7 Local Plumber Marketing Strategies That Will Generate Leads Now
Local SEO Online marketing SEO

7 Plumber Marketing Strategies To Generate Leads Now (Even For New Websites)

Imagine if you could make one simple tweak to your online plumber marketing strategies and see an instant boost in organic website traffic and leads.

Or even better:

What if there were 6 of those tweaks…

… and each of them could consistently generate new leads for your plumbing business?

You would probably want to know about them right?

Lucky for you, I am going to share with you the exact strategies we used to generate new leads for a local plumber in Tulsa, OK.

Our Step by Step Plumber Marketing Strategy You Can Implement Today

  1. Add Local Web Pages For Each City & Each Service You Offer
  2. Optimize Meta Tags For Improved Search Rankings & Click Through Rates
  3. Insert Rich Snippets To Make Your Search Result Listing Stand Out
  4. Submit Your Entire Website To Google Search Console For Indexing
  5. Customize Google Analytics Using Google Tag Manager & Track Everything
  6. Optimize Your “Google My Business” & “Bing Places” Pages
  7. Make It Easy For Your Customers To Leave An Online Review

1. Add Local Web Pages For Each City & Each Service You Offer

As a searcher for local plumbing services, you are more likely to make contact with a business who offers the exact service you are looking for and is in the same neighborhood as you.

As Google, Bing and other major search engines, they are increasingly trying to provide their users with the most relevant web pages based on the users search.

That’s where adding local web pages for each service you offer will have your website showing up on search results.

Local SEO

Here’s how it works:

Determine which suburbs you want to start generating leads in.

Next, create a web page for each city that explains who you are and what services you offer.

Next, create a web page for that explains each service you offer in that city and link that web page to the city page.

Duplicate this process for each city.

2. Optimize Meta Tags For Improved Search Rankings & Click Through Rates

With each new web page you created, you will need to research keywords your target audience is searching for.

Once you have your keywords ready, you are ready to start optimizing your meta tags.

Optimizing Meta Tags with Yoast SEO

Your title tag is one of the most important meta tags on your website so it is imperative that you get this step right.

This post will show you exactly how to optimize your title tag for first page rankings on Google.

Once you have your title tag in place, it’s time to tell search engines how you want your web page to be described to searchers.

Although your description tag does not directly impact search rankings, it directly impacts your click through rate which impacts your search rankings.

This post here will show you how to increase your click through rates with killer description tags.

3. Insert Rich Snippets To Make Your Search Result Listing Stand Out

Have you seen results on Google where star ratings show up underneath the clickable link?

Rich Snippet Reviews

Those are rich snippets and they make your listing stand out.

As a matter fact, case studies have shown local businesses can see up to a 30 percent increase in organic traffic by implement rich snippets.

Installing rich snippets is a little bit techie and you may want to consult your SEO expert or web design for implementation.

However, you may want to visit this post if you have a WordPress website and you want to install rich snippets yourself.

4. Submit Your Entire Website To Google Search Console For Indexing

Now that all of your local SEO tasks have been completed, it’s time to tell Google all about them.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google that provides you with a plethora of information about it’s searchers and your website.

GSC is easy to set up, essentially all you do is head over to GSC and add your website.

From there, GSC will give you a snippet of code to add to your website.

Once the code is added, you are done!

Now that GSC is integrated into your website, all you have to do is tell Google’s bot to crawl and index your website.

This post here will tell you how to use GSC and how it will improve your websites rankings.

5. Customize Google Analytics Using Google Tag Manager & Track Everything

Google Analytics (GA)and Google Tag Manager (GTM) are both free tools from Google.

Google Analytics Consultant

GA allows you to see how many visitors came to your site, how they got to your site and what they did on your site.

However, to track even more details, you will need a GA expert that knows how to set up conversion tracking, customize segments, set up remarketing audiences and much more.

GA works in tandem with GTM.  GTM is basically the drag and drop way to customize GA without having to log into your website and change raw code.

Additionally, GTM gives you the ability to instantly know whether or not you set up your tracking preferences properly.

We often refer to Measure School on YouTube when we run into issues because they truly are the experts at GTM.

6. Optimize Your “Google My Business” & “Bing Places” Pages

Google My Business and Bing Places are basically business listings on the major search engines.

Local SEO

When a user does a search on Google or Bing, often times they will see map listings at the very top with businesses names and contact information.

These results come from Google My Business and Bin Places listings.

There are a number of factors that are in play when Google and Bing determine whether or not your listing is worthy of “top of the first page on the map” placements.

When optimizing your business pages, be sure to use the same name, number and address that is on your website.

Additionally, you will want to select the most descriptive category for your business, continually add photos and always ask for reviews.

7. Make It Easy For Your Customers To Leave An Online Review

Reviews play an important role in how online searchers find and select plumbers they want to make contact with.

Simply asking a customer to review you on Google or Bing or Facebook isn’t enough!  You have to be proactive and provide them easy access.

Chances are, not all of your customers are going to have a Google account.  However, I am willing to bet they have at least one account on one platform your business has a listing on where they can leave a review for you.

This post will tell you about our ingenious way we help our clients get more online review.

Is Getting More Leads Really That Simple?

Yes!  We have used the techniques above for a variety of different local services and they have had amazing results.

We actually just implemented this strategy for Acts of Service Plumbing out of Tulsa, Ok on July 1st, 2018.

Acts of Service Plumbing had a simple 1 page website and they were virtually impossible to find on any search engine.

Curious to watch and see how our plumber marketing strategy works for them?

Head over to their portfolio page to see how many organic visitors and organic leads are generated in the very 1st month they showed up on the first page of Google.

Once you’ve done that, take a second and leave a comment.

We’d love to know what you thought of the post.

 

Local SEO Hack 1: Stopping The Spammers
SEO

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SEO Basics That Will Catapult Your Ranking On Google In 2018
SEO

Search Engine OptimizationIf you want to rank on Google, or any other major search engine, you need to understand the basics of SEO and what search engine spiders are looking for when analyzing your website.

In this blog post, we are going to look at the basic SEO foundations you need to set when optimizing your website for 1st page rankings on Google and other search engines.

What Is On Page SEO?

On Page SEO  is the optimization of individual website pages that tell search engines what each page is about.

There are a number of details search engines look for when determining how well your website pages will rank.

Some of these details include the title tag, description tag, heading tags and the content on the web page.

Why On Page SEO Is Important

On page SEO is important because a well optimized website can drive tons of free traffic to your website 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Additionally,  traffic from search engines is highly targeted and are proven to have the highest conversion rates in the industry.

Just to give you an idea of how important on page SEO is, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine and 75% of people never scroll past the first page! (source: https://junto.digital/)

How To Optimize For On Page SEO

  • Google AnalyticsKeyword Research

The first step to optimize your website is to research keywords you want to rank for.

When researching keywords, look for keywords that have a high search volume and low competition.

If your website is new and you try to rank for a keyword that has a high search volume and lots of competition like “pizza”, chances are  your web page will be buried deep in search engine results pages where nobody will find you.

Instead, you may want to try to rank for “long tail keywords” that have a high volume of search but have less competition.

Using the “pizza” example, a long tail keyword could include something like “pizza delivery in (your town)”.

Google offers a free keyword research tool to anybody with a Google account.  You can access Googles free tool, “Keyword Planner” here.

  • Title Tag

The title tag is the most important factor of on page SEO because it is the first thing search engines recognize.

After you have done your keyword research, you will want to put the keyword you want to rank for at the beginning of the title tag.

Keep your title tag under 60 characters long so it displays properly in search engine results.

  • Description Tag

The description tag is important because it is what searchers read before determining whether or not to click on your listing.

Consider your description tag more of a sales copy to entice searchers to click.

Keep your description tag under 160 characters long so it displays properly in search engine results.

(Update:  As of Dec 2017, Google now displays up to 325 characters)

  • Keywords Tag

The keyword tag is no longer relevant to search engines and can do more harm then help to your online rankings.

The reason keywords are no longer relevant is because webmasters abused them by spamming the tag with hundreds of keywords.

Google and other search engines recognized the issue and did away with the keyword tag.

  • Heading Tags

Heading tags, such as H1, H2, and H3, are important because they give structure to your page.

From a search engines perspective, a H1 tag carries more relevance than an H3 tag.

From a consumers standpoint, the use of heading tags helps them navigate the web page to discover they content they came looking for.

  • Keyword Density

Keyword density is important for on page SEO because it reinforces what your web page is about.

The trick to keyword density is to not overuse your keyword and to make it flow with the content on your page.

Advances in Google’s search engine now recognizes keyword variations which allows website owners to create content that is easy for consumers to digest.

What Is Off Page SEO?

Off Page SEO is the practice of marketing techniques that take place outside of a websites immediate domain and have an impact on your websites ranking.

Some off page SEO marketing techniques include link building, social media engagement and the consistency of how your business appears online.

Why Off Page SEO Is Important

Off Page SEO is important because it tells search engines how popular and trustworthy your website is.

A popular website tends to receive more links and more engagement on social media which signals to search engines that your website is trustworthy.

Therefore, a trustworthy website ranks higher in search engines because consumers find the information valuable.

How To Optimize For Off Page SEO

  • Backlinks

Backlinks are links from third party websites that point to a page on your website.

There are a number of ways to obtain backlinks to your website.  You can scour the internet for blog posts to comment on, add a link to your website in directories and even guest blog on other websites.

When creating backlinks to your website, it is important to remember that the quality of the link is more important than the quantity of links.

Generally speaking, backlinks on .gov and .edu websites will help increase website rankings over other types of backlinks.

  • Social Media Engagement

The growth and popularity of social media has changed the way search engines rank websites.  Therefore it is important to link back to your website on all of your social media profiles.

When posting on social media, engagement counts!  When posting on social media, make sure to post quality content your users find helpful.

Quality content drives engagement which translates into likes and shares which means more inbound links to your content.

The more inbound links to your content, the more visibility you have, which is what matters most to  search engines.

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the optimization of a website and its online assets in an attempt to rank at the top of search engines when a local search is performed.

Some online assets include Google Business Listing, Bing Business Listing, Yelp and even Facebook Business Pages.

Why Local SEO Is Important

With the rise in mobile technology, consumers who are out and about are very likely to search for nearby places of interest to satisfy their needs.

If your business is around the corner but not easily found online, chances are you just lost that customer to your competitor.

Just to give you an idea of how important local SEO is, a recent study showed that 78% of local-mobile searches result  in offline purchases.

That same study also shows that nearly 96% of PC users conduct local searches on their desktops. (Source: http://searchengineland.com/)

Another study shows that 68% of local searches use the “get directions” or “click to call” on local searches and 46% of all searches on Google are local! (Source: http://www.business2community.com/)

How To Optimize For Local SEO

The first step when optimizing your business for local search is to make sure the websites meta tags are properly optimized for the community you wish to target.

For service industries who target multiple locations, you may have to get creative and add website pages for additional communities to target.

Next, search places on the internet where your businesses information can be submitted.

A great start is Google My Business, Bing Places For Businesses, Yelp and Four Square.

Citations/NAP

The most important aspect of local SEO is making sure all of your citations are exactly the same.

Citations are how your businesses information is displayed on each individual site including your own website.

Citations, or NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number), are very important for higher rankings in local search results.

The number 1 thing search engines look for in citations is consistency.

When creating profiles on social media and in directories, make sure  your NAP is identical.

If your NAP is not consistent, search engines can become confused and your website will drop in search engine rankings.

What Is Mobile SEO?

Mobile SEO is the optimization of a website to ensure its capable of functioning properly based on the device the user is accessing the website on.

Mobile SEO includes responsive web design, page speed, user experience and more to ensure a mobile friendly user experience.

Why Mobile SEO Is Important

Mobile Marketing ServicesMobile SEO is important because users on mobile devices tend to have more of an urgency to their searches.

Think about it, how many times have you searched for nearby places while out and about and then went to that nearby place and purchased something?

Chances are very high that mobile search has helped you more than once over the past week.

The most important factor in mobile SEO is page speed because a slow mobile website results in a high abandonment rate.

As a matter of fact, 53% of mobile pages are abandoned if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.  Furthermore, a 10 second load time has a 123% higher bounce rate than a 1 second load time.  (source: https://www.wiredseo.com/)

Ranking high on mobile searches will also yield more visitors to your website.

According to Google, more Google searches are done on mobile devices than on a desktop.  Additionally, 51% of smartphone users have discovers a new company when conducting a search on their mobile device.  (source: https://www.hubspot.com/)

How To Optimize For Mobile SEO

As mentioned above, there are a number of factors search engines look at when ranking a mobile website.

However, on this page we are just going to cover a couple of the top factors to ranking well on mobile searches.

  • Responsive Website Design

Responsive website design is the process in which a web designer builds a website that displays properly on different screen sizes.

This can be accomplished in 1 of 2 ways, 1 – the web designer can create a completely different mobile sites – 2 – the web design can incorporate code into the website that tells it how to display content based on the users screen size.

However, other aspects as far as spacing, button sizes, forms and so on still have to display properly so it is easy for a mobile visitor to use and navigate the website.

  • Page Speed

Page speed is a huge factor when it comes to how well your website ranks on search engines.

Since most search engines want users to have a good experience from their search results, a high bounce rate can drag your mobile rankings down.

As mentioned above, the longer it takes your website to load, the better chance the user will abandon your website before the even see it.

There are a number of great free tools available to see how fast your website loads.

The first tool we suggest is Googles own PageSpeed Insights.  We also recommend GTmetrix and Pingdom.  Each tool will provide you with feedback about how fast your website loads and suggestions on how to improve your load time.

Facebook Advertising For Beginners In 2018
Social Media Marketing

Facebook AdsFacebook Advertising in 2018 is very complex, even for us seasoned veterans.

It doesn’t help that Facebook is always changing their advertising platform and rules.

However, there are some Facebook basics that are likely to remain within the Facebook Advertising platform for years to come.

In this article, we cover those basics so beginners have a basic understanding of how to run a Facebook Advertising campaign.

What Is Facebook Pixel?

The Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that is installed on a website to track visitors.  The Facebook Pixel allows advertisers to gauge the effectiveness of their Facebook ads.  Additionally, data collected from the Facebook Pixel can be used to create and target custom audiences based on the actions visitors took on your website.

What Can The Facebook Pixel Do?

The Facebook Pixel is designed to provide advertisers with the information they need to make better ads on Facebook.  The 3 main functions of the include:

Re-Targeting

Since the Facebook Pixel can track the web pages a visitor views, advertisers can create re-targeting ads that deliver relevant information based on what that individual viewed on your website.  Re-targeting is so powerful that it has actually been proven to increase ad response by up to 400 percent!  (source: http://www.cmo.com/)

Conversion Tracking

The Facebook Pixel’s conversion tracking technology collects data from your website and inputs results into your Facebook ads reporting.  There is some customization to the code involved but, you can tell the pixel what pages are conversion pages and the pages value.  That information will then transfer to your Facebook ads reporting so you can easily see the ROI on your ads.

Installing Facebook Pixel

Look-A-Like Audience

A look-a-like audience is a custom audience that you define based on data collected from the pixel.  For example, you can create an audience with the same demographics as those who visited a conversion page on your website.  The look-a-like audience takes all of the guess work out of identifying your ideal customers.

How To Install The  Facebook Pixel

Installing the Facebook Pixel is fairly simple.  Head over to your Facebook account and go into your ads manager.  Once in your ads manager, click on the drop down box, as shown in the picture, and click on pixels.  A new screen will load and near the top all you have to do is click the “set up pixel” button.

Once you have set up your pixel, Facebook will provide you with a snippet of code to install on your website.  The snippet of code you receive is the standard version of the pixel.

You can customize your pixel to track conversions, values and a number of other things but it does  take some knowledge of coding.  If you need help customizing your Facebook Pixel, contact us and let us know how we can help.

What Are Facebook Advertising Objectives?

Facebook Advertising Objectives are what you want people to do when they see your ad.  Facebook objectives include awareness, consideration and conversion.  The first step in creating a Facebook ad is to choose the objective that aligns with your business goals.

A Closer Look At Facebook Advertising Objectives

Facebook Advertising Objectives – AwarenessAwareness

Awareness objectives are design to generate interest in your product, service or business.  The two objectives to choose from under awareness include:

Brand Awareness:

Reach consumers who are likely to engage with your ad and increase awareness about your brand with their connections on Facebook.

Reach:

Show your ad to as many people as possible.

Facebook Advertising Objective – ConsiderationConsideration

Consideration objectives are designed to make consumers consider how your product or service can solve a problem they are having and dig deeper into the solution you are offering.  The 5 objectives to choose from under consideration are:

Traffic:

Send traffic to your website or mobile app.

App Installs:

Send traffic to your app store so they can download your app.

Engagement:

Get Facebook users to like, comment or share on one of your Facebook post.

Video Views:

Promote your videos for the views by your audience.

Lead Generation:

Use Facebook’s platform to install a lead capture form to collect consumers name, email address and phone number.

Facebook Advertising Objectives – ConversionConversion

Conversion objectives are designed to convert visitors into paying customers.  The 3 objectives to choose from under the conversion objective are:

Conversions:

Get visitors to convert on your website of app using the Facebook Pixel for tracking purposes.

Product Catalog Sales:

Convert sales from your product catalog.

Store Visits:

Promote your store location to consumers who are nearby.

Which Facebook Advertising Objective Is Right For You?

Choosing the wrong objective can cost hundreds of dollars.  However, choosing the right objective can provide your business with a very rewarding ROI.  The first decision an advertiser needs to make is determining what the goal is for the marketing campaign.

If your business is getting ready to launch a new product, consider the awareness objective.  Building awareness before the product actually launches can create a buzz.  This can be a good thing because it gives consumers the opportunity to bring up  their concerns that can be alleviated before the first product hits the shelf.

Facebook gives business page owners the ability to create an e-commerce shop within Facebook.  If you have a shop, consider using the product catalog sales objective when advertising.

What Is Facebook Targeting?

Facebook targeting is the creation of audiences that define who your ideal customer is.  Facebook Ads gives you the ability to choose from a number of demographics including age, sex, location, income and hundreds of additional choices.

Why Targeting The Right Audience On Facebook Is Important

With billions of users on Facebook, targeting the right audience with your Facebook Ads is essential.  Through targeted advertisement, advertisers can find and engage the most relevant audience by filtering internet users on the basis of their online behavior. Facebook provides specific filtration for leveraging current market trends and target audience analysis, which significantly increases the number of relevant clicks as well as sales.

How To Target The Right Facebook Audience

In order to target the right audience on Facebook, you need to understand your buyers persona.  A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.  Once a buyer persona is identified, apply the demographics to your Facebook Ad and start collecting data.

If you have the Facebook Pixel installed, you can create look-a-like audiences.  A look-a-like audience is a custom audience with the same demographics as any audience you segment from the data contained within your Facebook Pixel.  This allows for laser focused targeting to reach the most customers who are likely to buy your products or use your services.

What Is Facebook Retargeting?

Facebook retargeting is a highly effective marketing tool that targets your ads on Facebook to consumers who have already visited your website.  Using the Facebook Pixel, an advertiser can retarget website visitors with specific ads based on actions they took on their website.

Facebook Remarketing Life Cycle

Why Retarget Facebook Users?

Retargeting Facebook users keeps them engaged with your brand and can turn them into advocates for your business.  Furthermore, retargeting is a great way up-sale products to previous customers and inform them about new products and services that are available.

As a matter of fact, retargeting lead to a 1046% increase in branded search and can increase conversion rates by up to 147%. (source: http://syndacast.com/)

Facebook Retargeting Ideas

Facebook retargeting provides endless opportunities for businesses to get in front of their target market.  Here are a few ways you can use retargeting to increase sales and re-engage your audience.

Retarget Your Most Engaged Fans

Your die hard fans can play a HUGE part in helping to grow your business. The more opportunity you give them and the easier you make it, the better.

You can use your email marketing system to export a list of your most engaged subscribers (the ones opening your emails is a good metric to filter by) and then import it into Facebook.

You can then retarget these visitors with your most valuable/sharable content. This is a great way to increase your reach as your die hard fans are more likely to share, like and comment on the Facebook post.

The Facebook algorithm favors sponsored posts with high engagement by boosting their organic reach. So, you can try and take advantage of this by showing highly shareable content with people who have a higher chance of engaging with it.

Retarget Hot Leads

If you have the Facebook Pixel set up, you can retarget website visitors who may have abandoned the shopping cart or visited specific sales pages but didn’t convert.  Since these visitors took specific actions, you can tailor a message to their specific needs and turn them into sales.

Furthermore, retargeting hot leads to upsell them is a great way to increase your bottom line and pick from the low hanging fruit.

Lead Generating In 2018 | The Lead Magnet Is Dead!!!
Brand development

Building TrustFor nearly a decade now online marketers have been pushing their lead magnets in an attempt to obtain names and email addresses.  Up until recently it has worked wonderfully and many businesses used this lead generating strategy to grow their databases tremendously over the years.

However, consumers are smarter now than they were in the early days of the internet.  They know that if they give you their email address, their inbox will be full of spam and unsolicited offers from the very business they trusted with their email address.

Not to mention, with so much information on the web today, consumers can simply do a Google search and find what it is they are looking for without having to sign up for the “special” lead magnet that is full of promises that never materialize.

So, as a marketer, what are we to do to generate leads and grow our business?  I mean, email marketing is still a huge success and I’m not saying you should not have an email marketing strategy put together.  What I am saying is you first need to let your potential consumer get to know and like you so they trust you and are more open to giving you their email address.

Establishing Trust

In today’s world everybody is a specialist at everything.  Just do a Google search for the best this or the best that and you will see millions of results pop up.

In order to build trust you need to set yourself apart from all of the other so called experts.  Consumers are seeking content but most are not willing to give anything up, such as an email address, in the initial stages of research.

You need to show that you are the expert by providing them the content they want.  Get rid of your “I Am The Best & Here Is Why” lead magnet and just put it out there on your blog for all to see.  If your content is good your potential customers are going to seek more information from you.

If you web page is optimized correctly, good content can lead to new follows on social media platforms.  Consumers may even bookmark your website or sign up to receive new blog posts via email.

Giving your best content away for free not only shows your expertise in your field but also gives your potential consumer a chance to get to know, like and ultimately trust you.

Building An Audience

Building an audience to consume your content works in the exact same way it does when it comes to promoting your lead magnet.

Now you may be asking, why would I want to spend all of this time just to send traffic to my website and not even try to collect an email address?  How do I generate leads?

Besides the know, like and trust factor mentioned early in this blog, we as marketers now have the ability to listen, understand and identify our ideal consumers.

In case your unfamiliar with advances in tracking from Google and Facebook, a marketer can now track their online visitors across multiple platforms.

By simply placing a snippet of code, one from Google and one from Facebook, you can deliver additional ads to specific groups of consumers who took specific actions on your website.

For example, using Google AdWords remarketing, I can show additional ads to my visitors who have visited this page and then went over and checked out some of my AdWords services or additional AdWords blog posts.  I can do the same thing with the Facebook pixel for those who view my Facebook services or blog posts.

This tracking allows me to deliver some pretty powerful ads across multiple platforms to consumers who have shown an interest in my products or services on a granular level.  This also allows me to exclude any visitors who may have came to my website but left within 10, 15, 20 seconds upon the page loading.

Building The Trust

Assuming you have established some sort of trust with a consumer who visits multiple pages on your website, you now must continue to build on that trust.

In order to build the trust you need to continue to push quality content that your consumer will devour.  This may include some tutorials about how to “do it yourself”.  I know this may sound counterproductive to lead generating but in the long run it will be worth it because sooner or later your consumer will realize you are the expert and they need your help.

Furthermore, your potential consumer today will likely follow you on their favorite social media platform if they find value in what they have to learn from you.  In today’s online marketing game it is all about the following on social media because of the impact your consumers can have on helping you spread your message.

With that being said, I hope this article gave you some ideas on how you can grow your business and generate leads without having to come up with that next great lead magnet and without becoming a spammer.

If you found value in this article, please head over to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/concreteinternetmarketing/ and show us some love.

How To Improve SEO With Google Search Console
SEO

Google Search ConsoleGoogle Search Console (GSC) is the most underutilized SEO tool available for free to every webmaster.  The data provided by GSC is so powerful because it gives you all the answers to what needs to be done to improve SEO rankings on Google.

What is Google Search Console?

GSC is simply the most powerful SEO analyzer for your website.

Here is how Google describes GSC…

Our interpretation is, GSC is a tool that tells you everything you need to know about how consumers are searching for your services or products on Google search.

Why Use Google Search Console?

If you are serious, about ranking on the first page of Google then you must use GSC.

Here are just a few reasons why you should be using GSC…

Now that we understand how powerful GSC is, let’s get it installed on your website.

Installing Google Search Console

To get started, head over to GSC and click the red “Add A Property” button located in the top right corner.  Once clicked, a pop up will appear that ask you to enter the url of your website.

From there, you will need to verify ownership of the website.  GSC provide you with 4 or 5 different ways to verify ownership of a website.

One of the easiest ways to verify ownership is by connecting it to your Google Analytics account.  By connecting it to your Google Analytics account, data generated in GSC will automatically populate into your analytics data.

Verified?  Great, now it’s time to dig into GSC and learn ways it can be used to improve your SEO efforts.

Features On Google Search Console

There are a number of features to explore on GSC but we are going to focus on the 2 features we use to analyze our SEO efforts.  Those two features are search traffic and crawl.

(Below is a short video in case you don’t like to read)

Search Traffic

We spend a lot of time under the search traffic tab because this is where you can find search data.  For starters, we’ll go through the search analytics options and show you how they can be used to improve your SEO efforts.

When you first log into the search analytics interface, you will see a top bar that looks like this…

The top row gives you options to display individual data or rows of data.  You can click on one or all of them; we usually apply all of them.

Here is a brief explanation of what each one does:

Clicks show you how many clicks you have received on search results.

Impressions show how many times a link to your website has shown up on search results.

CTR (click through rate) shows how many times a link in search results to your website has been clicked on.

Position shows the average position a link to your website on search results.

The next row down gives you more options to refine your results even further.  This bar allows you to really dig into your data and develop laser targeted SEO campaigns.

Selecting Queries will show you the keywords people have searched that triggered your website to show in search results.

Selecting Page will show which of your pages showed up in search results.

Selecting Country will show the countries where your website is showing up in search results.

Selecting Device will show which devices people are using that triggered your website to show up in search results.

Selecting Search Type will show what type of search (ie… web, video, image) triggered your website to show up in search results

Selecting Search Appearance will show rich snippet results if you have rich snippets installed on your website.

Selecting Date will allow you choose a timeframe in which you want to see search results from.

As you can see, there are a lot of different configurations you can use to break down Google search data.

Crawl

The other feature we use religiously is the “Fetch as Google”.  This feature allows you to submit your website to Google for indexing.

We use this feature every time we write a new post because it helps the post climb to the top of search engines in the matter of minutes.

When using this feature, be sure to fetch the desktop version and the mobile version.

How To Use Google Search Console to Improve SEO

Now that we have an idea of what people are searching for that triggers your website to appear on search results, we can develop strategies that will increase your online presence and click through rates.

The first thing to look for is keywords that have a high impression count but a low click through rate.  To do this, click on all 4 features on the top row of search analytics and on the queries feature on the bottom row.

When the results pop up, click on the impressions text to organize keywords by impressions.

From the results above, the keyword that sticks out to me is “leaf baggers”.  The results show a click through rate of just 1.38% while the keyword is positioned highly at the 3.3 spot on search results.

This tells me that we are ranking highly for a keyword but our title tag and/or description tag is not enticing enough to make searchers click through.

Therefore, we should reconsider the title tag and description tag for this page.  To do this, simply head over to Google and search for your keyword, in this instance “leaf baggers”.

We researching title tags and description tags we pay close attention to ads that are being ran for the keyword.  Since advertisers spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on advertising you can be they have put time into developing title and description tags that get high click through rates.

You can use this same technique to discover web pages that need to be improved.  Instead of using the queries feature on the second row, use the pages feature.

Organize your results by the number of impression and locate the pages that are showing up in results but have a low click through rate.  Then make changes to the title and description tags and monitor results on a week over week basis.

The above techniques are just two simple ways you can use GSC to analyze and interpret your SEO efforts.  We could go on and on about other features but we would like to hear from you.

What are some ways you use GSC to analyze your SEO results?  Leave a comment or suggestion below in the comment box and let us know and be sure to check out our 5 SEO hacks to help improve your online rankings.

How To Develop A Killer Link Building Strategy
SEO

 Link BuildingThere is no doubt that link building is an essential part of SEO strategy and that it is virtually impossible to gain visibility across the iInternet if you don’t have an efficient link-building strategy. Google uses links to measure the usefulness of particular blog pages and where it should rank in search engine results pages. Since the purpose of links is to generate traffic to your site directly, link-building should be an integral part of your link-building strategy.

However, you should keep in mind that the landscape of SEO is always changing. If you want to compete and thrive online, you need to keep up with the trend and implement a variety of techniques that will lead get you in the right direction. Although the entire process of link-building seems difficult at first, it becomes easily digestible once we break it into a few easy steps.

Get to know your audience

All your marketing efforts will fall flat unless you have the right target audience. Before initiating your link building strategy, you need to be able to identify and clearly define your audience. The best and the easiest way to do this is to start using Google Analytics which will tell at what time of the day your audience is on your site.

You may also consider conducting surveys in the form of an n online questionnaire. You can either create an online survey that pops up when someone enters your site or you can send a survey invitation to your subscribers. This should give you an insight into your audience’s preferences and know what type of content to create.

Compile a list of sites

Once you have identified your target audience, you need to start creating the list of sites you want your links from. Be mindful that site varyies greatly. While a link from a particular site can position you higher in searchthe top ranks, others can have a slight almost unnoticeable impact on the entire traffic. If you already have a certain overview of blogs and websites that could work for your business, start creating your list. When it comes to managing digital projects, keep track of all your tasks and organise your workflow with ease by choosing an efficient project management tool and make all your processes a breeze. If you aren’t sure which software will work for your business, make a project management software comparison and opt for one that will suit your business.

Deliver valuable content

One of the essential steps of every successful link-building campaign is creating valuable and dynamic content. The content you create must provide your readers with some actionable tips and help them resolve issues that they usually come across. In this way, you will capture your reader’s’ interest, trigger various social shares and generally draw more traffic to your site. Finally, you will get more websites link to your content and create a bigger and stronger customer base.

Build relationship with editors

If you create a valuable piece of content, editors of influential magazines such as HuffPost, FoxNews, and CNN will republish it. Building relationship across media will have a huge impact on your reach as you can significantly benefit from natural link authorities. Naturally, all of this is much easier if you develop a good relationship with editors of highly respectful magazines.

Analyze competitors

By analyzing your competitors you will get a sense of the industry and gain an insight into which site within vertical would provide links. The competitive analysis does not only provide you with the information about their profile and why they are ranking but also strategies they use and their resources that didn’t acquire many links. Also, it gives you the list of high opportunity links that will unquestionably make difference to your link building campaign.

Reach out

Once you’ve invested your time in project planning and creating a valuable piece of content, you should contact the website that you want to link to your site. Ask them to write about your content and link to it. You can even offer them a free product or service and get a piece of content that will link to your website from them. Naturally, never send automated emails and make sure you regularly keep in touch with them.

Focus on relevant links

One of the prerequisites of successful link building strategy is to get relevant links. In other words, your traffic will significantly increase if you focus on quality links. For example, when you start showing your expertise, interview a variety of influential personalities across the web you will be mentioned and recommended by other on a number of social media platforms. This will help you get merit-based inbound links.

Online Reviews and SEO: What You Need To Know
Online Reputation Management

Online Reputation MangementObtaining online reviews should play a critical role in your SEO strategy.  Not only do online reviews give your business creditability with consumers, they also uncover new ways to reach your target audience.

In this article we are going to take a look at how consumers are using online reviews to make a purchasing decision, how online reviews impact search engine optimization and ways your business can structure a strategy to obtain more online reviews.

How Consumers Use Online Reviews

Before we start looking into the data on how consumers use online reviews, we first must understand where they are in the purchasing decision.

Typically, by the time a consumer is reading online reviews they have already decided they are in the market for a product or service.  Therefore, no reviews or bad reviews could lead the consumer to seek another business who has good reviews.

Since it only takes a matter of seconds to run a Google search, it only takes seconds for a consumer to make a purchasing decision based on online reviews about your business.

If you still doubt the importance of online reviews, here is some data that may make you want to reconsider.  According to a survey from BrightLocal, about 85% of consumers reported reading online reviews.

Furthermore, about 67% of consumers will read 6 reviews or less before they form an opinion about your business based on reviews alone.

Finally, another survey from Dimensional Research found that 90% of consumers claim positive reviews influence their buying decision.  Additionally, 86% of consumers say negative reviews make them think twice about making a purchase from a business.

Based on the data above, you can see just how important it is to manage online reviews.

Six ways reviews can help SEO

Now that we know how consumers use online reviews, we need to understand how online reviews impact your SEO efforts.  Here we will take a look at just 6 (of many) ways an effective online review strategy can land your business new customers.

Reviews Are 13% Of Local Search Ranking Factors

If your business relies on nearby consumers, pay close attention.  Local search engines love online reviews so much that 13% of SEO weight is attributed to how well your business ranks on search results.

Creates Fresh User-Generated Content

Content is king when it comes to search engine rankings and what better way to produce content then having your consumers create the content for you?

User generated content (UGC) is considered more influential because, well, it’s created by users for users.  Consumers researching your product or service know that UGC isn’t a sales pitch but rather an honest review of the pros and cons of not only your product or service but also your sales cycle and customer service.

Boosts Long-Tail Keyword Traffic

Since consumers aren’t experts in your line of work, the content they generate for you will uncover long-tail keywords consumers are using to describe your product or service.  This content allows a business to incorporate the language their consumers are using to create new content and rank high on search results for the exact phrases their consumers are searching.

Boosts Social Conversation

Obtaining reviews on social networks like Facebook, helps your business reach new audiences.  For example, Joe leaves you a raving review on Facebook and it shows up on Jill’s timeline.  Now Jill wants to know more about your product so she asks Joe about it.  Before you know it, Joe and Jill are having a conversation on Facebook where all of their followers can chime in with their thoughts and questions.

Google Favors Highly-Rated Sites

We touched above on the weight online ratings have in search results but did you also know that better reviews mean better rankings?  A business with better rankings is more likely to receive a click-through to their website which means a higher click-through rate.

Receive Visible Star Ratings

When star ratings are displayed in Google search results, prospective customers can instantly judge whether they can trust your product enough to visit your site.  This helps increase the traffic and sales.

Improve Ranking for Products

A well optimized online review strategy will not only ask consumers to rank the business but to rank the product as well.  This will provide for more keywords in which the consumer can find your business when doing a search online.

Developing a Review Acquisition Strategy

The first step to developing a review acquisition strategy is to determine which online review sites you want to focus on.  Obviously getting reviews on Google and Facebook is a no-brainer but there are other review sites you may want to consider.

To find other review sites you may want to consider head over to Google and do a search for “[industry reviews” to see which sites pop-up.  The review sites that pop-up first are most likely going to give your website the biggest boost when it comes to SEO.

Once you have determined 3 or more review sites you want to obtain reviews on, a system needs to be put into place to request reviews on a consistent basis.

At Concrete Internet Marketing, we developed an online review system that helps you obtain reviews for your product or services.  The way the system works is pretty straight forward.

On a monthly basis an email is sent out to all of your new customers asking them to review your business online.  When they click through to your website they are directed to a landing page that has 5 clickable stars so they can leave you a rating.

If the consumer clicks on a 1, 2, or 3 stars, a pop-up with a form shows up on their screen.  This pop-up asks the consumer to fill out the form so their review can be emailed directly to you.  This process eliminates bad reviews and gives you the opportunity to respond to them directly to resolve any issues.

If the consumer clicks on a 4 or 5 star, a pop-up with your pre determined online review platforms shows up on their screen.  From there they are asked to click on a logo to one of the review sites to leave a public review for you.

Online Reputation Management

Having an online review system in place is great but you still need to have an online reputation management system in place as well.  An online reputation management system will help your business respond to positive and negative reviews in a timely manner as well as keep you updated about what people are saying about your business online.

The key components to an online reputation management system are to engage, listen, publish, measure and understanding your audience.

When a consumer leaves a review or mentions your brand on social media, it is important to engage with them.  A great way to track mentions on social media is to monitor your hash tags and your business name.  This way you can step into the conversation when consumers are talking about you.

Listening is just as important as engaging.  Listening to what your audience is saying can help your business create content around your audiences most important needs.  Listening will also help you locate ambassadors for your business and stop trolls from spreading negative comments about your business.

Publishing content on social media can be time consuming.  Thankfully, tools like HootSuite make it easy for you to schedule your content weeks or months in advance.  Be sure to understand you audience so you can schedule your content to be published when they are online.

Measuring your success on social media can be tricky.  Just because a post receives a million likes doesn’t meant that it is producing income for your business.  Make a list of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and monitor them over time.  Doing this will show you the evolution of your social media efforts and help direct you to publish relevant content at the right time.

Finally, know who your audience is and know who your most passionate fans and followers are.  Make an attempt to connect with your advocates as much as possible and they will return the love in the form of online reach.

Conclusion

Businesses who take the time to develop and maintain an online review system will surely move up the rankings on search results.  When developing an online review system make sure you are consistently asking and receiving reviews to keep your UGC fresh.  Additionally, pay close attention to UGC as it provides the secrets to how your audience is describing your business and your products or services.

Furthermore, take good care of your online reputation.  Make sure the content consumers are finding about your business are positive.  Even if consumers do find negative remarks about your business make sure they also see that you responded to the negative comment and truly care about your consumers.

Google Ranking Blues? Use Rich Snippets To Boost Rankings
Advanced SEO Techniques

Google Rich SnippetsWhen it comes to ranking at the top of Google search results, every little bit of extra information you can tell Google helps.  Rich snippets do just that!  They give Google and other search engine spiders that little bit of extra information that helps with indexing.

Granted, rich snippets do take a bit of extra work and can be a headache at times.  However, rich snippets can help your result stand out and increase your click through rate.  Since high click through rates generally mean a higher rank in search results, don’t you think it would be worth the extra time to learn how to use rich snippets?

Without further ado, let’s hop into what rich snippets are and how you can implement them to boost your search rankings.

What Are Rich Snippets?

Rich snippets are structured data markup that web designers can add to the html of a web page.  This structured data allows search engines to better understand the information that is contained within the web page.

Below are a couple examples of rich snippets at work…

Reviews…

Rich Snippet Reviews

Events…

Events Rich Snippets

How Do Rich Snippets Improve Google Rankings?

Since rich snippets provide more information about a web page to Google, it’s only natural that Google is more attracted to them.  Think of rich snippets kind of like an extra title tag about your web page.  Except rich snippets allow for even more detailed information that a title tag.

Additionally, rich snippets provide additional content on search engine results pages.  Whether your result is display star reviews, an event or a picture, it is going to stand out from the crowd.  Since your result will stand out from the crowd, it will draw more attention and help increase your click through rate.

As a matter of fact, a recent study determined that websites that use rich snippets average 4 positions higher on search results that those without.  With only 0.3% of all website using websites and one third of Google’s search results displaying rich snippets, there is plenty of opportunity to move up the rankings.

Types of Rich Snippets

There are a plethora of different types of rich snippets you can use on your web pages.  If you head over to Google’s Data Markup Helper, you can see a list of 10 rich snippets that Google will help you build.

However, there are literally hundreds of rich snippets you can implement from toy stores to medical dose schedules.  A quick Google search for rich snippet tools can help you find the right rich snippet for your website.

Installing Rich Snippets

Since rich snippets are html code, you will need to get into the backend of your website in order to install them.  Furthermore, since rich snippets are installed on a per page basis, you will need to generate and install the code on each page of your website you want a rich snippet installed.

Generally speaking, the html code for your rich snippet will need to be placed into the head of each individual web page.  This can prove trick for web designers who use templates and are not familiar with the backend of their website.

  • Rich Snippet Tips for WordPress Users

There are a number of rich snippet plugins available for free on WordPress.  However, we suggest using a separate tool such as Google’s Data Markup Helper and then installing the code directly onto your web page.

As mentioned above, you need to add the rich snippet code into the web page that correlates with it.  Therefore, install the “Per page add to head” plugin.  This plugin provides a section on each page that lets you edit the header for that individual page.

Testing Rich Snippets

Google makes testing your rich snippets code easy with it’s Structured Data Testing Tool.  Once you have generated your rich snippet code, you simply run the web pages url or the code itself through Google’s tool and will let you know if you have any errors.

Rich Snippet Testing Tool

Conclusion

Rich snippets provide business owners with an opportunity to leap over their competition on search results.  Taking the extra time (or paying a little more to your webmaster) can result in more traffic, more leads and more sales for you business.

For more SEO tips that are increasing our clients rankings on Google be sure to check out our featured blog post titled “5 SEO Hacks You Need To Implement Today To Dominate Your Niche“.

How To Increase Your Click Through Rates in 2018 with Killer Description Tags
SEO

Description tags are an important part of an effective SEO strategy because of the impact they have on your click through rate. Big businesses spend tens of thousands of dollars researching consumer behavior to determine which trigger words make online searchers click.

What Is A Description Tag

A description tag is a snippet of html code that tells search engines what a web page is about. This tag is the second tag search engines usually index after the page’s title tag.

On the Search Engine Results Page’s (SERPs), the description tag is displayed under the clickable title tag. If a description tag is not coded into a web page, search engines will display a snippet of text from the web page.

 

Description Tag Etiquette

Search engines display up to 160 characters from the description tag on SERP’s. If your description tag is over 160 characters it’s likely it will be cut off or ignored completely.  (Update** Google now allows up to 300 characters in your description tag.)

When writing your description tag, be sure to include your keyword at the beginning of the description. Keywords display in bold text on SERP’s and draw the attention of online searchers.

How Does A Description Tag Improve Search Rankings

Although the description tag itself does not carry any weight for ranking purposes, it is vital in moving up on SERP’s. A well written description tag catches the searchers attention and intrigues them to want to click through to your website.

Since Google and other major search engines strive on providing the highest quality content to their users, signals like click through rate impact your position on SERP’s. A higher click through rate will help your website rank higher on SERP’s.

In 2015 Rand Fishkin put the click through rate hypothesis to the test. He went on Twitter and asked his followers to search for a specific term and then click on his result on the SERP. Within 3 hours his web page went from the 7th position on the first page to the 1st position on the first page. You can read more about this test at https://moz.com/rand/queries-clicks-influence-googles-results/

Researching Description Tags For a Better Click Through Rate

We found the best way to research description tags is to focus on the paid ads big businesses are running on Google. Some of these companies spend millions of dollars monthly so it’s pretty safe to say they know what works.

At this point you should already know they keywords you want to focus on so all you have to do is a Google search. Search for every keyword you want to rank for and watch for commonalities in the ads showing up on the first page of SERPs.

Once you have identified 2 or 3 trigger words, it’s time to incorporate them into your description tag. As mentioned above, keep your keyword at the beginning of the description tag but also try to use one of your trigger words shortly after. Since description tags contain more characters than Google Ads, adding a second trigger word is recommended to help increase click through rates.

Conclusion

Although the meta description does not carry any SEO weight itself, it is an important factor. Your meta description is the sales copy that makes online searchers skip by your listing or click through to your website. Take the time needed to find the right trigger words that make people move and watch your click through rate increase.