Local Search Results vs. Global Search Results

Posted: Thursday, April 19th, 2012 by | Filed under: , , , ,
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A common question raised among our clients is “how do the search engines determine between local search or global search?” In other words, how do search engines know what you’re looking for? Do they really know the difference between “wedding” and “wedding nj”?

Google Search

If your keyword can be identified as global or local, the next thing search engines will look at is your intent. If your search is localized or can be considered localized, the search engine will deliver local results. If you’re searching “wedding,” the search engine may go either way, delivered local results in the Google local section, but maybe delivering broad websites in organic results.Well, one of the first things search engines look into at is your location. Search engines will identify your location and whether or not your keyword combination has any local intentions. In Google, you can set your location settings accurately or to where you intend on have a “wedding.” If you set your location settings to a more broad setting (ie: United States) you will get more broad results.

Search engines will also crawl data and reference other searches you’ve conducted to try and relate them to your current search. Aside from your search history, search engines will aggregate information and data from other users to try and best pinpoint what your intent is. How frequent is your keyword combination used? Are other users looking for local or global results? How many clicks on Google local were there based on this search combination? And so on and so forth. Read more …

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Local Mobile Search

Posted: Saturday, December 10th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

We’ll wrap up our discussion on mobile SEO by going into finer detail about how exactly mobile SEO is changing the landscape of web marketing. With desktop sites, scale plays a major role in page ranking and search relevance. However, with mobile sites, this is no longer the case. More importance is given to proximity of location or vertical business/product/service category suitability. That is, no longer do big brand names/chain stores have an automatic advantage in results pages. For example, in terms of mobile queries, Sally’s Organic Groceries Shop now has just as much of a chance in a local search results page as does Whole Foods. Local mobile search opens more doors for businesses of all shapes and sizes, so if you are just starting out and want to get noticed, you’ll definitely want to optimize your mobile site so that you can start taking advantage of the perks local searches can grant to smaller businesses. In addition, another helpful content marketing suggestion for mobile devices/smartphones is to submit your site to places that are responsible for a lot of mobile traffic (such as the most relevant directories).

One of the best SEO tips for mobile devices is to make sure that your site is easily accessible and clear. It is imperative that your site be crawlable at the code level. Did you use the correct robots.text file instructions? Are you using Flash? Are all of the pages you want indexed stored in the public domain? These are things that any SEO would ask when optimizing a desktop website, and mobile sites are no different. Read more …

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Writing for a Website

Posted: Saturday, November 12th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Copywriting is very important for any online marketing and involves strategically implementing words that get readers to follow and perform some type of action (ex: click this link, call to schedule an appointment, etc). As discussed over and over, SEO and web design work well together and there’s no reason why SEO copywriting shouldn’t be part of the web design process.

SEO copywriting is writing web page copy that is not only appealing and interesting for readers, but also ranks well for targeted keywords and terms that people are searching for in the search engines. SEO copywriting isn’t used in traditional marketing (for obvious reasons), but there are still many similarities between copywriting for a website versus copywriting for traditional marketing.

When copywriting for a website, it’s important to incorporate valuable keywords into the copy. Readers are most likely going to find your website (and copy) through search engines by using specific keywords. In traditional marketing, keywords don’t hold much value. Read more …

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Title Tag Optimization

Posted: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Welcome back to the second segment of our series on making sure your website isn’t losing out on any of its own important SEO hotspots. Last time we talked about why it’s so important to embed the right keywords into your web pages. Today we’ll discuss the second checkpoint:

2) Are you using keyword-rich title tags?

Are you using keywords in your title tags? It seems almost too obvious, but we feel it is worth saying again because too often new businesses will launch websites with their web pages inappropriately (or should we say, ineffectively) labeled as “page1” or their company’s name. If you’re looking to improve your web marketing and get noticed on the web, then you should make sure that your title pages use some of the keywords that you’re targeting.

Another benefit of having descriptive title tags is that it’ll help users (and yourself) navigate through your site. Ideally, you will spread your services/products across several pages. Make each page distinct, and if you can, try to put only one product/service per page. You should never clump all your products/services together on one page. Doing so dilutes the relevance of your page in the eyes of search engine crawlers. In addition, making each web page focus on only one type of product/service will naturally lead to the use of more keywords on those pages, and this will only help you in terms of content marketing. Read more …

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SEO Keyword Strategy

Posted: Monday, October 10th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

A lot of factors go into search engine optimization, including the design of your website. Check out the following checklist to see if your website needs a few touch-ups to get the most SEO benefits. Are you making sure that you’re…

1) Using the best SEO keywords on your web pages?

2) Using keyword-rich title tags?

3) Minimizing your reliance on Flash?

4) Optimizing your homepage for web marketing purposes?

Let’s talk about the first checkpoint. All SEO companies will tell you that keyword research is a crucial preliminary step towards improving your search engine ranking. However, a lot of times people that are new to internet marketing get distracted by the immediate data offered by keyword analysis tools.

For example, say you just opened your own boutique store and are interested in working content marketing into your business plan. If you care about improving your SEO, then using a keyword analysis tool is definitely a step in the right direction. However, the tool itself is only half of the equation. You, or the SEO company that you hire, make up the other half. Tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool can provide you with lots of useful information about your competition as well as how many global/local searches are made for those keywords. But it is up to you (or your SEO) to figure out what keywords to type in and analyze. If you type in “jewelry boutique shop,” you’ll find interesting data about the competition for that keyword, but it won’t be very helpful to you because 1) the competition for that keyword is very high, making it unlikely that you’ll be able to rank on the first page in a semi-timely manner, and 2) you’re better off targeting other keywords that are more likely to lead to conversion. After all, someone searching for “gold custom bracelet milburne, NJ” is probably more likely to convert and make a purchase than someone who looks up “jewelry boutique shop.” The point of SEO is not to attract more traffic to your site for traffic’s sake. The point is to drive in the right type of traffic that will lead to conversion and more revenue for your business. Read more …

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Local Marketing for Cosmetic Spas

Posted: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

We’ve already talked about the importance of having a website for your cosmetic, medical health spa business, but in order for your website to be effective towards your local market, you should consider local SEO. Building a local SEO campaign around your business will help you reach your customers and potential customer through web searches.

One of the first steps in any SEO campaign is to research target keywords. For any type of spa, depending on the services you offer, you can build your campaign around the most popular and most searched for topics. Let’s use Botox for example. If your spa offers Botox, most likely you have some information about the services on your website. For local customers to find your business and website, you should incorporate geography into your web copy.

Search engines crawl through millions of websites daily and try to find the most relevant content for the search. Local SEO helps you target the area in which you service and builds your ranking based on searches. If your cosmetic spa in NJ has built an SEO campaign using local SEO, you can target your local customers. When a search is conducted for “Botox northern NJ,” your spa should appear in search results. Based on the specifics and the towns you want to cover, the same keywords can be incorporated. Use specific towns around the specific services you want to focus on.

Using social networking and local SEO together can also optimize your website. Many customers are on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter looking for information and opinions. Having your spa participating in discussions will also bring attention to your business. By using these platforms as a web marketing effort, you can build your online presence and overall business presence while promoting your spa to your local customers (and beyond!)

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How to Choose a Keyword for a Dermatologist Website

Posted: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Dermatology is an industry that offers a number of services, such as Botox, chemical peels, acne treatment, skin resurfacing and many others. All of these dermatology procedures are especially popular in New Jersey. When working on designing a website and implementing SEO into the content throughout the site, it’s important to do extensive keyword research. So, how do you choose keywords for a dermatologist?

Beyond the obvious, keywords referred to as local SEO keywords; include a geographical keyword/tag in the phrase. For example: “chemical peels northern NJ” would be a common phrase searched for in search engines. What’s important for businesses like dermatology is to dig deeper and use specifics. Local SEO is very important for any local business and geography is a large portion of what’s use by search engines to yield results. Combine general keywords, such as acne treatment, eczema, and others with a city, county, region, state or town.

When writing content for a website, you don’t want to go too big that search engines can’t distinguish which services you offer and which areas you service. Local SEO involves a lot of time and effort. As a dermatologist, it’s important to identify what areas are strongest for your business and what services you want to target. Focus on the top ten or top five and then go from there. Once you’ve decided on those, you can rank them on importance and begin the process. Read more …

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Email Subject Line Best Practices

Posted: Monday, August 29th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Knowing all the areas you need to cover in your email newsletter marketing campaign will give you the most value from your work. Once you’ve had a chance to evaluate the focus areas of your email, it’s important to craft an effective subject line. The subject line is almost as important as the content laid out in your email. It gives your customers a quick overview of what type of content is in your email.

An effective subject line will prompt your audience to open your email. It’s important to give your readers a peak at what’s inside through the subject line. Marketing with email is strategic and writing a subject line is tough.

There are some challenges that come with crating an effective subject line. Most email programs only display a certain number of characters (usually between thirty and fifty). This gives you a limited amount of space for your subject line. Aside from space allowance, your subject line needs to be catchy and intriguing – something that will cause your reader to open your email. Keep these things in mind when creating a subject line:

Theme: Most newsletter marketing campaigns are designed around a theme. Your email will most likely stay within a certain theme, which means your subject line should stay within that theme as well. Read more …

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Effective Email Marketing Strategy

Posted: Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

After recognizing the value and ROI of retention newsletter marketing campaigns, you’re ready to build an effective internet marketing strategy. It’s important to plan ahead and build out your campaign so you’re prepared for what’s to come. A few things to keep in mind for your marketing strategy:

Setting Objectives

Be sure your customers can act on your newsletter marketing campaigns. What do you want them to do? There’s no doubt you want your business to make money from any type of marketing, but think strategically. What do you want to put in your emails? Certain product/promotion you want to push? How often will you be sending emails? To whom are you sending emails?

Segment Your Email Addresses

By dividing your email list can be beneficial to both you and your customers. Instead of building a broad email newsletter marketing campaign, divide your list into segments and build smaller, more targeted newsletters based upon similar customer interests, demographics, or other behavioral characteristics. More defined segments can result in better email response.

Planning Your Email Campaign Read more …

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Importance of Keyword Placement

Posted: Friday, June 10th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

The next step in the SEO process is keyword placement. It is important to realize that stuffing your site with keywords (a.k.a. high keyword density) will not help you with SEO as much as proper keyword placement (in fact, jam-packing your site with keywords can actually hurt you). To get the most out of search engine marketing, you will need to be strategic about where you place your keywords within the individual pages of your website.

First, you’ll want to insert keywords in your

Although SEO keyword placement strategies may appear rather technical/formulaic, it is important to keep in mind the artistic side of web marketing. You can’t artificially sprinkle keywords throughout your content because that will raise suspicion and search engines will most likely flag it as spam. More importantly, if you intentionally clog your content with keywords, your viewers will most likely notice and leave. Although this is common sense, you’d be surprised at how many people get so caught up in the “science” of SEO that they forget that the whole point is to appeal to their human viewers! Read more …

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