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Top SEO Trends and best practices to stay on top of Google in 2019

Business, SEO

The importance of having an established online presence for your businesses cannot be overemphasized. However, that is a challenging feat, especially if you consider how competitive it is for your site to rank high on Google search results, which would mean massive traffic to your site.

The mainstream way of getting massive online traffic is appearing on top of SERPs (search engine result pages). Easy to say your position in search results could make all the difference in the life of your business, but SEO isn’t what it used to be.

Google tries to give users the exact answers to their questions in search results and they’re getting smarter at this, their algorithms (programming language/structure) keep changing to provide the most relevant and helpful answers to their users. For instance, if your pet shop has its website and a user were to search for a particular breed of dog, Google tries to provide exact results to just that. This also means, your site would perform poorly or might not be visible at all. If your business website generalizes or does not have any specific directory for different types of breeds.

To stay on top of all the changes, you might want to consider a major ramp-up in your SEO game in 2019, because if you think it’s hard to rank on Google now, it’s only going to get harder.

Before we get into the trends to consider in 2019, let’s look at some major competition to look out for.

SERP features Google is constantly improving their user experience, meaning that they’ve incorporated some features that help you find the best possible result for any keyword.

These features include;

•Google’s massive database
•Advertisements
•Local search results
•Organic search results

For example, when someone types ‘McDonalds’ in the search bar of Google, Google doesn’t just present the history of McDonald’s or the meaning of the word, they know that the person probably just wants to eat a burger so they display the nearest McDonalds, display a great photo of a burger and probably an ad to another burger shack close by.

Google database

You might have noticed that Google sometimes answers your question directly without directing you to another site. They’ve collected volumes of data which they’ve analyzed with complex, ever-evolving algorithms to provide the user with quick answers.

Google ads

This is where the real competition lies, especially when trying to rank for commercial keywords like products or services. Ads will pop up before your site no matter how optimized your site is. They usually carry the ‘ad’ tag.

Local search results

If you’re a digital marketer, you probably know this. If you’re a newbie, you might want to follow the hyperlink for some basic information. Established local business outlets optimized for Google, will show up for the relevant keywords when a customer types in the keyword.

Organic search results

This is where you find the rest of the world, the guys who have the most relevant keywords and the most valuable content. Google keeps getting better at finding original, valuable and up to date results, so spamming your titles with keywords is not going to cut it anymore, now you can put your heart and soul into creating content and Google will reward you for it because they know your stuff is quality.

Note: these are not all the features of search engine result pages, these are just some valuable points, that drastically increase and change with the competition for top spot on Google. Others include Google news, “people also ask” section, google images, featured snippets, etc.

Top SEO trends and practices

With all the changes google keeps making, it’s getting more and more difficult to know which changes are going to up your SEO game in 2019, here are some SEO trends and practices you want to look out for.

1. Going mobile

A lot of factors influence how you rank on Google. These days, the attention has seen a major shift from desktop and PC to mobile users. This due to the fact that the majority of Google users use smartphones and tablets.

What this means for you is that since Google crawls for sites with mobile optimization, sites without it tend to fall lower in the ranking.

Google introduced mobile optimization as a ranking factor in the year 2016 since then it has seen outstanding growth. In the summer of 2018, Google officially implemented their ‘mobile first index’.
It’s no longer an option whether to optimize your site for mobile, it’s a requirement if you want to rank.

2. Optimize for local traffic.

A lot of businesses rely on local traffic as opposed to online traffic for their businesses. These businesses may know it to be a good idea to have an online presence, but having an online presence without local SEO is a waste of valuable online real estate.

The top three spots with high visibility and considerable traffic are usually occupied by close-by businesses that are optimized with their location.

A major way to step-up your SEO game and finally cash-in on all that traffic is to;

1. Associate your business with a location

2. Claim the business on Google. N/B: You can also do this by simply searching out your business on the Google Map. (A way of letting Google know you’re there).

3. Post your map address on your website as well as on your social media outlets.

4. Include the areas your business operates and the specific range of services you render.

5. Add your location when targeting SEO keywords like ‘Digital marketing agency in London’.

6. Focus on widespread SEO like backlinks, social media popularity, Google reviews etc.

3. Key sentences or strings vs keywords

If you know something about keyword research, this isn’t the first time you’re hearing this. Keywords are one of the most important factors to consider when doing SEO. It basically determines your rank in any SERP.

So, if you’re a new or small site without little in the way of authority that’s okay, you can still rank. When optimizing your titles, subtitles or whatever it is you’re optimizing, it’s a good idea to imagine what your potential client is going to type in the search box.

For example, if you use a keyword such as ‘Toyota Corolla’, you’re going to see older sites with way more authority than you. And the problem with using such keywords is that apart from the vicious competition, such keywords usually lead to their key string cousins that Google thinks their users want to find.

But if you use something more specific like ‘used black Toyota Corolla S in Manhattan’, you have a much better chance at coming up higher in SERPs.

If you’ve not been using this strategy, you might want to try it, with Google coming up with all sorts of filters, this one leads your client straight to you. And high specificity means the traffic you’re getting will convert better than the random traffic that’ll just click away.

4. Optimize for voice search

Google reports that one in every search is a voice search. This can be performed while driving and/or using mobile assistants like Bixby, Siri and google voice. Its popularity is a by-product of the sudden popularity of mobile (I.e. mobile first index).
This type of searches usually involves very specific long-tailed keywords. While optimizing it’s a good idea to try to guess what your potential clients are going to say.
Another excellent strategy is optimizing your content for a variety of languages using google translate. Especially when marketing products and services internationally.

5. Good old backlinks

It’s easy to ignore this one since setting up, takes up some additional minutes but Google will reward your efforts.
A lot of people go about saying link building is an outdated SEO strategy but Gary Illyes from Google disagrees. He says that page rank is still a very important ranking at Google and will remain so in the foreseeable future. He also said that authority or link power is obtained by having appreciable backlinks.

Note:

It’s a good idea to build links through motivated users who genuinely enjoy telling people about your site instead of spamming your links all over the place. Google will know what you’re doing and that will negatively affect how your site ranks in SERPs.
When link building, try to think about whether your link adds value to the users or if at all they have any interest in what you’re pushing if not, go place your link somewhere else where people will actually click on them and be glad, they did.

• Featured snippet card.

If you look at the SERPs today, you’ll see that a lot has changed. for one thing, it seems Google wants the front page for itself. For more commercial searches, the top 5 ranking items are sponsored ads. If you’re searching for something simple like ‘what’s Captain America’s real name?’, Google already has an answer waiting for you; not from another website but from the volumes of data they have. Any available ‘top-5’ space that isn’t taken by that is occupied by their ‘people also ask’ card.

You might notice a feature box on the right which features the information that is just the answer to your question (according to google).

Featured snippets are important as they provide quick answers to your questions when you type in a search. They’re also important to the website featured as the website receives explosive traffic from that search intent.

It’s likely going to be more difficult to occupy the top spots in 2019. It’s important to work hard, plan intellectual strategies and do lots of research. With the way things are going, you want to create content with maximum value instead of trying to fool the algorithm. It’s also important to know which goals to achieve and which goals are achievable.

If you want to feature in the snippet section, you should try to become an authority in your niche. It helps to add a question and answer section to your website. Tables or graphs can also go a long way as those are featured regularly on the snippets card.

Even with all the planning and strategizing, the competition is scary to look at. But with well structured, clear and straight to the point information that Google can use, smaller sites too can rank and even get featured.

So, you should be asking yourself what your target audience wants and be ready to go the extra thousand miles to give it to them in a well-structured way.

Google typically wants to answer questions and provide people with information. If you can do this well enough with relevant and original content, you too will rank.

• User satisfaction

Gone are the days when people optimize websites for search engine algorithms. Now, you optimize your site so your users can get what they need. This will prompt them to come back and also tell their friends.

Some points to consider when optimizing for user satisfaction include;

Loading speed

The average human attention span is nothing short of horrific at best, and it keeps dropping as if being propelled by rocket boosters. What this means for you is that you only have a few seconds to catch the eyes of your potential clients and if your sites take 10 seconds to load, your would-be clients would be long gone before the fifth second.

You can use tools like gtmetrix and pages peed tool to see how fast your pages are loading.

Error and bug-free

If you were surfing the net for something you know can be found in about twenty thousand other websites, would you stick around in one poorly coded site that shows error messages at every turn? No!.
That’s why your website should be working perfectly, without any bugs or errors whatsoever.

Optimize for mobile

The majority of people on the web today browse on-the-go, which means some kind of mobile device.

If your best display is meant for PC users, you’re going to be losing a lot of potential clients.

Conclusion.

Running a business is a full-time job, you might want to be on top of everything and try to do everything yourself but you’ll only end up stretching yourself too thin.

No matter how committed you are to your business, you can’t be a cashier, salesperson, accountant, and janitor at the same time. Point is, you want to hire a good digital marketing agency.

Here’s why;

Why You should hire a good digital marketing agency

You might have noticed that the trends we talked about before has a lot of technical stuff and you really have to be up-to-date about all the latest changes from Google and the tech world in general; in short, you can’t really do this to the point where it matters to your business while running your business. You want to hire a digital marketing agency. These guys market your business, they create brand awareness, they use SEO magic to make your business thrive, they give your business that online dominance that might just be the big break your business has been waiting for.

Reasons you should hire a digital marketing agency in 2019

•Allows you time to run your business: the online stuff really needs dedication and focus as well as being up-to-date on new trends and shifts. All that focus and concentration should be given to your business.

•They know their stuff: let’s face it, half the time you don’t even know what you are doing. You don’t have years of experience, you don’t know how to quickly change strategies to maximize profits or conversions, most of what you do still come from guys at YouTube who also made videos about other guys on YouTube.

Give the job to a digital marketing agency who actually knows the system, and can match your goals with their strategies to give measured success with a specified time frame.

•A Fraction of the cost: you might have thought about having a marketing department of your own, but that requires time to build not to mention the substantial amount of cash involved in paying and maintaining an in-house marketing team.

Digital marketers are pros and they give you results in real time not to mention their almost unbelievable charge. The choice is easy.

•Ideas for free: The most part of their job involves coming up with innovative and inventive ideas that could still be maxing your profits long after their contract is due.

These ideas include;

*changes to other section of your business that might not be in favor of maximum growth.

*insight into the behavior of potential clients and target audiences.

*Ideas on which marketing strategies are currently working.

There are practically no limits to what you can achieve with a digital marketing agency, it’s a good idea to hire one.

seo-services-for-free

Free SEO services for Small Charities

Business, Local SEO, SEO

Yes! You read it right. Free SEO Services, not just free SEO analysis but real Free Search Engine Optimisation for charities. Premium level on-page optimization will be done for 3 Small Charities based in the UK. They don’t have to pay a single penny for the free SEO services.

Why for free? Because we want to give back. Our biggest and sole reward is the realization that we’ve made a significant change in someone’s life. And if not “significant” then at least a positive change.

SEO Services (Search Engine Optimisation Services) is one the few services you see everywhere these days. Every business and website owner needs and wants SEO done for their website. Under normal conditions, SEO services from a London based Digital Marketing Agency can range from £500 per month (for smaller websites with little competition on Google and Bing) up to £10,000 per month (for big complicated retail websites sites with a lot of online competition). However, it is undisputed fact that SEO services are a must for every business regardless of what they sell or what kind of service they provide. Still, unfortunately, most business owners hire low-class SEO agencies just because either they can’t afford premium SEO Services or they just want to get things done at the cheapest price.

We feel very fortunate to be in a position where we have the time and resources to help others. It took a lot of hard work to grow Gummy Bear SEO but now when it took off, the feeling is fantastic. We are happy and we want to make others happy too. It is very rewarding when the results are so visible and significant.

The internet makes it much easier to raise awareness of important issues, though many local charities simply don’t have the money or skills to develop and improve their websites on their own. It became clear to us that local UK charities could use a helping hand. That’s why we are launching this campaign.

Why small charities? Because we believe money given to smaller charities is far less likely to have to go through the bureaucracy of the bigger charities, being used for admin costs and expensive marketing campaigns, for example. Of course, there’s no denying the fundamental importance of large national and international charities to tackle monumental issues like human rights, or curing diseases. Yet there’s something special about knowing that your £5 donation has made at least £5 worth of difference that you can see, whether it’s a blanket for a local homeless person, helping the local authorities to provide financial help to parents to assist them with buying school clothing for their children, or fixing up the old community hall.

The FREE SEO services that we offer include:

Detailed Site Audit and Analysis  FREE

Site Structure Analysis                   FREE

Competitor Analysis                       FREE

Keyword Research                          FREE

Keywords Targeting                       FREE

On Page Optimisation                   FREE

Title Optimisation                          FREE

Meta Tags Optimisation               FREE

HTML Code Modification            FREE

XML Site Map                                FREE

W3C Validation                              FREE

Tags Hierarchy                               FREE

Internal Linking                             FREE

Social Bookmarking                      FREE

Traffic Reports                               FREE

Directory Submission                   FREE

Press Release Submission           FREE

Article Submission                        FREE

Premium Content Writing       optional at additional cost
Link Building                              optional at additional cost
Link Bait                                      optional at additional cost

In order to be considered for this offer, Charity Should be registered and operating in the UK and have a website built on WordPress.

Please note that places are limited and we will choose only 3 charities for free SEO services so please register your interest as soon as possible by filling out the form below.


You can also check out our various Digital Marketing services here. If you have custom SEO requirements you can request a free quote here.

 

what-is-digital-marketing

What is Digital Marketing?

Business, Local SEO, PPC Management, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Technology

Digital Marketing in the modern, online age, is one of the most important tools at the disposal of any business owner looking to boost sales and take their business to the next level.

As a matter of fact, in Financial Times lexicon it’s defined as: The marketing of products or services using digital channels to reach consumers. The key objective is to promote brands through various forms of digital media.

Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and their websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

In this post, we are going to examine Digital Marketing, looking at what it usually involves, why it is so important and how your business can benefit from it.

In recent years the internet has become much more accessible to users around the world. In fact, the amount of internet usage has grown by 5% in the last three years alone. This, combined with the Social Media revolution of the last decade, has drastically changed the way in which internet users interact with advertisements and it has created a veritable gold mine for business owners.

Due to the amount of data available from Social Media sites and from the host of analytical tools for monitoring internet traffic, businesses are able to gear their marketing efforts towards those internet users that are most likely to be interested in their products.

To go one step further, Digital Marketing is basically required for businesses now. Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means you need to meet them where they are already spending time: on the internet.

The rise of Digital Marketing as a requirement for businesses has led to the rise of Digital Marketing Agencies who provide all the services that a growing business needs in order to benefit from the world of the internet.

These companies have the experience needed to ensure that their clients are getting the most out of digital marketing, from improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO), to ensuring that your Social Media Advertising is of the highest standard.

For many small to medium businesses, these are the best option, as they can save money when compared to hiring an in-house team, yet they also provide the expertise needed to ensure that your marketing efforts are successful.

online-marketing

So, what actually is Digital Marketing then?

In practice, digital marketing includes managing different forms of online company presence and presences such as company websites, mobile apps, and social media company pages.

This is in conjunction with online communications techniques including the likes of search engine marketing, social media marketing, online advertising, e-mail marketing and partnership arrangements with other websites.

These techniques are used to support the objectives of acquiring new customers and providing services to existing customers that help develop the customer relationship through E-CRM and marketing automation.

It encompasses a variety of interconnected fields, notably including SEO, Social Media Advertising and Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC). To describe what Digital Marketing consists of, let’s look in depth at each of these fields, showing what they involve, and how they can benefit your business.

Let’s first look at Search Engine Optimisation.

SEO is the process of improving your website’s organic search ranking, i.e. its position within the unpaid results of a commercial search engine. SEO can almost be viewed as a set of best practices for good digital marketing.

It enforces the need for a well-constructed and easy-to-use website, valuable and engaging content, and the credibility for other websites and individuals to recommend you by linking to your site or mentioning it in social media posts.

The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Although social media and other types of traffic can generate visits to your website, search engines are the primary method of navigation for most Internet users. This is true whether your site provides content, services, products, information, or just about anything else.

Search engines are unique in that they provide you with a targeted audience—people looking for what you offer. Search engines are the roadways that make this happen. If search engines cannot find your site or add your content to their databases, you miss out on incredible opportunities to drive traffic to your site.

Search queries, the words that users type into the search box, carry extraordinary value. Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization’s success. Targeted traffic to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other channel of marketing. Investing in SEO can have an exceptional rate of return compared to other types of marketing and promotion.

Search engines are smart, but they still need help in order to best optimize results for users. The major engines are always working to improve their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return better results to users. However, there is a limit to how search engines can operate. Whereas the right SEO can net you thousands of visitors and increased attention, the wrong moves can hide or bury your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal.

In addition to making content available to search engines, SEO also helps boost rankings so that content will be placed where searchers will more readily find it. The Internet is becoming increasingly competitive, and those companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.

To learn more about: What is SEO and how can it help your business to earn more visibility look at our article, where we in detail explain everything.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimisation, a Digital Marketing Agency can provide the best option for your business. SEO is something which needs to be done well as when it comes to search engine rankings, your website needs to be at the forefront to make an impact.

Furthermore, the rules of SEO are constantly changing, meaning that you need a dedicated team to ensure that your website stays up to date with the latest trends.

The next area that I’m going to look at is Social Media Advertising.

Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. Your customers are already interacting with brands through social media, and if you’re not speaking directly to your audience through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, you’re missing out!

Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising.

Never forget that SMM is incredibly powerful due to the fact that a massive percentage of internet users have an account on at least one social media platform. On these platforms, they build profiles describing themselves and interacting with businesses in a very unique way. By building a strong social media presence, your business can reach thousands of more consumers, as they can easily view and interact with your products and services. Paid social media advertising is also incredibly powerful, as social media users’ profiles contain all the data required to build a targeted audience for your marketing efforts, and you can gear your campaigns and resources towards those who are most likely purchase from you. This ensures that you get the maximum value for money possible. Once again using a Digital Marketing agency can really help here, as they have the experience to know that a good social media campaign is about more than just an eye-catching advertisement, it is about creating a relationship with your customers and building a community around your product.

PPC is the last part of Digital Marketing that we will examine in detail.

PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.

Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically. Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches on a keyword that is related to their business offering. For example, if you bid on the keyword “PPC software,” your ad might show up in the very top spot on the Google results page.

Every time your ad is clicked, sending a visitor to your website, you have to pay the search engine a small fee. When PPC is working correctly, the fee is trivial, because the visit is worth more than what you pay for it. In other words, if you pay £2 for a click, but the click results in a £100 sale, then you have made a sizeable profit.

Google AdWords is the single most popular PPC advertising system in the world. The AdWords platform enables businesses to create ads that appear on Google’s search engine and other Google properties.

AdWords operates on a pay-per-click model, in which users bid on keywords and pay for each click on their advertisements. Every time a search is initiated, Google digs into the pool of AdWords advertisers and chooses a set of winners to appear in the valuable ad space on its search results page. The “winners” are chosen based on a combination of factors, including the quality and relevance of their keywords and ad campaigns, as well as the size of their keyword bids.

More specifically, who gets to appear on the page is based on an advertiser’s Ad Rank, a metric calculated by multiplying two key factors – CPC Bid (the highest amount an advertiser is willing to spend) and Quality Score (a value that takes into account your click-through rate, relevance, and landing page quality). This system allows winning advertisers to reach potential customers at a cost that fits their budget. It’s essentially a kind of auction.

A lot goes into building a winning PPC campaign: from researching and selecting the right keywords, to organizing those keywords into well-organized campaigns and ad groups, to setting up PPC landing pages that are optimized for conversions. Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, intelligently targeted pay-per-click campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks. If your ads and landing pages are useful and satisfying to users, Google charges you less per click, leading to higher profits for your business. This is how a Digital Marketing Agency can come in handy here. As they have done many PPC campaigns before, they know how to make them as efficient as possible.

digital-marketing-agency

The best way to integrate Digital Marketing into your website is to start working on it in the web development phase. By laying the groundwork for Google AdWords management and SEO you can save a lot of time in the future and furthermore allow for your website to hit the ground running. A Digital Marketing agency can also be of use here. They can help you not only to create a beautiful website but one that is rigorous about the vitally important factors of SEO and advertising. Having this groundwork in place makes improving search in the future much more straightforward.

Digital Marketing is an incredibly powerful tool that is shaping the online world today. It allows for small and medium businesses to compete with larger companies that have much greater budgets. It has allowed for those business owners that are diligent enough, to push their websites up to the top of the Google rankings, making the standard user much more likely to enter into it.

It has also led to the phenomenon of creating communities around products on social media, allowing for these businesses to grow their brand recognition astronomically. In the modern day, it is a tool that every business owner needs to be willing to invest in, as it is the most powerful form of marketing available.

With Digital Marketing at your disposal, there are no limits to how far your business can go.

 

Frustrated? Not sure where to begin…? We can help. 

 


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