Category: Search Engine Optimization

Social Media And SEO

5 Ways Social Media and SEO Work Together

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media

While Social Media might not impact your search ranking directly, a robust social media marketing strategy will still have a significant impact on your SEO. When utilizing the right strategies as part of your posts on social media, you can increase your search engine ranking, visibility, and make it easier for your customers to find your page. 

  1. Social Sharing – Social media allows you to spread the word about your content to a wider audience than you normally would be able to reach by means of search engines alone. When you create high-quality content, you naturally are encouraging your customers to interact with it, share it with their friends and followers, and eventually create a wide net of enhanced visibility. Over the course of time, you’ll find that your social media channels will increase your overall reach, in turn, helping boost your rankings in the search engines.
  2. Increase Brand Awareness –  The way in which your customers view your brand is vital and social media can help expand on that. When sharing information about your brand on social media you connect your brand to your industry. When interested searchers are looking for more information about the products and services you offer, they’re more likely to search for your company directly.
  3. Reaching a Mobile Audience – Google and other search engines recognize the importance of social media in providing the content that customers are looking for. In turn, they’re giving searchers information from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms when they come looking for content. Google has even gone to the likes of partnering with Twitter to improve index searching and increase visibility for many customers. This makes your Twitter posts even more important for raising brand awareness for your company. 
  4. Online Reviews – As we know by now, online reviews are such a critical part of building your search engine presence. Through social media, you can encourage customers to easily leave those critical reviews, increasing your brand presence. The customers of today are looking for social proof: the information from other customers online that you are as legitimate as your online presence says you are. High-quality reviews can bring more customers to your business, while poor reviews will turn customers away before they even have a chance to get to know you. 
  5. Building Relationships – This is one of, if not the most important aspects of this whole process. When you build a relationship with your followers through social media, they’re more likely to turn to your website for their questions and concerns. More visitors to your website will improve your search ranking. By focusing on building a relationship with your followers on social media, you can simultaneously increase brand awareness,  improve your connection to your audience and, in turn, increase your conversions. 

Your social media channels are way more than just a vehicle for directing customers to your website, it is a critical part of your SEO strategy. Working on growing both sides hand in hand makes it easier to bring in organic search results and in turn, create more satisfied customers.

If you need help with your Social Media or SEO, contact our digital marketing experts at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm in Melbourne FL. We have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking as well as making engaging content for your social channels. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a marketing strategy with one of our highly skilled marketing professionals. 

Google Showing Fewer Reviews in Search Results

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

The statistics have come in from numerous Google Search Tracking Tools that Google’s algorithm update has been the catalyst for a drop in the number of search results that display stars under the search result snippet. Earlier this week, Google announced their update would “tighten the rules” around when a review rich result is shown for a snippet.

How much of a drop you ask? This depends on what tool you are looking at, but the drop is somewhere between 3 to 5 points in the number of times a review rich result would show. 

We should care about this change because if your pages on your site show review rich results, i.e. the stars, in the search results, then you probably want to make sure they continue to show these stars. The way to aid in the process of keeping your stars is to make sure your pages and schema markup comply with the new rules Google has laid out. You should be okay you are already following these rules. If you notice your review rich results disappear today or in the near future, just know it is likely related to this new algorithmic update. 

Luckily, there is nothing to fear if you follow the rules or have a great Marketing team on your side. If you don’t have Marketing professionals you can trust to keep your review rich results in the search results, contact the professionals at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm! We specialize in SEO in Melbourne FL and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy for SEO with one of our professional and highly skilled SEO specialists.

ppc agency melbourne fl

Hire a PPC Agency For your Google Ads or Do It Yourself

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization

As you well know, Google is the largest search engine on the internet, hands down. There are millions of businesses in every industry (Plumbers, Dentists, etc) that are doing their best to gain the attention of their potential customers as well as dominating the competition. One of the best ways to do this is by implementing a Google Ads campaign. In the beginning, you as a business owner may want to create and launch your Google Ads campaign on your own. Later down the road, you find out that you are paying a lot of money for clicks and conversions and you may not have the time and energy to monitor your campaigns plus working on your offline sales. This is where hiring a PPC Agency Melbourne FL can help you. In this post, we’ll provide you with some reasons why hiring a PPC agency is better to manage your pay per click campaigns instead of managing them yourself.

You Will Save Yourself Time Hiring a PPC Agency Melbourne FL

Time is the greatest resource that everyone has in their arsenal but your time it is limited. We only have 24 hours in a day and if you’re running your business, to gain massive success, you have to use your time wisely. Instead of managing a Google Ads Campaign, you can outsource it to PPC professionals who manage multiple campaigns on a daily basis and understands the complexity of the platform. You can then focus on business strategy and the sales that matter most.

Experience Matters

When you have no experience managing a Google Ads campaign you can end up spending a lot of money quickly with little results. Google is not in the business to help you make money. Google is in the business to make money itself. Google provides Google Ads, a marketing tool, that only when used correctly really directs it’s energy properly towards the set marketing goals. This is where experience comes into play. Understanding what works and what doesn’t work can save you hundreds of dollars when selecting keywords. Because of the cost associated with mistakes, you will want planning to go into the keyword selection for your Google Ads. Choosing someone with experience matters more then you might know.

Summary

Google is the largest search engine on the internet and millions of businesses are doing their best to gain the attention of their potential customers. One of the best ways to do this is by implementing a Google Ads campaign. Hiring a PPC Agency Melbourne FL like The AD Leaf ® can help you tremendously. There are many reasons why hiring a PPC agency is better to manage your pay per click campaigns instead of managing them yourself so why wait? Call us now @ (321) 255.0900 or fill out our contact form.

 

Social Media Marketing

Quora: The Marketers Guide to the Internet

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Content Writing, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media

We have entered the digital age and the rest of the world has quickly followed suit. While more traditional forms of advertising such as billboards and print ads still exist, marketing has by and large moved into the digital space, changing our entire approach with it. How can we make use of this limitless information at our fingertips when trying to market our business? Offer it! The digital world allows marketers and business owners the unique privilege of connecting with their potential customers like never before, and there is no better way to do this than with online forums like Quora.

Quora is an information focused question and answer forum for anything and everything on the internet. With over 300 million monthly visitors and over 400,000 topics (sprout social) Quora can be used for anything from keeping up with the latest trends for social media marketing to keeping a healthy vegetable garden.  What does this have to do with marketing? For starters, you’re trying to market a business online, so is everyone else, so why do it alone? Use your resources! Are you having trouble navigating your software or social media platforms new interface? Someone else probably is too and there is an answer for that. Trying to figure out how to replicate that ad you saw on Facebook? Quora can point you to a resource. With the world more connected than ever, there is nothing you can’t learn online.

With how easy it is to offer and trade information, there is a myriad of answers to any topic online, but reliable sources can seem hard to come by. Be sure you’re being pointed in the right direction with Quora. Similar to other forum based sites like Reddit, Quora operates using an upvote and downvote system. This is an easy way to tell how reputable and helpful your sources are at a glance. The more helpful answers you provide, the more upvotes you receive and the more credible your answer becomes. These upvotes and downvotes don’t just stop at your post either. Build out a profile on Quora to keep not only all of your questions and answers in one place, but all of your upvotes too. Provide consistently helpful answers on a topic, and your profile will build a credible reputation and a reliable source of information. Soon, people will be searching up your profile, and looking to you as an industry resource for marketing, vegetable growing, anything!     

So our world is more connected, and people can communicate and share ideas like never before, but the question still stands, what does that mean for marketers? It means that you can connect with your audience like never before. The opportunity to connect with your audience on forums like quora gives marketers and business owners a unique insight to their audience. So get to know them. What questions are they asking? What do they want to know about your business or your industry? Quora gives you the opportunity to keep a close eye on exactly what your audience is interested in, and then gives you the opportunity to get writing. Stay updated on topics with the tracking and searching feature, and speak to your audience directly. Remember: If people are asking, it’s worth writing about, so don’t stop there. Establish you and your business on Quora, then establish you and your website as a resource. Demonstrate your knowledge in your industry by writing blogs, frequently asked questions pages, and other exciting and informative content that will keep your audience engaged and coming back. 

Getting started on Quora is completely free, and if it’s not part of your strategy, your missing out on the social part of social media marketing. Get started talking in your industry, and start building some credibility around you and your brand. Set up your profile to reflect you and your business, and begin delivering value to your to your audience like never before.  

Adjustments Are Made To Google’s Algorithm when a Real World Crisis is Occurring

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

In light of recent events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, as well as other crises, Google has just made it known that they have again made algorithm changes. In response to these real-life crises, Google’s algorithm can now recognize when a bad event is taking place.

When that said event is taking place, Google will increase the weight of “authority” signals in an effort to surface the most accurate information about the crisis occurring. With the rise in school shootings in the US being noted as a reason for the algorithm update it makes sense as during these times of panic, there is a lot of misinformation that spreads. Google’s motive is to slow the snowball effect of misinformation rather than to remove it from search engine results completely.

 

Pandu Nayak, a senior engineer at Google, explains that ridding the individual pages does nothing for the actual misinformation problem.

“… what we really want to do is to go down and understand why this problem occurred in the first place. Like, what was that in our algorithms that caused this problem to occur? And you get to the heart of the problem, you fix that, and now, even if you don’t solve the whole iceberg, you solve a large part of the iceberg.”

 

Moving forward, Google will serve results from the most authoritative sources as determined by its quality raters when searching for information about a crisis that is currently unfolding. For example, with the recent earthquakes that have been occurring in California, Google would boost the authoritative breaking news articles for searches related to earthquakes, as opposed to informational, evergreen articles about the subject. Once a crisis has subsided, Google’s search algorithm will return to normal.

Now that you know that your rankings didn’t take a nosedive and that you are just being pushed down the rankings because of the current natural disaster, contact the professionals at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm! We specialize in SEO in Melbourne FL and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy for SEO with one of our professional and highly skilled SEO specialists.

Surviving Google Algorithm Updates for SEO Specialists

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Content Writing, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Google algorithm Updates

 

 

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of SEO specialist quite like Google algorithm updates. Ever since Google started rolling out huge algorithm updates, marketers have lived in perpetual fear that the next algorithm update will be the one to kill all of their traffic and send their website and all their hard work into the abyss. While it’s easy to fall into this way of thinking, these updates aren’t as scary as most people like to think. Did you know that Google updates or changes its search algorithm 300-500 times each year?  That means that Google’s search algorithm is being updated at least once per day and you don’t even notice! Here are three things you can do to make sure your website doesn’t suffer like most during large updates.

1. Don’t Panic

The number 1 thing people do wrong when it comes to algorithm updates is panic! They rush into making changes to their website including using outdated SEO practices like keyword stuffing, throw a lot of money into advertising, and sometimes they even redesign their entire website. The worst thing you can do is immediately try to dissect how you can “improve” your website based on what you think an algorithm update means. You need to stay calm, intelligently look over the update notes, and proceed to step #2.

2. Listen to Google Algorithm Update Notes

In the world of SEO specialists, it shouldn’t surprise you to know that one of the best ways to survive a Google algorithm update is to do what Google says! I know it sounds pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised how many companies don’t realize the amount of information Google has available for you. From general website advice to giving SEO suggestions, everything they offer is dedicated to making your website better and outperforming the competition. 

3. Seek Professional Help

Feeling overwhelmed by Google algorithm updates is normal, but those feelings should not take your attention away from your business. Getting help from professional SEO specialists who make it their business to ensure that your website is up to date and ranks well. It is a worthwhile investment that will help you maintain a strong online presence as you continue to focus on growing your company.

Though sometimes it can seem like Google is your mortal enemy, the goals of an SEO specialist and the search engine are actually the same. We strive to serve meaningful content to interested audiences. So, if you are creating content that has your readers in mind, a Google algorithm update won’t affect you as much because you are providing content that users want to read. Google’s main focus is to provide the information users need and want as fast ad reliably as possible. You may see temporary fluctuations in traffic but it isn’t a cause for concern or a reason to panic. If your target continues to be the focus of the content you are creating, traffic will stabilize after a hiccup or two after the Google algorithm update.

 

Don’t follow your first instinct and panic when a new Google algorithm update is released. By staying away from bad habits, you can get through this update mostly unscathed. Now that you know what to do and what not to do when a new Google algorithm update is released, its time to follow step #3 and contact the professional at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm! We specialize in this field and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy for SEO with one of our professional and highly skilled SEO specialists.

Interactive Experiences with Google Display Ads

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization

As technology continues to advance, Google is looking to provide more advanced ad tools for Google Display Ads. Google is introducing a new Google display ad format, called Swirl, that allows users to interact with 3D objects embedded in display ads. Digital marketers can utilize their 3D models and assets to produce ads that engage users by letting them rotate the object, zoom in and out, and potentially start an animation.

Google Display AdsSwirl is a new immersive display ad format available on Display & Video 360. Users can explore every angle of a product by rotating the 3D model in all directions and interacting from their device as if the product was in their hands. Google shared an example from a cosmetics company called Guerlain that created a 3D ad for one of its perfume fragrances. They used Swirl to draw people’s attention and let them interact with the perfume bottle directly and learn more about the scent by interacting with an additional link in the display ad. In this example, we can see how every interaction with the bottle creates another opportunity to provide the viewer with more information about the product. Swirl Google display ads were created for mobile devices to utilize their touch control features but these ads can still be displayed on desktop computers.

Many consumers look to YouTube creators for help when deciding on new products to purchase because they tend to give their actual opinion and brands have long been teaming up with creators to connect with their audiences. Now, brands and creators can make that experience even more personalized and useful for viewers with the help of another ad type utilizing augmented reality (AR).

M·A·C Cosmetics is the first brand to partner with the company FameBit to launch an AR Beauty Try-On campaign. Using this new format, brands like M·A·C will be able to tap into YouTube’s creator community, to help sell their products with virtual product testing.

Now that you know more about how Google is improving its ads functionality, its time to put it to use. We specialize in this field and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your Google display ads campaign. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy for PPC in Melbourne FL.

SEO in Melbourne FL

How Firefox Privacy Updates Are Affecting Your SEO In Melbourne FL

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media

New Updates

If you haven’t been up to date with news in the tech world, Mozilla has now updated their latest browser, Firefox, and advertisers aren’t too fond of the changes and severely affecting SEO in Melbourne FL and everywhere else. After more than a year of ratcheting up their privacy protections, Firefox now blocks website cookies that can lead advertisers to track you across the web by default. This comes after a 2018 announcement that they were going to be doing this through their enhanced tracking protection (ETP).

If you aren’t up to speed on what cookies are, they are small text files that websites store in your browser that can then be used to market and advertise to you later down the road, either by first party operators or third parties such as advertising and analytics firms.

Remember that lamp you saw on Amazon that you put in the cart and forgot about that just so happened to pop up on Facebook as you were scrolling through? Well, that’s a product of tracking cookies through web browsers. This is the type of information and experience that will be affected. Now Facebook and it’s advertising platform isn’t the only platform affected here because this change spans even to Bing, Google, and affects Google Analytics.

Privacy  

This update should come as no surprise given the Facebook privacy issues they were facing last year and that have caused them to address privacy with their latest update and plan moving forward. Privacy is becoming the topic of discussion due to the vastness of the internet and how the data that gets collected on a daily basis is being used.

Browser tracking is becoming more of a topic of discussion but even Apple’s Safari and Brave have given users the ability to block third-party cookies by default even before 2017.

Newly installed versions of Firefox will block trackers by default and if you already have it installed, it will become available in the coming months. This is an option you can choose to turn off or even opt for different levels of blocking.

Privacy has become the new browser war and given Facebook and Google are the largest powers in the internet advertising world, they are of course going to be the ones people are looking towards for direction.

What does this mean for consumers?

For consumers, this means that there will be more pressure on your search engines and websites to win you over by engaging in and caring about your privacy. They know that your information is valuable and will have to respect that or face the consequences of not being responsible with your data.

What does this mean for advertisers?

So what does this mean for advertisers? Well, to start, it is going to affect analytic reports and data tracking for websites and social network which will seem to result in less traffic when that might not be the case. Data will be non-personally identifiable which is something businesses will suffer from in the long term. While the data will be harder to decipher, tactics for marketing should progress with the times as it always has and will continue to do.There will need to be more of a respect for consumer information at the base level of it all.

 

If you are having trouble with your SEO in Melbourne FL then we are here to help! We specialize in this field and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy for SEO in Melbourne FL.

seo services

How Does Structured Snippets Work and Why It’s Important

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

If you have read our posts on the topic of Search Engine Optimization, there is no question that implementing up-to-date SEO services and strategies for your website one of the most important things you can do to rank high in the search engines. If you’re a business that’s looking to increase sales and revenue in the long term, SEO should be your number #1 source for gaining quality traffic. Although there are many ways to optimize your website, there are certain aspects of SEO that hardly anyone mentions. That aspect is using Structured Snippets for your SEO content. In this post, we want to provide you the amazing benefits that structured snippets can help your website “structure” your content to gain new customers.

Structured Snippets Help To Gain The Attention of Your Potential Customers

The first benefit that structured snippets have to offer is to help gain the attention of your potential customers who are actively searching for keywords that relate to your business. For example, let’s say there’s a business website that publishes content titled “We Help Generate 100 leads in 30 Days through Instagram: Here Are 10 Tips How We Did It”. At the bottom, there’s a summary that gives you a short consensus of the content. According to 2019 reports and surveys, it has been estimated that the CTR (click through rate) can be increased up to 20-30% when a business uses structured snippets for their SEO content. Through reading the stats, it’s a no brainer that you should also use structured snippets for your content.

Structured Snippets Help Potential Customers Find Specific Content They Are Searching For

The second benefit that structured snippets are so important is because they help potential customers find the exact and specific content they are searching for. When users are searching for certain keywords, their number #1 goal is to find specific, high-quality content in the shortest amount of time. When they find your SEO content, it further entices them to become your customer for you have proven you are an expert and authority in your field.

Structured Snippets Help Google Understand Your Content

Lastly, making use of structured snippets for your content ensures Google that it is capable of knowing as well as understand the kind of content you are publishing on your website. Even though Google states that using structured snippets doesn’t assist in ranking your website high in the search engines, we believe using structured snippets in addition to other SEO services and strategies can certainly boost your traffic as well as convert it.

Conclusion

Now that you know how structured snippets work and why it’s important to use for your website, you understand how it can be efficiently put to use with minimal time and investment. We believe there is no point in ignoring the importance of structured snippets help you gain more customers which will then lead to sales, revenue, and above all, profit. At the AD Leaf Marketing Firm, we specialize in this field and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy with our SEO services in Melbourne FL.

SEO in Melbourne FL

Google Moves to Mobile-First Indexing By Default for New Websites

Posted on | by Brian J Wallace
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design

We’ve talked about mobile first indexing for SEO in Melbourne FL in the past and its importance in terms of your search engine rankings. Back in 2016, Google announced they would start work on their mobile-first indexing as a response to the ever increasing mobile usage reports. In the past, Google’s search algorithm has used the desktop versions of websites for indexing and displaying results to both mobile and desktop users. This has caused issues for many users because the desktop site might not be mobile friendly. Mobile-first indexing started to roll out in March of 2018, it is a new procedure in which a website’s search engine indexing is based on its mobile version. If your website isn’t mobile friendly it can really hurt your search engine rankings, which hurts your business.

Making sure your website is mobile friendly has become more important than ever since we posted our last blog on this topic. Starting July 1st, Google is now rolling out another update for mobile first indexing and this time is targeting new websites or in Google own words:

“Websites previously unknown to Google Search”

By default, all new sites indexed on July 1st will be indexed using the mobile first indexing algorithm. Even if the website is not really ready for mobile first indexing. So the common question is if Google would at least notify the webmaster via Search Console if the site has any problems that are hurting it because of mobile first indexing. Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller said there are no plans to send notifications in those situations. This does seem confusing and slightly terrifying but it makes sense. Most new websites should be mobile friendly because of how web designers learn and adapt to current technology. Since mobile friendly websites have been a “thing” for a while, most web developers should be building websites that are responsive and ultimately mobile friendly.

John Mueller also added that after they roll out this update, the next step is working on enforcing this for the rest of the websites that have not moved over yet. The most surprising thing about this next step is about 50% of the websites indexed by Google are not ready for mobile first indexing! You read that correctly, half of the websites that Google knows about are not ready for mobile first indexing which means their search engine rankings are going to be heavily affected once the change fully rolls out. The good thing is that Google will be sending out messages to the site owners letting them know that they are not ready before the changes are fully implemented so the site owners can take appropriate actions.

Since mobile devices have become such a crucial factor in search rankings, creating separate strategies for desktop and mobile SEO in Melbourne FL is a must. Understanding there is a difference will help you grow your business. We specialize in this field and we have the tools and expertise necessary to help drive your business’s success by improving your search engine ranking. Learn more about what we have to offer your business and contact us to plan out and design a strategy for SEO in Melbourne FL.