What's coming for Local SEO in 2017?

When you talk of local SEO, it is important that you need to optimize your website for local SEO or strategies for clients and customers who may be searching for your local business. Local competition is gaining importance, and if you are not on top of your rankings, you can always find your competitors there. In today’s world, local SEO services gives an incredible opportunity to grow your business.

*Statistics provided by 2017 Moz Local Ranking Signals Report

In this article, we will explore the five important local SEO tactics you can use in 2017 to help your business rank higher for local search terms.

1. Title and Meta description tags – The title and meta description tags are important for any local SEO. These tags are HTML element reflect the content of your web page. The text of your title and description tags is displayed in search results. Generally acceptable length for title tags range from 50 to 60 characters, and description tags can be approximately from 160 to 200 characters. If you want to reach local customers, include the name of the city your business is in and/or the area your business serves (e.g., “Serving the suburban of Mumbai City”).

2. Online directories – Research says that four out of five consumers use search engines to conduct local searches. It is important that you get your business listed correctly and consistently on online business directories. You have to always make sure that your company’s Name, Address and Phone no. is consistent on these directories as possible. Discrepancies like misspelling will display incorrect information or not show your business at all in search results.

3. Online reviews are important – According to a recent survey, it was found that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation and seven out of 10 customers will leave a review for a business if asked by any other business house. Respond to a review, be it positive or negative. This shows that other people reading the reviews that you, the entrepreneur, care what your customers think. You should focus on your business’s Facebook page and Google My Business page for the reviews.

4. Use local structured data markup – Structured data markup is often referred to as schema markup or schema.org markup. It can be added to your website’s code to provide search engines with more information about your business, like the products you sell, reviews you have collected, services you offer and so on. It is found that only 31.3% of websites are using this markup. You can make your local business stand out if you add structured data markup to your website.

5. Claim and optimize Google My Business – It is important for any local business to claim their Google My Business(and Bing Places for Business) page. It is free and can get you incredible exposure if can optimize to show up in Google’s local pack.

There are hundreds of ways to build your local seo for your firm. Focus on strong and sustainable strategies. If you want to do it right, there aren’t any shortcuts.

Tips to Generate SEO-friendly Content

If you are writing content for your website, then definitely you want it to reach to the target audience. That’s precisely why your content should be SEO friendly. Here are some tips to generate SEO friendly content:

1) Create informative, interesting content
The content that you create should be of high quality and interesting enough to engage your audience. If your content is not unique or is just stuffed with keywords, search engines will penalize your website on one hand and on the other your visitors will definitely go away from your website, never to return again. So, the first tip is to create informative, interesting and easy to understand unique content.To find if your content is 100% unique, there are several plagiarism tools available. Copyscape is one such tool where you can check the originality of your content.Only if the content is unique, you can get a better rank in SERPs.

2) Captivating Headings and Sub headings
A captivating heading can capture your visitor’s attention and convince them to stay on your website. Brainstorm your headline and try to fit in within 55 to 60 characters as this is precisely what Google displays on the SERP.

Content that has heading and subheadings along with the relevant keywords gets more weightage by the search engines. As such, Google ranks such content higher and your website will enjoy better page rank. Another advantage of using headings and subheadings is that it makes for an easy read. When people like what they read, they are more likely to share it on social media. For this, you may use the structure of H1 to H6 or insert H2 and H3 headings at the relevant places in the article body.

3) Links
Linking your website with some of the authority websites will have a positive impact on your website. So, create outbound links with authority websites. Creating outbound links with authority websites gives an impression that you have a sound understanding of what you are writing and that you are going one step further to support your content. It also adds to the transparency and trust. However, you must avoid using anchor texts such as “here” as it does not do any good to your website ranking.

4) Article Length
While Google loves longer article, it must be understood that the span of reader’s interest is quite limited. Therefore, you need to strike a balance in your content. It should neither be too short nor be too long. While the minimal length of the article stands at 300 words, there’s no upper limit. However, an article that’s around 700 to 800 words would be perfect.

5) Keywords and Keyword density
Before you write an article for your website, find out the keywords that you should be targeting. The keywords should be placed in the article title, headings, subheadings, and in the first and the last para of your article. The key here is not to overdo it. Maintaining 1% keyword density is good for search engine. Also, try to use variations of the keyword in the article for optimal results.

6) Pictures speak volumes
Add images to your article to make it attractive to your visitors. Optimize the image and tag it with the keyword for SEO. The key would be to make the image smaller, without compromising on the visibility. Adding images with bigger file sizes will slow down your page loading speed and may shoo away the visitors. Also, add alt text or title to your image. Think from a user’s perspective when you name the images.

7) Share your content 
If people read something they really like, they readily share it on social media. So, to make people share your content, give them the option to do so. You can “AddThis” or “Sharethis” website to add the social media buttons to your website. If the content goes viral, your website will automatically be ranked higher.
Apart from these simple techniques, you can hire SEO Company for advanced SEO Services and get higher page ranks in the search engines.

How to Make your Brand's Content Stand Out in 2017

Content is King. No matter how cliché it sounds, the content game online is gearing up and beaming with heat for sure. Digital agencies playing with loads of content online day in and day out know how important it is to differentiate your content from the rest. With more than 211 million rounds of content getting published online everyday (including articles, blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter, etc.), it’s time to roll up your sleeves and understand how best you can make your content visible and likeable in the huge pool.

As a veteran SEO company, we recommend a few things to consider if you want your content to stand out and be picked by your audience online –

Have your Unique Voice – 
Communication is the key to connect with your audience. So, make your voice sound different, make it unique. Understand and answer simple questions about your brand – How you are different? Why someone should listen to you or buy your brand? No abstract values like reliable or honest but rather focus on why reliable and honest part. Of course, this is only an example. You know your brand well and you are the best to understand what will appeal your online audience.

Differentiate from competitors – 
Most digital marketing agencies would ask you to do this. However, even before that, understanding whom you are competing with is also very crucial to your online content success. You are really not competing with those 211 million pieces of content online. You need to identify your competitors / collaborators and see what they are doing. We are not saying copy them because that will defeat the purpose of standing out. But here’s what you can do –

• Study the online content trends from your competition
• Identifying what ideas are working and what are not
• Look for loop holes – See what they are not doing
• Create your own concept with that as a base

It’s like tapping blue oceans in the vast oceans of online content. Research from digital marketing company indicates proven success of brands that adapted to this alley.

Make visually appealing and trendy content
It’s a scientifically proven fact that a human brain is more likely to respond to visuals. Spend good amount of time building your online piece. This goes for both, the content and the visuals. Remember,

• Keep your content relevant to your brand and audience
• Keep in engaging and trendy (Research will help you here)
• Add good and relevant pictures from free stock images (you can even have your own photos shoot)
• Videos which are relevant to your content can jazz up your piece

Whether or not you are using visuals, have your content structured and organized with proper headings, bullets, etc.

Building a great content is the foremost step to your online brand success. As an experienced digital agency in the industry, we recommend you invest time in the process and success will follow.

10 Tips for Choosing The Right SEO Company For Your Business

In today’s times, the web marketing scene is filled with hundreds of Internet marketers claiming to be the best SEO firm on this planet. Among them there are many providers of SEO consultancy services who give big claims which are however, backed with very less substance. In this scenario, it does become tad difficult for a business layman to choose the right SEO Company for improving his business website.

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Choosing the Right SEO Company– What it entails?

The main point here is to understand how a SEO firm should be analyzed so that a right choice is made. A series of questions to be asked about them, the answers of which will form the basis of your analysis are listed below:

•    What is their experience: They should have sufficient experience in tackling issues such as crawl/indexation issues, inbound linking, analysis of websites, technical problems and possible occurrence of road blocks.
•   What is their ranking on search engines: The SEO consulting services should feature in the top 5 of Google rankings and should have positive reviews from viewers. As otherwise, how can they possibly improve your rankings?
•  What ranking have they achieved for their other clients: Checking the rankings attained by their other clients will determine how effective their working is.
•    What is their linking strategy: What is the percentage of importance placed by them on performing a detailed analysis and working towards improving the linking structure of your website has to be seen.
• What is their cancellation policy: The terms and conditions normally laid down in their contract have to be understood. This will help to know what will be the after effects in case you cancel your business relationship with them.
•  What do their references state: Getting a positive feedback from their clients will enable you to judge on their method of working as you will be getting into a long term business relationship with them. How open is their line of communication will be an important aspect to be noted in this regard.
• What is their system of reporting: Emphasis here should be on the provision of detailed reports on the performance of your website. A proof of their good work is much better than verbal assurances.
•  Do they update themselves: It has to be evaluated whether the SEO Company you have shortlisted keeps itself updated on the latest developments in the online marketing field. If they feel that they know all then they will not evolve.
• What is their pricing policy: They should provide their services for a reasonable cost. A comparison between the services offered by them viz-a-viz the cost for the same has to be seen.
• What is their Customer Care policy: The SEO consultant India should be available to solve your queries promptly. This indicates their reliability.

 All in all, a good SEO agency India is necessary if your online business has to grow. Research on several agencies present in this field has to be done. If the SEO optimization of your website has to come close to the best then quality matters the most. A SEO consultant India with an established track record, transparent and honest dealings is likely to prove beneficial to your business than any other.