0 Crafting Effective Calls to Action: Three Simple Tips

• SEO
• by Seth Pollins
• 09.09.2020

Do you associate the phrase "call to action" with political activism or military readiness? The phrase  likely evolved from "call to arms," which was first recorded in the mid 19th century. Today, however, "call to action" is also commonly understood as a marketing term. In digital marketing, specifically, a "call to action" is any on-page element--like a button or link--that solicits a desired action.This definition is related to the digital marketing concept of "conversion," when a visitor actually performs a desired action--like clicking that link or button, or signing up for a newsletter.To attract conversions, a website must offer effective calls to action--enticements that make the "action" both simple and desirable.So how do you create an effective call to action on your most important pages? Below we offer three simple tips. Design: Make Your Call to Action Stand Out The famous Uncle Sam poster is a perfect example of an effective call to action. As TIME notes, this image, which was designed during the first world war as a recruitment poster for the US army, is still "one of the most memorable images in American history." It also illustrates the most important element of creating an effective call to action: Your call to action must be front and center, as easy to identify as any other element on the page--and, perhaps, easier to identify. Too many websites fail to perform this one simple task. Too often calls to action are hidden at the bottom of a page, or elsewhere--even visitors who may want to click can be discouraged by too much scrolling. You do not need to bludgeon your visitors with your call to action. Instead, create an actionable button or link THAT STANDS OUT from the rest of your content. Many websites use pop-ups or overlays--but beware, you need to be careful about your use and placement of these elements, lest you alienate your visitors.As the SEO expert, Rand Fishkin, of Moz, notes: "I would strongly urge you to avoid elements that are significantly harming [user experience]."A better option: Blend your call to action buttons or links seamlessly into your content. Content: Short and Sweet Calls to action are necessarily made of content--most often words. So the best calls-to-action include short and sweet words, phrases, or sentences. Simple declarative language catches the eye and simplifies the message. HubSpot collected 39 Call-to-Action Examples You Can't Help But Click." From Evernote's "remember everything" to Netflix's "cancel anytime," which appears above the "Join Free for a Month" button, the most prominent connection between each is simple, declarative phrases:So when writing a call to action leave passive voice behind--and strive for active voice with active verbs. Along with a precise location (Bucks County, PA) and other on-page SEO elements, SEO Sparta tries to attract visitors with a simple call to action front and center on our home page: Contact Us.  Content Conversion: What's the Payoff for Your Visitor? Your call to action must offer your visitor a sense of worth. Many brands ask visitors to sign up for newsletters; the most effective brands, however, include the enticement of savings: 15% OFF. Examples of other incentives may include free e-books, a free product sample, or a free trial of your product--like Netflix offers above. In its article about calls to action, HubSpot speaks about the potential effectiveness of an "exit CTA," which "detect your users' behavior and only appear when it seems as though they're about to leave your site."Hubspot uses the example of a clothing brand, Ugmonk, which offers an exit call to action with an incentive: 15% OFF.  "By intervening in a timely way," HubSpot notes, "these pop-ups serve as a fantastic way of getting your reader’s attention while offering them a reason to stay Actionable Content Marketing with SEO SpartaIf you're looking for an SEO company that understands how to effectively promote websites with actionable content that converts visitors, contact SEO Sparta today. We combine traditional marketing methods and organic SEO--with an emphasis on natural website optimization--to design thoughtful, inspiring, and effective content marketing campaigns.

0 The Omnishopper: How to Attract Today's Consumers

• Online Reputation Management
• by Seth Pollins
• 08.15.2020

In recent years, the marketing world coined a new term to describe the type of consumer who browses and buys services and products across multiple platforms, both online and offline: the "omnishopper." The term initially referred to consumers who researched products online before shopping in brick-and-mortar stores, but recently the meaning has evolved. As the name implies, an omnishopper is an omnivorous shopper, who uses any resource, online or offline, to make an informed decision. No matter the form or venue, the omnishopper is motivated by data: Most omnishoppers research products and services assiduously before making a purchase. The goal, of course, is to buy the best product or service at the best price.  Content writers oblige this goal every day by writing top-ten lists. Sites like the Wirecutter offer buying advice for seemingly everything--from choosing the best cloth for your mask to starting an urban garden. And Reddit communities, like Buy it For Life and Frugal Male Fashion, cater to the omnishoppers' insatiable desire to discover the most durable or fashionable item at the best price. What unites all of these diverse queries is an emphasis on reviews--preferably star reviews, with detailed content. In this way, the modern omnishopper is simply the modern shopper. Most browsers browse products and research reviews before making any purchasing decision, online or offline. The website Retail Dive, which performed a consumer survey on the "psyche of the American consumer," presents the modern shopper's experience as a conundrum for businesses: "The pre-purchase shopping routine today takes many twists and turns as consumers move from clicks to bricks with relative ease to browse and buy. While convenient for shoppers, it's becoming harder for retailers to know exactly where and when the shopper journey actually begins." The marketing firm Criteo believes retailers need more data on shoppers: "Data is required on a mass scale and it needs to be granular—not just what shoppers purchased, but what they viewed, on what device, on what day, during what season, how they arrived on that page and where they went next." Criteo's "data" may help retailers answer the challenge of Retail Dive: "To know exactly when and where the shopping journey actually begins." Obviously, in the time of Covid-19, the retail journey is increasingly online. For retailers online and offline, however, the fundamental challenge is the same: How do you attract a browser's attention? And how do you assure, after initial discovery, your product is viewed favorably? To discover the answers to these questions, we view the browser's experience as a two-step decision-making process, and qualify how each step is influenced by different digital marketing techniques: SEO (search engine optimization) and ORM (online reputation management). Influence the Experience: SEO & ORM The omnishopper's buying behavior can be viewed as a two-decision process. 1. The first decision governs the initial search: what product or service to buy. 2. The second decision governs the second search: what website or company to buy from. To influence the first decision, a website must assure that its product is available on the results page--preferably in the first, second, or third spot. This is the goal of SEO: to make your website, or your content, more visible to browsers looking for your type of product or service. With special reference to your industry/niche business, your core products and services, and your location, SEO uses keywords to rank your site on the first SERP (search engine results) page. If successful, your SEO campaign will yield a variety of top results for different keywords. For example, if a browser searches for "raw denim jeans" (another popular Reddit community), he/she will confront a variety of informative websites as well as a few buying decisions. If your company sells raw denim jeans, SEO will help your product appear on the first page of the search results. I recently purchased a pair of raw denim in Philadelphia by doing precisely this: My search for "raw denim Philadelphia" uncovered a local store, Franklin and Poe, which had exactly what I was looking for.  Once a browser discovers your product, however, he/she will likely want more information--and possibly information from a third-party about your product. How often have you discovered a product and then immediately Googled reviews for the product? To influence this second decision, which may lead ultimately to a conversion, a business must assure that its product reviews are uniformly positive. This is the goal of ORM: to monitor and improve (or repair, when needed) the reputation of businesses, products, and services online. The Difference Between SEO & ORM SEO governs on-site optimization (although off-site optimization is also a viable SEO practice that mirrors certain functions of ORM). ORM governs the work across the Internet, influencing the image of your brand. ORM often uses SEO (as well as other digital marketing tools) as part of a comprehensive campaign to improve your online image.  To succeed online (and offline), you need both SEO and ORM. At SEO Sparta, we use a Google-centric approach to attracting favorable online reviews. This is less expensive then many other options for ORM, which may include third-party tools or plug-ins. Whatever the tools, we believe a combination of SEO and ORM is the best way to attract today's ominshopper. 

0 SEO User Experience: Key Data Points

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 07.22.2020

After the long quarantine, more and more businesses have returned to brick-and-mortar operations in the Philadelphia-area and nationwide. However, the recent shutdowns have taught many business owners a simple truth: the indispensable value of a strong online presence.  To optimize your online presence you must first understand your online data--the rich analytical statistics that detail the performance of a website. This data is available to all websites for free from Google Analytics or for a fee from enterprise SEO platforms. Unfortunately, most website owners do not use (or understand) this data. Most ignore it in favor of intuition and guile. An intuitive understanding of your audience is crucial to your website's success, but the combination of intuition and analytical knowledge is the surest path to online success--especially now, in these strange pandemic days.  Website data can tell you precisely how people discover and interact with your website. With the help of this data, you can tweak your content to focus more specifically on the browsers who truly want or need your service. More importantly, you can perfect your "user experience," a term used in the SEO world to describe the experience of browsing your site. Is your content easily discovered and shared? Do your pages load quickly? Is your website structure seamless? If so, your site will be viewed favorably by search engines and browsers.  As Moz notes in its Beginner's Guide to SEO: "Usability and user experience are second order influences on search engine ranking success. They provide an indirect but measurable benefit to a site's external popularity, which the engines can then interpret as a signal of higher quality." Improve User Experience--and SEO--By Optimizing These Data Points  Click-Through Rate Click-through rate (CTR) is a term used in AdWords to describe the difference between the number of people who see your ad and the number who actually click through. Yet SERP CTR can be a helpful metric, too. SERP (search engine results page) CTR is the difference between how many people see your results in the rankings and how many people actually click-through to your page. In either case, a higher CTR means that your website intrigues browsers by name and/or description alone. A lower CTR means that you're not successfully marketing your brand on the most basic level--you're not creating, as SEO guru Neil Patel says, "a sizzling title or an appealing meta description." Even then, CTR viewed by itself can be misleading. Once a browser clicks through, you want to make sure your content convinces him/her to stick around. Optimize Click Through Rate: "13 Ways to Improve Your Organic Click-Through Rate" Dwell Time "Dwell time" is a bit of SEO jargon coined by Bing's former webmaster, Duane Forrester, to describe how long a user dwells on your site before returning to the SERP. As defined by Moz, dwell time is "an amalgam of bounce rate and time-on-site metrics." When viewed in combination with SERP CTR dwell time can be a stupendous technique for evaluating your site. Bounce rate  Bounce rate is a Google term for the percentage of your visitors who only visit your site for a brief time before navigating away. Unfortunately, Google's definition of bounce rate "time" is somewhat vague: "Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page)." Since Google's definition of bounce rate is vague, some in the SEO world combine bounce rate with time-on-site to create the seemingly more accurate "dwell time." Time-on-site (AKA: session duration) is a measurement of the total time a browser spends on your site.To Google, bounce rate is a signal that the SERP did not adequately fulfill your needs--after all, you clicked on a result, then clicked away. A certain result might rank high on a given SERP, but if the bounce rate is high the site will inevitably decrease in the rankings. Neil Patel combines dwell time with CTR to create an even more durable representation of website performance. His description is easy to understand: If a user is spending time on a site, interacting with it, not bouncing, and going deeper within the content, it’s evident there is something of value on the site for that particular user. As this happens, SEO improves. SERP CTR and dwell time converge in the nexus of SEO for this reason. A CTR is not alone an accurate presentation of user behavior. High CTRs can merely reflect a sizzling title or an appealing meta description. CTR is not an indication of the quality of the content on the page itself. That’s where dwell time comes in. If dwell time is low, then the high SERP CTR is discounted in the algorithm’s calculation. If, on the other hand, the dwell time is high, then the CTR receives its due value. Website Audits Many SEO firms offer SEO audits that target these data points. If your website is under-performing, an audit will clarify the exact elements of your website that require improvement. As apart of the audit, you will likely receive a detailed report showing you how many people have visited your website for a specific period of time, how many of those visitors are unique, the time visitors spent on your website, and other information that will help you convert visitors into potential customers. With this information and more, you learn your website visitors in depth. However, the key is using this data to improve your online offering.  SEO Sparta: Use Your Data in the Right Way SEO Sparta helps clients in the Philadelphia-area and worldwide to use the rich analytical data provided by Google and other enterprises to create customized marketing strategies. We know how to improve user experience. To learn more about our offerings, please browse our main site today: SEO Sparta. Cover Photo Source: "How to use SEO Data in Your Social Media Strategy"

0 SEO 101: Consumer Email Guide

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 06.19.2020

How do you connect with your customers? Social media? Content marketing? E-newsletters? A successful digital marketing campaign attempts to connect with customers across multiple platforms--ideally with unique content for each. Throughout the current pandemic, brands small and large have struggled to maintain connections with their customers. However, as many regions of the country ease quarantine restrictions--the Philadelphia region is set to enter the "green phase"--the struggle will amplify. How will businesses, especially local businesses, convince shoppers to return to brick-and-mortar locations?  Both social media and content marketing attempt to accomplish the timeless goal of all marketing campaigns: to attract and engage a targeted audience. Happily, many brands, especially local brands, already have an audience. Call it what you will, audience, target list, or followers, a succinctly defined (and refined) audience is marketing gold. Consumer Emails: One of 121 The trick to leveraging your audience is the same as attracting new customers: unique and effective content. Unfortunately, quality content creation is a shortcoming for many established businesses. Many businesses, in fact, own impressive contact lists to absolutely no avail.These businesses send mass emails and newsletters without a great deal of intention--let alone editing or revision, the hallmarks of good writing. For some reason, these businesses expect sub-par content to work like magic: to inspire a conversion, like a click through. The average office worker receives 121 emails each day. An impressive targeted list can not change this simple fact: Your email is one 121. So how do you stand out from the crowd? How do you inspire a click through? Great content is a must. If you're writing emails or e-newsletters to your target list, however, you can improve your conversions by following three simple tips. Write a Captivating Title Obviously, you want your recipients to open your emails. Considering the deluge each person receives each day, you must attract attention from the get-go. Without a captivating title, that speaks specifically to your target audience's needs or desires, your email will likely never see the light of day. Writing for HubSpot, Ginny Mineo collected 31 of the Best Email Subject Lines You've Ever Read, from Barack Obama's "Hey" to this humdinger from Thrillist: "DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities." "I always ask myself one question before opening an email," writes Mineo. "Will opening this email be a waste of time? Typically, the answer to this question is based entirely on the effectiveness of the subject line." Mineo's article offers helpful insight on how to craft an effective, captivating title. As Obama's "Hey" proves, it's not all about surprising your audience. The key is enticement. When writing a title, you have one goal--to inspire a click. Design a Successful Template Many businesses spend hours creating consumer email content only to waste the content on a poorly-designed layout. The way your email looks is important. Chunky blocks of text repel readers. Some experts even advise abandoning paragraphs altogether for lists or bullets. Remember, even when your email is opened, your readers are likely pressed for time. Pay attention to font, font size, and paragraph length. Attract readership with a clean, simple presentation. Salesforce's Pardot, which offers B2B marketing automation, collected 7 Examples of Succesful Email Templates with some helpful tips: "Research has shown that people scan emails in an “F” shaped pattern," Jenn Hannington writes for Pardot. "Keep this in mind when creating your templates. Important information should be at the top, including your company logo, your call to action, and any key points that you’d like readers to take away from your email." Beyond the necessity of designing a good template, however, remember: Your actual content is the most important element of a consumer email. We especially like this tip from Hannington, which speaks to a core organic SEO practice: "If you know your readers’ interests, send them content that’s specifically related to those interests. Add value by including additional content that your recipients might find useful." Optimize for Mobile Remember, most of your consumer will be reading emails on mobile devices. As with websites, no one wants to read an email that is not optimized for a mobile device. Make sure your template translates well to email, lest your consumers suffer the indignity of pinching and zooming. Writing for Marketing Land, Chad White created an insightful guide for optimizing consumer emails for the mobile experience: The Five Levels of Mobile-Friendly Emails. "What’s certain is that with the majority of B2C brands using mobile-friendly email design," Write writes, "consumer expectations are rising. Increasingly, they’ll be expecting an email and Web experience that works on smartphones and tablets. That also means that if you’re not being mobile-friendly, the risks to your brand image and to subscriber engagement are rising, too." The word "risk" here is apropos: By neglecting the quality of your consumer emails you do your customers and your brand a disservice. In reality, you may do more harm than good. Content Marketing with SEO Sparta If you're looking for an SEO company that understands how to effectively promote websites with stellar content, call SEO Sparta: 215-900-9398. We combine traditional marketing methods and organic SEO--with an emphasis on natural website optimization--to design thoughtful, inspiring, and effective content marketing campaigns. *** Note: The blog cover image, from an article entitled "Please Unsubscribe Me: How Many Emails Are Too Many?", makes a strong case for testing the frequency of your emails. Yet most brands face a more elemental question: How do you craft a single effective email?

0 Keyword Research for Beginners: The Basics

• SEO
• by Seth Pollins
• 05.20.2020

In recent weeks, more and more brick-and-mortar business owners have seen the necessity of moving at least a portion of operations online. In the new "normal" of COVID-19, now and tomorrow, these same business owners see the online world as both an opportunity and an incredible challenge.  Where to begin? How do you compete? SEO Sparta has a series of posts outlining the steps to building a fully-optimized website, including Website Design, Website Development, Content Creation, and Conversions.  However, perhaps the most simple way to begin thinking about moving online is keyword research. By researching your market's successful keywords, you can learn how to brand your business and how to compete against the current top ranking sites. Successful keyword research can also give you valuable insights into your potential customers. Also, at SEO Sparta, we've found that for our SEO clients no activity offers a higher ROI than keyword research. For a new online business, in fact, keyword research is the most important part of an online marketing campaign. More to the point, ranking for the right keyword often means the difference between success and failure. You want to attract traffic to your site; far more important than traffic, however, is conversions--when a visitor performs an action on your site, like buying your product, sharing your content, or signing up for your newsletter. As the popular SEO website, Moz, says in its helpful guide to keyword research, "It's not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors"--in other words, conversions. So how do you attract the right type of visitor?  Start With a "Working Keyword" Most online keyword research guides urge webmasters to begin with a keyword research tool. Before you use any of the available tools, however, clarify your business offering in a general sense.  Just don't be too general. Do you sell watches? Well, "watches" will likely not be the most effective keyword for your site. Instead, identify the keywords you believe to be most relevant to your unique site's content. Perhaps you're a Philadelphia-area purveyor of Swiss watches. You might begin with the working keyword "Philadelphia Swiss Watches." Google the Competition Once you have identified your "working keyword," Google the word or phrase. This is the best way to quickly and easily identify your core competition. Browse your competitor's sites. Try to identify why and how they rank for your working keyword; just as important, take note of any other potentially useful product descriptions that might inform your own keyword research. Find a Suitable Keyword Research Tool  You have a working knowledge of your own keywords and your competition's keywords. Now you can use a keyword research tool. You will find many available tools online--most will ask you to begin with a working keyword; many work on a similar premise to Google AdWord's Keyword Planner: "You can search for keyword and ad group ideas, get historical statistics, see how a list of keywords might perform, and even create a new keyword list by multiplying several lists of keywords together." Other good keyword research tools include Moz's Keyword Explorer and WordStream's Free Keyword Tool. The purpose of these tools is simple. As WordStream writes in its guide to finding "niche keywords," a good keyword research tool "will help you identify a wide range of potential keyword opportunities including less obvious terms that could potentially drive traffic and sales." Pay close attention: the "less obvious" keywords could be the perfect avenue for a new site to rank quickly. Most likely the most effective keywords for your site, especially a local site, will be long-tail keywords that incorporate locations. Refine Your Keyword List  The research tools will give you many options. Your next task is to refine your list. The tools should give you the ability to refine as well. Your goal, to begin, is to find a minimum of 10 keywords that speak most precisely to your offering. Google the Competition Part II Again, many keyword research tools will enable you to select keywords based on relevance and competition. However, as before, you can Google each keyword and research the competition on your own. Writtent has a nifty DIY formula for analyzing the relative competitiveness of any keyword.  In general, however, the advice of Backlinko is quite sound: "If you see a page littered with authoritative, big brand results, you might be better off moving to the next keyword on your list. But if you take the time to evaluate keyword competition, you can usually find keywords that get great search volume AND have little to no competition." Some business owners might want to try to rank for the most competitive keywords. However, using a mix of highly competitive and moderately competitive keywords is often the best option. *** Once you have selected a sound list of keywords, you must create relevant, engaging content based on the keywords. For help writing the best content, learn "How to Create Shareable Content." And remember: Keyword research is an on-going process. You might refine or change your strategy depending on your initial results. As WordStream writes: "It's important to remember that just because a keyword tool returns a keyword doesn't mean you'll be able to rank for it, or that the traffic it sends from search engines will end up converting. Make continual keyword management a priority and be vigilant about analyzing and acting on keyword research to improve your results." *** Content Marketing with SEO Sparta If you're looking for an SEO company that understands how to effectively promote websites with carefully researched keywords, contact SEO Sparta. We combine traditional marketing methods and organic SEO--with an emphasis on natural website optimization--to design thoughtful, inspiring, and effective content marketing campaigns. image source  

0 Effectively manage online reputation and customer reviews

• Online Reputation Management
• by Seth Pollins
• 05.12.2020

For local businesses, reputation may be the most critical determinant of success, and in the digital age, "reputation" is mostly governed by online reviews. This year's "Local Consumer Review Survey" from BrightLocal proves the point. Here, in BrightLocal's words, are the key findings from the survey: 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses (including 95% of people aged 18-34) Consumers read an average of 10 online reviews before feeling able to trust a local business 40% of consumers only take into account reviews written within the past two weeks – up from 18% last year 57% of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars 80% of 18-34-year-olds have written online reviews – compared to just 41% of consumers over 55 91% of 18-34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations 89% of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews These findings prove another point--a point many local business owners fail to grasp: Online reviews dramatically affect the performance of brick-and-mortar stores. Simply put, a majority of consumers read online reviews for local businesses; and online reviews influence a majority of local consumer's buying decisions. Online reviews are so critical, in fact, the online marketing industry has created a new category to address the management of online reviews--ORM (online reputation management). Do you need online reputation management? "Yes," says Alex Stepman, who offers a Google-based ORM for local businesses at SEO SPARTA. "ORM is the emerging strategy for local businesses," Stepman says. "It's importance just might rival SEO." Do you currently have an online review strategy in place? If not, you're missing a significant branding opportunity--and you may be actively harming your business. In a previous post on online reviews, we offered three simple strategies for taking advantage of online reviews: claiming your business, soliciting reviews, and, most importantly, providing excellent customer service. These strategies can help you get into the ORM game. In today's post, we'll dive a little deeper into the day-to-day management of online reviews--specifically, negative reviews.   How do you defend against negative reviews? What happens if you get a negative review? How to Manage Online Reviews Good Customer Service = Good Online Reviews We spoke about customer service, but the point bears repeating: good online reviews begin offline, in your store experience. Your first-line defense against a negative review is a positive experience in-store. Moz's advice is as simple as possible: "Be sure every employee you hire is one you feel confident about representing your brand to the public, and that he or she receives ongoing support in carrying out your official customer service policy. Catch complaints before they become bad reviews." The key here is absolute attentiveness. To attract only positive reviews, you need to make sure every employee should be a stellar representative of your brand. So hire the right people. And importantly, empower your employees to make decisions that can satisfy customers immediately. Just remember: A single negative experience can lead to a negative review. Respond to Customer Complaints Immediately If you have an attentive staff, you should be able to catch customer complaints before they transform into negative reviews. The most well-reviewed brands perform this work consistently, offering what Moz calls a "complaint-friendly" shop. A complaint-friendly shop offers pro-active resolutions to all potential complaints, including signs urging customers to speak up about allegations, a mobile-friendly website complaint form, and a complaint hotline. Obviously, must local stores do not have the human resources to run a complaint line (though the owner could offer his/her direct number). Still, all stores do have the capacity to treat each customer with respect--and to listen earnestly to any complaints before they become problems. Respond to Negative Reviews Claiming your business profiles on the major review sites is a crucial step to exerting control of your online reputation. But merely claiming your profiles is not enough--you must join the conversation. As Moz says, "Reviews represent an ongoing conversation your customers are having about your business on the web." You can contribute to that conversation by responding to reviews--especially all negative reviews--in a proactive manner. When responding to reviews, though, don't shame the customer or dispute his/her account of the situation. Try to solve the problem--which is, for you, a negative review--by responding with a resolution. How will you make it right? Google-Based Online Reputation Management with SEO SPARTA Are you taking advantage of online marketing tools, like Google My Business? By taking advantage of the newest online marketing strategy, ORM, you can attract more customers to your local shop. Alex Stepman offers a Google-Based Online Reputation Management, which helps brands "leverage the influence of the key player in ORM." To learn more about how you can boost both your ORM and SEO with Google My Business, call us today: 215-900-9398.

0 Do You Need Online Reputation Management?

• Online Reputation Management
• by Seth Pollins
• 05.11.2020

NPR cited an on-going study from the Harvard Business School, which is researching the effects of minimum wage increases on San Francisco area restaurants. Preliminary data suggests that higher minimum wages increase the possibility of restaurant closure, with a caveat: "Restaurants with low or mediocre Yelp reviews have become more likely to go out of business. Places with high reviews have been unaffected." At the mention of Yelp reviews, our ears perked. When we recently wrote about local SEO and how online reviews affect businesses, our SEO Expert, Alex Stepman, told us about a local client who had closed shop and rebranded to escape the impact of several bad online reviews. The client, Stepman said, sold a quality product at a reasonable price, but was compromised by bad hires--employees, since terminated, who had offered poor customer service. Despite generally positive comments on the product, the Yelp reviews cited poor customer service as a justification for the poor reviews--several of three stars and less.  As the NPR segment noted: "Places with three and a half stars, about average, were 14 percent more likely to close after a minimum wage increase of one dollar. But restaurants with five stars, a perfect rating, weren't affected at all."  Poor customer service was likely not the only determinant factor in the closure of a majority of these San Francisco restaurants. The food was important too. But as Bon Appétit writes: "Some diners would argue the best food in the world won't make up for lousy service...A good dining experience is built on trust. It's the server's or host's responsibility to initiate that trust; they're the first point of contact a diner has. Conversely, great service can be enough to make up for things that go wrong in the kitchen." What amplifies mistakes in today's business environment, of course, is the easy availability of online reviews, like Yelp' s--the "novel dataset," as NPR reported, that has "economists excited about" the Harvard Business School's study. Do You Need Online Reputation Management? As we noted in our prior post on local SEO and online reviews, bad reviews must be managed, first, offline--in the day-to-day operations of a business. The three key elements of success have never changed. You must offer a quality product at a competitive price with superior customer service. Beyond your offline performance, however, your online reputation matters. The key is guaranteeing that your excellent performance offline matches your reputation online. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. However, unfair or biased, a single bad review can have consequences. In response to such slights, the online reputation management (ORM) industry promises to monitor and improve (or repair, when needed) the reputation of individuals and businesses online.  There is not much data about the current size of the ORM industry. In 2013, Forbes (without citing any specific evidence) pegged the worth at $5 billion. Meanwhile, Vendasta, which bills itself as the #1 platform for selling business solutions to local businesses, has produced a juicy infographic, "50 Shocking Stats About Online Reputation Management." Oddly, Vendasta offers no background to support its infographic (where and how the data was compiled)--a practice that seems at odds with building trust, a key factor in ORM. Are you now worried about your online reputation? Should you be "shocked" by ORM? More to the point, do you need a firm like Vendasta to manage your ORM? Probably not. As MarketingLand notes, "You don't have to break the bank to correct a reputation situation for yourself or a business. It can even be a DIY project — it isn't rocket science!" MarketingLand's approach is similar to the approach of SEO SPARTA, which advocates simple, timeless SEO techniques to improve (or repair) your brand's image. After all, what is SEO if not a form of reputation management? Among MarketingLand's "9 Key Points for Cleaning Up Your Online Reputation Nightmare Via SEO," you will find the same SEO techniques advocated on this blog, too, including positive content, title tag optimization, and URL optimization. Assuming you sell a good product at the right price with excellent customer service, the key of ORM is to replace any negative impressions with uniformly positive impressions via carefully crafted and optimized content.  SEO That Improves your Online Reputation with SEO SPARTA  We understand how to promote websites to manage your ORM effectively. To learn more about how we combine traditional marketing methods and organic SEO--with an emphasis on natural website optimization--to design thoughtful, inspiring, and effective marketing campaigns, call: 215-900-9398. photo source

0 How to Choose an SEO Company

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 04.30.2020

Website optimization is a means to a successful end. If performed correctly, SEO will reward you with increased visibility and profits. If SEO is abused, your site might be blacklisted by the search engines. Be wary of SEO companies that promise the moon. Instead, find a company that makes you feel comfortable. A good SEO company will answer your questions in a way that you can understand. Communication is key. Website Marketing Company The Internet is an essential part of everyday life. For most people, in fact, the Internet is inescapable: it integrates, informs, and often defines our daily tasks. Every business should consider this important point. Why? Because the Internet is teeming with potential customers. If you want your businesses to be viable, you should perform some kind of digital marketing. Some businesses promote themselves through Internet forums. Others join community portals. Most businesses, however, create a personal website. If you own your own business website, you might be solely responsible for marketing. If so, you might ask yourself a few questions: Are you effectively marketing your own website? Does your website show up on the first page of search engine results? Has your website increased your profits? If your answer to these questions is "no," do not despair! Internet marketing is, at best, complex, and often very confusing. But there is help! The best option for most businesses is to outsource digital marketing to a professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company. Unfortunately, finding an experienced and knowledgeable SEO professional can also be a complex, and sometimes confusing, process. There are over three billion websites worldwide, and often it seems there are just as many Internet advertising firms and SEO specialists! So how do you choose a good SEO company that will successfully promote your website? SEO Company: Checklist 1. Ask questions! Most website owners are not familiar with organic website optimization. A good SEO company will explain every little detail about the process in language that you understand. If an SEO company's explanations confuse you in any way, then the SEO specialist is probably not proficient in his work, and most likely will not be able to help you. A good SEO professional must fully understand website optimization process; only then will he be able to explain the process in a way that you understand. 2. Make sure the SEO firm uses only "White Hat SEO," not "Black Hat." The world's largest search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, set high standards for search results. For this reason, it is very difficult to earn first page visibility. So how do you stand out among a million different websites from the same industry? Certain "Black Hat" Internet advertising firms engage in nefarious techniques, like spamming, to cheat the system. You should avoid these companies. While website optimization techniques very, "White Hat" SEO practices are always based on guidelines provided by the search engines themselves. Remember this golden rule: Natural website optimization cannot be bought; it has to be earned. Make sure your SEO company tells you how they intend to promote your website across the Internet, and what they will do, specifically, to make your website standout. 3. Make sure your website optimization will not interfere with web development standards. Take care not to choose an inexperienced website developer or SEO professional. Inexperience can lead to costly mistakes. If a website has not been properly developed, or if an inexperienced SEO specialist avoids web development standards, your website might effectively vanish from search engine results. Search engines have difficulty "crawling" improperly developed or poorly optimized websites. Try to avoid this mistake at all costs; otherwise, your site will not be added to the major search engine's databases. 4. Make sure that your SEO company writes unique content for your website. Unique page content is the most important part of organic optimization. Unfortunately, sometimes SEO companies copy information from other websites. If the information on your website is the same as other Internet sources, you might be penalized and added to the search engine's black list. 5. Avoid advertising companies that promise to place your website on Google's first page within a specific time frame. Some Internet advertising companies promise to place your site on the first page of Google's results within two days, or two weeks, and so on. No company can control search result placement! The search engines alone decide who will, and who will not, appear on the first page of search results. 6. Natural website optimization is not merely about a few keywords. Some website optimization companies say that they can optimize your website for specific keywords. Often these companies charge one price for two keywords and another price for, say, five keywords. This should be a red flag! Don't let them fool you. Organically optimized websites appear on the first page results based on relevancy. Combined with other factors, relevancy is based on good content. If your website is optimized only for only two, or even five, keywords, you will never receive the traffic you deserve, and you will lose potential customers. 7. Make sure that your SEO company provides a detailed work report. A good SEO company will report your website performance daily, including the amount of traffic you receive each day and where that traffic is coming from. SEO Sparta’s goal is to deliver only positive results for our customers. Start now! Call our experienced professionals at 215-900-9398. Our office conveniently located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA and supporting any industry of our local community of Bucks County, PA

0 SEO 101: The Importance of Website Structure

• Website Design
• by Alex Stepman
• 04.20.2020

In the SEO world, we don't talk about the "best" content. We talk about relevant content. Relevance speaks to the quality of the information. As we've noted before: Good writing feels necessary--writing that stays with the reader. Good writing makes an impression. Good writing is meaningful. Read: "How to Build an Optimized Website: Content" However, relevant content is useless (and irrelevant) if no one can find it. Google and its users must be guided to your content. This is the function of website taxonomy--or website structure. Website Taxonomy = Website Structure The word taxonomy is often associated with biology. Taxonomy is also often used to describe website structure. Like a biological taxonomy, a good website is not merely a series of pages. A good website is a carefully-crafted structure that describes, identifies, and classifies pages by topics and sub-topics. Applied to any collection of information, a taxonomy is a simple yet powerful tool for guiding people to relevant information. SEO works with search engine algorithms to achieve the same purpose. When a website structure follows a logical taxonomy, the description, identification, and classification of content is seamless. From a search engine's perspective, a seamless structure means speedy and efficient indexing. (In case you're unfamiliar with indexing, here's an overview from Kissmetrics). A seamless structure also means your content can be easily shared. Read: "Content Marketing: How to Create Sharable Content" Finally, a seamless structure also guarantees a website's ease of use. As you might know, usability is a major component of Google's ranking. Creating an engaging user experience (UX) means your browsers will view your website positively, inspiring return visits. Your structure should be developed before you even begin building your website. As a practice, too, developing a website structure can help you refine your business offering. You can create a structure in any number of ways, but SEO Sparta often tells its clients to think about a new website in terms of a home page, category page, and product pages. Website Structure: Your Home Page A home page is the first page of your website, which contains links to all relevant categories. A home page should include the most basic information about your business or website. On your home page, you want to be specific but general about your offering. Describe your offering clearly. Just remember: You will go into detail later, with your category and product pages. If you're a hair salon in Bucks County, PA, for example, your home page will promote this simple fact. Website Structure: Category Pages A category page is a place to use longer-tail keywords (instead of single words, phrases and/or sentences). A category page refines your offering into more nuanced subsections. As Hallam notes in its article on creating a website taxonomy: These pages should be the main focus for link building and should regularly have internal links pointing towards them whenever the topic is mentioned on a new page or post, this way they will be the most likely page to be picked and promoted by search engines for the topic they cover. Being an ideal place for people to enter the website on they act as key landing pages and can be used for paid advertising. If you're a hair salon in Bucks County, your category pages might detail your services: Women's Styling or Men's Styling, for example. Website Structure: Product Pages Your most specific pages, your product pages, should focus on a sole product or service. You want to describe your products, one-page-per-product. Product pages will not necessarily rank high in search engines for general queries but they will be helpful in the context of your website, and for more specific queries. If you're a hair salon in Bucks County, your product pages will detail the specific services you offer under your category pages: Keratin treatments, for example, under the category Women's styling. An SEO Company That Understands Website Structure: SEO Sparta Much of the work of structuring a website falls upon your website designer and developer. However, the more input you have in the process, the better. And, of course, you want to make sure your developer understands the basics of website structure and how a good structure influences a site's SEO. To build an effective, fully-optimized website, you need a web development company that understands SEO. SEO Sparta is a rare company that offers a host of SEO and marketing professionals to optimize your website. We are currently working with our clients to emerge from the current pandemic stronger and more resilient. Check out our limited-time website design special for one current offering. And if you have any questions about applying digital marketing strategies, including SEO, to your website, please do not hesitate to contact us today. Cover Photo Source:Hierarchy Structure

0 Natural Website Optimization

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 04.15.2020

If you own an Internet company, you've probably realized: a website is essentially ineffective if it is not optimized for search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Website optimization can be accomplished in many different ways. Some search engine optimization (SEO) specialists optimize a website's visual appearance; others optimize the site's performance; still, others optimize a site by creating many out-going and in-coming links from all over the Internet. An SEO specialist might present any single method of optimization as effective, but a single-method approach typically has little impact on a site's search engine visibility. The most effective approach combines the various optimization techniques into one marketing strategy. This approach cannot guarantee that your website will appear on the first page of the major search engine's results. But your site will be privileged as optimized, and depending on the quality of your optimization; you might achieve placement on the major search engines. Website Optimization Strategy So how do you achieve top placement on Google's first page results? The key is natural website optimization (also known as organic website optimization). Below you will discover what makes this website optimization technique "natural," how it can dramatically increase your business exposure, as well as daily visitors to your site, why natural website optimization is the most effective method for achieving that elusive goal: top placement. A search engine's job is to deliver accurate information. As such, search engines rigorously investigate the content of all websites. For this reason, your website content must be relevant to your specific product or service. Certain wayward SEO specialists might suggest a practice called "keyword stuffing," where keywords are excessively loaded into a site's content. To maximize relevancy, a developer might also apply the alternative text to every image on a website with a similar set of keywords. This practice is unethical and ineffective. A sophisticated search engine, like Google, can easily identify keyword stuffing techniques. Natural Website Optimization Attracts Users And Search Engines Natural website optimization promotes a holistic view of content. A natural SEO specialist will understand that you cannot create content for search engines alone; you must create content for people too! Natural content benefits visitors and maintains visits to your website. Natural website optimization earned its name because its elegant simplicity makes sense: create "natural" and genuine content, and your site will attract visitors! But content is not the only factor in natural website optimization. A website should offer the best experience for visitors, regardless of search engines. Speed and reliability, for example, are crucial website features, and you should consider both equal in importance to your products and services. If your website loads quickly, visitors will easily navigate between pages with blasting speed, and there will be no need to visit any other website for the same product or service. Search engines also investigate this type of website performance, and even if your website has been optimized for content, you might be penalized for poor performance. In some cases, your site might not even be added to a search engine's database. From Google's perspective, your website has to be functional before it can be revealed to internet surfers. The work of website optimization consists of many small tweaks. Although some SEO specialists might try to convince you otherwise, true optimization cannot be achieved with one, or even two, techniques. A website can be promoted in many ways, but natural website optimization is the most effective approach. SEO SPARTA, a website marketing agency of Bucks County, PA, focuses on natural website optimization and organic marketing. We can get your web site ranked by all major search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing, Super Pages, and many more. Our natural approach can even bump recently-developed websites to the first page of Google within a short period - sometimes a month or less! We are up to date with Google's algorithm requirements and can maintain the top placement for your website at most times. Should you wish to know more about natural website optimization, or would like to start optimizing your website now, please contact our SEO specialists now. SEO SPARTA sets the industry standard for natural website optimization, an effective and inexpensive SEO method. Natural optimization encourages a holistic view of SEO. To promote a website naturally, you must provide the best possible experience for browsers: engaging content, lightning-fast speed, and reliability. Using this method, we often place websites on the first page of search results within a short period - as little as a month or less.