411 Locals: It’s Been a While Since We Talked About Content — Page Title Optimization

People are visual creatures. This is why it is still strange that page titles are still one of the most overlooked aspects of SEO. Webmasters focus primarily on the technical bits, failing to realize that what they are crafting is not for search engines alone, it is for people above anything else. And people like to see interesting titles, not clickbaits of course, but engaging and enticing texts that make them stick around and see what you have to offer them. No matter if you want to improve the SEO of your website, enhance your content marketing strategy, or show off your optimization skills, titles are an important factor. Stick around and read some of the best practices that our team at 411 Locals has to share about page title optimization below.

Size Does Matter

Google displays around 50-60 characters of a page title, so your best shot is to aim for titles of around 55 characters or less, including spaces. The length of your title will affect how it appears in SERPs. If it’s too long, it will be cut off, and if it’s too short, Google might not deem it important enough to display at all. A good page title could have the following structure: main keyword, secondary keyword, company/brand name. It is important to have your primary keyword at the beginning of your title, so it does not get truncated.

Have Unique Titles on Every Page

Every page on your website is unique in its own way as it serves a specific purpose. Treat it as such. Aim to have a specific, descriptive title for each section on your site. It may sound like a difficult task given that there are hundreds of thousands of pages similar to yours, but fortunately for you, there are many CMS and code-based templates that allow you to create data-driven and unique titles for the most important pages on your website.

Don’t Forget to Use Your Target Keyword

Google uses the title of a page as one of the main ways to determine what that page is about and how relevant it may be to a search query. Therefore, having your target keyword in your title will help you appear in more SERPs. Do not try to trick the system by stuffing your title with keywords because Google can easily penalize you for spam.

There is a lot more to the perfect page title optimization strategy than what we discussed above, but there are still some trade secrets which we, at 411 Locals, keep to ourselves and our valued clients. If you wish to be one of them, let our SEO company help you reach new heights with your business!

Local SEO Delivered More Sales to Small-Businesses

It’s the Information Age. That means a company’s rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs) can be the difference between profitability and bankruptcy, especially for service businesses that rely on local traffic.

By now, almost all entrepreneurs are aware of the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). It’s a means of optimizing a webpage in order to so have high rank in the SERPs.

Indeed, one regularly failed to see flavor of SEO is Local SEO intended to reach clients within a relatively small geographical area. It’s really important to small and medium-sized businesses that are targeting local audience.

411 Locals is an Internet advertising agency that specializes in Local SEO, among other digital marketing tactics. The company was able to use Local SEO to improve the fortunes of three businesses.

1. Top Rank Movers

Top Rank Movers is a moving company that serves Franklin and Green Hill, Tennessee. The company handles both residential and commercial moves as well as local and long distance transportation. Additionally, Top Rank Movers offers safe, secure storage for people who simply need to tuck things away for a little while.

Melissa Rogers founded the company in 1996. She noticed, however, that not a whole lot of people were discovering her business online. So, she partnered with an ad agency to improve the company’s visibility.

It did not go so well.

“We wanted to be on the map,” she said. “Our previous marketing subcontractors couldn’t get it fixed when we, at last did start noticing some results they were never stable.”

That’s when Rogers got in touch with 411 Locals. The company put in place a plan and the results were almost instantaneous.

“Within two weeks I saw results!” she said.

It’s not always that quick with SEO efforts. Typically, optimization results aren’t fully realized for a few months.

However, Rogers isn’t complaining that her company was the exception to the rule. She claims that her business experienced a 100% turnaround.

2. Weaveologist Melessa Denee DE

In New Castle, Delaware, Melessa Denee runs a hair salon that specializes in celebrity-quality weaves. That’s the type of business that almost exclusively survives on local foot traffic.

However, Denee noticed that her business had been “below average.” It was a classic story of a great business offering fabulous service, but not enough people knew about it.

As a result, she contacted 411 Locals for some increased visibility. The company determined which keywords were being used by paying customers in search engines and tailor-fit a marketing campaign accordingly. Additionally, 411 Locals gave the salon some social proof by ensuring that Denee’s very positive reviews were visible to anyone looking for a weave in the New Castle area.

The results? Denee saw her sales increase 50%.

3. Twins Movers

In spite of the name, Twins Movers is not located in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. It’s located in Washington, D.C.

For about 15 years, Twins Movers has offered professional moving services to people in the nation’s capital. The company strives to make the “relocation process go as smoothly as possible.”

In this case, business was actually going well. However, company founder Isaac Levy knew that Twins Movers needed more exposure to the online community. Specifically, Levy said that he needed help “getting customers to the website so they could see the quality of work we do.” He reached out to 411 Locals.

The goal here was easier said than done. Twins Movers needed to be on the first page in the SERPs.

The folks at 411 Locals got busy optimizing the site and working their white hat magic. Within just two months, Levy had noticed a difference.

As a result of the Local SEO, Twins Movers saw an average of 3% increase in business each year, with a 25% increase at its peak. Now, the company is on Page 1 in the SERPs for a whopping 20 of the keywords that customers search for.

That’s not an insignificant accomplishment for a company with stiff competition in a populous city.

Wrapping It Up

Businesses that are offering outstanding products or services to a local community but aren’t seeing growth in top and bottom line results should look to Local SEO as a means to improve their visibility. Like the three companies mentioned here, they stand to see a marvelous turnaround.

Long Content at All Cost Can Backfire – Why and What Is the Solution

One of the most frequently encountered problems that SEOs and freelancers are facing repeatedly is how to make a service page longer when the service itself is boring, straightforward, vague or some nauseating combination of those elements. Then the average SEO specialist finds comfort in the mantra: “Google loves longer content”. Well, that's not necessarily the case.

While it's clear that on average, long-form content wins engagement, climbs the SERP and triggers sharing, it does not make long-form content attractive. Or from another point of view, if it was true, then it would be like the false notion that books are better when they have lots of pages. Imagine if William Shakespeare only wrote poems about peasants toiling for the Crown, and if he used only the same fifteen or twenty words in every single poem. So what can we add up here? It is clear that:

Longer content doesn't equal great content;
Writing longer content shouldn't be your primary goal;
Longer content is not the one and only factor for higher rankings and more shares;

There are many factors that show the downside of that overall trend. It's the constant rise of abandonment rates, the shrinking attention spans and the modest percentage of people who actually read long content to its end. Furthermore, many of the latter not only skip the end paragraphs – they also scan through the body, without reading every word or sentence.

So what are the characteristics of readable and sharable content:

The right content answers the queries of the visitors and help them complete their goals;
It gives great user experience no matter what is the visitor's choice of browser or device;
Saves time by delivering the sought-after information and experience quickly;
Combines the aforementioned elements better than the competitors;

Now let's see some examples. First, you should create content that helps people and do it efficiently. You should match your content to your audience's needs and your business/personal goals. Hundreds of additional words will not help you reach your goals any more than ten more words. Never write an ultimate guide where a single image could more powerfully convey the same value. Just like actions speak louder than words, a single relevant picture is worth a thousand words.

Next, you should always made a clear distinction between user-friendly, content-friendly and SEO-friendly characteristics. These are three different nuances of your website and if one of those three pillars is crumbling, the end result will never be satisfying;

While content is king, the audience is the queen. And just like the queens from the classic novels, the audience wants the relevant information. And it wants it now. So if you still think that those long and detailed guides are worth more than shorter and smarter pieces of information, which are keyword-rich and have lots of multimedia, please reevaluate your strategy before it's too late.

777 Spa Massage

It is a marketing video we made for our client 777 SPA Massage

Keyword Research Part II: Methods of Keyword Research Different Than Using Keyword Planner

As I mentioned in the previous article, you have a few possible options to find new phrases and synonyms. And these options are not necessarily confined in the Keyword Planner of Google. In general, your possibilities for keyword research include:

1. The classical methods;
2. Forums;
3. Wiki;
4. Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools);

The Classical Methods include AdWords, checking competition (Ctrl+U for source of webpage) and Google Suggest.

Competition Research

Just open a competitor site and explore what kind of keywords he has used in his copy (text). Look in the headings, the beginning of the paragraphs, in image titles. You can also check the source of the web page (Ctrl+U). There you can look for “keyword” (use Ctrl+F) tag and check what they have entered. Bear in mind – not everyone is putting their keywords there. Then you can copy/paste those words in Google Keyword Planner (GKP). Do you remember that “Your landing page” section just under the field where you enter the words? Paste the competitor's URL there. Use the filters and you can get some really neat suggestions.

Google Suggest

Simply type your keyword in Google Search. At the bottom you will find a few suggestions from the engine. When you find something relevant, go one step deeper. There you can find even more synonyms. All of them you can put in GKP to see if the words are worth it.
Advanced Search

The methods above are rather basic and most of the other SEO specialists and writers will use them. So you need something unique. Here are a few suggestions where you can look for keywords:

Forums;
Wikis;
Articles, Reddit subreddits, Moz categories;
Google Webmaster Tools;
Pinterest boards;

Forums

There you can find content written by users. This is very useful, because you will know how a user calls a service. Every topic could be a potential niche and a potential article for your clients! When you find the right thread (use for example “keyword”+”forum/board/forums”) you can paste the URL in GKP. Wikis, competitor sites, Pinterest boards and other URLs can be used the same way.

Webmaster Tools

You can use them to check how people find your website. If you have a new one, it wouldn't be in much use in the beginning. But as soon as you gain some visits, queries or if you already have some, you will be able to see how the users have found your website. For example, you notice that 4 people have seen the site while searching for “app for cleaning house” and there is even one click. Let's say you haven't worked for this word and you have just discovered a new variation of a main phrase. Run in through GKP to check search volume.

The 5 Ranking Factors Working for Your 2016 SEO

On quarter of 2016 have passed and the rankings you worked so hard for are not moving? But how is that happening when you're creating nice, readable content and generating high-profile links? The key to the answer is that the world of SEO is a place where some factors outweigh others and the end result depends on which strategies should be incorporated in your future campaign. 

So which factors are the most important for the rest of the year? This is one of those loaded questions that would force me to accept a questionable premise merely by answering it. However, I can dignify it with a reply by pointing out the strategies that worked for me so far this year:

1. The post-Mobilegeddon conditions for your site to be mobile-ready. You have three options: responsive design, which serves the same html code on the same URL regardless of the users' device, but can render the display differently, based on the screen size; dynamic serving, which uses the same URL regardless of device, but generates a different version of HTML for different device types based on what the server knows about the user’s browser; separate URLs – it serves different code to each device, and on separate URLs, trying to detect the users’ device and redirect to the appropriate page using HTTP redirects, along with the Vary HTTP header. 

And one more thing: you should apply SEO for the apps on your website.

2. Transferring your website to HTTPS. The whole idea of the “S” in HTTPS is the safety of your URL. Google openly encourages the migration from HTTP to HTTPS by giving a ranking boost to sites going HTTPS.

3. Schema.org. This is the essential markup to put in the code for 2016. Basically, this addition will make the crawling of your website so easy that over time, the markup itself might go to the rankings, as the leading search marketing gurus predict - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-structured-markup-ranking-purposes-20885.html Schema will point out your logo, the testimonials page, your whereabouts and so forth.

4. Actively seeking links to your site. The old tactics still work – writing long pieces of content, publishing them in highly-trusted places, making your content viral. To enhance the initiative, you can invest in tools. For example, the paid features of Majestic SEO will allow you to analyze the links of your competitors. You will be free to choose a similar strategy for your link building. 

5. Bring content creation to a whole new level by becoming an influencer. The proper use of keywords for your posts is the essential part of your content-marketing strategy. You should post and publicize your content on a regular basis. However, you will earn even more credibility if you build your own audience. To ease up the process, you can add a nice tool to your Twitter account. It is called Audiense – the same tool that was previously known as SocialBro. 

It will show you the metrics of your Twitter profile, including the influence you have over your audience. The more people you influence, the more you can convince the search engines that you are a subject-matter expert. 

411 Locals’ Oldies but Goldies - 5 Evergreen White Hat SEO Techniques That Work

You probably know that Google frequently changes the Search Engine Algorithms. Updates take place on an almost regular basis. Just last year (2015), 5 significant updates were rolled out. Furthermore, with the beginning of 2016, Google announced two more updates.

If you are a small or medium size business owner, then  you, or your SEO company, should take immediate action in response to these Google updates Complying with the latest changes is imperative if you want your website to be competitive and visible on the first page. Think of Google’s algorithm as  legislation- a law that changes every year.

Regardless of the changes, there are  5 basic evergreen SEO techniques that should be considered:

1. Choose your hosting and domain name wisely. The first thing you need to do is think of how people will eventually find you on the web. This process is usually referred to as Keyword Research. The more relevant the keywords are to your business, the better. Once you have your keywords, it is time to decide upon a domain name. The best practice is to use short and easy-to-remember domain names. Additionally, make sure the domain is highly relevant to your business name and/or location.  For example, if you run a construction business in Chicago, and the name of your company is Titan Build, then your domain name should be something like titanbuildch.com. Last, but not least, choose reliable hosting services over cheaper ones. You need to make sure your hosting adheres to at least the basic SEO guidelines.

2. Having a cool design for your website is not always enough. Your website has to fulfill two basic roles simultaneously: to sell your service and/or product, and to be searchable. As you know, tireless spiders crawl the web 24/7, collecting and analysing data. Ranking comes as a result of these actions. Your main goal is to make sure that spiders can easily crawl all the relevant information on your site.. In order to do that, you need to take into consideration factors such as web page layout, site structure, keyword consistency, user experience and mobile friendly navigation.. In a next post, I will elaborate on these factors.

3. You may have heard already that content is King - that’s never an understatement. Spiders love fresh and unique content. They will highly appreciate your distinctive website description. Make sure you take your time to provide unique, clean and understandable description for every one of your services or products. Google will rank higher the websites that expose quality content. Make the content not just informative but useful, with a lot of interesting, updated, and helpful information. For example, share your experience and advice with others - no matter if they are customers, visitors, or even competitors. In return, they might comment or share your content, and this will be a great signal to Google. Write content for your audience, and let them be your social ambassadors.

4. Remember - use only white-hat backlink strategies.For your website  to be recognised as an important and popular, you need to work on your backlinks. This can only be achieved with whitehat backlink strategies. The black hat SEO techniques and link building strategies can provide you with fast results, but once Google finds out, the website will be penalized for a long time.
   Here are a couple of examples of white hat backlinking strategies:

• Share your experience with others using blogs and forums.
• List your company in proper directories.

5. Have a blog where you post fresh content. This will help you achieve higher Google ranking. Having a blog is almost a must, but posting unique content in your blog regularly is more than a must. Google will highly appreciate it if you have other guest bloggers posting for you. Make your blog as useful as you can. This will increase the chances of popularity and sharing your posts in social networks. For example, provide case studies from you work or completed business projects. Back your words with relevant pictures and videos.