Let's Chat! 1-(888) 262-6687

SEO

Get our latest news about SEO and our other online marketing services. Call us at 1-888-262-6687 to inquire about your marketing needs.

Posts

, ,

The Best SEO Tools to Have in 2019

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, can feel like such a rollercoaster. An out of control rollercoaster. A lost cause. A mind game of the most frustrating kind.

SEO is hard. There’s a reason there are experts in the subject. People who make it their life’s work to stay up to date on all the algorithm changes, best practices, new tools, and strategies that will continue to work long after Google has changed things up, yet again. Fortunately, many of these people are happy to share their knowledge, and their tools, on that beautiful thing: the Internet. Often for free. (In fact, all of the tools we’re going to send your way have both free and paid pro plans. When you’re just starting out, the free plans offer more than enough tools and useful information for your SEO purposes.)

So, even if you’re just starting out, complete with a healthy case of fear-of-the-SEO, it can actually be made a whole lot easier by listening to those people, taking their advice (lock that ego back in its box big fella), and using the tools designed to make your SEO implementation, and tracking, slightly less of a brain bomb.

Here, we’ll outline our 7* favourite SEO tools for 2019.

*Full disclosure: Honestly, we could have given you at least 7 more tools that we love, but SEO can be overwhelming enough without adding more options to your plate. After all, nobody enjoys bloat. Even with this list of 7, we recommend you choose just your top two to start with. Once you’ve got a handle on those two, add another one or two to your arsenal and keep building from there.

1. SEO Tool #1: Quality Content

Full disclosure: this one isn’t really a “tool” as such. But when it comes to winning at SEO, you can’t afford to ignore the fact that quality content is king. After all, as Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, once put it: “Content is the reason search began in the first place.”

With Google’s algorithms constantly changing, only one thing remains certain: if your content is good, if it’s relevant to your business, product or service, and if it matches user intent, you will get found online. What SEO does, is to make sure you’re found “immediately”, rather than “eventually”.

Don’t fall prey to those loudly touted quick fixes, tricks, and SEO hacks you’ll see popping up online with frightening regularity. Just like trying to beat the house in Vegas (baby), you’re not going to come out on top in the long run. Yes, you may very well get in a few, seductive quick wins, but trust us when we tell you, at the end of the night, you’re going to lose. What’s the old chestnut? Oh yes: the house always wins. With Google being the house here, in case you were wondering.

So hacks or con-type tricks or out. There’s no conning Google – or other search engines. They will always weed you out and slap you down.

Quality content is in. Start there.

Learn More: For more on how to write quality content, designed to win at SEO by putting your users, or customers, first, read our post on blogging for SEO here. Although this was written specifically with blogging in mind, most, if not all, of it can be applied to content in general.

Top Tip: Not sure how good your content is? Is it relevant, does it match user intent for your industry? Head over to Text Optimizer for a state of the nation-type broad overview of your website and its current content.

2. SEO Tool #2: Google Itself

We’ve already established that there’s no conning Google when it comes to SEO. As Phil Frost, founder and COO of Main Street ROI, reminds us, “Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users.”

The best way to partner with Google? Go to the source. Get your SEO help straight from the horse’s mouth. Go direct to, yep, you guessed it, Google.

Google itself has a number of extremely useful free SEO tools that would be completely insane to ignore. Starting with…

Google Search Console

Make Google Search Console your first stop.

What is it? A suite of helpful SEO-checker tools, designed to (a) help you understand how Google and its users view your website and (b) allow you to optimize for better performance in Google search results.

We’ll let Google explain it to you:

“Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google Search results, but Search Console helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site.

Search Console offers tools and reports for the following actions:

  • Confirm that Google can find and crawl your site.
  • Fix indexing problems and request re-indexing of new or updated content.
  • View Google Search traffic data for your site: how often your site appears in Google Search, which search queries show your site, how often searchers click through for those queries, and more.
  • Receive alerts when Google encounters indexing, spam, or other issues on your site.
  • Show you which sites link to your website.
  • Troubleshoot issues for AMP, mobile usability, and other Search features.”

Source: Google Search Console Help Center

In short, is quite possibly the ultimate piece of SEO software, straight from the kings of the Internet and, thus, search itself. And it’s free to anyone with a website. Plus you know it’s 100% legitimate, coming as it does straight from Google.

Learn More: For more on Google Search Console, and how to use it, read our post ‘How to Use Google Search Console’ here.

Top Tip: If you use only one of the many, quite possibly overwhelming, features on GSC, make it the Index Coverage Report. This gives you a list of pages on your site that aren’t getting indexed, and tells you how to fix it. Gotta love that Google.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

It’s quite possible that you’re rolling your eyes at this one. We admit, it’s a tool we continue to trumpet, loud and long, to whomever, whenever they’re listening. (Or even when they’re not.) Why? Well Google’s mobile-first indexing is officially a thing. In May 2019, Google announced that “mobile-first indexing will be enabled by default for all new, previously unknown to Google Search, websites starting July 1, 2019. It’s fantastic to see that new websites are now generally showing users – and search engines – the same content on both mobile and desktop devices.”

Although this only applies to brand new sites that Google is not yet aware of, let’s be clear: Google wants your site to be mobile-friendly and there will come a day when they won’t index your site if it isn’t. For now, “For older websites, we’ll continue monitoring and evaluating pages for their readiness for mobile first indexing, and will notify them through Search Console once they’re seen as being ready,” says Google. The writing is on your smartphone screen: if your site is not mobile-friendly, not only will users stop visiting you, but so will Google.

TEST YOUR WEBSITE HERE.

Learn More: For more on Google Mobile-first Indexing, see this statement from Google. For more on how to prepare your own site for mobile-first indexing, see the official advice from Google here.

Top Tip: Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test is free. It’s easy. It’s one of the simplest, and best, things you can do for your SEO health. Just do it.

3. SEO Tool #3: SEMrush

SEMRush comes up repeatedly when talking to SEO experts and their favourite SEO toolkits. It’s also a go-to for big companies like EBay and Overstock.

What is it? It’s an all-in-one suite of tools that helps you improve your online visibility. And it really is an all-in-one SEO saviour, with many of its single-tool competitors’ features included in the one SEMRush suite. Not only does it give you a great overview of what’s working SEO-wise on your website and where to optimize, it tells you what’s working for your competitors and how to cash in on their success. (It sounds ruthless, but this is business.)

Amongst other things, SEMRush offers you the ability to:

  • Compare your website to your competitors’ websites (see our top tip below)
  • Find the exact keywords that your competitors rank for
  • Monitor and assess your rankings
  • Find new opportunities to improve your rankings
  • See your leading web pages on a single dashboard – you can see exactly which content and associated keywords are working for you where – using the Organic Traffic Insights feature
  • Analyze Google ranking factors affecting your website’s performance and get actionable recommendations based on collected data, using the On Page SEO Checker tool
  • And even carry out in-depth comparison analysis of Google’s top 10 performers for your industry.

In short, SEMRush really is a keeper.

Learn More: For everything you need to know to get started with SEMRush, head to their appropriately titled ‘Getting Started’ page.

Top Tip: While we do love that whole elementary school ethos of “it’s not about winning, it’s about playing the game”, when the game is SEO, winning really does matter. (Sorry, Mrs Bindergarten of Kindergarten.) Which is why we love SEMRush’s Domain vs Domain feature so very much. This tool within a tool allows you to compare your website to your competitors’ websites by showing you side-by-side domains’ comparisons, domains’ common and unique keywords, and easy to read data. (PS. You can also see their best keywords… Do what you will with that information.)

4. SEO Tool #4: Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is widely considered by those in the know as the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

Yoast really does make SEO on your WordPress website seem deceptively simple. Almost too simple. Think ‘SEO for Dummies’. Don’t be fooled though: this is a powerful tool with far more to it than meets the eye.

Quite simply: if your website runs on WordPress, install Yoast ASAP. Today.

Let’s start with the SEO for dummies part. Yoast SEO is extremely user-friendly and helps you to easily make sure your content is, well, SEO-ed. The snippet preview allows you to set your keyword phrase for each page, then optimize your SEO title, meta description, and URL to suit. No guessing as to what length to make each of those either, as Yoast shows you exactly what your search engine result looks like in that snippet preview.

Yoast will then perform a readability check on your page, with detailed suggestions on where you can improve: headers, sub-headers, internal links, too-long sentences or paragraphs, post length. All these and more come under scrutiny. The plugin also detects if you have duplicate content on your page or post (with duplicate content being a real bug-bear for search engines, Google in particular); and it scans your page for images to check that all have alt tags to match your primary keyword or keyword phrase for that page or post.

Basically Yoast SEO will tell you if your content sucks or not – at least in terms of SEO. No hurt feelings allowed.

The free version is perfectly powerful, but if you really want to greet search engines at the door to your site with open arms, a bunch of flowers, and a bottle of bubbly, the Premium version offers upgrades which include things like content insights, a redirect manager, internal linking suggestions, and 24/7 support.

Learn More: Head over to Yoast SEO for full details of what they can do for you. As their own tagline says, this really is (Yoast) SEO for everyone.

Top Tip: Yoast’s XML Sitemap Generator helps search engines find, crawl and index all of the pages on your site by automatically updating your sitemap with every new page or post you add.

By setting primary categories for each of your pages or posts you can help Yoast determine the taxonomy for every single page on your WordPress website, and avoid a messy breadcrumb situation. Use it well.

Bonus Points: The plugin gets updated every two weeks, so they’re always up to date with the latest search algorithm shenanigans.

5. SEO Tool #5: Screaming Frog

We love this one, and we’re not alone. For many SEO professionals, the Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool is the first stop on a site and SEO audit journey.

Using a Google-like site crawler, Screaming Frog will crawl your entire website in seconds – seconds we tell you! – and find all your technical SEO issues.

Once you’ve found them, you can fix them.

If you’re looking to fix issues on your website related to content, bad redirections and link building – and why wouldn’t you be – the report Screaming Frog spits out for you is pure gold. With just one glance, you can, amongst other things:

  • Find broken links and see which pages are returning 404 errors;
  • Analyse page titles, H1s and meta descriptions and identify those that are too long, short, missing, or duplicated across your site;
  • Discover other duplicate content;
  • Audit redirects by finding temporary and permanent redirects and identifying redirect chains and loops;
  • Visualise your site architecture and evaluate internal linking and URL structure;
  • Generate XML sitemaps; and
  • Find a ton of other actionable insights into your website’s data.

Screaming Frog is good for both quick audits when it comes to finding issues that need fixing, as well as a deep dive into a complete understanding of your website. Either way, it’s an invaluable resource for easy wins in your journey to SEO greatness. And let’s be honest, easy wins are few and far between, especially on the rocking sea of SEO.

Learn More: For full details on how to use this speedy spider tool, head over to their user guide. Don’t be dismayed by the extensive list it offers up: they do most of the work for you, and once you get that first report you’ll be amazed at just how much you can see, and fix, with just a broad overview.

Top Tip: Your website isn’t the only one Screaming Frog can crawl. (Did we mention it does that in seconds by the way?) Anyway, you can also use this nifty tool to crawl through your competitors websites to gain interesting insights. How you leverage those is up to you.

6. SEO Tool #6: Answer the Public

Here’s another piece of SEO candy for you. This one circles back to our #1 SEO tool: quality content. Content that is relevant to both your business and your audience. Content that matches user intent. Content that answers questions your users are asking. Enter Answer the Public. Answer the Public finds questions that people are asking online, in forums, blogs and social media, right here, right now, then turns those questions into keywords which you can leverage to get your answers to said questions out front and centre. Which also translates into getting your brand, product or service out front and centre.

By providing you with answers to what the public is currently talking about (see what we did there?), this tool allows you to easily find top-of-mind topics within your industry to write about on your blog. You can even structure your page content around your findings.

Coming up with regular, relevant, genuinely useful and not-yet done to death topics for your blog can be disheartening. Answer the Public makes it a whole lot more fun. All you have to do is enter a keyword you’d like to rank for and the tool will fetch popular queries, questions and phrases people use when they search for that keyword. Using this information, you can now craft useful and specifically targeted content to get you onto page one of search results.

Learn More: Answer your public now by visiting Answer the Public. (It’s just too easy.)

Top Tip: We’re going to forego technical advice here for just a second to give you some genuinely useful physical help: Answer the Public will give you your 450+ topic suggestions using a pretty, but neckache-inducing, visualization ‘wheel’. Just above that wheel, you’ll see a ‘Data’ button. Click that button to see the exact same info but in grown-up list form. No owl-like, Exorcist-level head rotations needed.

7. SEO Tool #7: Moz SEO Software

No list of SEO tools would be complete without a mention of SEO giant Moz.

Moz continues to impress SEO professionals, thanks,largely, to an amazing ability to stay up to date with pesky Google algorithm changes. More than that, though, Moz offers a full-service SEO tool that tells you exactly, down to the finest detail, what steps you can make to improve the SEO of every single page on your website. It offers keyword recommendations, site crawls, performance insights, comparisons to your competitors’ websites – right down to particular pages on their sites.

Other options included in their selection of free SEO tools include:

  • Keyword explorer: search their keyword database to discover and prioritize the best keywords for your site.
  • Link explorer: uncover content and link building opportunities, track your site’s link profile over time and compare to competitors for intelligent, targeted link building.
  • On-page Metrics with MozBar: examine and analyze important search, social and page metrics of any site you visit right in your Chrome browser.
  • Local marketing: see how your location appears on local search engines and directories, and how it can improve with Moz Local and optimize local business listings .

Learn More: Much of Moz’s best offerings lie within their paid Pro version, but they do have some free SEO tools to whet your appetite.

Top Tip: MozBar is a free SEO toolbar that works with the Chrome browser. By adding it to your browser, you are given SEO insights on the go with easy access to advanced metrics on webpages and SERPs.

Bonus Tool: Bulk Keyword Rank Checkers

These are like the candy of the SEO world. The type of candy that you just can’t stop eating.

Keyword rank checking tools – and there are about a million out there – allow you to see where you rank for a specific keyword in Google and other SERPs.

Bonus: it’s just so simple! You plug in your website (or that of your competitor), you put in the keyword (or keywords) you want to check, you choose your country and/or search engine (depending on which one you’re using), you hit go.

Like we said, there are a million out there, and many of the SEO tools we’ve already outlined include one in their suite of tools, but here are a few to get you into the game:

https://www.seoreviewtools.com/rank-checker/

https://serps.com/bulk-rank-checker/

https://www.thehoth.com/search-engine-rankings/

https://smallseotools.com/keyword-position/

User Warning: This is addictive. Do not use on deadline day. This ‘game’ will suck you in and spit you out hours later.

Finally, we’ll leave you with this quote from Jill Whalen (SEO consultant, speaker and writer; WhatDidYouDoWithJill.com): “Good SEO work only gets better over time. It’s only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.”

The key word therein is “tricks”. We’ve said it once, we’ll say it again. Trickery will get you nowhere. Not in Vegas. Not in SEO. This is no place for the con-men, the magicians, the promisers of quick fixes. While all of these tools do offer help and solutions, all require you to do the work, put in the effort. Fortunately, if you just don’t have the time or energy for it, there are many people who live and breathe SEO. (Yeah, we’re geeks, what can we say.) Contact us for help with your SEO strategy today.

If you still have questions about the SEO tools, please call our SEO experts here at 1st on the List at 1-877-562-1750.

/by
, ,

How 301 Redirects Affect SEO

404: bad. 301: good. Bigger isn’t always better, and definitely not when it comes to SEO and these two numbers.

In case you’re wondering, we’re talking about 404 errors and 301 redirects.

While that first sentence (the one about 404s being bad and 301s good) completely oversimplifies things (by now you really ought to know that nothing is that simple in SEO land), in general you really don’t want somebody searching the web to find you, to find nothing but a broken link, the dreaded 404 http error code, the internet equivalent of the kiss of death: Page Not Found. It’s a bad experience for them, which is bad for you. Possibly worse: if search bots get served with a 404 a few times, the search engine in question will, in time, deindex the page from the search results. 301 redirects on the other hand, mean that, no matter where you move to – a new URL, a beautiful new website, the moon – your pages will always go with you, along with your customers, and those oh-so-fickle search engines.

But let’s not focus on the bad. Instead, we’re going to focus on the good guys: 301 redirects. What they are; why you should care; why or when you should use them; and how they affect your SEO (the good and the bad).

What is a 301 Redirect?

Let’s back up a little bit and start with what, exactly, a 301 redirect is. Think of it this way: you’re moving house (literally) from 7777 Vancouver Lane, Vancouver, BC to 8888 Toronto Drive, Toronto, ON. Before you move you do the smart thing: you set up mail forwarding to ensure that you get all your mail in your new home. This ensures you still get all your valuable mail – bills (ack!), parcels from Grandma, those crucial Canadian Tire flyers. Seriously, though, you wouldn’t move home without making sure you’ll still get your mail.

The same principle applies to your website: if you’re moving a website from one URL to another, for whatever reason (and we’ll get into possible reasons later), you need to make sure your site visitors, and, importantly, search engines, still get sent to the right place. In the world of tech, as opposed to the world of snail mail, you can do this by setting up what is known as a 301 redirect.

A 301 redirect – with the 301 being techie-speak for the HTTP status code of the redirected page – is a permanent, and automatic, redirect from one URL, or web page, to another one in a new location.

By setting up a 301 redirect, you are able to tell the browser:

  • that your page has moved permanently,
  • that you’re never going back there,
  • that they should change the address to the new one. Now. And,
  • that they should keep those visitors coming, just send them to this shiny new URL.

In this way, 301 redirects can still send site visitors and search engines to your website, even if it is at a different URL than the one they originally typed into their browser or selected from a search engine results page.

In short, 301 redirects are the mail forwarding of the tech world.

Why Should You Care About 301 Redirects?

A 301 redirect is key to maintaining your website’s domain authority and search rankings when the site’s URL is changed for any reason. As already mentioned, if you don’t use a 301 redirect whenever you remove, or move, a page from your web server, search engines will be served a 404 Not Found error response code. In time, faster than you think, this will result in the page being dropped from the search engine’s index. Completely. Not just dropped to page 2. Dropped. Altogether.

It doesn’t matter how much Google, or other search engines, have loved you in the past. Loyalty means little on the Internet. If they can’t find you, or you keep standing them up with Dear John letters (another little nickname we like to call 404 errors), they’re going to stop looking.

When to Use a 301 Redirect

There are a few reasons why you might find yourself in a position where you need to set up 301 redirects:

  1. To associate all the various web conventions – or beginning pieces of URLs – like www. / http:// / https:// with just the one URL. For example, if you type any of the following URLs into your browser, they’re all going to go to the same place: https://www.1stonthelist.ca/
    1. 1stonthelist.ca
    2. www.1stonthelist.ca
    3. https://1stonthelist.ca

Try it, see what we mean.

What we’ve done is ‘merge’ multiple domains by setting up 301 redirects which take all the various iterations of our URL to just the one URL, our preferred, or canonical, destination: https://www.1stonthelist.ca/. It’s called: Just pick a name already. And never miss out on traffic, or ranking, again.

  1. To completely rebrand your company, and in the process rename your website to match with a different URL.
  2. To make major edits or fix webpages.
  3. To merge two websites. Here’s an interesting story on this one: back in 2009 Toys ‘R Us purchased the toys.com domain as they entered into battle in the e-commerce world of toys. Once they had Toys.com in hand, they proceeded to redirect the site to their own domain in the hopes that it would bring all their traffic, and paying customers, with it. What did they forget to do though? That’s right: they never set up 301 redirects for the old URLs which had built up the domain authority and ranking of Toys.com. Google re-indexed the site without any of that lovely link juice and the whole point of the purchase went straight into a great big black hole. (Now Toys ‘R Us has gone bankrupt. While we can’t say this 301 situation had anything to do with that, it certainly didn’t help.)

How to Set Up 301 Redirects

Hoo boy. This could get technical. The short version? Get help.

The longer version involves words like .htaccess file, site audit, root folders, snippet codes… You get the gist.

We do have a couple of tips though:

  1. Start by running an audit on your site, using a tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider, to do some redirect checking. This allows you to find any 404 error codes your site might be spitting out, find other URL issues, to check for any existing redirects, and to check for any redirect chains or loops which may be negatively impacting on your site’s SEO success. Yes, we know the word ‘audit’ sounds scary, but Screaming Frog does make the process a fairly simple one and can give a great overview of what is going on with your site. There are, of course, plenty of other redirect checkers out there, but Screaming Frog continues to amaze SEO pros with both its ease of use and its sheer speed. Clearly they have few to zero redirect chains slowing down their page load speed.
  2.  If you’re running your website on WordPress, make life easy on yourself and install the Yoast SEO plugin, and spring for the paid Premium version. They make it really, really easy for you to set up 301 redirects. (Amongst other awesome SEO type wins.)
  3. There are also a number of other, very useful, plugins which can help ease the pain of grappling with coding and creating 301 redirect files yourself. Also within WordPress, the Redirection plugin is a free tool which can really simplify the process for you. If you have access to that .htaccess file we mentioned, you could also use 301 redirect generators such as this one.
  4. Otherwise, we’re going to take Google’s lead here and just say this: “To implement a 301 redirect for websites that are hosted on servers running Apache, you’ll need access to your server’s .htaccess file. (If you’re not sure about your access or your server software, check with your webhoster.) For more information, consult the Apache .htaccess Tutorial and the Apache URL Rewriting Guide. If your site is hosted on a server running other software, check with your hoster for more details.” (Google Search Console Help)

How 301 Redirects Affect SEO

301 redirects form a crucial chapter of your SEO best practice handbook. We’ve already established that serving a 301 indicates to both browsers (of the human kind) and search engine bots (of the well, robot, kind) that the page has moved permanently. Not only does this allow search engines to still send visitors to the place you want them to go, it means that they will still recognize any link weighting and ranking you already had on the old page and carry it over to the new one.

But now you’re probably asking a few questions like:

  • Are redirects bad for SEO?
  • What happens to my search ranking when I use a 301 redirect?
  • Will Google hate me, and my 301 redirects?
  • Do 301 redirects affect my Google rankings?

Like all things Google, and SEO, the answer to all these questions is: it depends. Exasperating, we know, but it is what it is.

301 redirects can affect your SEO performance. From multiple perspectives: technical, content, and link building. Whether that effect is positive or negative depends entirely on you and your implementation.

Used properly, redirects will not send all your SEO efforts spinning into the big black hole (also known as page 2 of Google). Used properly, they can help you maintain your PageRank and your reputation as an authoritative voice, a reputation won through hard-earned backlinks and carefully crafted content resulting in highly-engaged traffic to your site.

Google itself, via Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst, has reassured us that, used properly, 301 (or any other 30x redirects) “don’t lose PageRank anymore.”

But note our overuse of the term “used properly”. Not all 301 redirects were created equal. And not all 301 redirects will pass 100% PageRank. Here’s why:

Relevance – or lack thereof

Remember how Google loves relevance when it comes to content and SEO? The same principle applies to 301 redirects. As John Mueller, Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, has gone on to explain: “301-redirecting for 404s makes sense if you have 1:1 replacement URLs, otherwise we’ll probably see it as soft-404s and treat like a 404.”

In other words, the 301 redirect will only pass 100% PageRank if it goes to a new page that is relevant, and closely matches, the content found on old page. If you’re just trying to do a quick-fix for a 404 error and are sending your redirect to an entirely different page, expect to be punished for it.

No place like home

Yes, there’s no place like home, but not everybody’s home is the same place. Another big issue with 301 redirects, an issue which is really just an extension of the relevance we just spoke of, is the (lazy) practice of redirecting all old pages to the homepage. Yes, it’s quicker, but no, it’s not useful.

If you’re getting rid of pages, take the time to make sure that each old page is being redirected to the most relevant page on your newly refurbished website – whether that’s a new page or a keeper.

Being sent home isn’t always the answer, especially if, as a user, you find yourself in the dog house and you really want to be in the birdcage.

Tied up in chains

Redirects on top of redirects on top of redirects equal a hot mess.

Called redirect chains, these can get your sitemap all tied up in knots, slow your page speed down, and confuse search engines to the point of abandoning you altogether. Redirect chains can also stop links, and any resultant page authority, from being passed on to the correct page.

You do not want your users, or search engines, going the scenic route. Passing through unnecessary stages from page A (your old page) to page D (your fourth iteration new page), via page B (your first redirect) and page C (your third redirect) is just far too confusing. For everyone involved. In fact, we got confused just laying it out like that. If page D is your final page, make A, B and C go there. Again: just pick one already.

Practice SEO Patience

You’ve put your 301 redirects in place. You’ve checked them and double-checked them. You’ve run them through every tool imaginable. They’re pointing to relevant new pages, they go straight there, they’re good. You know they’re good. So why are you still seeing some dropoff in search results?

Patience. Good things come to those who wait. Even if you do everything right, good SEO takes time, and patience, to show its results. This is true of 301 redirects as well. You may well, at first, see some slight changes, but eventually your redirect will maintain your search rankings and inbound links.

If you still have questions about 301 redirect, please call our SEO experts here at 1st on the List at 1-877-562-1750.

/by
,

How Can I Implement A Sales Funnel To My Business?

Traffic. Leads. Sales.

Get traffic on your website. Build leads and contacts. Convert leads into sales.

We’re tempted to hashtag this simple three-string chain of events “business goals”. Like #relationshipgoals (oh, hello there George and Amal Clooney). But for business. Actually, we’re more than tempted: #businessgoals. There. We did it. How to reach those goals though? Not nearly as simple as sticking a hashtag in front of it and calling it a day.

While it isn’t easy, there is a way to convert eyes on your website to money in the bank. It’s called a sales funnel.

If you have a website, and own a business, chances are you already have a sales funnel of some sort. Even if you don’t know it. The trick is to make your sales funnel a conscious effort. It needs to be:

  • something which you know you have;
  • something which is tailored specifically to your business and your market audience; and
  • something which you constantly monitor, tweak and optimize to make it really work for you.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to the part where you probably already have a sales funnel but don’t even know it.

Read on to discover exactly what a sales funnel is, why you should have one, how to create an effective one in six easy steps (with effective being the key word), do’s and don’ts of effective sales funnels (there’s that word effective again), and how to make sure yours continues to be one that funnels money into the bank rather than out of your pocket.

What is a Sales Funnel?

The concept of a sales funnel is a deceptively simple one. Picture a funnel – the kind you use in the kitchen or a science lab. Wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, you use it for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. Your sales funnel looks just like that – except, of course, it’s metaphorical rather than physical, with the liquid being your customers, and the small opening being your business bank account.

Quite simply, a sales funnel is the path, or series of steps, website visitors tread from first landing on your website to actually purchasing your product or service.

It goes without saying that the more people you can lead down this path to its end, the better for your business. And you certainly don’t want them to take the path less travelled by. You want to give them an easy path, making you the obvious choice for their final purchase.

But this is where things start to get tricky. You need to build your sales funnel so that you’re not the blind leading the blind. Without a solid plan, or knowledge, of what you’re doing, both you and your customers are just going to hit the sides of the funnel, get frustrated, and end up abandoning the route laid out for them and choosing another path entirely… A.k.a. someone else’s business, someone else’s bank account.

Don’t panic though: done correctly, your funnel will allow for smooth sliding, guiding your website visitors along the path to purchase. And we’re here to help you do it correctly.

We can start by breaking the sales funnel down from top to bottom:

1. Top of the Sales Funnel

The top of the sales funnel is the point where potential customers first become aware of you. It’s the first step along the path, the place where visitors land on your website, the place where you create awareness for your business or brand, and any associated products or services. Sticking with the relationship goals theme, this is not the place to go in for a hug, or even a friendly pat on the back. This is not where you go in for the hard sell. Here, you just introduce yourself, show them how nice you are, encourage them to get to know you more.

2. Middle of the Sales Funnel

Once your visitor knows who you are, now is the time to go in for a handshake, perhaps a lingering glance. With awareness high, your sales funnel needs to work to capture their interest, enticing them to move further along the path to purchase. This is where your sales funnel offers genuinely interesting and useful information about your product or service, inspiring in viewers a strong purchasing pull, without ever actually ‘selling’ to them.

At this point, you can turn your visitors into leads, with leads being just one step shy of turning customer. Not only are they learning more information about you, here you can learn a bit more about them. Ask for an email address, enticing them with free courses or trials, coupon codes, discounts for signup. An email address is a key ingredient to a successful sales funnel – down the line you will want to use it for retargeting as well as follow up contact to encourage return visits.

Ultimately, the goal here is to get your visitors to take that final step along the path to the final stage: purchase.

3. Bottom of the Sales Funnel

Here is where the final purchasing decisions are made. Will they or won’t they? Will they click that final ‘Buy Now’ button or won’t they? With fingers hovering over ‘Buy Now’, your sales funnel must work to fuel that final click – be it by retargeting, remarketing or incentives to make the final move.

Finally, an effective sales funnel can inspire return visits by following up with a well-timed and well-targeted emails – be it a special offer, a notification of a new release of a product similar to one they purchased, an offer for tech support, or a simple thank you.

Why Do I need a Sales Funnel for My Business?

Awareness. Interest. Decision. Action. Four little words and four big reasons why you need a sales funnel:

1. Awareness

Do you want people to know about you? Of course you do. If they don’t know you exist, how can they buy anything from you? The goal here is simply awareness: hello, this is us, we’re here, and we sell what you are looking for. (This falls into the top of the funnel.)

2. Interest

Now that they know you exist, do you want people to show further interest in your brand, product or service? Of course you do. If they aren’t interested, they won’t do any further research on you, and won’t include you in their comparison shopping spree. You won’t even be an option. The goal here is to show your visitors what makes you interesting, and worthy, without ever actually selling to them. (This falls into the middle of the funnel.)

3. Decision

Now that your visitors have done their research and are ready to buy, do you want to be included in their decision-making process? Of course you do. Now’s the time to pull out your best offer – an added incentive to buy. An irresistible discount code or bonus product that makes you a shoe-in for the final click. (This falls right before the bottom of the funnel.)

4. Action

Do you want your visitors to turn into customers and make that final click? Do you want them to hit the ‘Buy Now’ button? Of course you do. The goal here is to give them one final reason to go ahead and make the click – retargeting or a reminder email of what’s in their shopping cart can work wonders at this point. (This falls into the bottom of the funnel.)

Once they’ve made that final click, you’re going to want them to start the whole process over again, so make sure that their final action isn’t yours. Slot them right back into the funnel with follow up emails and offers; again with the relationship analogy, a good sales funnel keeps the conversation open and going. Don’t fall prey to complacency – the kiss of death to any relationship, no matter how beautiful the beginning.  

How to Create a Sales Funnel for Your Business

By now you no doubt are keen to dip your toe in the figurative dating pool and create your own sales funnel. For any business, with a website, offering a product or a service, it’s honestly a no-brainer. Follow the six steps below to set yourself up for sales funnel success and achieve #businessgoals.

6 Simple Steps to Building Your First Online Sales Funnel

 

Step 1: Get to know your target audience

To lead your potential customers down the path to purchase, you need to first know, and understand, who they are. You can figure this out by finding answers to questions like:

  • What do they want to buy?
  • What are they looking for?
    Where do they look?
  • Which online channels or platforms do they use?
  • What questions are they asking?
  • What problems do they need solving?
  • What annoys them about online shopping?

Pro tip: Whatever it is you’re selling, you yourself are probably interested in buying it. Answer the above questions yourself to create a baseline of your target audience.

Step 2: Capture their attention to drive traffic to your website

Come a little closer, said the spider to the fly… The only way your sales funnel works is if you actually have people in it. This means getting your brand out there, in front of people, luring them in to discover who you are and what you’re offering.

Start with organic content posting across multiple platforms and channels. Social media and blogging are great tools here. Offer up unique, interesting, real content that is useful to readers and which will intrigue and inspire them to look a little closer, to click onto your website. Sprinkle in the odd CTA, a can’t-miss offer, an incentive to jump on site.

If you have the budget, run a few ads in the places where your target audience is looking – PPC campaigns and LinkedIn ads might be just the ticket. Or spend a bit of money on SEO and landing page optimization.

Do whatever it takes to get people onto your site. They can’t go through the funnel if they never even find the funnel.

Step 3: Create an awesome landing page

First impressions count. And in the land of the Internet, people often do judge a website by its ‘cover’. There are so many millions of pages to land on, after all. If your cover – or landing page – offers a poor experience, they’ll hit that ‘back’ arrow faster than you can say “back”.

Do…

  • Make your landing page pretty to look at.
  • Make it easy to navigate.
  • Make it interesting.
  • Make it useful.
  • Make your message clear.
  • Make it easy for visitors to offer up their email addresses. A good landing page is your very first interaction with potential customers and thus your first port of call to capture those all-important email addresses. Make sure it encourages visitors to sign up to a newsletter, subscribe to the website, download some useful ebook, download a coupon code, or some other mechanism to capture their contact information. This will also lead them onto the next step of the sales funnel.

Don’t…

  • Use this page as your hard sell! At this point in the funnel, a hard sell will lose your potential customers and

Step 4: Keep them interested

You’ve got their attention. You’ve (hopefully) captured their contact information. Now you need to keep ‘em keen. (The old adage of treat ‘em mean does not apply here!)  

This is where you give them all the useful, relevant information you can to answer all their questions, meet all their needs, and keep them keen to move onto the next step of your sales funnel. Some key tools to use here include:

  • Quality blog content (for more on blogging and how it can help your business, click here)
  • Links to your social media channels
  • Video, video, video
  • Relevant email newsletters offering up useful information, sure-fire incentives, or must-click offers.

Step 5: Convert leads into customers

Even if you have their email addresses and their interest, you’re not guaranteed to make the sale. To turn your leads, or visitors, into paying customers, you need to convert them. And quickly. The longer it takes for them to click ‘Buy’, the less likely they will. To ensure this conversion, there are a few tricks you can use, all of which involve making your website, and purchasing process easy, easy, easy.

  • Fewer form fields.
  • Fewer steps to complete purchase.
  • So few, in fact, as to aim for one-click options for sign-up, sign-in, and, ultimately, once all their info is captured post-first-purchase, one-click purchase.

Step 6: Keep in touch

Once your customers have converted, made that purchase, committed to and invested in your relationship, don’t lose interest. Keep in touch. Keep up the communication.

  • Thank them for their purchases.
  • Offer member loyalty points and discount codes.
  • Above all, send them useful, interesting information about your brand, your work, your services and offerings, that isn’t always about selling. ABS – always be selling – is a fail-safe way to make enemies and lose customers.

The Circle of Sales (Funnels)

Now that your sales funnel is in place, you need to make sure you constantly check in on its performance and tweak to improve at every stage of the path. Find where potential customers are falling off and why. Learn from your mistakes. Work at it constantly to make it more user friendly and, ultimately business friendly, for a win-win sales situation: your customers get what they are looking for, your business gets money in the bank. Your funnel – and business – is only as effective as your last sale.

If you still want to learn more about how to implement a sales funnel for your business, call us toll-free at 1-877-563-0459.

/by
, , ,

HTTPS Everywhere – And if It’s Not It Should Be

Encrypt your online communications with HTTPS Everywhere.

HTTPS and SSL – two sets of letters that you’ve probably heard a lot about, even if you don’t know what they mean. Essentially, they boil down to a technical signal that your website is secure for browsing and that your visitor’s data and information is safe and secure from vulnerabilities. HTTPS and SSL are the symbols of Internet security.

Improved Internet Security

Staying secure online is a much talked about reality these days, thanks in part to big businesses that have been in the media due to data breaches. What’s more, visitors are used to expecting security when conducting credit card transactions online. Beyond that, Internet security is something many web visitors and businesses take for granted.

So, it may have been surprising when way back in 2014 Google admitted that HTTPS had become a ranking factor for websites. But, when Google says something is helpful, everyone jumps on board. Beyond being a helpful factor for SEO and ranking, having a secure website is good business practice. HTTPS Everywhere and SSL is important. Today we’re going to review why you need it, how it works, and how to get it installed on your website.

Protecting Your Information

Think about your place of business. Your employees have keys and your guests cannot enter until the doors have been opened or they’ve been let in. If you are part of a really large organization, the employees may have badges or nametags for identification. If you were to lose your keys or identification, your business would be left vulnerable. Your business has implemented security measures to keep the actual office safe, but also to protect important documents and data, right?

Well, the same is true for a website. Years ago, websites were basically an online version of a business card. There wasn’t much data being exchanged and visitors were merely browsing. Then the onset of websites came where you could login and become a member. Or, you could shop and make a purchase. Or, you could fill out a form to sign up for important information. With that, all of a sudden your digital footprint that followed you around the Internet started to hold all sorts of data.

Now, while you browse the web you are basically a walking billboard of information about yourself, unless you keep everything secure. Businesses can help protect your data by ensuring their own websites are security compliant.

Internet users have been slowly trained to look for an ‘s’ next to the HTTP, as a signal that a website is secure for browsing and exchanging information. While most Internet users don’t understand the technicalities of HTTPS Everywher and SSL, they know what can happen if their sensitive information is breached. Perhaps their banking system has already been compromised and they’ve had to deal with the hassle of ordering new credit cards and updating banking information. Perhaps their social media accounts have been hacked and they’ve had to spend precious time cleaning things up and resetting passwords. More and more people are expecting security from the websites they visit, and if they don’t find it, they leave.

What is Https Everywhere?

The ‘s’ in HTTPS stands for ‘secure’. When you see this in a URL, coupled with a lock symbol, you know the website you are visiting is encrypted with a secure website connection. Historically, SSL was reserved primarily for websites that collected private information such as passwords, private data, and credit card information. When you visit a website without the ‘s’ you could be on a compromised network, or one that is vulnerable to hackers, the Internet’s version of eavesdroppers.

HTTPS helps protect the privacy of your website visitor. It is no longer enough for you to say you will protect a visitor’s information. Now you must show you are protecting it.

HTTPS makes it harder for hackers to break the connection and steal personal information.

When browsing the web, look for the ‘s’ to know that the website you’re on is trustworthy. Not all websites have converted over to HTTPS Everwhere as yet, so if you are browsing a site that is not secure, just be sure to refrain from passing along your important personal information and data.

What is an SSL Certificate?

An SSL certificate is the indication that your website is officially secure. This is what allows your website browser to establish a secure connection. The browser trusts the secure connection, which in turn a user can also feel safe browsing and even providing private/confidential information.

Our official SSL partner for 1st on the List is DigiCert, a leading SSL certificate authority. We recommend DigiCert because they provide increased speed and load time as well, which is also a valuable SEO feature.

Why You Need HTTPS Everywhere?

Internet visitors are more savvy and have an innate trust associated with HTTPS. Recent media reports of big brands being hacked, compromised, and having personal data leaked has made consumers even more cautious. We side with Google on this one and would like to see every website properly secured. It’s especially important if you collect credit card payments, or if you collect private information (such as name, address, health records, passwords etc.), or you are in a competitive market. Here are other reasons why you should consider HTTPS Everywhere for your website:

  • Google now uses HTTPS as an important ranking factor and sites with it tend to rank better. This in itself is an important reason to ensure your website is secure and compliant with HTTPS. With a lot of competition on the Internet, your business should be great at the basics.
  • Some popular Internet browsers are giving warnings when web visitors try and access a non-secure website. Therefore, if your site is not secure, you could be missing out on valuable website traffic. In fact, these warnings might just scare your website visitors away.
  • Ensuring your website is secure protects your business from the costs of a data breach. This could be a public relations nightmare if your website data was ever breached, not to mention an expensive nightmare, too.
  • Visitors are more confident using your website if they know it is secure. As visitors become more confident in their website browsing they have expectations of businesses, including website and data security.

“HTTPS Everywhere” is a term coined by Google. Google has confirmed that HTTPS is a ranking factor dating back to 2014. “Security is a top priority for Google… beyond our own stuff, we’re also working to make the Internet safer more broadly. A big part of that is making sure that websites people access from Google, are secure… so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal…”

Historically, only pages or parts of a website that dealt with sensitive data were secured with an SSL certificate. But, now it is advantageous to secure every single page. In other words, only when an entire website is properly secured with SSL will it earn a ranking advantage.

Are All SSL Certificates Created Equal?

No! Many of the SSL certificates online are SHA-1, which gets more compromised each year. In fact, Google Chrome may even display a warning on websites with SHA-1.

SHA-2 is a much stronger certificate. If you want to ensure your website is deemed trustworthy you can even obtain an SSL EV certificate.

In addition, it is important to regularly check your SSL certificate to ensure it is not vulnerable. Improperly installed or misconfigured SSL certificates can leave you open to attack.

1st on the List provides a complimentary Inspector Report. Ask us for it by calling 1-888-262-6687.

The SSL Handshake – How SSL Works

How does your web browser know a website is secure? Well, it undertakes what is commonly referred to as the SSL Handshake.

  • The Internet browser connects to the web server and requests the server to identify itself.
  • The server sends a copy of its SSL Certificate
  • The browser verifies the certificate to ensure it is valid. If the browser trusts the certificate it creates an encrypted symmetric session key using the server’s public key.
  • The server decrypts the symmetric session key using its private key and sends back an acknowledgement to start the encrypted session.
  • Server & browser are now encrypted.

How to Purchase and Install an SSL Certificate

Because SSL and HTTPS is more important than ever, installation is best left to the professionals. While you can do it yourself, or have it done through your hosting provider you want to be sure that all configurations are correct and that your website is not vulnerable to insecurities.

In Summary

So, while SSL and HTTPS is essentially good business practice, it is something users are looking for when they visit a website.

HTTPS and SSL are the equivalent of a lock on a door or a code on a safe. Now more than ever it’s important to be secure. The same is true for a website. Internet users are vulnerable when they browse the Internet. They have private data, cookies and Internet session info following along with them. In addition, they make credit card transactions, utilize banking websites, enter their personal data such as their full name and address, and are constantly logging in and out or signing up for things with usernames and passwords. Without security, we’d all be victims of fraud and identity theft by now. That’s why, even when you aren’t conducting a financial transaction, it’s wise to look for websites that are HTTPS.

And, if Google is using it as a ranking factor then it is just all the more reason to jump on board the security bandwagon. But, not all s’s are created equally. Even if you’re only obtaining the certificate to appease Google, it’s important to ensure that your SSL and security is set up and configured correctly. After all, the real goal is to ensure that your website visitors are safe while browsing your website. After all, a data breach could cost your business time, money and reputation!

Beyond the visitor’s point of view, it’s just good business to ensure your website provides adequate security. And if it’s going to help with your SEO, well that’s great too.

Website visitors do not always understand the technicalities of what goes on behind the scenes of a website. They don’t understand how their data is encrypted. But, they know the hassle that comes when they’ve become vulnerable to an attack, have been hacked or have had their information compromised. What they do know is that the S that is part of HTTPS and the lock in the browser is the best indication they have that a business is doing everything it can to protect their sensitive information. So, if you haven’t yet adopted HTTPS, perhaps it’s time you did.

If you still have questions about getting your website secure with SSL certificate, please call our SEO experts here at 1st on the List at 1-877-562-1750.

/by
,

Benefits of Link Building

Popularity; being well-liked is important to some people. It’s also important to businesses. Generally, one can assume that if a business is popular that it is good and provides a valuable service or product. But, is that always the case?

If you can make a thousand people say you’re the most popular person, are you really the most popular person? If you can create a system to have a thousand websites link to your website, does that mean your website provides the most valuable information? That was something Google and other search engines had to fix when link-building was at its height of popularity.

If you own a website and have undertaken any sort of SEO over the years, you’ve likely heard the term ‘link-building’. When SEO first became a method of marketing, link-building was one of the most important tasks an SEO professional would undertake.

As with many things, some took it too far and all of a sudden directories build specifically for link-building were created. People began offering link-building services and the entire process could be automated for $10 to $100. Those who didn’t understand the reasoning behind getting links to a website never cared where the link came from, they simply wanted more links. Because of this, links became diluted.

Although link building got a bad rap, it’s still an important part of the SEO process. But, even as was the case back then, it’s important to seek quality links to your website and/or to help links develop naturally.

Why Links Are Important

The idea behind link building stems from popularity and authority. If your website is popular, provides authority in your industry and has relevant topics, people will like it, share it and link to it.

This signal shows Google and other search engines that your website is valuable and valid and can help in ensuring your website ranks well for popular keyword search terms.

In addition, if your website is linked to from another website, that’s another avenue of traffic for you.

Both of these can help increase your SEO rankings. So, in turn, link building is still good for SEO. But more importantly, it’s good for your website traffic and to gain potential targeted leads.

Search engines use links for two fundamental reasons:

The first is to help them discover new pages for their databases. Every time your website publishes an article or a blog, the search engine needs to find it before they rank it. If your internal linking system is well-structured and you have a good xml sitemap, this might be easy. But, the more websites that also link to this content, the easier and quicker it might be for the search engines to find.

Search Engines also use links to help determine how a page should rank for a particular keyword. A link can be seen as confidence about the content and information that is to come.

It’s important to keep both of these linking fundamentals in mind when you begin to build links for your website.

Link Building Benefits & SEO

White hat link building has long-since been touted as an effective part of an SEO strategy. It’s otherwise known as link-juice and is one of many ranking signals used by Google and other search engines to determine the validity of a website for a specific keyword phrase.

Link metrics are calculable. There are programs designed to help you determine the quality of a website and link from that page. Alternatively, you can seek out new links by hand. But, it’s not wise to rely solely on link metrics alone. Natural links may not have passed your link metric test; however, they can prove to be invaluable. The same goes for a link that actually drives valuable visitors and potential leads to your website.

Having websites point back to your domain improves your domain authority. It provides search engines with a signal that your content is worth linking to. In turn, if you’re generating website traffic from these links, this too can help with your SEO.

The Indirect Benefits of Link Building

Link building should be a task on every SEO professional’s to-do list. Yes, because it helps with SEO and ranking on search engines. But, and perhaps even more importantly, the real benefit of additional links is more indirect.

Builds Trust – When someone links to your content, it’s their way of saying they trust you enough to share you. This influencer traffic is an important citation for your website. The more industry authority you can have, the more serious your website will be taken. Consumers today are looking for trust signals before they make a connection with a business. This comes from testimonials, citations and authoritative content.

Builds Branding – The more your business is mentioned elsewhere, the more known your brand will be. You might not derive a sale from a link; however, there is a subconscious act of knowing that takes place and the more a person sees your business name or website, the more likely they are to subconsciously begin building trust in your brand.

Increases Visitors – A well-earned link on another niche or popular website can increase targeted visitors to your own website.

Increases Leads – While some think about link building primarily from an SEO standpoint, when you curate links for the benefit of actually building business, this is when you really win. There are local websites, directory websites, resource websites etc. that people visit every single day. If you have related content, or a related link, you could actually earn business, rather than just link juice. And, that’s the real point, right?

As an example, let’s imagine you are a mortgage broker. You can list your business in local directories. Perhaps you exchange links with fellow mortgage brokers across the country as part of a referral network. You may have a link on your main company’s website. As you start to create good content (video, podcasts, articles and blogs) you may find that people begin sharing your content. Now, think about places where your content could naturally live:

  • Real estate agent websites
  • Home design websites
  • Home builder websites
  • Real estate lawyer websites
  • Financial planning websites

The link authority from any of those types of websites would be good. But, the visitors to those websites likely have a vested interest in your service. So, if your content is excellent and authoritative, if people begin to trust your brand, you can use this opportunity for more than just the link juice. You can use this link to actually generate visitors and business leads.

And, that’s why, when it comes to link building, good content is always stressed. Know your audience. Know your target. Know their target keywords and ensure that your content is authoritative, different and relatable.

Natural vs Curated Links

A natural link is one that happens more by accident. You haven’t done anything to secure the link; rather, someone has liked something on your website and has chosen to link to it from their own.

A curated link is a link you have specifically requested. Maybe this is on a local website or an industry-leading informative website. Maybe you have created relative content for a related industry.

Both natural and curated links can be valuable for your business and for your website.

How to Get Natural Links  

Have good content – this is the best advice for when you want to get links to your website. Have well-written, easy-to-read shareable content on your website that is unique from what a person could find anywhere else. Answer questions. Have a unique solution to a common problem. Update your blog regularly. Make your content so good that people want to share it or source it on their own websites.

Write guest blog posts – find niche websites and request to write a blog or article for them. Be sure to include keyword rich backlinks to your own website when applicable.

How to Curate Good Links

Link Requests – It’s ok to ask for links still; you just want to be sure that you’re asking for links on a quality page that isn’t a ‘link building’ page. If content is related and your website would be a valuable resource, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Directories – Local or niche directories provide a valuable service for visitors. So, ensure your site is listed if related and that your profile is properly filled out.

Social Media – Keep your social media profiles up-to-date with a link in your profile. You can also use your own social channels to share your good content. Others might pick it up to post on their own website, thus creating a natural link!

Here are the Top Benefits of Link Building

Build relationships – the very act of sourcing out related links to your website could help you build business relationships.

Get your content indexed faster – When you create good content, it’s important that the search engines can find it. Having your own website and others link to it will help ensure search engines will find it, spider it and index it faster.

Build your website authority – A well-placed link on a related, good website is a signal of trust and authority.

Receive traffic from other websites – Great links are for more than just SEO; they actually provide website traffic and leads for your business.

Improve your seo – Links are used as a ranking factor for SEO. If you’re looking to increase your ranking for a specific keyword phrase, ensure you have good content related to this keyword and then begin sourcing links to this content.

Improve your brand visibility – The more times a person can see your brand, the more your brand will make an impression on them.

Link Building Tactics

Have good content including video, infographics, images and articles – content is king, queen and everything in-between, especially when it comes to links. Having content that is shareable and digestible is always a good idea when it comes to link building.

Guest blogging – Find related websites and ask to have your content featured. Be sure the content you provide is unique and answers a question or solves a problem in a way that is conducive to both that website and your brand.

Build links from broken links – the Internet is filled with links that no longer work. If you have content that could fit, you could ask the webmaster to link to your content instead. This involves a lot of research and work but can be invaluable to your success in the long run.

Research who links to your competition and request links – This is usually stage one of link building. Research the competition and find similar link building opportunities.

Whether you are new to SEO and link building or have been doing it for years, if you’re reading this article, you know link building is important. How to build links and where to get them from is always changing; however, the idea behind links has always been the same. It’s when you try and find quick wins that you begin to steer yourself in the wrong direction.

Gaining high quality links for your quality content hasn’t changed. It’s the cornerstone of any link-building campaign, and always has been. It’s just become harder (or more clear) to find what constitutes as a high quality link.

White hat link building strategies are good for any website. But, this opportunity takes research, effort and time. The benefit will pay off. Good link building is building for tomorrow, not this instant. Isn’t that the case with content, too?

While the landscape for link building is always changing, one thing remains unchanging. The benefits for producing quality content will never go away. The benefits of quality links will never go away.

There has always been a benefit for having quality links to your website. So, if you’re looking to improve your website’s visibility, seo and traffic it’s important to start creating shareable, unique content that is worthy of a link.

If you still have questions about Link Building, please call our SEO experts here at 1st on the List at 1-877-562-1750.

/by

Design Rush B2B Marketplace Recognizes 1st on the List

1st on the List – 2019 Top Canada Web Developer

1st on the List is proud to have been named on the Design Rush List of 2019 Top Canada Web Developers.

Design Rush is a trusted B2B marketplace, an online source for advising businesses on how to find the top digital agencies, web development companies, and SEO firms.  It’s a great resource for businesses who are in need of digital marketing services because it showcases the best-of-the-best and outlines each agency’s strengths and services.

Our passion here at 1st on the List is to help get your company’s name to the top of the list on Google. Our experienced SEO experts have been doing SEO longer than Google has been around! Not many can boast that accolade! Each member of our core staff has over 10-years experience in SEO and has serviced hundreds of SEO clients across North America, in a diverse range of markets and industries.

Today, we see many digital and web agencies outsourcing their SEO efforts, which doesn’t always provide a cohesive integrated strategy. Our focus has always been SEO and that includes SEO web design and development. We love the complexity, the shifting trends, and the evolving techniques of SEO. When it comes to web design, SEO isn’t an add-on for us. It’s what we do.

Top, professional SEO firms have the skills and experience to make big strides in the digital landscape. For businesses that are seeking to start or expand their digital strategy in 2019, who you select to partner with can be as important (if not more important) than the actual strategy. This is because your SEO professional will guide and lead the strategy based on experience and trends, alongside what’s happening in your industry now and what’s predicted to be the future of search tomorrow.

The Importance of Our Design Rush Recognition

Who doesn’t like to be recognized for a job well done? While awards aren’t everything, when we get recognized for something there is an audible buzz in the office that acts as a spark of energy. It’s the proverbial pat on the back.

Our team at 1st on the List works hard every single day to ensure our clients are getting the results they deserve. The results that drive us forward. They motivate us to continue to strive for more. Our client’s words of thanks are recognitions enough…being recognized by a leading B2B marketing agency like Design Rush is just icing on the thank-you cake. It is further proof that our experience, hard work, knowledge, and results continue to propel us forward as one of the top SEO agencies and web development agencies in Canada.

Recognition feels great!

Recognition Can Fuel Business

We get a lot of business based solely on our results and referrals. Someone will call up saying, “Oh, we saw you did the website design (or SEO) for such-n-such-business. Can you get do that for us too?” Our clients also will recommend us to other businesses they know.

We also get business from our own SEO results. After all, we specialize in SEO and ranking well on the search engines is part of the process.

But, for many business owners, they require more information to make the decision. They begin to compare companies and, if you’ve ever done so yourself, you’ll quickly realize it can be like comparing apples to oranges.

That’s why we love B2B marketing agencies such as Design Rush. They make it easier for businesses to sift through the various digital firms in order to narrow down who might be the best fit for them.

How to Use the Design Rush List?

Hiring Local?

Do you need to hire a local digital agency? No. Some businesses like the ability to walk into an office for face-to-face meetings. That’s a nice perk; however, with communication tools such as Skype and screen sharing, hiring a local digital agency isn’t necessary. Local doesn’t always mean better or right for you.

Experience?

Should you select the digital agency with the most years of experience? Maybe. Experience counts for a lot. The innate knowledge that comes from having done something for a long time is invaluable. But, being able to rely on experience while staying up on the trends is even more important.

Industries Served?

Should you select a digital agency that specializes in your market? Maybe. Some digital agencies have found their niche and have honed their specialization to serve it. That means they are very well-versed in that industry. It might also mean they’re doing the SEO work for your competition. That’s not a deal breaker and in some circumstances can even be a benefit. But, just because an agency has a unique specialization doesn’t mean they are the best.

Reviews?

Should you select a digital agency based on their client reviews? Yes. Client reviews can provide a benchmark for how an agency services their clientele. Are they timely? Do they produce results? Do they communicate well? Are projects managed well? You can learn a lot about an agency based on what others who have worked with them have to say.

Results?

Should you select a digital agency based on their results? Absolutely. An agency that has an extensive results-oriented portfolio means they are properly positioned to do the same for your business.

Industry Awards?

Should you select a digital agency based on industry awards?  Maybe. Industry awards can help you narrow down which agencies are best for you. They act as a seal of approval for tried and tested services.

Ultimately, at 1st on the List, we like our results to speak for themselves. We’ve been helping businesses get to the “top of the list” since before there was even a search engine called Google. We have experience in a multitude of industries, targeting cities across North America…and the world!

This recent accolade from Design Rush is a feather in our cap. We’re proud of our team, their diligence, and their hard work. We’re proud to be among such great company on the Design Rush list of Top Canada Web Developers.

To learn more about our services, please call us toll-free at 1-888-262-6687.

For more information about Design Rush, visit their Design Rush Facebook page.

/by
, , ,

How Long Should It Take for SEO to Work and Show Results

Inevitably, every client wants to know how long does SEO take to work.

Everyone wants instant gratification. We live in a time where nobody really wants to wait too long for anything. We’ve been conditioned to believe that faster often equates to better. We want instant food, instant miracles, instant success, and instant everything! But that’s not reality.

Let’s take food for instance. You can open up a can of soup, heat it up in the microwave and within seconds you can be eating your lunch. It’s delicious, quick, and provides you the sustenance you need to get through the next part of your day. Sort of. It’s also filled with salt and preservatives, and in many cases, the nutritional value can be lost or minimal.

Now, think of that homemade turkey soup you cooked right after Thanksgiving. You created a broth from the bones that you let simmer for hours in order to extract every ounce of natural flavor. You added in your fresh vegetables and herbs. It might have taken all day (not to mention the day it took to cook the actual Turkey) but the result was the perfect bowl of homemade soup that was chock-full of goodness and taste.

It took time, but it was worth it. The same can be said for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO Takes Time, But It’s Worth It

Almost every single client will ask the all-important question: how long does SEO take to work?

The industry-standard answer is 4-6 months…perhaps. You can find hundreds (or thousands) of articles on the Internet that agree with this consensus. And you can say that to every-single-client, but sometime within the first week or two, every client asks if it’s working yet.

Clients are excited. They’re nervous. They need to account for their spend. You’ll remind them that you ensured they’d start to see some results within 4-6 months, but at some point, they’ll begin to get impatient. It might not happen every time, but it happens enough. How long does SEO take to work will depend on a lot of variables.

Sometimes results can take a day, a year, or even more. It all depends on the goal, the key performance indicators (KPIs), the competition, the industry, and the ever-changing landscape of the Internet.

Let’s Determine What The Results Will Be!

Instead of providing the generic four-to-six months answer to the question “how long does SEO take to work,” we find it can be far more beneficial to outline what our anticipated results will be.

Key Performance Indicators – KPIs

KPIs are objective, tangible metrics that are used to measure the success of a campaign.

In the realm of SEO, there are several KPIs that can constitute successful results.

1. Growth in Organic Sessions – Tracking traffic from organic search is a measurable KPI. Growth can be slow going, as it does take time for pages and websites to make their way up the search engine results, especially in competitive industries. It is the objective that lies at the heart of any SEO campaign since more targeted traffic from the search engines is something that always excites clients.

2. Increases in Keyword Rankings – Back in the day, SEO companies would provide clients with spreadsheets outlining keyword results for targeted keywords. It was a metric the clients loved. But, with the growth of localized and individualized search results, it became more difficult to provide an accurate measure of keyword rankings. A website could be sitting at #1 for one user but #4 for someone else in a different location. Now, SEO companies might provide a more generalized average for keyword rankings.

Keyword ranking isn’t the be all, end all though. Going from number 50 to number 8 might not make a huge difference in traffic; however, going from number 8 to number 4 likely will. This is because most users will click on the first few results, but not wade too much further down the list.

3. Leads & Conversions – What good is all of this extra traffic if they are converting into leads? More and more companies are getting savvy with the results they expect to see, and leads, orders, and sales have become a valuable KPI for SEO campaigns. On average, the best results for a website come from organic traffic results. After all, this traffic is highly targeted for specific searches. If a person is searching for the best place to wash their car, it is likely to assume they are further down the path-to-purchase than a person who gets advertised to by a car-wash display ad or social media post.

4. Session Duration – Generally speaking, once you implement an SEO campaign, you will likely start to see an increase in session duration. This is because the quality of traffic is highly targeted, which means the user would likely be more genuinely interested and engaged in your website and information.

Targeted Traffic vs General Traffic

If you look at just numbers, one might think that having 10,000 visitors a day vs 5,000 visitors a day is a win. But, if the 10,000 visitors who are coming are more general in nature, is it really a win? They’re likely not spending as much time on the website, or they’re browsing without intent to purchase, contact, or convert. They take more effort to convert or bring back. So, if you can get 5,000 visitors who are specifically searching for one of your particular products or services, they’re more targeted. They’re likely more ready to convert or purchase. Those 5,000 visitors are more valuable than the 10,000 generalists.

How Long Does SEO Take to Work Depends on Tactics

Depending on the industry and the competition, an SEO professional will undertake a variety of tactics to achieve results. Think of it like growing a garden. Some plants, fruit, and vegetables take longer to bear fruit or flower than others. In addition, you can’t quite ever predict how long it will take before the tomatoes are ready to be picked.

An SEO plan that is really content-driven can take a lot of time; however, the results might come in spurts. The SEO professional will target a keyword, have a piece of content written and published, and depending on how competitive the keyword is, results may start coming within a week or longer. No one really knows how long it takes for SEO to work.  It could also take six months or more. In the meantime, with each new piece of content, site authority and ultimately results will start to build.

Budget Also Affects How Long SEO Takes to Work

Nobody wants to admit that the more you pay the better results you will get; however, budget equals time and resources.

How long does SEO take to work? Simply put, the more you put into it the more you should get out of it. Three team members spending six hours should see results faster than one team member sending two hours.

At the end of the day, SEO is not a quick-fix for a business that requires results immediately. It’s a long-term process that requires a strategy and if done properly, can provide long term results. SEO is a process where every step builds upon the one before it. Today’s results are likely built upon the effort from six months ago.

So, while you’ll likely find it takes four-to-six months to start seeing results, it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many types of SEO services that can be brought into play. Instead of offering a timeline for how long does SEO take to work, it can be more beneficial to offer education on the KPIs. That way, you can start celebrating the little wins along the way.

Please call our SEO experts at 1st on the List toll-free at 1-888-262-6687 to learn more about SEO or if you still have any questions.

For additional information on this topic, visit this informative article by Search Engine Journal.

/by

1st on the List Listed as a Top Marketing & Advertising Firm in Canada!

Top Advertising Agency Clutch 2019

If you’re looking to get your company’s name to the top of the list, look no further than our seasoned group of SEO experts here at 1st on the List Promotion. Each of our core staff has over a decade of experience, having serviced hundreds of SEO clients in Canada and the US in a diverse range of industries and markets. Some firms today are outsourcing their SEO efforts, but our core focus has always been SEO, with all of the its complex trends and techniques. It isn’t an afterthought for us- it’s what we live and breathe for!

With that said we are very excited to announce that Clutch has named us as a Leader in Marketing & Advertising for Canadian firms in 2019.

We take great pride in this recognition as it has always been our firm’s goal to provide the best service for our wide range of clients.  Clutch included us as a top SEO services provider based on the strength of our core business practices, our outstanding customer relations, and our overall ability to deliver results.  Clutch is a B2B reviews platform that connects service providers with their potential clients in a quick and easy manner. Clutch has added value to our firm by collecting high quality, in-depth reviews from our previous clients and displaying them on our profile.

Here’s what some experiences that our previous clients have shared with Clutch:

“They are honest and deliver.” – CEO, Door Screen Company

“They have very sound strategies and produce real results.” – CEO, Specialty Hardware Distributor

“1st on the List Promotion delivered on all fronts.” – Digital Manager, Home Care Provider

We truly appreciate all the resources Clutch has provided us which includes two features on their sister sites: The Manifest and Visual Objects.  The Manifest has listed us under their list of the top SEO agencies in Canada, increasing the likelihood that firms in need of an SEO agency will find our firm’s website.  Visual Objects is an additional resource that has added our portfolio of work to their site, further increasing our reach as a firm and improving the chances that we win more organic leads. 

Overall, we cannot express enough how proud we are of our team here at 1st on the List Promotion and we are very excited to continue our success throughout 2019 as a Clutch Leader in Advertising & Marketing.  

/by
,

Getting Too Much Business From Your SEO Firm’s Efforts (Hint: It’s Not the Time To Quit With Them And Here’s Why)

Yes, it really is possible to have too much business. Your business will have a sweet spot of success. The right number of people throughout every level of the sales funnel, all being properly serviced by the current team, is an ideal goal. Of course, for some businesses, they are looking for increased business beyond this sweet spot, and will grow their business and staff to match.

But, what happens when you simply want to maintain your current levels? Many businesses will ask to pause all marketing efforts in an effort to decrease the flow of new leads and customers. They’ll admit to being too busy and promise to re-enlist when things slow down.

Does that sound familiar?

Here’s the thing: it’s actually not in your best interest to pause your SEO efforts. Generally speaking, the SEO efforts we make today will see the benefit in six months or beyond. Plus, every monthly effort builds upon what was done before. Stopping cold turkey can have a negative effect on your SEO rankings and can be more difficult to rebound from.

So what do you do?

If your current SEO plan is working well (or too well) for your business, the best thing you can do is slow down your program, rather than stopping altogether. This way, you don’t lose the momentum you’ve built up along the way, and your future-proofing your efforts with your current work.

After all, SEO is an ongoing process and the last thing a business wants is to disappear or have all the prior hard work be for not.

/by
,

PPC or SEO? Which should you choose and what is the difference?

There comes a time when businesses are faced with a decision as to where to allocate their online marketing spend. Often, when it comes to targeted search-based advertising, a business will be presented with the option of PPC and SEO. Which should you choose and what is the difference?

PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click advertising. Generally speaking, this refers to paying for search placement ads in a search engine. You bid on keyword phrases and pay when a visitor clicks on your text-based ad.

Pay-per-click is quick to set up, and you can start benefit from this form of advertising right away.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the art and science of building a website, landing pages and content that is designed to bring targeted search-based traffic to your website based on related keywords. In other words, someone goes to Google and is searching for a business with your products or services, sees your organic search listing, clicks on it and reaches your website.

Building a stellar SEO pipeline can take a lot of work and time; however, the benefits are great.

Ideally, you should make room in your budget for both forms of advertising. Pay-per-click is great for campaigns or when you don’t have time to wait for your SEO strategy to work; however, year after year, the best, most targeted traffic is usually generated from organic search.

In other words, SEO is a long game while PPC is now. As with all your marketing efforts, you can really maximize your efforts by layering your digital efforts throughout the online marketplace.

/by