The way people use technology has changed dramatically over the past few years.  With the inclusion of the smart phone, people now have a fully functional computer that they can take everywhere.  They use it to talk, surf the web, play games, and download more apps than you can imagine.  More importantly for businesses, people use their phones to search the web, and they are doing it differently than they would on a laptop or desktop computer.  This is changing results dramatically, and you need to change your marketing strategy because of it.

When someone does a Google search on a mobile device, they probably aren’t doing research – they’re looking for action.  You need to tailor your ads and search listings appropriately.  Don’t get passed up because you don’t understand your audience.  This is especially important for the service industry.

Look at a sample search for “termite exterminator” from a desktop computer.  It brings up what you would expect:

There are a couple of Google Ad placements at the top, and some to the right.  After that, there’s a handful of organic results.  The top 4 are getting the most exposure.  Three of them are for businesses, and they’re probably happy with the results.  But what if we do the exact same search with an iPhone?

The top results are for ads, as expected.  However, one has a phone number to call right away.  Which do you think is going to get more action?  Now, the next result is a map.  Let’s skip down below…

…and there are three listings from Google Places. All of these have a button for a phone call with one click, which can be used to immediately call the company. This is very useful for action-oriented mobile users. If you keep scrolling down…

…there are three more place results.  One has a 5-star rating.  That looks promising.  And after all six of these results…

We finally have the top organic ranking! This is what the #1 ranking has achieved on a mobile browser. Now, how much is that #1 ranking worth? How about the #4 ranking which we saw above the fold before, now not visible after 4 screen captures? Now you can see why mobile changes everything.

Mobile rankings are VERY hard to track, because they’re always going to be different depending on what town your standing in. If your business attracts anyone outside of your town, these rankings are going to be next to impossible to monitor. Keep in mind that on top of all of this, Google is constantly updating their algorithms.

The usage of mobile devices is growing and is only going to get larger. It is entirely feasible that these rankings will be more important than desktop searches as time goes on. So, what do you do about it?

• Remember the value of Pay-Per-Click. The first screen showed nothing but Pay-Per-Click listings. They’re going to get the most visibility by far. Remember, that even with a top ranking, Pay-Per-Click will still bring more traffic. Written correctly and with a strong call to action, Pay-Per-Click can be your biggest asset. Imagine marketing to someone on their phone, while they’re looking for your exact service, and letting them call you by pushing one button. The value is tremendous.
• Make sure your Google Places account is set up and running. The next several results were all for Google Places, and all had phone numbers to call. These are significant, and growing in importance.
• Get social. On mobile phones, people are always signed into their social media accounts. As social signals continue to rise in importance in search engine algorithms, they will become even more important in mobile results. Google+ shares and +1′s could be even bigger, as everyone with an Android phone has a Google+ account by default and is always logged in unless they make a deliberate effort not to be.
• Make sure your organic rankings are high. The top organic places are even more important now, as organic rankings are appearing further down the list. If you’re not at the top of your field, your ranking will mean next to nothing on mobile.

There are other things that will be helpful as well, like making sure your website is optimized for mobile and conversion optimized. At Delia Associates, we’re here to help get your company in the best position it can be in to generate the most leads. When you’re looking to increase your traffic and web presence, give our NJ internet marketing firm a call. We’ll get you the results you’re looking for.

1. A blog can help you establish credibility and authority in your industry: Nobody sees how big or small you are through a blog, provided the design is adequately done. What they do see is someone who is writing authoritatively on a particular topic. Write what you know, and speak confidently about it. Gone are the days where blogs are only about the random details of someone’s life. People in almost every industry write articles in the form of blog posts to share knowledge and establish credibility. You should too.
2. Extra content for your website builds SEO: There are a lot of factors that determine how your site ranks on search engines, and only Google knows exactly what they are. What we have seen, though, is that your entire site can help your pages rank. So, if you develop content throughout your site, it helps your overall ranking. A website selling blue widgets that has one page about blue widgets most likely will not rank as well as a site that has a large amount of content (many pages) devoted to blue widgets. Writing consistently on your blog not only helps others see you as an authority on a topic, but also helps Google to see you as an authority…and makes them more likely to give you better rankings.
3. Blogs give you content to be used for linking: One major element of Google’s ranking algorithms is links to your site from other sites. By writing relevant blog posts, you are giving other people content that they can link to from their sites. If your writing is quality and valuable to others, you can see your rankings do significantly better through these links. Now that social media has stepped into the game, and is believed to be one of the next big ranking factors, it’s important to appeal there as well. People are using social media to share content all the time. If you’d like, you can also submit posts to other sites (lots of blogs actively look for guest authors), and include a link back to yours in the post. Either way, blogs = links, links = search engine rankings. Those links can also drive traffic through referrals.
4. A blog is a doorway to your website: A blog provides a way for people to become familiar with your site. Someone who may not come to the “blue widget” site to immediately buy blue widgets may be researching and find your blog. Guess who they will probably come back to when it’s time to buy blue widgets. Do you think they’ll search randomly, or start with someone they are familiar with? Someone who is unknown, or someone who they now see as an authority? When people come to your blog, they may read a post and leave, which is fine, or they may explore the site and begin to engage. Without a blog, your chances of engagement are much worse.

So, how much should you post? If you’re posting less than twice a month, you probably won’t see as much return as you’d like. If you can post multiple times per week, that is optimal. If you can post at least once a week, you should be in good shape. For starters, try for at least twice a month. For some people, that’s easy. For others, that may be a lot. But, part of our NJ SEO program is content creation. If you’re looking for help creating content, let us know. It’s one of our specialties.

Search engine optimization through social media is becoming increasingly important in today’s ever changing online marketing landscape. But many companies continue to struggle with understanding the benefits of committing to a full-fledged social media program with quantifiable results. Numerous businesses, especially those marketing to other businesses rather than consumers, claim their product offerings are simply not conducive to the social media climate, but I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong. While it takes some creativity to engage an audience and become a reliable source of information, it can definitely be accomplished.

Links on search engine results pages are akin to shelves in a retail store. The more shelf space you own, the more exposure you will gain, and the better your chance of driving more clicks and closing more business. The inherent nature of the search engine algorithms will help you own your branded searches, but optimizing your social media properties will only enhance your opportunities to converting leads.

Here are six tips to accomplish just that:

1. Make sure you link your social media assets from your homepage. This may seem obvious, but it is an overlooked component for many businesses. It is a major factor in ranking social media sites. In fact, many major retail brand fails to have any social media integration on their homepages. This is a missed opportunity, because links from the homepage is a chance to capitalize on opportunities.
2. Make sure you use branded keywords in your social media posts because it will have an effect on search engine rankings. Getting Facebook likes, Twitter followers and Google Plus endorsements are also believed to be weighted as part of the search engine criteria. This is a symbol of trust that will enhance your social media value. However, identifying the objective of acquiring likes and actually attaining said links are two different things. You must creatively diagram a strategy to engage your audience and give them incentive to like the page. Promotional deals are a great way to do this.
3. Make sure you create tools that are conducive to sharing. Creating something that is aesthetically pleasing and user friendly are key ingredients to success. And don’t forget to add a sharing button.
4. Make sure all of your information is shareable and findable. Your social footprint on the web should include your social profile, engagements and your brand assets. You have to determine if you can strengthen the appeal and relationships you are building across the social media spectrum and also if your brand assets are optimized in a way that can facilitate social interaction.
5. Keep an eye on your competitors and make sure you are differentiating yourself from the pack. Investigate the nuances with which they operate their social media SEO practices and see if you can apply some of these principles to your own campaign, while doing it in a way that also differentiates yourself.
6. Make sure you optimize your Google+ profile because it can have a very dramatic effect on the rankings. Google is far and away the most used search engine and as a result, demands the most attention for optimization. Make sure you are optimizing your branded and non-branded keywords and crafting your company profile in a way that will reflect your core values and offerings.

Social media and search engine optimization are now interconnected where success in one area usually breeds victory in another. Optimizing social media assets will not only enhance your branded searches by filling enough space on the search pages, but also enhance the SEO value for non-branded keywords. Contact our NJ search engine optimization specialists today if you need help optimizing your social assets.

• You’ll have an SEO team that already understands your business and your target markets. A lot of SEO firms just want to put some words on your site, build some links (often with automated software that puts your rankings at risk), and generally follow a cookie-cutter strategy – regardless of who you are. They budget minimal time to learn about your business and to their work based on assumptions. Finding a firm that does both web design and SEO ensures that the same company who has learned what makes your business tick, researched the mindsets of your audience, and become a partner for your success by developing your custom website is applying that extensive knowledge to building and executing your custom SEO strategy. You don’t want a disconnect between a site’s design and content that’s optimized for your specific target markets and an SEO campaign that focuses on a different audience – or doesn’t focus at all. Using one partner, rather than multiple vendors, will ensure seamless integration and the best return on investment.
• Doing both at the same time helps create the right architecture from the start, avoiding duplicate work. Web architecture is an important part of SEO, and it is often difficult to change once your site is established. Elements such as your URL architecture, page categories, page layouts – they all affect your SEO. Don’t waste time and money building an architecture with a web design specialist only to have your SEO specialist recommend rebuilding it a short time later. Beyond the structure of the site and it’s direct effect on SEO, having the same firm working on both elements ensures that the people handling SEO understand the web architecture as well. There are many different tools that a web design team can use to build a website. If the website was built in a very “unique” way, or just one that the SEO team isn’t fluent in, it could cause major problems. At best, you’d be paying for someone else’s learning curve. At worst, your site could be fatally flawed and never able to realize its full potential. Avoid all the dangers and complications by having the same company do all the work from the beginning.
• Having everything done under the same roof gets you more for your money. The bottom line is ROI. All of these issues require more time to resolve, and consequently shift your budget away from where it should be allocated: getting results. Don’t get trapped into extra costs or sacrifice your results because you’re paying two different groups of people. Get it done right the first time, so that all of your budget goes towards generating traffic, converting new leads, and increasing your revenue.

Before you have your website created or redesigned, you’ll be far better off choosing a company that can both build and market the site. When you’re ready to develop your website, or if you’ve got a great website that no one can find, give our NJ Web Development agency a call. We’ll make sure you have a stellar website, and get eyes on your page.

Your company’s web presence is an essential part of your business. Almost anyone who is considering doing business with you is sure to research your company online before signing a contract or making a purchase. Yet, most people aren’t involved in web projects very often and aren’t sure what to look for when choosing the right web design firm. Choosing the wrong web design team could prove disastrous, so you need to be careful.

Here are five things to consider when choosing a web design company:

1. Is their web design pricing too good to be true? In the world of web design, low cost equates to poor quality. Quality-cutting measures include:
   • Outsourcing work
   • Re-packaging designs (which were often rejected by other clients), or
   • Neglecting quality assurance and testing

   Another common tactic is to present a low initial quote while hiding costs that will eventually pile up over the scope of the project. You’ll also want to be careful that the company could have little experience, or that it may not be in business tomorrow (see: do you really want a college student to design your website?). We often have clients come to us to rescue their site after having worked with a “discount” web design company, resulting in lost time and wasted money. Don’t let that be you.
   Saving a little up front could cost you far more in the future.

2. Are they a vendor or a partner? The web design company’s approach to their relationship with you is extremely important. Vendors consider success through their own eyes, and you and your business goals are of no concern to them. When your project concludes, they disappear, with no vested interest in your success. Partners, on the other hand, seek mutual success over the long term. It’s a victory for them when you succeed. True success is measured not by simply launching a site, but by that site bringing return on investment and growing your business.
   Make sure your web design company is as passionate about your success as you are.
3. Where’s the content coming from? Content isn’t an afterthought – it’s integral to an effective website. Your content must be compelling to readers and optimized for search. It must communicate the value of your company, fit your brand identity, be visually engaging, and be optimized for converting visitors to leads. You need a partner who will work with you to translate your business and value proposition into outstanding textual, graphic, and video content.
   Choose a web design company with content development and optimization at the core of their approach.
4. Are they a one-trick pony? Your business will always be evolving, and your needs will likely go beyond the web. If web design and development is the company’s only area of expertise, their eyes will glaze over the moment you mention direct mail, producing a video, designing your tradeshow booth, writing a press release, or solidifying their brand position. Ask whether the company has just as much expertise in branding, marketing, and print design as they do with web.
   Choose a full-service firm to build not only a great website, but a comprehensive marketing strategy.
5. Will their CMS cause you stress? Think of a Content Management System (CMS) as “the wheel.” Some web design firms try to reinvent the wheel on every project, building proprietary custom solutions that are rarely necessary and add substantial costs to your project. Using a proprietary solution could also lock you in to using that company for all your web maintenance or site upgrades in the future.Other companies (such as Intuit or Volusion) make you rent their wheel, essentially leasing a website from their platform with a “software as a service” CMS. These solutions are extremely limited in design and functionality (with virtually no ability to customize either), and you won’t be able to take any of the site with you if you leave. And then there are still some web design agencies who will try to convince you that you don’t need a wheel, implementing their sites in outdated technology such as Dreamweaver templates (or even static HTML) so that you’re forced to rely on the agency to make even minor updates (often under an overpriced maintenance agreement).Look for a web design company who:
   • Considers sites without a CMS to be just plain nutty
   • Builds websites on an open source Content Management System platform (such as WordPress or Drupal)
   • Listens to, documents, and implements your unique requirements
   • Happily says, “You own the code”

   Your site should be built on a scalable, customizable, open-source platform so that it brings lasting value and grows with your business.

Take your time and explore several web design companies before you make a commitment. This is a significant investment, and a crucial part of your business, so make sure that you’re making the right decision. When you’re ready to take the next step in developing your online presence, let our NJ Web Design firm know. We’d love to connect with you.

And, while you’re thinking about your web presence, you may want to take a look at the 5 questions you should ask your SEO company.

Choosing PPC or Organic…or Both!

Another local SEO firm put out an article this week comparing Pay-Per-Click (PPC) to organic search. While there was good advice in the article, there were also glaring omissions and unintentionally misleading information that can cost you money and leads. Here’s the information you need when comparing PPC to organic SEO.

Organic SEO typically has more cost-effective long term benefits.  The fact that you don’t have to pay for the specific placement of your ads can save you money over time.  The free positioning (as a result of hard work) is nice to have in the long run.  People will also recognize that it is not an ad, and therefore will likely view it as more relevant.  If you can get organic rankings, they are definitely better and pay off as time goes on.

PPC ads can help you get a quick boost.  If you’re not ranking well in the search engines organically, it’s probably going to take a while to move up to the top position.  In the meantime, you don’t want to miss out on all those potential leads.  If you’re willing to pay to get to the top of the search engines, anything is possible.  You can do this yourself, but a good SEO firm will help you get the most for your dollar.

And that’s how people normally look at PPC vs. organic search.  They think of it as short term/long term.  There is some validity to that, and individually, that’s probably how they are each best used. However, there’s an important element missing here:

Implementing PPC and Organic search together gets you 50% more clicks!

Conventional wisdom would say that when your organic rankings are good, adding PPC is basically wasting your money.  That’s not true though.  Research has shown and proven that if you take away PPC, all of the clicks lost from PPC are not replaced by clicks on your organic rankings, even if you have the #1 spot!

• If you have the #1 spot and remove PPC, 50% of the clicks you receive from ads will not be recovered by organic search
• If you have spot #2-4, 82% of the clicks lost will not be recovered by organic search
• If you have spot #5 or below, 96% of clicks will not be recovered

That’s the danger that’s promoted by some agencies – following their advice could cause you to lose over 50% of your leads!  That’s not smart advice.  Just because you have a good rank, doesn’t mean PPC won’t help.

Sure, if you’re cash strapped, you may not want to pay the additional money for the ads on Google.  Don’t think of it as unhelpful spending – stats show that it’s almost guaranteed to generate more traffic.

Need more advice on your online marketing campaign?  Make sure you find a group that’s done their research.  Our NJ SEO Firm will make sure that you get the most bang for your buck.

We also recommend that before you go to an SEO company for help, you look at 5 Questions to Ask Your SEO Company.

Recently, according to Mashable, this commercial from TNT became the second most shared ad of all time:

(Can’t see the video? You can see it on YouTube here)

When you write content, create a video, or run a promotion, is it so good that people have to share it? Do you have to beg them to share, or is it something that provides so much value that people feel compelled to share?

Look at the video above. It’s entertaining. It produces the unexpected. You can’t take your eyes off of it. It’s no wonder so many millions of people have passed it along to their friends.

This type of content also has a huge benefit to the creator – SEO return. One of the single biggest things you can do for your SEO is to create content that people want to pass around. Every time that someone shares something of yours, it creates a link back to you. Links of this type are crucial for SEO. Every link that gets posted is looked at as another degree of validation for your site. So don’t be stingy with your content. Make it easy to share. Create content worth sharing. Encourage people to share it. Even if the share doesn’t have an associated link (and it should), it creates brand awareness. People see your name and associate it with something of quality. Even if TNT doesn’t come up in the search results now, you know the type of content they’re producing, right?

If you don’t have a lot of time, and want to do something for your SEO, create something of quality.

Now, go do something creative, remarkable, and worth passing along! Go create content worth sharing! When you do, let us know. We’d love to see what you come up with.

Looking for ideas and some help? Our NJ Content Development team can help get you going.

(If you liked this post, we recommend 5 Content Development Tips to Get Exposure)

In order to run a truly successful social media marketing campaign, you need to humanize your company’s online presence. Companies – small and large need to understand that social media presents an opportunity to dramatically enhance a brand’s image, but this effort will be futile without humanization. Just as you would make connections in a face to face encounter, social media should be used to establish a strong relationship with prospects before you are granted the opportunity to make a sale. Most often, you’ll have to pay your dues to establish a certain level of trust and subsequent loyalty to consistently make sales. Transparency, humility and reliability are three qualities that are important to maintain throughout your social media endeavors.

You need to align your social media strategy with your business model. It’s very important to establish what you are striving to achieve before you begin your social media campaign – whether it’s brand awareness or development; customer service; or simply using social media as a promotional tool. Once these goals are defined, begin to execute your strategy using the litany of viable platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Google Plus and more.

It’s important to reject any temptation to use automated messages that will encumber your opportunities and initiatives to humanize your campaign. Although millions of people have already discovered the multitude of benefits afforded to them through social media channels, many businesses and customers remain hesitant to fully embrace this platform. It is incumbent upon you as a company to make them feel comfortable communicating via social media channels. This is why building a more personable rapport with potential customers may lead to sales.

Post videos, pictures and audio to help humanize your brand. Have the CEO of the company contribute as well. Understand your audience and interact with them accordingly. Make sure you hold yourself accountable if and when the company does make a mistake. Your customer base will appreciate your transparency and interpret it as a symbol of your honesty and integrity, as long as it’s not an egregious or repetitious mistake. Being a good listener is an invaluable trait in any human interaction, and it can also prove to be very important on social media as well.

Monitor mentions of your brand name and observe what people are talking about and how they’re saying it.  Don’t send smug, snide comments, but instead be willing to compromise and listen to others beliefs. Authenticity is paramount. Put a name on your blog posts, tweets and status updates to humanize your brand. It makes you a reliable source and greatly strengthens your credibility. Infuse your own writing voice into interactions so customers don’t feel like they’re talking to a robot.

Successfully humanizing your campaign can help multiply your reach as a business and help you leave indelible brand messages in the minds of many consumers. Leveraging the powers of social media can help you increase the conversion rate on your website, deduct the cost of ancillary marketing tools and connect you with your most sought after customers. You may go through some growing pains at first, but eventually you’ll find how to solidify your social media marketing strategy and augment your viability as a company. If you need help humanizing your campaign, contact our NJ Social Media Marketing team today.

Matt Cutts of Google

Ranking Without Over-Optimizing – Writing Content

There are a lot of people who are getting scared of the over-optimization penalty that Matt Cutts of Google mentioned recently. That’s right, if you try to optimize your site for search engines too well, you’ll go lower in the rankings. If you don’t do anything, you probably won’t rank well in Google search results, but if you do too much, you may not rank too well either. So how do you find the spot that’s just right?

The best thing that you can do is write good content. Yes, it sounds like we, and numerous other people, say that a lot (in fact, just this week we gave five content development tips to get more exposure). That’s because it’s true. The best way to avoid the over-optimization penalty is to not go crazy overworking the mechanics, and write good content instead. It’s one of the best things you can do for your rankings.

Here are three reasons why Google loves when you write good content:

1. Writing good content is hard to do: Sure, if you’re writing about a topic that is familiar, it may not be all that difficult for you. The idea behind this is that you cannot just automate the content. Anything that is easy to do typically doesn’t provide as much value in SEO. If it’s easy to do, everyone’s probably already doing it so there’s more competition, and Google recognizes that it’s probably not that significant. In fact, Google has been taking down link networks and heavily devaluing spun content that is taking minimal effort and producing something of volume. When you write content, you’re going above and beyond, doing things that not everyone is doing. This means something to Google.
2. Writing good content keeps your site fresh: Google’s primary objective in search results is to provide content that gives the user a good experience. New content is a good thing for the end user. New content by default appears more relevant, and does not look like dead content from five years ago (Pro tip: if you link back to old content on your site, it helps to show that the content you are linking to is relevant too). So, keep your site fresh by writing regularly. If you’re looking for a frequency in blog posting, at least twice a month is a good rule of thumb. If you can write more, it can only help.
3. Writing good content increases the number of pages…and opportunities: If you have a small site with a small amount of pages, you are very limited in what you can effectively target. You may have a well designed site that has good content, but the amount of keywords you can reasonably put in are few. Writing new content allows you to target long tail keywords, receive multiple links from various sources, and provide more useful information for your readers/customers.

Writing good content benefits everyone. So, do your best to optimize your site. Use the keywords you want to rank for, be smart about URL’s, and use good title tags. Just don’t do anything that seems unnatural. When in doubt, don’t stress about the mechanics, stick to writing good content.

Of course, if you want help, our NJ content writing team can write great content for you too.

A growing number of businesses are utilizing an online marketing blueprint to help publicize their brand, broaden their reach and drive greater sales. Many of these components include search engine optimization strategies and social media marketing tactics. But, the lynchpin to launching successful online campaigns is often content development. Businesses are more frequently maintaining high powered blogs that feature a series of short, bite sized articles related to their respective industries. Content that produces value for the reader can exponentially enhance your company’s marketing results and ultimately your bottom line. It augments the company’s credibility by demonstrating an expertise in the field, which can lead to new business. Viral content can build backlinks, which in turn send referral traffic to your site and add search engine optimization value. But, the question remains, how do we make sure these articles are read by the people who need to read them?

Here are five tips to help your business get the exposure it needs:

1.  Make sure you post your content on discussion boards and forums that are related to your target market. Try to add value to the written content on the page so the comment and URL are not moderated out. Also, do your best to refrain from making a full throttle marketing pitch. Too much PR has the potential to irritate the website owner and those who visit. Feel free to post snippets of the article and title in the post. Make the article as clickable and attractive as possible.
2. Make sure your content is eclectic. The key to reaching several factions of people is creating a diverse database of valuable information. Write about nearly aspect of your specific industry, even if it is unconventional and does not ordinarily align with what your company does. If consumers see you as the expert in your field, they will return for more information and ultimately more purchases.
3. Make sure your content is provocative and not redundant. Just like many people would not want to see the same movie twice, no one wants to read the same old story over and over again. Hundreds or even thousands of people may be writing about the same topic as you, but your job is to differentiate. Stand out in the crowd and write something that is exclusive or exceptionally valuable to the reader. It’s important to write about topical issues, otherwise your content will quickly be cast aside as dated and obsolete. Keep up with emerging trends because Google rewards content that is the most current. Go above and beyond what your competitors offer and don’t just meet the expectations of your readers, exceed them. They’re overused clichés, but they are true.
4. Keep it short, personable and genuine. Content that invites engagement is a surefire way to induce more shares. Use infographics because they are statistically one of the most shared nuggets of content on the web. They are visually appealing and more inviting to most people who enjoy learning from imagery rather than long form writing.
5. Utilize social media outlets such as Facebook and especially Twitter to further the reach of your content. Keep the tweet short and deploy at the most conducive times for retweets, usually around 2-6 p.m. Make sure the content is optimized and saturated with the most relevant keywords that people are searching for. Don’t forget to optimize the title and text within the article.

The if you build it, they will come theory has been proven false time and time again. Writing brilliant, creative content is half the battle. You must utilize a comprehensive online marketing strategy in order to capitalize. Need help? We offer the most encompassing online marketing around.