Years ago, Fox News came up with a brilliant strategy. The idea was to build a media empire by projecting bias on other news agencies while attempting to paint themselves as something different. After all, you have to present a negative before offering a solution to the problem. So they invented a negative image to perpetuate their projected ‘positive’ idea. The “Fair and Balanced” (FAB) marketing method was born.
Unequaled data certainly deserves equal time, right?
To begin with, Fox News attempted to offer equal time on their shows to members of each party and political spectrum. Many will argue that they offered insincere or weak spokespeople for the ideals they disagreed with, but that isn’t what we will be analyzing. The point is that they presented the idea that regardless of facts, truth, or verifiability, they would allow equal time to each side of an argument.
The way that Fox injected this new marketing method was a novel concept. It paved the way for weaker and less intelligent debate. By convincing a large portion of the populace that each side deserves equal time, EVEN WHEN PROVEN WRONG, LYING, DISHONEST, FACTUALLY INCORRECT…etc.
(lowercase all of this, you will prove your point with the following facts).As a result, a large swath of the American public now believes that equal time has to be allotted to items that have already been proven completely wrong time and time again. Effectively, this process has elevated the marketing of dishonesty along with lowering the value of verifiable data.
It should be pointed out that these same people (what people? Fox?) are completely against the Fairness Doctrine (define), while they are demanding it’s practice (just for the least intelligent side of debates). Think about that: the very same people who oppose “equal time for equal debate” are the ones crying, “fair and balanced” when their known lies are dismissed as irrelevant.
While I take no specific interests in the political aspects of the FAB talking heads, the implications on online marketing and deceptive practices have been enormous.
Because paranoid people offer the best advice.
Everyone from the (is Natural News a company? If not, lowercase. If it is, then capitalize “food bank”)Natural News food bank scams to Anti-Monsanto social media advocates are now using the FAB method to disarm debates and sway members of the audience with non-arguments. (That’s a long ass sentence, break it into two?) These non-arguments include straw-man tactics, dishonest comparisons, bogus science (natural news (company?) being the king of this one) and other variations of attacks on facts. Conspiracy theorists have even used this method to project lack of arguments (ie. people writing their theories off as mentally challenged and refusing to engage them) as verification of their theories. The practice has become a pervasive manifestation of the modern marketing model and even those who despise the “Faux Noise” (?) organization utilize the same practice day in and day out.
Currently there is a debate on the suicide of Officer Joe Gliniewicz. Even while the evidence is absolutely overwhelming that it was indeed a suicide, those who refuse to accept it are demanding equal airtime for their purported theories and invented stories that have no factual or realistic basis. The result is a social media debate on almost every Chicago area news page that is pushing traffic higher and higher. The media groups now have only to put out the story and allow this poor debate model to run itself. It’s for instances like these that we believe the FAB mentality has become a poisoned pill to all forms of cultural debate.
Even while speaking with people who had just watched a political debate, we found the same marketing practice manifested in their post-debate conversations. After this most recent debate, one person at the coffee shop immediately opened tabs to a few “fact checking sites”. He was quick to point out the painfully obvious lies, mischaracterizations, exaggerations, and blatantly false statements used in the debate. Rather than listen to the fact driven responses he was calling out, several people from the audience quickly said something to the effect of ,“He should have just as much time to voice his thoughts as anyone else”. Yes, in political debate, where facts can literally decide wars, fortunes and financial collapse, people are wanting to skip on the demand for honesty and instead demand equal time for any statements, regardless of how ridiculous these statements can be. (too long of a sentence)
The FAB model, as was most likely intended, has dumbed down the populace to be marketed ideas, topics, sales devices, fear driven products, and complete lies with impunity. No longer are arguments simply ignored because they lack credibility or factual backing. No longer are ideas discarded because data shows them to be false.
This is only funny because we all know someone who might actually do it.
Social workers we spoke to for this article note that this manner of discounting reality could even be pervasive within individual choice reasoning that is leading to a more imprisoned populace. When people are allowing equal time for false, negative and improper ideals to be spoken, it can logically be assumed that they are also allowing these falsehoods equal time within their own minds. Let that sink in, the prudes (opinionated term, your reasoning should paint them as prudes) at Fox may have led us to a more deviant society. Impulse control and situational reasoning has been damaged in our society. It isn’t absurd to theorize a connection between this constant push for equal time of all ideas, even those ideas, ideals, and concepts that are completely wrong.
We think the patterns of response from the FAB open a wide door of deceptive and vulture marketing while closing the door on common-sense. Many in the consumer protection bureaus are aware of the degeneration of consumer defenses in the modern market, but it would be interesting to know how many are linking this degradation to the Fair and Balanced model. It would seem the model was created only for the public to limit their ability to perform viable pro and con debate within their communities and also within their own minds. The repercussions of which could be quite damaging to society and culture itself.
So many of our newest clients are coming in after working with another Chicago SEO Company who has them ranking for keywords that have nothing to do with their conversion goals. Just having a Search Optimized Traffic Plan (SOT) isn't enough, the entire picture of targeted inbound traffic has to be a planned event. Inbound marketing means strategically planning seo traffic. Ranking for terms that have no conversion potential is a waste of resources, and only serves to be bragging rights for the bottom feeders of Chicago SEO Companies. Often these Chicago SEO Companies will just take credit for the top ranking, luck of the draw, items from Webmaster Tools, even if they have no impact on the business whatsoever. This is not only dishonest, but it has no relevance or impact on their primary purpose, to convert their site for their targeted traffic.
SEO Specialists who accidentally take credit for crap keywords.
Instead of trying to rank for random and "got lucky" terms, or trying to convert those who arrived at your site while looking for something your don't actually provide, your site team should be planning specific Inbound Marketing terms to use in your Search Traffic Strategy (STS). Your STS strategy should culminate with one specific goal: converting visitors to your site's primary purpose. If you have an ecommerce site, then the your strategy should focus on targeted traffic likely to desire your products. The same holds true for services, content, blogs or any other type of site you are trying to deliver qualified search traffic to.
There are many blogs offering "Top 5 Search Strategy", or "6 Search Traffic Items You Can't Ignore", and any other spammy title of the like, but these are more for promoting that SEO Company's blog than to assist you in your goals. Instead, we are going to simply list a couple of common sense solutions to amplify your Search Traffic Strategy and boost your converted inbound marketing. You'll find tons of blogs pushing strategies like the image below, but effectively, throwing all the crap at the wall and hoping it sticks isn't a strategy for anything but mayhem.
Be Realistic While Being Ambitious
Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was built. Your Search Traffic Strategy (STS) should be focused and well planned for realistic growth potential. Starting with a realistic view of keyword development, your strategy should begin focused on conversions and little else. Use keyword tools offered by Google to find the ones that will have the most direct appeal to the most potential visitors in your market. If you are a local business, you should search all terms in a local area instead of looking at broad terms (since those in the Adwords Keyword Tool are based on national stats). For local businesses as well, there is Google Trends. Digging down to local areas to test keyword effectiveness is always suggested. You may also want to verify keyword usage with customer and reader surveys. Poll your readers and those you want to become readers on what terms they find the most engaging. Use this data to build future Search Traffic Strategy plans that will be more effective at pulling in convertible visitors.
Get Your Visitors To The Funnel, Not To The Fluff
Some marketers are now selling the theory of diverting traffic from your site to your social media and then back... This is absurd and a waste or potential conversions. All of those coaxing you to divert traffic elsewhere when a direct trip to your conversion funnel has fewer steps are asking you to risk conversions to prove their theory (that in many cases is only popular because a bunch of marketers bought into it and replicated it to their other clients). In the end, the shortest distance between your visitors and your conversion funnel, then best. Your keywords should be paired with your target conversions to bring the most qualified visitors to your funnel in the most efficient way possible.
Sell What You Sell
Instead of dancing around product keywords that have nothing to do with your own, stick to the ones people will use to find you. As long as the product can stand on its own, there is never a need to use fear tactics or subverted sales techniques to push your product Search Traffic. Many times we see the failure of this in scam sites pushing things like Prepper Food Supplies. We've all heard the fear mongering commercials about some guy who knows "a secret about a FEMA plan to cause global chaos"... probably leading to a zombie apocalypse and definitely death by snu snu... Not only are these scams ridiculous in their appeals to those who are willing to eat up pandemonium as fact, they are a giant waste of resources since direct sales methods would likely provide better conversions.
In all of those indirect, fear driven ads, they waste mass resources while one direct ad would be able to garner the target purchaser without all of the deception. The only thing gained from those skyscraper, dupe sites are the sheep who are dumb enough to add themselves to these site's mailing lists. Worse, those unskilled enough to allow themselves to end up on these lists will likely lack the financial means of being strong sales candidates.
In the end, a simple, and direct sales message would weed out all of the non-purchasing traffic for those who would be willing to convert. In fact, the only reason those clickbank and Newsmax scam feeds are even doable still is that the media still pushes them as well to push up their own affiliate banks.
Only Use Analytic Data To Track Originally Targeted Keywords That Convert
As stated above, some Chicago and Naperville SEO Companies are all too willing to take credit for "oops" keywords. If you have an SEO Expert bring you additional keywords that you never agreed to before (especially in a spreadsheet looking like it came from Google Webmaster Tools), your red flags should be going up. Many times, struggling SEO Techs will bring thee up to divert from the failure to have clients ranking for the keywords that were to be targeted to begin with. If the keywords can't be cross-referenced to traffic
Instead, make a decisive list of keywords to track, and pay little, if any attention to the others without traffic data to legitimize them as useful terms. You will want to ensure that your keywords are ones that convert traffic and sales, and as a result, this will be a criteria needing regular investigation. Again, this is where the scared SEO Tech will bring up ranking for random terms, but be mindful that these terms will need serious scrutiny. When adding additional terms to your watch list, ensure that they produce. Search new keywords in "Google Trends" to see if they have any ranking. This is especially true when you dig down to your local market. If you rank #1 for a term that gets 1 local search per month, then it might not be one worth nurturing.
If your SEO Expert tells you that this is a needed term, you may want to look for a more qualified representative. Ultimately, there will be new tools to pick up at every turn along the path, so most importantly, remain teachable. SEO and Search Traffic Strategy are fluid and will require updating methods to adapt to updated measures.
Often we will inherit clients who have had previous experience with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and sometimes even find themselves ranking well, but have little to no traffic to show for it. Even worse, the methods used by previous Chicago SEO Companies have left many of our clients with horrible content that reduces readership and increases bounce rates. Cheesy SEO tricks that cause for a higher SERP ranking aren't necessarily going to equate to better traffic and conversions; this is why our Naperville, Glen Ellyn and Chicago SEO Teams focus on a full Search Optimized Traffic performance plan. We could only hope that more Internet Marketing Agencies would recognize the common problems seen as the SEO standard that cause horrible conversion rates.
In the old days of Search Engine Marketing, and sometimes still true today, ad agencies would charge ridiculous amounts of money for ad driven traffic even when it had nothing to do with a site's content. Conversions were low and bounce rates were high. Today, the same is still occurring but now expanded to SEO campaigns. In Chicago it is far too common to find websites littered with footers pages for each individual township and suburb. At first, companies like Reach Local and Orange Soda did this as a way to push relevant content and lift their own clients in the SERPs. The problem was, these pages were comprised of the same city data, spun over and over, and leaving multiple sites with the same giant spam bomb in the footer and sitemap of each of their clients. Many freelance and smaller SEO Companies in Chicago followed this blueprint and littered the search results with more of the same. As a result, the practice became one of the basic principles to Chicago SEO tactics.
Poor overall traffic from high SEO placement is another problem. Imagine a keyword ranking at the #1 position but only delivering 50 visitors a month, and then a keyword that was ranking in the #6 position that was delivering 900 visitors a month - which one would you rather? Traffic numbers are much more valuable than rankings alone and converted traffic is the primary focus.
This cheap and semi-effective SEO and SERP placement method had a major downfall: when the sites received the positive listings resulting from all of the city data, they also received few visitors willing to trudge through the mounds of crap content to find what they were actually interested in. The basic remedy for this problem is the keystone for the framework of Search Optimized Traffic.
Searchable Content Written For The Readers, Not Google
Repeating the same phrases and keywords spamming with local pages is a great way to ensure that garnered traffic bounces from your site. Your goal as a business content creator is to inspire readers to become both customers and secondary promoters, you are not to be writing what "Google will enjoy". Inherently, if your content is satisfactory to your readers, describes and informs your product or service and inspires visitors to engage, then Google will already be satisfied and reward your efforts. Well written data will attract both Google and engage site visitors.
Optimizing Content For Visitor Interactions
It's one thing to get people to read your content, it's another to have them find it important enough to respond with comments or even more important, to share with their Personal Social Networks (PSN). Everyone online has their own, individual PSN. Inspiring visitors to engage your content via their own PSN is the basis for using the facebook comment plugin or commenting widgets like Disqus. With every user that your reader is able to re-engage your content to, your site gets more than just another reader, it gets relevant linking with every interaction.
Traffic Strategy With Quality Page Descriptions
This is likely the top failure we have seen in the Chicago SEO market. We will have clients come to us with incredibly high listings for quality terms.... and they will have horrid and useless descriptions for their search results (yes, this still happens even with the updates Google has made to results). This is often the direct action of a previous Chicago SEO Company they had managing their site. Descriptions written to please Google are almost certain to discourage real readers. Descriptions and page titles, while important to specific points of an SEO Strategy, can't be the one trick to Search Engine Ranking. Title and Description are the main driving force to bring readers to your overall content; if they don't match, or worse, are redundant and ridiculously written keyword spam bombs, then the readers will have no incentive to actually follow them. Consider signs for rest areas and food along an Interstate; if they don't adequately describe their product, you are less likely to stop unless desperate for a bathroom. If your content is ranking highly, yet the descriptions don't adequately match the search terms, you will only gain the traffic of those are desperate to get off the search.
Again, Search Optimized Traffic (SOT) is the main strategy that should be the focus of any business with serious SEO campaigns. Listing high for the purpose of listing high is a strategy that can be a waste of resources. Ensure that your SEO Content and SEO Countermeasures are written to elevate user interaction and the overall conversions.
Last week we discussed SEO Countermeasures and Content Countermeasures that are hurting the structure and information flow of the internet; today, we will take the conversation a step further. The lack of honesty in the reputation and information sharing services is one problem, but what happens when we ask the same questions in regard to political and legal questions.
Political and Anti-Science SEO Content Countermeasures
Anyone who has a family member on the Newsmax Spam List knows all too well the problems with misinformation and dishonest content promotions. For years, false information, fed to the masses has been the hallmark of political propaganda. Both right and left are equally guilty of this dishonest practice, and it seems both will turn blue in the face complaining about how dishonest the other is. Pushed articles are common place for the purpose of having multiple sites replicate the same false story, over and over, and then link to each other to offer a seemingly relevant citation. Again, this requires an audience that is predisposed to believe that a specific viewpoint is possible or likely.
Sites like Politifact, Snopes, Hoax-Slayer, FactChecker, and many others have become the bane of the political fringes who WANT their preconceived ideals to be realized in the most obvious of dishonest rallies.
The proliferation of the political scams is two fold; the first goal being to direct public opinion by preaching to a choir, the second being to drive traffic to sites filled with products aligned with the content itself. Many of the Natural News (and its affiliates site's) articles are solely produced to push traffic to their product affiliate sites for purchasing books or 'natural remedies". The traffic for survivalists will take them to sites promoting solar water heaters and wood-burning stoves (sold at ridiculously expensive prices at that). The scam site method is fairly simple, it only requires having a bunch of sheep ready to repost network stories for ad and clickbaited traffic. Often, most of the reproduction sites will be owned by the same group as the originating site.
The SEO methods used by reposting false information include medical info as well. In spite of medical science, the proliferation of false claims on medical needs is growing by the day. People, convinced in spite of science, that medical needs like vaccinations and treatments are some form of evil scam to make people sick (irony being that they avoiding the vaccines increases sickness) are increasingly promoting false narratives at the behest of their blogger overlords. Often, this information will be completely void of even the most basic scientific study. Again, Natural News is a notorious for the use of down-line blogging to perpetuate its SEO Content Countermeasures to recognized science. You may ask, "why would they do this to sell a few books?", and in doing so you will be asking a legitimate question. The answer is simple, they make millions off of affiliate book sales, vitamin sales, and training/event sales associated with the topics they push. In the end, the irony is that they claim the motivation for medical science to promote medical cures is money, while in the end, it is their own primary purpose. Obviously, Natural News and its many clone sites is an easy target, but it certainly isn't the only one. Often the hoax stories used on its network are dusted off months or years later to replicate the same affiliate gains. Even after pointed out to be the obvious lies they are, the dedicated who desire it to be true will promote the false stories without question.
Ultimately, public safety is put into jeopardy by these groups because of the purposeful direction of the public to act in a manner that is contrary to their health or basic common sense. Yes, the people who fall for and repromote this misinformation are guilty of being naive, gullible and ignorant, but those leading them by the snout are doing so in a way that is blatantly irresponsible and places large populations in danger... all to make a buck and push agendas.
Using SEO and Content Countermeasures to Hide Criminal and Legal Data
Someone will always be trying to invent a better mousetrap, but what happens when the mousetrap itself is under attack? People entrust their futures, businesses and family welfare to background and identity checks; what happens when the information gained from them is bogus? The answer is simple, the system fails those who deserve to know enough to protect themselves, their businesses and their families.
People of ill repute and those with a past worth hiding use SEO Countermeasures and Content Manipulation to promote a fictitious form of themselves so that their past, present and future victims are blind to the actual threats the individual can hold. We ran into a typical scammer recently who had an intricate manner of hiding reports of his previous scams. He produced so many member and blog accounts in his own name that even articles about his scams from Ripoff Report and NY Times were pushed to page 10.
Many are getting in on this option; from legal offenders to financial swindlers, the option allows them at least one more hustle and a crowd of people unable to find the sourced information about the scammer's history. The scammer mentioned above even went so far as to seek legal orders to force google to hide search results mentioning his name (since he apparently trademarked himself). As a result, attempts to find accurate information on this person who has scammed and stolen from so many are often in vain.
The "push down" effect of Content Countermeasures and SEO Tactics used for these dishonest means are likely to persist. Google has given no indication that is has a real solution to counter the SEO Countermeasures being deployed. Google attempted to kill the duplicate content and spun material game, but only so much can be done when some of these scammers are running hundreds of accounts and sites to keep a clean image. They're wolves and their fake wool consists of the SEO Content and descriptors of themselves used to promote the false narrative.
We can hope that they will finally be curtailed, but they appear to be a constant from generation to generation. These are the same sad sacks that would be selling snake oil and 'miracle cures" in the 1800's. The unfortunate reality is that Content Countermeasures are only the latest tool of those who wish to defraud their fellows. That they have learned how to manipulate SEO techniques for these scams is only the latest step in a long walk. We can only assume that their growth online will continue, marking less honesty and more skepticism.
The Authorship markup was first unveiled by Google in June 2011 and SEO Techs everywhere rejoiced. Its roots can be traced back to the company's Agent Rank patent of 2007. Bill Slawski, an expert on Google's patents, says that the Agent Rank patent is a type of system wherein multiple pieces of content are connected with a digital signature that represents one or more "agents" (authors).
Three years after Google Authorship was launched, the company decided to discontinue the project and SEO's everywhere cried a little. The announcement came from John Mueller of Google Webmaster Tools which he posted in Google+. According to Mueller, Google will stop displaying authorship in Google Search. Likewise, it will no longer track data from content with the rel=author markup in SERP rankings.
Google noticed that displaying the authorship information wasn't as useful as the company had thought it would be. At some point, it can even distract from the results. For these reasons, Google decided to axe the Authorship project.
Don't discount Author Rank as a result of this change and the reduced spinets.
According to Search Engine Land:
Author Rank Is Real — And Continues!
Schmidt was just speculating in his book, not describing anything that was actually happening at Google. From Google itself, there was talk several times last year of making use of Author Rank as a way to identify subject experts and somehow boost them in the search results:
Google Authority Boost: Google’s Algorithm To Determine Which Site Is A Subject Authority, May 2013
Google’s Matt Cutts: Someday, Perhaps Ranking Benefits From Using Rel=”Author”, June 2013
Google Still Working On Promoting Subject-Specific Authorities In Search Results, December 2013
That was still all talk. The first real action came in March of this year. After Amit Singhal, the head of Google Search, said that Author Rank still wasn't being used, the head of Google’s web spam team gave a caveat of where Author Rank was used: for the “In-depth articles” section, when it sometimes appears, of Google’s search results.
Google divulged that dropping Google Authorship shouldn't have an impact on how the In-depth articles section works so strong writers' SEO platforms should be intact. Google also explained that the dropping of Google Authorship won’t impact its other efforts to reward authors who perpetually make quality and engaging content.
Well, if you read the above portion, you're likely scratching your heads. How is there to be author rank without authorship, when Google has also said that it’s ignoring authorship markup?
The answer is that Google has other ways to the author of a quality story, if it wants. In particular, Google is likely to look for visible "bylines" and citations that often appear on news stories and blog posts. These existed before Google Authorship, and they aren't going away. One thing to keep in mind, you will want to ensure that all of your titled work is consolidated under the account name you will want tracked.
If you're a small business owner, you've likely felt some pains because of the tighter lending regulations from banks. Your advertising budgets are already small or non-existent, making advertising even harder now. Fortunately, digital advertising has some low-cost options, allowing small businesses to be able to expand their limited budgets.
Many small businesses have Facebook and Twitter pages, and maybe a few listings in local directories, but that is the extent of their advertising. This is not for lack of interest, however. In a recent study released by market research firm BIA/Kelsey, 40 percent of small and midsized businesses plans to increase digital spending in the next year.
So how can businesses get the best return on investment from digital, internet and social media advertising methods?
It is understandable that companies do not want to put up the cash for traditional outbound marketing techniques, but there are actually a lot of inexpensive (and free) ways to market a business online that are underutilized. If you want to maximize your online presence, look beyond the typical social networks and directories and make use of these options as well:
Register your company with Google’s Places for Business. It's estimated that 97 percent of consumers decide what local businesses to frequent based on an online search? This free service from Google, Places for Business, literally puts you “on the map” so people can find the products or services you offer on a local level. If you do not have an office that is open to the public, you can choose a service area option during signup and hide your physical address. If you have multiple locations, you will want to sign up separately for each spot. Additionally, you will want to be added to several citation sites, to reinforce the Google Places listing. Ensure that the location, phone, and name of your business are the same on each of these sites. Bet results come from consistency.
Join your local Chamber of Commerce. For a small annual fee, you can take advantage of the many networking opportunities your local Chamber of Commerce provides. This is an excellent way to learn about the ways area laws will affect your business operations and also to rub elbows with potential clients. Usually new members get the chance to promote their business on the Chamber’s website or in its newsletter which could lead to a boost in business.
Seek out barter swaps with other local companies. This can take many different forms depending on the resources that you have available to trade. Consider comparable online banner ads or just simply leaving business cards at each other’s physical locations. You may also want to look into exchanging guest blog posts with other area businesses. By linking to each other, you will build up search engine credibility for people searching businesses in your area. There are really no limits here and business swap ideas are free. Try to find companies that make sense with which to trade – for example, a home inspector may find value in a swap relationship with a local Realtor or property management office.
Make a business video. People love to watch videos online, so why not ride that wave? Make a brief video explaining your services or products and post it several places, including your official website and YouTube. Show your expertise in your field with a video that explains what you do and why you are the best at it. People like to put a face with a business name, especially when it comes to local companies, so give them a reason to pick you over the other options.
You may have recently decided to dedicate a lot of effort and resources to get your website discovered. However, if the website has poor quality and lacks vital information, then it can have an adverse effect on your small business. In order to ensure your small business is found in Google(or Bing and Yahoo for that matter), you will need to be search engine friendly. It’s also important that you provide content that’s persuasive and valuable for your potential client. Here are a few SEO tips to help enhance your visibility on Google:
Use Catchy Titles & Descriptions:
Make sure each page has a ‘catchy’ title. It should include at least one relevant keyword. Your Meta tag descriptions should also include a keyword. It should also summarize what your web page is about. You’ll want to include a call-to-action. The key is to persuade people to click onto your website for further information.
Use Relevant Keywords & Keyword Phrases:
Always use the right keywords. You’ll want to use the keywords that your target audience is actually using to find your product or service. A web design company in Naperville or Chicago that offers SEO services can conduct an extensive keyword search and find the most popular keywords in your niche. Stuffing keywords in that don't have any relevant position to the page topic, or flood the page with useless info is a great way to be punished by the Google gods.
Be Social
Make sure you can be found on the social media sites that your audience is hanging out. It’s not necessary to sign up for every site. Simply sign up where the majority of your audience is hanging out at. For example, if you find out your target audience is hanging out at Foursquare, Facebook and Google+, you’ll want to make yourself available on those networks.
Don’t forget to add the link of your website to your social media accounts, not only for the search engines, but so people can find you. Social Media traffic is one of the most dedicated driving forces of the internet today; ignoring it would be ignoring your businesses future.
It’s important to understand that Google is constantly evolving. The key is to provide your visitors with a website that is not only well designed but a website that is relevant to the product or service you’re offering. Remember, Google is meant to function in a way that simulates the average person searching. If you make your site more data-friendly to average users, it will also be friendly to Google.
Contact us to find out more information about our Small Business SEO, web design, and development services.
Naper Design is a full-service web design and SEO company in Naperville offering mobile app development, website design & web development, mobile development and SEO services.
Marketing your business online to prospective customers doesn't have to cost a fortune. Often times, many people waste a lot of money with online marketing that doesn't produce the results they expect - mainly because they do not have a solid marketing strategy in place. In reality, you can experience good results with online marketing on a budget. Here are six effective tips:
Tip #1:Your marketing strategy will never be lucrative if you don’t have an audience that is clearly defined. Before you spend a dime on marketing, first identify your prospective market. There is no need to pay top dollar to employ a prestigious market research firm. If you have knowledge of your product, then you should be able to identify the market yourself.
Tip #2:You can determine what you’re looking to gain from marketing online, whether it is increased awareness or increased revenue. It is likely you’ll have various goals, but keep track of these multiple goals to measure your achievements. When you reach your initial goals, then you can set new goals for your company to reach success. Our Naperville Web Design team can help you monitor and keep track of your marketing efforts with our various analytic tools. This will help you with growing your business.
Tip #3:Once you are aware of who your target market is and have created goals, you can plan your budget appropriately. The best thing about marketing online is that you can be a success even on a tight budget. You can determine what outlets are the most valuable for your product and have the will to spend some dollars to achieve results.
Tip #4:Set yourself apart from your competitors. There is a myriad of companies making an attempt to sell products online. Thus, you need to make your brand id notable. Naturally, this begins with a first-rate website. Our web design company in Naperville, will not only build an aesthetically pleasing website, we will create a website that’s mobile friendly and easy to navigate.
Tip #5:Every business owner’s dream is to have his/her website displayed on the first results page of the search engine. This can be achieved with the proper use of relevant keywords, back-linking (white hat) and SEO friendly (and human friendly) Meta Tag titles and descriptions.
Tip #6:Social media marketing can also help enhance your brand identity. It’s important that you provide your audience with valuable information that will persuade them to take action. This may include visiting your website or even sharing your content with their friends on various social media outlets. Also, your website, social media sites and marketing materials should complement each other.
If you need help building a website or you need to enhance an existing website, our experienced Naperville Web Designers are here to help. Contact us today or call: 630-803-8998.
Instead of trying to rank for random and "got lucky" terms, or trying to convert those who arrived at your site while looking for something your don't actually provide, your site team should be planning specific Inbound Marketing terms to use in your Search Traffic Strategy (STS). 
Your STS strategy should culminate with one specific goal: converting visitors to your site's primary purpose. If you have an ecommerce site, then the your strategy should focus on targeted traffic likely to desire your products. The same holds true for services, content, blogs or any other type of site you are trying to deliver qualified search traffic to.
There are many blogs offering "Top 5 Search Strategy", or "6 Search Traffic Items You Can't Ignore", and any other spammy title of the like, but these are more for promoting that SEO Company's blog than to assist you in your goals. Instead, we are going to simply list a couple of common sense solutions to amplify your Search Traffic Strategy and boost your converted inbound marketing. You'll find tons of blogs pushing strategies like the image below, but effectively, throwing all the crap at the wall and hoping it sticks isn't a strategy for anything but mayhem.
Instead, make a decisive list of keywords to track, and pay little, if any attention to the others without traffic data to legitimize them as useful terms. You will want to ensure that your keywords are ones that convert traffic and sales, and as a result, this will be a criteria needing regular investigation. Again, this is where the scared SEO Tech will bring up ranking for random terms, but be mindful that these terms will need serious scrutiny. When adding additional terms to your watch list, ensure that they produce. Search new keywords in "Google Trends" to see if they have any ranking. This is especially true when you dig down to your local market. If you rank #1 for a term that gets 1 local search per month, then it might not be one worth nurturing.
If your SEO Expert tells you that this is a needed term, you may want to look for a more qualified representative. Ultimately, there will be new tools to pick up at every turn along the path, so most importantly, remain teachable. SEO and Search Traffic Strategy are fluid and will require updating methods to adapt to updated measures.
In the old days of Search Engine Marketing, and sometimes still true today, ad agencies would charge ridiculous amounts of money for ad driven traffic even when it had nothing to do with a site's content. Conversions were low and bounce rates were high. Today, the same is still occurring but now expanded to SEO campaigns. In Chicago it is far too common to find websites littered with footers pages for each individual township and suburb. At first, companies like Reach Local and Orange Soda did this as a way to push relevant content and lift their own clients in the SERPs. The problem was, these pages were comprised of the same city data, spun over and over, and leaving multiple sites with the same giant spam bomb in the footer and sitemap of each of their clients. Many freelance and smaller SEO Companies in Chicago followed this blueprint and littered the search results with more of the same. As a result, the practice became one of the basic principles to Chicago SEO tactics.
Poor overall traffic from high SEO placement is another problem. Imagine a keyword ranking at the #1 position but only delivering 50 visitors a month, and then a keyword that was ranking in the #6 position that was delivering 900 visitors a month - which one would you rather? Traffic numbers are much more valuable than rankings alone and converted traffic is the primary focus.
This cheap and semi-effective SEO and SERP placement method had a major downfall: when the sites received the positive listings resulting from all of the city data, they also received few visitors willing to trudge through the mounds of crap content to find what they were actually interested in. The basic remedy for this problem is the keystone for the framework of Search Optimized Traffic.
The proliferation of the political scams is two fold; the first goal being to direct public opinion by preaching to a choir, the second being to drive traffic to sites filled with products aligned with the content itself. Many of the Natural News (and its affiliates site's) articles are solely produced to push traffic to their product affiliate sites for purchasing books or 'natural remedies". The traffic for survivalists will take them to sites promoting solar water heaters and wood-burning stoves (sold at ridiculously expensive prices at that). The scam site method is fairly simple, it only requires having a bunch of sheep ready to repost network stories for ad and clickbaited traffic. Often, most of the reproduction sites will be owned by the same group as the originating site.
The SEO methods used by reposting false information include medical info as well. In spite of medical science, the proliferation of false claims on medical needs is growing by the day. People, convinced in spite of science, that medical needs like vaccinations and treatments are some form of evil scam to make people sick (irony being that they avoiding the vaccines increases sickness) are increasingly promoting false narratives at the behest of their blogger overlords. Often, this information will be completely void of even the most basic scientific study. Again, Natural News is a notorious for the use of down-line blogging to perpetuate its SEO Content Countermeasures to recognized science. You may ask, "why would they do this to sell a few books?", and in doing so you will be asking a legitimate question. The answer is simple, they make millions off of affiliate book sales, vitamin sales, and training/event sales associated with the topics they push. In the end, the irony is that they claim the motivation for medical science to promote medical cures is money, while in the end, it is their own primary purpose. Obviously, Natural News and its many clone sites is an easy target, but it certainly isn't the only one. Often the hoax stories used on its network are dusted off months or years later to replicate the same affiliate gains. Even after pointed out to be the obvious lies they are, the dedicated who desire it to be true will promote the false stories without question.
Ultimately, public safety is put into jeopardy by these groups because of the purposeful direction of the public to act in a manner that is contrary to their health or basic common sense. Yes, the people who fall for and repromote this misinformation are guilty of being naive, gullible and ignorant, but those leading them by the snout are doing so in a way that is blatantly irresponsible and places large populations in danger... all to make a buck and push agendas.
Using SEO and Content Countermeasures to Hide Criminal and Legal Data
Someone will always be trying to invent a better mousetrap, but what happens when the mousetrap itself is under attack? People entrust their futures, businesses and family welfare to background and identity checks; what happens when the information gained from them is bogus? The answer is simple, the system fails those who deserve to know enough to protect themselves, their businesses and their families.
People of ill repute and those with a past worth hiding use SEO Countermeasures and Content Manipulation to promote a fictitious form of themselves so that their past, present and future victims are blind to the actual threats the individual can hold. We ran into a typical scammer recently who had an intricate manner of hiding reports of his previous scams. He produced so many member and blog accounts in his own name that even articles about his scams from Ripoff Report and NY Times were pushed to page 10.
Many are getting in on this option; from legal offenders to financial swindlers, the option allows them at least one more hustle and a crowd of people unable to find the sourced information about the scammer's history. The scammer mentioned above even went so far as to seek legal orders to force google to hide search results mentioning his name (since he apparently trademarked himself). As a result, attempts to find accurate information on this person who has scammed and stolen from so many are often in vain.
The "push down" effect of Content Countermeasures and SEO Tactics used for these dishonest means are likely to persist. Google has given no indication that is has a real solution to counter the SEO Countermeasures being deployed. Google attempted to kill the duplicate content and spun material game, but only so much can be done when some of these scammers are running hundreds of accounts and sites to keep a clean image. They're wolves and their fake wool consists of the SEO Content and descriptors of themselves used to promote the false narrative.
We can hope that they will finally be curtailed, but they appear to be a constant from generation to generation. These are the same sad sacks that would be selling snake oil and 'miracle cures" in the 1800's. The unfortunate reality is that Content Countermeasures are only the latest tool of those who wish to defraud their fellows. That they have learned how to manipulate SEO techniques for these scams is only the latest step in a long walk. We can only assume that their growth online will continue, marking less honesty and more skepticism.
Use Catchy Titles & Descriptions:
Make sure each page has a ‘catchy’ title. It should include at least one relevant keyword. Your Meta tag descriptions should also include a keyword. It should also summarize what your web page is about. You’ll want to include a call-to-action. The key is to persuade people to click onto your website for further information.
Use Relevant Keywords & Keyword Phrases:
Always use the right keywords. You’ll want to use the keywords that your target audience is actually using to find your product or service. A web design company in Naperville or Chicago that offers SEO services can conduct an extensive keyword search and find the most popular keywords in your niche. Stuffing keywords in that don't have any relevant position to the page topic, or flood the page with useless info is a great way to be punished by the Google gods.
Be Social
Make sure you can be found on the social media sites that your audience is hanging out. It’s not necessary to sign up for every site. Simply sign up where the majority of your audience is hanging out at. For example, if you find out your target audience is hanging out at Foursquare, Facebook and Google+, you’ll want to make yourself available on those networks.
Don’t forget to add the link of your website to your social media accounts, not only for the search engines, but so people can find you. Social Media traffic is one of the most dedicated driving forces of the internet today; ignoring it would be ignoring your businesses future.
It’s important to understand that Google is constantly evolving. The key is to provide your visitors with a website that is not only well designed but a website that is relevant to the product or service you’re offering. Remember, Google is meant to function in a way that simulates the average person searching. If you make your site more data-friendly to average users, it will also be friendly to Google.
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