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Category: SEO

Digital Marketing Changes Coming In 2021

2021 is just around the corner and there’s no time like the present to get ready for all the changes coming down the digital marketing pipeline. We’ve gathered a handful of things we think you should pay attention to as the new year approaches. Here’s what they are and how they could affect you:

Google Will Be Moving Away From Backlinks As An Important Ranking Factor

…in the future. For now, they’re still an important ranking factor. Make sure your backlinks are from an array of websites with high authority. It’s also important that those websites are relevant to your own in some way.

Our strategy for obtaining backlinks is to analyze backlinks that your competitors have. While it might not be intuitive, the websites that link to your competitors are actually most likely to link to you as well.

Keyword Density? Meet Image Density

Keyword density won’t be the only factor that search engines take into consideration when evaluating your content. Relevant images will soon become more important than they already were.

Use images that help you communicate your narrative and make sure you’re writing ALT text for each one. Search engines can’t yet decipher what an image is about which is where ALT text comes in. ALT text also assists with accessibility for visually impaired users.

Mobile First Indexing

This actually rolled out in September of 2020, so unless you’ve paid close attention to what your mobile site looks like, you might already have catching up to do.

While you definitely shouldn’t ignore the full version of your site, this change means that optimizing for the mobile version of your website should be your priority.

Core Web Vitals

The new(ish) set of performance metrics highlight aspects of web development that affect UX: page loading, interactivity and visual stability.

The current metrics are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). The time interval between the start of a page load to when the largest image or text block in a user’s viewport is fully rendered. You might see the score change as your page loads and when content is visible but the largest node is still in the backlog yet to be displayed. This gets more noticeable on throttled connection speeds.

First Input Delay (FID). The amount of time it takes for a page to be ready for user interactivity, meaning that as pages are assembling how long does it take for the page to respond to clicks, scrolls, or keyboard input processing their corresponding event handlers. User interaction can be significantly delayed by main thread-blocking script tasks.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). The measured distance and fraction of the viewport which shifts due to DOM manipulation or the lack of dimension attributes for major media elements. When we fail to define the dimensions for our hero images, for example, text on our pages first appears only to be displaced, causing a disruptive content layout “shift” for our users.

Connected TV Ads

Connected TV Ads deliver the best of both worlds with the reach of television and the data of digital. That’s why they’ll be vital for advertisers this holiday season and beyond. Total viewing time on Connected TV devices has jumped 81% YoY and you can bet that more shoppers will be spending time streaming television than ever before.

Nearly 90% of viewers use a second screen while watching television and 65% of them use that second screen to look up brands advertised while streaming. Maximize your targeting efforts and be sure to include retargeting in your digital ad mix to ensure that your brand stays top of mind with your audience.

Get in touch with us if you have questions about the topics mentioned in this post. We’re always happy to dive deeper into anything you’d like to know more about.

Source: Search Engine Land

Marketing During Covid-19

When the pandemic worsened and lockdowns swept across the nation, we saw most businesses pull back on their marketing efforts and, in some cases, pretty much everything. Many had to temporarily close, move operations online, or shut down permanently. Even our agency scaled back a lot of what we had planned for 2020. It’s been a difficult year to say the least, but the silver lining is that we’ve been able to observe and learn from the dynamic situation. Here’s we found out.

Some businesses we observed pulled back drastically. Either they had little choice or they believed that saving cash was the best way to weather the storm. Other businesses “doubled-down” and increased their marketing initiatives. These brands were able to cut through the would-be noise and pay less for ads while their competition sat on the sidelines. Armed with narratives sensitive to the current situation, many of them maintained pre-pandemic levels of sales at pre-pandemic levels or in some cases even saw sales skyrocket.

The majority of businesses we observed actually deployed a third strategy: pivoting. With mandated closures and ordinances, more businesses than ever realized they needed to start selling online. In fact, web searches for the eCommerce platform, Shopify, exploded since April. Those who already had online storefronts switched to long-term marketing investments or nominal initiatives such as content, social media or SEO-related housekeeping.

Search trends that subsequently emerged highlighted a new outlook for people everywhere: pragmatism. Demand (and searches) for product was still there, but it shifted. For example, shoppers who previously shopped for clothing in a broad sense narrowed their focus to athleisure. Entertainment shifted to things that could be done at home or while socially distanced like fishing or drive-in cinema. And almost no one was immune to shopping for home improvement or remote work equipment like desks and webcams.

The wide variety of reactions we saw inspired us to seek research on past events we could compare to. We found this study from Harvard Business Review suggesting that instead of ceasing all marketing, refining marketing strategies during an economic downturn is more likely to be successful during and after a recession.

This is especially relevant considering how we live in a time of ever-increasing digitalization and data that shows mobile e-commerce is poised for even more growth:

Of course, every business or brand faces a unique set of challenges. Increasing or even maintaining initiatives may not be feasible, so the key is identifying and seizing the opportunity your current situation has presented you with. That’s where we can help.

Conserving resources can be achieved by focusing on things like website housekeeping or content marketing that you can produce on your own. While these might seem like low impact actions, they actually pay dividends in the long run.

Online reputation management like updating your Google My Business listing is especially important since the listings now highlight Covid safety measures with attributes such as: Appointment Required, Mask Required, Staff Gets Temperature Checks, Staff Wear Masks or Temperature Check Required.

Refining your marketing strategy for the world we find ourselves in todayis easier than you might think. Many marketing fundamentals remain the same, but they are now weighted differently: for example, tone and messaging have always been a consideration, but audiences are likely to be more sensitive to them now.

Lastly, if you have the resources to double-down, the time is now. This is your opportunity to grab the attention of your customers. Not only will it likely be at a discounted price, it will also likely be at a time when the the right messaging will enjoy sky high efficacy.

SEO vs Paid Search: Which One Is Better For Your Business?

scale measuring SEO vs Paid Search

If you have a website, you’ve more than likely heard that you should be doing SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You’ve likely also heard that you should be doing Paid Search (also sometimes referred to as PPC or even SEM). Perhaps you’ve even talked to multiple people and heard various stories about which one they’re doing and why, but none of their advice has steered you one direction versus the other. As a business owner, you have limited resources and want to invest your money wisely. So which one do you choose?

As a Search Marketing agency, we at Fox Two Group craft strategies that best suit our clients’ goals. The tactics we use are designed to best navigate the competitive landscape that the particular client operates within. While our recommendations to clients are most often a combination of both SEO and Paid Search, sometimes we’ll specifically recommend one or the other. How we make that determination relies heavily on the individual needs of each client.

At a very basic level, the most common goal our clients have is to appear at the top of the search results for keywords relevant to their business (aka ranking well). When trying to figure out whether SEO and Paid Search is the best way to get there, there is one distinction that is probably the most important to understand: SEO is a long-term strategy whereas Paid Search can be very quick. Regardless of this fact, each has their own merits and demerits to consider.

Our SEO strategies are comprised of three main pillars: on-page optimization, content strategy and backlink acquisition. Work and analysis on all three is done on a continual basis to achieve improvements in rankings. However, it is essential to remember that SEO work done today may not have an effect on your rankings for weeks or even months due to the way that Google evaluates websites. Part of this is because Google doesn’t necessarily look at your website everyday. Another factor is that it can take time to fix errors or amass valuable content on your site that Google interprets as authoritative.

At the surface, Paid Search is much simpler. You choose which keywords you want to bid on/rank for, write a couple ads, set a budget and flip the switch. If done properly, your ad can potentially be in the top 3 or 4 positions within the hour. However, the thing to remember about Paid Search is that you must pay for each visitor to your site. And then there’s the realization that these campaigns can be incredibly nuanced and complex to run.

In an ideal situation, you’d run both a SEO and Paid Search advertising campaign. This way, Paid Search gets your website to rank for relevant keywords quickly while the work on SEO helps your website improve in organic rankings over time. Running both campaigns concurrently can ultimately ensure your website ends up appearing multiple times within the search results, thereby drastically increasing the likelihood that people end up on your site, buying your product or subscribing to your service.

But sometimes it’s just not possible to run both SEO and Paid Search at the same time due to a restriction of resources. In that situation, we often recommend clients start with SEO first. The reason is that you can think of your website as your home. Before inviting people over for a party, you want to make sure that your house is clean and there are things for people to eat, drink or do once they get there.

young woman cleaning her house

SEO accomplishes that for your website. By cleaning up broken images or navigation issues and adding valuable content, you are making sure that visitors both enjoy their time on your site and find it useful. Once you have things in order and are ready to receive visitors, you can then open the flood gates with Paid Search and generate traffic.

While this is an accurate representation of what we recommend to most clients, there are always unique situations that necessitate a more customized plan. If you own a business and you’re curious about what you should do regarding SEO and/or Paid Search, send us a note. We always happily give out free advice here on our blog, but talking to us one-on-one means that we can learn about your business and tailor that free advice to your specific needs.

Do You Even Need SEO or Paid Search?

Frustrated business woman working with laptop in office

SEO. Paid search advertising. Search engine marketing. Whether you work at a company in a marketing role or run your own business, chances are these are all “buzzwords” you’ve heard at some point. In fact, you’ve probably even been subject to someone trying to sell you these services in one form or another. SEM became prevalent so quickly that a certain less-than-honest portion of the population tried to take advantage of webmasters who weren’t up to date with what was happening in the space (do emails or comments that promise to increase your web traffic sound familiar?). Given the significant amount of time it would take to understand all the information available, how are marketers or business owners really supposed to evaluate whether paid search advertising and/or search engine optimization is right for their situation?

How about we tell you our take on it?

Full disclosure: if you’re reading this, you’ve likely gathered that we are a search engine marketing agency. However suspicious it may be for us to dissuade potential customers from subscribing to our services, we actually take pride in helping the people we come across, regardless of whether it results in new business.

So, what’s the word? In short, no – search engine marketing isn’t right for every situation. At least, it’s not always what should be the highest priority in a marketing campaign. Even if it is, that doesn’t mean both paid search and SEO are necessary. It truly depends on the specific situation and the goals the business wants to achieve.

Shouldn’t every website be optimized? Yes – what’s the point of having a website if nobody can find it or if the user experience is poor? However, that doesn’t mean that every website needs an on-going SEO campaign. Businesses that don’t directly rely on their website to generate revenue or sales leads may be best served by a one-time website audit and the subsequent optimization of on-page content and technical elements like meta data.

What about paid search? Like on-going SEO, paid search is really best for particular situations. For example, if your objective is to drive more traffic to your website, paid search has a good chance of accomplishing that. What marketers and business owners need to remember is that, in most cases, driving traffic is simply an objective. Most often, the overall goal is converting that traffic into action. Paid search can only deliver part of that equation. If the paid search campaign is designed/optimized well and delivers relevant traffic, it is then the job of the website to convert that traffic into sales leads or revenue.

It seems like it always depends on the specific situation. Can you give some specific examples? The easiest examples to look at are e-commerce businesses because they rely on their websites to generate revenue. Whereas paid search can ensure that the website is included in the paid search results for practically any keyword they want to bid on, a website audit and an on-going SEO campaign can accomplish a number of similar but different objectives:

– streamline the user experience into one that is most conducive to generating sales
– ensure that the website is included in organic search results for keywords relevant to the website content
– provide the business owner with a content strategy that helps them produce valuable content that is likely to be shared and linked to by other websites
– provide the business owner with a strategy to compete with their rivals for prime search result rankings

If the e-commerce website also has brick-and-mortar stores, SEO and paid search can also include local optimizations targeted to the geographical area that can drive foot traffic to those locations.

That seems pretty obvious. Less obvious is the category of food and beverages or hospitality. Do restaurants, bars or catering companies need search marketing? Yes, but only to an extent is it absolutely necessary. It’s important for those businesses to have a website with a great user experience, beautiful images and rich media if possible. If someone is searching Google for a place to eat or to grab a drink in the area that you serve, you want your website to show up in the results and you want your website to coerce them to actually go. SEO and paid search can get your website in front of their eyes. An optimized website that is easy to use/navigate and a pleasure to look at can truly help with convincing them to make a reservation or simply show up.

What about a situation where SEM might not be the highest priority? Sometimes a business will have a website simply because they have to have one in this day and age. If not to sell, it’s at least there to be that 24/7 source of information. The pharmaceutical industry is an interesting one to look at in this case. Often times, companies developing these products may have a website that simply states information about the company like who they are and what they do. The majority of their sales and sales leads are generated from other means and avenues. In this case, it’s a good idea to do a basic audit of the site to make sure that it’s easy to use and that technical elements are in place. Beyond that, however, SEM likely may not be the highest priority.

So there you go. SEM isn’t for everyone, but in a lot of cases it can really help. Just think about how often you or the people you want to reach search for something. We obviously only covered a few types of businesses. However, it’s likely that you can draw parallels between your own situation and one of these examples. If you’d like to ask us about your situation in greater detail, send us a note!

Overlooking Yelp Could Hurt Your Business

spaghetti and meatballs

As reported by Wired, Yelp is working on technology that allows them to efficiently analyze photos that are uploaded to their site in order to improve how users search for information about a restaurant. They’re essentially trying to automate curation of the photos in such a way that delivers the pertinent yet diverse information to their users. For example, instead of six photos showing same (albeit mouthwatering) plate of spaghetti from different angles, their technology will attempt to “bubble up the the best photos. The photo that’s going to let you go to that new hair stylist, or let you pick that wedding venue, or pick the restaurant to take a friend out to their birthday dinner.”

What does this mean for business owners? It means they should pay careful attention to their Yelp pages as this is a great example of how Yelp is being used for search. Yes, Google is still the almighty King, but Yelp is a platform that people consistently turn to for information about a business. Proper attention to Yelp pages begins with making sure information like address, phone number and hours of operation are accurate. However, it doesn’t end there. To get the most from your Yelp page, business owners should claim their Yelp pages in order to respond to reviews, add your own professional photos that put your business’ best foot forward, link to your website and also track user views and leads that Yelp generates.

Here at Fox Two Group, we understand that this adds yet another task to your already long to-do list. That’s why, as part of our SEO services, we help you claim your Yelp page, assist with creating rich content and monitor the impacts to your site traffic. We take care of this for you so you can get back to what really matters: running your business.

Using WordPress? Here’s How To Optimize

Entrepreneur recently posted seven tactics to optimize your website built on the popular WordPress content management system (CMS). The tactics were a bit basic and should be considered foundations as opposed to advanced optimization techniques. Nevertheless, the seven tactics were great to consider as they address some very important things to remember.

Here are the seven tactics the author suggested along with our added commentary:

Use a quality theme
- Choosing a theme to work with takes much more time than one would expect. The job isn’t done once you’ve found one you think looks nice and has the features you want. The theme has to be easy to work with as well. We definitely had our fair share of themes that didn’t work out because they were far too cumbersome to edit and make changes to. Luckily WordPress makes it easy to switch themes while saving your content. While some text entered directly into the theme appearance sections can be lost when switching themes, page content and structure remains intact.
Choose a good host
- This is good advice, but it goes for any site – not just WordPress sites. Choose a reliable host. That is, choose a host that can serve your website quickly and reliably. Also, if you’re likely using them for e-mail as well, make sure they don’t have chronic problems with their service. We advise looking at reviews for the host to see what other people are saying. As with all review sites (read: Yelp), sporadic mentions of issues aren’t typically cause for concern. Numerous and/or frequent complains are a red flag.
Plugins
- Unless you can code well yourself (in which case you might not be using WordPress), plugins are a way of life. Plugins are to WordPress as Apps are to Apple. Need your website to do something not included in your theme? There’s a plugin for that. Given the nature of WordPress, it’s easy to rack up a ton of plugins that you don’t need, especially if you’re trying out a lot of different themes that each use a couple of plugins themselves. Remove the ones you don’t need or aren’t using to keep your WordPress site running as quickly as possible.
Initial Settings
- The author wrote about making sure comment moderation and permalinks were set up mindfully. It’s definitely good to give your site thought during initial setup, but we aren’t sure this needed to be said.
Mobile
- Mobile formatting is paramount to the Search Engine Gods. There are countless studies that say mobile search is surpassing desktop search, translating to more mobile devices potentially browsing your site. It follows that making sure your site is mobile format friendly is incredibly important. Luckily, a lot of themes do this for you, further emphasizing tactic #1.
Security
- WordPress sites are typically fairly secure out of the box, but the author suggested using plugins (surprise!) to further secure your site. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not exactly an optimization in the traditional sense either.
SEO
- We feel that the fact the author included this as a tactic was a bit of a cop out. How do you optimize your WordPress site? By using SEO, of course. To be fair, the author did point to a plugin that we feel everyone should use: WordPress SEO by Yoast. However, we think that this was added more to allude to the fact that truly optimizing your site requires more than simple setup and plugins. Sure – it starts with that, but there’s so much more to do. Here’s a good resource to both learn more about what SEO is and perhaps how to get more from that plugin.

All-in-all, not a bad way to ensure your WordPress site puts its best foot forward on the path to being optimized.