• Sarah-Jane Vincent: "Sarah Jane Vincent is a serial entrepreneur, leading social media marketing expert and ultimate small business supporter. With over a decade of online marketing experience, she has built a multi-award-winning business and helped clients generate multiple 6-figures worldwide."
• Search is the main reason people find websites. Ranking high is important. Focus on your SEO strategy.
• There is a paid method and organic method.
• A lot of businesses have had to close their doors because of the pandemic and go online.
• Local search SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Any business with a physical location can benefit from local SEO.
• Important to consider this with the likes of people doing staycations and not travelling abroad currently. People might be looking for cafes, shops, play areas etc. That will be what people are looking for in the summer. Optimising local search is so important.
• Ranking factors that google uses - algorithms on social media but algorithm on Google.
• Three factors we are going to focus on - relevance, distance and prominence (which is content, reviews, things going on).
• Google has so much content to organise.
• No such thing as hacking the algorithm but you can work with it to work in your favour.
• How relevant to the search query you are
• Google changed Map Pack from 7 results to 3 results. Possum update - proximity matters. BERT update. Deep learning algorithm.
• Contextualised learning because of speech software like Siri and Alexa. Is it a cup of "tea"? Golf "tee"? "Tee" shirt? for example. Think about how people are searching and using contextualised learning within content.
• Map Pack: used to be 7 but now there are 3. Really competitive places in the map overview search and it's important you find yourself in this space.
• Breakdown of what it is - Directions, reviews, opening times, phone numbers, link to website.
• We want your business to show up in the result.
• Paid ads at the top (those are the paid results). When you are just starting out, you can get to the top of Google using a paid ads strategy. It will give you data, which will help you with your marketing strategy. If you have just set up your website, paid ads will help you get found, and will help you gather some "clout."
• Map Pack - 3 places available. Shows reviews, information as mentioned before.
• If you look at those companies the most trustworthy one is the one with reviews.
• Organic results and directories below (Yelp, for example)
• How can we help customers find us? Make every time count with fresh content.
• Strong organic foundation.
• Google ads account, free to make. They have a keyword planner. Gives you an idea of search volume - high search volume for kayaking for example. May, June, July maybe put a good bit of money behind getting found during these times. Use the data to help you with your strategy.
• BERT. Use different synonyms and variants. Keyword phrase - related keywords - secondary keywords. Outrank competitors.
• Link building tips.
• Build relationships - guest on podcast or blog. Very popular way.
• Create internal links (anchor text). "Services" can be clickable for example. Linking to other pages on your site, google will reward you. Any opportunity to use internal links on your website. Do not use "click here" because google doesn't understand what that means. Hyperlink words like "services", when google is crawling and the bots are crawling your page it will understand the word "services" and rank you higher.
• You can sponsor local events and fundraisers, see it as an opportunity to sponsor them. Providing with your logo. Link on their website and linking back to yours.
• Citations on local listings. Directories.
• Add location page to website. Map Pack is looking for your name, address and phone number. Important to have that on your site, can implement a map which will boost your SEO.
• Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. all get pulled into a Google Search. Look at regularly auditing your descriptions. If you've updated information, super important to link across your channels. You will get penalised by Google.
• Write reviews for others and ask for backlinks.
• Turn your mentions into backlinks - another free tool to use, any time a newspaper mentioned my brand or name I was able to add that to website and ask them to hyperlink back to my website.
• Create useful directories on your own website (places to visit, things to do, more support available, etc.) Create helpful pages, list them on your website, it doesn't have to be added to your main navigation bar but it's floating in the background and will help boost your SEO juice.
• Google My Business - super powerful platform, free, easy to set up. Will help you with SEO, finding customers.
• Don't forget your unstructured citations with Google Alerts.
• Take care of your social media.
• Audit your website regularly.
• Moz is a great tool to check your online presence. Quick way to find information that isn't up to date and you can rectify it and shows where you don't have a presence and you can add yourself there.
• Whitespark. Free. If you are hairdresser, hospitality, etc. pick what you are in the category and it will tell you what will help you most.
• Optimising your Google My Business page. Focus on this. Hidden gem for your business. Covers your website, adds your address, etc. on mobile it shows even more information. More optimised for mobile for people on the go and aimed at them.
• So many great features that are built-in and free. Because of COVID lots of great features have been added like hygiene, click and collect, etc.
• Encourage customer actions by sharing helpful information.
• If you write a blog post, you can share that on Google My Business. Get into the habit of sharing on Google My Business. SEO juice you are looking for. Don't forget to share any new art or recipes on GMB to attract customers! Loads of data and analytics. What's working? Better informed decisions
• Connect - respond to messages and reviews. Encourage google reviews. Customer loyalty. Template email sent to customer, link to Google Reviews, so they can update that and help get you at the top of a search. Link Google Reviews in email signature - "Want to give me a review?" hyperlink to it.
• URL link to reviews.
• Top tip: when someone writes you a review, good or bad, make sure you respond. When you write your reply, make sure you get your keyword in your reply! When replying back get the keyword in "Thank you for attending social media strategy session" helps.
• Q and A, if you have an FAQ section you can copy and paste them onto your Google My Business to increase conversions, help with search engine, provide additional opportunity for SEO juice. If you don't have one, you are missing a trick. You can answer the most recent questions. If it's 11pm and it will help someone with question about delivery and returns. More likely to follow through with the purchase then and there.
• More reviews and positive ratings will push a local business ranking. You will rank higher by default.
• Making sure you have your link, correct keywords like that.
• Optimise. Learn how customers are interacting with our business profile.
• When looking at stats it will tell you how people are finding you; calling, emailing, What'sApp-ing you
• Whch photos are getting the most attention?
• If you have photos on GMB, the more photos the more you will outrank your competitors.
• Geo Locate your photos, add location in background, meta tags, meta descriptions, increases chances of you being at the location.
• Upload photo, add Geo Location, download photo, upload to GMB. A lot of competitors aren't aware of this. Great way to increase SEO.
• Build a strong organic foundation, build prominence (name, address and phone number al the same across channels), set up a Google My Business. Pimp it out, free to use, and it's directly linked to Google.
• Encourage Google reviews, Facebook reviews from customers.
• Useful Links to tools. Answer the public for better blogs. Test website for mobile friendliness, page load speed.
• Question about address if you work from home and have a small business: Perhaps buy a PO box address so you don't have to link your home address, when setting up GMB you need to add your address but once receiving postcard, remove your address and put in "Ireland" or wherever you are located to target the whole of Ireland or England. You can manipulate it but Google will probably sort this out in the near future.
• For the SEO. on your website if working for big name brands (authoritative websites), put those logos on your website, "as featured in" or "clients we've worked with", add their address to the logo. Found in the URL section of the photos. Hover over the logo can give a sneaky backlink. If you're an artist, you can have your portfolio. Don't forget to add link to website to client.
• Question: Adding phone number. Can get a lot of cold callers. You can use what's app for business - separate business acocount. You can add auto replies (only open from this time, be with you shortly). Not using my number hasn't affected me. It's good for service based businesses like cafes but if you work from home it isn't needed.
• Question: If everyone is using the same keywords how do you differentiate between multiple businesses? Unique selling point vs what your competitor has. SEO is great for having you find, the person clicking on keywords will see which is the most suitable for their needs. This is where you need to be strategic. If you are offering more value, more user friendly website (simple to navigate), ultimately you will outrank your competitor in other ways. Millions of companies using the same keywords, down to location too. Use blogs, case studies, how you have used the level of keywords, how frequently you are updating. Quality. how google understand if your blog post. Dwell time on your website, blog posts. Good indicator that you have quality content to google. Google's primary focus - time, quality, dwell time. You will outrank your competitors.
• If you are sponsoring an event or fundraiser. Any awards events, if they look for sponsors. Network Ireland for example. Event that showcases women in business. Events like that will look for sponsors, tap into that audience and get found.You are piggybacking on their PR but also backlinks. Directory type. Really going to increase searchability. Proximity is a ranking factor. Citation link that's local.
• IF your business is of a sexual nature, selling dangerous items like knives and fireworks, pharmaceutical. You need to work on organic strategy. Posts on social media to boost yourself. Do listicals or articles or how to tutorials and add to blog. YouTube perhaps. Google just don't allow that kind of thing and won't promote it, even blocking it.
No comments:
Post a Comment