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7 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Marketing Firm

Finding the right digital marketing services is a huge step in the right direction. You can boost your business’s growth through better brand awareness, lead generation, sales, and customer retention. However, hiring the wrong digital ad and marketing firm can be a nightmare.

It’s easy to make mistakes while outsourcing the marketing services, especially when you skimp out on your research. Here are six common pitfalls that you need to avoid when searching for “marketing firms near me.”

1. Falling for Fancy Presentations

Some digital marketing firms create unrealistic expectations through shiny packages used to pitch to potential clients. The marketers usually layer the fancy “SEO audit” gimmicks with a “secret sauce” pitch. Don’t fall for the smoke and mirrors. There is no short-cut search engine optimization. It is a culmination of hard work, time, and patience.

2. Working with Marketing Agencies Without a Defined Plan

It is important to ask for a detailed plan with all the marketing goals outlined. Carry out enough research within your company to set clear goals and expectations for the marketing firm. You don’t want to sign up for services that you do not require. Always ask for a written service agreement stipulating all terms and conditions of the contract.

3. Disregarding the Company’s Experience

Organic marketing may take years to master, with most experts regarding it as an art. You may need to choose a company with a proven track record. Ask to see past case studies within your industry. Find out how the company helped them achieve their goals. Rookie mistakes can be costly and can negatively impact your brand image.

4. Choosing the Cheapest Digital Marketing Services

Be wary of results for “online marketing firms near me” that quote extremely low prices — way below the industry average. In the quest to achieve the targeted ROI, the cheap SEO agencies tend to turn to black-hat techniques such as paid links and keyword-stuffed content. It may result in penalties and damage to your business reputation. Remember, in business, you will always get the quality of service you pay for.

5. Focusing Only on Local Firms

While it is tempting just to Google “marketing firms near me” and choose the top-listed agency, it may not always be the wisest idea. The beauty of technology is that it allows firms to offer digital marketing services from any part of the world. You do not have to sell yourself short by fixating your mind on only local agencies.

6. Not Choosing a Full-Service Marketing Agency

Some digital marketing firms today only specialize in one area. The specialization can be on SEO, social media marketing, PPC advertisement, or perhaps web design services. While it may be perfect for their business model, it may not be right for you. All the facets of the digital marketing space are vital in creating an effective long-term strategy.

7. Not Following Up on References

Client testimonials on marketing firms near you can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of individual firms. Ask for references to past clients and follow up. Ensure you get to know their experiences, level of satisfaction, and the results delivered.

Outsourcing your marketing services can often prove to be the best route for business growth and success. Avoiding these seven mistakes can place you in the right trajectory to increased revenue.

Is PPC Still A Thing?

You likely have heard all about how organic traffic is the best, but how do you get to the point where your traffic is organic? PPC that is how. Pay per click advertising is still very much alive and well, and still a necessity.

PPC advertising is an excellent bridge between getting started and getting to the point of regular organic flow. PPC is a must when you first launch your website.

What is Pay Per Click?

Pay per click advertising is a way to drive traffic to your website. Your website is advertised on other websites, and you pay a fee to the other website owner every time someone clicks on your ad and navigates to your website.

The fee structure can vary. It is an easy way to drive traffic to a new website from a well-established website. It is worth the small investment to get your website shared among a target audience.

In the early days of internet marketing, PPC found its footing. It was one of the most powerful tools available in the early days. Today, it has not lost its steam. It is still one of the best ways to get traffic to a new website.

Your marketing strategy should include a PPC campaign that draws attention to your website and builds a strong foundation for other marketing strategies.

Why Is It a Good Option?

PPC is a great tool for driving traffic but that is not its only function. It can help lend credibility to your website as well. When visitors are at a site that they have a trusted relationship with, they assume that if that site is connecting to your site, then your site is equally trustworthy.

Of course, it can also help to establish your authority in your field. Connecting with the best SEO services Fort Worth has to offer can ensure that your PPC campaign is a success and you benefit from all the value that it has to offer.

If driving traffic to your website is your goal, and it should be then a strong PPC program is a way to get started. All you need is the right support to pull together a winning strategy. Pay per click should always be a part of your marketing arsenal, especially during the launch phase. Learn more about PPC and how it can help to build a strong internet presence for your business.

The Importance of Backlinking to Your Business Website

‘Backlinking’ is one of the most commonly used terminologies in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world. Link building continues to play a crucial role in offsite SEO as they help build your website domain as well as rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs.) With a professional digital marketing company, you can develop an effective SEO strategy that incorporates robust backlinking techniques for your website.

What Are Backlinks?

A ‘backlink’ is a one-way hyperlink on another site that directly links back to your website. Backlinks are simply incoming links to your webpages. Link building dates back to the early days of ‘PageRank’- the Google algorithm almost entirely relied on backlinks to rank websites on SERPs. Even with multiple updates and upgrades to search engine algorithms, backlinks continue to be one of the three leading ranking signals.

However, you need to ensure that your link building avoids links from spammy sources. The Google update-Penguin focuses on link quality and not quantity, and may penalize your site for using black-hat SEO strategies while backlinking to your site. Your goal should be to have quality backlinks from authoritative websites.

Here is why you need to take backlinking seriously to ensure business growth:

1. Improve Rankings on SERPs

Link building can significantly improve your website search engine ranking. Backlinks act as direct indicators on how search engines such as Google believe your site to be. Backlinking contributes to your page authority, thus allowing your website to rank higher for specific keywords. If your content continuously gets links from other authoritative sites, you may secure a spot in the coveted first page. Ranking higher enables your business to edge your competitors by getting quality leads and better conversion rates.

2. Increased Referral Traffic

Backlinks are essential in driving referral traffic to your site. The links provide web visitors with a chance to follow an authoritative voice within the industry, thus increasing your organic traffic. The referral traffic may be from an informative blog post, an elaborate how-to video, or perhaps a detailed infographic that points back to your site. The referral traffic has a direct impact on your online reputation, thus allowing more consumers to trust your business.

3. Faster Indexing

Backlinking plays a vital role in your web performance. Search engine crawlers discover new webpages through backlinks from existing sites. The spiders can only crawl your webpages effectively after coming across your website. Backlinks help the search engines to index your site quickly, thus promoting better ranking.

4. Improved Domain Authority

Backlinks from trusted and popular websites build your webpage and site authority online. When trusted domains continually link back to your site, search engine bots see the links as a ‘vote of confidence’ for your website. With many ‘votes’ coming in, your site builds its strength and authority within your industry, thus ranking you higher. The more authoritative domains link back to your site, the more ‘link juice’ you enjoy. Domain authority builds trust, making it easier for consumers to accept your products.

Proper backlinking is an essential strategy for any online business. Backlinks can help build authority, rank you higher in result pages, and increase traffic to your site. Remember-only quality links count. Working with a digital marketing company can increase your chances of coming up with an effective link building strategy. For more information and tips on SEO and backlinking, please visit our website today.

The Basics of Link Building

In the early days of search engine marketing link building was always a hot topic, but somewhere along the line it kind of fell to the wayside. Not that link building is any less relevant today than it was in the early days of search engine marketing, but, it seems that it is just not talked about a lot.

The last few years the buzz in marketing circles has been built primarily around social media marketing, also a very worthy topic, but let us not forget how important link building is to the success of SEO.

For New Comers to SEO

If you are an SEO novice, you may not have gotten the memo on how important it is to “link” to other websites. If your marketing company is not talking about link building, it is time to get another full-service marketing agency on board.

Hyperlinks link pages together that allow search engines to crawl between the pages. Your own website pages are linked together. Other websites can link to your website. High-quality link building is a real art that requires a specialty skill set.

Why Is It So Important?

One of the main goals of an SEO campaign is to raise your website ranking in search engine returns. Link building helps search engines to decide how important your page is and where to rank it. Search engine crawlers are not just reading the content on your page to decide where to rank it, they are also checking to see if the content is authoritative enough to be cited by other sources.
They use an algorithm that considers how many links there are to your page. They are not only looking at the number of links pointing to your website but they are looking at the quality of the websites that are pointing to your website. The more external links there are from what search engines determine are high-quality pages the higher your ranking will be.
While linking is not the only factor, it can be a big factor on where search engines rank your page. Search engines like Google look at external links as a sort of vote of confidence that your website is legitimate.

The Landscape is Forever Changing

The link building environment is always changing which is why it is important that you have trusted digital marketing services on your side that keep up with the constant updates and changes. Choose the best SEO company Fort Worth has to offer to manage your SEO campaign and let them handle your link building needs.

Traditional vs. Digital Marketing: 5 Things You Need To Know

43% of global marketers have embraced digital marketing. In fact, half the budget of roughly 50% of these marketers goes to digital marketing, according to a Global Digital Outlook study conducted from 2017-2018. For your business to stay ahead of competitors, digital marketing service is something you need to seriously consider. But what is digital marketing?

Digital Marketing

If you have always wondered, “What is digital marketing?” you should know that the term refers to the promotion of services and/or goods using the internet. We are now living in the digital age, in which people around the world spend a considerable amount of time using digital platforms. This has drawn the attention of savvy business people today who can’t help but leverage the popularity of these platforms. Marketing entails connecting with clients at the right time and right place. Now that there are many customers online, digital marketing services can be of great help to your business.

From service providers to app developers, digital marketing services come with tons of advantages. Now that you already know what is digital marketing, keep reading to learn about its benefits.

1. Wallet-Friendly

Advertising and marketing costs are among the biggest expenses that come with running a business. Sure, big corporates have no qualms with spending top-dollar for their advertisement and marketing needs. But when it comes to smaller businesses, this is usually an uphill task that can cause financial difficulties. Fortunately, marketing through social media, for example, can help scale down marketing expenses. This means that you will create the needed marketing impact at a fraction of the cost.

An email marketing service provider can help you send direct or transactional emails to hundreds of clients. Considering that this will only cost a few bucks, digital marketing helps save money that can address other expenses. Remember that reducing operating costs is a big plus in today’s harsh economy.

2. Great Return on Investment

When in business, nothing is more important than getting the best ROI (Return On Investment). This is what digital marketing does best, given that a small investment will come with a generous return. Social media and email marketing campaigns are affordable, but the same cannot be said about traditional marketing.

3. Simple To Measure

Truth be told, evaluating the efficacy of traditional marketing methods means waiting for weeks, if not months. However, you’re able to know how an ad is faring on at the click of a button with digital marketing. Email marketing, for instance, paints a clear picture of how many emails got delivered and read. With such data, you have all you need to know about conversion rates.

4. Easily Adjustable

Knowing how a digital ad is performing helps in figuring out the way forward. You’re likely to invest more in an ad that delivers excellent conversion rates. On the flip side, an advert with dismal performance can easily be adjusted or even stopped.

Things are more rigid with traditional marketing, where tons of paperwork have to be signed. What is more, the majority of the agreements are on a medium to long-term basis. Although a marketing campaign might be on a downward spiral, you’ll have to wait for the agreed-upon period to expire. Such a situation will mean that your hard-earned money will have gone down the drain.

5. Brand Development

Digital platforms have what it takes to build your company’s reputation and brand. Social media pages, blogs with quality articles and top-notch websites help develop brands. What is more, digital marketing comes with sharing features that make multiple followers learn about your brand. This multiplier effect means that even people who are far away learn about your products or services. Increased brand visibility, in the end, boils down to increased sales.

Summing Up

What is digital marketing, and does my business really need it? This is a question that crosses the minds of many business owners across the world. Now that you already know what digital marketing is, your answer should be an emphatic yes! Business competition in the 21st century is nothing short of cutthroat and giving your marketing campaign a boost is prudent. You can never go wrong with digital marketing — the above reasons are enough evidence.

The Many Benefits of SEO Services

Everyone knows just how important a website is for their business, but not everyone has caught on to how important search engine optimization, or SEO, is for their success. Blogs that utilize search engine optimization usually see increased organic traffic compared to those who don’t utilize optimized content. It has been discovered that businesses with a blog that receive 16 blog posts per month see 3.5 times more visitors to their site compared with businesses that post four or fewer blog updates per month.

Knowing how important blogs and SEO content are, it’s a wonder why many companies neglect to optimize their content as they should. One reason could be time. Producing blogs is time-consuming, especially when there are core operations to worry about. Another reason is a lack of knowledge, as SEO can be a confusing concept to execute. This is where companies can benefit from choosing an SEO firm to handle their blogs and content. The benefits are numerous, as we see below.

Efficiency

Businessowners spend countless hours tending to the needs of their business. Although SEO content is important, other priority tasks might put optimization on the back burner. Choosing an SEO firm can allow your business to thrive both online and offline. Professionals provide fresh content that will help to drive organic traffic to your site and convert leads into customers. This allows you to spend time focusing on other aspects of your business while still receiving relevant content optimized for search.

Cost Savings

When you consider other ways to market your business, your wallet takes a hit. Internet marketing is significantly cheaper and is more effective than traditional forms of advertising. Television and radio marketing cost a pretty penny, while print ads don’t come cheap. Moreover, digital advertising and organic search engine marketing often provides better results in a tech-driven world. In other words, you’ll get more for your money. The maximum number of people will be reached and minimum resources will be wasted in this process.

Expertise

When choosing an SEO firm to handle your content for your business, you are hiring a knowledgeable professional. Your SEO provider has devoted ample time to their training, meaning that they’re far more knowledgeable about the newest trends (and outdated techniques). They are there to provide what you need, so you can be sure that you getting the best service to provide the best results for your business. This not only helps drive more traffic to your website, but it gives you the upper hand when it comes to competing with other similar websites or businesses. New and relevant information can help your search results skyrocket.

Results

The purpose of hiring an individual or a company is so that they can produce results. When choosing an SEO firm to handle your web presence, you shouldn’t be guaranteed any specific results. For example, a quality SEO firm will not make claims about getting your site to show up on page one of Google search results within a particular amount of time. However, they will have to know-how to prove to you over time that these techniques can work wonders. Many firms are equipped with the necessary tools needed to provide exactly what you are looking for within your budgeted allotment. They can develop a plan an implement it faster than you can research all the information surrounding seo content.

It goes without saying that SEO is an important part of any marketing strategy. But knowing how to utilize SEO techniques properly is essential. Shop around and research companies to find the one that can provide the best results. With properly optimized content, you can achieve the results you want with your website.

New 2020 SEO Tactics Dominate Social Media

2020 holds much potential for business owners who want to improve their social media marketing. Such a fast-paced, ever-evolving, and swiftly growing platform as social media requires that your business stays on top of trends and changes. This can be a daunting task, especially if you do not have marketing experts as part of your team. It takes more than just making posts on social media platforms to fully dominate social media marketing. You need the services offered by a digital marketing company that can custom tailor a social media marketing plan just for you.

Keep Customers Engaged

Currently, there are over 3.3 billion active users online across the globe. What better way to generate interactions with those users than social media? A comprehensive strategy, creativity, the correct tools and partnership with a social media marketing company all ensure that you are able to take advantage of the social media phenomenon. What business doesn’t want to improve their brand image and become even more successful?

The whole point to using social media is to keep your customers engaged. There are many social media marketing benefits that can help your business stay ahead of competitors. This includes using recommended social media marketing trends on top platforms to connect with target audiences, introduce new features, communicate, and share content with other users, family, and friends.

Do You Know Which Social Platform Is the Best?

Keeping your business operational on a daily basis takes time. Do you have enough time in your busy schedule to keep up with social media? Do your employees have enough time or expertise? It takes more than just adding posts on social media. Furthermore, do you know which platforms would truly benefit your business? Social media marketing specialists do.

Per the Social Media Marketing Industry Report, two-thirds of marketers stated that Facebook is the most significant social platform. Marketing experts know how to use social media SEO to propel your business so you stay active on top platforms used by your customers as well as a plethora of potential customers. Your marketing will reach new heights when geared to include online platforms in 2020.

It Pays to Listen

Social selling and lead generation are both integral aspects when it comes to gaining more customers using online platforms. Social listening can help further both aspects when it comes to SMM. Social listening tools can be implemented for you that help find potential prospects across many sites for social media. Consider this to be a tool that locates people asking about your industry so you can effectively nurture leads into paying prospects and convert them to loyal customers.

Complete Social Media Strategies with Live Video

Live video content still dominates. It fits perfectly on any online platform, but not without a video marketing strategy. More platforms and devices are supporting video formats, especially live video. In 2019 alone over 3.5 billion live broadcasts were seen on Facebook since 2016. What live video does for your business is to provide an element of trustworthiness to the public. More relevance is expressed for your brand which only puts you in a better light when it comes to increasing your customer base.

Provide a Meaningful Experience

There is a real need for meaningful content experiences. As a marketer, this means it is time to refocus and create content that is more engaging with an evocative experience for your target audience. Video format is king when it comes to social media platforms and connecting with interests and emotions of viewers is the royal decree.

Social Media Success Does Not Happen Over Night

It takes a lot of hard work and expertise when it comes to launching a successful social media campaign for your business. Marketing specialists will work incredibly hard and have the experience needed to ensure the proper utilization of online platforms. Let the experts handle your marketing online so you get started strong and stay in the lead.

SEO Mistakes to Stop Making in 2020

With a new year right around the corner, many businesses are feeling empowered to fine-tune their focus on marketing. By having the courage to make some much-needed changes, you may find yourself in an excellent position to succeed in 2020. Conversely, if you’re relying on outdated or ineffective SEO techniques, you could really be holding yourself back.

Of course, you’ll need to address search engine optimization, or SEO, when coming up with a viable strategy. But you’ll want to avoid the following mistakes when executing that strategy in the coming year. Otherwise, you might end up taking a big step backward with your business.

Focusing Only on Onsite SEO

Search engine optimization can be performed both on your own website and in other spaces online. Onsite and offsite SEO essentially work in-tandem to strengthen your authority on the web. In other words, you really do need both. While you certainly do need to optimize your own site, that can’t be the end of your efforts. You’ll also need to look at link building and other offsite techniques to ensure that you have a strong backlink profile and that your domain authority continues to rise. If you don’t, you’ll be missing some major pieces of the ranking puzzle.

Using Outdated SEO Techniques

This should go without saying, but you should no longer be using SEO techniques that are antiquated, ineffective, or essentially outlawed by Google. Some SEO services promise to give their clients desirable results through any means necessary — but if you don’t know that those tactics aren’t on the up-and-up, you might realize too late that you’ve done real damage to your brand online. Make sure that you — and any company you’ve hired to provide digital marketing help — are using the best practices for SEO. Simply put, methods like keyword stuffing, the use of link directories, purchased links, and more should be retired for good.

DIYing Your Online Marketing Strategy

Search engine optimization is ever-evolving — and notoriously complex. While you think it might make fiscal sense to take this task on yourself, this decision may end up costing you more in the long run. If you make a poor SEO choice, you’ll likely need to hire an expert to fix it. And in the meantime, you could lose out on leads and potential customers. At best, you’ll experience a sharp decrease in website traffic; at worst, Google might decide to eliminate your site from search results altogether. And since Google receives over 100 billion searches each month, that could have huge consequences. Essentially, SEO isn’t something you’ll want to figure out through trial and error. It’s much more efficient and cost-effective to hire a firm that’s totally devoted to your SEO success. With your time freed up and your SEO results improved, 2020 could become a huge year for your business.

By avoiding these big mistakes in the coming year, you’ll set yourself up for success. For more information on how we can help take your organization to the next level in 2020, please contact us today.

Online Marketing: How It Can Help Your Business

You have a business and you want to get the most out of it. Of course, you want your business to come to fruition and you want to really reach your online audience the most. Your online marketing efforts should be rewarded with a greater client base, more dedicated customers, and better search results.

Did you know that a majority of searches online start with a search engine? Reaching your end market with a social media marketing plan, among other tactics, will help you succeed.

So why do you need online marketing? Use this guide to assist you every step of the way.

You Learn SEO Tips From Professionals

You can learn SEO marketing tips from professionals in your area who will be able to teach you how to reach your end market well. From social media posting to increasing web traffic, you’ll want to use every resource at your disposal. Since most of your audience likely has a social media account of some kind, use their recommendations to help you learn more about what your audience wants.

You Can Find Out About Web Ads

In this digitally driven world, you can’t rely on print ads to ensure your business succeeds. Instead, you may need to place ads online to drive traffic to your website. That may involve the use of Pay Per Click (or PPC) ads. PPC ads can be highly effective, particularly if you need to increase your leads in a hurry. However, a digital marketing firm will be your best source for information on these. They can advise you about what to include in your online ads for maximum effectiveness and even run ad campaigns for you.

You’ll Obtain a Better Website

Your website, if it is easy to follow and is updated all the time, will allow your online marketing efforts to go far. If you pay close attention to what your online marketing is doing for you and your website, you’ll know how to grow. Otherwise, a stagnant website will do little to help you grow and you will spend your time and money on an online platform that isn’t doing much for you.

What are your goals with online marketing? Once you have this figured out, you can enhance your marketing career in many ways. You will be able to hire an SEO specialist to assist you in the things you set out to do.

Choosing the Right SEO Company: Why It’s Necessary in 2019

The right SEO company can be a game-changer for your business. In today’s market, no matter the size of your business, you should have online marketing working for you. The right SEO company will build an online marketing strategy that is focused on improving your visibility and obtaining improved results.

The best SEO services Fort Worth has to offer can help to build your online presence, improve your rankings with search engines, and generate leads for your business. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that SEO management is something you can do in the-house, however. This component of marketing is too important for you to DIY

Professional SEO Services Get Professional Results

As a small business owner, you likely have a lot to worry about already. Making some room to take care of onsite SEO for your website, manage social media, and worrying about developing organic traffic is likely not an option. Turning over your SEO needs to a professional SEO company is the solution.

The goal of any online marketing campaign is to reach your audience, engage with them, and convert them into customers. It’s a challenging process that requires focused attention, a strong skill set, and a constantly-evolving knowledge base.

In other words, SEO marketing is a full-time job. This is not something you want to take on alone. A good SEO company can manage all of your online marketing needs and let you stay focused on your core business responsibilities.

Keep in mind that an SEO company may also offer web design services as part of their package options. Since great web design may go hand-in-hand with search engine optimization, it’s a good idea to have both of these services handled by professionals with a wealth of experience. That way, you can be sure that your SEO strategy will be supported by the design of your website — and that when visitors find their way to your online hub, they’ll have no problem finding the right information and contacting you. After all, your SEO efforts won’t matter if consumers can’t figure out how to purchase your products or services.

Of course, you probably won’t get the web design or SEO results you’re after if you try to tackle those projects yourself. You may be an experienced business owner, but there’s virtually no way you can take your site and SEO efforts to a professional level if you’re not experienced in those areas. And because customers expect to have positive experiences online, these aren’t tasks you can simply phone in. By choosing the best SEO services Fort Worth has to offer, you’ll obtain a customized approach to online marketing that you will help grow your business. Best of all, you’ll be able to succeed in these areas without jeopardizing your other operations. For more information on our SEO and web design services, please contact us today.