search engine optimization omaha Archives

September 19, 2022 Ted Herman Search Engine Optimization, Website and SEO Tips

5 Things to Do Tonight to Improve Your Business Online

Do you have a small to midsize business but no minimum online presence? Have you been thinking about looking into SEO services in Omaha? Before you make a decision to invest in search engine optimization and web marketing you should get the big picture overview of the value. We’ll cover each of these topics in more depth in later posts, but for now, these are the main things you can start thinking about and doing to improve your business’s online effectiveness.

1. Update Your Website

First, if you don’t have a website you’ll want to get one to have an online business presence. A website is necessary for online advertising and gives you control over your business image. Google and Facebook aren’t guaranteed to be around forever, so banking on a Google My Business (GMB) listing or a Facebook page for presence and credibility isn’t a great long-term strategy. If you have a website, you need to make sure it’s modern and optimized for a good user experience on desktop computers and mobile devices.

Tips for a Good Website:

Use WordPress for a robust and flexible content management system.
Use professional photography as this builds credibility and assists in enhancing a beautiful design.
Have a clear message and readable content so customers know they can trust you and exactly what they need to do to begin using your product/service.
Add value to customers by educating them and they’ll be more likely to trust you… not to mention Google will reward you.

Simple Website Action Items:

Your listed phone number should be clickable
Add new photos
Teach customers something valuable

2. Claim Your Google My Business Listing

When people search for you or businesses like yours the majority of the time they use Google. If you don’t have a GMB listing the chances of them finding you are slim to none. A GMB listing tells your potential customers valuable information, like your website address, physical address, and telephone, and shows your reviews from past customers. It also features a map with a pinpoint showing your location.

Tips for Your GMB Listing:

Make sure the name, address, and phone number match exactly
Add photos to show what it’s like to work with you
Use the service area
Enable messages, if you can commit to immediate responses

Here’s JM’s free guide to setting up a GMB page.

3. Create a Facebook Business Page

Facebook is still King of the social media platforms. If you run a business you need a Facebook business page. People will actually search for you on Facebook. It’s also a way to post helpful information and make announcements to your customers and potential customers. You can link your website to your Facebook page offering another avenue for prospects to reach you. Once you’re on Facebook join local groups that have an interest in your industry. You can make connections, learn what people are interested in, and even offer solutions to common problems to establish yourself as an authority.

4. Search Yourself

Finding out how easy it is for your customer to find you is critical for your online success. If you’re online but barely visible, you’re leaving a lot of money and potential customers on the table. The best way to test this is by pretending you are one of your customers.

Google search for what customers are looking for

Start by making a list:

List your services & products
Add other names for those services and products
Add the names customers commonly use, especially when they’re wrong

Type your list items one at a time into Google search. Is your website at the top of the first page on the search result? Is your website on the first page at all? Who is ranking number one? Examine the number one ranking website and look at their information. What are the format and the content? Can you do better? Maybe you can’t be number one, but you should aim to be near the top, and it is doable with the right strategy.

5. Make A Content Plan

You can have the most amazing-looking website in the world, and it won’t sell a thing if the content is weak. Your business needs to benefit from your content, and your customer needs to know what you offer and why it’s going to make their life better.

Great content is a result of asking yourself the right questions and providing those answers to your customer.

Here are the questions you need to ask:

What can I teach my customers?
What questions do I answer repeatedly?
What’s new in my industry?
What information in Google search could I add clarity to?
What is my competition doing?
What search terms are relevant to my business that my website isn’t addressing?

If you Build it They Will Come

After you’ve answered those critical questions, you can start building your content machine.

Things to think about moving forward:

Content is text, image, audio, and video
Who is going to write your content?
Who will create, edit, and post your content?
How will you promote your content?
What will your content schedule be?

Where to Start?

Hopefully, you now have a sense of the online business landscape and where you should be focusing your energy. You don’t need to do everything overnight, but you should start taking action on the most important aspects. If you need help getting started give us a call and we’ll give you some advice on where you need to focus first.

October 15, 2019 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

How to use Google My Business to Stay in Front of Your Customers

When people search for a business like yours, they’re using Google ~92% of the time. If you don’t have a Google My Business listing the chances of someone finding you diminish significantly. Not only does a GMB listing help customers find you, but it tells them valuable information about your company – like how to get driving directions to your location and opening a phone dialer to call you on mobile search. Let’s talk about the features of a Google My Business listing.

What is a Google My Business Listing?

Google My Business is a free tool for businesses and organizations that helps to manage their online presence across Google, with an emphasis on Search and Maps. When you verify your business information with Google, you’ll help customers find you and let them know more about your business. A GMB listing will allow you to control how your business information is displayed on Google.

For More information about the power of using your Google My Business listing, see our article, Why You Should Optimize for Local Search

Control and Manage Your Information

GMB gives you the power to manage the information Google users see when they search for your business. You can display and update your hours, website, phone, and address. GMB also gives your visitors the ability to get turn by turn driving directions to your location. Ensuring that your business information is up-to-date and having some relevant business photos ensures that your future visitors know that they at the right place.

Engage with Customers

GMB allows you to read and respond to customer reviews. You can post photos to keep your audience updated. Businesses that add photos to their listings receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35% more click-throughs to their websites compared to businesses with no photos.

Track Your Visibility

Discover insights about your customers, like where customers who searched for your business are located. Find out how many people call your business directly from the phone number displayed on local search results in Search and Maps. .

You can even track how many of your visitors have been requesting driving directions to your business. In the Insights menu, there is a chart for customer actions that shows how many times driving directions have been requested.

Google Posts

Promote offers, news, events, product updates, and announcements by adding a post to your GMB listing. These posts show up on Google Search and Maps to provide another way to keep in touch with customers and prospects. Keep your description short, use good photos, and end with a call to action like “Buy,” “Call Now,” “Learn More,” or “Visit Us.”

Google My Business Messaging

A messaging feature lets you directly chat with customers. You can quickly respond to questions and assist current and potential customers. The messages can be directed to any phone number so a staff member can be tasked with these interactions. There is an option to turn messaging off if you’d prefer to keep communication channels more simplified.

Video Uploads

You can now upload videos to your listing. The maximum video length is 30 seconds. Videos lead to higher engagement and provide an opportunity to showcase your business products, service, and give visitors a more personal look into your business. These videos must be taken at your place of business. Google will remove any videos not related to your business location.

For more about optimizing your listing, see this blog: Benefits of Google My Business

Ready for Your Google My Business Listing?

Ready to get started? The first step is verifying your business on the GMB platform and customize each setting. See our step-by-step guide to getting started optimizing Google My Business. Happy optimizing!

June 12, 2019 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

How We Think About Marketing at JM

Updated October 2019

What comes to mind when you hear “multi-dimensional and always evolving”? If you said technology, you’re right. A less common answer, but also correct, is marketing! Technology and marketing evolve together. Technology is in the driver seat transporting civilization forward, and marketing is always a half step behind doing its best to keep pace. At JM we think about marketing on multiple levels, but it all starts with your website.

Your Website is Still #1

When it comes to your business image, your website gives you the most control. It’s the only “place” on the internet where you have full control of how customers view you and interact with your business. When you look at the development of online platforms and how people are using them the math tells us Google and Facebook will not be around forever. To have your entire online business presence built on a platform you can’t control, and one that will likely go away or dramatically change is risky. And, some of the most effective online advertising still requires a landing page hosted on your own domain.

Building Your Website is Only the First Step

If you built a 5-star resort in Hawaii would you rely on word of mouth advertising for people to find it? Probably not. Your website has a lot more competition compared to your 5-star Hawaiian resort. There are over 1.6 billion websites online. If you build the best website in the world nobody will know it exists without the proper promotion. In order for customers and prospects to find your website and care, you must actively promote it in a variety of ways.

How Will They Find You?

Google is the number one website on the Web when it comes to traffic volume. For over 90% of people who discover your business online, their first touchpoint is on the Google search result page – not your website. Google has its own priorities and driving people to your website isn’t on the top of their list. More and more Google is building features to keep users on the search result pages rather than clicking on organic links.

Google My Business & Local Pack
Featured Snippets
People Also Ask

It’s great that people can find your business website using Google but increasingly, search users are getting their information without ever clicking through to a website. You need a strategy for engaging those users through the new features Google continues to introduce.

Paid Ads on Google

You want to put your advertising dollars in the highest traffic areas. Right now, that’s Google. There are a number of different types of paid ad campaigns you can use on Google to better help customers find you.

Search – A “Search Network” campaign will show text-based ads above Google search results, and other sites in the network, when a person searches for terms that are relevant to your ad’s keywords. For example, say you run a local barbershop school. Your Search ads will be shown to high-potential customers at the moment they are searching for “barbershop schools” and above all the search results (called organic results).

Example of where Google Ads are placed in search results

Display – The Google Display Network helps you find your audience. It helps you reach people while they’re browsing favorite websites, watching YouTube, checking their Gmail account, or using mobile devices and apps.

Video – Video campaigns allow you to show video ads on their own, or within streaming video content on YouTube and across the Google Display Network.

Shopping – More than a Search ad, Shopping ads show searchers a photo of your product, title, price, name of your store, and a link to purchase. All this is placed above other types of search results and sometimes on the right side of the search result page.

Social Networks

The social networks can’t be ignored if you’re aiming to maximize the potential for customers to find your website. If you’re thinking there are too many social networks and not all of my customers are using them or only using a few – you’re right. You only need to engage through the social networks your customers are using.

Broad-Reach: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram

Specific Targeted Audiences: Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitch

We help businesses determine what social networks their customers are using, and value-added strategies they can use to engage them. Give-aways is one effective way to get your customers to engage on these platforms.

The Near Future (1-2 years)

Image Search

Over the past several months, Google representatives have said they are focusing on Image Search. They followed through on that by announcing several new features at their recent I/O conference. These features include using high resolution images and 3D objects to use in Augmented Reality (Like this chair? Open the camera app and see this chair in your living room!). Knowing Google, their long-term interest is in how to best sell ads on the Image Search results page. Nonetheless, all the changes and new features offer new opportunities for your business to attract new attention.

The Question for You: How is your audience using Image Search in their everyday life?

Voice Search

Currently, 25% of people are saying voice is their first choice for searches. Personal voice assistants like Siri on Apple’s products and Amazon’s Alexa are becoming more and more popular among users. Voice presents new and interesting problems that haven’t yet been solved. But as Artificial Intelligence helps develop new capabilities, user adoption of voice technologies are expected to grow over the next several years.

Voice searches are more conversational and specific. Keywords people use for their voice searches are often a string of 5 words or more.

Example: “Backlinko found an example in Google Home results for the query: Are figs good for you?

When you’re optimizing your content to answer questions in voice search, answer the specific question directly as possible. Studies show that 29 words are ideal.

Example: “Figs are high in fiber and a good source of several essential minerals, including magnesium, manganese, calcium, copper, and potassium as well as vitamins, principally K and B6.”

Further Future (next 10 years)

What is in store for us 10 years down the road? Will Google and Facebook still be here? If they are, will they be used in the same way?

The truth is we don’t know what’s coming, but we can forecast with confidence that whatever is coming will be something few can imagine today. With the current rate of innovation and the way artificial intelligence algorithms are advancing, automation and immersive user experiences are some of the biggest breakthroughs we’re likely to see.

In the coming years the issue of user control will only get more intense. We can’t predict the future, but we can prepare for it to the best of our ability. With everything that’s in our future, the best way to secure your online presence and image is with:

A website built to be flexible enough to adapt to rapid technological change
A strategy that takes advantage of the digital platforms best suited for your brand and your customers.

Take the First Steps

It’s time to get to work. There’s so much and can feel overwhelming. Where do you start?

You start putting one foot in front of another.

To help place your first steps, we’ve outlined 5 simple things that you can do on your website to improve your business online.

May 6, 2019 JM Online Search Engine Optimization, Website and SEO Tips

4 Ways to Update Your Website

If you’re a business owner having a website is a must for any kind of effective online presence. For starters, you need a website for online advertising. A website also gives you the most control for managing your business image.

Google and Facebook are necessary now, but there’s no guarantee they will be around forever. If you already have a website, you need to make sure it’s modern and optimized for user experience on both desktop computers and mobile devices. Let’s take a look at how an Omaha web design company like us can help you get your website updated or built from scratch.

Use WordPress

WordPress is one of the best platforms for building a business website, or any website, and is what our Omaha web developers use most often. WordPress is cost effective. The designing and development are affordable, and the upkeep and maintenance expenses are inexpensive. WordPress is search engine optimization ready. WP websites have simple and constant codes making them ideal for Google indexing. Our WP websites designs are responsive, meaning they adapt to mobile devices automatically.

Use Professional Photography

Photos enable you to show your customers and clients what you have to offer them. Consumers like to see things for themselves before making a purchasing decision. The photos you use on your website represent your business. Low quality, unprofessional photos communicate a “low quality” message about your company and products to the people viewing the images. That’s just how the human mind works. Investing in professional quality photos is an investment in the way customers and prospects see you — first impressions do matter.

Clarify Your Message

If you have a great looking website and professional photos, but your messaging is poor or confusing you will lose business. Every word serves a purpose. Right away you need to be clear about what you’re offering and why it’s going to make your customer’s life better. You need to focus on the benefits first and the features second. If you’re not familiar with the principles of persuasion and effective sales writing investing in professional copywriting services is just as important as investing in professional photography.

Add Value by Educating

Potential customers come to your website because you’re an authority in what you do. You’re an expert in your industry. Instead of telling customers you’re the best, prove to them you’re the best by giving them some value upfront. Share your expertise about what you know, and educate your audience. Once they feel empowered with new knowledge, they’re more likely to make a decision and choose the expert who helped them fill in the gaps of their understanding. You can educate on any page within your website, but regular blog articles are one of the most effective ways to accomplish this. It also has the added benefit of helping your SEO rankings.

Ready to Update Your Website?

The most important things to consider for a modern website is making sure it’s responsive, has good photos, and clear messaging. If you hit those three points, you’re probably in good shape. If you’re lacking on one or two of those and don’t want to take on all the updates yourself, we can help you out.

March 4, 2019 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Mobile First More Important than Ever

Google has a mobile first mentality. Not so much because Google likes mobile, but because people like mobile. Now, more than ever before, people are using mobile devices to navigate the online world. Because of consumer demand Google has adjusted, and if the website user experience on mobile isn’t excellent, it hurts the website’s organic rankings.

If you’re thinking about SEO in Omaha and improving your web marketing you’re going to need to make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices in 2019.

Responsive Websites are Mobile Friendly

We build responsive websites. Responsive websites respond to the resolution of the device, and the format shifts depending on the resolution the website is being viewed under. In most cases the desktop view will inform the mobile view.

The big benefits of responsive websites in the context of mobile include:

Increasing your reach to tablet and mobile audiences
Increasing sales and conversions
Consolidating your analytics and reporting
Increasing your visibility in search engines
Saving time and cost on site management
Saving time and cost on mobile development

The Big 5 Mobile Optimized Website Benefits

1. Improved User Experience

What happens when you receive a link via a text message from a friend, you click the link and it takes you to a jumbled mess of a website that you can’t understand? You leave. And you likely never go back, killing the chances of that website ever making you a customer.

If users can’t easily browse and read the content on your website from their mobile devices, they will always leave uninspired. Mobile optimized sites are critical for attracting and retaining new customers.

A website built for an enhanced mobile experience will keep users engaged through clean page formatting, with intentionally ordered content and clear calls to action. A good experience is not just the direct result of a nice looking page – but also of a page with valuable content.

2. Increased Time on Site

Time is the currency of the internet. You have only a few seconds to capture a website visitor’s attention. You have even less time when users are on mobile devices because they’re typically accessing your website when they’re out and on the go. When visitors encounter your mobile friendly website, they stay on the website longer, and you increase the odds of making them a customer. Increased time on site also one of the most critical factors for SEO success.

3. Faster Loading Speed

Speed is important because as we just mentioned – time is a huge factor for user experience. A website that isn’t optimized for fast load time will render very slowly on a mobile device. In worse case scenarios it will not render at all. Studies show mobile website users will abandon a page if they have to wait more than 6-10 seconds. Check out some ways you can increase you website speed here.

4. Improved Mobile SEO

If Google recommends it, we do it. Google recommends website developers build their sites to be responsive. A responsive website increases the likelihood your site will rank well in Google mobile search results. So, that’s what we build, because we build websites with search engine optimization in-mind.

5. Competitive Advantage

Despite the data, and the recommendations, a lot of companies have ignored the growing trend of mobile users. By building pages with mobile experience in mind, you’ll keep yourself ahead of the competition.

Why have a Mobile First Mentality?

Mobile optimized websites are a big part of search engine success. It’s critical for any business that wants to compete to make sure they have a website that is mobile friendly. A one second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. The good news is we make responsive websites that are designed to thrive in the mobile online environment.

If you’re looking to make your website mobile friendly or need a new responsive website give us a call, 402.292.7500 and we’ll walk you through your options.

February 19, 2019 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

The Importance of Link Equity

Link equity is a search engine ranking factor for your website. In essence, it refers to the equity or “value” passed from one page, or one website, to another through posted links.

Search engines like Google view links as votes by other websites indicating that your page is valuable and worth promoting. Having quality inbound and outbound links on your site can boost your organic rankings with search engines.

Types of Links

If you’re getting confused by all of the different link terminology let’s clear things up here. There are three different types of links.

Internal Links – An internal link would be a link on one of your website pages that links to a different page within your website.

External Links – If you have an external link, also known as an “outbound link,” it will link to another website or website page that is not yours.

Backlinks – Backlinks, also called “inbound links,” are links on another website that link back to your site. If website A makes an external link to website B, website B will have a backlink from website A.

What Determines Link Equity?

Every type of link on your website weighed for link equity. There are some considerations to keep in mind when evaluating link equity.

Relevance – If your linking to a page about knitting cat sweaters from an article about proper car maintenance the link isn’t relevant. Google is smart enough to figure that out at this point. Irrelevant links do not add value or build your authority.

Age Helps – When credible websites that have built up authority link to your website they pass on more link equity than links from brand-new sites.

Crawlable – “Spiders” or “Crawlers” are names for programs search engines use to discover the content found online. HTML is the primary language. Make sure your pages and pages you’re linking to are crawler friendly, or they’ll be ignored. If you’re not sure about this, ask your website developer.

Location – Links that are buried in footers and sidebars aren’t given as much weight as links positioned higher on the page. The same goes for videos. The higher the video is on the page the more weight it’s given.

How to Get Quality Backlinks

There’s a lot of scammers out there in the web marketing world selling backlinks. The problem is they don’t pass the Link Equity criteria. One of the best and most affordable ways to build your link equity is by using the trust you’ve built with your partners, clients and affiliate organizations. Sometimes, all it takes is to ask a trusted partner or client for a link, and you’ll get it.

High Quality Original Content

Another way to get quality backlinks is providing value. There’s so much noise and poorly written content, that when actual quality original content is produced it rises to the top. If you’re producing engaging and informative original content consistently you’ll eventually get noticed and become an irresistibly linkable authority.

The Bigger Picture on Rankings

The reality is Google uses over 200 ranking factors in their algorithm. If you think that’s a lot – you’re right. It’s easy to get lost in the details, and by the time you think you understand it something changes. Working with a web design firm that stays on top of this stuff is a great way to know you’re doing everything you can to get heard amongst all the noise.

January 16, 2019 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

What is Google E-A-T and Why it Matters

Way back in 2013 Google released a 160-page search quality evaluator guidelines paper. The document revealed that good content is among the top three webpage-quality factors. It went on to define high-quality content as content that demonstrates a high level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). In August of 2018, Google released an algorithm update, and SEO experts determined that sites with low E-A-T suffered the most from the algorithm update. If you’re looking to optimize your SEO in Omaha or to improve your web marketing, this is an essential read.

Expertise

Google’s search quality guidelines have identified two types of expertise: Formal and Everyday Expertise.

Formal: Especially in the medical, financial, and legal industries, a certified professional is considered the most reliable source of expertise. This is because if incorrect information is published in these areas, the chances of putting consumers at risk dramatically increases.

Everyday Expertise: The Google guide document states “For some topics, the most expert sources of information are ordinary people sharing their life experiences on personal blogs, forums, reviews, discussions, etc.”

The takeaway here is that you won’t necessarily need someone with credentialed expertise to fulfill the “expertise” factor is you’re working with a professional writer or are one yourself.

Authority

Authority is all about proving to your audience that the content on your website is legit. If your website falls under the “everyday expertise” category showing credentials aren’t as important. You can show authority by adding the author’s job title to their byline or linking to their professional website or full bio.

Cite Your Research – If your content creators aren’t “experts” thorough research and proper citation will make up for it. Linked sources is a signal to Google that you’re correctly attributing sources. Make sure your sources are high-quality backlinks.

A Good Reputation – Reviews, and good reviews are critical. Most people rely heavily on reviews when considering using a company’s product or services. The Google guidelines state “Popularity, user engagement, and user reviews can be considered evidence of reputation.” Responding promptly and providing top notch customer service should be a part of your social media content strategy giving your customers plenty of motivation to leave you a positive review.

Trust

Transparency builds trust with your audience. Your website should clearly communicate who you are, how you make money, and that you will do what you say you will do. If you’re accepting payments on your website users need to feel like payments can be accepted safely and appropriately. Your site should have a proper SSL certificate even if you’re not accepting any form of payment. Providing helpful content rather than just trying to sell is another way to build trust.

Secure & Transparent – Be crystal clear about who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Make sure your site is secure and people know it.

Be Helpful – The whole idea behind content marketing is to provide value to your audience. Google is continually refining their algorithm with this in mind. They’re also using real people to determine if websites and web pages are meeting these criteria. Your content should either help or teach your audience something about a topic that is relevant to your business. Just trying to sell without giving value first is a trust buster.

The Big Takeaway for Google E-A-T

If you’re thinking that creating content that satisfies the E-A-T guidelines will take time, you’re right. The Google guidelines state it clearly, “We will consider content to be low quality if it is created without adequate time, effort, expertise, or talent/skill.”

The good news is you don’t need to become a content creator to satisfy Google E-A-T. There are plenty of affordable experts you can outsource who can create valuable user experiences for your customers. And before you know it, Google will recognize and reward you.

November 21, 2018 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Local SEO, Paid Ads, Website SEO: Why all Three Matter

Updated October 2019

A business providing services to a local market should not underestimate the importance of local SEO services. Local SEO efforts often produce more website traffic and more leads. Higher conversions result when your local listings are optimized to accurately reflect your business information, products and services.

Our Omaha SEO team can tell you over and over about why local search engine optimization is important, but how about I just SHOW you. But before I do… let me tell you one more time.

GMB, Apple Maps and Yelp are all big players in local SEO

An optimized Google My Business (GMB) listing will help you pull up in Google for relevant searches – as this information pulls into the local map-pack (see graphic below), which has high visibility. If you haven’t yet setup your Google My Business account, start there. You can use our Step-By-Step Guide to help get you started.

Apple Maps listing helps your business rank well for Siri voice command searches. And with over 700 million iPhones currently being used worldwide, many users are using Siri search on their Apple devices. And, Yelp provides Apple with access to some of its business page information, including reviews. So, optimizing your information and managing reviews for Yelp could not only assist you in organic rankings, but can also help with visibility in Apple Maps.

To help you visualize

Here’s an example Google search for Dentist Omaha.

Paid Ads, Map Pack and Organic Search Results Illustration

You will see the paid ads appear at the top of the page, then the map pack, then organic results. Then at the bottom of the page are more paid ads.

What does this mean?

This image shows us two things. First, it shows us the importance of having a local SEO strategy. The map pack pulls in GMB pages organically based on the search query, matching the GMB listing with the keyword(s) being searched. And, the first organic result is from Yelp. While that isn’t the case for every search result for every product or service, Yelp still ranks well for local product and service queries.

Second, this image shows the need for a holistic approach to your search marketing strategy. A Google Ads strategy partnered with local search optimization AND website search engine optimization efforts will help your business appear in all three sections.

November 7, 2018 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Why you Should Optimize for Local Search

Local Search pulls results into the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) based on businesses and places near a user’s location. These local search results appear in the map, commonly referred to as the map pack or three pack, and results.

Being present in local search for relevant searches can dramatically affect your impact, pushing quality traffic and increasing conversions. Three critical places our Omaha SEO team pushes for local search impact is Google My Business (GMB), Apple Maps and Yelp.

Why is local search so important?

If you’ve done a Google search for a product or service, you’ve noticed that Google is putting more and more emphasis on serving results from its server instead of pages from individual websites. This is by design and is only the beginning of how Google plans to morph into a source of knowledge, instead of serving up a knowledge buffet.

Considering these ongoing changes, local search is more important than ever. With its prominent placement on SERPS, the map pack can provide big results for your local business in the search engines. This information is pulled in through Google My Business account information.

Google serves its local results based on three main factors: relevance, distance and prominence.

Of course, you should care about Google My Business.

An optimized GMB page is necessary for success in local results on Google. Not only does it appear in relevant searches on the map pack, but it also provides quick, easy to access business information for customers and prospects. For more on Google My Business, see our overview of what Google My Business offers, and our step-by-step setup guide.

Knowing that Google serves its results by relevance, distance and prominence, and that the most visible results are being served by Google’s servers, its easy to see why GMB is an important factor for local SEO success. All three of these factors play upon your accuracy and investment into the page. There is no way to pay for better local ranking on Google yet, but by filling your GMB page with accurate information and actively managing the listing you’re going to make progress toward being found on local search results.

screenshot of Google Search local map pack results

Why care about Apple Maps & Yelp?

If you’re not an Apple user, you probably don’t use Apple Maps. But you’ve likely heard of it having been marred with bugs and broken data partnerships. Nevertheless, Apple has put big money into fixing its Apple Maps app and its reputation over the last couple of years.

Apple Maps is relevant because over 700 million iPhones are currently being used worldwide, and many of these users use the default Siri search on their phone. Siri returns Apple Maps results and, in fact, to use Google Maps on an iOS requires an additional step to query a local business, product or service. With the popular rise of voice command search it’s clearly important to have an optimized listing on Apple Maps.

As for Yelp, it provides Apple with access to some of its business page information. And instead of building its own database for reviews, they utilize Yelp reviews. So, by optimizing and managing your Yelp listing to include accurate information and responses to reviews, you are syncing with Apple Maps to provide it better data.

Get in on local search optimization NOW

Do not wait to use these free tools for local SEO. Not only will these tools help you be found in local results, but when optimized and managed well, will help you to complete on Google amid its changing algorithms.

Want to make sure you get this local optimization in the bag? Check our our high level overview of Google My Business and our step-by-step guide.

September 26, 2018 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Make Your Website Faster: Tips to Increase Page Load Speed

Updated Nov 2019

In a time where Google puts its highest priority on user experience, and users are not willing to wait for much of anything… website load time is a critical factor for search engine rankings and retaining potential leads.

There are many factors to consider: browser, website host, device, page content, mobile network, etc. But first, let’s start with YOUR website’s load time.

What’s my website loading speed?

You can check page load time through a couple avenues. If you use Chrome, you can use the Chrome extension “Page Load Time” or a separate tracker like Pingdom. You can also check if your website is loading fast enough for you visitors by checking your bounce rate. Bounce rate can be seen through Google Analytics. If the bounce rate is high, it can indicate load time is too slow. High bounce rate can also negatively impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Google Webmaster recommends a maximum of 2 second load time for an ecommerce website, but Google aims for a half a second. That’s fast.

frustrated user waiting for website to load

How to make my website faster

Compress: The file size that the browser renders is king. The smaller the image the faster the load time. Here are some tips to optimize your images for faster website load time.

Resize your images before you upload them onto a page. Don’t load a 5000x3500px image when your image on the page displays at 500×300. Your browser needs to calculate this resizing, and this takes time.
Use the correct thumbnail size. WordPress automatically generates a set of thumbnails. You should select the smallest thumbnail necessary to reduce your page weight.
Remove all the metadata from an image to reduce the image size. For example, you don’t need to know what camera was used, where the photo was taken, etc… This can bloat the filesize that the browser needs to render. This takes time.
Consider compressing your CSS and Javascript files so that they are condensed into fewer files and the overall bytes loaded is smaller. This can make future edits to your site tedious and time consuming, so be sure to consult your web developer and get their advice before doing this.
Consult your website hosting provider about how to utilize gzip to serve your website files to browsers. Compressing the resources that the browser requests can allow your browser to get information faster.

Design, Coding & Content: The three main factors when building a website, all contributing to website load time. Here are some tips to optimize website design, coding and website content for fast website load time.

Remove the junk. Many prebuilt templates are built to sell and have ALL the features. By the time you have your content, images, page structure, etc. established, you’re left with a lot of dead weight you’re not using. Delete as much unnecessary data from your template as possible, including images, plugins, and posts.
Avoid animations and motion. While these make the website feel alive, it does require resources. So you need to decide if they are necessary.
In your design, pay attention to if your backgrounds and graphics are images or if they are just color fills. Eliminating large background images can go a long way to making your site load faster.
If speed is a top priority, consider getting a custom-built template. Often, prebuilt templates are built in a complex way to hide code, making it harder for others to “borrow” code. These hiding techniques are good at making it difficult to borrow, but they also sometimes make a browser load more files, or the structure of the code causes render-blocking (some sections on the site cannot render until all the appropriate files are loaded). This can increase load time and create the illusion that the page loads extremely slow.
During the website design process, don’t force a ton of heavy elements into your design. More isn’t always more. The simplest designs are often the most elegant, and always faster.
Consult your website development professional to have them help you develop a custom website that is engineered for your needs and the needs of your design.

Other Considerations: Consider utilizing the open-source Accelerated Mobile Pages provided by Google. Basically, Google renders a snapshot of your site instead of reloading it for mobile users, so it loads lightning fast. But be sure to understand the problems with caching for this method of Google displaying your content.

If you’re working with a team that builds websites to look beautiful with best SEO practices in mind, website load time will be considered through every step of the process.