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.

0 Website Marketing: How to Compete in Your Industry

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 03.21.2020

Do you expect to profit from your website? If so, do you know how much traffic you receive on a daily/monthly basis? Would an increase in traffic increase your profits? If you answered "yes" to these questions, your website is a good candidate for SEO. Studies differ on the specifics, but we know that the traffic drop-off between the first, second, and third result on a Google search is quite significant. This chart from Advanced Web Ranking, for example, shows that (in January 2020) the first result (on desktop searches) received 31.75% of the clicks; the second result 15.85%; and the third result  9.62%.  If your website is currently the third result or lower, what stands between you and first place (and a significant increase in traffic) is likely some form of website optimization. We note optimization here, instead of SEO specifically, because for many industries the top result is achieved with good design and development. A good SEO campaign necessarily includes good design and development, but not all websites with good design and development employ SEO. On the other hand, many top-ranked websites do not employ good design and development. They receive their ranking by happenstance or good fortune. This is especially true for local, industry-specific businesses. This might seem to be a case against SEO. If an industry-specific local business can achieve the top Google result by happenstance, what good is SEO? The truth is simple: For many industry-specific searches, no website is employing good design and development, and no single website is employing good SEO. In this case, Google is left to choose the best sites based on relevant ranking signals. For example, if one site has more content than the next--even if the content is sub-par--and all else is equal, the site with more content will likely prevail. What does this mean for local sites? A simple website redesign, with good design and development, could easily land you the top spot. A good SEO campaign can keep you there. This is why SEO Sparta so often promises quick results to our local clients in the Philadelphia region. Depending on the industry, local sites stand to gain significant ground with a few simple changes. The challenge is when the top sites are well designed and developed, and employing SEO. Then you simply need to do better. Do You Know What You Don't Know (About SEO)? The problem for many website owners is that they don't even know what they don't know. This is not a problem specific to website owners. As Art Markman writes for Harvard Business School: "You probably don’t know as much as you think you do. When put to the test, most people find they can’t explain the workings of everyday things they think they understand. Don’t believe me? Find an object you use daily (a zipper, a toilet, a stereo speaker) and try to describe the particulars of how it works. You’re likely to discover unexpected gaps in your knowledge. In psychology, we call this cognitive barrier the illusion of explanatory depth. It means you think you fully understand something that you actually don’t." If this is the case for a zipper, it's certainly the case for website design and development, and of course, SEO. At SEO Sparta, we have seen this scenario time and time again. Recently, for example, we met a local business owner from Jenkintown, PA, who wants to compete in an industry-specific field. The owner's website did not appear on the first page for an industry-specific search, though he considered his site to be "beautiful" and "informative." When asked about the website development, he said, "Top notch." The owner was surprised, then, to learn that one of the most basic components of the site, the page headers did not promote the site. The site's header simply named the company without noting the industry. Unless someone knows the name of the company, this information is worthless. A better header would've been specific to the industry--in this case "Jenkintown Immigration Law Firm." Furthermore, the website was lacking description tags for each page. This is just the beginning of the website's problems--yet it was all news to the website owner. As noted above, this situation is not unique at all. For some industries, it's the norm. Do you see the possibilities? If this is what you're competing against, you can easily trump the competition. The key is learning about website design and development, and to truly compete and stay on top of the rankings, you must learn about and employ SEO. (Photo Source)

0 Dynamic Websites = Increased Conversions

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 03.14.2020

Building a speedy, attractive site with relevant content is the first step to a successful digital marketing campaign. However, too many small businesses stop at the beginning. Over time, a website that does not update or refresh content and design risks losing traffic and rankings. In the world of search, a "finished" website is a dead website. To meet the demands of today's information-hungry browser, you must change and improve. A static site will falter. A dynamic site will maintain rankings and increase traffic. As we noted last week, major e-commerce brands like J.Crew refresh their websites often--every month, week, or even day--with seasonally-appropriate content. The best local websites follow the lead of the major e-commerce brands, creating fresh content targeted to a specific population.  In the end, the goal for any business, large or small, is the same: a dynamic website.  Is a Dynamic Website Worth Your Time?  In our post last week about website refreshes, we noted that for most local business owners, the problem is time: "The smallest companies believe they just don't have the time for a simple homepage refresh, let alone a blog post." Of course, time can be made--if a business owner believes the time is well spent. So more to the point: Will the added time expense be worthwhile? To answer this question, you must first understand precisely how your current website converts visitors. The difference between your daily visitors and converted visitors defines the success of your website. In SEO circles, this difference is called the conversion rate: the percentage of visitors who perform a desired action. SEO Sparta emphasizes conversion rate optimization (CRO) as a crucial part of any SEO campaign, especially for our local Delaware Valley clients, and for each client, the "desired action" is inevitably different.  "When most people hear 'conversion', they think revenue," writes Glenn Gabe of Search Engine Journal. But, Gabe adds: "Using an ecommerce site as an example, you might have several other success events, including email marketing subscriptions, contact form completions, clicks to social accounts, engagement goals like time on site or pages per visit, events like watching product videos, downloads like product specs or product guides, [and] clicks to trigger live chat with your customer service reps." Unfortunately, most local sites have not yet defined a "success event." And obviously the same sites are not tracking conversions of any kind. Gabe has written an insightful beginner's guide for and defining and tracking conversions: "A Beginner's Guide to Conversion Goals in Google Analytics." Once you see clearly how your site converts customers, you can understand the value of your traffic. If you do not currently convert customers or do not believe your website should serve that purpose, your added time expense might not be worthwhile. (In this case, though, we have one question: What is the purpose of your site?) If your website currently does convert customers, or you believe that your website could convert customers by better defining your conversion goals, you stand to increase your success with a dynamic site. In this case, the added time expense is worthwhile. Want Conversions? Post New (or Refreshed) Content Often The key to a successful web marketing campaign is to never rest on your laurels. By maintaining a dynamic website, you give visitors a reason to visit and return. Frequent updates translate to search benefits. With each new update, the search engines crawl your site, looking for the new material. As the blog SEO Site Check Up notes in its article on fresh content: "The more frequently you update your website with articles, downloads, and new web pages, the more frequently a search engine will stop by to visit your website. When search engines look at your site more frequently, you have the opportunity to achieve higher rankings based on the content you provide." For larger sites, this process happens quite quickly, so posting relevant, timely content is a good way to attract attention. In a post asking "How Often Does Google Update Search Results?" the blog SEO Mechanic tells an interesting story about speedy indexing: "Often, we could drop a new article, and see traffic from search in less than 5 minutes, if it was a timely article. One time, during an earthquake, I tested the indexing speed of our website with Google. Seconds after the earthquake I posted a simple update featuring a snapshot of the seismic activity and the location. Within seconds our story was the number one search result tied to the Chino Hills Earthquake. We received close to 5,000 visits, in under 10 minutes, because we were the most authoritative article until the L.A Times published their piece." SEO Mechanic is a larger site with good volume; smaller, local sites might not see the same, immediate results: "If you have a local business with low search volume," SEO Mechanic writes, "your indexing rate will be slower – sometimes painfully slow." Remember, painfully slow does not translate to never. The key is to update frequently, to gain visitor momentum relative to your site's traffic, and to increase your traffic--and, hopefully, your conversions. In the next few weeks, we will explore both website updates for content and design in more detail. For now, if you have any immediate questions, please feel free to call SEO Sparta for any relevant SEO-related questions: 215-900-9398. (Cover Photo Source). 

0 You Probably Need to Refresh Your Website

• Website Design
• by Alex Stepman
• 03.03.2020

It's almost springtime in the Northern hemisphere. In this season of renewal, is now the time to "refresh your website? (Photo source).  Most major e-commerce brands refresh their websites with seasonally-appropriate images and content quite often--monthly, weekly, or even daily. The J. Crew of today looks a lot different than the J.Crew of last December. If the big guys are doing it, why shouldn't the little guys do it, too?  Even smaller, local websites can benefit from seasonally (or daily) refreshed content. The presumed problem for most website owners is time--the smallest companies believe they just don't have the time for a simple homepage refresh, let alone a blog post.  However, even small content changes can reap large benefits. Brian Dean of Backlinko, for example, has detailed how he made only a few changes to a blog post to generate a 50% increase in traffic in seven days (check out strategy #2 here). Will you generate a 50% increase in traffic in a week? To be fair, SEO Sparta tells our own local SEO Philadelphia-area clients that a website refresh may or may not double your traffic. On the other hand, a website refresh will inevitably boost traffic to some degree, and if you have a great website conversion strategy, that boost may lead to more profits.  So we often tell our clients to let go of the tired excuse, "I don't have the time!"  Make the time!  Once you do make the time to refresh your website, you might wonder: Now what? First things first: Decide how much you want to change. Do you merely need a "refresh"? Or is your website calling for a major "update"? Website Update vs. Website Refresh: What's the Difference?  Website Update If you own a small website, it's important to understand the difference between a "website update" and a "website refresh." These terms are often used interchangeably, and many SEO writers take them to mean the same thing. At SEO Sparta, we think it's helpful to distinguish between the two.  A website update is a major change. Ideally, working with an SEO-friendly website developer, you will update your website as often you update your brand and build your offering. This sort of update could happen yearly or bi-annually. You want to make sure you don't perform major changes too often. For better or worse, an update can have a major impact on your SEO. Here's what Jayson DeMers has to say about major website updates:  "There are many good reasons for updating a website, and because of the rapid evolution of technology, you’ll need to update multiple times over the course of your company’s development. When you update your website, you’re bound to experience some SEO shakeups — even if you’re extra careful, at least a handful of keyword ranking movements will be inevitable. "The evolution of technology" is essentially the algorithms. So it can be a good idea to track the algorithm changes and evolve with the search engines, if necessary.  In any case, if you're planning to perform a major update soon, we suggest contacting your SEO firm--or at the very least, reading Jayson's article. Website Refresh A website refresh might simply include new seasonally-appropriate graphics, new contact information, or new content. Ideally, you will refresh your website quite often--weekly or even daily. However, make sure you save the complicated work for your website developer. To perform a simple "refresh"  on your own, you might update your blog (as outlined by Brian Dean above) with new content and tags. If you're handy with basic coding,  you might work with your website developer and/or designer to change the graphics on your home page--to, say, seasonally-appropriate imagery.  In the next few weeks, we will explore both website updates and website refreshes in more detail. For now, if you have any immediate questions, please feel free to call SEO Sparta: 215-900-9398

0 How to Keep Pace with Google's Algorithm

• SEO
• by Alex Stepman
• 02.23.2020

What is Google looking for? This question is fundamental to the success of a small website. The answer is defined by the algorithms. And many SEOs presume that the evolutions of the algorithms imply Google's willingness to do better and better.  But is this true? Can Google do better and better? Or perhaps more to the point: Does Google want to do better? Does Google Want to do Better? Algorithms are imperfect. Some feel that this imperfection is intentional. A few years ago, Eric Lonstein, writing for The Harvard Business Review, stated the case plainly: "Although industry-leading and innovative, Google’s organic search algorithm is inefficient and imperfect because it creates large barriers to entry and incumbency advantages. Google likely recognizes these inefficiencies, but chooses not to significantly alter its technological approach due to legacy processes and economic motivations." Note: the text of Lonstein's article, "The imperfection and Injustice of Google Organic Search," is no longer available online. Lonstein's article argued that Google would not change (appreciably) for the better because of PageRank™, a system that ranks websites by counting inbound and outbound links. Writing before some of Google's most significant recent changes--like the Hummingbird algorithm--Lonstein nevertheless did make a good point about Google's reasons for staying the PageRank™ course--in part because of a willingness to appease its biggest customers: "Google’s largest advertising partners, such as Amazon and Overstock, will likely oppose significant changes to Google’s organic search engine. These companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars on SEO optimization by generating thousands of inbound links to their sites. As compensation for these investments, Google’s large advertisers expect Google to keep its organic search algorithm consistent so that the companies can continue to achieve favorable ROI for their advertisements." One can debate whether this is 100% true. Google's recent refinements, specifically to the Penguin algorithm, which targets bad links, have changed the nature and purpose of links, and some believe the importance of links has been devalued. So many SEO thinkers, like Paddy Moogan, predict links will matter less and less.  However, Google's forever changing algorithms do change the nature of search, sometimes in small ways yet often in large ways. The challenge for smaller websites, then, may not be keeping pace with Amazon and Overstock but keeping pace with the algorithms.  How to Keep Pace with the Algorithms  How can we create content that attracts visitors year after year, even as the algorithms change?  For a good answer, look to the successful companies of the present and future: Apple, for example, or GE. Both companies have offered exceptional products backed by exceptional marketing campaigns. Our startlingly simple answer, then, is this: make a great product and create a great marketing campaign. To this point, we believe Paddy Moogan (cited above) offers a helpful marketing template. SEO Sparta often provides our local Philadelphia tri-state content marketing clients similar advice to Moogan's: "Marketing is hard. If you or your client wants to compete and win customers, then you need to be prepared to ask really hard questions about the company. Here are just a few that I've found difficult when talking to clients: Why does the company exist? (The answer has nothing to do with making money) Why do you deserve to rank well in Google? What makes you different from your competitors? If you disappeared from Google tomorrow, would anyone notice? Why do you deserve to be linked to? What value do you provide for users?" Answering these questions, you can create a campaign that will ensure success--independent of the algorithms. (Photo source).

0 Black Hat Social Media: Are You Spamming Your Followers?

• Social Media Marketing
• by Seth Pollins
• 02.20.2020

In the world of digital marketing, the term "black hat" generally refers to the use of deceptive or manipulative practices to attract an audience. Black hat marketing is often intentional but many well-meaning marketers often inadvertently use black hat practices, too. Of course, "white hat" marketing practices like organic SEO will always trump the purported "value" of black hat practices. But this fact is often obscured by the nature of the online world: black Hat practices produce quick results, and we're conditioned to act quickly and to expect quick results. Perhaps this is why black hat practices persist: they give the semblance of quick results. Yet quick results do not necessarily translate to true value. Black Hat Social Media  The inadvertent use of black hat SEO explains why so many sites can be seemingly "hurt" by Google's algorithm changes. The changes are often Google's attempt to penalize bad players--and this is how many well-meaning sites discover their own SEO mistakes.  However, the inadvertent use of black hat practices is especially common on social media. Several years ago, Tina Courtney Brown over at SiteProNews wrote about black hat social media, and how so much of it amounts to "buying an audience" to artificially inflate followers:  "When you stop and consider this tactic, it’s borderline ridiculous, and clearly doesn’t work. Social media is not about the number of followers you have; it’s the level of engagement that audience has with your content. If you buy a list full of fake profiles, those 'people' will never buy, support, or even like one single product or post." The point here is often ignored by many prolific social media profiles--it's not the numbers that matter but the engagement. At SEO Sparta, we often encourage our local Philly-area social media marketing clients to post less often and engage more often. Too many profiles engage in low-effort posts that may attract a slew of comments and likes --yet these comments and likes often have no real value for anyone. Often these comments and likes are simply a result of a quid pro quo--seemingly "popular" profiles trading comments and likes without true engagement. This essentially amounts to a form of black hat social media as it encourages a false view of "popularity" entirely determined by follower counts and likes and comments. In a sense, this is akin to outright spam, what Tina Courtney Brown refers to as "the bane of the Internet":  "Spammers who comment en masse on articles and posts are the bane of the internet. They clutter up otherwise legitimate comments with horrible, lying posts like 'Oh, great content here, check out my stuff and buy something!' They pretend to care about the topics discussed, then quickly attempt to drive traffic to whatever horrendous site they represent." Of course, spam, by virtue of its sheer volume, manages to attract some attention. If you spam a million sites, you're bound to get a few clicks. Spammers play a numbers game, hoping for bare minimum conversions: 1% or less. Sounds inefficient? Well, it is, in a sense. Yet a 1% conversion for one million bits of spam is still 10,000." White Hat Marketing All of these black hat practices stand in stark contrast to "white hat" practices, like organic SEO. The true value of organic SEO is the very time and effort required to launch an effective campaign. Of course, the very word "guarantee" smacks of spammy promises, but the guarantee of organic SEO is evident in the work itself: if you take the time to craft a quality SEO campaign, you will likely succeed. Any quality marketing campaign will take some time to truly produce results. Marketing is like radioactivity in the soil--its effects are felt in the long term. This is why, if your goal is a successful and sustainable business, black hat SEO is not the answer. When you engage in these practices, your image is degraded. You might attract 10,000 customers, but you repel 990,000 others. This is why we prefer quality over quantity.  Do you fight Black Hat practices? Take a look at Tina Courtney Brown's article: "Black Hat Social Media: An In-Depth Look." You might just discover that you're inadvertently practicing Black Hat Social Media.