Local Search and Why SEO is so important

Why you should NOT ignore Local SEO?

Yellow-pages and classifieds of the past have become all but obsolete. Today, consumers turn to the internet, search engines, to find everything from nearby restaurants to local auto repair shops.

With Local Search  like Google Maps and Yahoo! Local, the trend toward local search is growing every day. At SEO Martian, our clients (you can check our portfolio) have seen Significant ROI as our Local Internet Marketing initiatives have helped increase their local client-base.

If your business isn't optimized for local search , you're missing out on potential leads, clients and sales.
Some Facts to support what we are saying.

    61% of local searches result in purchase
    82% of local searchers follow-up offline via an in-store visit, phone call or
    76% of Internet users first look at Local Search or map area of the 1st page, then Organic and last Paid
    54% of Americans have substituted yellow page phone books with the Internet and local search
    57% of Internet users shop online, purchase offline
    It gives you a huge potential for your local business.
    It can drive your business to a new height.            

If your company is based in New York City and a client reviews your firm on your Google business page. If someone who is connected to your client on Google+ searches for “financial advisor in New York,” your firm has a greater likelihood of being at the top of the personalized results. It will also list your client, as having reviewed your firm. That’s huge as it’s essentially a Google-assisted referral to that new prospect. Even if the searcher has no connection to those who have reviewed your firm, profiles with many positive reviews usually rank better in search results.

If you are interested in getting optimized for local search give me a call. I have helped many companies increase their local search ranking

SEO Martian
Att:Mike
1-888-861-6330 
Minneapolis SEO | Minneapolis SEO Company | SEO Services | Search Engine Marketing

SEO Hire a professional and open the traffic floodgates

 SEO Is Like a Dam – Open Flood Gates & Traffic Just Keeps Flowing

No matter what niche you are involved in, there are ‘evergreen’ search phrases with the potential to drive a large amount of traffic to your website for years. And this traffic is free! It will continue without any dent in your ongoing or proposed marketing budget.
But optimizing just one page on your website will only deliver one extra traffic stream. What if you opened the flood gates?

Keyword research will reveal that many searches are carried out on business related and highly relevant ‘non-brand’ generic keywords. These are used by people who have never even heard about you, but are focused on their needs and problems, actively seeking out solutions. That’s the ‘water’ behind the ‘dam’ that you can tap into through SEO.

Elements other than SEO are important. You should use SEO as a way to convert and engage your visitors. Knowing the intent behind keywords that lead visitors to an individual page on your site will be valuable for your Web designer.
 You may get everything else right. Your inbound marketing strategy may cover all the bases – heavy SEO, social search, local SEO, mobile optimization – and may integrate nicely with other parts of your offline and digital marketing. But without diligent keyword research underlying it all, you’re only building a superstructure upon quicksand. That’s just not smart or effective.

When you know what savvy searchers are looking for, identify the exact keywords and combinations they use, and map them to individual pages on your website, it will make the difference between a 1% and a 20% conversion rate.

Do you think it’s quick and easy work to do this for each page?  Absolutely not!
Optimizing your site for each of them is important.  The text on your site, the visual appearance, the products and services you present to them – all need to fit into the concept of an “ideal solution” that your visitor has in his or her mind.

SEO Martian 
SEM | SEO | Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization
1-888-861-6330

SEO | SEM | Internet Marketing | Website Promotion

 SEO | SEM |Internet Marketing

The advice in this section is more strategic in nature. These SEO tips are still very actionable, but they also adopt a more holistic approach than some of the others.

Use Competitive Analysis To Generate New Strategic Ideas & Emulate The Success Of Others

Let's consider some good old fashioned competitor analysis. I’m not particularly talking just for SEO, I’m talking all areas of your internet marketing strategy. I’ve noticed many SEO’s who discount competitive analysis as simply “copying your competitors,” but I’m not recommending you should be doing that. However, you should definitely know what it is they are doing well (and not so well) to incorporate it into your strategy if it works.

A few tools I like to use to see what competitors are up to: 

Ahrefs: Currently my backlink analysis tool of choice, clearly this will give you information about sites which are linking back to your competitors.

But what strategies are they employing to gain these links?
Are they creating comprehensive resource posts on their own sites? Are they using guest posts? Are they buying links?

SEMrush: One of the best overall SEO competitor analysis tools available for unearthing your competitor’s popular keywords, organic vs. paid traffic and suggesting even more competitors you may want to investigate.

SEO Martian
St Paul, Mn.
SEO | SEM | Internet Marketing | Search Engine Optimization | Search Engine Marketing
1-888-861-6330 

SEO Supercharge your Blog for Google Success

 Here is one sure fire way to supercharge your businesses blog for SEO. 

 Choose one keyword, then include it in your post permalink, title, and first sentence.

Including images in your blog depending on the type of blogging service you are using you should be able to click on the image and add titles and keywords as tags this will automatically put the keyword in your post URL – also called the permalink. This is an essential component for SEO success.

Then, simply use the default text for the “SEO title” field at the bottom of the page (which is your title plus the name of your blog), and copy the first sentence of the post into the “Meta Description” field. If good writing dictates NOT using the keyword in the first sentence (which happens often but is not optimal), then paste in the first blog sentence that DOES have the keyword in it, or write one that uses the keyword and describes the post in a way that people will want to read it. Put the keyword in the “Meta Keywords” field, then you are all done.

SEO magic happens when you identify one keyword to focus on, then put it in the trifecta of permalink, page title, and page description.
Make sure that keyword is included in the body of post a few times, is relevant and appropriate, and then hit publish. While there are other steps and tactics that help boost SEO, that’s fodder for another article!
One last note – be sure and offer multiple ways for readers to subscribe. If you can’t convert them to subscribers via email or RSS and/or they aren’t seeing your new posts show up on social media, odds are good that they won’t think to return to your site. Your  SEM | SEO may bring them to your blog the first time, but it may not bring them back. Keep this in mind as you consider and implement these strategies.



 Of course SEO Martian  specializes in these types of services. If you don't have the time or the technical savvy to do this 3-4 times perweek We can do it for you. We have many years of experience with many satisfied customers. Gaining top page rank in google can never be guarantees. If someone guarantees you 1st page on google run away it can not be guaranteed. However it can be attained thru hard work and consistent effort, your business can be the 1st business seen when a user searchers for your keywords!!

SEO Martian
Search Engine Optimization | Search Engine Marketing | SEM | SEO Google Rankings
1-888-861-6330

Image Optimization is Still Important to Your Site’s Traffic

 

Let’s be honest, there are a lot sexier forms of search engine optimization than image optimization. Content marketing, long-form posts, author rank and other newer, broader SEO tactics have captured the fancy of marketers and business owners. Even link building remains regarded as an effective, if often time-consuming, strategy.

Amidst all that, it’s easy to overlook image optimization. But that is a big mistake. Image pageviews are a huge but sometimes overlooked factor. In 2010, daily pageviews on Google Images topped 1 billion.
Image optimization is fairly easy to do, as long as you follow the right steps. Here’s how you can make it work for your company.

What is Image Optimization?
Image optimization is essentially coding your images so that they bring in the greatest possible amount of traffic. Search engines offer separate image searches, which is a great way to drive people to your site. But the Google and Bing bots can also crawl the tags on your images for regular searches, and so it pays to use lots of photos with descriptive text in every post.
There are three main best practices to keep in mind when optimizing your images. We’ll examine each one in detail, but for reference, they are:

• Picking a good file name
• Using alt text
• Reducing file size

If you pay close attention to all three things, your images should boost traffic to your blog. Now we’ll walk through each step to ensure you’re getting the picture.
Find the Right File Name
You might think of the file name as a simple descriptor you use to designate a file. But search engines consider it so much more. File names help clue them in to relevant pictures in a search. That’s why the worst thing you can do when you’re uploading a picture to your web site is to keep the random numbers or letters assigned to the picture on your phone (i.e., KM20413_003) as the file name. That tells the search engine nothing about what’s in the photo.

Instead, think about what keywords you’re targeting for the page and make one of them the name of your picture file. For instance, if you are selling a product for killing mosquitoes, your file name might be “bug zapper.” Before you decide on the name, you may want to do a search on the keyword you are targeting to see what images come up and what their file names are.
The greater the detail in your file name, the better, as you’ll show up in more specific searches. But don’t overwhelm one photo with five keywords. One detailed keyword is enough.

Use Alt Text Properly
Every image that you upload includes an alternative text attribute. This is separate from the file name, and it essentially identifies what the picture is. It’s the text that shows up on screen when a picture doesn’t load properly. In a guide on image optimization, WebpageFX gives some good background on alt text, which can be confusing if you’re not a technical web person.
Most content management systems have a place to add the alt text. When all is said and done, the HTML version will look like this: alt=”[your alt text here]“. This is where you become Google’s eyes. The search engine can’t recognize what an image looks like unless you tell it. So if you want your photo of a red bird to show up when someone searches “red bird,” you probably want your alt text to read alt=”red bird”.

Cut Down on File Size
Load time remains a major concern on the web. As sites have gotten faster, surfers’ attention span has simultaneously gotten shorter. Three seconds is about the maximum they are willing to wait for something to load. Plus, page load time is one of the factors Google considers in its algorithm. Don’t make your images part of the problem.
You will need to compress the size of your image before you load it to your site in order to keep your load time down and thus optimize the photo. While there is no set limit to aim for, keep common sense in mind – don’t fill your website with tons of 1mb photos, or loading will be a slow journey. Edit the image in photo editing software in order to downsize it; do not rely on your CMS’s reduction tool. Your photos will be crisper and load faster.

Making Image Optimization Work for You
Even with all the other new SEO tactics gaining traction every day, image optimization is still a very smart, proven way to boost traffic to your site. Don’t abandon it just because some other techniques have risen to prominence.


SEO Martian
The Galaxy's Best Online SEM Optimization  Company
1-888-861-6330

Search Engine Optimization for Businesses

  SEO Tips for Businesses

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. And the phrase improve your SEO strategy encompasses the actions taken to ensure your website can be found in a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo.

What does Social SEO mean?

 Here are six uncomplicated Social SEO tips you can easily start implementing today:

1. Optimize your social media profiles

The key to an SEO friendly social media profile is to be descriptive as possible.  Always fill out the ‘About’ or ‘Information’ sections of any social media platform. Use words or phrases that describe your business and are also terms individuals would use to search for your business.
For example, to optimize your Facebook Page for local searches, it is very important to include your address, city, state, and zip. Always include links from your social channels back to your business’s website (and links from your website to your social channels).

Insider Tip: The “Category” field is often over looked on Facebook Pages but is important for Facebook mobile searches. Check to make sure your business is listed as the correct category while editing your basic information.

2. Optimize your social media content/updates

To optimize your social content, always include some of the relevant search keywords you determined for your business in your Facebook updates, tweets, pin descriptions, etc. It’s important to remember to share content from your website or blog socially to give it an SEO boost too. Sharing new content on Twitter is especially important because it helps Google index it faster (indexing means Google adds this URL to their database).

Insider Tip: Use your business’s name in your social posts. This helps Google associate the keywords you use to describe your business with your business’s name.

3. Build links by making your content shareable

A key factor in SEO is link building. Simply put, this means having good website to website relationships through links. When you have more quality sites linking to your website (inbound) and you are linking to other quality websites (outbound) the more authoritative Google determines your website to be. More authority equals a higher SERP rank.
Likes, comments, +1s, repins, retweets, etc., all play into the weight given to your links. If you create content people want to share, you can create more inbound links. “Content” doesn’t always have to be as elaborate as a blog post or whitepaper, content can also refer to tweets or Facebook posts as well. By posting engaging social content, you’re improving your SEO value. To review: Quality content equals more shares equals more links equals better SEO value. Simple right?

Insider Tip: A more advanced way to increase shares is to add social share buttons to individual pieces of content on your website or blog.

4. Use Pinterest

An easy way to create shareable content is by using Pinterest. Pinterest is great for link building and improving your keyword strategy. Google indexes pages from websites with heavy traffic faster and higher in a SERP. You can increase your content’s visibility in SERPs by adding keywords within the title of a Pinterest board, the board’s description, and you even have up to 500 characters to describe an individual pin so you’ll want to include keywords there as well.
Additionally, you can customize the pin’s link and point people back to your website or blog—further increasing the opportunity for your content to rank higher in a SERP. From an SEO perspective, Pinterest allows you to do a few things that other networks don’t, so take advantage of it.

Insider Tip: Google prefers high-resolution images, so use high-quality images on Pinterest whenever possible.

5. Sign up for Google+ and spend 10-minutes a day on it

No one loves Google+ more than Google. Sign up for a Google+ Business Page and complete as many fields as you can in the “About” section using keywords that describe your business. Google also allows you to add several customized links within your profile, you can use this as an opportunity to link back to your website, blog, and additional social channels. By spending 10-minutes a day sharing your content to your Google+ page, you’ll be more likely to appear within Google’s SERP. There are more reasons you should care about Google+ if you’re a Solution Provider.

6. Create a Google+ Local listing

According to Google, 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. In order to perform well in local search results it’s critical that you optimize your Google+ Local listing (formally known as Google Places). A Local Google+ page is different from a Google+ Business Page because it allows customers to easily connect with that business’s physical location. Update the details about your business—address, phone number, hours, etc.—and you’re good to go!

SEO Martian
Search Engine Optimization | Search Engine Marketing Strategies | Free Website SEO Analysis
1-888-861-6330

Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

 Are you using the most effective SEO Tools?

Utilizing the various functions that Google Webmaster Tools has to offer is a surefire way to help keep your website running like a well-oiled machine. Two tools our SEO team uses on a regular basis and finds to be extremely beneficial are the Crawl Errors report and Sitemap submission tool.

Amongst the toolkit is the Fetch as Google option, which also gives users an opportunity to submit their URL to the index. Surprisingly, this tool is often under-utilized by bloggers, webmasters, and SEO strategists. This is a convenient way to speed things up considerably if you have new content that you'd like to be discovered and found in the SERPs.

Adding the Fetch as Google tool to your arsenal of marketing tricks will help put your new content in front of Google searchers much faster. Include this step on your checklist when creating content and make a habit of implementing it to get found sooner.

Every time you publish a web page and blog post, it should be Fetched right away. Then you can feel free to sit back and watch your desired search engine results quickly appear.

SEO Martian
SEO Services, Search Engine Marketing,
1-888-861-6330