Google My Business
This articled refers to “Google My Business,” not as a request or as a wish, but as an ‘app’ for managing how your website will look and perform in the Google search engine. The website for this app is https://www.google.com/business/. After a small business, service provider or professional practice has set up a ‘Google My Business’ account, it can be used to optimize the way your website displays Google Maps locations, Google+ pages and organic search engine results. It is a powerful tool for achieving the best possible SEO strategy.
How do you get started with Google My Business? We think the best way is to hire an internet marketing agency like Axiom Administrative Services, The professionals at Axiom can guide you through this process, merging the Google My Business optimization with your overall branding strategy and search engine optimization services. Briefly, this is an outline of what’s involved.
You or your internet marketing agency has to open an account and claim your business listing. You will be asked for the standard NAP information (name, address, phone number) that should be on any good business or professional website. After filling in details, you will get an old-fashioned ‘snail mail’ postcard from Google, sent to the address you’ve specified. This card is the physical proof that the owner of the organization listed is really at this address.
Once you are verified, you can fill in the details of your business, service or profession including terms selected to fit your SEO strategy. Everything you add must agree with the information you provide on your business website. When filling out this information, keep these guidelines in mind:
- Claim a listing using your exact business name.
- Choose a category as accurate as possible that matches a search term. For example, “sports bars”, “family practice” or “publisher”
- Your profile has to be 100% correct including full phone numbers, operating times and exact address.
- Review your website graphics and photos – can you improve them?
- Create links and citations on other sites, business listings, review sites and directories.
- Keep your data up to date
The example below shows one of the top results from a Google search for the term, “sports bars Daytona.”
You can see how effective this is for people searching the term, “sports bars Daytona.” By clicking one of the search engine results, they have access to name, address, phone, hours of operation reviews and other useful information. If you have not claimed a Google listing for your business, you should do so as soon as possible.
The ‘Google My Business’ app is not the full digital marketing solution you need. Your website should be well constructed, not a cheap web design, it should be updated frequently with useful content and it should reflect a well thought out branding strategy and SEO strategy. This is what the professionals at an internet marketing agency like Axiom do best. If you are struggling to find digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Integrating Social Media into Your Website
Axiom has often written about the growing power of social media as a critical part of an organization’s branding strategy and overall digital marketing solution. Across all age groups, Americans now turn to social media as a source of entertainment, product information, shopping advice and countless other applications (see “Updated Statistics for Social Media”) . Social media channels should be a seamless part of good digital marketing solutions and a successful branding strategy.
But how do you leverage the power of social media on your site? Most businesses, professional practices and nonprofits are probably missing out on potential contacts, referrals and sales that can come from social media sources. Here are some simple suggestions for integrating your website and social media platforms to fashion a digital marketing solution that works.
Place Social Media Buttons on the Home Page. This seems obvious but some cheap web designs ignore this basic rule. Social media buttons should be displayed in their own distinct section of the webpage, probably on the top, bottom or along the side of your home page. Ideally, they should remain in that same location as the user moves from page to page in the website. It’s a good idea to ensure that users don’t leave your website altogether by clicking a social media button, so create links that open in new tabs without leaving your page.
Choose Social Media Links Carefully. If you are the owner or operator of a business or professional practice, it is not likely that you have time for every single social media platform. You must choose the ones that will be most effective for your purpose. Do not link out to social media channels in which you are not active. By “active,” we mean that you post or update at least weekly. If you do not have the time for doing this across multiple platforms, then drop the least productive and delete the links or buttons.
Use “Share” Buttons. Share buttons make it easy for website viewers to seamlessly recommend or share knowledge about a product, service or idea. If you have resources like a blog or articles on your website, make it as easy as possible for readers to share it with others. Social media share buttons should be displayed in an easily seen location and they should be used across all of your digital marketing solutions. This means placing them on your Facebook and Google+ pages, as well as your website. If you do not know how to use share buttons, get the advice of a professional internet marketing agency.
Know the Platform’s Terms and Conditions. A personal Facebook page should not be used for promoting a brand name, and there are rules to follow when running a promotional page. Likewise, Google+ and other platforms have a set of “terms and conditions” for use. Not adhering to these rules can get your page removed.
Do Not Overuse or Abuse Social Media Platforms or Share Buttons. The content you place on social media platforms should be compelling, useful information that is easily shareable. Littering your website with excess social media share buttons will detract from your overall branding strategy. When you post on a platform or include a share button, be sure that the material adds value to the viewer’s experience. Is it useful? If not, delete it.
Learn to Use Analytics. Tools like Google Analytics can tell you a lot about the ways in which individuals use your social media and share buttons. Google Analytics tracks vital statistics on a number of website elements, including social media and share buttons. If you do not have the time to track this for yourself, it might be wise to turn the job over to a professional internet marketing agency or an expert in SEO techniques.
Social media platforms are an ever more important part of branding strategies. If you are struggling to find digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Under the Website Hood, Page Titles and meta descriptions (Important parts of a website you do not see)
Behind every webpage, there is a complex of code that controls both the page appearance and critical details of the site’s SEO strategy. Cheap web design often ignores these ‘under the hood’ details; as a result, a well thought out digital marketing solution may be wasted. A successful SEO strategy will make your site as easy as possible for Bing, Google and other search engines to find you.
A good SEO strategy is an important part of a branding strategy and essential to creating digital marketing solutions that work. The truth is that a clever amateur can outline an SEO strategy that will work, but cheap web design will not implement it correctly. For that, you need the services of an internet marketing agency or professional SEO services provided by a firm like Axiom.
Let’s look at two website elements that are very important to SEO strategy but not obvious to a casual observer: page title tags and meta descriptions.
Every time you use a search engine, you see page title tags but probably do not realize it. The search engine results page (SERP) will contain a list of results that match the term you have entered. Each of those results will have a headline bold tag and a ‘snippet’ of text below it. Clicking it will take you to the page whose title tag matches the search term you entered.
Here is an example for the search term, “bathroom faucets.” Entering that term will return a SERP with numerous suggestions, one of them for Home Depot. That result will look like this –
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Bath-Bathroom-Faucets/N-5yc1vZbreo
Browse our vast selection of in-style and durable shower faucets and bathtub faucets. Shower fixtures can make a difference. Indulge in a waterfall showerhead …
Bathroom Sink Faucets · Nickel – Bathroom Faucets · Bathroom Faucets – Bath
Notice that the headline of this result contains the exact search term entered. The people who designed this page included the words “bathroom faucets” in the page title because they realized that this would be a common term entered in search engine queries. Professional SEO services would make certain that this common search term is included in the page title. Frequently, this is the first (and maybe the only) thing most people will see. That is one reason that page title tags are so important; the page title tag is a message to the world!
Clicking on the headline of that SERP result will take you to the Home Depot shopping site, but not its home page. Instead, you will be directed to a sub page of the site. In the HTML code for that page you would find this code-
<title>Bathroom Faucets for Your Sink, Shower Head and Bathtub - The Home Depot</title>
If the page title has been properly named using SEO techniques, the browser tab will look like this –
The browser tab contains exactly what the user is looking for! The marketing team has not only devised a SEO strategy, it has applied an element of that strategy (the search term, “bathroom faucets”) to this subpage title. Keep in mind that there might be dozens, even hundreds of other subpages on this site with page titles like “kitchen faucets,” “luxury faucets,” or “shower faucets”; all of these are designed to attract the attention of a search engine looking for a particular product, service or idea.
A common mistake made in cheap web design is to give pages a vague or generic title, like “services” or “products.” If you are drawing a graphic map of your website, these titles make sense, but few people issue search terms for “services.” Better page titles would be “plumbing services,” “faucet installation” or “shower installation.”
Title tags work with the meta description (the text below the title tag). In the case of the Home Depot search result above, this is the meta description — a sentence or phrase that adds more information about the page.
<meta property="og:description" content="Browse our vast selection of in-style and durable shower faucets and bathtub faucets. Shower fixtures can make a difference. Indulge in a waterfall showerhead or conserve with a water saving showerhead."/>
Again, you see that the website’s branding strategy and SEO strategy have instructed the designers to include likely keywords (search terms), such as “shower faucets” and “bathtub faucets.” This meta description works with the page title to help users find the product or service they want.
Most people can come up with a list of likely keywords. Taking advantage of those search terms requires careful thought and detailed planning. Each page and subpage in a website should have a well-thought-out page title and meta description; there may be dozens, hundreds, even thousands of such pages. That is one reason cheap web design is not going to produce digital marketing solutions that work.
If you are struggling to find digital marketing solutions that do work, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
What Do Members and Donors Want From a Nonprofit Website?
Like any successful business, service provider or professional practice, nonprofit organizations must have a branding strategy, a search engine optimization strategy and even direct mail marketing solutions. A professional website (not a cheap web design) is a key element in developing any branding strategy, including those of nonprofits.
But what do the viewers, the members and the donors who support NPO’s want from a web experience? To say the least, this is an important question; those members and donors are the ones who make an NPO’s existence possible. If the nonprofit or its internet marketing agency is wise, they will be aware of the wants and needs of members and donors. Nonprofit organizations need a web presence that will create interest, inform the members and donors and make the viewer confident in their integrity and ability to fulfill a mission.
The basics that apply to all web development also apply to nonprofits. A solid SEO strategy and professional SEO services are basics. All good digital marketing solutions will produce a website that is easy to navigate, user-friendly, and as visually appealing as possible. A cookie-cutter template will not do this and neither will a cheap web design. All nonprofits have a mission and their digital marketing solutions must fit and support that mission.
Here are some “musts” for a successful NPO website and a nonprofit digital marketing solution that is fruitful:
- You Need Quality Content! Google’s ranking system recognizes a class of websites they call “Your Money or Your Life” websites. These are websites that ask the viewer to spend money (as in donate) or make a life changing decision, a commitment, an important choice. These websites are called to a higher standard of website content. They are not there to amuse or to distract, but to inform, inspire commitment and to recruit volunteers and members.
Writing quality for a nonprofit is more important than it is for other websites. The viewers of these sites are seeking real information about an important subject. It might be a church mission, an animal rights cause, a political action committee or any other public interest topic, but it must inspire the viewer to take action, to donate or to join and volunteer. The website should be free of distractions with clear and concise writing. The graphic content (pictures, graphs, illustrations, etc.) should tell a story. The pictures should be real scenes from the NPO’s activities, not copied from other sources. The most important content should be “above the fold” when viewed on a computer or mobile device screen. Do not force the viewer to scroll down far to see the main point.
- You Need A Social Media Focus. Social media is a perfect platform for nonprofits. The social media bring together people with common interests, even if they are widely separated on the map. “Save the Children” activists or “Free Tibet” campaigners can connect with one another and act in union. Social media has received a lot of negative attention lately (much of it deserved), but it remains a powerful tool for all nonprofits. Your website can be the center of social media activities that extend to Instagram, Facebook, Google Plus and others. The social media “Apps” you choose should be placed prominently in your homepage and throughout the subpages.
- You Should Have An Email Sign-up. Do not make viewers search for a way to join up or volunteer. Even if they don’t have the financial resources to donate, their membership helps your circulation numbers and when they click on a link it helps your page ranking. Place a link to your newsletter in this section and encourage subscription, but do not start sending them unsolicited newsletters.
- A Media Coverage Section. If your nonprofit is covered in any newspaper, broadcast or podcast segment, make this known to page viewers
- A Donate Button. How could we forget this? A few nonprofits are lucky enough to have some funding source from charitable foundations or public interest groups, but many exist month to month on donations. The worthiest of causes cannot function without money, so make giving easy.
Axiom Administrative Services understands the needs of nonprofits. If your ministry, nonprofit or public advocacy group is struggling to find digital marketing solutions that work and a branding strategy that makes you stand out, turn to Axiom. Your nonprofit deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and local SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves. Our team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your nonprofit branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Small Business SEO Techniques
You have probably seen ads for website building services that promise to have a website up and running for you in an hour or less. These ads are common on television and, especially, on YouTube. The fact is that this is correct. Services like Squarespace, Weebly or Wix can in deed put up a webpage or two in an hour or less.
It may be tempting for small businesses or professional practices to turn to one of these providers instead of a professional internet marketing agency or local SEO company. Think about these ads for a moment; most of them feature attractive young people who have put up a website for their one-person creative enterprise. Lots of them are artists, musicians or other creative-arts performers or innovators. They have a presentable website, and that is fine.
However, a good website is not the key to a digital marketing solution. In fact, there is no one key to digital marketing solutions that actually work. Instead, there is a process that resembles turning a combination lock. The first number in the combination may be a website, but there is much more. How about:
- A branding strategy
- An outstanding logo, professionally produced by a logo design service
- SEO techniques and a SEO strategy, produced by a professional SEO services provider
- For most small businesses, local SEO services aimed at local customers.
- Strong content that is updated frequently
A cheap web design can get you the first combination number needed to unlock a really good digital marketing solution, but a lot will be missing. Developing a branding strategy and a local SEO strategy are the next steps (numbers in the combination) that will unlock your digital marketing solution. That branding strategy starts with a logo design service that produces a distinctive, memorable meme for your business or service and a tagline to go with it.
SEO techniques and a SEO strategy aimed at local recognition and access are the critical next numbers in unlocking that digital marketing solution that works for you. Local SEO services optimize your website to rank better for a local audience.
Actually, a website gives you the opportunity to target the entire (online) world, but for most professional practices or small businesses, the targets are in your local area or “nearby” (nearby is an important word in branding strategy, and SEO techniques). Those attractive young people mentioned above may be artists or musicians in Portland who are trying to sell music in Key West, but this is not the case for most small businesses. They need to optimize for zip codes, city names, address details and phone numbers. This is often called the NAP principle; you must make your name, address and phone easily visible to search engines.
But how do you do this? Where do you place code in the best way to call attention to critical elements of NAP and your branding strategy? Actually, this is a job for professionals. If you are struggling to find digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Beyond local SEO strategy, there are combination elements such as social media presence and strong, useful frequently updated content. One of Axiom’s clients is the well-known OurSeniors.net organization. Click on their link to see their home page and then on the OurSeniors.net Blog that features timely, useful, senior-oriented content.
Our business marketing team and SEO strategy teams can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Achieving the Best Results In Social Media
More and more, branding strategies, SEO strategies and SEO techniques have come to rely on social media. For a small business or service provider, success in the social media has become essential to finding a digital marketing solution that works. The truth is that this is not easy.
There are literally billions of websites today, each trying to convey some message. Every internet marketing agency dreams of a shortcut to social media success, but sadly, there is no “Press This Easy Button” for social media. The only certain way is to keep at it, be certain that your website or blog is current (or hire an internet marketing agency to do it for you) and follow some common sense rules.
Remember that the social media world is full of entertainment, much of it professionally produced. Unless you are a professional writer, video producer or musician, there is not much chance that you can compete on an entertainment stage. The good news is that millions of viewers are looking for content that is useful, as well as entertaining. “Useful” can mean many different things. If the viewer is looking for tax help, a Facebook article or YouTube presentation from a tax accountant may fit the bill perfectly.
One of Axiom’s clients, OurSeniors.net, is devoted to serving the needs of senior age adults (a very large and important market). OurSeniors.net publishes articles that focus on content that is especially useful to seniors. These articles are kept current and fill a need. For example, almost all seniors are interested in the Social Security System; OurSeniors.net makes itself useful to that target audience by publishing material like, “Changes in Social Security Benefits, 2018.” Timely information of this type is designed to get the target audience to “click-in,” “turn-on” and to return time after time.
Social media that is visual is more likely to be noticed and remembered. One internet marketing agency conducted a study that confirmed this finding – Facebook image posts got 179% more interactions than the average Facebook post. A graphic element may be as important to a social media post as the text itself. The professionals at Axiom have access to vast libraries of images. Using one of these graphics or an embedded video produced by Axiom can add immensely to the attraction and success of your website and social media effort.
Put some variety in your social media. You need to update your social media content frequently in a way that is always consistent with your branding strategy, but avoid harping on the same subject over and over. If you lack the imagination or the time to consistently produce varied content, stick to short-form social media like Twitter or hire someone to do it for you.
Always remember the rule of brevity, or at least appropriate length for the media. Some social media content cannot be held to just a few words or paragraphs, but do not allow yourself to run on and on, past a reasonable length. Website readers or viewers can get bored just as book readers or film goers sometimes do.
There is a lot to think about, isn’t there? Many people could learn these skills if they had the time and inclination, but few professional or business people do. That is what an internet marketing agency with good SEO techniques can do for you. If you are struggling to find digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves. Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
What’s in A Name? (A Domain Name, That Is)
The short answer is “There is a lot in a name! In fact, domain name is critical.” That’s right; your website domain name is a critical launching pad for your branding strategy, your digital marketing solutions, your SEO strategy and your overall digital marketing plan. A well-chosen domain name will make people think of your small business, professional practice or non-profit organization. Unfortunately, many domain names are chosen without thinking through the consequences on SEO techniques, the effects on local SEO services or even the business goals.
Before choosing a domain name, it is a good idea to ask yourself some basic questions:
- What are my business goals?
- What are the goals for this website
- What do you want viewers to do during or after viewing the website?
If you are not familiar with domain name system terminology, there are some basic definitions that you need to know:
- A Top-Level Domain (TLD) is at the highest level of the system. It is the abbreviation that follows the “dot.” In the Unites States, the best known TLDs are “.com,” “.net” and “.org.”
- A Main Domain (sometimes called the “root domain”) is the name that precedes the TLD. For example, in the name “Google.com,” Google is the main domain and dot com is the TLD. Sorry if you were thinking of using that one, it is taken. Axiom’s domain name is com.
In general, if your website is for a business or professional practice, you should try to get a dot com or dot net TLD. If you are a non-profit or service organization, the dot org extension may be preferred. Those name extensions are well recognized by the public and lend themselves to a branding strategy, to local SEO services and to sound digital marketing solutions.
Let’s take one of Axiom’s clients as an example. When a name like “our seniors dot net” is spoken and heard, the listener understands that the term means a web address and will almost certainly be able to find it on the web. Just entering the term ourseniors.net will get the user to a page that refers to the OurSeniors.net organization. Which location depends on which search engine you are using (probably Google or Bing).
The name, “OurSeniors.net” illustrates an important point – more and more business and service organizations are intimately tied to the internet. The dot com or dot net extension is an important part of their branding strategy, indicating that their services are at least in part web-based. If you are using the Google search engine, typing “ourseniors.net” will get you to a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) that is filled with references to our client. You will find the OurSeniors.net Home Page, links to their Better Business Bureau Profile, to their publication, OurSeniors.net Magazine and information in the Your-Business-on-Google side box (address, phone, business hours and webpage).
You can see how the domain name is part of the branding strategy and how local SEO services and SEO techniques can be applied to this domain name. It all fits together nicely. Now, what about choosing the Main Domain name?
For many small business operators, the purpose of the website is quite simple: to make potential customers aware of your business or practice, its location, services and products offered, etc. As closely as possible, you should try for a main domain name that reflects this purpose. Here are some key pointers-
- Keep it easy to spell and type correctly. Search engines are getting better and better at guessing what misspelled words are meant to be, but it is still best to get them right.
- Do keyword research. Try to imagine that you are looking for the product or service that your business sells or provides. What words would be in your search? Putting the most important keyword or phrase into the domain name is the ideal. The services of an internet marketing agency like Axiom Administrative Services can be a great help in finding the right keyword(s).
- Keep it short is a good rule of thumb, but do not make this a dogma. Balance the descriptiveness of the name against its length. A name like “volusiapainting.com” may be a better SEO strategy than one like “vp.com.” Both domain names could be for a house painter in Volusia County, but the longer name is far more descriptive, lending itself to the SEO techniques of location and identity.
- If your website is for a local service or business, try to include location in your domain name. “volusiapainting.com” tells the searcher that your business serves the Volusia County area.
- Be cautious of names with numbers. Hearing the name, “one two three dot com” may lead the listener to type, “123.com” or “onetwothree.com.” If you are thinking of a famous number like 1600Pennsylvania (the White House), this may pass muster, but be careful.
- Protect your domain name. If you are able to find a domain name that really fits your purposes, protect it by purchasing the same main domain with other TLDs. If you are going to use “volusiapainting.com,” consider buying the dot net extension as well, even if you do not use it. This protects you from competitors who may imitate your site.
Choosing and registering a good domain name is just the start of building a great branding strategy and a successful small business SEO plan. If you are struggling to find digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Spring Cleaning for Digital Marketers and Webmasters
Spring has passed, so maybe this should be called, “Regular Maintenance for Websites, Branding Strategies and Digital Marketing Solutions.” In fact, a quarterly (or more frequent) checkup on both is a good practice. If you are a business owner or manager, you need to rethink your branding strategies and the digital marketing solutions you employ on a regular basis. If you are a webmaster or work in an internet marketing agency, you should check and recheck the technical status of your website almost weekly. If you are both owner/manager and webmaster, you probably have too much to do.
Let’s think about some of the things every webmaster, internet marketing agency, search engine optimization company and even direct mail marketing professionals should routinely rethink. Every business, service provider, non-profit and professional practice is different, with unique circumstances and challenges. Still, there are some common elements that apply to all of them.
First, if you have not done so already, make your website, your branding strategies, digital marketing solutions, SEO strategy and even your logo design mobile friendly. There is just no way to get around the fact that the computer age has been eclipsed by the “mobile age” or the “smart phone era.” Google has recognized this, saying that mobile friendliness is now a key element in page ranking algorithms. If your website does not load quickly on mobile devices and fit properly into the mobile format, its ranking is going to be lower across all devices.
What does “load quickly” mean? As a rule of thumb, the main elements of your site should load within 5 seconds on a mid-scale phone running 3G software. Obviously, this is an old standard and the time margins are going to shrink. If your site has not fully or mostly loaded after 5 seconds, the potential viewer (and customer, patient or client) may move on. One marketing study found that over half of mobile users left a site after 5 seconds if it was not loaded. Professionals at an internet marketing agency like Axiom Administrative Services can help with this by streamlining the code and downsizing the file sizes of graphic elements. Smaller graphic files are one of the keys, as they take less time to load.
Second, reexamine the social media you are using, and the way in which you are using it. Did you know that in 2018, Facebook was not the most popular social network among Americans? It was YouTube, which some of us old fogies don’t even think of as a social media, but it is! YouTube offers a free avenue for you to graphically show off your talent, your pizza, your used car inventory or anything else you are marketing. Americans are viewing YouTube videos at an ever increasing rate; in 2018, 73% of all Americans had contact with YouTube compared to 68% with Facebook.
Even experienced marketers and branding strategy professionals can use help with this. Links to social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram have become important parts of good SEO strategy. Each business and digital marketer must evaluate which social media platform is best for their purposes. Sites like Snapchat and Instagram reach a smaller proportion of the public, but they are especially popular among younger people.
Ask yourself frequently, “Who am I trying to reach?” If the answer is teenagers, then a presence on Snapchat and Instagram is very desirable. If your audience is mature adults, then Facebook or YouTube is more appropriate. This seems surprising to many people, but adults and seniors are big users of these platforms. In any case, you and your local SEO services provider need to choose the correct social media platform and constantly update the entries.
Third, take a look at your website and data security. Data sharing, data security and personal privacy have become major concerns to the public, including the users of social media. Consumers have little confidence in the measures taken by most websites to protect their personal information. It is a good policy to be totally transparent about your data collection and protection policies. If you do not need to collect information like addresses, phone numbers, gender, age, etc., then delete any you have and stop collecting.
If you are operating an online store or a small business that accepts payment by internet, you should use one of the secure online payment systems, like Paypal or ApplePay . Remember that you are in the business of selling products or services, not collecting data.
Lastly, you should check the technical properties of your website. Doing this every spring, “occasionally” or when you feel like it is not enough. Most business people are not aware that their website is visited frequently by “bots” (see our blog article, “Visited by a Bot”). These web crawlers are looking for proper or improper elements in your HTML code, hints about the purpose of your site, your geographic location, the number of links and backlinks you have, titles to graphic elements, H1 titles and numerous other clues. Search engines use this data to establish a ranking for your site.
Broken, out-of-date or faulty links are especially bad signs for a bot. A broken link is a lost opportunity or a sign that your website is not professionally maintained. If you are not able to check these and other elements on your own, it is worth the cost to have it done by a professional SEO services or internet marketing agency.
If you are searching for digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out, turn to Axiom. Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. It has the professional and small business SEO skills needed to get your website the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
What About Bing?
Search engines are constantly ranking the work of internet marketing agencies and professional SEO services. It seems only fair that once-in-a-while an internet marketing agency (like Axiom Administrative Services) should repay the favor and rank the search engine providers.
It is no surprise that Google dominates the search engine market. According to the website, SmartInsights.com, during 2017 Google produced between 70% and 80% of all search engine results. These queries came from desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile devices and smart phones. In fact, the noun, ‘Google’ has been verbalized to become a verb meaning to search for. We now “Google a question” meaning, “to seek an answer or information.”
The bridesmaid of search engines is Microsoft’s entry, Bing. Bing may control only about 23% to 25% of the search engine market, but search engine optimization services, internet marketing agencies and professional developers of branding strategies cannot afford to ignore it. In 2017, it is estimated that worldwide, there were 1.2 trillion web searches done. Think about it – 23% of 1.3 trillion is still a huge market, one that all digital marketing solutions must consider.
Bing is helped by the fact that it comes as the default search engine for Microsoft’s Edge browser (the successor to Microsoft Explorer). All Windows computers come with Edge installed and with Bing set as the default browser for Edge. There are probably millions of Edge users who do not realize they are defaulting to Bing.
If you are trying to produce and maintain your own website, Microsoft is willing to help you optimize for Bing searches. The “Bing Webmaster Help & How-To” site (www.bing.com/webmaster) gives instructions on topics like, page load time (PLT), sitemaps, geo-targeting your website and other technical topics. As with Google’s help site (Google Webmasters), Bing gives some specific advice about things to avoid: duplicate content (plagiarized or cut and pasted text), keyword stuffing, link buying or link spamming.
Digital marketing solutions and branding strategies that make your business stand out are the same for Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo, as well as Google. If you are really into technical subjects like “web crawlability,” XML sitemaps, navigational structure or title and meta-description tags, Bing’s webmaster site is an honest, straight forward attempt to help you. Most of the advice that applies to optimizing for Google’s search engine applies to Bing as well.
Good SEO techniques, strong content that is relevant to the viewer and kept current, branding strategies and digital marketing solutions that address viewers’ needs will work for Bing as well as Google. At Axiom, you will find the small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves in Bing as in Google. Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Marketing to Seniors
Most professional SEO services, small business SEO providers and internet marketing agency professionals are relatively young people. They have grown up with the internet, social media, and mobile devices as constant companions. Because older adults were relatively slow to adopt these innovations, these professionals have concentrated on their peer groups, younger people.
That was yesterday. Today, the use of social media and internet services has grown among all demographic classes, but some of the most significant increases have been seen in older age groups. This is especially true of the “Boomers,” aged 55 to 75. While this audience has evolved, the people who develop internet branding strategies devise SEO techniques and run internet marketing agencies have not. As a result, there is a large hole in the skill sets available to many of these internet marketing agency pros: digital marketing solutions aimed at seniors.
Senior-specific digital marketing solutions can tap into a huge market of underserved buyers and consumers. The Neilson Company, a very well-known name in market research and consumer behavior reported this six years ago in 2012-
- Consumers aged 50+ numbered 100 million people.
- By 2030, the 50+ segment will expand 34%.
Here are two facts that scream, “Opportunity!” Internet marketing agencies and SEO strategy builders have spent their young lives devising branding strategies and digital marketing solutions for people their own age, and they are very good at it. At the same time there is a vast, untapped market right in front of their eyes: seniors! AXIOM Administrative Services sees that opportunity clearly.
Axiom is based in Florida’s Fun Coast, the Volusia-Flagler County area, home to one of the largest senior populations in the United States. As providers of local SEO services and digital marketing solutions, we must be aware of the importance of the senior market to any client. One of our most important clients is the very fine organization, OurSeniors.net, also based in the Fun Coast area. OurSeniors.net has recognized the critical importance of the senior consumer to any marketing effort. From medical and dental practice to home maintenance to auto sales and repairs, penetrating the senior market is essential.
Take a look at this Axiom-produced website, OurSeniors.net. This site is an all-things-senior directory and source of information about senior living, senior challenges, topics of special interest to seniors and providers of services to seniors. This production from Axiom connects business owners, service providers and professionals directly to the senior market. Seniors go to OurSeniors.net because it provides them with engaging, frequently updated content and dependable advice on solving senior-related problems. Both parties win!
Digital marketing solutions aimed specifically at the senior market should be considered a sub-specialty of search engine optimization services. In order to do it right, you must have knowledge of and experience in the senior marketplace. The OurSeniors.net site offers its readers specialized services like the Senior Transition Pro Team, the Approved Vendor Directory, links to senior-related services like Grace Manor Assisted Living and even an online version of its printed magazine, “OurSeniors.net Magazine.” In each of these areas, Axiom played a key role in developing the concept and producing the final product. This is the kind of specialized, professional outcome that cannot result from amateur or cheap web design.
If you are searching for an effective way to put your product or service in front of the senior audience, turn to Axiom. Axiom Administrative Services, has the specialized digital marketing solutions and branding strategies needed to make your business or practice stand out in the senior marketplace. You deserve more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
