by sekaterina | Apr 16, 2019 | Blog, Marketing Agency, Multichannel marketing, Small Business Marketing Blog |
SEO in 2019:
The importance of keywords, meta-data, and long-form content
Your website is one of your most important marketing pieces. It’s often the first place customers look to understand what you do, why you do it, and how you stand out from the competition. It’s important to create website content with your customers’ needs and questions at the forefront. You also want to write SEO content that will make it easy for your ideal customers to find your business. The rules of SEO are continually changing according to how we use and access information online. If you’re wondering what to do for SEO in 2019, well, keywords are still the best starting point. We break down what they are, and how to design your site to use them well. Remember, the ultimate goal of Search Engines is to provide searchers with the most relevant results. These tips are designed to help search engines do just that!
What do you want to be found for?
Whether you’re just creating your first business site or updating an existing one, a very important step is to sit down and think about SEO keywords before you begin. Taking time to understand exactly what you want to be found for can help you understand how to design and organize your website. If you’re not sure what your keywords are, a good place to start is taking a look at your competition – especially the competition that comes up in the top spots when you search. If your business is focused in a certain location, it’s often helpful to include the location in the keywords. Other keywords can center around specific services you offer that people might be searching for. Often, the more specific you can be, the less competition you’ll have on searches.
If you need help researching keywords, a good resource is typing something into google and scrolling down to the bottom of the page to see similar searches.
What is Meta-data and why is it important?
Every page on your site should have something called “metadata” included. Clear, well-written metadata that includes your keywords is extremely important for SEO. The metadata basically summarizes what your page is about for search engines, telling them which topics are the most important on the page. Metadata doesn’t appear on the page itself, but search engines read your meta-data in order to help provide the best results to searchers. The metadata on your site is split up into three key elements:
Meta-title
The meta title is the bolded first line that shows on google when someone finds your site. It also shows up on the top of your browser when you’re on the page and provides the default name for your page link when someone bookmarks it. Why is this important?
Because if you have a clear, well-written Meta-title that puts the most important keyword as early as possible in the sentence, it will help guide people to click on your site. Make sure your Meta-title is clear for the reader to get the most clicks.
Meta description
If you don’t add a meta-description to your site, search engines will typically show a short snippet from your page content – whatever is the most relevant to a user’s search. But that snippet, grabbed mid-paragraph, or cut-off, might not be very helpful to people. When you write a clear, easy to understand meta-description, you’re helping potential customers decide whether your content is relevant to their needs, so you want to make this one count! You also want to consider, what kind of content will help your customer, but also lead them to click for more information, so give a hint on the kind of helpful information they’ll find when they click through to your site.
Meta keywords
Adding meta keywords and/or key phrases tells google the key ideas that searchers will find on your web page. You want to identify keywords for every page of your site and list them in your meta keywords, separated with commas. Whatever keywords you specify, you’ll want to try to use them a minimum of 3 times on the page to make them count.
Using keywords on your web page.
Once you’ve identified your main keyword, and incorporated it into your meta-title and meta-data, you’ll want to make sure that you use it again, at least 3 times in your page content. It’s also a good idea to use it in Header tags, in bold, or in bulleted or numbered lists. All of these styles on your page have more importance than big blocks of text, so putting keywords in these sections will reinforce their importance to search engines.
You should also identify some secondary keywords or key-phrases. While you may not use all of your secondary keywords in your meta-data title and description, simply add them 3 times throughout a page.
The Value of Long-form content
While your general website might not always use long-form content, adding content that is around 2000 words long provides a lot of value for SEO in 2019. The reason for this is that search engines see long-form content as in-depth information that can answer searchers’ questions in one easy place. You can create long-form content on your blog, in help guides, and pdf downloadable resources. Creating long-form content is a great idea for your business, because it helps your clients, proves your expertise in your industry, and on top of that, gives your SEO a boost!
While there’s a lot more to the SEO in 2019, carefully considering and using keywords on your website, crafting good meta-data, and creating long-form content on your website will all help your SEO, and get more customers to your door.
If you need help with your SEO, we’re the experts! Learn more about Prospect Solutions’ SEO services.
by Ekaterina | Apr 2, 2019 | Blog, Lead Generation, Marketing Agency, Multichannel marketing, Small Business Marketing Blog, Social Media Marketing |
What is Corporate Brand Marketing?
Unlike Personal Brand Marketing, Corporate Brand Marketing is a way to market your company and establish brand reach, recognition, and loyalty. While your company may be your baby, it is a separate entity from yourself, and has its own family, history, voice, and traditions. Your brand’s personality goes far beyond the established corporate name under which you do business, and what your brand means, and stands for, affects your customers, your industry and your employees.
Corporate Brand Marketing communicates your brand to the world via your company website, social media pages, email, telephone, video, photography, colors, copywriting, etc. All of these elements come together to create a consistent feeling and message about your business, what you offer, how you work with partners and clients, and why people should choose you over the competition.
Corporate Brand Marketing also uses social media channels to help connect with clients and deliver great brand experiences, but it takes a different approach to using those tools, and integrates them with other channels to establish your brand and reach customers:
Corporate Brand Marketing on LinkedIn:
Your business page on LinkedIn can be used for a few different things. It helps establish the HR side of your brand, connecting to employees and sharing more about your corporate and work culture to attract excellent potential new hires. It’s also a great advertising platform, especially if your business is B2B-focused, and your target markets are using these channels. You can help reach and connect to customers through posts, but if you want to extend your reach, you can also use LinkedIn’s paid advertising and job-posting options.
Corporate Brand Marketing on Facebook:
Your Business Page on Facebook is also a great place to advertise to potential clients through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, and to share content from other platforms, like your blog, or website. You can use it to highlight current promotions, engage followers to sign up for newsletters, and much more. One of Facebook’s best features, however, is Messenger, which offers a direct chat option with clients. This means you can offer live conversation and customer support, and be available to customers on one of their most used platforms. You can also set up a chatbot in Messenger to help automate responses to specific keywords, making this communication process more seamless. It’s important to remember that your responsiveness as a brand is an important part of your brand personality, and building client trust and word-of-mouth. Facebook business pages also include options for online selling directly through Facebook. As social media platforms go, Facebook continues to be one of the most multi-featured, offering a variety of tools to support your business.
Corporate Brand Marketing on Twitter and Instagram:
Twitter and Instagram can also both be used for direct communication with clients, but they’re also great platforms to share branded content that establishes your company’s brand personality. Since Instagram does this through images, it should connect with your overall brand feel and colour scheme, and emphasize the visual aspects of your brand. In contrast, Twitter, is more about sharing ideas, and having online conversations, making it a great place to develop and share the voice of your brand personality. It’s also a visible platform for talking to clients, publicly showing how you respond to the customer.
Corporate Brand Marketing on You-Tube:
You-Tube is one of the most creative tools you can use for Corporate Brand Marketing, and often requires the most skill to get it right. You-Tube can be used for sharing your own corporate videos, or you can access You-Tube advertising options and put your ads in front of a wider audience. Corporate videos can showcase products, share corporate events, highlight company values, or demonstrate company culture to help hiring. Whatever they do, they need to do it well in order to engage your audience, so it’s worth investing, time, thought, and money in order to get the most out of branded company videos.
Email Marketing:
Setting up an ongoing e-newsletter is a great way to increase your brand reach, and connect with some of the most qualified contacts. Sending regular emails puts your brand directly in customers’ inboxes, and since customers actively sign up, you know they really want to receive it. E-mail marketing is a great tool to provide value to your customers though tips, expertise, promotions, brand stories, and more.
Blogging:
Your company blog is the place to establish the expertise of your brand, and provide added value to help your potential customers. Establishing a blog helps drive SEO to your website, but more importantly, it helps customers to move down the sales funnel, and/or become repeat customers, by providing information they need to make decisions about your brand, or to get the most out of your products or services. Creating ongoing blog content also supports all of your other social media platforms, as you can re-share this valuable information on a variety of channels. And if you have a sales team, blog content is a great resource for them to share when clients have questions.
The important thing with Corporate Brand Marketing is to create consistency throughout your social media posts, web content, visual and written messaging, and in the the way you do business. With so many online tools and platforms available, companies have a lot of power to establish the strength of their brand and reach clients. But at the same time, clients have a choice, and these very public and conversational channels allow customers to dialog with your company when they’re happy, and when they’re not. This means how you do business, how you communicate with customers, and how responsive your company is, all play important roles in your Corporate Brand Marketing, and brand image.
If you need help with your personal brand marketing or corporate brand marketing, get in touch!
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