Google is Moving To A “Mobile First Index” in 2018
Google has become more transparent in telling web designers and internet marketing agencies how they go about ranking websites. Since 2015, a website’s “mobile-friendliness” has affected ranking performance across a variety of devices (including laptops, tablets and smart phones). Now, more than ever, Google is determined to focus on ranking sites based on their mobile experience. Web designers and digital marketing solutions must focus on delivering the fastest, most accessible desktop, laptop and mobile-friendly experience achievable.
A Google release was very upfront about this-
“…. our algorithms will primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results. Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we’re going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices. If you have a responsive site or a dynamic serving site where the primary content and markup is equivalent across mobile and desktop, you shouldn’t have to change anything.”
The last sentence in that quote should get your attention. Cheap web design and shoddy SEO techniques
may have been acceptable in the past, but not now. If you are not using expert web design, a responsive and dynamic site that looks great on all devices, professional SEO services designed for small business SEO, your competition will, and Google will rank those pages higher than yours.
Now is the best time to discover what professional SEO services and small business SEO can do for your small business branding strategy. AXIOM understands the needs of small businesses, professional practices and nonprofits. Please visit AXIOM’s small business services page by clicking the link or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Merry Christmas from Axiom Administrative Services
Merry Christmas from all of us at Axiom Administrative Services. We hope that reading our blog has made your small business, professional practice or nonprofit more effective and prosperous. Axiom looks forward to serving your digital marketing needs in the coming year. You can contact Axiom Administrative Services by clicking the link or by calling Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Focus Your Social Media on Visual Content
“A picture is worth a thousand words,” or so says the familiar advice. Actually, this saying seems to have originated in the early 1900’s. Frederick Barnard, used the term in a book on the subject of graphics in advertising. It is interesting that, from the start, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” has been associated with an advertising message. Advertising professionals have long known that a visual image makes a stronger, more lasting impression than words alone.
This was true in magazines, newspapers, television and now in digital marketing solutions and internet branding strategies. Last month this blog featured an article about the importance of a good logo design service and the impression it can make. Strong visual content is equally important in social media.
The early days of social media consisted mainly of plain text and, perhaps, a few still pictures. As bandwidth capacity increased, so did the imaginative use of pictures and then audio and video productions. Market studies, academic authorities and internet marketing agencies have all found reasons for including visual content in social media sites like Facebook and Google plus. Two of the fastest growing social media platforms, Instagram and Snapchat are dedicated almost exclusively to the exchange of images.
A good internet marketing agency will try to incorporate visual content into its professional SEO services for several reasons-
- Better Retention– humans process the information in an image much better than text messages. Tests reveal that the average person retains a visual message about 3 times better than a written one. If your social media provides attractive, engaging visuals like videos, graphs or screenshots, you create a memorable experience.
- Increased Engagement– visual material has the power to tap into people’s emotions, to get their attention and to lead them to look longer and harder at your message. Visual content should be an important part of all branding strategies. Studies have shown that a Facebook post that includes an image is more than twice as likely to be read as is a post with text only.
- Visual Content Sells– surely, this is the most important reason. Visual material such as testimonials, “before and after” shots, “how-to videos” and others all have enormous impact. They move the viewer to make a buying decision.
All of this sounds great, but how do you go about making visual material part of your Facebook, Google or other social media presence? If you have the time and talent, you can do it yourself; most small business people do not have enough of either. A professional internet marketing agency like AXIOM can do it better! AXIOM has the professional ability to produce videos and the resources to search thousands of copyrighted images to find the one that is right for your message.
AXIOM is more than an internet marketing agency. AXIOM understands the needs of small businesses, professional practices and nonprofits. Our digital marketing and business marketing teams are able to combine traditional marketing techniques like printing and direct mail with creative web services. Please visit our home page to find out how Axiom Administrative Services can fill your digital marketing needs. You can contact Axiom Administrative Services online or call Axiom at 800-888-634.
What is “The Cloud”?
In 2016, Samsung Electronics commissioned a study of smart phone and computer users to determine how well they understood the meaning of some computer terms, both technical and slang. They found that many people thought that they understood common computer, internet and technical terms, but in fact did not. One of the most commonly misunderstood terms is, “The Cloud.”
Many people think that “The Cloud” is something like radio waves, light waves or other types of electronic signals. Vaguely, they thought that the entire planet is now covered in some type of electronic blanket that “runs” our cell phones, laptops, ROKUs and other devices. If that were true, life for an internet marketing agency like AXIOM might be simpler.
All internet communication would go directly from the users device to the cloud and then to the devices of another user or provider. There would be no switching routers (sorry, Cisco), bottle necks, gateways, etc. to slow things down. A single set of SEO (search engine optimization) techniques and services, and digital marketing solutions would work in Brooklyn or Borneo. Unfortunately, it is not that simple.
Actually, the cloud is a vast collection of computer servers. These are special types of computers that answer requests from users (clients), make computations, run complex programs, and so on. Some servers are used to simply store data (like Google Drive) while others run applications or deliver a “service.” Google’s Chromebook Computers depend heavily on the cloud for both data storage and program functions, and all smartphones and their apps use the cloud extensively.
You can’t be blamed for not knowing this bit of trivia. Most people ask simply, “How do I make it work”? If you are struggling to make your digital marketing solutions, SEO strategy or branding strategies work, it would pay you to turn to a professional internet marketing agency. AXIOM understands the needs of small businesses and small business SEO as well as those of professional practices and nonprofits. Please visit AXIOM’s small business services page by clicking this LINK . Visit our home page to find out how Axiom Administrative Services can fill your digital marketing needs, or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
What is a Hashtag?
Most young people will understand the meaning of the term “hashtag,” but if you are busy running your professional practice or small business, you may not understand the importance of these devices. Yes, a hashtag is a device, a method of tagging a social media message, a picture, an embedded video or other web-based material with a user generated name or ‘tag.’ Using hashtags makes it easy for other web users to find material about a particular subject or theme.
A content creator such as a business owner, an individual or a webmaster creates a hashtag by using the symbol, ‘#’, followed by a string of letters or numbers. For example, on the social media platform Facebook, the hashtag, “#mybaby” allows viewers to locate all the posts that have been tagged using that hashtag.
Without getting technical about ‘metatags’ or ‘metadata tags’ and how search engines use them, there are several things that you should know about hashtags. Most importantly, hashtags can be a critical element in a branding strategy, SEO strategy, any digital marketing solution or small business SEO effort. Secondly, hashtags tend to be specific to a given social media platform (the biggest are Facebook and Twitter). For the past year, the best-known hashtags have often been associated with Donald Trump, the most famous ‘tweeter’ in the world. Mr. Trump might not put it this way, but the hashtags he has created (and those created about him) have been absolutely essential to his personal branding strategy and his political success. For better or worse, social media and hashtags have played an important part in making him the president.
If you are struggling to find a digital marketing solution that works for your small business or professional practice, you should consider a professional internet marketing agency like Axiom Administrative Services. We have the digital marketing solutions needed to give your web presence the rankings it should have. Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Our digital marketing and business marketing teams are able to combine traditional marketing techniques like printing, direct mail advertising and a logo design service with creative web design. Please visit our home page to find out how Axiom Administrative Services can fill your digital marketing needs. AXIOM understands the needs of small businesses, professional practices and nonprofits. Visit AXIOM’s small business services page by clicking this LINK or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Online Presence for Professionals
It was not so long ago that professional practices were not supposed to do any “advertising.” There were no television commercials, radio ads, newspaper spaces or any other form of advertising for physicians, attorneys, dentists, accountants or other professions. Traditionally, this was one way of distinguishing a “business” from a “profession.” Business people competed with one another while professionals did not.
That seems totally outmoded today. Professional practices now develop their own branding strategies, use SEO techniques and employ local SEO services and direct mail marketing experts. Watching television for a few hours will probably expose you to ads from physicians who can help you grow hair, attorneys eager to help you sue for injury, tax experts who can erase past taxes due or dentists who can implant new teeth in your mouth.
Sometimes it seems that professionals have lowered their standards by engaging in direct mail marketing or using digital marketing solutions. There is no doubt that some of these branding strategies are in poor taste and detract from a professional profile, but if done properly, these efforts can build confidence in the ability of the practitioner to perform. In any case, it is clear that online and social media presence is almost a “must-have” for any modern professional practice.
Try a quick experiment – doa Google or Bing search using terms like “dermatology Daytona” or “CPAs Orlando.” In both cases, the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) will show you numerous professional practices, office locations, phone numbers, links to their web pages, etc. Clicking on a few of the web page links will show you the branding strategy and the quality of digital marketing solutions employed by these professional practices. Some are quite good and others are very lacking.
In a sense, this should not come as a surprise. Accounting professionals, physicians or lawyers cannot be expected to be experts in developing branding strategies, SEO techniques or providing a logo design service. In some cases, even highly regarded professional practices have chosen a cheap web design and left it at that. In the early days of the internet, that may have been enough, but those days are gone.
AXIOM believes that the online and social media presence of a professional practice should accomplish several goals. That presence is an important part of a branding strategy and it should –
- Expose the professional practice to the widest possible audience of potential clients, patients or customers.
- Make the practitioner’s qualifications clearly known.
- Describe their professional experience.
- Build confidence in the ability of the practitioner to perform. What can the professional do to solve your audit problems or treat a skin condition?
- Inform the public, demonstrate professional skill and share knowledge.
- Make contacting the practice as easy and comfortable as possible.
Following the web links in the above examples will tell you who is board certified in dermatology or tax practice, who has “…over 20 years of experience in public accounting serving a wide variety of industries, including Real Estate Developers, Car Dealerships….,” who graduated “..in the top 3 percent of her medical school class, then went on to her medical internship and dermatology residency at Shands Hospital….” Those points are all part of branding strategies that build confidence in the specialist’s ability to solve a problem or deliver professional services.
If you are struggling to define your branding strategies or to develop effective digital marketing solutions, it would pay to turn to a professional internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional digital marketing solutions and skills needed to guide your web presence to the ranking it should have.
Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Our digital marketing solutions teams are able to combine traditional marketing techniques like printing, a logo design service and direct mail advertising with creative web products. Please visit our home page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348 to find out how Axiom Administrative Services can fill your digital marketing needs.
