60+ free martech sessions. The agenda is live!

Deliver exceptional digital experiences, streamline operations, and drive revenue.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

from Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips https://ift.tt/2ZRiBUg
via

More Google Ads changes and SERP fluctuations; Thursday’s daily brief

Plus, hop on Twitter trends

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

from Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing https://ift.tt/3dTxOwa
via

Unified ID 2.0, ecommerce Shopper Experience: Thursday’s daily brief

Plus, Yelp expands Waitlist for disrupted diners

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

from Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips https://ift.tt/2ZSrnRU
via

A Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO in 2021

Local search is powerful for small businesses: 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information, which means if your business isn't optimized for local search, you could be missing out on potential customers who are ready to shop in your area. In short, local SEO is critical if you want your business to stay relevant.

To help you optimize your business for local SEO, we've created a comprehensive guide, which will cover local SEO tips and tools.

By the end of the guide, you'll have a firm understanding on how to optimize your business to reach potential consumers who use local search to choose which products or services they're going to buy.

To gather information for local search, search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user.

With local SEO, businesses can use this to position their products and services to local prospects and customers who are searching for them.

1. Optimize for Google My Business.

Google My Business has become the creme de la creme of local search -- since Google understandably feels most comfortable sharing content it can support and verify, Google My Business is their tool to help your business meet Google's needs. 

To ensure you're optimized for Google My Business, you'll want to:

1. Create and verify a Google My Business page
2. Use Google Posts within your account
3. Encourage your customers to share reviews online
4. Respond authentically to reviews, specifying location. For example, “We appreciate your feedback on [product/service] in [city, state]. We value your input and look forward to working with you again. Thank you from the [full company name] team.”

If Google can verify your business as authentic, the search engine could potentially reward your business with a coveted sidebar space in Google local search.

Don't just do this for the SEO, either. By having reviews and keeping your contact information and operating hours up-to-date, you're improving the experience for potential customers to find you. Finding current information is important to consumers, now more than ever, due to 2020's disruption in consumer shopping behavior and business operation.

To learn more about using Google My Business, check out our full post here.

2. Engage on social media and add posts to Google My Business.

Google considers content shared on social media more important now than ever before.

Now that you've carved out a beautiful Google My Business page, share the page on social media, further aligning social and search.

3. Ensure your name, address, and phone number are consistent online.

You've got to make it easy for people and search engines to find you. To do this, set up your NAP, which stands for name, address, and phone number (with area code). This should be included as crawlable HTML text on your site.

Avoid the common mistake of only including the NAP within an image -- images can't be crawled from search engines like HTML text. The most common location for the NAP is in the footer or header of the site.

4. Optimize online directories and citations.

For United States companies, these four map data aggregators provide a large amount of the map data for Apple, Yelp, Bing, Google, Trip Advisor, and more.

• Express Update
• Neustar Localeze
• Foursquare
• Factual

Consistency is key: verify that your citations are consistent and complete across these four data aggregators.

Discrepancies like misspellings, abbreviations, lack of suite number or wrong phone number can be problematic.

If Google can't determine which information about your business is correct, it may not show your business at all in search results.

Additionally, be sure to remove any duplicate listings you find. Bonus points for emphasizing a Chambers of Commerce membership in your community, which will garner you an external inbound link.

5. Perform a local SEO audit.

Once you have the fundamentals down, it may be tempting to put your foot on the brake. However, SEO is an ongoing and intuitive process. Instead of stopping there or simply making changes and seeing what sticks, it helps to perform a comprehensive audit to see where your website stands and what you need to work on to achieve your goals. A local SEO audit may include the following:

• Google My Business Audit - How does your Google My Business appear in the SERPs? Is the information accurate?
• Google Search Console Audit - Is your site crawlable? Does it have any errors that would hinder indexing?
• On-Page SEO Audit - Does your site accommodate all the on-page SEO elements that help ranking?
• Citation Audit - Are all of your citations correct in the top business directories?
• Competitor Analysis - How does your site match up with your competition's? Are there any gaps that you need to close? How do you match up in terms of inbound links, content, design, and positioning?
• Website Audit - How well is your website performing?

6. Improve your internal linking structure.

Although external links pointing to your site are ideal (which I'll discuss soon), adjusting your internal linking structure will also boost your SEO rankings.

Why does internal linking matter? It does the following:

• Supports website navigation
• Assists with information architecture and website hierarchy
• Distributes page authority and ranking power among pages

If you want to improve your internal linking structure but aren't sure where to start, check out Kissmetrics' The Seven Commandments of Internal Linking for Top-Notch SEO.

7. Optimize URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content.

When it comes to content, every new blog post is a new indexed page for your site, a new page on which to target a geographic search phrase, and a new opportunity to get found in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Every time you write a piece of content, you need to optimize the content for search engines by using high-volume keywords in the URL, title, header, meta description, and body. If you're having trouble coming up with geo-targeted content, consider highlighting customer success stories and case studies.

8. Add location pages to your website.

If you have more than one brick and mortar location, create location pages. Location pages provide readers with your name, address, phone number, store hours, unique store descriptions, parking/transit information, promotions, and testimonials from happy customers.

It's also important you avoid duplicating content across multiple location pages. For single location businesses, create a locally descriptive About Us page. You'll get big time bonus points if you add a Google Map to your website on your respective location page(s).

9. Create local content.

Google continues to get smarter, which means content creators are now able to truly write for users, not search engines. But while writing about general topics will attract a wide crowd, sometimes it's more important to hone your focus and write about local or industry news to attract a local audience.

Be the local authority for your industry by promoting local industry gatherings, news, employees, and other educational content on your blog. Think of top-of-the-funnel content that goes beyond what your business sells.

For example, if you're a local security company and you're trying to attract businesses that are new to the area, create a helpful resource to get these businesses well-acquainted with your city. A map of local service providers or a calendar of city-wide events could both provide value for your persona and contain highly relevant on-page local signals.

10. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.

Local search and mobile search go hand in hand (61% of all Google searches are performed on mobile).

Some of the most common ways people will use your site in a mobile environment is to look up reviews, find directions to your location, and search for contact information. In fact, "near me" searches on mobile have increased 250% since 2017 (Think With Google).

Make it easy for your prospects and customers by making your site mobile-friendly.

11. Get inbound links with relevance and authority.

Inbound links are incredibly powerful opportunities to boost your local SEO -- every inbound link tells Google you're a legitimate company, and inbound links can also raise your domain authority. Here are a few ways to get inbound links:

• Sponsorships or Partnerships
• Guest Blog Posting
• Scholarships

Start with your own personal network, which may include the Chamber of Commerce, business improvement districts, licensing bureaus, trade associations, resellers, vendors, and/or manufacturers and other affiliates.

Consider sponsoring a webinar or meet-up, hosting a community event, promoting something local you love, and building relationships with prominent people and influencers. Additionally, learn to feel comfortable reaching out to partners to see if they can feature you on their partner directory.

Also, being a guest blogger can help attract links. Talk to and about (positively, of course!) other people in your industry, and act as a resource provider for the community. If you're an active participant in community conversations, the buzz around you grows in the form of inbound links, social media growth, and media coverage.

12. Participate in your local community. 

The more you participate in the local community, the more digital PR you'll receive. Partnering with a nonprofit on a campaign, having a volunteer day in your organization, sponsoring an event (even an online one!), or appearing in the local media as an authority in your industry are all ways to earn press, brand awareness, and inbound links.

For example, given that .edu links are the bee's knees for domain authority, why not earn some links by featuring a scholarship in your geographic region? It should be relevant to your industry, send the right signals to your domain (given the backlinks from schools) … and make you feel good, too! Moz built up a solid guide on the steps to success for effective scholarship outreach.

Local SEO Tools

Now that we've covered how to optimize your business for local SEO, let's explore some useful tools you can leverage to improve your ranking in the areas where it matters most.

1. Whitespark Local Citation Finder

A local citation is any online mention of the name, address, and phone number for a local business.

Citations matter because they help surface local businesses in online search, and when local businesses actively manage their citations to ensure data accuracy, it promotes trust of these online listings.

Whitespark knows this realm well -- really well. Whitespark offers local listing management, recommends where to list your business, examines your competition, and robustly builds and monitors your citation growth for better local search rankings.

2. Screaming Frog

This desktop program crawls websites' links, images, CSS, script and apps from an SEO perspective. Curious if you have any 404's? Wondering about missing meta descriptions or H1's? Screaming Frog will analyze up to 500 URLs for free and offers an unlimited paid version for $200/year.

3. Moz Local

Less expensive than most of its counterparts, Moz Local will ensure your business listing has been verified on Google and Facebook, and distribute your listing across the search ecosystem.

Additionally, Moz Local will collaborate with data aggregators to help push listings, ensuring your business gains visibility.

4. Ahrefs

Ahrefs helps with backlink checking, which is important as these links (which are directed toward your website) serve as an indicator of website authority.

Ahrefs also offers competitor analysis, keyword research, and insight into the anchor text other websites use when backlinking to your site.

5. Buzzstream

BuzzStream facilitates earning local backlinks, which helps you identify and build relationships with local influencers by researching influencers, tracking conversations, and providing reporting insights into your outreach campaigns, team performance, and link placements.

6. BrightLocal

BrightLocal is a comprehensive SEO tool suite specifically built for local business marketing needs.

The tool can help you generate and monitor reviews on local sites, understand your local search performance, and analyze nearby competitors.

BrightLocal also offers client access and white-labeled reporting -- making it a solid fit for agencies and brands alike.

Local SEO is an important part of any SEO strategy for local businesses. If you have a storefront or service area, local SEO will help your audience find you when they search online.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://ift.tt/2vYhdmL
via

How to Create a Facebook Business Page in 5 Simple Steps [Tutorial]

With 2.6 billion people actively using Facebook every day, Facebook has become a go-to component of almost any inbound marketing strategy.

But as more and more Facebook features change, so does the process of setting up a Page.

Don't waste another day aimlessly poking around on Facebook trying to figure out how to get your Page posted. We built this guide to help you avoid wasting time on a marketing asset that should work for you.

(If you're looking for tips and resources for how to leverage your Facebook Page once it's up and running, check out our comprehensive guide to Facebook marketing).

What is a Facebook Business Page?

Your Facebook Business Page is essentially your company or organization's "real estate" on Facebook. It constitutes your main Facebook presence — where you'll post updates, share content from employees and customers, and link to when referring to your business elsewhere on Facebook.

Consider your Facebook Business Page your Facebook "home." Moreover, your Facebook Page is not a static site. Sure, there will be static elements like your About information and cover image, but to manage your Page correctly, it should be consistently updated with content.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, we'll walk you through how to create a Facebook Business Page. We'll discuss what to post on it later.

Follow these steps to get your Facebook Page up and running in no time.

1. Create a Page.

To begin, head to Facebook. On the left-hand menu, choose Pages > Create New Page. This should launch the Page creator within your Facebook interface.

Enter your Page name and choose up to three categories. Type in a brief description — what your business does, the services you provide, or the purpose of the Page in under 255 characters. You should see this information populate the right side of the Page creator.

Once finished, click Create Page. 

(Note: I recommend carefully selecting your name. Although Facebook allows you to change your name and URL once, it's a difficult and tedious process.

2. Add images.

Clicking Create Page shouldn't move you off the Page creator. You'll see two more prompts added to the left-hand menu: to add a profile photo (170 x 170 pixels) and cover photo (1640 x 856 pixels).

Add a logo or widely recognized image for your profile photo. If you have other social media accounts for your business, consider using the same profile photo from those to keep your online presence consistent.

For your cover photo, choose an image that represents the purpose or theme of your Page

You should see these images populate the right side of the Page creator. When finished, click Save.

3. Choose a username and assign a CTA.

After the previous step, Facebook should move you to the Facebook Business Page dashboard where you'll manage all other aspects of your Page.

This interface can feel overwhelming, so bear with me. First things first, choose a username for your Page. A username helps people find your Page in search and allows them to easily tag your Page when posting about your company. Your username also makes up your Facebook Business Page URL.

For the example below, I chose @cloverconsignment. So, my Facebook Page URL would be https://ift.tt/37MFIDM.

Next, click + Add Action Button to add a CTA to your Page. This should be the action you want your visitors to take when they visit your Facebook Business Page.

Facebook offers 10+ different CTA options, from Shop Now to Learn More to Contact Us, and some allow you to input your website to help drive traffic.

4. Edit your Page info.

After setting a username and choosing a CTA, click More > About in the main menu. This will navigate you to your Page info, where visitors will go to learn more about your organization.

Click Edit Page Info in the top right corner to update this information. 

There are many fields to update here. Here's what to focus on:

• Location: If you're a local business, input your business address so visitors can find you.
• Hours: Brick and mortar businesses should input their store hours as some shoppers may reference their Page to see when they can visit.
• Price range: You don't have to fill out this designation, but it may help to specify the price range of your products and services to target the right shoppers.
• Additional contact info: Input your website, phone number, and email so visitors can contact you outside Facebook. This information will also help drive Facebook traffic to your website and products.
• More info: The description you added in step one should be under "About." You can add more information under "Additional information," and you can write in a mission or vision statement under "Impressum."

5. Understand your Page settings.

In the left-hand navigation, click Settings at the bottom. The left-hand menu will change to more detailed categories, and the right side interface will list (seemingly) countless options.

I encourage you to skim through these settings and get familiar with what each may change or update on your Page. In the meantime, however, I'm going to unpack a few core settings to know.

• General > Others Tagging this Page: Make sure this is checked as it will allow others to post about and share your Page.
• General > Similar Page Suggestions: Make sure this is checked so Facebook recommends your Page to new followers and fans.
• Messaging > Show a greeting: Turn this on so your Facebook Page will automatically send your followers a greeting when open Messenger.
• Templates and Tabs: If you need to rearrange the menu on your Page or the information offered to visitors, you can do this here.
• Notifications: This section allows you to customize when and how you'd like to receive Page alerts. Set a frequency that fits your social media marketing schedule.
• Page Roles: Whether or not you'll be the main manager of the Page, there may be others at your organization who need access to your Facebook Page. Here, you can invite other colleagues to make changes to your Pages. Some common use cases here include:
  • A public relations manager who needs to respond to any delicate questions.
  • A support representative who can assist those asking technical questions.
  • A designer tasked with uploading new photo creative to the Page.

What to Post On Your Facebook Business Page

Congratulations! Your Facebook Business Page is up and running (just like I promised). Now it's time to work ... and by work, I mean post on your Page, consistently.

As I said in the introduction, your Facebook Page should not be a static site. To manage your Page correctly, it should be updated with content on a regular basis.

Moreover, you should have a good amount of content published before you invite users to be a part of your growing community. Who wants to follow a blank Page, anyway?

When posting on your Page, use a variety of content — images, video, GIFs, memes, shared customer content, or graphs.

What images would your audience like to see? What stats would they like to read? What links would they like to click? Ask these questions to jumpstart a Facebook brainstorm.

If you post a particularly impressive or exciting post, you can pin it to the top of your feed. Do this by clicking the little grey arrow in the top-right corner of the post and tapping Pin to Top to move it to the top for seven days.

You can also use this feature for product announcements, business anniversaries, and other major events pertinent to your brand.

When you have enough content on your Page, start strategically inviting users to Like it. I recommend inviting users in the following cadence:

1. Invite colleagues to Like your page and its content to build some initial activity.
2. Invite supporters in your network. Encourage them to engage.
3. Invite customers. With some activity now on the Page, they’ll be more interested.

Promote your Page by sharing its content on your other social networks and including a link to your Page on your website and your email signatures.

How to Measure Your Facebook Business Page

The work you put into your Facebook Page should ease over time. How? By keeping an eye on what kind of content your audience prefers and likes to engage with.

To measure your Business Page activity and growth, click Insights on the left-hand menu. From here, you can monitor how people are engaging with your Page and content, thus showing you what content to focus on sharing in the future (and what content you can do away with).

You should also measure your efforts to ensure you're making valuable marketing decisions on Facebook. Under Insights, you should see the following:

• Overview: This tab shows a seven-day snapshot of your metrics such as Page Likes, post reach, and overall engagement.
• Followers: This tab gives you information about your followers and how that number has changed over time.
• Likes: This tab shows your overall fan growth and losses. If you're employing paid efforts, you'll be able to see the breakdown of paid versus organic growth.
• Reach: This tab highlights the raw number of people your Page is reaching every day. If you notice spikes on a specific day, try cross-checking what you posted that day to see if you can replicate that reach.
• Visits: This tab indicates where on Facebook your viewers are coming from. You can see the difference in visits on Facebook Timelines, your information tab, reviews, and others.

Other tabs like Posts, Events, and Stories show you specific activity around those types of Page content.

Over to You

Facebook is no longer a "nice to have;" it's a necessity for any business developing a strong inbound marketing strategy. Use this guide to build a successful Facebook Business Page to engage your audience and drive traffic to your website.

Want to see how HubSpot uses Facebook? Like our Facebook Page here.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://ift.tt/3pVGJ2x
via

Google Search may be showing featured snippets less often

The tool providers are noticing a decline in the number of featured snippets showing up in the Google search results.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

from Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing https://ift.tt/3spEiac
via

Google set to deprecate Showcase Shopping ads on April 1

Previous Showcase Shopping ad layouts will be included in Product Shopping ad groups.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

from Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing https://ift.tt/381k2UT
via