Did you know that there are 30.2 million small businesses in the U.S. alone?

This number is only likely to increase in the coming years.

As a small business owner, you may struggle to get the word out about your company in such a competitive field. What’s more, you may simply lack the financial resources needed to launch massive advertising campaigns.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools at your disposal for boosting your organic visibility. Small business SEO services, in particular, can get you noticed without breaking the bank!

Keep reading to learn more about SEO services and how they can help your business today. Whether you want to learn and implement on your own, or invest in small business SEO packages, this article will get you started in the right direction.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Google processes over 40,000 searches every single second. This equates to over 3.5 billion queries a day!

Businesses everywhere can take advantage of this incredible search traffic with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is a digital marketing strategy that can improve a business’s visibility.

Think about a basic Google search. A user types a keyword into Google that best approximates what they’re looking for.

Examples include “effective remedies for sunburn” or “best restaurants in London.”

Google then ranks websites based off of which ones best match these searches. The better the match, the higher the ranking.

For this reason, most users will stick to the first page of Google results when searching. They will most likely click on one of the top ten listings.

What does this mean? If your web content is appearing in the second or third page of search results, you’re missing out on potential traffic. What’s more, you could be missing out on brand visibility–period.

Enter SEO. This digital marketing tool is available to anyone with a website! And it is ultimately designed to boost your organic visibility by optimizing your content for keywords your customers are likely to enter into Google.

What is Organic Visibility?

Organic visibility refers to how “visible” you are as a brand.

In general, the more visible you are, the better. More customers will notice your brand and–hopefully!–walk through your doors or engage your website to make a purchase.

In fact, that’s what marketing is all about. Most advertising campaigns are designed to get the word out about your brand.

Organic visibility, however, is the best kind of visibility. “Organic” in the marketing world refers to something that happens naturally. Organic searches refer to Google searches that lead a visitor to your site.

This has a lot to do with inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is all about letting the customer come to you (rather than the other way around). It can be far more powerful than outbound marketing, and far less taxing!

SEO is all about helping you achieve that organic visibility. When your content is optimized for the right keywords, it will surface at the top of search results, and your organic “click-through rate” (how many people click on your link as they scroll through search results) will rise.

The higher your click-through rate, the greater your visibility. This can only lead to more conversions, sales, and long-term customers.

What Are SEO Services?

It’s possible to implement SEO on your own or with the help of professionals. In fact, you can optimize your content for search terms without spending a penny.

If you are interested in tackling SEO yourself, we recommend beginning with Google’s SEO Starter Guide.

Even if you eventually invest in SEO services, it’s important to know the rules of the game. SEO involves so much more than cramming some great keywords into your content!

SEO services research, implement, and track SEO campaigns for small businesses. Instead of you having to do all of that work, the experts handle it for you. Many businesses have discovered the value of organic SEO, so while you can get started on your own if you lack the budget, over time the SEO grind gets taxing and it makes sense to bring in the pros.

Every SEO package varies, but small business SEO services focus specifically on finding lucrative keyword opportunities that are attainable with your website and your budget.

Marketing professionals will help you get there through content marketing, monthly reporting, keyword optimization, and effective link-building.

The Financial Benefit of SEO Services

What are the benefits of SEO services as opposed to DIY SEO campaigns? More importantly, how can agency SEO services help budget-conscious small businesses?

As a small business owner, you may be wary of outsourcing anything beyond the essentials. This is totally understandable, especially if you are in the first few years of your business.

After all, most small businesses start out at a mere $3,000 to $5,000. The majority of entrepreneurs seek outside financing, such as business loans, to get things going.

Marketing’s ultimate aim is to “get things going,” though–by getting you noticed! For this reason, investing in professional advertising services may be exactly what you need to get off the ground.

Here are some other reasons why SEO services may be what you need.

The Many Elements of Winning SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) sounds simple at first glance. How complicated could it be?

Sure, SEO involves playing a bit of a matching game. Marketers choose search terms and knit these into existing content.

But it is so much more than this! If the only rule for SEO involved keyword integration, Google would have no way to assess authority and rank pages appropriately.

Google takes into consideration plenty of other factors when assigning rankings. For example, it looks very, very closely at content quality.

After all, Google has to maintain its own reputation as a search engine. If it fails to deliver good matches for searches, users will navigate elsewhere!

In its guidelines to a Google-friendly site, Google emphasizes the value of high-quality content. It urges marketers to give searchers the information they’re looking for. This content should be well-written and authoritative. It should not be misleading in any way.

Yes, it should be optimized appropriately for relevant keywords. But this is only part of the SEO pie.

Google also inspects link quality and number, especially the number of links to your site found on other sites. These “backlinks” can be valuable for assessing your domain’s authority and its likelihood of ranking highly.

If your site loads too slowly, this could also hurt your Google ranking. Google prioritizes fast-loading, mobile-friendly sites.

If you are new to marketing and SEO, all of these factors can be hard to keep track of! When you invest in SEO services, you entrust your campaign to experts well-versed in everything that influences rankings. What’s more, you can rest assured that they will be optimizing everything to ensure your organic visibility.

SEO Takes Time–And Effort!

SEO is a time-consuming, ongoing digital marketing process. It is not something you do in a day. Nor is it something that can be implemented and then left to its own devices.

In fact, the best SEO campaigns come from solid industry research. Professional SEO marketers will spend time analyzing your target market and industry niche. They will perform intensive keyword research to come up with the exact search terms your clients are likely to type into Google.

Then, they will optimize your content accordingly. Sometimes this involves fresh web design and actual content development. Some SEO services will incorporate link-building as well.

Once a campaign is launched, marketers will track it constantly, identifying areas for improvement and generating monthly reports.

As a small business owner, you’ve got enough on your plate as it is. Plus, your time is money. The more time you have to devote to SEO, the fewer dollars in your pocket.

SEO services can actually save you money by generating an effective campaign the first time–without costing you your time. The return on your investment will always be higher, especially if you are not well-versed in SEO already.

Like any relationship, building a strong relationship between your website and Google takes time. In the long run though, having a steady stream of organic leads for your business is an undeniable asset that leads to massive growth.

Results Happen Fast When You Outsource

Our customers have said it time and again. Outsourcing SEO generates fast, effective results. With SEO services, small businesses can get onto the first page of Google within a matter of months.

Tackling SEO on your own, however, can have variable results. It may take longer to boost those rankings organically without the aid of professionals.

Plus, it can be hard to identify areas for improvement if you don’t know what to track.

Don’t Get a Google Penalty

Yes, it is possible to make an SEO misstep. If you violate any of Google’s SEO rules, you are at risk of a penalty. Google penalties can tank your organic visibility. They can also take a long time to recover from.

DIY SEO marketers are at greater risk of these penalties than professionals. When you outsource, you eliminate this risk.

Any organic visibility acquired through SEO services you get to keep. End of story.

Final Thoughts: Small Business SEO Services

SEO can be a powerful tool for small businesses everywhere. Because it is a form of digital marketing, it is particularly ideal for budget-conscious businesses.

Small business SEO services can be especially valuable for boosting organic visibility. These are designed to get your brand on the first page of Google so that you can enjoy greater traffic, conversions, and sales!

While businesses do have to invest in SEO services, this investment is likely to save money in the long run. Every SEO campaign is time-intensive and unique and requires professional attention.

Are you ready to boost your visibility now? Start a conversation with us to learn more!

The post Small Business SEO Services: Improving Rankings on a Budget appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Choosing a Portland SEO Expert: Introduction

The last time you needed to build or redesign the website for your Oregon-based business, did you hire a company to get the job done right? If you answered “yes,” that’s great!

You saved time letting professionals do what they do so you could focus on what’s important to you: managing and growing your business.

You may have taken the same approach for your SEO, social media, and other online marketing components. If you didn’t, you have probably considered it more heavily by now, as online marketing strategies and execution are often more than meets the eye.

SEO is much more than identifying a few keywords your customers are using, and implementing them into your website. Google has tons of signals they use to determine page rankings.

And why do we care what Google thinks? Because they handle 92% of the search queries throughout the world. What they say (and how they rank pages!) matters.

Good news Oregonians – is it’s not too late. Hiring a local Portland SEO expert will get your website and organic search marketing strategy on track. You just need to make sure you work with an expert or team of experts who are capable, affordable, and fun to work with (this is Portland after all).

Read on for a few reasons it pays to hire in Portland, as well as the key components that define and drive a winning SEO campaign!

Why Hire a Portland SEO Expert?

Before we get into the most important elements of SEO, let’s talk about why you specifically want an SEO company from Portland.

You’ve heard of Silicon Valley. That’s the area of California that houses some big names in the tech game.

Well, have you heard of Silicon Forest? That’s the name given to the Portland metro area because of its own surge as a tech capital. In fact, Forbes named Portland the best place in the U.S. for businesses and careers.

Portland is a city chock-full of bright, talented, and creative people looking to make their way in the industry. Because of the high salaries folks in Silicon Valley demand, companies look to California’s northern neighbor for their workforce.

In other words, startups and other growing businesses are choosing Portland to lay down their roots. One, because of the talent in the area and two, economically it’s a slam dunk.

Convinced that Portland is where you need to look for your SEO expert? Now, let’s discuss the Google ranking factors.

What Is Google Ranking For?

Since the advent of the Internet, keywords have been an integral part of how search engines work. But are they as important as they were a decade ago?

After all, Google changes their algorithm what seems like every month. Can keywords still be as important as they once were? In a nutshell, yes. They’re just important in a different way.

So, where do keywords fit in Google’s grand scheme of things? And what else should a company focus on in search engine optimization ranking?

Rumors have swirled for more than a decade that Google uses 200 signals to rank sites. But, don’t get stuck on that number. It’s not possible to focus on every single rumored factor.

What you can focus on are the most important signals. Take a look at 10 factors that determine Google SEO ranking the most…

1. Crawlable and Indexable

Your site must use a crawlable, indexable URL. This means that when Google’s spiderbots go to work, they can find and understand your page.

They do this by crawling and indexing.

In simple terms, crawling is how Google discovers pages. It’s not a paid service, it’s Google’s bots searching and scanning over and over.

You can improve this in two ways. The first is to submit a request for Google to re-crawl your page. The second is by getting your page linked from another site Google already knows.

We’ll get to that a little later.

Indexing is what Google does after it finds your site. The short version is Google tries to understand what’s going on on your page.

It analyzes and catalogs text, images, videos, etc. It stores what it finds in its index. This is a fancy term for saying “Google’s massive database.”

You can improve both by having smart, simple URLs. You do this with subdirectories.

For example, say your company sells coffee. You have a blog that covers beans, brewing, and flavors. You’ll want each post to fall into one of those subcategories.

Your URLs will look like: https://www.yourcoffeesite.com/beans/where-beans-come-from. This makes it easier for Google to crawl and index you. Google will understand how your website relates to the various components of your URL structure.

2. Keywords: Research and Intent

Your site should solve a problem. But, what problem is it solving? That’s where keyword research and intent comes in.

Many years ago, keyword stuffing was a thing. People would jam the keyword “coffee” as many times as they could on their sites and in their blogs.

That’s because Google used to care about how many times a site used a particular keyword. Now, they care much more about the intent of the keyword.

This means you need to have a primary keyword (or keyphrase) along with a set of related keywords. These are secondary keywords. They’re words that are similar or even synonyms to the primary keyword.

The point is no matter if someone searches for coffee, java, joe — they are more likely to find your site than they were in the past (although proper keyword focus and emphasis is still important).

You can use a keyword finder to this, or you can do it yourself. All you need is a little SERP investigating!

Open up Google, start a search for words related to your business. Does a drop-down appear with a bunch of already finished queries?

That’s Google’s search suggest drop down list. It’s pretty much exactly how it sounds. Google uses its algorithm to suggest the most popular searches for a particular keyword.

They’re assisting you with looking for relevant intent. Go ahead and check it out and see what it suggests is relevant for your targeted keyword. It may give you some fun ideas for blog posts, too.

3. Domain Security

Domain security is becoming more and more important these days. How do you get it? By using HTTPS in front of your URL.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. This is the process of transferring your site’s information to a viewer’s browser.

HTTPS is HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. This tells Google it’s safe to index this information.

All you need to do to secure your domain is get an SSL certificate. If you have a WordPress site — and chances are pretty good you do — it’s free and easy to do.

If you’re part of the 40-50% of the Internet that doesn’t use WordPress, you may have to pay for yours. Ask the company that built your site about getting an SSL certificate if you’re unsure.

4. Build Relevant Backlinks

We mentioned having your page linked from another site is important for SEO. It’s even more important that you’re getting linked from pages Google already knows.

Why?

Even though you’re not getting all your traffic from these referrals, it tells Google you’re trustworthy. Trust is a key component in Google’s algorithm.

This also makes up a big part of the difference between white hat vs. black hat SEO. Black hat focuses on aggressive strategies to get you ranked, attempting to take advantages of the non-human elements of the search algorithm. It’s keyword stuffing, invisible keywords, and using backlinks that are irrelevant, among many other things.

White hat SEO uses trustworthy link building techniques. They use appropriate keywords, site structure, and content to generate traffic.

Black hat may be an easy way to get SEO results but it’s also an easy way to get yourself banned, too. Both Google and Bing have denounced using these practices in their webmaster guidelines.

5. Topic Authority

This is an easy one. The more you post on a topic, the higher each post will rank over time.

So, if you have a coffee shop, go ahead and blog about beans and flavors. Link internally to relevant service pages on your site to build a healthy link structure.

Don’t blog about irrelevant or unnecessary topics. This isn’t doing anything to help your authority.

6. Content

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times by now. Content is king.

But not only the content itself, how you structure it. Yes, you must have smart, readable content. But you have to structure it in a way that Google likes.

For instance, Google considers “good content structure” blogs that include:

• Headers
• Subheaders
• Bulleted lists
• Numbered lists
• Supported images
• Cited information
• Short, readable paragraphs

All these points keep readers engaged. Google likes engagement.

7. Loading Speed

Loading speed is all about user experience. Google’s pretty big on UX, too.

If your site takes forever to load, people just give up – if Google hasn’t already.

You know those “timeout” errors you get when you try to load a webpage? If Google deems it takes too long it basically tells you to move on.

But, loading speed is even more important as you’re about to see…

A good Portland SEO expert will help you optimize your website for high speed and performance.

8. Mobile-Friendliness

Mobile-friendliness is becoming more important year over year for SEO. There are several reasons having a site optimized for mobile use is important for SEO.

Here are the two biggest: use and speed.

More than 53% of all searches are now done on a smartphone. That means the UX of your mobile site must be at the top of its game.

But, 53% of users will give up on a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Ouch.

If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, make it mobile-friendly. Yesterday.

9. Responsive Web Design

Google also rewards websites who constructed their site through use of responsive web design services. In a way, this piggybacks off of having a site optimized for mobile use. But, the two are actually quite different.

“Responsive design” describes web development done in a way that considers which device the site is getting viewed on. In other words, mobile devices, tablets, laptops, and large screens — all at once. Regardless of what device someone uses to view your site, your site automatically adjusts to fit their screen.

This is important because it focuses heavily on UX. Since Google seems to be moving more and more toward actual human experience, this could be an even bigger factor in years ahead.

10. Meta Tags

You might hear that Google doesn’t care about meta tags anymore. While certain meta tags have become less useful for SEO (as engines have gotten better at figuring out what a page is about by its content), other meta information is still crucial.

They may often get forgotten but they’re still an important part of your SEO. Make sure you’re filling in:

• Title tag
• Image alt text
• Meta description

The meta description is the snippet that appears in SERPs. It should be persuasive, the right character length, and include your focus keyword(s).

Ready to Hire a Portland SEO Expert?

Hiring a Portland SEO expert gives you an advantage over your competition. While they’re struggling to figure out what SEO is, you’ll reap the rewards of having a professional handle it for you as your climb your way to page 1.

Are you ready to get the best and brightest to optimize your site and turn you into a rock star? Great! Click here to get started and set up your free consultation.

The post Choosing the Right Portland SEO Expert for Your Oregon Business appeared first on Midas Marketing.

As a dental office, you will always face stiff competition. It is up to you as a service provider to gain a competitive advantage in your field. For essential services like dentistry, you may not get as much walk-in traffic as you will from web searches.

It is therefore essential to invest in quality dental SEO services. Dental SEO services are meant to position your practice as a visible authority in your field. They are also intended to help you turn prospective customers into paying patients at your practice.

According to research, most web users are likely to turn to search engines when searching for a service. The reason is that searches can yield quick results for local businesses. Still, unless you have a robust SEO strategy in place, it is likely that you will get outranked and your competition will enjoy those leads.

Ranking poorly will keep your practice from reaching its potential. Start with these tips to improve your dental SEO strategy.

Hiring a dental SEO expert will help position your practice to be discovered by younger, online searchers.

1. Have a Great Website

Before you even think of a dental SEO strategy, you need to have a website in place. A great dental website design gives you a strong presence on the market. With the immense number of online searches conducted per day, having an accessible site places your practice in a prime position.

Web users usually trust businesses with websites more than the ones unavailable on the internet. Your site needs to be intuitive and informative. A professional website gives you an edge in making you a business leader in your field. It can also be a lead generation machine for you when designed properly.

You can achieve the full potential of a website by incorporating tools that make it more accessible. Such mechanisms may include mobile accessibility and fast load times. Having a site makes your clients more confident with your practice from the very beginning.

2. Work on Your Website’s Accessibility

Making sure your website runs smoothly on any device is a strategy that could help your dental practice’s rank. Google is keen to reward websites whose content is accessible via mobile. With a large section of web users who use portable devices, you should highly prioritize mobile access.

A mobile-friendly website means you can maximize on opportunities to serve potential patients who would like quick services, local services or emergency services. It could also translate to making your website shareable.

Users can locate you using tools such as maps. They can also share information about your platform in other apps primarily found on mobile devices.

3. Enlist Reputable SEO Companies

Search engine optimization extends further than keyword placement. As a professional dentist, however, you might not know all the intricacies of dental SEO ranking. It is important to engage the services of a reputable SEO company on a monthly basis to build your website’s authority in the eyes of Google and others. A good SEO company will help you come up with a strategy that gets you to the top of search engine results.

Due to the competitive nature of your field, a reliable SEO company can help you pick out the most effective strategies for best returns. SEO can be an investment, with plans generally falling in the $500 to $3000+ depending on your market. However, when you consider the lifetime value of a new patient, every dentist looking to grow will see the value of ranking high in search engines.

4. Keep Your Content Fresh

Regular content keeps visitors coming to your site. Your content does not need to focus on selling your practice every time. Creating fresh and relevant content makes Google evaluate your site often and give your content precedence if it is deemed valuable.

Additionally, users trust a site that gives them valuable information about a particular field. Even if they were not looking for immediate services, reading dental content on your website gives your business a better standing among competitors and establishes you as a thought leader.

More content opens your site to more opportunities to utilize on-site SEO strategies. These strategies translate into organic traffic for your website and strong search engine placement.

5. Invest in Social Media

Social media channels are a complimentary resource for dental SEO. Social media platforms can bring you targeted traffic. By interacting with your followers, you can analyze your data to make even better choices for your practice.

Social media provides an opportunity to gain insights into your patients’ preferences. You can then revamp your practice to cater to a wide range of potential clients. Social platforms are also useful in marketing.

Keeping an active social media portfolio means you maintain a grasp across diverse groups. This helps you develop future strategies that target specific groups. It also assists in improving the visibility and authority of your practice.

An active social media strategy can improve your website authority, give you channels for sharing your blog content, and provide insight about your customer’s key pain points (and how you may want to adopt your SEO plan to reflect them!).

6. Use Review Sites

It’s been proven for a while now that web users will trust a business based on feedback from previous users. If a first time user wanted to use your dental practice, they’d look up what other visitors have said about it. Having your dental practice in high-level review sites such as Yelp could bring in more traffic to your business.

It also helps potential clients settle on your business. A keyword chain like ‘dentist reviews + city’ leads potential clients to review sites which mention your practice.

You can use this strategy by asking clients to leave a review about your business. Even a handful of 5-star reviews boosts your reputation in a sea of competing services.

7. Use Local Listings

To reap maximum benefits, it would be great if you optimize your keywords for local search results. Potential clients are more likely to seek out the nearest practice for essential services for dentistry. Using resources such as Google Local, you can position your business as the go-to choice in your area.

You can include contact information and physical address details of your practice. Prospective clients can find you online or walk into the business premises directly to schedule an appointment.

Local listings also give you a higher ranking due to less keyword competition. For instance, using a keyword chain which includes your locality will bring clients to your page if you have optimized your site for local results.

8. Embrace Video

YouTube racks up billions of video views every day. In fact, it is the second largest search engine behind Google. While you can spend hours writing up new content, you can direct some effort to video production.

Social media platforms are increasingly giving videos preference. By creating short, informative videos, you are developing a strong presence in a low competition environment. You can even use videos to market your practice by showing procedures.

Users too are showing an inclination towards video over traditional reading. You can package your message in easy-to-grasp graphics. Once potential clients see the business, they feel like they can trust the services you offer.

Making exciting educational videos also encourages users to share the content they find. The videos must be of good quality and in a format suitable for sharing.

9. Utilize Online Forums

Forums are an often overlooked, yet valuable assets in SEO ranking. Constant engagement in discussions gives you and your practice more visibility on search results.

Forum engagement can range from Q&A boards to commenting on blogs. It is also an opportunity to place your practice in service-specific platforms. The result is garnering more organic traffic to your site.

You stand better chances of appearing on the top of search engines if you offer helpful commentary on forum boards. It is even better if your input in these forums gets upvoted or rehashed by other users. New users and potential clients can correlate your presence with being a trusted resource for dental services.

10. Focus on Customer Service

Customer service has the potential to make or break your website and your reputation. For your dental practice, it is crucial to ensure that your patients experience stellar customer service every time.

Poor customer service can lower your ranking due to negative reviews and reports. If clients are continually complaining about your website, you might start experiencing lower return visits to your site.

When you’re investing in SEO, it only follows that your website and staff need to deliver on their end once potential patients discover your practice online! Excellent customer service will help you understand the diverse needs of your clientele so you can offer better dental services.

Dental SEO – Wrap Up

SEO is a vital resource that you can implement to help your practice achieve its full potential. You need to use other strategies to make sure you are getting the most out of your SEO campaign. As a professional brand, these tips will only bring you as much success as the consistency you put behind them.

A strategic dental SEO plan will strengthen your brand profile and keep you at the top of search results. Your audience will consider you a valuable resource for dental services.

To position your business as a reputable resource for top-class dental work, you need to consider hiring SEO experts. Forward-thinking dentists should embrace the mass shift of audience from traditional walk-in models of business. If you’re not entirely sure who is the right fit for your dental SEO needs, consult local listings.

If you want help in SEO, copywriting, web design, and digital marketing, the team at Midas Marketing is here for you. Just reach out to us whenever you’re ready!

The post Top 10 Dental SEO Tips to Grow Your Practice appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Selling homes is your thing. Showing up on the first page of Google? Not so much. Is that a good reason to neglect your organic leads? Not at all. With digital marketing, you can easily put your agency on the map and earn yourself more leads.

The key to getting qualified traffic is to use real estate SEO services as part of an integrated marketing strategy. With search engine optimization (SEO), you can take your website from the 5th page on Google to the first in a matter of months.

Why is this important? Because 44% of home buyers begin their search for a house online. This is why you should invest heavily in optimizing your site and its content for search engines.

Of course, it’ll require some research, commitment, and know how. If you’d like to learn more about how SEO can help your real estate business, then continue reading!

Let’s review some of the ways you can streamline your real estate SEO efforts.

Make Use of Those Local Keywords

Chances are, you’re only selling properties in very specific areas. And while this may seem to limit to your business (especially for non-popular destinations), it’s a goldmine in the world of SEO.

This is because local keywords help drive specific traffic to your site (but only if you optimize for them). For instance, if you’re selling residential properties in Portland, OR, then you should include terms like “Portland OR homes for sale,” in your site.

But don’t just guess as to what search terms your leads are using. Use tools to research which keywords get the most searches every month. You’ll need to find keywords that are relevant to your prospects and don’t have a lot of competition. If too many other businesses are ranking for those words, then it’ll be a lot harder to make it to page 1.

As a rule of thumb, you should use your target keywords throughout your site. For instance, you can create a page called “Why Hire a Portland, OR Real Estate Agent?”

The primary keyword here is “Portland OR real estate agent.” Include the keywords of your choice in the title, first paragraph, a subheading, and in the conclusion.

Keep in mind though: Google is getting smarter and more human every day. Don’t ever stuff your keywords into your page over and over, and make sure to keep everything natural. The example above is great as it sounds fairly natural yet still hits the localized target keyword. More on this later!

Boost Business with Your Blog

In today’s consumer-centric world, it’s all about content. While ads can still be helpful in getting leads, it won’t offer the consistent traffic flow like SEO can. And the best way to streamline your SEO efforts is with a content strategy.

If you don’t already have a blog, it’s time to build one. You can do this easily with WordPress. They offer a variety of templates to choose from. Or you can hire a web designer to implement one on your existing site.

As for the content you put on your blog, you want to write pieces that will attract your audience. What better way to do this than to blog about the properties you have available? You can create an engaging piece with lots of details, photos, and maybe even walk-through videos.

Make sure to include your keywords inside your title and throughout the page. It’s also recommended that you put your target keyword in the meta description, alt tag for photos, title tag, and file name of photos.

Make Use of Images and Videos

There’s nothing more engaging on the web than images and video. In real estate, these two tools are your best friend. As you’d imagine, home buyers are looking for actual footage of the houses they’re interested in.

Besides placing this type of media in your blog posts, you can also feature them on their own section of your website. For example, you can have a page of available properties that prospects can browse through.

In fact, you can use your blog posts to promote the listings on that page to drive traffic and get folks looking around. Of course, you’ll need to optimize these photos and videos using your target keywords.

Just make sure that all of your videos are shot professionally (or at least with a steady hand). If your videos are low quality and have poor production, then you’ll only run prospects away. Capture tours of your properties, as well as testimonials from your past clients.

All of this can help convert more leads.

Everyone loves looking at pictures of well-presented homes. Use this to your advantage in your SEO marketing efforts!

Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly

Google and other search engines are very keen about sites that are mobile-optimized. In other words, if your real estate site isn’t quick-loading and easy to use on a mobile device, then it’s going to lose ranking.

On that note, it’s very important to ensure that your website is responsive to any device visitors are using. The best way to do that is to adopt a responsive web design. You can hire a web designer to build one from scratch or you can buy a template.

The reason this is important for your real estate SEO is because it’ll negatively impact your ranking in Google if you ignore it. It’s also important to point out that most home shoppers are using mobile devices to find property listings.

So it makes sense to make your site easy to find and use by your mobile visitors. Also, when mobile users conduct searches on Google, guess what pops up first: local listings.

By targeting local keywords, it’ll help your website show up first in their search results.

Claim and Create Business Directories

Here’s another great example of the power of search engine optimization. When local search results pop up, business directories are among the top. It makes sense to claim all of your listings in these directories or create them if there are none.

This includes directories like Google My Business, Yelp, Zillow, Trulia, and RedFin. The more directories you’re on, the better. Just make sure all of the information you provide is accurate and identical across all listings.

Your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) should be consistent with what’s on your website as well. If there are discrepancies, it can alert the search engine that your data is out of date and will hurt your organic visibility

Make Sure Your Bio’s Optimized

Home buyers aren’t just looking for homes to buy, they’re looking for an agent that’ll help them find the house of their dreams. That’s you!

While an incredible bio detailing all your achievements and client satisfaction rates is great, it won’t account for much if it’s not found. Optimizing your bio not only brings traffic to your bio page, but to your website.

Every page of your site is a tool in your SEO arsenal. If your name is your brand, then make sure to optimize it with that.

If you don’t already have a name for yourself and your business (meaning popularity), then this next tip may help.

Grow Visibility Using Social Media

Social media platforms are another clever way of driving organic traffic to your business. You can use them to gain a following and grow your visibility as a personal or business brand. It’s also an incredible method for starting and building relationships, both with prospects and influencers.

Your social media pages are the perfect place to advertise your blog posts and home listings. It’ll drive traffic to these locations and tell Google these pages are relevant and good quality (further boosting your SEO ranking).

A social media strategy is important to have and is often included as a recommended strategy alongside real estate SEO services. If you decide to do it on your own, ensure to add photos and videos in your posts to increase engagement and shares.

Get involved in the conversations on your posts to show you’re human and that you care. Answer questions in a timely fashion, especially your direct messages. Facebook showcases your responsiveness, so if your score is good, more people are likely to reach out to you via social media.

Don’t Overstuff Pages with Keywords

Now that you understand the importance of keywords (especially local key phrases), it’s essential to point out density limits. In this case, it’s not “the more, the merrier,” it’s “the more natural, the better.”

Google and other search engines care about the quality and readability of your content. And if you’re stuffing your pages with search terms with the hopes of getting a higher ranking, you’re sadly mistaken.

In fact, this will drop your site to the back of the bus and you may even get penalized. Bouncing back from a Google penalty is no joke so avoid it at all costs.

So what is a good amount of keywords to use? Well, as a rule of thumb, the bare minimum is to have the keyword in your title, intro, subheading, and conclusion. You can sprinkle it throughout the content wherever it fits naturally.

It’s also a good idea to use related secondary keywords so you don’t feel compelled to keep using the same version of the key phrase. For example, you can have Los Angeles realtor as your primary, then your secondaries can be: LA realtor, Los Angeles real estate agent, and LA home seller.

Hiring Real Estate SEO Services

Now that you have a hefty list of real estate SEO tips, it’s time to start putting it to use. But if you’re a busy realtor (which is always good news), you may need a little help.

In this case, it’s a good idea to invest in real estate SEO services. There’s a lot to SEO, which you may not have the time to learn about. By hiring an SEO expert, you can get the traffic you need for your business to excel.

At Midas, we have professional digital marketing experts that can help build you a solid strategy. We offer SEO, copywriting, web design, and other services. Get in touch with us today to learn more!

The post Getting More Organic Leads with Real Estate SEO Services appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Instagram is one of the most powerful social media platforms for marketers today. By the end of 2017, businesses are expected to buy over $4 billion worth of ads on the platform.

You should be buying Instagram ads. But there are plenty of ways to use Instagram as a marketing platform that don’t involve making a purchase.

Instagram SEO is an incredibly effective marketing technique. But it needs to be done properly. If you want to profit off of your Instagram presence, you should follow these tips.

How Many Hashtags Should You Use?

This may seem like an obvious one. But it isn’t as simple as people think.

The truth is, there’s no clear roadmap for how many hashtags you should use on Instagram. Instead, ask yourself which hashtags you should use for your strategy.

Using unpopular hashtags can be a total waste of time. Comparatively, a few well-chosen hashtags can give you a massive base of potential customers.

So, just like with regular SEO, Instagram SEO requires strong keyword research. If you want to do some research, you should look into tools like Websta.

Websta displays the top 100 hashtags on Instagram. You can narrow them down by a variety of categories, such as location. This will help you to reach the customers you want.

You can also look at what the most influential accounts are doing. Instagram Influencers, celebrities, comedians, and models can all be analyzed. This way, you can learn more about what you should do with your own strategy.

Should You Use Ads?

Instagram Ads are an incredibly effective way to reach customers. That being said, you shouldn’t use them to the exclusion of organic content.

They’re an amazing tool. Particularly since Facebook brought Instagram, you’re now able to analyze the demographic appeal of your ads to find your ideal audience.

That being said, there’s an emotional connection that you can only get from making a natural post. So, use advertisements. Just don’t make them the entirety of your strategy. They’re also not a substitute for good Instagram SEO.

Social media ads can be a great thing. No digital marketing teams or consultants worth their salt will ever tell you to completely forgo PPC or purchased advertising strategies.

Just don’t make them the basis of your Instagram presence, and you’ll find some absolutely incredible success.

What Should Your CTA Look Like?

A good CTA (call to action) is essential to any advertisement. But a CTA on Instagram is a lot different than a CTA on your website or in a printed advertisement.

To make things even more confusing, the CTA that you use on different types of Instagram ads can vary greatly. Having a good CTA strategy can be just as important as having a good Instagram SEO strategy. In fact, it can be even more important.

What’s the value of getting a post viewed if views don’t translate into money?

If your post is aimed solely towards generating brand awareness, you should encourage people to like and share the post.

Simply telling people to do those things can be incredibly effective. In fact, you can create brand evangelists out of typical viewers through this technique. That being said, there are strategies that go beyond user engagement.

If you want to advertise a sale or other event that requires people to make an order or be physically present, don’t be afraid of making a proper sales pitch. Telling people to make a purchase or a visit can be incredibly important for your business.

Your CTA strategy is dependent upon your goals for a specific post. So, make sure you think it out so you can turn clicks into cash!

How Can You See If My Strategy Works?

You can have an incredibly well-planned strategy. But if you want to succeed, you need to know that it’s working. One of the best ways to do that? Start by using the variety of business tools Instagram offers customers.

There are a few pieces of information you can get by using Instagram Insights. At the most basic level, this includes:

• Impressions (views for your posts and stories)
• Reach (views by unique accounts)
• Website clicks (the number of clicks you have on each link)
• Profile views (measured in unique visitors)

On top of this, you can get a demographic breakdown of your viewers. That includes location, gender, and age. This information can be incredibly important to your Instagram SEO strategy.

If you know your products are most profitable among 25-year-old women on the West Coast? Well then, you want those women to see your posts — instead of 54-year-old men from Alaska.

This is particularly important for companies with physical stores. If you have a limited shipping or sales range, it will not be helpful for you to get a lot of clicks from eople outside of that area.

Make sure you take advantage of these insight tools if you want to successfully market on Instagram. Knowing who your customers are, and where they are, is essential.

Who Should I Hire For My Instagram SEO?

An Instagram SEO strategy is incredibly complicated and important. If you want to make it profitable, you need to hire the best digital marketing team for your Instagram presence.

Our SEO and digital marketing team is incredibly capable and experienced. We have a passion for helping businesses succeed online.

We want to help you.

One look at our portfolio reveals the great number of successful ideas behind our marketing philosophy. When you work with us, you can add yourself to the parade of businesses who have found success by our side.

If you want to take your digital presence to the next level, you absolutely need to get in touch with us.

Contact us to start making money today!

The post How Many Hashtags Should I Use? Instagram SEO for Beginners appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Maximizing server uptime can have a big impact on your SEO efforts.

If your website’s server goes down unexpectedly, and for long periods of time, you may need to make some changes. Uptime is one of the most important aspects of your overall site performance.

If your website doesn’t stay up consistently, Google will take notice.

Interested in learning more? This post will tell you everything you need to know about the benefits of maximizing server uptime.

What Is Server Uptime?

Server uptime refers to availability and accessibility of your website online.

When your website suffers from downtime, your website is inaccessible any visitors who come to your domain. When people visit your site, they won’t be able to see your content or pages. This can be a real problem.

Downtime occurs occasionally during system maintenance. However, unreliable web hosts may suffer from extended downtime. If your website is constantly down, you may not be using a reliable web host.

Maximizing your uptime is important. Plus, it can help you to avoid penalties from to search engines who try (and fail) to crawl your site.

Ways That Uptime Effects SEO

So, what are the ways that uptime and downtime effect SEO?

Here are some of the negative things that may happen if your site is consistently unreachable.

Web Crawlers Will Have Problems

Web crawlers from Google and other search engines send bots across the web to scout for new content. If you have a lot of website downtime? Well, when a crawler visits your site, they will be unable to take notice of any fresh content you’ve added.

Occasional downtime isn’t usually a problem. But if downtown happens too often, it may lead to Google penalizing your site.

Changes in Your Bounce Rate

Bounce rate refers to how much time a visitor spends on your site.

If visitors stay on your site for an extended amount of time or visit many pages after arriving, your site will have a low bounce rate. If visitors leave your site immediately after arriving, however, your bounce rate will be high.

Google judges your site by its bounce rate. Having a low bounce rate is ideal. It can help you appear to be more valuable in the eyes of search engines.

When your server is experiencing downtime, users will not be able to access our website content. As a result, your bounce rate will become higher. This will negatively impact your SEO.

Frustrated Visitors

While the bounce rate itself is an important metric for SEO, consistent downtime will also frustrate your visitors and customers. Over time, this can also lead to a negative impact on SEO.

Frustrated visitors will be less likely to engage with your business in the future. This is true both on your website and on your social media channels.

Over time, leaving many potential visitors frustrated will mean your business will have less engagement online. Less engagement usually leads to lower search engine rankings.

Problems With Speed

While not exactly caused by downtime, speed is another factor that can be diminished by using an unreliable host.

Constant downtime and a slow loading time for a website often go hand in hand. Speed has a definite effect on SEO. A website that is slow can be rated poorly by search engines.

Speed also has an effect on the factors mentioned above. A slow, sluggish site with plenty of downtime is a recipe for creating frustrated visitors. It also increases your website’s bounce rate.

Tips For Maximizing Uptime and Minimizing Damage

So, how can you maximize uptime?

There are several ways to improve your site while eliminating downtime. Below are a few of the main ways you can overcome these obstacles and maximize your website’s uptime.

Use a Reliable Host

Not all hosts are created equally. Some hosts will have faster, more reliable servers. Make sure to get an excellent hosting service for your site.

Some hosts promise 99.9% uptime, but often can’t deliver the goods. Cheaper hosts can’t always be trusted to give you the uptime you need.

Check out some online reviews to get the experiences of other users and find out which hosts are falling short.

You may also consider shopping around a while. Try different hosts for a certain period of time. Then, stick with the one that turns out to be the most reliable.

Monitor Your Site

Certain site monitoring services can help you keep track of any downtime that occurs. Using one of these services is an excellent idea.

A monitoring service can help you know exactly what is happening with your site at all times. A service can notify you when your site is down. Same goes if it isn’t performing as it should.

Once you know how your site is doing, you can then switch hosts as necessary. It may just be time to change web hosts to help maximize your uptime or improve your site speed.

Use Proper Header Codes For Downtime

When your site does happen to be down, using the right header codes can help to prevent Google and other search engines from giving you a penalty.

If your site is down for over a day, you should have the right heater installed to communicate with search engines. Google doesn’t want to send their users to a site that isn’t available.

You can lower damage caused by a long amount of downtime with a 503 header. A 503 header will let Google know that your site is simply experiencing some temporary downtime. It will also serve well to let customers know what is going on.

Final Thoughts

If you want to get the most out of your website, maximizing uptime is a must.

It’s important that visitors are able to access your website and have a great experience when interacting with your business online.

It’s crucial that you maximize your server uptime so that you can avoid Google penalties.

It takes some effort to pick the right host and keep track of your site’s performance. However, a little bit of homework and monitoring can go a long way.

Looking to learn more about how Midas Marketing can help you build your brand? Contact us today.

The post Can Maximizing Server Uptime Help Your SEO? appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Whether you’re new to the business world or a seasoned professional, you want to see results fast.

And if you’re looking to put time and money into SEO projects, you really want to see a quick return on investment.

So before you get into SEO, let us help you understand how it works.

What Are SEO Projects?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It basically refers to any online marketing you wish to perform that uses natural and organic methods to move up the ranks on various search engines like Google and Yahoo.

It basically refers to any online marketing you wish to perform that uses natural and organic methods. These various methods can be free to perform.

SEO is designed to help move your site up the ranks on various search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Here’s what information these search engines are looking for:

• Map Listings: Google especially wants to know where your company is located. We are an SEO company in Portland, OR for example, so we want to make sure Google recognizes that for local search.
• Organic: Can be any kind of content you create online such as your website, blog, etc.
• PPC (Pay Per Click): You pay for your search engine rankings by paying Google to place you at the top. However, these results show up as ads, which are different than organic or map rankings.

What Can Help Your SEO Project Be More Effective?

There are 4 factors that search engines look for when it comes to content.

They are:

1. Your Domain Name: The longer you own your domain name, the more Google and other search engines will trust your site and its content. Do some research on its former owner’s history when buying a new domain name.
2. Keywords and Phrases: These words and phrases help drive traffic to your site.
3. Content: It has to be good enough so people want to read it. Then it has to be good enough so Google ranks it.
4. Type of Business and Location: It’s free to claim your business listing on Google. Your business will then be listed in the proper category and your clients can find you easily online.

How Long Will It Take?

Certain parts of your projects will take longer to achieve results from than others.

On other SEO projects, you might get lucky and a see a quick turnover.

However, if you’re just starting out, here are the results you can usually expect to see.

Here’s what you can do that might show a quick turnover rate of 24-48 hours:

• Publish new URLs
• Create substantial indexable content on each of those URLs
• Utilize major ping services by pinging them

And here are SEO projects that will take the longest time:

• Performing an audit
• Implementing the work
• Google and other search engines to notice you and recrawl the new content
• Creating new content

SEO projects are like losing weight. If you really want to see positive, lasting results from your efforts, you have to be consistent. While short terms results can be exciting, they may turn out to be the low-hanging fruit. So be excited about the short term results, but trust that good content and commitment will always win in the end.

A good rule of thumb is to budget 3-6 months for a campaign to see how it goes. You may need more time than that to hit all of your goals, but that first window will give you a healthy idea of how to build a long-term, ongoing SEO strategy.

We’re passionate about helping you create amazing content that keeps your customers coming back time and again.

Contact us to see how we can help you outshine your competition!

The post How Long Does It Take To See Results From SEO Projects? appeared first on Midas Marketing.