Posts Categorized: Search Engine Optimization

2 Backlinking Mistakes You Probably Want to Avoid

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

Search engine optimization beginners and aficionados alike know that link building is an integral part of search engine marketing. The presence of your links on other websites tells Google’s algorithm that your own website is a quality source of information. Without these connections, Google might send your pages plummeting on its results lists.

Unfortunately, getting your links on other websites, or backlinking, isn’t an easy process. After all, you probably don’t have access to many other webpages, so you can’t just post your links and climb to the top of the results list.

To make matters more complicated, when done improperly, building backlinks on other sites can actually harm your rankings. Without a careful eye and light tread, your efforts could be worse than wasted.

Ensure your backlinking strategies do more good than harm for your rankings by avoiding these two critical mistakes:

2 Common Backlinking Mistakes

1. Not Varying Your Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the highlighted words that lead readers to your desired page when clicked. Ideally, the highlighted text should vary at least slightly from link to link. If the same two or three words are used as anchor text every time your link appears elsewhere on the web, your site looks less useful and inauthentic to Google’s algorithms. Also, use descriptive content that directly relates to your page as anchor text– if you use “click here,” the backlink won’t be as helpful your rankings.

2. Only Building Links to Your Home Page

Again, the point of backlinks, and SEO in general, is to help Google recognize that your website is relevant, useful, and informative. If all of your links lead to your homepage, Google will notice that you’re simply looking for more traffic and not actually providing readers with helpful content. Instead, vary your links to connect to blog posts, “about” pages, and any other media or content that readers and customers might find useful. This strategy will also help you rank for multiple keywords, rather than just the keywords featured in your home page text.

Only a quarter of SEO occurs on-page– the other 75% takes place off-page, meaning that backlinks occupy a huge portion of the optimization process. Unfortunately, backlinks don’t grow on trees. Creating quality backlinks requires genuine connections with other industry sites, luck, and well-written content to begin with. By avoiding these rookie mistakes, you’ll be better able to create a strong backlinking strategy. For more great online marketing tips and SEO services, check us out at Think Cre8tive today!

What Should I Expect From A Full Service Digital Marketing Agency?

Posted by & filed under Inbound Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website Design.

When you’re looking to grow your online digital marketing, choosing an SEO firm, a social media marketing company, or a website design company can seem like an impossible challenge. There are too many phone calls, too many people to speak to, and too many sites to visit.

Luckily, a full service marketing agency can be your one-stop-shop for everything digital marketing. Here’s what to expect from your full service digital marketing agency.

Website design

Web design services are essential when you’re crafting a website that appeals to potential customers. This means that your website should load quickly, be easily navigable, and render high-quality images in order to keep people on your site for longer periods of time. Though software design and development doesn’t seem like the most important part of your business, the quality of your web design could make or break a sale.

After all, your website is often the first thing that customers will notice about your company. It’s an essential part of your branding and strategy as a business and should never be overlooked.

Search engine optimization

Using an organic SEO marketing strategy is the best way to garner customers looking for your business. Your full service marketing agency will utilize onsite SEO, including blogs and keyword optimization, in conjunction with offsite SEO strategies, like backlinking, in order to build organic traffic. A reliable marketing company will only utilize white hat SEO tactics to comply with search engine standards od use.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing has become one of the most popular forms of digital marketing. Your full service digital marketing agency will help you craft a social media marketing plan to connect with customers who already utilize your services and reach out to new customers who are looking for a business like yours. In fact, 64% of consumers claim that they made a purchase after watching a marketing video posted to Facebook in 2017. This is just one of the many ways your digital marketing company can help form a great marketing strategy.

When you want the best from a full service marketing agency, rely on the team you can trust: at Think Cre8tive, we’ll help your business grow.

Marketing 101: A Guide To Organics

Posted by & filed under Inbound Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media.

When we talk about organic marketing, we’re not referring to the fruit aisle of the grocery store. Organic marketing is the best way to increase the levels of online traffic your website receives. Unfortunately, few businesses know how to effectively use organic marketing in their digital marketing strategy.

That being said, here’s everything you need to know about organic marketing in order to improve your search engine optimization and raise traffic to your website.

 

What is it?

Organic marketing is wide-reaching, but it refers to building web traffic to your site through natural methods over time. This differs from paid links or featured posts along with other paid marketing tactics.

Organic marketing encompasses a few different factors of online marketing: search engine optimization (SEO), backlinking, and social media use. These strategies allow your consumers to find your website naturally without influence from paid marketing schemes or other advertisements. It’s estimated that around 70% of links that people click on through a search engine are organic.

 

Why use organic marketing?

Compared to paid marketing, organic marketing has a higher lead-to-close rate. This means that many of the people who sign with your company choose to do so because they discovered you organically, not through paid marketing options. This is likely because your organic marketing strategies directly target consumers and businesses that need your products. When a user searches for “mobile app design,” your use of this keyword in blogs and backlinks will get you higher rankings on Google and other search engines. Because they need your product, they’ll want to work with you from the start.

Organic marketing is also essential when it comes to improving your site’s domain rating and trustworthiness. By establishing organic relationships with other, qualified, trustworthy websites, your own site will flourish, in turn. When you create great content on your site through informative, relevant blogs and news articles, you’re also more likely to become a source of information in your industry.

Organic marketing also seems more authentic than paid advertising. Of course, it takes both in order to run a proper business, but those you gain through organic advertising is vital. When you want to improve your website’s online marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out to Think Cre8tive today.

What Is Link Building And How Can It Benefit Me?

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

Link building is another critical asset to improving your digital marketing strategy. It’s a component of SEO and one that cannot be overlooked when you want to improve your offsite SEO. Here’s how link building works and what it can do for your company.

 

What is link building?

 

In short, link building is when you acquire hyperlinks from other websites that aren’t your own. It helps to build your website’s popularity. They essentially create backlinks on a separate page that connect back to your site. In a search engine-dominated world, it’s this popularity that’s going to make or break your authority on the web.

 

Link building works because trusted sites usually partner with other trusted sites. The more sites you partner with, the more traction your website will achieve. And the better your links will look when they’re embedded in another website’s content.

 

What does it do for me?

 

Again, trusted sites work with other trusted sites. Not only does link building establish your site as a trustworthy location, but it spreads your site’s information to a broader audience. This helps garner your site worldwide popularity, giving you higher hits on a search engine.

How often should I be link building?

 

Link building should be an essential component of your site’s search engine optimization strategy. As such, you should be link building with trustworthy sites often. Fresh links give Google new information to crawl. As you produce more content in your niche area, you can eventually become a trusted source of information in your field through organic marketing.

 

But don’t just think you can partner with any old site. Shady blackhat SEO tactics are a no-no on Google’s watch. This could get your website flagged, banned, or even sued.

 

Link building is just one of many SEO tactics you should be using to enhance your website’s digital marketing campaign and social media marketing strategy. Keep in mind that it’s a variety of strategies that garner the best results on the internet. For example, businesses that post upwards of 16 blogs will receive almost 3.5 times more online traffic than companies that post less than four blogs in a month.

 

When you want to revamp your company’s social media SEO and web development, contact Think Cre8tive today.

The Basics Of Backlinking (Part 2)

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

Welcome to Part Two of The Basics Of Backlinking!

In the first part, we laid the groundwork for backlinks, including a basic definition and explaining how it works on search engines.

Part Two will show you how to build backlinks for your website. Without further ado, here’s how to build great backlinks for your site.

Start with great onsite SEO

Without a great onsite article or webpage to link back to, you’re not going to gain traction among outside websites. By writing informative articles that people would naturally want to link back to, you’re setting yourself up for success. You should also utilize internal backlinking to connect your website’s pages to one another.

Keep your articles informative and relative to your business. You should also focus on a mix of short form and long form content as you build your onsite SEO. In fact, most marketing services claim great long form content that exceeds 1,000 words will regularly gain more shares and outgoing links by other websites who are interested in your great content.

Try guest blogging

Guest blogging relies on reaching out to quality websites and industries that would be willing to accept a guest article on their site. This helps to deliver them fresh content while you reap the rewards of backlinks.

Your writer would create an amazing article that backlinks to your site and provides informative content for the guest site’s blog. This is usually a one-time deal between websites, but it’s great for improving link juice.

Write news articles

Nearly all journalists and news writers will utilize backlinking in their news articles and press releases. Not only is this great information for the reader, but this helps promote link juice to source websites. It also validates the information in the article, making you a trusted news source.

Try partnering with a variety of websites on which you post news articles. It might take a bit of negotiating, but many websites rely on outside SEO services to deliver fresh content and boost their own domain ranking.

Use social Media

Social media is an essential tool for your online marketing strategy. No good marketing services will ignore the prevalence of social media in this day and age. When you use backlinks in conjunction with great social media engagement and advertising, your SEO strategy will flourish.

Social media sites will often post your business’s URL on your page. You can also link to great onsite articles to garner more interest among potential consumers. It can be tough since some sites don’t allow search engine crawlers to perform an index on their sites, but it’s still a great addition to your social media page. While guest blogs and news articles will get you more traction than social media, it’s still necessary to connect with your potential consumers.

These are some of the most popular forms of backlinks you can implement in your company. When you want to boost your digital marketing, choosing the right marketing services is crucial to your business’s development. Visit Think Cre8tive online when you want to improve your offsite SEO.

The Basics Of Backlinking (Part 1)

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

If you’re trying to improve your business’s online marketing, getting to know all the lingo and jargon associated with search engine optimization (SEO) can feel overwhelming. One of the most confusing aspects of digital marketing is backlinking.

But what is backlinking? Here’s some of the information you should know about backlinks before you implement this strategy in your online marketing strategy.

A basic definition

Backlinks are links on an outside website that link back to your webpage. This is an organic form of SEO marketing designed to boost your ranking on Google and other search engines without using shady, blackhat tactics. This is important since most internet users typically click on the first couple of websites that pop up on the results page.

Backlinks typically referred to as incoming links on a webpage, but they’re also known as inbound links, inlinks, or inward links as well. If a link is made on your website that redirects your reader to another website, this is known as an outgoing link.

What does it do?

You want to partner with or utilize outside websites that link back to your page. In theory, this allows you to reach a broader audience when people read the outside website. When they do, they will be linked to your website if they follow the link.

But backlinking also promotes a number of other SEO tactics.

Backlinks help promote link juice, a ridiculously funny phrase that’s essential to boosting your page ranking and improving your website’s domain authority. When you have strong backlinks, search engines are better able to find your website and perform necessary crawls which helps to index your site.

Essentially, the more great websites link back to your page, the higher your website will rank in turn. Avoid shady websites, however. Spam sites and other low-quality sites can make your website look even worse. You should also ensure your backlinks are relevant. Poorly placed backlinks is a poor SEO strategy, akin to keyword stuffing.

Keep in mind that nearly 75% of SEO occurs off-page, meaning that this is a strategy to use in conjunction with building your onsite SEO. Look out for Part Two of The Basics Of Backlinking!

How To Use SEO To Change Your Company’s Name

Posted by & filed under Branding, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design.

There are countless reasons a company may require a name change. Did your business change and grow into something new and the old name doesn’t apply anymore? Maybe the name is hard for your customers to remember.

Here are some important considerations if you want to update your business’ name.

Keep it relevant

Utilizing a strong keyword in your business’ new name is vital to your online marketing. Businesses with a strong keyword in their name rank an average of 1.5 times higher than those without keywords in the name.

For example, if you run a lawn care business, naming your company “Jack Attacks” has a nice ring to it, but it’s unlikely your potential customers will know what you sell, even if you’ve utilized the best web design services for your business. Instead, choosing a name like “Jack’s Lawn Care” will give your customers a better idea of what you do and you’ll rank higher on search results.

Make it unique

Be careful with your name, however; a keyword is great, but it’s going to have to compete with countless other businesses with similar names. Let’s look back at Jack’s Lawn Care. There are hundreds of other lawn care services that utilize that phrase in the title. While “Jack” does a good job differentiating your business from the white noise, the “lawn care” keyword is still likely to bring up thousands of other search results.

Highly searched phrases just don’t bring in the bacon like they used to. Fun homophones or spelling your business the way it sounds might be a fun option. For example, Reddit was derived from Read It. By changing the spelling, the company got name-brand recognition with minimal effort. For Jack’s Lawn Care, a marketing company might recommend something like Green Thumb Lawn Care or Unbeleafable Lawn Care.

Don’t change everything

You need to be aware that your company is still the same enterprise; as such, you need to inform your current clients of the change as you try to get new ones. For example, your business might want to update your email, but keep your number the same.

While updating your website with reliable web design services will help transform your image, you might want to include a note with your old name somewhere on your homepage. The first few months during your transition will be difficult, but keeping your customers informed should be your first priority.

When you want to change your business’ name, rely on the best digital marketing company to help lead you through your SEO optimization. With Think Cre8tive, you’ll have the best in SEO marketing and web design services at your disposal. Visit them online today for more information.

How To Improve Your Local SEO Marketing Strategy

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

Many businesses that want to improve their SEO marketing strategy forget to focus on localized SEO. While it’s important to grow your online business, it’s even more important to cater to your local consumer.

Luckily, social media marketing benefits your in-store business as well. Your consumer will enjoy you taking a special interest in your local community. Without further ado, here are some ways to improve your local onsite marketing.

Target geography in your keywords

Geographic keywords are a great way to narrow your search results within your local community. If your small business is located in Florida, you’re not going to want to highlight Nevada or California.

When you build your geographic SEO content, use keywords like “marketing company Miami” or “SEO company Florida.” While you won’t be able to reach people looking to utilize your services across the country, you’ll be able to target local individuals who need your in-store options.

Build links locally

Building local links within the area keeps it concentrated in one location. It’ll also make it more likely for fans of other local websites to find your page through backlinks. Including statistics from local sources not only makes your business seem more authentic, it’s a marketing strategy that has proven to work time and time again.

This form of organic link building can help reach more and more people in your area. In fact, 70% of the links users click on are organic. So, get link building if you want to make an impact.

Hire a professional

Digital marketing can be hard to wrap your head around, but your business won’t flourish without help. If your business doesn’t have an online marketing strategy or wants to improve their current strategy, sometimes it’s best to leave it in the hands of the professional.

A good marketing company will work with your business to ensure your strategy suits your needs. They’ll also offer a slew of other perks including web design, advertising, and maybe even pay per click options through social media. They will be able to help you craft a social media marketing plan and help your business drum up local foot traffic.

If you haven’t contacted Think Cre8tive online, there’s always time to improve your SEO marketing with a professional. Visit their site today when you want to get serious about managing your local SEO content.

Here’s How To Make Keywords Work For Your Onsite SEO Blog

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

If your online presence needs some help, there’s no better way of promoting your company than by utilizing keywords in your content. If you don’t understand keywords, have no fear: keywords are easy to use if you understand them. Over 53% of online marketing companies utilize blog content as a top priority among their marketing services.

Here’s how to make keywords work for your company.

Understanding keywords

Keywords, or phrases, are the commonly used phrases that people type into search bars. “Restaurants near me,” “HVAC repair,” and “How to use Keywords” are all examples of information people might type into a search engine. To get your online blog more hits on Google, or Yahoo, or Bing, incorporating keywords into your digital marketing strategy is key.

Types of keywords

There are a few different types of keywords available for your onsite SEO strategy: broad match, exact match, and phrase match.

Broad match keywords are keywords that focus on broad topics. They don’t get very specific and that will enable it to reach a wider, more randomized audience. This is because more people will commonly search for broad terms than specific, location-based keywords. This type of keyword will also yield more results.

Exact match keywords are the hyper-specific keywords that are designed to reach your niche audience. This is a word-for-word search of your keyword, putting you higher than your competitors on Google searches or Yahoo searches. This will yield in less traffic than broad matches, but it will help your main audience reach your site.

Phrase match keywords are a blend between the two. It might rely on geographic locations, but it might not have your specific business name. For this type of match, it’s best to use it in conjunction with the other two.

All these types of keywords should be utilized in your blog for the best results in your internet traffic. Tailor it to your business and product but don’t get so hyper-focused that no one will search for your keyword.

How to implement them

There are many factors that go into your onsite SEO but keywords are some of the best. For your blog, you should try to use the targeted keyword in your title and scatter it a couple times throughout the piece, supporting it with other keywords that your audience might look for. Using keywords around links or within links is also a great way to connect to a wider audience.

Onsite SEO strategies offer a plethora of options for the digital marketer. When you want to create a blog, you need the best SEO services to back you up. Talk to Think Cre8tive for more information today.

How Search Engine Optimization Experts Use Blog Posts

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

seo companies near meIn digital marketing circles, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a pretty big deal. It even gets some press outside of the marketing world, and it’s been piquing the interest of budding businesses everywhere. The questions on everyone’s mind are: what is SEO and how can I use it to help my small business grow?

What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is the process of utilizing knowledge about search engine ranking algorithms to place content as close to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) as possible. Before any optimization or content creation takes place, your business needs to know which keywords to try and rank on. Find specific phrases that potential customers of your business would search on Google. When they search those words, the goal is to have the first result they see be a link to your website.

Of course, it is much more complicated than this, but keyword selection and research is the ultimate starting point.

How Can I Use It?
Practically everyone uses Google for research and making purchase decisions. If you want people to visit your website, you need to somehow make it visible. There are other strategies to accomplish this goal, but SEO is among the most cost-effective.

There’s a reason roughly 53% of marketers cite creating blog content as their top inbound marketing priority. Posting blogs regularly is a great way to integrate your chosen keywords and create linkable content. This strategy is a staple for ranking improvement, traffic generation, and becoming a more visible website. These blogs will also play another important role.

Which SEO Companies Near Me Should I Use?
You might be wondering do I even need to look for SEO companies near me? If you are, the answer is both yes and no. You can certainly create and post basic blog posts on your own, but getting links from other websites is another story entirely.

Great SEO companies are able to use your linkable content as the source for other factual articles written on sites that rank better than yours. Links from high-quality sites give your site more credibility. Backlinks and offsite SEO are important ranking factors that cannot be easily done by individuals without a large network.

All in all, SEO is much more layered and complicated than simply writing a huge volume of articles. That is, however, the best place to start for any SEO beginners.