Search Engine Marketing - Old City Web Services

10 Ways to Establish Your Business

September 26, 2016 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Being a new business has its challenges, one of the biggest being establishing yourself in the community. A loyal client base and name recognition are vital to your success. Without the support of those around you, failure comes closer to becoming a reality than a fear. So, how do you make your startup stand out before it sinks?

Take advantage of free listings

This is a no brainer. Putting your company’s name out there as many ways as you can for free should be a top priority. Directory listings and community calendars are great resources for the community and an excellent way to get your name out there. This takes minimal time and effort and helps establish your business among other longstanding companies in the area.

Make sure you know your target market

Take a second to sit down and really think about who your target demographic is. Who are you marketing to and how are you doing so? Are they more likely to be on social media or flipping through the latest newspaper? Spending all the time and money in the world in marketing won't make a difference if your audience never sees it.

Utilize social media

Let’s face it. Everyone is on social media these days, and as a business, it is becoming an essential way to reach consumers. Luckily for you, social media is a free and effective way to interact with customers from all over. Depending on what your business is and the age group of people you are trying to reach, you can choose the best social media platforms to reach them.

Start a blog

Think that you shouldn’t start a blog because you’ll run out of things to talk about? What if you are a very specialized business? Not a problem. A company blog is a useful platform to produce content related to your industry. Relevant content will promote you as trusted resource for your trade. Example: Say you run a gym or are a personal trainer. You don’t have to use your blog just to talk about your services. Use your platform to talk about health advice, innovative exercises, and client transformations, etc.

Implement SEO into your website

Search engine optimization is the action of making your website rank for search keywords and phrases that pertain to your website/business. It is important to have the keywords and phrases viewers are searching for installed properly on your website. If done correctly, more people will view your website which will result in an increase in business. Search engines rank your website based on common search terms, the age of your site information, site links, and the relevance of your content.

Create your Google Business listing

Listing your business on Google will make sure your business appears easily when people are searching for you on Google. You can add pictures, and people can leave reviews which add to your credibility.

Take advantage of customer testimonials

When a customer has a good experience with you, don’t be afraid to ask what they thought of your service. Testimonials are one of the best ways to build credibility with potential clients.

Send out emails

Putting customers on an email list is a great way to reach out to them long after they've left your website or store. This gives you the opportunity to tell them about the variety of services you offer, updates from your company, and news in your industry.

Get involved in the community

How do you expect the community to know who you are if you don’t try to get to know the people in it? The more people see your name associated with the community, the more they will come to know you as a local establishment. Sponsor or participate in community events. Donate or give discounts for first-time clients. Give clients an initiative for referring customers. Give back to the community. Serving others is not only great for your staff but is also a wonderful way to get to know the locals.

Network as much as possible

Getting involved with different organizations within the community is essential. Some of your biggest allies in the business world are fellow business owners. The Chamber of Commerce should be at the top of your list for business networking. The St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce’s mission states they are dedicated to improving the business environment in St. Johns County by focusing on Economic Development, Business Advocacy, Member Education, and Business Promotion. Service organizations such as United Way or Rotary are also excellent ways to get involved in the community.

How We Can Help

Here at Old City Web Services, we are dedicated to helping businesses thrive. Don’t know where to start? We offer many services that can help you out.

We can:

Perfect your marketing strategy to reach your target audience
Tune up or revamp your website
Write content for your company’s blog
Assist you with SEO and Google listings
Assist with print design and much more.

Go to our website, call us, or schedule a consultation with our team to see how we can help you get settled and succeed today.

How Social Media & A Blog Correlate With SEO

August 16, 2016 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Why Your Business Needs Social Media & A Blog

Social media, Blogs and SEO compliment each other in online marketing. Posting current social media and a blog entries will help search engines recognize your website as relevant. Social media is a great outlet for driving traffic to your website, which helps boost your SEO rank. Even if your social media presence doesn't lead to immediate direct sales, it is excellent for gaining those clicks to you website. This traffic will help boost your SEO rank.

Social Media & SEO

Whenever someone shares your website or your post on social media, this is link building. Link building shows search engines that your website is relevant and interesting. This is why it's important to keep your social media current with a new post at least once a week. By posting once a week, you are giving users the opportunity to share your content more. The more content of yours that is shared, the higher your ranking will be. Google uses Twitter to discover new content; for example: what's trending. Google loves Google+. Even though Google+ might not be the biggest platform of social media, it can improve your SEO. If you just have a Google+ profile and post on it once a month, it definitely helps. An overlap of social media and SEO is an effective strategy; by using social media in the right way, you will reap a lot of benefits.

Blog & SEO

The purpose of having a blog for your business is to get more traffic to your website. We learned earlier this month how more traffic to your website helps your SEO. Creating a blog for your business would be another way to improve your link building. Having a blog allows you to push out fresh content about your business without having to update your website. Search engines like fresh content because it shows that you present the latest information to your clients. Having a blog also helps with being able to present your search term keywords in your website. Blogs also allow you to use your keywords naturally. Having your keywords presented naturally in your blog will not only help your search engine ranking, but it will also help you keep that ranking longer. If you are looking for that extra push with your SEO, consider a blog.

Need to jump way ahead of your competition on Search Engines? Sign up to have your SEO done by Old City Web Services! Contact us today to get started!

Why Having Relevant Content is Important.

August 9, 2016 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

First, What Does Relevant Content Mean?

Relevant content means the content on your website is up-to-date and on topic with your business. For example, if you have a business that sells honey in Georgia, you wouldn't want your home page to have content about jams in California. Also, you want the information about your business to be current. Having old or irrelevant information on your website can hurt your search engine optimization. Making your rank on search engines become lower but, how do you write good content for your website?

Tips on Writing Good Relevant Content:

Valuable Content: Make sure your content has some value to your users. Ask yourself; Do my potential clients need this information? Does this topic actually pertain to my business? Will my potential clients even want to know this information? Thinking this way can help you make sure your content is relevant and not just filler information.

Concise Content: Most users on the web are going to skim your website content. You have the tricky part of making the information as brief as possible but with enough impact to inform the user. Short paragraph or lists are always a good fall back for making sure your content is concise.

Stay On Topic: It's important to stay on topic. If you are writing about the company, stick to the company's information. Writing about your services? Make sure to only be mention about your services. Stay focused on one topic at a time.

Check and Recheck Grammar and Spelling Errors: We're only human and going to make mistakes but we can always go back and fix them. If we check and recheck and get a friend to check, this will help from having any errors on our website. It's unprofessional to have a ton of grammar and spelling errors. It can also confuse your customer if your content doesn't make sense due to errors. So, try make sure to check. Get up and walk away, come back and recheck, then send to a friend to triple check.

Write For Your Audience: Your website content needs to be search engine friendly by using keywords, and links. Though, having readable and engaging content for you potential clients is just as important. The goal is to convert your potential clients into clients. If they don't understand what you are saying, then how can they converted. Make sure your writing is easy to understand and connectable for your audience. Forget the fluff and marketing jargon.

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What Does SEO Even Mean?

August 4, 2016 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

How Does SEO Apply to My Business?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is the action of making your website rank for search keywords & phrases that pertain to your website/business. Knowing the basics of SEO will give you a better understanding of how it will improve your online presence. In plain words, it’s quality control for websites by search engines. Search Engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, will scan or crawl your site for keywords and phrases of what viewers are looking for. If your site has the key words and phrases that viewers are searching for and they are installed properly on your, site it can make your website rank higher sending more viewers and increasing your business.

How Do Search Engines Rank My Website?

Common Search Terms: These are terms that viewers would type into a Search Engine, Google, Yahoo, Bing for example, to find businesses or services. An example would be to type "pizza place" in the search area. "Pizza Place" would be the common phrase you would use to find a business serving pizza. If you are one of those that “serves pizza” you would make sure that it is properly added into your website to increase your ranking instead of hurting your rankings. So it is important to have the key words and phrases in your content as well as other areas of your site. That is where we can help you.

How old is your site information: The information on your site should be the most current information that pertains to your business and services. This doesn't mean that you have to update your website every day. However, if you haven't updated your website in 3 years, it may hurt your ranking on search engines because the search engines see your site as stagnate. You may add another product or service that your company does and forget to list it on your site. So make sure all the information on your website is up-to-date and that your website design is also updated and responsive.

Site links: Having your website linked on another website is like having a recommendation. Linking should be a more natural thing you do for search engine optimization. Meaning do not try to get links that have no relevance towards your site. An example would be that you have a Pizza Restaurant and you have a link to a Plummer. Your website is linked on an irrelevant site to your business and could hurt the SEO. Linking your website on social media or blogs can be very beneficial. Links show search engines that your website is important and relevant.

Relevant Content: Making sure that your homepage has relevant content about your business is highly important. Adding your keywords naturally into the content is important too. That way when search engines "Crawl " your website it will see your site as a relevant website. Crawl or Crawling means when a search engine reads or scans over your whole website to file it in their database. After crawling, search engines will then file your website in a certain area in their database. That way they can reference to it later when someone is looking for your services or business type.

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Need help with Search Engine Optimization? Let us help you with your website. Contact Us Today!

How to Use Links to Your Advantage.

July 19, 2016 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Learning to Use Links

Linking on a Blog post.

Linking is when you connect your website to another platform. A platform could be another system or in other words social media. This is important part for online marketing since it helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It also helps customers go to your website faster with just one click. A feature of linking is that you can to add it to any platform, from

Linking on Facebook.

Facebook to blogs to Twitter. To create a link to your website, simply type your domain name into a platform and it should auto-populate, see the Facebook example to the right. It's important to link from not only your website to your social media, but also from your social media to your website. The more connections you make with linking the more it will help your SEO ranking, as long as it's relative linking. Relative linking means you don't put your link on random sites just to get back linking.

When you use links for your website on other websites or social media, this creates a back link. Back linking to your website helps your SEO performance by at least 20%. Not only does back linking help your SEO, but it also creates direct traffic to your website. Linking to your website also helps by indexing of your website with Search Engines. This effect also works with your social media. Linking your social media onto your website helps with the ranking of your Social Media. So, don't be afraid to connect your social media to your website and vice versa by linking to each other.

Need more help on getting traffic to your website? Contact us today to get some help!

Check out our Facebook and Twitter for updates and examples!

Is Anyone Finding Your Website?

December 8, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

You have a great website, but now what? You now have the challenge of bringing in quality traffic that will result in real conversions for your business.

Marketing your website once it's live is so important, especially today as the internet is continuing to explode with new, relevant competition. You may have been the only small business in your niche in town with a website 5 years ago, but now you have a lot more people to compete for search engine ranking with.

SEO, SEO & MORE SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the primary way people are going to find you online. DO NOT let your competition get ahead. Make it easy for people to find you by having your site fully optimized by a professional. SEO trends are constantly changing based on changes to the algorithm used by search engines, so this is something that should be ongoing and maintained to ensure you are one step ahead of competition.

For example, earlier this year, Google changed that websites that are not mobile friendly will fall in ranking and those that are mobile friendly will move higher because of the trend in internet usage by web traffic.

It's also important to have your Google Place listing current, and to be sure that the content you have on your site and continue to add to your website is relevant and bringing you the traffic you are looking for. It is absolutely imperative today to have a professional do these services for your online business.

Make sure your SEO is done right the first time -- contact Old City Web Services so that people will start finding your website online today!

Promoting Your Website Part I: SEO

August 5, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

The next 4-part series we have is going to focus on how you can take the website you have now and promote it, maximizing it's potential and making the most of it for your business.

Today, in Part I, we are discussing Search Engine Optimization, more often known as SEO.

The foundation of promoting your website is having it positioned in web search result rankings. SEO is what works in the background of your website and plays a vital role in how successful your website will be.

How do you, as a small business owner, use SEO to promote your business?

Set Goals: in order to do this, you need to determine the main purpose of your site. Then you can target customers, which will help you define the audience that you are trying to reach. Then you can pinpoint your competition for that audience which will help you determine what your goals for SEO will be. Your goals can be in relation to your own business - to increase your online sales leads, or in relation to your competition - to rank higher than them in search engines. Or you may have branding goals - to dominate the search rankings for a certain term closely related to your brand.

This brings us to Keywords: You, as the owner of your business, know a lot about what words define you and the services you provide. But you also need to know what others think of and what words they will use when trying to find your niche. The combination of what you know and what internet viewers are looking for, will help you to make the most of keywords to keep your business promotion strong in search engines.

Remember that SEO is your website's Way of Life: Everybody knows that for your body to be healthy, it has to be maintained constantly - regularly eating healthy and getting exercise. The same is true for your website. You can't just go for a 5 mile jog and call it good for life. You have to keep it up. You can't just set up your website and leave it. It has to be regularly maintained and tweaked to keep up with growing needs and requirements on the internet.

Next week, we'll discuss more about branding and branding goals for promoting your website in Part II of this series. Be sure to check it out!

Analyzing Google Analytics

April 29, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Analyzing Google Analytics

You've got your website
You've got Google Analytics Installed
You get a report monthly
And you have no idea what it means
Don't worry - you are not alone!

Google Analytics can be extremely helpful in honing in your message to your audience but only once you understand who your audience is, how they interact with your website, and why they are there in the first place. Everything in your analytics report is telling you something about your audience and how you can improve your online presence and experience for users.

There are many different insights that Google offers you through Analytics.

How you are acquiring web visitors?
Typing your URL (domain) directly in their browser?
Clicking on your website from a search engine?
Arriving via links you have posted to social media?
Arriving from websites where you advertise?

All of these are important things to know, and can be determined in the referral section of your analytics report.

Understand the behavior of your web visitors. Once you know how they are arriving at your site, you can analyze what they are doing once they get there.

Are they clicking on your coupon?
Are they clicking for directions?
Are they going deeper into your site and onto other pages to find out more about your business?
Or are they leaving immediately?

Understanding who your visitors are can help you market better, too

Have more females or males?
What is the age group of your viewers?
Domestic or international?

Knowing the answers to these questions, you can tweak your marketing strategy accordingly to bring in more from certain demographics.

What device are they using to get to your website?

Phone - Is your site mobile friendly?
Tablet
Desk Top

If most of your website visitors are coming to your site on their phone or tablet and your site isn't optimized for a mobile experience, there is no way you can keep them around long enough to keep their business. If most of your viewers are on desktops, investing in a custom mobile website doesn't need to be at the top of your priority list.

All of the information on your Google Analytics report is there to help you help business grow.

Knowing
Understanding
Changing with your audience is key to keeping your business growing.

How can we help you understand how to get you the information you need from Analytics? Give us a call or email us today! Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us today!

Quick and Dirty Search Engine Optimization Tips

March 11, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

In this day of every business having a website and the demand for digital information being so high, it's critical that the website you put forth to the world is optimized for search engines. Simply having a website is not all it takes - it has to be found by those searching for your business' niche for you to gain the site traffic and thus business to keep you going.

Here are some quick and dirty tips for keeping your website optimized so the work you can reap the benefits of the work and money you put into creating it:

There are a few things that every website should have to help with optimization.

Search bar - a search bar on your homepage will aid in navigation and encourage the viewer to go further into your site, increasing page views and thus page ranking

Links to internal pages of your website - in addition to a search bar that will help visitors explore deeper into your site, having links on your homepage to interior pages will keep visitors on your site longer as they explore all your site has to offer. Don't go overboard, but provide them with easy links to internal pages so they can find what they are looking for.

Photos - adding visuals your website will make it more aesthetically appealing. Aesthetics isn't enough though. Your photos need to be tagged appropriately. Having your photo show up labeled as DSC_100 doesn't help your SEO. Having your photo of your business tagged and labeled with the name and location of your business makes your site not only look more professional but helps search engines know what your non-text content is and helps your ranking.

Quality content - Speaking of content, you have to have quality content. Quality content isn't one-size-fits-all. Depending on your website, quality content could be informational, humorous, newsworthy, or educational. Quality content is valuable and doesn't waste the viewer's time. Make it short, sweet, and valuable. Making it shareable is also important - catchy headlines, and succinct information will make viewers much more likely to share your information on social media.

All of these are things that will improve your site's optimization that we at Old City Web Services are skilled at helping you with.. Contact us today to optimize your website and optimize your business!

If you'd like for us to help you in taking your business to the next level, call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us and we will be happy to offer our services!

How many people are finding your site?

December 11, 2013 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Proven ways to market your website

So, you've taken the time and spent the money on a brand new website, but now what? You now have the challenge of bringing in traffic and not just any traffic, but new, qualified visitors that will spend time exploring your site and essentially contact you for either more information or to secure the deal.

Marketing your website once it's live is just as important (if not more so) than the site itself. Today, we are going to give you two HUGE ways to pull people into your site.

SEO, SEO & MORE SEO

We cannot emphasize the importance of this enough! Search engine optimization (SEO) is the primary way people are going to find you online. Search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo are taking over the web and you can guarantee people will be searching for you (and your competition!) on them. DO NOT let your competition get ahead. Make it easy for people to find you, and only you, by having your site fully optimized by a professional. Test it out by signing into your Google Analytics account and see what common keywords and phrases people are using to find you. Then Google these key-phrases and see if your website comes up as a result. If you don't see a link to your site on the first results page, people aren't finding you, plain and simple. Since SEO trends are constantly changing based on alterations made by search engines, this is something that should be ongoing and maintained to ensure your one step ahead of competition.

Facebook Ads

In September 2013, Facebook had 728 million daily active users and 874 million monthly mobile active users. Furthermore, these millions of users are spending a huge amount of time on the site-- an average of 55 minutes a day or 30 hours a month! The final kicker-- Everyone's on Facebook! All types of demographics are now regular users of the social network. So how does this pertain to generating more traffic to your website? Facebook Ads allow you to target specific demographics based on location, age and even those who have "Liked" your page. Basically Facebook Ad's are a cost-effective way to take advantage of Facebook's traffic in order to bring these users to your website.

Make sure your SEO and ad campaigns are done right the first time -- contact Old City Web Services so that people will start finding your website online today!

Once you've mastered these two crucial marketing challenges, you can focus on growing your website and expanding your social media presence, which will in-turn increase your web traffic exponentially.