For businesses targeting their local area, it is necessary to claim your Google My Business listing. Any local SEO knows how effective this strategy is when it comes to promoting your business online.

But that process doesn’t stop at claiming your listing. What you need to do next is verify and optimize it. This ensures that your Google My Business listing is working successfully.

So how do you do that? Read on to learn.

What is Google My Business?

Before ever learning how to optimize it, you must first familiarize yourself with what Google My Business is.

Google My Business or GMB is a free tool from Google that allows business owners to manage their online presence across the search engine together with its growing portfolio of utilities.

This feature/tool mainly targets the local area. It enables your business to appear in local search results for queries about specific products and services. Ultimately, it offers the biggest impact for brands looking for more local exposure.

Optimizing Your Google My Business Listing

Here are the ways you can optimize your GMB listing:

Enter Your Complete and Updated Data for Your Listing

The more detailed your GMB listing is, the more trustworthy and relevant it seems to Google. Therefore, you must enter your complete, accurate, and updated details and information about the business.

Don’t leave anything to chances. Get the aim, goal, or brand of your business across by listing down what your business does, its location, as well as its products/services. Also, don’t forget to include your accurate business operating hours.

Use Keywords

Every SEO knows the importance of keywords—be it local or broader in scope. To optimize your GMB listing properly and for Google to identify your business for searchers to see, include important keywords and phrases that relates to your business as well as your target audience.

Include Photos

Some GMB listings tend to overlook this aspect. They rely heavily on the data that they forget to include this very important part.

Photos help the performance of your GMB listing. Statistically speaking, business listings with photos get 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35% more CTR to their websites. Consider the following:

• Logo Image
• Cover Photo
• Additional Photos

The recommended format is either JPG or PNG. The size should be between 10KB and 5MB with a minimum resolution of 720px tall and 720px wide. Quality of the photos should be in focus and well lit. There should not be photoshop alterations or any excessive use of filters. This makes your business more in check with reality.

Get Active With Customer Reviews

A great way to establish a trusting relationship with potential customers is through interacting with customer reviews. Respond to what your customers have to say about your product. Make them feel that they are valued and heard. This shows that your business puts a high regard on customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, encourage your other customers to leave feedback. The more positive their reviews about your business are, the more likely Google will place you on top of local searches.

If you need help optimizing your Google My Business account, we can help. Get in touch today for a free consultation.

Writer’s block. We have all been there. Sometimes, you can’t just squeeze out any ideas from your head to write on your blog. And that is perfectly normal. There is no need to beat yourself up for it.

The good thing is, there are actually ways that can help you pull some blog post ideas from here and there. In this article, we are here to tell you all about it. Here are some great places to get your blog post inspiration from:

Ask the Community

If you can’t think of any blog post ideas, then how about you let others think for you. Now, this doesn’t mean you will become an idea thief. No. This simply refers to you asking what your target readers want. You are just simply serving them what they ordered.

To do this, you can refer back to your old posts and scan the comments sections. You may even find some hints about topics your readers are interested in.

Aside from your readers, you can also ask your sales team or support team about what your customers and prospects tend to bring up or ask. In short, you can gather ideas by simply asking and interacting with people.

Consult the Internet

Never underestimate the power of the World Wide Web when it comes to being an idea machine. You can go to social media websites or even just search engines. Find out what are the latest trends people are fussing about. Read up on different articles and look at it from a different perspective. Once you have done that, you can create your own commentary or take on the said topic.

Furthermore, topics that make a number of people fascinated will instantly get you, readers, since these topics are what people are currently interested in.

Add Some New Perspectives

If you really can’t find anything good, then spare yourself from looking for new ideas. Instead, go back to your old blog posts and recycle. And no, we are not asking you to copy paste your old file. By recycling, we mean to make something new to them.

You can update your old blog posts by incorporating the latest trends. If you have written a blog that is year specific, then bring that one out and change it to the current year. An example would be “Shows to Watch in 2017” and then turn it to 2018.

Another thing you can do is by writing a sequel. You can follow-up on your old blog posts by updating them and situating them in a more current state. You can also bring in some new perspectives for a wider viewpoint. Or better yet, you can evaluate the changes that happened so far since the creation of the post.

Bring Out the Old Idea Box

This is actually just an additional in case you have one. Some people tend to keep a file or a note where they write ideas that randomly come up. If you have one, then take a look at it. If not, then you better start making one of your own. So when times like this arrive, you can immediately just refer to your list of ideas.

Want someone to write blog posts for you? If you’re fed up with coming up with ideas, our team can help create killer content for your site. We’ll even post it for you. For more information, get in touch today.

Having a website just doesn’t cut it anymore. That is why you have to make it effective. But unfortunately, not many people can do this. They tend to fall down the traps of web design problems.

So before you join them, it is a must that you know what these problems are in order to avoid crashing into them. Below are the five most common web design problems you must be wary of.

Not Utilizing Responsive Design

You may have a website that works perfectly on a desktop. But how about for those users who access the Internet through other devices like mobile phones and tablets? If you have overlooked this, then chances are you are losing a lot of conversions.

More and more people now actually prefer to go online through their mobile devices. There are over 40% of modern searches that are conducted on smartphones and tablets. However, a recent study shows how there are less than 17% of the world’s 876 million websites that use responsive web design. So if you know how to take a hint, then it is time that you make your site responsive before everyone else.

Poor Quality Content

Websites rarely put in the effort to write top-quality content. As long as there is content, no matter how bad it is, it should be fine for them. But this actually is not fine when it comes to your website’s ranking in search results. This could even harm it.

Search engines always look down on poor quality content. They prefer to rank those with top-quality content at the top of the search rankings.

Now, what does this have to do with web design? Well, to put it simply, website owners overlook quality content just so they could have the sleekest website out there. However, in actuality, no matter the look of the website, when the content in it is bad, then people are most likely going to leave. So design a website with top-quality content in it.

Lack of User Engagement Features

When designing websites, people tend to also forget user engagement features. These include customer service buttons as well as addresses, contact numbers, and emails.

If you want your business to receive conversions, then there should be a way for users to reach you. So don’t forget to include all the necessary information there is about you for them to keep in touch. Also, make your customer service available on each of your pages in case they have questions.

Outdated Web Design

For those websites who just can’t seem to keep up with the changing times, then you should consider redesigning. Not doing so may lead to cybersecurity risks, which is very harmful to your website and business. What you must do is keep your themes and plugins fully updated. Furthermore, a modern and fresh website tells the users how the business is growing and is, therefore, trustworthy.

Wrong Design Choices

There is actually a fine line between good and bad design. A bad one has overused stock images and icons. Also, it chooses to use too many textures and colors. This just makes users dizzy enough to leave the site. Therefore, you should maintain a thematic color scheme. Make sure that your design is minimal yet filled with necessary information.

If you think your website suffers from these common design problem, we can help. Speak to us today for a free consultation.

Advancements in this digital age are constant. That is why in order to keep up with the times and not get left behind, you must always be willing to adapt to changes. Not only that but be determined to improve.

This advice is crucial when it comes to your website. What this entails for you is to redesign it now more than ever. If you are still hung up on your old ways, then you might just see yourself drowning amidst other competing websites. And if you still need convincing on why you should redesign your website, then we are here to do exactly just that for the following reasons:

Your Website is Outdated

This is one of the immediate reasons why you should jump into the process of redesigning. An outdated website could hurt your business. Not many people will prefer an old-looking site over a sleek and new one.

Also, it does not take for people to be a computer specialist to identify an old website. When they see a much better one, trust that they will definitely leave yours immediately. An updated website tells people that the business is actually growing and improving, making it more trustworthy.

Your Website is Not Generating Business Results

The second reason why you should redesign your website now is if it’s not getting your business results. A website that fails to convert sales could lead to a failed business. No matter how beautiful your website, if it is ineffective then you should change it up.

The website’s main function is to build your customer base. Therefore, it should deliver you the results that show you are heading towards a specific business goal. When the results are not favorable, then start redesigning by first examining your site’s conversion rates. This will help you get a good idea of what needs to be improved.

You can also check up on the following:

• Effectiveness of Call-to-Action buttons in converting visitors into customers
• Landing pages having more value than merely visually pleasing
• Friendly and understandable website language

Your Website’s Design is Not Responsive

For the last point, your website should undergo redesign if it is not responsive. Since more people now go to the Internet through various forms of devices, your website should also be able to adapt to these.

Do not just focus on improving your website for desktop-only viewing. It should provide a seamless experience across all kinds of devices. Most especially on mobile phones where a growing number of people use it to look up for information online. Statistically, there is more than 17% of web traffic that comes from mobile devices.  This means that if your website is not responsive, then you are most likely losing out on leads and customers.

Go through the following checkpoints to see if your site is not responsive:

• The legibility of site text – is it too big or too small?
• Images – do they appear correctly or are they distorted?
• Navigation – is it difficult to access and go to the website on a smaller or bigger screen?

If it is time to create a new site for your business, we are here to help. Get in touch today for a no-obligation free quote.

As soon as your website goes live, the next thing that you should be working on is how to drive traffic to the site. Whether you’re engaged in e-commerce or simply sharing a personal blog, the amount of audience you get will ultimately increase your site’s authority.

There are different tools and techniques that digital marketing experts utilize to make that possible. These include Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While they work well on their own, they work even better when combined.

Considering how Google continues to make improvements in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) layout, the integration of PPC and SEO actually allows advertisers to keep up with those improvements and ensure their place on the page. In other words, it’s almost vital to do both. Here’s why:

Traffic potential

While driving organic traffic is possible, it can be difficult to achieve without proper optimization. Hence, topping the rankings is very challenging. However, the addition of PPC to your marketing strategy will easily increase the possibility of driving more traffic and landing your site at one of the top spots in page ranking.

Ultimately, you can expect an increase in your overall traffic by targeting clicks in PPC and organic traffic in SEO.

A/B Testing

With the involvement of PPC, it would be possible to test your website’s landing pages, ad copy, templates, and headlines without negatively affecting your organic traffic. In fact, the information gathered from PCC can be further fed into your organic listing and landing pages.

Data sharing

Both PPC and SEO requires keyword research, but for different purposes. Therefore, combining the individual keyword and conversion data collected from these two can potentially strengthen your campaign and allow you to generate qualified conversions more efficiently.

Overall marketing advantage

Combining data from PPC and SEO does more than just allowing you to gain a better understanding of consumer behavior like how they interact with certain digital properties or how they behave outside your site.

Creating an almost uniform set of metrics that will help establish the key performance indicators of your SEO and PCC is another way of maximizing both strategies. By doing so, you can further apply this data to your other marketing channels like in social media and email marketing.

Final thoughts

For a long time, strategists have been looking into the individual pros and cons of SEO and PPC to determine which works best and which delivers the highest amount of results. So, the current trend of combining the best of both worlds can be regarded as quite unexpected.

Nonetheless, the result of such integration is very promising, and quite a number of experts can attest to that. Although some would not guarantee the same outcome for every business, it can’t be denied that this holistic approach to combining SEO and PPC works best for a more competitive marketing strategy.