Why Does SEO Matter So Much, Anyway?!

Small businesses with an online presence have to think about SEO all the time. Why?

It’s because Search Engine Optimization, techniques that boost your business website’s online profile, are how most consumers find your business today. Without constant vigilance on SEO, those customers are going to go to competitors.

Rising to the Top

SEO techniques include things like insert keywords into your web content, posting photos and videos that attract more click-throughs and generally doing everything you can to make your web pages more appealing.

Appealing to who? Customers, but also search engines like Google, Bing!, Yahoo, and others. These are the primary tools that people use today to find the products, services, and businesses they want.

The Evolution of SEO

Forty years ago, people used the phone book to look for things like plumbers, car mechanics, florists, and more. But beginning about 20 years ago, people started using computers in their home.

Soon, these were replaced with laptops. Then came smartphones. Then tablets.

Today, most people use all of these devices to not only search for but also to buy things they want and need. That makes SEO an essential factor for any business that wants to attract customers online. In other words, any business!

Getting the Help You Need

By this point, most business owners understand the importance of their online profile and web reputation. It’s hard to think of a business that doesn’t benefit from trying to attract customers via their portable devices. It’s simply how business is done today.

But not every business owner understands the importance of getting help with their SEO. Managing your online reputation is too complicated to try and do on your own. Instead, you need the help of professional SEO experts, such as “Lytron Lead Generation“.

We can help you boost your business’s SEO and attract more customers both online and in the real world. Web-based SEO marketing is simply a fact of life in today’s business environment. Get on board with “Lytron Lead Generation”.

Split Testing Measures Success of SEO Efforts

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Split testing is a technique used by online marketers to measure the effectiveness of specific changes to such things as SEO keywords, marketing campaigns, and even the images used on websites.

In essence, split testing is based on the approach scientists use to test a theory by using clinical trials. An experiment is set up into two groups: One control group and one test group.

For example, pharmaceutical researchers might give one group a new drug they are testing and a second group a placebo. The use of this “control group” structure allows them to keep everything else the same to see the precise effects of the drug they want to test.

Split Testing Measures Success of SEO Efforts – Measurable Results

Website designers, online marketers, and internet-based businesses often use the same approach. But instead of using human test subjects, they split testing to measure the effects of small changes to their web content.

For example, a business with an established website might want to see how well a new marketing campaign works. So they could use split testing to see if it encourages customers to spend more or less than they spend using the business’s existing marketing effort.

Two versions of the business’s website are set up: One with then new marketing program and one with the existing campaign. Some customers are directed to one page while others are sent to the other.

Split Testing Measures Success of SEO Efforts – Achieving Results Faster

Then the business measures the average amount spent per customer for each of the two pages. If the new marketing campaign earns the business more money, it can replace the old program. But if it earns less, it’s back to the drawing board.

Split testing can be used to measure the effects of any type of change to a website. It can be something as big as a new marketing campaign to something as small as the wording on a headline or which of two pictures gets a better response.

By using split testing, web page designers can optimize the content of pages in order to achieve the results they want faster.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales, Reputation

The objective of most business websites is to promote the product and services that the company offers, as well as reinforcing the brand the organization wants to establish.

But should you consider promoting other people’s businesses or other organizations on your website? Maybe.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales – Reciprocal Marketing

Reciprocal marketing is when you promote another person’s business or products on your website in exchange for their promoting yours on their web pages.

It simply requires entering into an agreement with another business in order to promote both businesses for the benefit of each other.

Obviously, you probably wouldn’t enter into an agreement with a direct competitor. But there may be products or services that complement yours that could be a perfect fit for reciprocal marketing.

For example, if you own a health spa you might enter a reciprocal agreement with a company that offers relaxing lotions or aromatic candles. That company would then promote your spa on their website.

Both businesses benefit because consumers who are interested in one type of product probably also would be interested in the other.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales – Community Outreach

Another related type of cross promotion on your website is community outreach. This is when you use your website to pledge your support for a local charity or cause you are passionate about.

For example, if your website promotes your local business, you might include a badge that supports a local charity such as the Ronald McDonald House. Or you could include a pink ribbon that signifies breast cancer awareness.

Community outreach has the dual benefit of supporting an important cause or charity while affiliating your business with doing good in your community.

Both cross promotion and community outreach don’t cost you anything more to do, but can bring additional sales and more customers to your business, as well as enhancing its reputation within the community.

SEO Basics That You Need to Know

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Now that digital marketing has been around for more than a decade, most people are familiar with the term “search engine optimization”, or SEO. Even if they don’t fully understand what it means.

SEO is critical to the success of your business website. Without SEO, it’s practically impossible to get your web pages ranked high on the most popular search engines.

And if your customers can’t find you, they can’t spend their money on the products and services you offer.

On-Page and Off-Page

Here’s something you probably didn’t know about SEO: There are actually two different types, on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO includes the things you do within the content of your web page to improve its rankings. It includes things like including keywords in the optimal places.

Off-page SEO means doing things on other people’s sites to attract visitors to your pages. This includes things like participating in forums and promoting your web pages on social media.

SEO Basics – Page Titles Are Primary

If you do nothing else to promote your page, make sure your page title includes the optimal keywords that best describe the content you offer.

Search engines will look at all of your content when assigning a page ranking. But the element they look at first and give the most weight to is your page title.

The page title can be found at the very top of your browser on the tab. It’s also what pops up on Google when people search for sites like yours.

SEO Basics – Keep Meta Descriptions to 155 Characters

Like Twitter postings, meta descriptions for your web pages need to be limited to a certain number of characters, in this instance 155, including spaces.

Meta descriptions also need to be persuasive and compelling because these are what appear under your link on Google and other search engine results pages.

Use these SEO secrets to improve your page rankings and you should see an immediate improvement in your traffic flow.

Use the Web to Attract Customers to Your Florida Business

While the internet connects people worldwide, many local businesses are still very much dependent on local customers.

Attracting people in your area to your local business requires a technique called “Local SEO”. Basically, local SEO involves using specific geographically specific keywords to send traffic to your business website.

How to Use Local SEO on Your Website

Basically, local SEO works like this: If somebody goes online searching for a business like yours, they probably are going to use specific keywords.

For example, let’s say you own a dry cleaning business in Tampa. People looking for a local dry cleaning business who type in the keywords “dry cleaners” into their search engine probably would get results that include dry cleaning businesses all over the US, or even the world..

But if these same prospective customers type in the keywords “dry cleaners in Tampa”, they will get results that include only local dry cleaning businesses in Tampa, Florida.

Optimizing with Local SEO

How does that happen? Google, Bing, and the other big search engines scan and rank websites for specific keywords. When they find a web page for a local Tampa dry cleaners, they will include this in their rankings for those specific keywords.

But search engines will rank near the top of the search results those sites with the exact keywords “Tampa dry cleaners” in their headlines, subheads, first 100 words of the text, last 100 words of the text, photo descriptions, and other places.

That’s what local SEO means. By including geographically specific keywords in specific places in your web pages, you can get your web page ranked at or near the top of the list anybody gets when they type those keywords into the most popular search engines.

And given the fact that most people use their mobile devices to search for local businesses, local SEO is only going to become more important as time goes on.

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks

3 Simple Steps To Attracting The Best Clients

As marketing analysts we’re constantly thinking about the most optimal way to target our potential customers. With so many metrics to keep tabs on, figuring out whether or not you’re getting it right is often easier said than done.

To help shed some light on the situation, the folks at WordStream released a detailed new study on Google Ads industry metrics. The study reveals a ton of helpful industry-specific benchmarks for both search and display ads, including average clickthrough rate (CTR), average cost-per-click (CPC), average conversion rate (CVR), and average cost-per-action (CPA).

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks – Average Conversion Rate

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks – Average Click Through Rate

3 Types of Online Marketing You Need to Be Using Right Now

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Most business owners today understand that many of their customers have migrated to the Internet and use their smartphones and tablets to do most of their shopping.

Yet many continue to pour cash into traditional marketing platforms that yield lesser and lesser results. These include buying ads in newspapers, TV commercials, billboards, and other 20th Century platforms that don’t attract 21st Century consumers.

If you aren’t using online marketing to promote your business and products, you definitely should be. Here are three types of online marketing you need to know about — and invest in — right now.

Marketing – SEO

Search engine optimization describes techniques used to boost your websites ranking on search engines like Google and all the others. One of the biggest benefits of SEO is that most of it is free to do, yet can yield you enormous results.

When the link to your website is listed at the top of the search results for the keywords that describe your business or products, you can expect an avalanche of new web-based customers.

Pay-per-Click

Pay-per-Click (PPC) are those little ads that appear in the margins of the websites and pages you visit online. The biggest benefit of this type of online marketing is that you only have to pay when somebody clicks through from the ad to your website.

That means you are already likely to make a sale which can help pay for the PPC ad: Win/win!

Marketing – Blogging

Blogging isn’t marketing. It’s writing, right? Yes and no.

Posting blogs can help promote your business directly. But it also can help retain existing customers longer by providing them with useful content. People will come back to your blog over and over again if you keep them entertained and informed, building customer loyalty at the same time.

If you aren’t using these three types of online marketing — as well as others like social media, contextual marketing, and others — you should consider starting right away.

The Commercial Value of Birthdays

One thing that everybody has is a birthday. It’s the one special day of the year in which your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others commemorate your day with good thoughts, well wishes, and genuine greetings.

While not everybody wants to celebrate their birthday — especially as they get older — they happen every year whether you like it or now.

But birthdays also have substantial commercial value. If you are a small business owner, capturing data such as your customer’s birthdays can be a valuable marketing tool. Sending birthday greetings, exclusive birthday offers, or even small gifts such something free can convert an occasional customer into a lifelong, raving fan of your business.

Birthdays and Employee Relations

Another commercial benefit of birthdays to employers has to do with employee relations. Any successful manager will tell you that the secret to developing a loyal, committed staff is constantly providing rewards and recognitions that employees feel are genuine and meaningful.

Recognizing employees on their birthdays is one of the easiest ways to accomplish this. Some companies will have their entire management team or executives sign birthday cards that are sent to employee’s homes on their birthdays.

Other companies will keep track of employee birthdays and commemorate their special days with cakes, lunchtime parties, and other ways to celebrate each individual worker so that they feel special and appreciated.

The Commercial Value of Birthdays – Business Birthdays

It’s not only people who have birthdays. Businesses do as well.

Celebrating relevant anniversaries of the founding of your business with a special sale, exclusive offers, or other marketing promotions is a good way to attract customer loyalty to your brand.

Birthdays are something everybody experiences every year, whether they like it or not. Your business can benefit from birthdays by using these occasions to build customer loyalty, reward and recognize employees, and build your brand via online marketing.

Technology the Key to Collaboration

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Just a few years ago — a decade at most — if you needed to collaborate with another person or team on a project, it typically involved driving to their offices, or even getting on an airplane and flying halfway across the country.

Today, however, thanks to advancements in digital technology, collaboration on SEO or other projects is infinitely simpler and more convenient. The days of frequent flyer miles and high-mileage car odometers is mostly a thing of the past.

Collaboration Platforms

Collaboration is often the best approach to tackling any project, regardless of its scope or complexity. While one person may be able to offer creative solutions, multiple people can bring their different perspectives, experiences, and knowledge to the same problem.

Today, there are many different platforms that facilitate collaboration between multiple people working on the same project — even when the many different contributors are scattered all over the world.

Technology – Video Conferencing

For communicating with other team members, video chat sites such as Skype, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, and others offer high-definition video communication between two or more people in real time.

Many of these platforms allow you to share screenshots, images, documents, Excel files and more with other participants so that everybody can literally be on the same page when working to find a solution to the same problem.

Document Sharing

Other invaluable tools include document sharing sites such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and others let team members view, edit, and add new documents that the entire team can access remotely from practically any device.

Collaboration remains one of the best ways to harness the ideas of multiple team members so they can work toward a common goal. Today’s online tools make collaboration easier than ever and eliminate most business travel.

Thanks to these types of online tools, practically the entire world can be accessed from your desktop.

SEO Tips and Techniques for Increasing Organic Traffic

SEO is not to be overlooked if you want to increase the online presence of your business. Organic traffic should be a major portion of your regular website traffic. This is traffic that you do not need to pay for. Organic traffic refers to internet users that come across your website through search engine queries. These users already know what they are looking for and this traffic tends to have higher conversion rates. By focusing some of your marketing budget on SEO services, you can increase the amount of organic traffic that you receive and in turn increase your sales.

By focusing some of your marketing budget on SEO services, you can increase the amount of organic traffic that you receive and in turn increase your sales. Here are two of the most fundamental aspects of using SEO to increase organic traffic.

Use Proper Keyword Research

Search engines have begun placing more value on the content of web pages than the actual use of keywords. Though, keywords are still an integral part of search engine algorithms. You should regularly perform proper keyword research. Use online tools, such as the Keyword Planner available through Google Google Ads. Search for keywords related to your industry. Look through the suggestions that the Keyword Planner provides and try to find keyword phrases with low to medium competition and a high monthly search volume.

Create Original and Informative Content

Perhaps the greatest way to begin improving your SEO results is to create original and informative content. Your users should get real value from visiting your website. Posting informative content, such as tutorials, tips, and useful information to your website gives visitors a reason to continue coming back to your site. You are also more likely to build backlinks and get users to share your content on social media.

These are two starting points to effective SEO. If you need help with any of these steps, you should think about contacting a local SEO and web design firm.

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