Category: Blog

Why Having a Well-Optimized, SEO Powerful Website is Valuable if You Ever Sell Your Business

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Maybe it’s not in the near future, but as a business owner, positioning your business to sell it for the most value is always in the back of your mind. It’s similar to owning a house. You might love your home and want to cozy up in it as long as possible…but resale is always lurking when you make major homeowner decisions.

If you’ve been in the business game long enough, you know the deal: having a strong online presence is absolutely essential. Part of that is a visually appealing website all those brilliant social media posts link back to.

More important than that, though, is that attention-grabbing, super accessible website needs to be optimized for search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) improves the visibility and ranking of your website in a search engine results page. Having an SEO strategy increases the likelihood that your company will appear towards the top of the results, leading to more traffic.

Bonus points: resale value of the business itself goes up and the eventual selling process is that much easier.

Check out these four reasons why having a well-optimized, SEO powerful website is a must-have when you are preparing to sell your business.

1. Attracts Potential Buyers

When you do decide to sell your business, the goal is to attract buyers who are legitimately interested in acquiring your business.

With a strong SEO strategy, your website will be more visible to those buyers searching online for businesses like yours. The result: you reach a much larger pool of potential buyers, increasing your chances of landing on the perfect fit candidate.

2. Builds Your Business’ Credibility

A website with solid SEO immediately builds trust with those potential buyers. When your website ranks higher in search engine results pages, it gives the impression that your business is both reputable and trustworthy. Sending this type of message can go a long way in attracting more serious buyers willing to invest in your business.

You might have tried PPC (pay-per-click) marketing in the past, with your site appearing towards the top of the rankings as an ad. However, an organic SEO strategy will work to improve the ranking so the site is seen without the word “ad” written next to it. The result: a more reliable reputation.

3. Showcases Your Business’ Unique Strengths

When you optimize your website for specific keywords, you can highlight the strengths and key features of your business that make it stand out from the competition.

Showcasing the business’ unique selling points can help potential buyers gain a better understanding of exactly what your business has to offer, which can motivate them to make the next move.

4. Increases the Value of the Business Overall

By already having implemented an SEO strategy, your business has established:

Strong brand awareness that proves your authority in your industry
A better understanding of customer preferences and online behaviors
Improved overall digital customer experience
The ability to monitor rankings through platforms like Google Analytics

All of this serves as proof to your potential buyer that your business and your brand are strong. Those buyers are more likely to pay a premium, and you will be able to maximize your return on investment.

If you are considering selling your business, or even if you can see the opportunity years from now, it is important to invest in a website with good SEO to ensure you are able to reach the right buyers and get the best possible price for your business.

GoBeyond SEO is a full-service marketing agency specializing in SEO strategy. We are here to answer any questions and guide you in the right direction to build a distinct digital presence. Contact us to book a free strategy session.

Tags search engine optimization, seo, seo for small businesses, seo strategy, seo tips

Blog Marketing

Digital Marketing in Web 3.0: It’s Coming

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I can’t be the only one who remembers waiting for a website to load for 5+ minutes, and when it finally did, the only way you could interact with the site is by scrolling and ingesting all of its content.

The web has come a long way. Now, all the focus is on Web 3.0, a way to decentralize the web, increase privacy for users, and AI-driven services.

As the tech world inches closer to Web 3.0, the digital marketing industry will need to shift along with it. The user experience will become more personalized, and user data more private, so marketing will need to develop more creative strategies to find leads.

What To Expect from Web 3.0

The third phase of the web is focused on three primary components:

It allows users more control over their own experience on the web. They will be able to ensure their usage is more private. The experience will become much more secure for the individual. This is because of the decentralization of the web, meaning no central authority is controlling the web.

In order to create this more personalized experience, there will be an increase in the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to communicate with users. AI will be more able to decipher human data in a usable way.

Blockchain technology will change how transactions over the web work. It uses distributed ledger technology (DLT) to ensure transparent and secure transactions without the use of a third party.

Web 3.0 has a lot of exciting and ground-breaking prospects. You, as the user, will no longer face any restrictions based on income, location, gender, and a slew of other factors when performing transactions. Your identity will be more secure and there will be less server failure, making the web a more comfortable experience overall.

How It Will Impact Your Digital Marketing Strategy

For business owners and digital marketing strategists, this absolutely will force you to change the way you conduct business. No need to worry though – Web 3.0 is still a little ways down the road, so you have time to figure out and develop new strategies.

1. You will need more creative ways to gather user data.

Web 3.0 allows prospective clients to be more protective and private regarding their data. Third-party cookies will no longer be available, so companies will have to get a little more creative when working to determine a target audience and obtaining buyer data to inform decisions.

Instead, companies will need to utilize AI and various other sources to drive decision-making regarding audience and content creation. AI will help businesses to gather data focused on user behavior, and the data that is found from multiple sources will tend to lead to giving the users more personalized experiences.

What you can do now: use multiple metrics to gather user data and become familiar with any helpful AI that comes out.

2. Your content will be more personalized for your customers.

The decentralization of the web will result in more customized and individual user experiences. That means the importance of making engagement with your business a more personal experience will increase. Web 3.0’s use of virtual reality will enable you to give your customers a customized interactive experience.

What you can do now: continue to focus on building strong relationships with your clientele and any potential customers. Make these relationships authentic and genuine in nature. When building content, focus on using what you’ve learned through those relationships to create a personalized experience.

3. You will access a more global client base.

Finances might have kept your business in the past from reaching a more global market. The decentralization of Web 3.0 will make it much easier to connect with customers from all over the world. Your business will have the potential to expand exponentially.

What you can do now: identify potential markets for your business worldwide and the product trends in those locations.

Right now, we are seeing the metaverse expanding and cryptocurrency a regular topic of conversation. Though Web 3.0 is still not there yet, businesses are beginning to prepare for the shift in how they target customers and find quality leads.

Our Predictable Leads System has been proven time and again to help businesses like yours define a target audience using multiple data points, and build an effective digital sales funnel. We are redefining how we do business every day to stay up-to-date with trends and developments in the digital environment. Don’t hesitate to reach out for a free strategy session.

Tags digital marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, small business marketing, web 3.0

Blog SEO Services

Google Analytics and the New GA4

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With so many factors at play with how well our business may be doing on the web, many questions might arise: How do we track how well we’re advertising online? How do we know where to allocate funds or time and energy? Are these investments getting the return that we’re looking for?

In the world of marketing, we know that tracking and analytics is the unsung hero of digital marketing strategy. Google Analytics is one of those ultra-useful tools that can direct your business to a better understanding of your consumer behavior, which can lead to marketing structure changes and ultimately more conversions and more cash in your pocket.

Whether it is why certain videos pop up in our For You Page on Tiktok, what ads we see on Instagram, or the ranking of search results when we’re googling, algorithms determine much of what dictates what we’re seeing online.

It’s essential to optimize the free and available tools to put yourself in the algorithm’s favor.

This is where analytics comes in. With insider knowledge of Google’s analytics system and the new GA4 programming attached with it, GoBeyond’s mission to deliver exceptional digital marketing has us ready to help you understand and optimize using Google Analytics to move your business to the next level.

Digital Analytics: The Basics

The goal of marketing is to get potential users interested, engaged, and then converted to customers. Before the world of the internet, these trends were difficult to identify and articulate. With digital analytics, however, we can track user data and make smarter decisions about the way we show up and engage with consumers online.

Now, with the technology available to us, we can in real-time assess user behavior. By making this information trackable, it becomes predictable. When it becomes predictable, we can control it in our favor. This means a higher return on investment, consumer loyalty, and effective branding without guessing games and throwing paint at a wall to see what sticks. This means more consumers converted to customers and more time.

With Google Analytics, it’s also free.

Google Analytics: What You Need to Know

Google Analytics is a platform that collects data from your apps and sites. From there, it creates detailed reports that give you insights into your business. Specifically, Google Analytics can isolate and track each individual that comes across your organization and tell you information about their experience.

This data can be used to show where marketing is successful, which products or services are garnering people’s attention, how much traffic your site is getting, or the frequency of clicks on a video on your website, among many other things.

There are two major ways Google Analytics functions. The first is Measurement.

With a Google Analytics account and a small piece of code added to your sites, Google Analytics uses a tracking code to determine pseudonymous information about how that user interacted with your page or pages. The measurement code is the data collection feature of Google Analytics. Anything from language to geography to how they got to your site in the first place are all trackable pieces of information to gain insight on who is interested in your business and how they’re engaging with you.

The second part of the Google Analytics system is processing and reporting. Once the measurement code collects the data, it packages that information and organizes it, resulting in reports. These reports can be customized to your goals or interests. Once that data is processed, it is stored in a database that can be viewed in your reports. However, that data will not change. An important facet of Google Analytics is its ability to translate user data as it is, not as you wish it would be. This can be an awakening and empowering step for a business owner.

Data doesn’t lie. A key advantage of using Google Analytics is its objectivity.

For example, if you introduce a new marketing campaign and find that suddenly there is a massive uptick in visits to your site because of that campaign, that is data that is useful to you in creating campaigns in the future. Alternatively, if there is evidence suggesting people viewing your site on a mobile device never make it to the purchase confirmation page, it could be a signal that there is a bug or design flaw in your mobile view.

The data has real world application. The data can change your business.

The New GA4: What’s the Update

GA4 is the newest update that has been rolled out from Google Analytics. If your company has already been implementing Universal Analytics from Google, there is a way to convert over to the most updated version, Google Analytics 4. If you’re looking to stay on the cutting edge of your reporting and to get the most out of your Google Analytics measurements, it’s important to make the switch sooner rather than later.

Here are some key feature updates:

An updated search bar to find the information you’re looking for faster
Added search terms to more easily access the data streams you’re looking for
A feature that allows you to see and manage up to 7 different Google Analytics 4 properties based on search terms
Analyze information about your products or services separately from analyzing important e-commerce interactions
New e-commerce dimensions and metrics
Name changes to be more intuitive and user-friendly

Technology is changing rapidly, all the time. Being on the forefront of the trends and technology updates can save your business its most valuable resource – time.

How We Can Help

You’ve got a lot going on. While the importance of Google Analytics is clear, the nuance of its utilization cannot be understated. If you’re investing all of this time into Google Analytics, it’s clear you care about your business and the data you’re collecting.

If you cannot properly read the reporting on that data or can’t decipher its impacts and application, it can have a counterintuitive impact on your business strategy. A misread of important data can result in a decision pushing your marketing in an antithetical, less profitable direction.

While the reporting and implementation of Google Analytics is accessible to all, the ability to properly use and manage the application will determine its usefulness to you and your business. The Google Analytics program’s success for you is dependent on your goals, strategy, and ability to determine what configurations best suit your company.

Let an expert walk you through it. We’re ready to help you. Contact us for a free call to talk about Google Analytics and other strategies you can use to level up your business.

Tags ga4, google analytics, marketing strategy, seo

Blog Law Firm Marketing Marketing Social Media Social Media Marketing

Choosing the Best Social Media Platform for Your Law Firm

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Determining the best platforms to establish your firm’s social media presence and establishing an effective social media presence may seem overwhelming at first. Here are some effective tips to consider as you begin to develop your firm’s strategy.

Evaluating which platforms are right for your firm follows a process of gathering data, and beginning with 1 or 2 platforms best suited to your defined goals for content delivery and marketing results. Measure your results against stated goals and course correct as you learn what efforts are most effective for your firm.

Gather Industry Data

Learn what works and what doesn’t by conducting competitor research. While evaluating reports and data on highly performing networks, identify similar firms that are successfully using social media strategies and learn from how they use their platforms.

What type of content investments are they making: blogs, legal podcasts, videos, webinars, eBooks?
How are they engaging with users?
What are they doing well?
How would you improve on their efforts?

According to the American Bar Association, law firms continue year after year to prefer LinkedIn as a social media marketing platform. This is because LinkedIn allows lawyers to promote themselves professionally, and because of its popularity within the legal profession.

Facebook follows closely behind, with 62 percent of firms holding a social media presence. This platform allows you to share related trends and articles, advertise to a targeted audience, and engage with followers.

Different platforms offer unique advantages in achieving specific goals. If your primary goal is professional development and networking with other attorneys, LinkedIn is the platform of choice. However, if your goal is community engagement, consider a more personalized network like Instagram or Facebook.

Setting Clear Goals for Social Media Efforts

Setting clear realistic goals around your social media efforts is critical to guiding your strategy and achieving success on your terms. Social media is about cultivating an audience and creating conversation. If your main goal is quick conversions, you will likely be disappointed. Some goals other law firms have in their marketing strategies are:

Professional development and networking (66%)
Maintaining client pipeline (51%)
Education and awareness (49%)
Community engagement (43%)
Case investigation (21%)

Content Delivery

Successful social media presence requires a sustained commitment to consistently create and publish timely, new, relevant content that caters to the interests of your target audiences. Different platforms require various levels of commitment to new content. Some platforms like LinkedIn can yield positive results with only a few short posts a week while others like Instagram require a steady flow of relevant high-quality content to capture users’ attention.

Next, carefully consider your ability to respond quickly to users who engage with your content. This is how you build your audience, network, and increase brand awareness. Responding to comments from two LinkedIn posts a week is a smaller time commitment than remaining in continuous conversation with users on other platforms.

In the beginning, set yourself up for success on one or two platforms and track your results. Gain a solid understanding of how much time you can dedicate to social media content creation, publishing schedules, and user engagement, and then adjust your strategy accordingly. Establishing and managing six different social media accounts on separate platforms is not likely to be successful right out of the gate.

Track Your Results

It is crucial to track and measure your results to learn what is working and what needs course correction. Add your social media accounts to your Google Analytics goals and review the data after your first 3 months. The data will help you discover what type of content is most relevant to users, will cultivate your target audience, and create brand-building conversations.

Firms with clear goals, a steady content flow, and an established presence on at least one platform need to periodically evaluate performance and adjust to maximize success against stated goals.

Use Available Reporting to Increase Investments in Your Highest-Performing Networks

Data will help you discover which platforms and activities deliver tangible results and which ones are a waste of your time. Google Analytics has several reports to help you evaluate the success of your networks and content:

Overview reports – Identifies how many users are converting from social networks
Network referrals – Measures engagement generated by each social platform
Landing pages – Tracks engagement for URLs by platform driving traffic
Conversions – Identifies total conversions by social platform
Plugins – Details how many users clicked your share buttons by platform
Users flow – Maps the path users take through your website by social network

Maximizing Social Media Success

Is your google profile set up to attract your ideal clients? Is your firm’s visibility maximized in search results? Optimize your google profile to bring in more cases with this helpful checklist.

GoBeyond, a full-service marketing agency, is ready to support your practice whether you are new to using social media or an expert practitioner. Contact us to discuss your needs or visit us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Tags law firm marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, social media engagement, social media marketing, social media marketing plan

Blog Local SEO Small Business Marketing

Why It’s Important to Have A Google My Business Profile

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“Google it!” We’ve heard it. We’ve said it. A staple in the cultural zeitgeist, we are all very familiar with Google as consumers. From a business standpoint, the importance of a Google My Business Profile cannot be understated. It is integral for every business; large and small, brick-and-mortar or exclusively online.

You may be curious why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile. Google controls about 92% of the search engine market share across the world. That means if people are searching the web, they’re almost certainly googling. Google connects people to businesses they may normally not have found and connects businesses to decision-makers that can elevate their status from good to great. When considering why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile, consider the impact of starting with trust, being seen, and increasing lead generation.

What is a Google My Business profile?

A Google My Business profile provides you with the ability to list your business and appear in local search results. You can display pertinent information on your business: location, hours of operation, and contact details. A link to your website can be listed and attract web traffic. There are even features available to link upcoming events or articles. With a Google My Business profile, you choose how you are seen in Google search and maps and can even accept online orders.

Plus… it’s free!

Start with Trust

When people are searching your business, knowingly or otherwise, they are beginning their relationship with your business. One of the reasons why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile, is to be in control of your first impression.

It can be frustrating to receive mixed messages from a business, especially after a simple introduction. When information is difficult to find, incoherent, or inconsistent, it turns away potential leads from engaging further or turns away potential customers seeking your goods or services.

There is also the possibility that your business does not get fair or accurate information posted online. Without claiming your Google My Business profile, you will not be notified of reviews of your business or any information that is listed that is inaccurate or outdated.

By having a Google My Business profile, you get to speak for yourself. You can visit your profile anytime to edit or see how many people have seen or clicked on your listing. There is even a question and answer feature that can connect you with your community. What better way to start a relationship of trust and competence than with being available and transparent with people from the second they’ve found you in a search.

Start with trust. Build a reputation for being clear, informative, and up-to-date as a business.

Be Seen

With the Google algorithm being directly linked to your company’s SEO, a Google My Business Profile puts you in a position to improve your likelihood of being seen just by optimizing your profile. With a Google My Business profile, your reviews and location improve your likelihood of being seen.

When questioning why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile, an immediate asset is the ability to be seen in Google Maps. More and more search queries are based on geography. This makes sense. With the immediacy of information available in search engines like Google, searching “restaurant near me” or “law office near me” is an efficient and concise way of searching to get relevant results. Whether or not you know it, you’re being shown businesses first that have a Google My Business profile. In fact, it’s got a cyclical benefit. A Google Business Profile improves your local SEO. A local business listing is more likely to appear when people search using Google maps.

Engaging with feedback from your community is another reason why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile. With a profile, you are able to see, respond, and contact people who leave you reviews. Reviews add to your credibility as a business. While branding yourself with legitimacy is integral to successfully running a business, reviews also benefit your SEO. The Google algorithm favors this and it highers your ranking in search results. Simply put, reviews on your Google My Profile listing improve your likelihood of being seen.

Improve your SEO

Google uses vivid phrases and keywords to help users find businesses in search results. Like traditional website SEO, implementing these keywords and relevant phrases in your content improves your visibility. Therefore it is increasingly important to add keywords that match your business and services to help potential clients find your business in all places possible – your business description, your comments, and your posts. The algorithm favors the specific. Take advantage of the profile tools like Question & Answer, Messaging, and GMB posts to consistently put yourself in the best position to be seen.

The importance of your search engine result page rank increases daily. More and more people are becoming less and less likely to keep scrolling and instead choose to click and engage with top results.

That is the difference between making a connection, completing a sale, or doing business.

To conclude

As our world becomes more insular and our online activity becomes increasingly targeted toward our habits, it’s integral for businesses to stay current on all of the opportunities available to them to gain and maintain people’s attention. With Google’s ever present impact on our daily lives, it is essential to think seriously about the benefits your company can garner from starting with trust, being seen, and improving your SEO with a Google My Business profile. All of this is at your fingertips when you make a profile with a few simple clicks, totally for free.

When considering why it’s important to have a Google My Business Profile, remember you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Make an account today.

Tags google my business, search engine optimization, seo

Blog Content Marketing Law Firm Marketing Social Media Social Media Marketing

The Importance of Using Social Media for Law Firms

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A robust social media presence is a necessity today for thriving up-and-coming law firms. Social media strategies are used to establish brand awareness, connect firms with their ideal clients, drive traffic to your website, and generate sales.

Here is what to consider when making the decision to incorporate social media into your marketing strategy.

Increasing Brand Awareness

Law firms have always strived to get their brands in front of the largest audience possible. The primary platform to reach a targeted audience was once newspapers, and then it migrated to television and billboards.

To meet your audience where they are today, your firm needs a robust social media presence. According to a recent survey, 38 percent of people looking for an attorney check online first. Maintaining a consistent social media presence keeps you top of mind (and top of search results) when users are looking for legal help.

Humanizing Your Firm’s Brand

Incorporating social media into your marketing strategy helps to bring your firm’s culture to life by showcasing who you are and what you are passionate about. You can include features like personal stories about your team members and updates on notable events you have attended. That way, your followers will feel as if they know you and, when they need you, you will already feel like a trusted partner.

Connecting and Engaging with Your Ideal Clients

Social media is an effective tool for identifying and reaching your specific target audience. The platforms you select create a place for users to follow your firm and engage with your content as well as to stay informed on topics of interest and trending legal news. You are consistently working to build relationships with potential clients in a more organic way.

Driving Traffic to Your Website and Generating Sales

Using social media strategically generates quality leads for law firms and accelerates results from other sales and marketing efforts. Platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram can be used to encourage potential clients to take an action like visiting your website. LinkedIn followers do not always convert to cases, but if you share a link to a timely blog post, many followers will click through to your website to read it and, in doing that, learn more about your law firm.

Effective Use of Social Media Creates Competitive Advantages for Growing Law Firms

Is your google profile set up to attract your ideal clients? Is your firm’s visibility maximized in search results? Optimize your google profile to bring in more cases with this helpful checklist. An effective online presence and social media strategy creates competitive advantages by improving your firm’s visibility, credibility, relatability, and connection to an audience of ideal prospective clients cultivated for conversion.

GoBeyond, a full-service marketing agency, is ready to answer any questions and support your practice whether you are new to using social media or an expert practitioner. Contact us to discuss your needs and visit us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Tags content marketing, law firm marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, social media marketing

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

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

Blog How We Can Help SEO Services Small Business Marketing Small Business SEO

How To Get More Business Using Search Console: Our Best Google Search Console Tips

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Search Console is a free tool from Google designed to help you understand how Google views your website. It provides insights into the health and overall performance of your site on Google.

If you’ve never used Search Console then the description above probably sounds really boring. But don’t worry, it gets more interesting! Search Console is an incredible tool for getting more high quality traffic to your website. And that translates into more sales with less effort.

Google Search Console Tips

In this article we’ll unpack 4 ways you can use Search Console to improve your visibility in Google. And outperform your competitors for high value search terms. And as you already know, the stronger your site performance, the more business flows your way.

1. Page Level Optimization

Search Console can tell you how many organic searches every page on your website received, and how many people clicked through to that page.

This is powerful information! And here’s an easy way to put it to good use.

You know your top pages are already getting lots of love from Google. And when you think about it, it’s a lot easier to boost a page that’s already doing well than it is to boost one that’s way down in the search results. So with just a few minutes of effort you can potentially get your top pages to drive even more traffic to your site.

First, find the keywords that are generating traffic for your high performing page. You can do this by opening the Performance Report and setting the date filter to 3 months.

In the Performance Report select the Pages tab and click on your top performing page.

Next, click the Queries tab. You should see what keywords are driving your results for that page. More often than not, your top 1 or 2 keywords make up the bulk of your search clicks.

Finally, optimize your page around the phrase that is driving the bulk of your results. Since you know what Google thinks your page is a good fit for your keyword, you can slip related phrases into your text. Google can process natural language, so write naturally around your target phrase.

As long as you are careful not to over optimize your content (ie keyword stuff) then you should see significant gains in your search results for your target keyword. Be sure to save a copy of the original text. If you experience a decline in your ranking you can simply revert to your previous copy.

2. Directed Links

Optimizing your best pages around high performing keywords works great. But sometimes your competition is just too strong to beat the easy way. But that doesn’t mean you can’t win.

One of Google’s top ranking signals is backlinks pointing to your website. When someone cites your page as a positive influence on their own work, Google attributes more authority to your content.

Search Console has already given you two key pieces of information. You know exactly what pages are performing well on your website. And you know what keywords are driving the results for that page.

This is gold!

Use this information to build additional backlinks to these high performing pages. Good backlinks can only drive your search results higher. Link building isn’t always easy, but Search Console improves your chances of getting backlinks to the exact pages you want to promote.

In the left side menu select Links. Then in the upper right side of the report click to Export External Links. Now you have a list of companies that are predisposed to support your brand. Send the list to a b2b data company and they’ll prepare a list of names and emails so you can reach out. Thank them for their previous support and see if they’d be open to a guest post or infographic. Since they’ve supported you in the past there’s a good chance they’ll do so again.

When you create your links use variations of your target keyword as the anchor text. This will further reinforce to Google that your page is the best result for that particular query.

3. Optimize Your Paid Campaigns

It’s worth noting that Search Console can be linked to both Google Ads and Analytics to extend the utility of both platforms.

If you are using Google Ads then you are almost certainly using Google’s Keyword Planner to select keywords you want to bid on. But what if there was a better way?

Keyword Planner shows you popular search terms related to your topic.
Search Console shows you the ACTUAL phrases people are using to search for your solutions. And that’s SO much better. You can see what phrases potential customers are using. Add those terms to your ‘exact match’ keyword lists. This will reduce your bidding costs, and help you find customers you otherwise would have missed.

4. If It Ain’t Broke… Check Anyway

The easiest way to gain market share from your competitors is to have a website that fully complies with Google’s best practices. After all, the better Google likes what you are doing, the more likely they are to send search traffic your way.

But how do you know what Google actually expects from your website?

Great question! And fortunately it’s one that Google has already answered. In Search Console, on the left side menu you’ll see two important tabs. The first is Experience and the second is Security and Manual Actions.

The Security And Manual Actions tab is exactly what it sounds like. You’ll see if Google has identified any issues that prevent them from sharing your pages in the search results. For example, if they think a link on your page leads to a suspicious page they won’t want to risk searchers having access to that link. And your page or whole site could get blocked.

The Experience tab has three sections – Page Experience, Core Web Vitals, and Mobile Usability.

The Page Experience and Core Web Vitals reports are available to help you improve your website experience for your visitors. The reports summarize how your pages perform in real world visits. For example, are your pages secure or loading quickly. Overall experience is important because if Google believes your website has a poor user experience they’ll deprecate your search ranking. Note that smaller websites don’t have enough visitors to generate enough data for a report to be created.
The Mobile Usability tab works for all sites. Google will tell you if there are any issues that need to be fixed for mobile users to have a good experience on your site. This tab is SUPER IMPORTANT because Google has moved to a ‘mobile first’ approach. If your site performs well on small devices then you’ll outperform sites that aren’t as well optimized.

Information Is A Revenue Catalyst

Search Console is valuable because it tells you everything you need to know to improve your search traffic.

You’ll receive insights about what Google thinks about your site. For example, any mobile compatibility issues or security problems. And what pages on your website are indexed, and which are being ignored.

Even better, Search Console provides detailed information about how people are interacting with your site. You can export a list of search terms that are driving visitors to your site. And also see what phrases people are looking for in your niche.

All this information is there to help you make better decisions about your website. The better you apply the lessons Search Console has to offer, the more traffic and subsequent sales you’ll enjoy.

—

Matthew Murray is the director of Sales Higher, a B2B lead generation firm. Sales Higher grinds through the data so you can focus on landing deals.

Tags google search console tips, search console

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