On my previous blog post, I talked about how negative reviews can actually help your business.

One negative review won’t do harm your business. It’s not the end for you! As a matter of fact, unfavorable reviews can further boost your search engine dominance. Let me count the ways.

Negative Reviews Paints a More Authentic Blueprint of Your Business.

• Yotpo analyzed over 1.3 million product reviews… and what did they find out? On average, a website only gets a 4.3 star rating. Anything larger than that gives a shady impression.
• What does this imply? Disappointments are part of life. There will be no perfect rating. Sooner or later, a customer that will complain the product did not meet their expectation. They will say a product is “bad.”
• The truth is that the product is just different from what they expected. It’s not totally bad. Now, this will help you in making product descriptions better. Also, tips are posted here if you need help in writing product descriptions.
• You can make it apparent for your customers and clearly establish what your product is and what your product is not. Because of a negative review, your other customers can decide if a product is for them or not.
• Future customers will have an idea what the product features are so that they won’t set very unrealistic expectations of the product. Thus, it will lessen the number of disgruntled customers.
• Making negative reviews visible help in creating a fair and unbiased look. It reassures all your customers that you are not hiding anything. In the end, negative reviews play a role in building increasing the reliability and loyalty.

Negative Reviews Can Help You Think of Better SEO Strategies.

• A product may have flaws that were unnoticed. A negative review can help you see these things. Then, you can formulate new ways to tackle the issue, and focus on a problem that needs urgent attention.
• When reading all the negative reviews, ask these questions.
  1. What do your customers want?
  2. Did you match their expectation?
  3. What were the things you were not able to fulfill?
  4. Do your customers have other questions?
  5. Were they looking for something else?
  6. What did they search on your website?

You can address these questions on another post. Create an FAQ section if you think there are customer questions that tend to be redundant. For example, you could post about the estimated delivery times of the products, or you could provide a way for your customers to get immediate response if they encounter problems. An unfavorable review will ultimately help you know your customers better, and find new ways of satisfying their needs.

Welcome the Negative Reviews!

Do not despair when you get bad reviews because there’s good in the bad. It can help you create a more realistic portrait of your business. A negative review won’t define you. You can use this to prove that your business is responsive and trustworthy despite the mishaps. So, the next time you encounter a negative review, do not fret. The positive will always outshine the negative.

People think good search rankings can be achieved in a snap, and they set very unrealistic SEO expectations.

Before you head on and think of the millions things SEO can do for your business, let us first discuss the SEO expectations.

What’s the REAL Deal?

• SEO has only 3 letters yet plenty of people misinterpret and misuse it.
• There’s a need for businesses to show up in various search engines. SEO has no specific rules, but there are factors that affect your website rankings. In today’s world, SEO is a must for every business to succeed online.
  1. Content. What is the use of a beautiful website if the content is not useful to people? High-quality content is what you need.
  2. Links. How many websites mention your business? Do they provide a link for your website?
  3. Keywords. Are you using relevant keywords in your content, title, and descriptions?

Related: SEO On-site Factors

Okay, these are just a few of the basic factors to consider. When a user searches a term online, the goal is for your website to show up once this term is being typed on a search engine like Google.

Knowing the benefits and limitations.

It helps to know what SEO can do and what it can’t do. Most businesses need to know how things work. SEO is NOT something you can magically start, and then, it appears right in front of you.

• The Results Will Take Time to Show Up.

  • One of the major setbacks is that SEO is not like an instant noodle that you can readily enjoy after 5 minutes of preparing. Please do not expect noticeable results to be visible right away.
  • You need a lot of time and patience to see tangible results from the sleepless nights and the intense research. Advertising your content and website will take time. It may take days, weeks, or even months.

• The ROI Will Also Take Time.

  • If visible results need time, then, revenues will also take a long time. So, if you need a considerable amount of money in a short period of time, this is NOT for you. SEO may not be an advantageous approach for businesses that just started.

• SEO Is NOT Guaranteed.

  • Let’s face it. We all want to be on top. Being number 1 is the goal. We all want our websites to land of the first page of the SERPs. However, there is no guarantee that your website will be one of the top results.

• SEO is NOT set in stone.

  • Google’s algorithms constantly changes. No one can really say this is an important factor. The rules are always changing. You always need to read and research on the newest SEO updates.
  • We can only guess on what the significant SEO factors are. Only Google knows the exact answers.

Despite the drawbacks, people choose SEO because it can be anyone’s game. It is fun to know that no one really knows what will happen next. Plus, SEO is totally free. If the odds are in your favor, you get a heavy influx of web traffic without even spending a dime.

You would think that any SEO strategy would help you get higher up in Google and get all of the following benefits:

• Improved online visibility
• Increased site traffic
• Better engagement
• A higher position on search results

But that’s not true.

The reality is that not all SEO tactics are created equal. While some will help you surge up Google’s rankings, others can see you get severely penalized and plummet like a stone. These are the SEO strategies that are worse for your business.

The Worst Things You Can Do for SEO

Plagiarize other content

Not creating unique content is a cardinal sin when it comes to SEO. I know it can be hard to create unique content day in day out but the simple fact is that copying other content can see your website hit with a duplicate penalty content by Google.

Not only is plagiarism unethical and illegal, it also goes against Google’s policies. Plagiarizing won’t just mean you don’t create great content for your readers, it can result in a penalty or having your website taken down completely.

2. Keyword stuffing

It’s important to use keywords in your content in order to rank for the right search phrases. But over-optimizing your content, putting too many in, is bad for SEO. The result is poorly written, unnatural posts that don’t offer readers value. Google can tell when you are intentionally keyword stuffing and will penalize you if it finds you guilty. It’s also not a good experience for your readers, either, which will result in high bounce rates.

3. Crappy backlinks

Everyone knows that backlinks are one of the most powerful tools in an SEO’s arsenal. They are a great way to improve your website’s authority and boost rankings. But all backlinks are not created equal.

While good backlinks from high authority websites are worth their weight in gold, dodgy backlinks can seriously harm your business. Bad backlinks are any low quality, spammy or bought backlinks that aren’t created naturally. If Google catches you creating these kinds of links, expect a penalty.

4. Cloaking

Trying to trick Google into thinking your website is something it isn’t is another bad SEO tactic that will have you expelled from the rankings. Hiding keywords on a page so that Google thinks you should rank for a phrase you don’t mention is a trick used by some Blackhat SEOs, but it rarely works anymore. Google is too smart to be tricked.

5. Placing too many ads

While this isn’t an SEO strategy per se, it is a way that Google could tank your business website. Many websites rely on online ads for revenue. This can lead them to stuff their pages with ads or put loads of ads above the fold where people will see them. This creates a bad user experience and can lead you to getting punished by Google. Use a couple of ads on the page by all means, but don’t stuff them everywhere possible.

There was a time when blogging was only ever used as an online journal for self-expression or for keeping track of activities. Things change quickly, however. Today, blogging is a key part of corporate strategy and it can have a big impact on your bottom line.

Small businesses in particular struggle with visibility and getting customers through the door. It can feel link it’s almost impossible to attract any customers what so ever.

But blogging offers a way for small businesses to reach out and speak directly to potential customers. It is a great way to build a presence and make it easy for them to discover who you are, where you are based and what you offer.

Below we cover the major benefits blogging can have for small businesses.

Here’s Why Blogging is Great for Your Small Business

#1: It helps you to rank higher in search results

Google is the number one tool used by consumers to find information online. The vast majority of the time it will be the first place they turn when researching businesses or looking for information about a specific business. Getting listed high in Google can generate a huge amount of web traffic for any business, no matter the size.

Writing well-optimized blogs that focus on specific search phrases is the major way of ranking high in Google and getting more of that valuable web traffic.

#2: Improve online visibility

The more phrases your website ranks for in Google, the bigger your company’s online visibility. It’s obvious, right? That means the more you write, the more you appear in Google and the greater your online visibility gets.

Not only this, but blogs can be shared on social media giving your company even more online visibility. So every time someone shares your content, you get even more reach and the opportunity to earn even more followers.

#3: Blogging builds trust

Blogging is a great way of building trust in your business  Writing quality, informative content gives your company a voice and shows that you know what you are talking about. What’s more, if you have comments enabled, you can even talk to customers directly in the comments and build even more trust.

#4: Blogging establishes authority

By blogging you can showcase all of your talents in an easily digestible format. Giving away some of your best advice for free is a common marketing tactic and it works wonders for bloggers. It creates instant trust and encourages the likelihood of blog readers converting into customers.

Reason #5: Blogging can grow your email list

One of the lesser known benefits of blogging is that it can help you grow your email marketing list. The more blog posts you write, the more traffic you generate and the more chance you have of encouraging readers to sign up to your email list. From there, you can send discounts, promos and newsletters to keep customers engaged and encourage them to convert.

Social media marketing (SMM) isn’t unheard of. On its own, it is a useful channel for increasing visibility to a wider audience, interacting with customers, and strengthening your brand.

According to Social Media Examiner (2017), 96 percent of small and medium businesses have admitted to using social media in their marketing strategy. So if you have in any way used social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter for business, then you’re doing SMM. The power of social media is no secret either. Vendasta (2017) says it helped 90 percent of marketers with better exposure, and 75 percent with increased traffic.

What is Social SEO?

Now imagine combining social media marketing with traditional strategies in search engine optimization. What you get is social SEO. However, it’s not as simple as it looks.

With social SEO, you don’t just use social media to support your SEO efforts. Rather, you’re going to use social media itself as a tool for improving your search engine rankings, together with the best practices in SEO.

Why not stick to SEO as we know it?

It’s true that you can boost your position on search engine results pages (SERPs) with SEO alone. Furthermore, it’s worth mentioning that SMM has no bearing on your rankings when used on its own.

So why bother in the first place?

The Benefits of Social SEO

One reason why social SEO should be the new standard, is that it does have an effect on your rankings. The combined power of social media and search engine optimization allow you to climb up the ranks faster.

How?

The secret is in the links.

Whenever you share content on social media platforms where backlinking is possible – think Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIN, and Pinterest – you are essentially building links to your website. The links and social media content have no SEO value, but the social interaction that happens around them do.

Social signals such as Likes, Shares, and Retweets give search engines an idea of your site’s credibility, as well as a better understanding of the keywords you’re targeting. Both can indirectly improve your site’s SERP position.

If you want to increase your rankings through social SEO, you should:

• Create content relevant content so your readers would want to share it
• Make it easy for readers to share content from your website to social media
• Set up accounts on various social media platforms
• Use social media to share content and interact with audiences

Another benefit of social SEO is that it increases your online visibility. Sure, it won’t be able to rank your website (directly, at least). But do you know what else it can rank? Your social media accounts.

Social SEO allows your business to take over more than one spot on the SERPs, thus increasing your visibility. If you’ve done SEO just as well on your social media profiles, you can fill several spots on the top 10 results!

Even if you don’t make it to the top search results, having your business on various social media platforms will already increase your visibility. Each platform has a search engine of its own, which you can use to target keywords and reach old and new audiences alike.