Organic SEO

Four SEO Mistakes That Are Costing You Thousands

September 7, 2016 By Tyson Downs

By now, most people know that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. More people every day are looking for local services, therefore when building a website, or having a website professional build a site for you, it is important to know the hints, tips and tricks that will give you better placement in the search engines.

If you don’t know what you are doing, the mistakes you make while building your site or having it built could actually hurt your site and prevent you from ranking for your main keywords. I have seen this myself when dealing with clients that want more traffic to their site, or need a site redesigned.
Are you making one of these seven common mistakes?

1. No Keyword Research

When having your site built, or designing it yourself, be sure to choose the right keywords that relate to your products, services, or company. There

are numerous keyword tools that you can use to help determine appropriate keywords. A good, basic one to use is simply the Google Keyword Tool. You may think you know the best keywords that your potential visitors are using, but it’s always best to do the research first.

2. No Citations

Citations and are extremely important part of local SEO, and as a result your website ranking results. This should therefore be one of the main components that you focus on. The easiest way to get citations is to begin claiming the citations. You can go to a website such as GetListed.org to get an idea of what you need to claim, however I have found that websites that show the citations that have been claimed, aren’t the most accurate. I recommend starting with the bigger, more popular directory listings. You may want to check out a recent article I wrote on local listing optimization best practices.

3. Bad Web Design

A poorly designed website can ruin your online presence. Common mistakes include using flash, getting too fancy, using overbearing colors, hard to find contact information, etc. Be sure your web designer knows what they are doing. Look at examples of their work to see that their past work has the components of an effective website.

4. On Page SEO Issues

On Page SEO is an extremely, extremely important component of your website. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve had websites that I have redesigned and properly optimized them for the search engines and had them go from nowhere to be found to page 1 for their main keyword. Don’t make the mistake of hiring somebody to build you a pretty site, only to find out they have no clue about how to code it properly. What good is your investment if it isn’t making you money?

These mistakes are a few of the ones that I see more often. They often cause a website to be completely lost in the search engine rankings, resulting in lost revenue and lost market share.
Not sure if your website has any of these issues? Contact me, I’ll provide an in depth analysis of your online presence and where you stand against your competitors.

Is your practice missing the boat by ignoring these best practice? Is your current online marketing company properly handling your healthcare marketing? Grab the free report below and find out for sure.

Four Ways You Can Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

July 5, 2016 By Tyson Downs

Whether you own a local business or a national or global enterprise, chances are you want to increase your market share. You can increase market share by getting the word out about your company, by bringing awareness to your brand. One way that you can increase awareness is by showing up higher in the search engines for relevant keyword terms. So, let’s talk about 5 ways you can do that.

On Page SEO.

On Page SEO is basically how well the search engines can read your website. Are you using header tags? Alt Tags? Anchor Text? In a previous article I discussed how I’ve seen websites make a huge jump to the first page of Google for their keyword terms simply by having their On Page SEO fixed. Make sure that this is properly set up and the chances are you’ll notice improvements in your rankings quite quickly.

Updated Content.

Simply updating your content on a regular basis will increase rankings. When the search engines crawl your website and see that you have updated it, they will find more, fresh, relevant content that they want to share with readers, so they will rank you higher. Not only that, but the new content that you added can help you rank for more keyword terms.

More Keywords.

Say that you are a Dentist in Las Vegas, which happens to be a very competitive market. You are working with a small business SEO company to improve your rankings in the search engines. Because you are brand new and just opened your practice, just don’t have the budget to go up against the big guys that are paying thousands per month to rank for competitive terms such as ‘Las Vegas Dentist’ or ‘Dentist Las Vegas’. So what do you do? You target keywords that are less competitive. Perhaps ‘Sedation Dentist in Henderson’ would be one to go after. Or maybe ‘holistic dentist Las Vegas’. Do you get the point? Optimize your webpage for those less competitive keywords and then possibly blog about those keywords as well.

User Experience.

Don’t do stuff that is just plain silly like having multiple annoying pop ups, or music playing or an auto playing video, or overwhelming colors. If your website has these features or if it looks amateurish, chances are people will ‘bounce’, meaning they will leave your website without looking at any other pages. The search engines take into account the bounce rate in their algorithms to determine who to show up. If you have a higher bounce rate, your website will be seen as subpar and you won’t show up as high as you could if you would a professional, well optimized website that gives user a good experience.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as improving your rankings in the search engines. If you want to improve your organic or Google Places rankings in the search engines, be sure to follow these tips. If you need help implementing any of these changes, contact me and let’s see what I can do for you. I work specifically with small businesses each day to optimize their local listings and improve organic rankings . All with the goal of getting their phone ringing, improving revenues and profitability. Contact me, you won’t be disappointed.

SEO Myths You’ve Probably Heard But Shouldn’t Listen To

June 17, 2016 By Tyson Downs

Many business owners are so busy and wrapped up growing their company that it is often hard to keep up with the latest marketing trends, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Unfortunately what happens is that they often hear bits and pieces about SEO and believe it to be the truth. Let me explain a few things about SEO that are NOT true.

SEO DOESN’T WORK

This is often what I hear from people that hired a less than reputable SEO Company, or unfortunately had a bad experience. Does expanding your presence online work? YES. Does making it easier for your clients to be found online work? YES. Here are excerpts from emails I received from 3 of my SEO clients this week:

HVAC Contractor: Hey Tyson, things are great the phone is starting to ring got a couple of calls in the past five days (I’ve been working with the client 1.5 months)
DENTIST: Had a patient come in this morning who said she looked us up online and we had some good reviews and she lives close, no other contact with existing patients. That’s a “cold call” type of patient, which are rare for us. But that’s the kind we would be pursuing with the internet presence.(Been working with this client 3 months)
LANDSCAPER: Things have been very busy around here the last few days. Overall, things must be working since I have been running around meeting people and cranking out bids. Hopefully, someone will sign a contract soon.(His organic traffic is up 50% in the past month). (Been working with this client for 3 months)

SEO done incorrectly or using ‘blackhat’ methods doesn’t work long-term. SEO done by incompetent firms or scammers doesn’t work either. But SEO done by a professional that knows what he or she is doing? You better believe it works.

SEO IS EASY

The perception is often that anybody can do SEO and get the same results as an SEO Professional. While it is true anybody can ‘do SEO’ if they put in the time it takes to learn. To be truly good at it takes a serious amount of dedication that most people don’t have the time and desire that it takes. Anybody can paint a house right? Yes if they undergo the proper training. Anybody can fill a cavity right? Yes if they go to the right amount of schooling.

It is the same with SEO. To learn it yourself be prepared to spend hours and hours learning and implementing, and then hours and hours keeping up on the latest algorithm updates and the latest trends, etc. Or, hire a pro
fessional SEO consultant and you’ll most likely get better results AND you’ll free up your own time to build your business using the strengths that you currently have.

ALL SEO IS CREATED EQUAL

Just because you received a quote for SEO in the past for X amount of dollars, that does not mean that that is necessarily the appropriate price for SEO for your business. SEO prices vary so greatly and SEO methods can vary greatly.

I’ve worked on clients sites (the HVAC and Landscaper above) who have previously worked with SEO companies. They paid considerable amounts of money ($500+ per month) and weren’t getting results. They moved over to my business and both of them within a couple months were seeing the effects of the work I am doing. So, don’t think that just because one company offers SEO, that they speak for all companies and you will get the same results with each company.

Need some help with your local SEO? Mention this article and I’ll give you a special discount.

5 Easy Steps To Improve Your Practice’s Search Engine Rankings

June 10, 2016 By Tyson Downs

More and more doctors and healthcare professionals are starting to understand the importance of local listing optimization, which is a practice that pushes search results for your business higher on the results pages for people searching for a local service. This has obvious benefits for businesses that operate based primarily on customers from the regions they’re based in, so let’s look at some great ways to go about doing this.

1. Verify Your Listing

This is better known as claiming a listing, but the idea is the same. When you claim a listing on a local search engine, you validate the business listing, which increases “trust” ratings, as it ensures you’re operational and not fraudulent. This is actually much more important than it might at first seem, since users will immediately pay less attention to listings they can’t judge as legitimate as soon as they see them.

2. Complete Your Listing Information

Adding all relevant information to your listing is a crucial step as well. Uploading and tagging
phone numbers, addresses, and the like and putting pictures of the business up alongside the included map is a great way to get people to pay more attention to the business description and even entertain the possibility of employing your services.

3. Add Images

As mentioned above, completing your listing information – but just as a picture is worth a thousand words, it’s worth at least one phone number and an address line. Having images of your business on the listing is a great way to draw in customers and convince everyone that you’re an active local entity, not just an artifact that’s remained on the listing for the last few years.

4. Advertise Specials

If you want people to pay more attention to your listing, you should incorporate coupon deals and advertise sales there. The promise of discounts is an easy way to draw people in, so don’t ignore it – you’re almost certain to be able to generate more customers and Internet traffic if you do this. Examples may include free teeth whitening for a dentist, a $29 consultation/first visit for a chiropractor, etc.

5. Optimize Your Website

The last step after you get finished optimizing the listing itself is to optimize your operation’s website. This is important, because it indirectly determines how easily your listing results come up. Also, having a good website along with great pictures and complete information helps build the customer trust you need to get someone to employ your services, so don’t scrimp on this.

If you are a medical professional and need help in claiming and optimizing your local listing, reach out to me. Titan Web Agency specializes in helping doctors, dentists, and other healthcare professionals properly set up, claim, and optimize their local listings to increase the practices’ visibility and to draw in new patients.

3 SEO Best Practices You Should Know About

June 4, 2016 By Tyson Downs

If you run a local business and have decided to invest in a better online presence by starting a website, you should know from the start that the use of on-page SEO techniques may not be enough. Even though factors such as the quality of content and use of keywords are important for helping search engines to better detect your presence on the web, in competitive markets, it can take more effort to boost your site in the first page of search engine results. The following information includes some useful advice on this matter, based on the three optimization pillars: profiles, citation and reviews.

1. Build a Strong Profile for Your Business

Establishing profile authority will undoubtedly boost your website in search engines, especially with the latest changes in the algorithm used by Google for raking pages. In order to help you, Google has come up with a document explaining the best practices for SEO from the company’s perspective. This guide is available at here and is a great way to get started.

Another useful resource that you can employ in the process is Get Listed. This tool will assess the online presence of your business, and will tell you if your potential clients can find you easily enough. Other suggestions that you can consider in terms of your business’s profile are the following:

Focus on more than one search engine. The market share of Bing and Yahoo, for example, is not to be ignored.
All descriptions and contact information for your business should be thorough and clear and if enough space is provided, a compelling reason to choose your business.
Upload photos of your business to the Google Places website. In addition, YouTube videos of testimonials or walk-throughs can also make a difference.
Make use of QR codes, and definitely include the real address of your business, you typically don’t want to use a PO Box or a virtual address.

2. Reviews – Getting Feedback from Your Customers

The second pillar of SEO is reviews. In this regard, it is important that you invest in the implementation of a good Review Funnel for your business, and encourage your clients to use it. In addition, you should train your employees to always look for positive feedback that has been posted online from customers, and to promote it on your own page.

If possible and appropriate, link the names of your reviewers to their social network profiles—ideally, their LinkedIn accounts, for a more professional image. This will provide authenticity for the feedback, and will make it look less like a spam message.

3. Citations

Last but not least, it is crucial that you acquire citations from trusted sources if you want better exposure for your business. Some of the most popular sources you can consider in this matter are the following:

Newspapers and business magazines (especially local ones, if you own a local company)
Yelp, infoUSA, InsiderPages, Citysearch and other valuable online resources
Annual reports, governmental websites and public sources in general
Review websites and services that are used for providing data about different businesses
Services in direct connection with search engines (Google Places, Yahoo Local, etc.)

Focus on these three strategies and you will no doubt be able to extend your online reach and be able to get in front of your target customers at a greater rate.

Increase Targeted Leads To Your Healthcare Website With These 4 Steps

May 29, 2016 By Tyson Downs

As any experienced SEO consultant can tell you, you don’t just want traffic coming into your site, you want targeted leads that will result in conversions. It’s fine and dandy if everyone and their brother are getting referred to your site, but if they are getting there and then leaving right away—no matter how good a job your web designer did—that spells bad news for you in the rankings.

This is called a bounce rate and search engines use it to see how relevant your website is for the keywords people are searching for. That means that even if you have the healthcare SEO company working on your site, if you’re not retaining those visitors, you’re shooting yourself in the foot with your own keywords. To avoid this, you need targeted leads.

Targeted leads are simply visitors that are more likely to convert—that is, stay on your page for a while and eventually retain your services by performing the call to action. For instance, a dentist’s targeted leads would be locals seeking dental services. It will do you no good as a Salt Lake City dentist to get a New Yorker looking for car repair on your site. Unfortunately, poorly thought out SEO tactics aim to get the most leads whereas quality SEO aims to pull in quality leads. This is why it’s so important to hire a qualified and competent SEO Company for doctors or Consultant.

Here are four tips that are guaranteed to bring in more targeted leads to your website.

1. MAKE PAGES PEOPLE WILL LINK TO

In order to properly market your content, you need to create a website that establishes you as an authority in your geographical market or industry. One of the best ways to do this is through informative blogs and landing pages that are tailored for your audience and optimized with keywords. By providing a useful database for your potential clients, they will be more likely to bookmark and link to your site, bringing in powerful SEO rankings that attract more targeted leads. To take this one step further, compile links onto one landing page that is optimized as a “how to” or “tips” page. This will generate even more links and thus, targeted leads.

2. KEEP BOUNCE RATE LOW WITH GOOD, FRESH CONTENT

Old content leaves you with higher bounce rates, something that indicates a low-converting page. We’ve all done it before. Went to a website that we thought might offer a good result for us, and it looks like the site hasn’t been updated in ages, or the dates of the blog posts are years old. Search engines can read this as low-quality content and can lower you in the search engine result page (SERP) rankings. This spells disaster for your business, especially seeing how a doctor SEO company is supposed to be working to keep your rankings up. The easiest way to add new content is through either blogs or updating your existing content. You could also link to newer content on old pages, though this isn’t quite as effective since it lowers the viewer’s overall experience (by having to click to more pages, thus potentially losing them as a visitor)

3. WRITE WELL

Put quite simply, a conversational tone with proper spelling and grammar not only reads better, it ranks better as well. Write at about a 5^th grade reading level (general rule for most local busineses) and keep your tone, grammar and spelling in check to attract more links and thus, more targeted leads. Don’t think of this as dumbing down your content, but rather keeping things simple, clean, clear and concise.

4. PUT KEYWORDS WHERE THEY MATTER

Keywords are a simple concept, but very easy to foul up.

While most people know enough to avoid keyword stuffing, there’s still many so called ‘professionals’ that don’t get it. It’s generally understood that your keyword density should be between 1% and 4% (I really suggest between 1% and 2%, but main thing is; it flows well, makes sense to the reader, and it has appropriate keywords), but having all of your keywords at the front or end of your content negates any positive gains you may have won with the proper keyword density. Keep them scattered throughout the article in an even and natural manner and make sure they are in the title as well as the H1, H2 and H3 tags. Also, try to have your keyword at least once in the first and last sentences, or at least paragraphs.