How to Choose a Seattle SEO Company
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on August 15, 2013
If you’re in need of SEO help then you’ve probably noticed the literally dozens of SEO companies in the area. Choosing just one Seattle SEO company might be difficult, but there are a lot of factors that you can consider to narrow your selection. Here are a couple of factors that go into a great SEO company.
A Portfolio
First, your Seattle SEO company needs a portfolio. Looking for a portfolio is probably the easiest way to root through the weeds to come up with the good companies. Companies with portfolios have experience, have had success in the past, and have work that they are proud enough of to show off. Of course, you could also invest your time and money in a company with no portfolio, but with nothing to show; you don’t really have any guarantee of success.
Multi-Dimensional Services
There are three basic types of SEO including on-site, technical, and off-site. You want any SEO company or specialist that works with you to understand and work with all three. On-site SEO is usually your web content, the keywords on your pages, and your content structure. Technical includes any website issues that affect how bots crawl your pages. Off-site SEO is link and reputation building that can affect traffic to your site. Your SEO should understand all three of these concepts, and likely social media as well. Essentially, you want a well-rounded company that really knows what they are doing.
Communication Skills
You cannot do business with someone who does not communicate. Hiring a local Seattle SEO company can help with this, especially if you are able to meet in person. If you choose to work online, they should still be able to communicate effectively with you. Without communication you likely won’t get progress updates, and you might even find out that what they are working on isn’t quite your strategy. Make sure you find a company that can talk to and understand you in order to meet your needs and goals.
Results
Does the SEO company offer results? While SEO, like marketing, offers no 100% guaranteed results, you can look for past success to see if they offer results. Look up ‘Seattle SEO Company’ or similar to see if they rank somewhere within the first few pages. If not, who really wants to hire an SEO company that doesn’t rank? You can also look at studies, statistics, and look up former or current clients of the company to see what they have done with other clients.
Complementing Services
It might not sound important but SEO is becoming one of a group of services. SEO and social media are very close together in importance, so you might want to consider looking for a company that offers both services. Hiring an SEO who understands social allows you to create content directed to social. You can also consider that an SEO who understands web design is more likely to be able to work with any technical issues with your SEO.
There are plenty of Seattle SEO companies, but only a few of the best. Do your research and find a company that offers great services!
Five Reasons You Need Social Media Management
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on August 8, 2013
If you have a social page for your business then you might be doing just fine. However, studies show that some companies actually hurt their brand presence by not doing the right things, or doing too much of them. If you don’t know how to run your social successfully, your options include getting off social and limiting your brand presence, or hiring a local Seattle social media manager to help you out. Here are a couple of signs you might want to do one or the other.
Your Pages are Rarely Updated
If your pages are sitting there without being updated then you probably have no business running a Facebook page. Chances are that even if you have people who would like to follow your social, they won’t if they aren’t updated. Most people go to social media for news, updates, and sales, but if they don’t see anything, they won’t follow you, like you, or even give you a moment of their time. If you’ve wasted money on advertising and followed it by not posting you might even find that fans eventually leave your pages.
You Post Constantly
The only crime worse than not posting, is posting too often. Even on Twitter, you should time your posts and intersperse them with other posts so that it’s not all about you. No one wants to see a whole feed of just you, so take it easy. As a rule, you should focus on quality over quantity. However, that doesn’t mean that you should be posting just once or twice a day. Consider four posts per day for Facebook, and 20 or more for your Twitter. Does that sound like a lot of work? You can still hire a Seattle social media manager to help you out.
You Don’t Talk to Your Clients
Whether you have clients, fans, or customers, you do have to talk to them. Your social is your best resource for connecting to your fans. If you have a fan base then you probably have people asking questions, stating concerns, complaining, or offering praise. Responding to the majority of these people is important if you want your business to gain customers from it. For example, someone asking about the opening hours of your business would likely want to come and visit, if you never respond, they will never come and visit.
You Have No ROI
Time is money so if you are not making money from your social media efforts then something is obviously wrong. Any venture without ROI is not worth doing, so consider moving on to something else. If you aren’t making money, consider either having the pros help you out or giving up on your social altogether. If you are wasting your time on unproductive social, then you aren’t making money.
You Don’t Know What You’re Doing
Is social a mystery to you? While you might know what to do with your personal Facebook page, and even have a twitter account, you might not know a great deal about social media marketing. If that is the case, you might not want to manage a business page. While you can take the time to learn your social, you might also be too busy.
So, do you need Seattle social media management? If so, check out our SMM page to see what we offer!
Social Media and SEO – Your Two Greatest Marketing Assets
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization on August 1, 2013
If you pay attention to marketing news then you can probably see that ‘SEO vs. Social Media’ is a pretty hot topic. A lot of people want to compare the two to see which offers more ROI, but the truth is that both are pretty much indispensable when used correctly. A social media professional can leverage your social to covert your fans into customers, and a quality SEO can convert thousands of visitors onto your website. Both offer results, but the best results are found when you combine the two.
Social Media
Social Media has a huge advantage when it comes to conversions. In fact, a study in 2012 showed that social has a 100% higher lead to close rate than outbound marketing conversion rate. Does that mean that every person on your social will become a customer? Far from it, but statistics show that you can increase your leads from social by more than 25% by offering a simple discount on your social. Social Media is popular because it is the easiest way to connect to fans, and is the fastest way to convert traffic. If you have people on your page, then you can talk to them instantly, which greatly increases your sale conversion rate. Facebook is used more often for researching brands via their pages, while Twitter is more popular for asking brand questions, or asking about brands. You can use both to get in touch with your client base and make new fans. If you ask any Seattle social media expert they will definitely be able to make sales from your social when given the time to create a fanbase.
SEO
SEO is quite possibly the most widely misunderstood marketing tactic ever, but mostly because it has changed so much since its start. The key to SEO is keeping up with changes and remembering that traffic is the most important goal. A good Seattle SEO strategy consists of technical website details that affect search, on-site content that draws traffic, and off-site SEO that sends traffic to the site. While there are other factors involved, these are usually the most important. Your Seattle SEO plan should cover your link building, technical specifications, and keyword optimization on your site so that you draw traffic.
SEO & SMM
One important thing to remember is that no matter how much traffic your website draws, it might not convert. Most people prefer to research a site as thoroughly as possible before making a purchase or investment, and your business is probably no different. Your landing pages can either attempt to convince visitors to make a purchase, or can be used to get visitors to stick around, become fans, and maybe make a purchase later. Whether you do this by offering a purchase incentive, or by simply directing them to your social page for more info, social plays a huge role in long term retention of traffic and therefore of increasing your ROI.
Both SEO and social media play a large part in your Seattle marketing, but usually you need both to see the best results. While there are some exceptions to the rule, the two are mostly inseparable.
Five Things You Should Consider Before You Hire a Seattle Website Designer
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on July 30, 2013
If you’re considering hiring a Seattle website designer then your first step should be to sit down and brainstorm. While you don’t have to know exactly what you want when you hire your web designer, it does help to have a good idea of what you need. If you have no idea, a good web designer will still be able to help you but it will take a little longer. Here are a couple of things you can think about before you make the hire.
Your Budget – If you don’t know what your budget is then you can’t hire anyone. Consider how much you can logically afford to spend on web development, design, and launch. If your web designer also offers SEO and Social for your launch, consider how much you can afford for that as well. Consolidating your budget can still save you a lot of money but you definitely want to know how much you can afford to spend.
Who You Are – While this might sound silly, you have to know who you are before you design your website. Whether as an individual or as a company, you have to be able to put down your style, your policies, and even your attitude on paper so that a designer can work your personality into your website. Part of this is deciding your business policy.
What You Need – What do you need in a website? For example if you’re a restaurant owner then you probably need interactive menus, a stylish but polished design, and maybe a forum for leaving reviews. On the other hand if you sell shoes then you need a fully functioning e-commerce website with size, color, and probably even shipping options. Depending on the exact type of your business you could need entirely different websites. For example an automotive web shop is different from a shoe shop. Take some time to consider what you think your website needs in order to function properly.
Time Frame – How quickly do you need a website? If you need to launch quickly then your best bet might be to hire a website designer who can work well with templates so that your website goes up more quickly. If you can take your time and prefer something more unique, going custom is always a better option. You could also have a template put up and then switch to a custom design later. Telling your web designer your expected launch date can help a great deal with planning so that you get your site when you need it.
What You Want – Last but not least, you should consider what you want. If you have no idea, consider poking around your competitors websites and see what you like and don’t like. You won’t ever be copying items from their pages, but you can get a pretty good idea of what you dislike so that you won’t have anything similar on your website. Likewise, you can make a list of features, colors, and styles that you do like to help your website designer bring something that you love to life.
Hiring a great Seattle website designer is just one part of launching your website. Luckily, while you will have a part to play in the form of deciding on colors, styles, and features, your designer will do most of the work for you.
Five Myths About Your Social Media Marketing That You Can Ignore
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on July 18, 2013
If you’ve been listening to what everyone has to say about your SMM, then think again. There are plenty of social media marketing myths out there, and some of them could actually hurt your strategy if you pay attention. If you’ve hired a social media marketer, this probably isn’t an issue, but if not, you can at least see what you’re doing wrong.
#1 Older Customers Don’t Use Social Media – This myth is incredibly wrong. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Twitter is 55-66, while the fastest growing on Facebook is 45-55. If you haven’t been using your social because you have an older clientele base, then you have to think again. Older people are moving to social media and mostly to Facebook and Twitter. Remember to balance out your content and posts and try to aim them towards your chosen demographic.
#2 More Posts Means A Better Campaign – While this myth can be true if you are on Twitter, and more posts equates to ‘more interactive posts’, the myth is almost 90% false. For the most part, your fans would rather see quality over quantity. Focus your efforts to a handful of posts per day on your Facebook and Google +. You can post more frequently on Twitter, but remember that no one wants to see you retweeting the same things. Instead, try to get more interaction with your posts so that more people see each individual post.
#3 You Should Join Every Social Network – While this might be beneficial if you have a huge team of social guys and a wide customer demographic, it’s mostly a waste of time. You should most likely restrict most of your efforts to three to five social networks. Your core networks should be Facebook, Twitter, and Google +, with Instagram and Pinterest being additional options if you sell items, blog, or have a lot of cool photos. Other than that, you don’t really need any other networks. For example, LinkedIn has a very low percentage of active users and unless you are hiring, might not be hugely beneficial.
#4 Every Post Should Be About Your Company – Most people get bored if you only talk about you. If all they ever see are your products, your services, and your information they might leave your page. Part of your social media marketing strategy should be to engage and entertain your customers. If this means sharing the occasional funny photo (related to your page), and posting helpful information and tips, then so be it. What is a great idea for engagement? Offer to answer questions live on your Twitter, Facebook, or Google + once per week if you have the time.
#5 Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Have a Good ROI – A lot of people are under the mistaken idea that social media marketing offers no return on investment. While there have been some historic cases of companies dumping money into advertising programs to grow their fan base, you can usually see direct results of social efforts. Statistics show that companies who use Twitter average twice the leads than those who do not, every 1,000 Twitter followers usually equates 6% more website traffic, and more than 50% of companies using Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn for marketing have acquired customers from it. Considering that the cost of advertising per lead is lower for SMM than for any other form of marketing, you have a winner!
Sometimes the only way to succeed with a social media marketing campaign is to bring in the pros. Check out our social media marketing services to find out what we can do for you!
Do You Really Need an SEO Specialist?
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on July 16, 2013
If you’re considering hiring an SEO specialist then you should think about it carefully before you do. An SEO Specialist can do a lot for your site including increasing page rank, getting your site higher on SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages), and of course, getting you more traffic. All of this is of course a benefit, but you do have to carefully consider what you are paying for and whether or not you need it. After all, SEO is a marketing service, and you wouldn’t jump right into buying a billboard on the side of a road without thinking it through first.
The Pros
SEO is one of the most affordable means of marketing known to man. Unlike PPC and traditional advertising, it offers fast, flexible results that can continue to grow over time, even after you are no longer paying an SEO specialist or company. You can double, triple, or even quadruple your traffic with SEO, and traffic likely means customers. If you have something to sell then this could mean money in your pocket. Most importantly, SEO does not charge you for what you get. If you get 1 million hits then you pay the same as if you get 1,000 hits.
The Cons
Many of the cons of SEO are simply the reverse of the pros. An SEO company can get your website to the top of search engines, but they can’t sell your products for you. If you don’t have a great website that is going to sell, then traffic could be just traffic. You have to make sure that your website is ready before you hire an SEO specialist to help you get that traffic. What else? SEO isn’t magic, it takes time, and nothing happens overnight. SEO is a complicated process that involves a lot of different factors, so if you’re looking for overnight increases in traffic and sales, you might want to go another route, like PPC. Like that billboard mentioned above, SEO doesn’t really guarantee sales or traffic, it just guarantees exposure. Unless you make your ‘ad’ on the SERPS exactly what people are looking for, it won’t do anything.
Do You Need an SEO Specialist?
So, do you need an SEO specialist? Chances are that if you have a great website that can handle traffic, a good call to action, a product to sell that people want, and a budget high enough to accommodate an good SEO company, then yes you do. On the other hand if you are looking into getting instant traffic, instant sales, and a pay-as-you-go philosophy, traditional marketing and PPC may be the way to go.
SEO has its pros and cons but for anyone looking for long term results, it’s usually an important consideration. Why, because over time it can do more for your website than PPC will, but for less money. In addition, most people actually click on natural SERPS provided by SEO rather than by advertisements. Interested? Why not check out our Search Engine Optimization page to see what we do for the Seattle area.
The Vital Role of Web Hosting on Your Online Presence
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on July 5, 2013
If you’re thinking about setting up a website then you have to consider your web hosting as an important element of your site. Web hosting affects more than you might think as it influences your website speed, uptime vs. downtime, and even your SEO. While it might be tempting to simply choose the cheapest web host available, here are a couple of reasons why you should take your time, research, and find the best Seattle web host available. So how does your website hosting affect your site?
Speed – One of the most important factors of any web host package is speed. The faster your site loads the better, and for multiple reasons. The first is that many people believe that Google considers the speed of your website when choosing sites to bring up first in search. Fast websites obviously come up first while slower sites come in second, third, or on the next page. Another consideration is that studies estimate that you lose traffic if your website takes longer than a second to load. At 3.5 seconds, more than half of users have already hit the back button rather than waiting for it to load. In fact, a study by Google showed that traffic dropped by 20% when the load page of their sites was increased by just .5 seconds. Therefor you need a reliable host that loads your website as quickly as possible.
Reliability – While speed is an important consideration, uptime is also a very big concern. You most likely want a server with an uptime of 99% or more, so that your website stays online. A good web host should have multiple backup servers so that your data stays safe and is protected during outages.
Location – Many people don’t consider the location of their web host but it is sometimes a good idea to work with a local host. A local Seattle web host gives you easy access to your server, makes it easy to call a technician to ask for help, and might make updating and loading your website faster, especially if you get mostly local traffic. Sometimes the country location of the server matters as well because some countries have a larger reputation for spam than others, for example China, the Ukraine, and Russia are all hotspots for servers that also host spam sites. Going with a local server helps you to avoid these issues.
Last but not least, you can always ask your Seattle web developer for advice on where to get your web hosting. Many, like Rory Martin, offer their own dedicated web hosting so that you can get full service web development, design, and hosting all in one place. Best of all, if your web host is provided by your web developer, you can trust that your site will be easily uploaded and set up for a single price, rather than you having to pay multiple companies. Generally your final choice should also depend on the pricing, packaging, and what is included as well as the factors that are listed above, so consider researching your options and choosing what is best for your website.
Why Joomla? A Look at the World’s Second Most Popular CMS
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on June 27, 2013
Joomla is a CMS or Content Management System that is most often used by small businesses who want to easily control and update their website. CMS is the best alternative for anyone who does not want to call their developer each time they want an upgrade but they can be open source or custom built depending on the owner’s needs. While many people choose to have a custom built CMS, most choose to go with the much more affordable option of using an open source option like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla.
Currently Joomla is estimated to have been downloaded and installed more than 30 million times, making it the second most popular CMS on the planet, just behind WordPress. While WordPress is the best choice for blogging websites, the majority of people who choose Joomla are business owners. But why would you want to choose Joomla? And why do Seattle web design companies choose Joomla so often?
Easy to Learn
Joomla, like other CMS, has a learning curve. However, with literally hundreds of free tutorials on the web, you won’t have to constantly ask for help for simple itmes. Unlike a custom CMS you are working with an open source option meaning that there are plenty of options for free training, tutorials, as well as full classes at some colleges that will help you get into the swing of things. While you don’t have to learn to develop Joomla, which takes longer, you can easily learn to user your CMS to its best advantage without spending a great deal of money.
Plenty of Apps
Joomla currently has a database of more than 6,000 extensions. These ad-ons are similar to apps or applications and can be used to quickly and easily add features to your site. That means that if you want to quickly add a temporary feature then you can just use an extension. Of course, if you want something permanent that is unique to your site, you might still want to think about having your web designer develop one for you instead.
Fast Setup
While Joomla does take time to develop, it has been proven that the CMS goes faster from design to launch than most other CMS. This means that you spend less money, waste less time, and get your results faster. Of course, developing any website takes time, especially if you are looking for a feature rich platform. Joomla however can be a little quicker than many other solutions.
Stable
Joomla is one of the most stable CMS options on the planet which is alone a huge credit. Working with stable, pre-designed solutions means that your web design company can get right to the item at hand, which is designing your website. Instead of building and testing a CSM solution for you, they can concentrate on building your site, not your CMS.
Joomla has its pros and cons but considering that it is the most popular business choice for CMS, it definitely has more pros than cons. If you’re considering using Joomla for your website you can contact us to talk about your web design needs. We cover Joomla as well as custom CMS designed for your business.
Want to learn more? Check out our Seattle web design page to see what we offer and what we can do.
Facebook EdgeRank and Your Business
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on June 21, 2013
For anyone who does not know what EdgeRank is, it is the term commonly used to name Facebook’s algorithm that decides who shows up on a timeline. The theory results from the idea that there is only so much space on each person’s timeline and most people like way too many people and pages to keep up with every post. First, let’s go over exactly what Facebook EdgeRank is and how it affects your page.
What is Facebook EdgeRank
Facebook Edgerank is something of an algorithm similarly to Google’s SEO algorithm it decides who comes up on the timeline, except there is no ‘first place’. Most people reduce this to terms of ‘real estate’. There is only so much space, and EdgeRank attempts to fairly determine who gets it. While Facebook hasn’t announced everything that they use to factor in Edgerank, there are a couple of important factors that we do know about.
- The percentage of your fans who interact with wall
- The speed of interactions with your posts
- The number of interactions with your posts
Essentially, the higher the percentage of your fans who interact with your posts and the speed of their interactions is one of the largest influencing factors on your EdgeRank. The number of fans who interact with your page matters as well but if you have 300,000 fans and only five of them interact, then your EdgeRank will suffer. Why? Because Facebook is most likely trying to combat fake likes that sometimes flood business pages. This means that if you have them, they are hurting your Edgerank.
Influencing EdgeRank to Get your Business Seen
You probably know that if you don’t show up on someone’s wall, they probably won’t ever see your post. Very few fans are ever motivated enough to actually search for and bring up a page, even with the new addition of GraphSearch which makes finding pages easier. If they do get to your page then they are most likely looking for information rather than looking to interact with your page. That means that your job is to be as engaging as possible for those who do see your page.
Fans – Consider slimming down your fanbase by removing fake likes, and removing anyone who has never interacted with your page. While you obviously can’t remove thousands of fans, you can benefit if you have a smaller page. Remove likes you say? A large part of Facebook’s algorithm includes the number of fans interacting with your page. A slimmer, more interactive fanbase will get you more interaction and therefore more fans in the long run.
Posts – Consider posting no more than five times per day and certainly no less than two times. You want active, engaging content that gets people talking, and sharing. Most people find that images get the most likes and shares, so consider posting at least one image per day. You can post photos of products but should do so rarely, post funny or inspirational images to help boost your EdgeRank, or even create photos of your staff, although these are likely to only be shared by friends and family.
Interaction – You can help boost interaction by liking and commenting on everything you post but you commenting on everything might get old quickly. Instead, encourage fans to like, share, and comment on important posts, and then try to strategically post at times when people are most active on social, such as 4 PM on weekdays, or between 1 and 3, or 8 and 10 on weekends. Encouraging friends and family, as well as employees, to comment and like your pages statuses can also help to boost Edgerank, especially if they like and share quickly after the post goes up.
Boosting your EdgeRank can improve your social media marketing over time, but might not be successful for everyone. Facebook has a complex algorithm that not everyone knows, and for good reason. Your best bet is still to post interesting content that is relevant to your page and your business.
Blogging & SEO: Do the Two Really Have to Go Together?
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on June 20, 2013
If you’re looking into SEO for your local Seattle business then you have no doubt been told to start a blog. Search engine optimization and blogging seem to go hand in hand no matter where you turn, but why? Do you really need a blog? And if so, what does it actually do for your localized SEO? Chances are that as a business owner, blogging might not be your forte’ and you might not know where to start. Fortunately there are plenty of bloggers out there who can help you with your SEO, so all you need is to know why you need them.
Good Content Means Traffic
If you write it, they will come. Content, especially high quality unique content that serves a purpose, is going to get traffic. If you have a booming social and like to share content, you’ll get even more traffic. Traffic to a blog means traffic to your website which eventually turns into exposure to your merchandise. Most importantly, if you write about your products and services correctly, you will attract people who are actually looking for those services. So if you sell hair accessories for women you could blog about how to wear your hair to a formal occasion or ten casual hairstyles that make you look fabulous. A restaurant could blog about nightlife in Seattle, almost anything about food, what to wear eating out, or similar. In either case, the blog would attract people who are looking for the product or service offered, which means that each visitor has the potential to become a customer.
Increased Keyword Density & Long Tails
In order for your site to not come off as spam, you have to take it easy on the keywords on your actual pages. You can’t keyword stuff if you want to show up in search for anything, so how do you increase the density and value of your pages? Actually writing about those same keywords via a blog can help a great deal. You can actually increase the value of the keyword for your site by mentioning it more across more blogs, meaning that you get the same density without keyword stuffing. You can use the same ideas for inserting long tail versions of your keywords as well so that you get an SEO friendly website.
Google Loves Blogs
You can’t combine the words search, engine, and optimization without Google coming to mind and rightly so. Google controls some 70% of search (at least). In order to come up in search, Google has to like you and one aspect of that can be blogging. While there are other ways to enhance your SEO, nothing says search friendly quite like content, and blogs are all about content. A good blog will also increase visitor interaction on your site, which also sends positive signals to Google.
So what are the rules? Always write original content, keep your grammar high quality, and make sure any facts in your posts are true. While you can write in any style you like, you should find something that you are comfortable with, and that reflects the style and tone of your business.
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