make no mistake, they’ll want to know all about you too, but first, they must be able to see themselves in your success stories. Have an image of your ideal client represented on your homepage, then lead them to your credentials.

Website Load Speed

I don’t know about you, but a slow loading website makes me crazy. If it’s a potential client for my line of work, it’s one of the easiest things for me to demonstrate that they need to update their website. Web searchers are impatient and if your site doesn’t load in under 3 seconds, they are gone for good. Use this website to check your load speed. If it is too slow, talk to you web developer or reach out to my team to fix any issues that are beyond your technical expertise.

Easy to Navigate

If you were to ask your family members or friends, NOT professional colleagues, to go to your website and share with you what you do in under 5 seconds, could they do it? If your website doesn’t clearly state how you help people, what services you offer and how best to contact you, you need an overhaul.

Essential Pages to include on your website:

Homepage
Practice Areas (if possible, offer one page/practice area)
About / Team
Reviews
FAQ/BLOG
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer

If you have Google Analytics installed on your site (and if you don’t, please, please call me) look at the traffic to the pages on your site. If some of your pages are grossly under searched, it could mean they are hard to find.

Be sure to include clear options in your navigation bar, ideally with …. (see next paragraph)

On Page SEO

Much like the legal field, websites and digital marketing can have foreign and intimidating language. If you find yourself lost in the digital jargon, I’ve got you covered. Here are some of the website requirements that will help your firm rank in Google:

Meta description
Title tag
Headings tags
Keyword optimized copy
Keyword in URL (think navigation bar)
Short URLs
Alt tag in images

If you can add keywords to all of these areas, you’re on your way to an optimized site.

Google is an aggregator of data. In analog terms, it’s a filing cabinet. Each page needs to be labeled in a way that indicates where the file goes. Folder, section, cabinet, room, etc. Google does the same thing, just digitally. When your law firm, especially if you have a lot of competition, doesn’t digitally indicate where your site belongs, then it gets relegated to no man’s land.

Clear Practice Areas and Contact Info

Visitors to your site are there for one reason: They’re looking for a lawyer who can help them with a specific legal issue. So, it’s important to highlight your services on your home page, and have clear links in your navigation bar to pages describing each of your practice areas. Even though a client finds you online, they’ll often reach out through email or a phone call when they decide to consult you. It’s a good idea to keep these two contact methods highly visible at all times. For added mobile responsiveness, you can use click-to-call and click-to-email CTA formats. Other methods of contact, such as contact forms, live chat via a chatbot, social media messages and location information are also great way to leverage your website to connect you with potential clients.

Call to Action

If you have a website that doesn’t IMMEDIATELY encourage someone to contact you, you are behind the game. Your Call to Action (CTA) can be anything you want, but you want it to make the web visitor take an action right away. Book a consultation. Call us Now. Book your appointment. It may seem silly, but it works. You must be crystal clear about what you want your potential client to do when they come to your site.

Responsive design (mobile, tablet and desktop)

It’s 2023 (almost). Though it can vary by industry or practice area, chances are 50% (or more) of your first website visitors are on mobile. This number will continue to rise. Google is also prioritizing the performance of most mobile layouts over the desktop. So, that means your mobile layout is impacting your Google ranking more so than your desktop layout. If you’re not sure if your website is mobile friendly, chances are it is not. If you’d like to know for sure, use this link.

At GoBeyond SEO, we’ve been helping local law firms scale with simple lead gen and optimize their site for success since 2009. Contact us for a free consultation. We’d love to hear from you.

Tags law firm internet marketing, law firm marketing, law firm seo, marketing for law firms, marketing strategy

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How to Stay Engaged on Social Media in 2023 (Plus 3 Bonus Tips)

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In just a couple of weeks, the social media consumer blitz on your senses will have subsided, and you’ll be able to scroll through IG and Tiktok mostly unbothered by ads. The holidays are fun, but this can be a welcome relief.

But what happens when your business still needs to stay connected with its audience–how do you maintain a meaningful digital presence without being overwhelming?

Here are four simple tips to prepare for next year and stay engaged on social media in 2023 (without the holiday blitz).

1. Do a Content Makeover

Remember when makeover shows were all the rage? We owe a debt of makeover gratitude to Queer Eye, both the modern and the OG.

If you aren’t confident about the content you share on social media, or worse, you’re sharing the same stuff over and over, this will cause your audience to lose interest.

Instead, try going further with your social media posts by including elements encouraging discussion and debate. This will improve your Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook engagement and demonstrate your commitment to being an interactive and transparent brand.

You should also vary the length of your social media engagement posts. Both short- and long-form content is effective. By adding variety to your content strategy for social media, you can easily capture the interest of your audience and keep things fresh.

2. Adjust Your Scheduled Posts

Scheduling social media engagement posts in advance is the norm. So if you’re not already automating your posts, buy yourself some time and do it.

That said, your followers can quickly get bored if you don’t mix it up a bit. Track which posts get the most engagement, then play around with your scheduling. It would behoove you to see which post topics and which timeslots get the most attention. Audiences from different platforms have varying preferences regarding the frequency of social media engagement posts.

Here are the recommended number of posts by platform according to Hootsuite:

LinkedIn: Two to five posts per week
Facebook: One to two posts per day
Instagram: Three to seven posts a week
Twitter: One to five tweets a day (in light of recent changes, this may vary widely in 2023)
TikTok: At least one video a day

3. Prioritize Engagement

Social media can be a bit of a time suck and, frankly, a pain in the ass when you have a business to run. But the whole point is to connect with your audience and have them interact with you. So you’re better off with fewer social platforms and doubling down on engaging with the audience of one or two of them.

Here are the reasons why engagement, more than having a billion social media accounts, matters the most:

Trust. The days of businesses being seen as faceless entities in ivory towers are over. Your clients know you’re an actual person (or group of people). And most clients can discern your brand voice in emails and blog posts. The fact that they know it’s you instills trust. Customers don’t expect brands to be perfect, but they expect them to be authentic. Engagement demonstrates that.

Market Research. You can literally ask your clients what they want and they will tell you. How can we improve? What would you like us to start offering? Who else do you know that might want to work with us? You’d pay big bucks for that kind of money and yet, you can get it for free straight from the horse’s mouth.

Relationships. Be of value. Be of service. Build a relationship. Fostering a community of loyal customers and advocates who will speak highly of your brand is better than any kind of paid advertising you can find.

4. Get on Board With Video

Thank you, YouTube and TikTok! Visual content can do wonders for your social media campaigns as it generates more engagement than any other form of media. Don’t feel camera ready? Don’t worry–the realness that comes across in video content is actually a good thing.

So how can you effectively integrate video into your content strategy for social media?

Be consistent with your branding (and be yourself). Try to make it a habit to use your brand’s colors and imagery so your audience can immediately recognize you, but don’t make yourself crazy over it. Here’s a branding hack: Being yourself is the best and most consistent way to brand. Of course, colors, vibe, and font help too, but you’re the star.

The GIF that keeps on giving. GIFs capture attention quickly, especially if they get a laugh. They’re perfect for fast-paced social channels like Twitter and can also increase Facebook and IG engagement. Humor is a great way to connect on a human level, and a well-timed and tasteful GIF is always a good idea.

Go mini. Short-form videos such as Reels and TikToks are incredibly effective in increasing engagement. The video can be funny or educational. Want to be a superstar? Make it funny AND educational. To take it one step further, you can create a video series that tells a success story, a how-to, or details of an upcoming event. This will keep people coming back for more and improve your visibility within the platform’s algorithm. Win-win.

Using some or all of these tips can greatly impact your social media and help you foster a genuine connection with your audience in 2023. Want more ways to stay connected with your target audience and improve your branding? Reach out to GoBeyond SEO today.

Tags marketing, Social Media, social media engagement, social media marketing, social media strategy

Blog SEO Tips

5 Tips for Creating Irresistible (Yet SEO Friendly) Blog Titles

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Do you know the difference between website developers and website designers?

Bear with us for a sec.

From a distance, they look like one in the same. They are not.

While there are some uber-talented folks who can effectively do both, it’s far less common. Designers focus more on appearance and appeal while a developer’s job is making a website functional.

SEO is like that. You can create content that is tech-speak heavy and make search engines happy, but lose the humans. You can also make the content delightful for humans, but useless to search engines. It’s important to strike the balance between form and function when writing blogs and crafting blog titles.

Here are five simple steps to writing irresistible yet SEO friendly blogs and blog titles to grab the attention of both search engines and your audience.

Step One: Keyword Research

First things first, head to Google to do some quick and dirty research. Type in keywords for the topic you want to write about. Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive build-your-entire-SEO-strategy-level search. This is to help you find topics people are searching for most often so you can craft your blog title around what your audience wants.

Step Two: Pick Strong Keywords

Strong is a relative adjective, so let us clarify. Specific keywords are great if you want someone who is ready to move forward now. For example: “Best SEO Services Near Me”.

However, if your service or product requires some education, strong keywords could be more solution-focused: “How Can My Business Get Found on Google More Quickly?” Be discerning when choosing keywords for your blog titles.

Step Three: Write Multiple Headlines

Writer and entreprenuer Marie Forleo suggested this trick. Write multiple (like, 20) headlines. It seems like overkill and it isn’t. Sometimes you need to work through your thoughts on the page before they’re ready for the world. Avoid industry-speak when possible.

Examples:

Your Guide to Great Blog Writing
Five Steps to SEO-Friendly Blog Writing
SEO-Friendly Blog Titles
Four Tips for Great Blog Titles

Phrases like “Your Guide”, “Five Steps”, “Three Tips”, are key for a couple of reasons. It’s an easy way to slip in a keyword without it feeling forced and it gives the reader an idea of how much mental energy they need to commit: Five tips? I can handle five tips. Let me read this blog real quick.

Step Four: Write the Post

Be natural and educational. Don’t focus on squeezing in those keywords in your first draft if it feels forced. Say what you want to say and then add keywords during editing. It’s important to offer helpful information without selling. People change their thinking when they feel they’re being pitched. Be breezy, not salesy.

Step Five: Change Your Permalink

Most of the SEO nerds we know love WordPress, and with good reason. If your blog is on WP, we’re gonna nerd out for a moment, but stick with us and it will help!

WordPress allows you to change your permalink/slug URL. This is simply the actual URL for your blog post.

www.yourwebsite.com/your-blog-post

You will want to edit this permalink (you’ll find it at the top of your post, right underneath your blog title in WordPress).

Your permalink :

Should contain your keyword
Be short–no more than seven words if possible
Be descriptive and relevant to your post
Can be different from your actual blog title

Click “ok” to save and you’re ready to hit Publish on your blog post.

Are You Ready to Create Excellent Blog Titles?

When writing blog content, keep keywords in mind, but don’t sacrifice your audience. Whatever your headline, make sure it’s interesting and relevant enough to be clickworthy.

Insider secret: The amount of actual humans who read your blog impacts your SEO results. Google tracks search behavior and pays attention to how many clicks your post gets and if people stick around to read it. Big Brother is absolutely watching, so give ‘em a good show.

Need more assistance with jump starting your content strategy? Book a strategy session with GoBeyond SEO today.

Tags blogging, blogging for business, search engine optimization, seo

Blog General Marketing

Track Your Trends to Optimize Your Marketing

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Your customers change their behavior depending on the season, which impacts the content they interact with and the keywords they use for search. (Hint: this also means how, when, and what they decide to buy will change.)

Before you click away thinking that seasonality doesn’t apply to your business, stick with us. You may think you don’t have a season. Although buying trends can be harder to see when your business isn’t centered around a commonly recognized season (such as the holidays), the truth is that every industry has some version of a season.

However, business owners are often at a loss when it comes to adapting their marketing strategy to the seasonal shifts in buying behavior. Which is why it’s crucial to track your trends for more insight.

Yes, You Have a Busy Season–Trust Us

At this point, you may be thinking that you’re in an industry where people will always need what you do with some minor peaks and valleys. It’s true that you may not get all of your business exclusively during your busy season, but you definitely have one.

Here are a few examples of businesses that you would not traditionally associate with seasonality:

Divorce lawyers. More people file for divorce right after the holidays. Why? They didn’t want to ruin the holidays with divorce discussion or the holidays confirmed their decision to end the marriage.
Emergency vets. Emergency vets will see more dogs the first week of July. Why? It’s super hot, fireworks scare pets into unsafe behavior–including running away–and big parties are an opportunity for pets to eat dangerous foods and objects.
Plumbing companies. The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for plumbers. Why? Food scraps and turkey grease can clog sinks. In addition, several guests staying at a home can overwhelm the plumbing system, leading to problems.

However, keep in mind that seasons are not limited to holidays. For example, spring can bring hail storms, leading to a surge in calls to windshield repair companies, roofers, and exterior contractors. When these businesses run ads around this time, they can optimize their busy season.

How to Adjust Your Game Plan for Your Season

Once you’ve taken the time to track your trends and identify your busy season, here are some ways to adjust your game plan to fit your season and make it convenient for your customers to hire you or purchase from you.

Busy Season

Google Ads. Ads show up when someone searches for what you offer. They are looking for you. Don’t hide from them!
Facebook Ads. Ads show up based on demographics and self-proclaimed interests. They told you they love animals. Show them your animal-related services or products!
Email marketing. Give them a reason to choose you over your competition by being visible, available, and easy to buy from. Touching on their most important reasons to buy in your email will encourage them to buy from you.
Direct mail. Depending on your industry, this can be one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience during your busy season.

Slow Season

Upsell and cross-sell existing clients. Slow season is a great time to upsell or cross-sell your current clients to help maintain your revenue.
Work on getting referrals. Contact satisfied clients and ask them to refer you to someone else who might want your services. You can offer a reward for referrals, such as a gift card.
Grow your online reviews. Ask past clients to review your business online. Make it easy by emailing them a link so all they have to do is click and type. Then, be sure to pay attention to your reviews and deal with any negative or fake ones.
Promote early payment specials. To keep cash coming in, try offering discounts for early payments for next season.
Educate your clients. Teach clients how to make the most of your products or services. Focus on low-cost marketing methods like in-person networking, email, and social media. Stay in front of them even when they’re not ready to buy. They will be soon enough. Create the association with your brand, even if they aren’t looking for you right now.

Learning when to mitigate expenses and maximize ROI can vary, even for businesses within the same industry. For example, some companies use Google Ads during their busy season so they are visible when people search for them, but use Facebook Ads as more of an awareness or educational tactic when people are not yet in need.

Get More Insight Into Your Long-Term Marketing Strategy

Following the trends within your industry and examining your own peaks and valleys are the best ways to know when and how to adjust your marketing efforts. If you’re ready to take a more advanced approach to your long-term marketing, set up a strategy session with GoBeyond SEO. It’s free, customized, and informative.

Tags content marketing, marketing, marketing strategy

Content Marketing Marketing

Achieve These 6 Marketing Goals With Video Client Case Stories

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Everyone has a story. Actually, everyone has several stories. Stories of triumph and success and stories of failure and regret. We lead complex and layered lives.

Your clients, just like you, have stories to tell. If they are your client, you are a part of their story. It sounds hyperbolic, but it isn’t. Your clients will be talking about their experiences, including the one they’ve had with you, as part of their story.

Wouldn’t it be so cool if your clients could share their success story and, by proxy, your role in that success, with other potential clients?

Hell yes it would be. Here’s how you can transform your marketing with client case stories: all on video.

The Move Away From Business-Centric Reviews

People are moving beyond 5-star reviews on Google and collecting testimonials that are focused solely on their business. Companies are moving toward client case stories: letting their case study be expressed as a case story.

The narrative focuses on their clients and how their lives have changed and less on what the company offers. What’s more? It’s all on video. Video is

Easy to digest
Easy to understand
Easy to share
A powerful tool for building trust and engaging new clients

Video isn’t the cheapest form of marketing content. But when you invest the time and money necessary to develop a strong video marketing plan, a plan that doesn’t pitch but actually shares stories, your results will reflect that effort.

Think about it: why do people love movies so much? They don’t. They love stories. A movie that is just a sales pitch will not be watched over and over again–but a story will be.

6 Powerful Goals You Can Achieve With Video Stories

Video stories shared by your happy clients nearly guarantees you’ll accomplish these six goals.

1. Increase Conversions and Sales

84% of people say they have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video (Wyzowl survey).

2. Track Your ROI

HubSpot conducted a recent survey that found more than 93% of video marketers say it’s an important part of their marketing strategy and you can measure the results from your video campaign, including tracking impressions, play rate, viewer engagement, lead generation, and click-through rate.

3. Build Multi-Purpose Content

You can use your videos on your website, social media, newsletters, and ad campaigns. Multiple videos, multiple iterations, multiple applications.

4. Build Consumer Trust

Consumers evaluate your website and marketing content with a highly skeptical eye, and possibly a predetermined reason NOT to spend money on your product or service. You have to work to gain your customer’s trust, especially if you’re handling sensitive matters or if you’re in an industry that many people are unfamiliar with (like SEO). People want to see and hear other people. Humanize your business and you’ll gain their trust.

5. Boost Your SEO Efforts

As video is becoming an increasingly popular way to create content, Google gives ranking priority to pages that have videos. So not only is video a good marketing tool, but it’s a powerful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy as well.

6. Engage Mobile Users

Not only does Google prefer online video content, but so do most mobile users.

Pew Research Center found that 85% of Americans currently own a smartphone, and what are people doing on their smartphones? Watching videos. According to eMarketer, 75% of all videos are played on mobile devices.

Are You Harnessing the Power of Video Yet?

Your competitors are already harnessing the power of video stories as a humanized alternative to business. It’s fierce out there, and video case stories from your happy clients are a tool you definitely want in your arsenal.
GoBeyond SEO has partnered with a company that does exactly this kind of work and they are awesome. Because of this partnership, GoBeyond clients are offered a discount on this work. Find out more by clicking the link or contacting us today.

Tags content marketing, lead generation, marketing

General Leadership Marketing Small Business Marketing

4 Signs It’s Time for a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

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$signs-you-need-a-fractional-chief-marketing-officer$

Many small business owners, this year especially, are still trying to get a grip on what works and what doesn’t. All the marketing goals in the world are only as good as the direction and leadership of the marketing efforts coming from the top.

Did your marketing efforts pay off during the first quarter of this year? Are you woefully unsure and wildly self-conscious about it? You’re not alone.

Whether your marketing is directionless or you need more financial resources to invest in a solid strategy, here are four signs it’s time to consider a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO).

1. You Have a Marketing Plan, but No One Is Available to Be in Charge of It

This is a common trap when the marketing direction is steered by multiple people or by someone who is not solely focused on marketing.

Your company brand and success may have been built long before the days of complex marketing channels and automation. In order to prepare for the future (or present), businesses are tasked with adapting at lightning speed, to keep pace with contemporary strategies, tools, and tactics.

Oftentimes, especially in small and growing businesses, marketing initiatives are scattershot and lack a cohesive plan. An experienced marketing strategist can help right the proverbial ship for a strong and successful future.

2. Your Sales Team Is Creating Their Own Marketing Materials

Your sales team may be great or your sales team may be YOU. Either way, if your sales team is creating their own presentations, one sheets, and PDFs, it’s very likely that those materials are unfocused and weak.

A fractional CMO can develop a unified message that creates an exceptional customer experience, makes you and your team feel more confident in presenting your offerings, and improves conversions – all for a more cost-effective approach.

3. You Have Lots of Pricey Marketing Tactics Without a Supporting Strategy

It’s an easy trap to fall into. Someone says you need a new website, so you get one. You sponsor events and buy branded swag. You create a Google Ads campaign and get swallowed by the ad costs. You hire an intern to manage your social media because young people know social media, right?

You did all the things and yet, not a penny of ROI to be found. The absence of strategy will leave you frustrated and broke. You need marketing insights that help inform executive decisions, build the reporting you need to make smart business decisions, and then closely track revenue and growth. That will give you ROI for miles.

4. You Need More Financial and Organizational Flexibility

The very first ingredient needed for continued success is flexibility. You need to be agile so you’re available to capitalize on shifting situations or unforeseen challenges.

Locking your business into a yearly salary commitment for a CMO, Marketing Strategist, or even a social media coordinator is antithetical to the needs of many small businesses. Why? Hiring staff is a big commitment. What’s more? So is firing them.

If the relationship doesn’t work out with someone closely involved in your marketing efforts, separating from them can be an arduous and costly process.

Conversely, if your fractional CMO or outsourced marketing team isn’t working out, it’s much easier to end the relationship and find another fractional CMO or team.

How Is Your Marketing Going?

As your business grows and your needs shift, a fresh perspective with more experience may be needed. While reviewing your first quarter sales this year, ask yourself this: Do I have the time necessary to devote to marketing and sales?

If you’re not sure, feel free to score a free strategy session with GoBeyond SEO. ROI is within reach, we promise.

Tags brand marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, smb marketing

Blog Business Blogging Search Engine Optimization Tips SEO Tips

Top 3 SEO Tips for Click-Worthy Headlines

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Are you a reader or a skimmer? We’re going to guess you’re a skimmer. After all, in a world overrun with information, who has time to dissect every detail?

But what if you need your clients or potential clients to read? You’ve written a blog or published an article and the information you’ve included would actually help them, but alas, they don’t think it’s worth their time.

There’s one way you can increase the chances that people would actually read your content: your blog titles and article headlines should be both obvious and promise a pay off.

Vague or off-beat titles may be fun to write–and you may even call yourself clever for writing them–but those titles do not get clicked on. Headlines are read six times more than the article itself is. You have a split second to get your reader’s attention and about two seconds to keep that attention. You’ve got to give it your best shot.

With that being said, here are three tips to help you draw readers in with your headlines.

Tip #1: Keep Character Length to 70 or Fewer

Unless you’re trying to be funny and you know your audience will get the joke, don’t name your blog post like the new Kristen Bell show on Netflix. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here it is:

The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window

If you want a click-worthy headline, make it clear and easy to read in under two seconds, preferably 70 characters or less–unlike the above example.

Tip #2: Bait the Hook Early

Tell your readers the most important thing they need to know first. Not only does this help with SEO because the “bait”, or most important thing to your reader, is most likely a keyword, but it makes them want to read more.

Example: Which of these two titles would you click on?

Bad: Digital marketing practices are helpful to most businesses.

Good: 67% of businesses experience business growth using SEO.

While both statements are helpful, the second cuts to the proverbial chase more quickly and is therefore more effective.

Tip #3: Use Numbers, “W” Questions, or Reveal a Secret

Nobody wants to feel ignorant. Pull in your readers by using information that they want or would feel foolish not having.

This includes information that you can use to answer “W” questions, such as who, when, where, what, and why. It also includes numbers, as people tend to focus on what stands out in an article or title–aka numbers in a sea of text.

Examples:

5 Tax Write-Offs You Could Be Missing
What Does Q2 of 2022 Have in Store for Family Law Practices?
Why SEO Is No Longer ‘Nice to Have’ for Small Businesses in 2022

Bonus Tip: Act Like You’re Writing to a Real Person

When writing content for clients or potential clients, write like you’re writing to a person.

Not to people. Not to search engines.

To one singular person.

It may feel weird at first, but the writing connects better with your audience when you act like you’re writing it to one person.

It takes a minute to get the hang of headline writing, but when you’re a small business owner, learning on the fly is what you do–you got this!
Find out more about how you can enhance your content marketing for the better by booking a free discovery call with GoBeyond SEO today.

Tags search engine optimization, seo, seo tips

Local SEO Marketing Small Business Marketing Small Business SEO

Word of Mouth Has Gone Digital

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Word of mouth (WoM) has gone digital. It’s no longer good enough to hear from one or two people that a movie is good or entertaining. We won’t consider a hotel that doesn’t meet our own health and safety standards. We now rely upon a consensus of reviews before we make our decisions, even if it is something as simple as choosing a movie from our couch.

In 2022, this kind of feedback crowd-sourcing is ubiquitous. From restaurants to law firms, or from pet groomers to industrial cleaning companies, reviews are (or should be) a big part of the marketing strategy for businesses, large or small.

Many business owners feel that their best clients come from word of mouth. And they’re probably right.

If only there was a way to have those sweet, positive, and wildly influential words used to describe their business immortalized in some way so that future prospects and potential clients could hear them–oh wait, there is! It’s called Google reviews. And if you’re not prioritizing Google reviews, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

3 Ways Google Reviews Affect Your Business

Online reviews are the closest thing we have to WoM in the digital realm, and they absolutely matter for your business. Here are three ways Google reviews can impact your online visibility and reputation.

Reviews impact SEO. You read that right. Getting more of them, especially positive ones, improves your digital visibility and conversion rate. That means more clients for you. (Psst: Dealing with a fake or negative review? We’ve got you.)
Google trusts the power of WoM marketing. It factors in the quantity and quality of reviews to evaluate where and when your business should show up in search engine results. Just as customers use online reviews to validate their purchase decisions, Google and other search engines take a similar stance when showing results.
Users and search engines have a similar objective. Google wants to weed through the vast web to deliver the right information, service, or product to you in the fastest way possible, and this aligns with our goals as searchers. In fact, reviews pretty much work as crowd-sourced WoM recommendations.

If you’re already prioritizing Google reviews and reviews from other sites, good for you. If you have a system or process in place already, even better.

However, if you haven’t been able to net enough positive Google review to impact your business, it may be time to consider setting up an automated process to make getting reviews simple, painless, and effective.

GoBeyond SEO works with business owners to implement an automated process to make it easy for customers to write and submit reviews and to give businesses a cringe-free way to ask for them. Find out more by booking a free discovery call with us.

Tags google ranking factors, search engine optimization, seo, word of mouth

Search Engine Optimization Tips Small Business Marketing

Are you Missing this Important Opportunity to Get More Clients?

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Word of Mouth (WoM) will always be the best form of advertising, but it’s gone digital. If you’re not prioritizing your Google reviews and actively managing your digital reputation, you are missing an important opportunity to be visible and vetted by more clients or customers. Keep reading to learn more about online reviews and how they affect your rankings in Google.

How Google Reviews Can Bring You Clients

When you enter a local search term into Google, three main factors will affect the ranking of each site displayed:

Relevance
Distance
Prominence

The first two ranking factors are explanatory–Google will attempt to present the most relevant options within your immediate vicinity. Makes sense, right?

Reviews, however, fall into the category of prominence. If you searched for “dog groomer” and found one with hundreds of highly rated reviews, that groomer may outrank a closer local competitor if they have fewer, less positive ratings and reviews.

3 Simple Steps to Get More Reviews and Boost Your Rankings

Let’s say you’re one of the many businesses that doesn’t have a ton of reviews. Here are three steps you can take to bump those review numbers and, consequently, your SEO results.

1. Fix Your Listings

“Near me” searches are growing exponentially year after year. With the rise of voice search, they’ll be even more important. It’s estimated that 22% of voice searches are location-based. That’s a big number and growing by the minute.

If you haven’t done so already, claim your Google My Business (GMB) profile. This is your most visible listing, since it will show up every time someone does a search for your business.

It’s incredible how many businesses don’t take this simple step to boost their rankings and online visibility. Some of these businesses still have their old business address and phone number listed and then wonder why they don’t get more phone calls!

If you want to make sure your Google listing (or Yelp, Bing, or any other listing service) is correct, Google your company and see what pops up. If you think you need help fixing it, give us a shout. We update and optimize Google My Business (and other) listings every day.

2. Send Review Requests

Customers trust reviews. The more reviews you have, the better. That’s why it’s important to ask your customers to leave reviews. This is the kind of social proof that future customers will trust and can ultimately encourage them to convert.

To get the best results, make sure you’re sending review requests via text and email. This makes the process easy for the customer. They don’t have to spend time looking for your business or where to post the review. All they have to do is click the link and write about their experience.

Also, there’s no need to feel weird about asking. Happy customers love to help out. Asking can feel awkward, but more for you than for them. Make it easy for them and you’ll get more reviews. If asking directly is still too much for you, GoBeyond has a cringe-proof process in place to get you those reviews without making you blush.

3. Respond to Customer Reviews

Lots of business owners don’t respond to online reviews. That’s a big mistake. A study by Harvard Business School showed that responding to reviews leads to a higher overall star rating.

But the benefits don’t end there. Genuine responses help build loyalty with your customers. A simple “Thanks a ton, we hope to see you soon!” can leave a positive impression in the mind of your customers and encourage them to come back for more.

Google has confirmed that responding to reviews can help your business rank higher on search engines. What’s not to love about that?

Don’t Stress About Getting Reviews

Word of Mouth will always be a factor when it comes to decision making. We’re social creatures and the opinions of others dictate everything from how we behave at the dinner table to how we make our laws. Word of Mouth has not and will never go away, but how we access those opinions has changed permanently.

Don’t stress about the review process. These days, having the occasional bad review is not a business death sentence. The far worse outcome sounds more like this: “Acme Products and Services? Never heard of ‘em”.

Want to automate your review process to make it easier and less painful to get more reviews of your business? Contact GoBeyond SEO to learn more about our process for getting reviews without the hassle.

Tags google my business, google ranking factors, search engine optimization, seo

Marketing

Make Your Marketing Like a Capsule Wardrobe (Hear Us Out)

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Do you find picking out clothes to wear an exhausting process? If so, you’re not alone. Other people find the process of shopping and picking out clothes for the day as exhausting as you do. Barack Obama, Ariana Grande, Michael Kors, Ellen DeGeneres, Richard Branson, Hillary Clinton, Steve Jobs…just to name a few.

What you wear says a lot about you, so you want to make the right decision, but this is also why it can be so time-consuming and tiring. This is why many wealthy and successful people use what’s called a capsule wardrobe.

A capsule wardrobe is a foundational array of key clothing pieces that you wear nearly every day. It mitigates decision fatigue, you’ll know that it fits you, and you can get on with your day.

Fun fact: This is exactly what happens with small business owners and their marketing. They want to put their best foot forward, but the process of dressing their business up is exhausting and expensive.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be. You can create your marketing message as you would a capsule wardrobe.

Create a Foundational Message for Your Business

But wait, you’re asking—wouldn’t creating and delivering a message with a few key pieces just be repeating the same marketing techniques over and over?

Repeating a message is the cornerstone of marketing. This seems obvious enough and yet, many business professionals wonder if they need to be saying the same thing all the time.

So to be clear: yes, you need to repeat your message, but how do you keep people from tuning it out? Won’t people get bored or even resentful hearing the same thing over and over again?

Not necessarily. Here’s how you can dress up that foundational marketing message to help people remember who you are and what you do without being that annoying company that says the same thing every time you hear from them.

3 Ways to Dress Up Your Core Message

Much like creating a capsule wardrobe, coming up with your singular foundational message can be broken down like this:

Speak in a way that resonates with your PERFECT client. Are they cavalier or more buttoned-up? Are they creative or analytical? Are they more conservative or cheeky? Pro Tip: Talk to them in their language, not yours.
Explain your value clearly. In other words, what are you going to do for them? What problem do you solve for them? Be plain. Be clear. Leave no room for interpretation. Pro Tip: Adding a clever or sexy message is much easier with clear language.
Highlight what you do differently. You have the same core message, but you can play it up by highlighting what makes your business unique. Pro Tip: Highlighting what you do differently is a great way to distinguish yourself from the competition.

While this may feel like an oversimplification to some, that’s exactly the point. If you take the time and energy to hammer out your core message, getting creative with your marketing becomes infinitely easier.

Think of the Geico commercials. They repeat their core message over and over. They’ll save you 15% or more on car insurance. Insurance is boring; they make it funny. They come up with off-the-wall ways to demonstrate their message, but at its core, it’s exactly the same.

Not Sure What to Do Next?

Schedule a complimentary strategy session with our marketing professionals at GoBeyond SEO. We can help you define your target audience, create your foundational message, and help you drive that message home to your customers.

Tags content marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, target audience

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