Google’s Top 5 Ranking Factors for Local SEO
A well developed, appealing, and the responsive website provides you an opportunity to target potential customers around the globe. A business can also grow and attract more local customers using local SEO strategies. Local search engine optimization is focused on ranking a business higher in a particular local territory or location. In this COVID-19 crisis when people are more likely to search a business and place orders online, it is worth investing in local SEO for businesses and companies that offer services and products to local customers.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO can be defined as a search engine optimization process to make a local business rank higher in local searches so that it can easily be found and seen by potential customers. Local SEO is an incredible online marketing technique for businesses as it helps them promote their products and services at the exact time when local customers are looking for them online. It is also referred to as local search marketing as it is the most effective way to promote a local business online to drive more local traffic.
Top 5 Local SEO Ranking Factors
In this competitive landscape, local SEO is now more competitive than ever before. It not only brings a high level of search visibility in search engines but meaning contact and valuable connections with local customers as well.
There are so many ranking factors that work together and enable local brands and companies to appear at the top in Google local search results. In this article, there are the top 5 local SEO ranking factors that can help you appear in more local search results to drive more sales.
1. Google My Business
When you want to appear in more local searches and on Google Maps, creating a Google my business account is imperative. Creating a GMB account is totally free and plays a significant role in increasing the local visibility of your business. Just create your Google my business account and optimize it with essential business details and information to help local customers easily find you both online and offline. Properly optimized GMB listing helps your local customers find your business in local searches and most importantly in Google and Google Maps.
2. On-Page Signals
There are several on-page SEO factors that are taken into consideration when a business I analyzed for ranking in local searches. The use of the most relevant and long-tail keywords is one of them. Search engine bots and crawlers watch out a business for keywords that are most relevant to a search query and strategically placed in the website content. That’s why to use more and more long-tail keywords in your website content. To find the most relevant and best-performing keywords, you should spend enough time on keyword research so you can plan your other local SEO efforts accordingly.
3. Online Reviews
Modern consumers are more likely to read the available information, reviews, and customer feedback prior to buying anything online. That’s why, more positive online reviews on different digital channels like websites, social media profiles, and local directories can help your brand stand out as a credible and reliable business to trust. Online reviews not only help potential customers make informed decisions but also help you rank higher in local searches. So, ask your happy and satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on your website, Google account, and social media profiles, etc.
4. Backlink Profile
Building authority and relevant backlinks is an essential element when it comes to appear in more local search results. However, you should earn links from websites that are most relevant, local, and of high authority. Getting such backlinks to your local business can help you stand out in local searches. Creating useful, problem-solving, and fresh content is a great way to get your business linked in relevant blogs and websites.
5. Optimizing for Mobile
As more and more internet users conduct local searches by using their mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, investing in a mobile responsive web design helps you get the most out of your local SEO efforts. Google also ranks the mobile version of a business or website higher in local searches than a desktop one. That’s why, if your local business is not responsive, you should get a quick redesign to make it responsive and easy to view across a variety of mobile devices. In this way, your business can be noticed by more local customers using mobiles while searching.
Conclusion
Today’s competitive digital landscape requires mastering Google’s top 5 local SEO ranking variables. A well-designed website and local SEO methods can dramatically grow a business and attract local clients, especially in the COVID-19-induced online-focused climate. Local SEO, also known as local search marketing, helps businesses reach customers when they search online for relevant items or services. Google My Business optimisation, on-page signals, online reviews, a strong backlink profile, and mobile optimisation are essential for improving local search results, building relationships, and increasing local sales.
The Best Work from Home Productivity Tips for Remote Workers
Remote work is common in this global village as most of the tasks and jobs can easily be accomplished outside the office. But, working from home during the worldwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has added pressure and strain on workers’ minds beyond the normal remote work environment. That’s why employers and team leaders should take this situation into consideration and adjust expectations (of both employees and employers) accordingly to get more done.
Below we have listed some work from home productivity tips that can help you establish an effective, productive, and sustainable remote working routine. However, these recommendations and tips might not be feasible for all telecommuters but can help them develop better work routines.
Set a Schedule
When you visit the office or workplace every day, you usually are likely to follow a routine to start and end each day productively. You should do the same while working from home. Before getting started with a work from home schedule, think about your early morning routine and dedicate plenty of time for things like exercise, breakfast, and taking a shower to get your day off to a better and productive start. Consider your end day routine as well and then work-related tasks and jobs accordingly. It will help you spend each of your days properly even without wasting precious moments.
Designate an Official Home Office
Limit your home office to a particular area in your home so your work-related activities don’t interrupt the lives of other people living in your house. In this way, you are also better able to concentrate on your work. Instead of checking emails and other work-related notifications in front of the TV screen, have a space designated to work. Make sure your home office is distraction-free and is a stress-free zone where you can focus better on work. Hence, if there is no separate space that you can turn into your working area, then choose an area with a minimum flow of family members to stay focused and productive too.
Choose the Right Tools
Your laptop and high-speed internet connection are the basic tools if you are working as a telecommuter. Not only to accomplish work-related tasks, but it is the main source of communication with your leader and co-workers to complete your work effectively. In addition to a properly working laptop and an internet connection, you may also need some other equipment and tools like a video conference app, a cloud-based project management solution, an e-signature app, and so on. So, stay on top of all important tools and apps to stay productive in your home office and manage your tasks more effectively than ever before.
Limit Distractions
Finding ways to limit distractions around you is one of the biggest challenges when you are working from home as a remote worker. With the current situation of crises and strain, it could be hard for remote workers to prevent things that interrupt. However, you can do this by creating a schedule and building work boundaries so you can focus more on work and avoid any unnecessary distractions. Set boundaries for roomies and pets. Also, encourage them to leave you alone and never disturb you when you are working. You should also turn all the unnecessary digital notifications off to increase focus on work.
Practice Self-care
Health is wealth. That’s why practicing self-care is one of the most important work from home productivity tips. If you are good at health, you can accomplish all the work-related tasks and jobs efficiently. Don’t hesitate to do some stretches whenever you need to take a break from work. Leave your desk for drinking water and don’t afraid to nap if they make you feel refreshed and energetic instead of sleepy. You should often go outside the home for some fresh air and sunlight because they not only keep you healthy but motivate for productivity.
Stay in the Loop
Working in the office comes with the potential to increase collaboration and socialization so you can interact more with your fellows to get your job done effectively. And you don’t have to lose this potential just because you are working as a remote worker. Make a habit to check-in and interact with co-workers and supervisors on a regular basis to stay in the loop and stay on top of work-related things. Whether via email, social media profiles, video call, or in-person, stay in touch with fellow professionals.
Ways AI is Transforming Email Marketing
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fascinating force in today’s day-to-day life. Almost every industry is embracing this amazing technology as it reduces costs and streamlines complex business processes. Email marketing is no exception as there are a lot of AI & machine-learning-powered tools that can be used to leverage email marketing efforts effectively.
Artificial Intelligence and Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods to gain greater business outcomes. Artificial intelligence in email marketing helps brands and businesses understand what changes should be made in an existing marketing strategy and what truly works to achieve optimum outcomes. AI techniques and tactics like customer segmentation, optimized subject lines, personalized copywriting, and automation can incredibly boost email open rates and click-through rates.
How Artificial Intelligence Can Benefit Email Marketing
AI has vast traits and features that can change email marketing efforts for better and improved outcomes. Here in this article, I will discuss how marketers can integrate artificial intelligence to make the most out of their email marketing efforts.
AI-Powered Email Subject Lines
The subject line is the most important element of an email marketing campaign as almost 47% of users decide whether to open an email or not just by seeing the subject line. If your subject lines are boring and less engaging, you might be getting a lower email open rate. It is the place where artificial intelligence can help you make your subject lines stand out in users’ inboxes. AI uses deep learning to create, test, and optimize the best subject lines to grab the attention of more users. It tells marketers and business owners what reverberates and what doesn’t reverberate with your target audience based on the analysis of recently developed email marketing strategies and campaigns.
Optimal Email Sending Times
As there are different time zones across the world, you cannot send emails to your customers living in different corners of the world. For instance, if you are sending an email to a customer living in the UK at 9 AM, you cannot send an email to a US-based customer at the same time. It is the place where AI can come in handy to help you choose the optimal email-sending times for different locations and territories. As a result, your brand will be able to reach customers with the right message and at the right time.
Personalization
Personalization is the key these days to making your digital marketing efforts an ultimate success. The same goes for email marketing. Modern consumers are more likely to connect and engage with brands that better personalize their ads and present their customers with exactly what they need. As internet users are bombarded with a lot of advertisements and corporate emails, a personal touch can go a long way in the world of email marketing.
Artificial Intelligence allows you to segment your email list into different customer groups so you can send them personalized and relevant messages to boost conversions incredibly.
Email Retargeting
Retargeting emails are a great way to encourage your customers to purchase your product or services who have shown interest in your recent emails. If executed properly, retargeting could be a great tool to enjoy higher email marketing ROI. A lot of AI-powered tools and solutions are out there that can help you understand the browsing, searching, and shopping behaviors of your audience to send them interesting offers and convert them easily. Moreover, advanced email marketing solutions can also be integrated with other business solutions like CRM to craft and send appropriate emails based on customer purchase and spending habits.
Automation
Automation helps you send emails to your customers at the right time even if you are not available personally. As a result, all your email marketing efforts are accomplished with good care. AI-powered email marketing solutions help you get things done at increased efficiency and speed. It also helps you streamline the marketing process to reach your audience more effectively without forgetting any important aspect.
Predictive Analytics and Metrics
Predictive analytics is one of the modern email marketing trends that can help marketers and business owners develop results-driven marketing campaigns based on valuable customer data and insights. This technology is used to gain and analyze data and information of subscribers and website visitors to craft highly personalized email marketing campaigns to start selling most smartly. As a result, you can send your audience the right and interesting offers to convert them into valuable and loyal customers.
Conclusion:
AI in email marketing has transformed brand-consumer relationships. Optimization by AI-powered techniques like machine learning improves email campaigns. AI’s deep learning makes attractive subject lines, tailored content, and clever email timings more important. AI segments client groups to personalize messages, ensuring they resonate. Automation speeds up communication, while predictive analytics improves campaigns based on insights. The dynamic world of digital marketing benefits from AI and email marketing’s efficiency, consumer loyalty, and greater results.
How to Develop an International SEO Strategy
When your business or company has a well-developed, fast-loading, and mobile-friendly website, you can use a variety of traditional SEO techniques to rank it higher in local searches and drive more traffic. As a result, you will have a strong backlink profile and authority to build trust and credibility.
But when you want to expand your business to the international market, it gets a little bit complicated as you need to develop an international SEO strategy and implement it in the best possible way.
What is International SEO?
International SEO is a set of practices to optimize your website to drive more traffic from multiple regions or multiple languages. Techniques used to drive traffic to your site from multiple regions is called multiregional SEO and when you are trying to get traffic from multiple languages, it is called multilingual SEO.
For instance, when you optimize your site for people or a particular territory with more than one language, you are doing multilingual SEO so people with different language cultures can find and visit your website. And if you are catering to people in multiple countries, you are doing multiregional SEO to make your website visible in different countries and states. When you combine these SEO methods to reach a wider global audience, you can effectively present your business or products in front of people from different countries and understand different languages.
Best Practices to Develop an Effective International SEO
In this piece of writing, we will help you decide upon a result-driven international SEO strategy that can take your business to a whole new level.
Identify What is Working Already
When it comes to developing an international SEO strategy, you should start with those that are already working for you to rank higher in local searches. However, you should track where else are you getting organic search visibility and visitors, in which language and volume.
Getting answers to all the above-mentioned questions is very important for the protection of marketing ROI. so, dig a bit deeper to understand why you are appearing in search results in those countries. Which keywords and pages are driving more traffic, and what conversion rates are? For this purpose, you can use a variety of analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMrush, etc. to better understand your global audience.
Do International Keyword Research
Identifying top-performing global markets helps you decide on which is the best place to target for better business growth. It is the place where international keyword research comes in handy to help you enumerate local market opportunities. It helps you determine things like, which keywords are being used to find your brand or products over the web, keyword search volume and difficulty, etc. so you can plan accordingly.
A lot of keyword research tools are out there that can be used to conduct thorough keyword research and expand your pool of international keywords. You should also be using search engines like Google, Bing, Baidu, Yandex, etc. to discover more keywords. SimilarWeb is a superb tool that helps you find out the local sites with the highest traffic volume. It can help you find out the relevant local sites to check competition and gain insights into what keywords they are ranking for. SEMrush is another leading keyword tool that supports up to 25 languages and provides loads of online data.
Define how you will Manage your International SEO Efforts
When it comes to expanding your business to international markets, you should keep the future in mind and define how you will be managing your SEO efforts. Most organizations develop and define their international SEO strategies from the head office and guide their local SEO teams for the successful execution of international search engine optimization efforts to achieve desired outcomes. You should also manage your international SEO effectively by assigning tasks to dedicated experts and professionals.
Avoid Automatic Translation Tools for Multilingual SEO
When it comes to optimizing a website for people understanding different languages (Multilingual SEO), the use of automatic translation tools should be avoided as most of them are unable to translate 1-on-1 from one language to another. However, some of them come with amazing translation features to produce human-readable content. So, you should avoid automatic translation tools for international SEO or find out a reliable one to translate your copy into easily readable and consumable content.
Use of ‘Hreflang’ Attribute
Hreflang tags are used to tell Google what language is being used on the site to improve search results when it is being served to users. If there are multiple versions of a website for a variety of languages, use the ‘Hreflang’ attribute to tell Google about different variations of the site to help Google rank the appropriate version of your site by region or language. It will help reduce the bounce rate and increase conversion by showing the right version of your website to the users.
Defining geo- or Language Targeting
In addition to the ‘hreflang’, you should define your global preferences for the target audience by using geo or language targeting by using webmaster tools like Google search console and Bing webmaster tools. However, you should use such targeting features cautiously as you can limit the visibility of your site by configuring your targeting preferences badly.
Conclusion:
Businesses expanding abroad need an international SEO strategy. Multiregional and multilingual SEO is needed to transition from local to international markets. First, evaluate successful local market strategies to build on strengths. Identification of target markets and content optimization for varied audiences depend on international keyword research. Effective international SEO requires strategic planning and work delegation. Avoiding automatic translation tools in multilingual SEO and using ‘Hreflang’ tags improve language representation and search results. Geo- or language targeting precision maximizes visibility without restricting access. Businesses may master international SEO and engage a diverse global audience by following these best practices.
Reasons Online Reviews Are Essential for Business Branding
Easy and quick access to the internet has drastically changed the way people shop for anything they need in day-to-day life. From tech gadgets and devices to healthcare services and grocery, modern consumers leverage their buying decisions by reading online reviews submitted by other customers or clients.
In this modern marketplace, online reviews are essential for business branding as they help you optimize customer experience accordingly and provide potential customers a reason to buy from you. Apart from the nature or size of the business, consumers’ published experiences with your brand can do wonders for you.
Why Online Reviews are Essential for Your Brand?
Here in this article, there are key reasons why online reviews are essential for business branding to improve search engine ranking and drive more traffic to your site which is very easy to convert.
Increase Local Search Rankings
In this digital world, customer reviews with 5 stars play a significant role in better organic rankings in search engines. Moreover, enabling online reviews also add credibility to your brand while they are also going to add unique and engaging (user-generated content) to your website. As the availability of more informative and engaging content on your site helps you get higher ranks in local search results, your site pages are crawled and indexed by search engine crawlers frequently to help you appear in more local search results. The best thing about online reviews is that they can appear in more search results as ‘rich and helpful answers’ to drive more qualified traffic to your site.
Online Reviews Can Increase Sales
Believe it or not, an amazing increase in sales is one of the great benefits of positive reviews and feedback from your existing customers. With internet-connected mobile devices, peoples visit sites like Google, Yelp, and Facebook, etc. that offer reviews and feedback about their favorite brands and companies. It is the place where a lot of positive online reviews come into play to help you secure more new sales. When potential customers are able to see so many online reviews about your brand or products across a variety of digital channels, they are more likely to spend their hard-earned money on your products or services. thus, to promote such an environment, you should focus on quality services or products to provide your customers with an excellent experience to get more online reviews in return.
Brand Trust and Credibility
Your brand is better able to build trust and credibility with help of a steady stream of positive online reviews. They are powerful to build a strong online identity and credibility for your brand. It is also a fact that online buyers doubt brands with ratings below four stars. That’s why the way internet users are talking about your brand or business is just as important as they are saying your name. When you have a lot of reviews with 5 stars, you are eventually on your way to drive more sales as online reviews build strong brand trust and credibility to draw the attention of potential customers.
Customer Reviews Are Increasingly Essential to Decision Making
In this digital world, the ability for customers to talk about and discuss your brand on different digital channels is an important element of your overall online presence. According to research, two-thirds of online shoppers consider online reviews an essential part of the decision-making process and they go through the web to find customer reviews about a brand or business they are about to spend money on. That’s why, encourage your customers to share their reviews and feedback on different channels like Google, Yelp, Facebook, and your business website.
Create Consumer Engagement
Most often, online review pages become active online communities where your customers leave feedback and keep visiting to see if other customers are responding to their reviews. As a result, you can improve consumer engagement and create buzz around your brand to stand out among competitors. It builds direct relationships between your customers, brands, and other customers as well.
Understand and Better Serve Your Consumers
Customer reviews and feedback tells whether you are providing an excellent experience or you need to improve things to better serve your customers. It helps you find out areas to be improved so you can take essential steps to cater to awesome services accordingly. So, you should allow and encourage your customers to leave online reviews, ask questions,s and share their valuable feedback to understand their needs and interests in the best possible way. It will help your brand to understand what you’ve been doing wrong and how to incorporate necessary changes to improve the overall customer experience.
Final Word
The way you promote your business is imperative, but having happy customers talk about your brand or products is an excellent way to get your corporate message across to a broader audience. Encouraging your customers for online reviews can incredibly help you improve your marketing efforts to drive more traffic, increase brand awareness, and boost the bottom line.
Reasons You Should Choose WooCommerce as Your eCommerce Platform
Thousands of online stores and eCommerce websites are launched every year. In this highly competitive marketplace, there is no shortage of options for beginners when it comes to choosing the right eCommerce platform. As almost 2.3 million eCommerce stores out there around the globe, WooCommerce is commonly used by most of them as it offers several awesome features like flexibility, ease of use, scalability, etc. To make your online store successful, you need to make sure that you are working with a platform that has an easy-to-use and clutter-free interface and is also very easy to use for your customers.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that is used to create and manage online stores in the best possible way. With a lot of important features, reasonable levels, flexibility, and scalability, it is one of the best platforms to get started effectively. It is the most effective and popular plugin for WordPress that offers great SEO value and makes eCommerce easier than ever before.
Advantages of Choosing WooCommerce as your eCommerce Platform
Scroll through the article and find several solid reasons why you should choose WooCommerce for your new eCommerce business to stand out.
It is Free to Use
When it comes to designing and developing an online store, budget is one of the most important factors to consider. There are countless eCommerce apps and platforms that range from free to thousands of bucks per year. Luckily, WooCommerce costs nothing when you choose it as your eCommerce platform. You just need to download & install it on your WordPress site and get started immediately.
From viewing past & open orders and delivery status to tax settings, inventory management, and shipping options, it has everything that a professional online store needs to thrive.
Simple to Use and Intuitive UI
This amazing eCommerce platform is very easy to download, install, set up, and use. Even beginners can use it easily without having basic web design skills and expertise, thanks to its intuitive and easy-to-use UI. WooCommerce allows you to edit and customize every part of your online store. From customizing the homepage design to other important aspects of your store, you can do it all yourself.
As designing an appealing and professional-looking eCommerce store takes a lot of time and effort, WooCommerce makes it easier than ever before. It helps you design an awesome and visually appealing online store of your choice.
Customizable
Numberless free and paid extensions are out there that can add great features to your eCommerce stores. WooCommerce is one of the most famous and trusted platforms around the world as it comes with excellent customization features that let you add third-party extensions and plugins to make your online store stand out. You can easily integrate outside apps and extensions like payment gateways, reporting, marketing, and so on without facing issues.
It is a Modular
As everyone knows WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, it comes with a rich set of amazing features that can easily be extended by using other plugins and add-ons. It comes with a lot of plugins, themes, and eCommerce-specific extensions that can make things a lot easier for you. The beauty of a modular system is that it comes with a community of professional developers who develop extensions to add specific functionalities to a particular app or plugin. The availability of plugins (most of them are free) makes WooCommerce a perfect eCommerce platform for everyone who wants to build a new online store.
Powerful Analytics Tools
In this digital world, analytics is one of the most important assets for every business. It is the best way to get useful data and insights into how your eCommerce website or online store is performing. The more you know about your business and the products offered, the better you can make fertile changes accordingly. WooCommerce comes with a powerful analytics tool that helps you get a better analysis of your customers and your business to optimize your business and marketing strategies for better outcomes. You can also integrate Google Analytics to get more accurate data and insights.
Wide Range of Themes
An eCommerce store must be appealing and alluring enough to grab the attention of users and keep them engaged for longer. WooCommerce helps you make the overall layout and appearance of your store by offering a wide range of free eCommerce-specific themes. You don’t need to be an expert developer to customize WooCommerce themes as you can do it with little to no technical & programming skills.
Advantages of Conducting Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Regardless of which industry you are associated with, customer satisfaction should be one of your main priorities because if you don’t care about them, they won’t become loyal to your business. Surveys conducted by businesses to find out customer satisfaction are gradually important for businesses of all types. Thanks to advanced technology, such surveys can be conducted online and are inextricably linked to various business processes like sales, marketing, production, etc.
A properly conducted customer satisfaction survey offers a lot of advantages to brands and businesses. it is not only an effective way to invite customers to provide their feedback and express their opinions but also an opportunity to invite people to learn new things about their favorite brands and companies.
The advantages of conducting customer satisfaction surveys are myriad which can directly result in new sales, customer retention, and increased growth.
Gaining Genuine Feedback
Getting genuine and valuable feedback is one of the most important reasons for conducting a customer satisfaction survey. Most of the time your customers are happy with your products or services, but may also have a complaint or suggestion regarding your product or one of your business processes. Getting to know this is vital, so you can resolve issues they are facing or offer appropriate solutions to their problems. Many companies also offer compensation in the form of discount coupons or gifts to customers who have provided valuable feedback or suggestions. They also make necessary changes in their processes to make sure other customers don’t face such issues in the future.
Retaining Customers
In this competitive business landscape, every brand or business is doing its best to provide customers with an excellent experience. For this purpose, it is vital to see that people don’t select someone else over them when they need to buy their favorite things, goods, or services. Regularly conducted customer experience surveys enable you to see the areas that need to be improved and how you can make things better. When you are better able to make necessary changes in your business processes, you are more likely to retain customers for more purchases.
Build Trust and Loyalty
When you conduct a customer satisfaction survey, it shows that you care about your customers and want to provide them with an excellent experience. There is no better way to ask the customer directly if you want to know honest suggestions, feedback, and opinions about your business or products. It is a great way to let your customers know that you are always open to listening to your customers regarding your products, business operations, or processes to bring necessary improvements.
Stand Out from the Competition
Your customers don’t love you when you offer bad products or services but your competitors do. Competitors usually wait for your wrong moves to let your audience know why you are not the right fit for their needs. It is the place where conducting such surveys can help you stand out from competitors. When you listen to your customers often via customer satisfaction surveys, you are better able to listen to your customers directly. Customer satisfaction surveys help you find out and resolve customer issues and pain points. You can also make a perfect pricing structure for your service or products.
Increase Brand Popularity
The significance of customer satisfaction cannot be ignored at any cost. Satisfied customers are the lifeblood of an organization and they are more likely to share your marketing content and campaigns within their social circles to help you reach a wider audience. So, always plan your marketing campaigns that can capture the level of higher customer satisfaction and encourage them to spread word of mouth about your business. They will not only engage with your blog posts or social media posts but will also leave wonderful feedback and compliments that could be a trust element for your potential customers.
Set Up New Business Goals
Customer feedback is the best way to find out the real needs and requirements of your target audience. They might be interested in getting some new features in an existing product or want a new product to meet their needs. By getting all these details and information, you can have more new business ideas to grow your business while providing your customers with exactly what they need.