Influencer Marketing is greater than ever, although at the end of the 1990s we couldn’t even imagine it. Thanks to the Internet letting people open up their own communication channels with the world, everything changed. The Internet became a rich field for conducting advertising campaigns, and day by day it helps marketing experts make their points and reach new, current and old customers. Using Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, X (Twitter), Pinterest and LinkedIn, brands have gotten extra opportunities to promote their products. How did this happen?

Social media platforms took the world by storm. Facebook and Twitter, at the moment of their launching, were a breath of fresh air. Within seconds, they became a place of interest for thousands of people. Year by year these platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, get updated, expand and provide great new possibilities for advertising. Nowadays, mobile devices have overtaken desktop devices and laptops as a platform for marketing. Mobile Internet usage presents a lot of benefits for advertisers. They are able to:

• reach specific audiences, extending their client base in local areas;
• make their brands recognizable;
• heighten the brand’s conversion rate and its loyalty;
• learn insights from their target base.

How can they do these with the help of Influencer Marketing?

Influencer Marketing in general is a process of selling products and promoting brands with the help of people who have a definitive level of authority on social media. A lot of readers think that Influencer Marketing is all about celebrities who started their accounts there. However, a lot of modern influencer marketing is done via ordinary people who gained their popularity on their social media platform from the very bottom, using only the Internet, their skills, knowledge, and desire. These are Instagram and YouTube bloggers, popular users of Facebook and Twitter, and so on.

Let’s be honest and admit: people whom we follow on social media have much more influence than film stars or popular singers. The reason is simple: we trust people whom we have spent years in “close relation” with, watching their success and monitoring their life through photos, videos, or comments.

What are the reasons for using Influencer Marketing when there are already a bunch of ads on the Internet?

Browser Ads are presented via pop-ups, paid results on SERPs, and irritating ads on websites, which are usually cheap and off-putting. Those are always in front of our eyes and, you may suppose, are more powerful, but this is not so. Users are tired of advertisements nowadays and use powerful Ad Blockers, erasing all that is inappropriate for them. On social media developers try to present advertisements in a non-disturbing way, so people even stop scrolling for a few seconds to analyze products provided. Many people like sponsored posts thinking they’re from a friend.

One more reason to advertise on social media is the fall in popularity of TV. TV was once the main way advertisers conducted new campaigns, but time flies and televisions are now being removed from households every day. The race is on to see who will see the last television ad.

With access to the Internet, people just stopped watching ordinary TV channels and started buying subscriptions for services like Netflix, where they can watch popular shows without ads and long waiting periods. Moreover, Generation Z is a significant and important cohort of potential consumers, and they almost don’t watch TV these days, going for social media and messaging apps.

EVEN THOUGH social media has become an important part of our lives and it gives marketing experts a lot of ways to promote products, it’s still not an easy task. People still don’t like advertisements and have a rich choice of what to buy and what to pass by. Advertisers should think a lot about ad campaigns in order to raise demand among capricious customers.

There are some disadvantages you may not have taken into account. Influencer Marketing is an expensive “service” which, unfortunately, can’t grant a large amount of success in most cases. Everything depends on the Influencer’s work and your effort as well.  It’s hard to avoid mistakes. Everything is possible, starting from a wrong presentation of a product because of a poorly prepared strategy and including posting the wrong text by accident. Influencer Marketing is really popular these days and your competitors may have already formed relationships with them.

How to Bear Fruit with Influencer Marketing Step by Step

STEP #1: Research

The future always asks the past for some advice. Your company and its marketing history are one of the most powerful instruments in your hands. Take some projects which are even a bit similar to the one you are currently building a campaign for and explore them comprehensively: sales level, income, customers, models, and – the most important – mistakes. Take a look at your competitors’ performances with similar products and learn their behavior on social media. Pay attention to posts and comments. This will help you to build a strategy and identify your target audience.

You should collect accurate data concerning the potential target audience of the product you want to promote with the help of social media. You can learn a lot of useful material concerning people’s activity on social media, including their demands and behavior regarding branded products. It may be necessary to identify the age, nationality, occupation and interests of people whom your goods may appeal to. This helps to build a decent advertisement campaign and attract a lot of people. Take into account the location of your target audience!

If you are going to promote your products beyond one country’s borders, you should learn the foreign customers’ perceptions of the goods you provide in order not to make any mistakes and hurt your reputation.

After defining your target audience, you should learn where those people “live”: on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Why is this important? By advertising on the platform where your potential clients chill out most of their time, you will increase the chances for your product to be shown to a greater slice of your target audience.

This is when your Influencers come to the game. Seeing products via people we like and trust, we accordingly start trusting what they trust. This is because Influencers appreciate their audience and reputation a lot and will not advise something bad or untested.

• For demographic and physiographic data gathering you can use Google Analytics.

STEP #2: Budget Approval

Budget problems are always the most troublesome. You should take into account everything and a bit more. Plan your budget with the thought of unexpected circumstances. Get a budget approval with best procurement tools. Popular influencers, especially Instagram and YouTube Influencers, are expensive, because they have a large audience and a lot of them know how much their words cost. Depending on the future strategy for your project, keep in mind that you may want to involve multiple influencers.

Compensation (indemnification) is an important point in your budget plan. There are two points you should pay attention to. The first is you will have to pay an Influencer if your product causes any harm to his or her reputation. The second is a compensation to you if the Influencer doesn’t fulfill his or her obligations fully or does any harm to a product’s or company’s reputation. This is important for both sides and serves as an extra motivation for a successful promotion.

STEP #3: Goal Identification and Strategy Development

In order to build a successful strategy, you should identify your goals – results which you want to get at the end.

If you are at the starting point of your journey, your marketing strategy may be directed to promoting your brand name and establishing a minimum sales level – to see if people are interested in the product you provide.

You may be seeking an extension of your current customer base. You may be advertising a standard product to a new age or lifestyle group. In this case you should take into account Influencers who are interesting for this new group of potential clients. However, remember consumers who are already satisfied with your company. They are the easiest to get more sales from and the costliest of losses if they move to your competition.

The other type of goal is an extension of geographical horizons – entering the international market. You should be the most careful here, because new countries mean new cultures, ideas, and outlooks; even religion must be taken into account. You have to build your strategy so every person will be satisfied or at least not offended.

Sometimes one of the goals may be a cooperation with “new faces”. This means a long term partnership between your company and (an) Influencer(s) you want to work with.

Proper goal identification will help to build a successful marketing campaign, beneficial for each party.

Here we’ve come to the marketing strategy development.

Strategy is basically as important as the process of creating the product.

Work on your concept. At this stage you should think about the uniqueness of your product: why it is better than others and how you can disclose this. Set your product apart from others, impress your potential Influencer with the product, so that he or she and even you yourself would like to try it too.

It is always better to set up several strategies instead of focusing on one. While developing different directions of your marketing campaign you should “touch” and work with at least ten or fifteen successful ideas. However, they may cover different sides of the product and not represent its benefits entirely. So, work on each of them, make them viable, and then put them together. In the end your strategy will be a mix of everything that came to your mind and you saw value in.

Your strategy should cover everything. Decide on platform(s) where your campaign will be promoted. Don’t take into consideration only one platform. People who are interested in your product can breathe everywhere and follow your Influencer everywhere, and the more often they see your advertisement, the greater the desire will rise in them to try it.

There are a lot of examples of advertisers cooperating with social media Influencers, asking them to make a post/say some words in a video about the product, and… nothing more. This is a strike out. Those posts are replaced by others, especially if an Influencer updates really often, and they eventually get lost. This is an under-developed marketing strategy. Yes, this gives some results at the beginning, but you can’t expect this to be tremendous. People should encounter your content as often as possible.

However, you should remember one thing. The social media audience, and people in general, don’t like direct advertisements, they prefer to see why your product is better than others of the same category and is worth their time.

Marketing experts not always know how to use influencers, although there are a lot of ways.

Try to do a series of posts/videos/experiments. This can be a step by step acquaintance with a new product, which an Influencer will try on him-/herself. This will raise trust among the audience; to see a quality sample of your goods and your company itself. Organize not only your Internet promotion, but take him or her to a public venue, where he or she can physically meet with followers and present your product face to face.

Apart from this, people like presents, so give them your product for free, conducting giveaways. What are the benefits of this? In most cases an Influencer gets more followers and your product is discussed not only on an Influencer’s page, but also in the private messages of those who won something.

Take as many stars as you are able to. Start working with several people who are popular enough and make your marketing campaign a competitive collaboration. Influencers will do their best to attract more people to your product than other bloggers you made an offer to. Followers are also happy to see they are working mutually with people they like. Moreover, you can extend the size of the audience who will see your advertisement. This point refers not to every situation, but more people = more diversity. The audience of each Influencer, even if they are from the same niche, is different, because Influencers themselves are not alike: their personality, lifestyle, and outlook attract a great variety of people who may not be found everywhere.

[Popular YouTube book bloggers interviewing an author during the promoting campaign of a new book]

Seed an idea. We can’t apply this only to Influencer Marketing, but to each sphere where strategy development is needed. Sharing your ideas with other people will help you to analyze them deeper. A new, fresh look will help you to identify the weak and strong sides of your ideas, and this can push you to try other variants.

STEP #4: Search for Influencers

An important part of Influencer Marketing strategy is to find those people who will best present your product to a wide audience. There are several ways to identify people who fit your niche and specific project best:

• Use special services which present to you things like demographic data and an Influencers’ sphere of work. Learn about services that you may want to use in the future. All of them cover Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube;
• Use #hashtags:

1. Monitor publications covering specific topics on social media, using existing hashtags. You can separate them and look at the most popular ones. Hashtags are keywords on social media, so don’t hesitate to use this method, if services are not for you.

2. Use WebCEO’s Keyword Research Tool which can help you create new successful keywords in your niche that will bring you more people who are interested in your product.

• Conduct Google research. A lot of the websites which are dedicated to your niche may write articles about young and popular faces in their sphere, providing a detailed history of their success. This is a good opportunity to know more about people who are gaining authority day by day.

Learn some tips for choosing the right people:

• Don’t instantly go to an Influencer with millions of followers.

There are a few reasons for this step. First, such Influencers are too expensive, because of the big audience they have. Second, a wide audience doesn’t mean great engagement. Star Influencers may have a lot of followers, but in fact may have a zero-level connection with them. Here comes trouble, because people will pay no attention to your goods.

And, on the other hand, micro-Influencers who have significantly less followers, but a higher level of engagement on their page, have more of a chance to reach people’s attention and promote your products. So, learn everything carefully before choosing people for your campaign, don’t prey on stars or statistics.

Sometimes, in a matter of weeks, an Influencer can get a huge amount of followers for whatever reason: scandal, success, or paid self-advertisement. Don’t try to cooperate with them, because an unexpected wave of followers doesn’t mean the audience will trust the Influencer regarding your product.

• Learn about an Influencers’ brand collaboration and sponsoring history.

This is necessary to know whom an Influencer has worked with. Knowing this information will give you a lot of opportunities:

1. You can find out if this person worked with competitors,
2. How successful this was,
3. People’s opinion about the product an Influencer promoted,
4. How many people were attracted, and
5. Knowing how much they took for a single post/video-mention can help you with the current price calculations.

• Learn the way Influencers operate their accounts.

This means their attitude to followers and the way they represent their niche. You have to learn the style in which an Influencer works: whether they upload long-read posts focused on important problems/funny things, or do they do entertaining or scientific videos. With this you can already be prepared and aware of the format your product will be presented in. As a result, you can draft a script or work on a concept.

• Learn why people have come to that Influencer.

This is about the reputation of an Influencer and what attracts people to him or her. If he or she has a reputation for being a drunk partygoer, it will probably not help you to sell medicine for the liver, for instance.

How to Reach Influencers?

Common methods are:

• Direct Messaging on the main account on social media or the one on which some Influencers create specifically for promotion collaboration offers;
• Through email which is also created specifically for advertisers and which is mentioned on the main page of their site and/or profiles;
• Via the email or phone number of the Influencer’s agent;
• Via the comments section if none of the above mentioned methods are available.

HOWEVER, don’t spam nor subscribe these contacts to an automated email campaign, because this risks abusing GDPR rules!

STEP #5: Strategy Approving and Scheduling

You can’t approve a strategy without presenting it to the person who will work for you. Do not rely fully on the plan which you prepared and which may seem the best for you only.

Let Influencers teach you. This is important because Influencers know their audience the best. No-one will ever be better consultants than they are. After presenting your strategy to the Influencers, who have agreed to cooperate with you, listen to the Influencer’s suggested strategy. People who dedicate their lives to social media and work there know much more about how things work there and can share some valuable tips and tricks. Your strategy will not be complete until Influencers give their final approval.

Vary your concept for each Influencer. If you have decided to bring several Influencers to your project, then give them freedom of expression along with the right to participate in your marketing campaign, especially the Influencers needed for international marketing campaigns. They will make your advertisement brighter, catchy, and successful, using their rich experience. Moreover, they are cultural background experts who will help you to avoid any mistakes.

Schedule the whole working process. Proper scheduling can bring you more success than you think. Sponsored posts are not published by accident. They happen after serious analytical data gathering including know: people’s moods during different parts of the day, the hours of their presence on social media, and even the most visited day of the week. Don’t be afraid to notify your Influencers about posts they should publish. Each detail needs control.

STEP #6: Payment

There are several types of payment for Influencers:

• Monetary compensation:

1. Set price. More often this type of payment is taken by Influencers who have a lot of followers and work with advertisements really well, fulfilling your goal. They set their price or this is set as a result of negotiation with this person or his/her agent. You can pay an Influencer for the quantity of likes and shares, or for people who came to your site above a control amount after ad material was uploaded.

2. Commission + Discount. One more way is to appoint your Influencer(s) a commission from sales on a monthly or weekly basis. You can also supply him or her with a discount for this product which may be used by the Influencers’ followers. This is a nice variant for a long term cooperation and may be comfortable both for you and the Influencer.

• Free products. Beginners usually don’t take money. If you cooperate with young Influencers, who are just building his or her reputation, they may ask for your products for free in order to use them by themselves or present to followers.

STEP #7: Results Tracking

We’ve come to the final step which will show you whether you had success with your campaign.

Results Tracking concerns two parties: you take the statistics from your Influencer(s) and then comply it with your company’s reports. Information from your Influencer concerns engagement. You can’t receive all the information just looking at likes, shares, or comments. Some pieces of this are open to the social media account’s master only. So, don’t forget to ask for those reports.

Analyze your ROI (Return on Investment). Simply put: you will learn the level of your success in percentage (or ratio). This shows you how successful your marketing campaign was and how much (an) Influence(s) brought to your house.

Check your website’s performance on social media. You will definitely publish some material regarding the product on your company’s social media timelines and site landing pages. With WebCEO’s Social Engagement Tool you can easily observe your rankings, social citations and the traffic brought to your website via Facebook and Pinterest.

Also WebCEO’s Facebook Insights Tool gives a detailed report regarding Facebook engagement, niche popular posts, page’s likes, reactions, shares, comments, and clicks on posts. This can also help you to learn demographic data.

WebCEO’s Web Buzz Monitoring Tool helps you to track mentions of your product in news, blogs, and tweets.

SEO Benefits of Influencer Marketing

Any activity on your social media accounts can bring SEO benefits to your website. With Google Web Search Analytics, you can easily analyze how exactly you succeeded after your marketing campaign launched. A powerful advertisement on social media can mean a lot of traffic and the improvement of your positions on SERPs. Google and other search engines like when people come to websites and stay there for a lot of time. This means that the quality of your content will be rewarded by search engines with good rankings.

Moreover, Influencer Marketing can drive a high number of backlinks to your website. Although Google doesn’t count backlinks from social media, it does count backlinks from websites which took your link from an Influencers’ social media timeline. A large amount of backlinks means higher domain authority.

However, be careful about so-called toxic links, because they can have a negative impact on your rankings. Use WebCEO’s Backlink Quality Check Tool to clean your backlink profile. This can help you to identify the total amount of backlinks, linking domains and their authority, link texts, and which of the backlinks are toxic enough to put in Google’s Disavow List.

IN CONCLUSION, Influencer Marketing would likely be a win-win strategy for you: each party will get a piece of the pie at the end of the journey. The best way to find your winning Influencers is to learn about your competitors and their social media campaigns which brought them success and rich backlinks.

Use WebCEO’s Competitor Backlink Spy to find blogs and hubs that promote your competitors and use such channels of opportunity for your website!

The post A Step by Step Guide to Influencer Marketing appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

It’s that time of the year again. Saint Valentine’s Day is coming! With all sorts of drama breaking out, it has its own special meaning for everyone. And digital marketers, with their not-so-romantic but still noble motives, are no exception.

In this modern age, most shopping is done online, and Valentine’s Day tends to drive people to buy something nice for someone else. It wouldn’t be half as fun otherwise. But online shopping overtaking offline means that digital marketers can’t afford to relax. When a wave of customers is coming after products like yours, it’s time to bring out the tools, turn your brain on and give your website’s SEO some tuning before it’s too late!

So, if you run an online store, what steps can you take to catch this wave and earn more traffic?

Choose Keywords for the Occasion

If you are an experienced SEO (and a WebCEO user as well), you already know how to run keyword research, what tools you need and what kind of keywords will give you an edge. If you forgot, let me refresh your memory: long-tail keywords. Long, specific phrases describing the things that the users want to find online. The closer your keywords match those phrases, the better. Be sure to add copious local description if you’re local only Don’t feel shy to use WebCEO’s Keyword Research tool if you need help.

A marketing lifehack: not only couples shop on the Valentine’s Day. Single people do it too, so you might consider expanding your range of keywords to include them, as well. In other words, research your target audience before researching your keywords.

Correct Timing Is Key

Question: when do the majority of people stop looking for Valentine’s Day presents? Is “the day after” your answer? Good, you are someone who knows their stuff. The same is true for every other holiday: as soon as it becomes yesterday’s news, the stampede of buyers reduces dramatically, and you’ll be lucky if there are any who visit your site. You’ve let the opportunity slip by!

That’s why smart marketers launch their campaign early, when the interest in the trend only starts to build up. Take a look at this graph made in Google Trends. You can see how the number of searches made last year drops like a rock on February 15th, and the tide you want to ride is clearly visible.

Mobile Optimization Is More Important Than Ever

It is an established fact that the majority of Internet users nowadays prefer mobile devices over alternatives like PCs. From that, we can infer that online purchases are primarily made from mobile devices, too. If we add to our line of logic Google’s policy to index websites’ mobile versions before their desktop counterparts, it will bring us to a simple conclusion: if you want to attract a large audience to your site, optimization for mobile devices is an absolute must. Elementary!

Responsive design is a must, and it doesn’t matter what niche you perform in. People prefer mobile, so don’t disappoint them on such a beautiful day. Check out the WebCEO Landing Page SEO Tool to see if you are ready to welcome mobile customers.

Use Images and Videos To Show Your Products

This one’s a no-brainer. How will anyone buy from you if they don’t even know what your products look like? But more importantly, here’s an interesting fact about your potential customers: most of them aren’t even sure at first what they want to buy. That’s why gift guides with lots of options in them are so popular, especially when they are in a video format (YouTube is the number one go-to site for online shoppers). So blow the dust off your camera and start shooting.

Don’t forget about optimization:

• put keywords into filenames and alt tags
• compress images and videos to make them load faster
• pick the right dimensions for images

All to provide users with a better experience on your website.

Create Appropriately-Themed Landing Pages

Self-explanatory: visitors will enjoy a good-looking page with hearts, cupids or whatever is best suited for the event. This step works best when such pages have already been on your site for years. A URL’s age and its inbound links are advantages not to be discarded, after all. Directing traffic to a freshly made page before time runs out is a tough challenge, so it’s better to re-use your old assets whenever possible. Note that renaming a URL counts as creating a new one! If you absolutely have to update it (for example, change /valentines-2019/ to /valentines-2020/), that’s what the 301 redirects are for.

Once the big day is over and the page has fulfilled its purpose, it would be a good idea to strip it off its content, replace it with something related to the holiday (in this case, St. Valentine-themed) so that it wouldn’t be blank, and let the little hard worker rest until the next year. Unless you don’t mind orders for Valentine’s gifts in the middle of summer.

Social Media Is Your Friend

As always, blogs and social networks are allies to anyone who has a business to promote. Especially on holidays and other important days. This is where you stir your grey matter up with chocolate and other unhealthy glucose-containing food and start producing content that will leave the audience in awe! On the precipice of Saint Valentine’s Day, the world’s most ancient and powerful muse known as Love is twice as generous to those who ask her for inspiration.

Prepare your social media marketing campaign and check out how many people it has brought to your website with the help of the WebCEO Social Engagement Tool.  

Say “Yes” to Collaborations 

I’m sorry to say this but you might not sell that particular product a person would like to buy for a present. You may sell flowers but a customer would also like to buy some chocolate which you don’t have. And – wow! – chocolate is available in a store you’re partnered with! Five points from you and ten points to your competitor for a perfect Valentine’s combo. 

Collaborations with other businesses can always bring you extra free advertising and income. You can advertise a business or businesses you want to create a combo with on your website, and your partners will do the same. Add special discounts and you score! People like to buy things advantageously. 

You will not only be seen by a wider audience but also get found for more queries. This will also bring more brand mentions and backlinks. 

Your prime mission is to find a first match for your product that people tend to want alongside your product. Begin working with someone who sells that product. This works for seasonal offers as well, of course.
As soon as you have started a collaboration, don’t forget to track your results!

Use the WebCEO Web Buzz Monitoring Tool to see who mentioned your business on social media, news and blogs and analyze what people think of your business. 

The WebCEO Backlink Profile Tools will show all of your gained backlinks and will analyze them for toxicity!

Can Your Server Handle Incoming Traffic?

As this magical day has plenty in store for everyone who’s willing to participate in its celebration, there’s one surprise you might receive from Saint Valentine… a server crash.

Yeah. This can happen when the crowd you’ve attracted is just too big. Unfortunately, “too much traffic” is also a thing. Imagine yourself as the winner, outmatching the competitors, swimming in orders and living your dream, only to lose it all to a server error. The embarrassment!

That’s why it won’t hurt to ensure your server is disaster-ready. Naturally, the sooner you look into everything that could cause problems and take measures, the better your site’s chances to pull through the holiday.

Upgrade Your Customer Experience

“Dude, where did you buy such a cool present for Bethany?”

“Oh yeah, I know one stunning place…”

All companies dream of having great word of mouth. You in turn should stop dreaming and start creating that stunning reality.

During the holidays all of us are nervous because there are a lot of things to complete. St. Valentine’s Day is the toughest one as we literally have to put our hearts, souls and feelings into presents for our dearest one (or more). If you place even more problems on your customers’ shoulders, they may shrug you off in a hurry.

Create an easy and fast method of searching your site so users can find and buy a desired gift, and your karma will be clean. Don’t create way too many forms to fill for ordering some chocolate. You will damage the user experience. A person may escape your grasp just before they would have otherwise purchased and buy from another website. The faster a client figures out how to order, and the easier he or she gets a confirmation of purchasing, the happier a customer is, the more adorable you are for him or her.

Who knows, they may even fall in love with you and your website!

A great bonus about happy customers is that they aren’t shy to express their appreciation out loud. People’s words are the best advertisement and you can’t lose this chance. Satisfy your customers with the best experience of purchasing a present on your website and you’ll get effective and free advertising.

Start Loving Internal Links

Internal links are more helpful than we think and will bring you more than you may expect.

Let’s set up a picture: you have a nice landing page with cool things to order for the occasion, people like it and order your goods. It’s the perfect time to give them a clue about what they can have in addition to the main dish! If you promote chocolate – give a link to the gourmet peanut butter that tastes perfect with that very dessert and is available on your website. By helping customers pick a perfect Valentine’s Day combination, you will increase traffic to more than just one product page of your website.

Moreover, using this method, you may let people know that you can help them on any occasion, not only on Valentine’s Day. Place links – where it is appropriate of course – to other special offers that touch different holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, etc. Satisfied customers will definitely bookmark them. However, that’s only possible if you have permanent pages for such events.

Use the WebCEO Internal Links Tool to analyze and optimize your internal links.

There’s No Such Thing as “Shopping is Done”

Make people buy more even if they don’t need it.

Predict their desires and plans for this day and provide them with the stuff that is not only about presents. Help your customers organize a real and unforgettable celebration by giving them an opportunity to buy something like a “Special Evening Pack” that will contain everything needed for a private celebration: wine, candles, flowers, and so on.

How this can help your SEO? Good question. I’m sure your marketing department will be able to create something special without our help. However, our tip is about your keyword field extension.

You can use questions like “What to do on Valentine’s Day?” – 9900 monthly searches – as a title for a special offer and sell anything. Just present this “anything” decently so that people would be ready to use their credit cards.

Local Businesses Should Take This Chance

Delivery of holiday meals, candles, decorations or presents will help you get more clients during a period of celebration. Cafes can upgrade or change their menu and launch a special delivery service dedicated to St Valentine’s Day. Enrich your keyword sets with “delivery” focused keywords. 

Our special advice: make your delivery work ahead of the events. People tend to plan their “banquets” beforehand. Thus, it will be great if you present a new menu and start taking orders for delivery two or three weeks before the very day. You will escape mess and turmoil. Workers will know what to do and how to act in advance. 

During the pre-celebration period you can spread information about your special delivery on social media, your website and via newsletters where your announcement will be easily noticed. Make this offer not only special but comfortable. Add the possibility to make orders via social media and messaging apps besides phone calls.

We repeat: Do not overlook taking orders via messaging apps!

To see the results of your special offer’s social media campaign, use the WebCEO Facebook Insights Tool and Social Engagement Tool.

The WebCEO Google Analytics Module will show you how many people have come to your website and from where. The new audience can be analyzed by location, language and device. 

And that’s it for today. Work hard and work well with your SEO, but spare some time for those important to you, as well. Happy Valentine’s Day to you! Start with the keywords!

The post 12 SEO Tips for Online Marketers to Prepare for Valentine’s Day appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Are you sure you have taken basic and proven SEO measures that can ensure a solid existence of your website on the SERP before your major strategy starts to work? Have you learned any tips that might seem unnecessary now but eventually turn out to be your ace card in the merciless SEO games that need to be played?

Let’s look at the things you might have missed as a checklist:

1. THINK SEMANTICS, NOT KEYWORDS

Before creating stellar content, use keyword suggestions from all keyword sources possible, including Google Ads Keyword Planner, “People also ask” and “Related searches” by Google, queries from Google Search Console and keywords/topics used by competitors.

This will help you build a reliable info-base for creating fascinating copy.

How?

By scanning all the possible sources you’ll get all the possible variations of keywords that relate to your niche and topic specifically. For example, those ones you haven’t thought or heard anything about before. You will be able to disclose additional aspects of your topic, thus enriching your material with important information and attracting a bigger audience to your content.

Taking into account additional volumes of new keywords, you will get a higher number of potential users thus greater traffic and conversions.

Result types such as “People also ask” and “Related searches” may be not perfect, but these are relevant. Checking results for search volumes and general popularity will not take too much of your time. At the same time, considering keywords from these sources, you will have a greater chance to fulfill searchers’ topical demands.

HINT: Use WebCEO’s Keyword Research tool which has aggregated all these types of keyword suggestions for you. For each keyword suggestion, you’ll see Monthly Searches, Competition Value and the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) – to help you pick the most effective keywords and topics.

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2. MAKE USE OF STRUCTURED DATA

If you want to pop up at the top of the SERPs (and yes, featured snippets are on the VERY top) – be sure to FORMAT every piece of important data (lists, FAQs, postal addresses, phone numbers, product info, reviews, author data, etc.) as structured data.

Why do you need to do this? The structured data increases your visibility and trustworthiness, andstrengthens your leadership in a race with other websites.

Visibility is a serious concern when there are thousands of websites that might run in a race with you and eventually take your positions. With structured data implementation, you will get your chance to hit the following bull’s-eyes:

• Google Will Get Your Point: visibility is great when it’s relevant. For instance, when you sell bicycles but people see you in the “cars and bikes” category – that’s not relevant and you’ll get nothing from this. With schema markup Google will analyze and understand your content better; thus it will show your website when people need exactly your product.

• SERPs: be visible in a smart form and people will trust you. Rich Results, Host Carousel and Top Stories Carousel are things people bring most of their attention to. With simple additions to your page code, you’ll get a totally new appearance on the SERPs, more alluring and clickable. Google will analyze reviews about your products left by users, and this will be seen with the help of a star rating, the quantity of reviews and prices (if available) right on the SERPs. By seeing other people’s opinions right away, other users will be more determined to visit your website and purchase your products.

Important! The star rating can now be applied only to the following categories: Books, Courses, Events, How-to, Local businesses, Movies, Products, Recipes, Software Apps.

Image source: Google Webmaster Central Blog

• Google Knowledge Panel: make your brand dominate the SERPs. Structured data is your chance to be described right on a SERP and attract the attention of any user right away:

The knowledge panels are stunning both in appearance and usefulness. Users are able to learn the essentials about a company/product/person in a matter of a few moments: the website link, a short description, key personnel and other details. The more captivating/charming you will present your product, the greater the desire searchers will have to learn more.

There are local panels which are easy to optimize: you have to have an account in Google My Business and fill all the forms required, so your local knowledge panel will look like this:

If you want to create a brand knowledge panel, you should create your Google Brand Account. As well as with Google My Business, you should fill in all the forms presented in the settings and then you will have your brand visible on the SERPs.

There are cases when Google creates brand knowledge panels by itself. This happens when your brand seems to be authoritative enough for this.   

• Voice Search: voice search is becoming vitally important. According to Search Engine Land, 48% of searches in 2019 were performed via voice search. It is a little bit different from the original search in the result presentation. It places emphasis on direct, comprehensive and short answers to a user’s query. The Google Assistant will be able to present this short answer on smaller screens. This concerns mobile googling as well.

HINT: Go to WebCEO’s Site Health > Landing Page SEO to check your pages for structured data, as well as the other SEO factors that can help you or else… block your site from higher rankings.

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3. SET CHECKPOINTS AND TRACK RESULTS

Checkpoints matter. They help you see if your strategy is effective enough to keep on using it.

Use WebCEO’s Rank Tracking tool to check your site positions in ALL types of search results (knowledge panel and featured snippets, paid and organic results, image and video results, shopping, news, hotels and places) across ALL locations where your potential customers might search from – usually cities and zip codes!

4. PUT UNDERESTIMATED KEYWORDS INTO THE GAME

See how people are already finding your site or the sites of your clients. Google Search Console will be your best friend here.

There is no such thing as “bad keywords” if they bring relevant traffic. If there are keywords that are not that popular in comparison with others, it’s still not a great decision to give up on them. If they bring you even a little traffic, please, make some time for them.

Valuable content, no matter how popular it already is, will find new readers from new keywords and you will get your audience extended. Take this chance! You will not lose any resources except for some time for research and writing, but think about the benefits you can get by touching new layers of your overall potential audience.

HINT: Connect Google Search Console to your WebCEO account and add valuable insights to your marketing mix. After you’ve analyzed all the UNDERESTIMATED keywords that are bringing you some traffic – strengthen your search positions for these keywords by adding more valuable content and doing smart link building. Go to Keyword Research > Top Queries.

5. FIX TECHNICAL ISSUES ON YOUR SITE

Broken links and anchors? Slow pages? Page access issues? Come on, guys, it’s not even funny.

Technical issues in 2024… You can’t afford to even think about allowing them to exist! Any technical issues are your ticket to the lowest positions on the SERPs and in people’s hearts. Broken pages, not found pages and other unstable aspects of your website will affect people’s opinion about it and their desire to return. You don’t want this to happen and people don’t want to experience such disappointment.

The conclusion of this passage is understandable: eliminate all the technical issues, bring users maximum stability.

Remember that page speed is also a ranking factor. You don’t want Google to put your website down for being too slow.

HINT: Go to Site Health > Site Audit to check your pages for technical errors such as broken links and anchors, unfriendly redirects, server errors and more.

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6. MAKE YOUR SITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY, FINALLY!

Now that Google has moved to the Mobile-First Index, having a mobile-friendly site is a MUST.

The reasons are obvious. People prefer mobile to desktop. We are already tired of repeating this again and again and you may be tired of hearing this. Let this be our last time for repetition. Help people work with your content in a mobile regime and they will return to you for sure.

We are not just talking about implementing Google’s AMP protocol. Our advice is to create a fully functioning mobile version of your website that will be comfortable for users and will satisfy Google’s requirements.   

HINT: Use WebCEO to see if you are ready to welcome mobile users on your website. Go to Site Health > Landing Page SEO to check if the pages of your site adhere to Google’s Mobile Friendliness guidelines. Follow actionable advice on how to fix mobile usability issues and win the search share you deserve.

7. WORK ON UX AND IMPROVE YOUR SITE’S DWELL TIME

Bad user experiences can be a disaster not only because you lose unsatisfied visitors. It’s one of the big ranking factors now: Google dampens websites that have a high bounce rate and short dwell time. These metrics correlate directly.

If your website still doesn’t match modern criteria and deprives your users of the most comfortable conditions to surf through its categories and subcategories, these users will leave! A constantly increasing bounce rate and decreasing dwell time will take your website down. You’ll spend a lot of time recovering.

The first thing that scares away your visitors, therefore affecting such metrics as bounce rate and dwell time, is your website’s appearance. The second is navigation. The better these components are designed, the better your website will be perceived by users and perform on SERPs. First and foremost, bring your attention to these details and then slowly continue with further improvements.

HINTS:

1. Use WebCEO’s Google Analytics Tool to thoroughly analyze your website’s bounce rate. Go to Traffic Analysis > Google Analytics (UA) and see how many visitors leave a page of your website without further interactions.

2. Hire a good UX designer to get a big picture and pinpoint UX problems on your site. Build all possible user paths, remove obstacles and make your visitors happy.

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8. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL SEO

Google now tailors search results to the searcher’s location – even if they don’t mention their city or district in a search box. Do think about adding NAP to your pages and adding your business to Google My Business.

Remember that starting your way in local business is impossible without catching the nuances of local SEO. It wasn’t so important earlier, before the Internet absorbed us. Currently, if you aren’t visible on any local directories, you are likely to go through serious problems in building your business.

As soon as your business is “available” on the Internet and you have performed all the needed procedures for local optimization, you will join the ranks of those who appear on the SERPs for queries relevant to your business.

HINT: After you’ve created a Google My Business account, connect it to WebCEO to get the most out of it: see all your GMB locations and all user reviews in one dashboard, access GMB historical data and research the list of your local competitors (a unique WebCEO report which is NOT available in your Google My Business account). 

9. SPY ON YOUR COMPETITORS AND OUTPLAY THEM

There is a wise saying: “Fake it till you make it!” This doesn’t mean that you should copy-cat your competitors in everything they do. This does mean that you should learn a lot from their strategies (if you can) and apply only those that really work.

Your competitors are one of your chances to build a successful strategy by analyzing their SEO routes. It’s a well-known way to create a successful strategy. Analyzing and applying someone else’s experience, be it good or bad, you can build an approximate roadmap. By taking backlinks as an example, you can learn who links to your competitors, investigate what kind of content is in favor and create better copy, and take someone’s place under the Google sun.

This concerns everything: marketing campaigns that you can improve and use, updates that you can extend and present in a more favoring way, your ideal client base and so on.

Your competitors are one of your tickets to the top, don’t miss this chance and start to get on their heels.

HINT: The good news is that you can do reverse-engineering of your competitors’ backlink strategies with WebCEO. Go to Backlink Profile > Competitor Backlink Spy to see their working backlink strategies and apply them to your business.

10. TRACK RESULTS, RINSE AND REPEAT

Repetition is the mother of learning. Don’t forget to analyze your performance on a regular basis and change your strategy if it isn’t working for you. The process of SEO is never-ending. This competition lasts as long as you are a part of it. Always try to make your website the first one on any SERP, apply new strategies, learn innovative ways of improving your site’s positions and don’t forget about the people you are doing all of this for. 

HINT: Set WebCEO’s Rank Tracking tool to automatically check your keyword rankings on a monthly, weekly or daily basis (available in paid plans). Go to Rank Tracking > My Site Rankings > Scan Schedule and set up the most comfortable time for receiving fresh results. You can also schedule SEO audits, backlink checks and other SEO tasks.

CONCLUSION

You may have already known about all the above points. However, do you know this tendency: “I will not believe and do anything until somebody says it’s necessary” and “I’ll postpone this for another time”? It may be considered that another time has come and it is now necessary to take care of these details. The small details are not unimportant. Actually, success is based on little things that give rise to big changes.

Work on small things today and become a leader tomorrow with WebCEO.

The post 10 SEO Tips You Can’t Ignore in 2024 appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

The Internet has become a necessity for today’s evolving businesses. There are over 4.2 billion active Internet users around the world, with 3.4 billion of them using social media. Attracting the attention of potential customers in this crowded marketplace is a challenge. And the best tool for facing the challenge is search engine optimization (SEO).

Why SEO, out of all the marketing approaches available on the Internet? A proper SEO strategy helps businesses maintain a robust and user-friendly website that ranks highly on search engine results pages. For instance, adding a call-to-action (CTA) on every blog post may lead some readers to one of your product pages, thus increasing conversion rates. However, SEO depends on Google algorithms that are continually being updated. Strategies that may have won you the top-page result last year may not work today.

Each Google algorithm update is geared towards providing user-focused and user-friendly results and maximizing user experience (UX). UX fits into SEO since both of them share a common goal. They help marketers by providing them with relevant and useful information. SEO leads people to your content, while UX answers their queries.

If you’re a business owner, digital marketer, or blogger, it’s important to stay in sync with present changes. Use modern SEO practices to make sure you optimize your website for the needs of both search engines and users.

In this article, we will explore the most effective SEO strategies for marketers, as well as SEO tools for improving rankings and increasing website traffic, which will boost your business’s conversion ratios.

1. Create a responsive, mobile-friendly website

In 2015, Google confirmed that mobile friendliness is a ranking factor in its algorithms. People use mobile phones to search on Google, find local stores, and shop online. 52.2% of 2018’s website traffic was generated through mobile devices. Due to this change in consumer habits, mobile friendliness has become the norm for SEO.

Some businesses choose to have separate versions for mobile users. However, responsive design has become the norm in website design. Responsive design adapts website display based on the resolution and type of device used by the visitor. This allows it to look great at any size, from a 14-inch LCD monitor to 4.7-inch mobile phone. A responsive website ensures a better experience for your visitors.

2. Produce High-Quality, Relevant Content

Content remains king in the SEO realm, but the emphasis has shifted towards producing high-quality, relevant content that serves the needs of your target audience. Google’s algorithms have become increasingly sophisticated in recognizing content quality, relevance, and user intent.

Start by researching keywords to identify the topics and phrases your audience is searching for. Then, create comprehensive and informative content that addresses their questions and provides valuable insights.

Aim to become an authority in your niche by producing in-depth guides, blog posts, videos, and other content formats that showcase your expertise.

Optimize your content for featured snippets, voice search, and mobile devices. Structured data markup can also help search engines understand your content better, potentially leading to enhanced visibility in search results.

3. Optimize your business for local SEO

Local SEO is crucial for brick-and-mortar business and local services. It helps companies promote their goods and services to potential clients in their neighbourhood. Search engines gather information for local search, relying on local content, social media pages, web links, and citations to deliver relevant results to local consumers. Even if you’re not selling products or services online, being found on local searches is still vital to bringing customers to your door. Customers need to see your contact information, direction, and opening hours.

Establishing relevance on Google lets your business get found among local searches. Have a team of SEO professionals to provide a clear view of what SEO campaign suits your business. Local SEO providers focus on local consumer behaviour and have the right knowledge of how the local industry works.

Another advantage of local SEO is that the size of your business does not matter. You can be on top of your competition if you have great online reviews and an appealing business listing. Reaching local customers lets you cater to people who are already searching for a shop nearby.

4. Implement Secure HTTPS Encryption

Website security is not only crucial for user trust but also for SEO. Google prefers secure websites that use HTTPS encryption over non-secure HTTP sites. To secure your website, obtain an SSL/TLS certificate and configure your server to use HTTPS.

Once your website is HTTPS-secured, update internal and external links to reflect the secure URL. This includes updating canonical tags, sitemaps, and any social media profiles or directories that link to your site.

Google Chrome and other browsers may display warnings to users on non-secure sites, potentially driving visitors away, so securing your website is essential.

5. Boost SEO using schema

Using structured data, also known as schema, is a fantastic way to boost your online presence. A schema is code that is used on your website to help search engines like Google gather information based on your page content. Google has hinted that schema has the potential to become a ranking factor. Since then, modern SEO companies have considered schema as a fundamental factor in a website’s visibility.

Schema helps boost your search engine performance by displaying your website’s content in great detail. It acts as a diagram which helps search engines understand your page content by instructing search engine bots on how to interpret your web content and show it to search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines read the code and use it to create “rich snippets.” They are eye-catching and instantly inform the reader about what it is just by looking. Rich snippets are content marked with schema that shows thumbnail images and reviews, for instance why other people liked a restaurant and why their food tastes great.

Here’s an example of what you can enjoy if you use schema.

6. Make use of link building

“Links in particular are really important to Google because that’s how we discover the rest of your website.” – John Mueller, Google

Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from another website to your domain (hyperlinks are embedded links used to help people to navigate from one site to another). They help search engines like Google to crawl between the pages on your site. This can be a valuable asset for modern web-based businesses. If you have not yet implemented this strategy, you may be missing out on potential business growth.

There are various ways to build links, and learning even one can lift you above the competition. Andrey Lipattsev of Google conducted a survey which showed that one of the most critical ranking signals for a website during searches is link building. However, not all links are “good” links. Low-quality links are “spammy” (e.g. irrelevant links in blog comments, paid links) and may risk your website ranking being penalized. One of the safest and effective ways to build links is through outreach and influencer marketing.

Strategies to get other websites linking to you:

• Put your goods and/or services where influential people can see them. For example, promote a giveaway or contest of your product on Instagram.
• Get links from family, friends, and people you know online. Remember, your biggest supporters are often family and friends.
• Create informative content that people will want to link and make it as their reference.
• Submit blogs for press releases and your website to local listings and directories.

7. Master Page Experience Report in Google Search Console

Google has strongly emphasized page experience and Core Web Vitals as ranking factors. It looks at whether your website is speedy, friendly on mobile phones, a secure place for visitors, and easy to navigate.

The Page Experience Report helps you find and fix anything that might annoy your visitors. With this report, you can make your website the go-to place for people looking for what you offer, just like creating a welcoming and comfortable space for friends to hang out!

In our previous article, we provided you with all the current data regarding the Page Experience Report in Google Search Console. The most significant change is the replacement of First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a part of Core Web Vitals by March 2024. Visit Google Search Console, be aware of these upcoming changes, and prepare for them. Monitoring your site’s performance through tools like Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights will help you identify areas that need improvement.

8. Invest in Video SEO

Video content continues to gain popularity online, and search engines increasingly incorporate video results into search listings. Invest in video SEO for your content to capitalize on this trend if you have the ability and resources.

Optimize video titles, descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords. Use high-quality thumbnails and create engaging, informative video content that resonates with your audience. Hosting videos on platforms like YouTube and embedding them on your website can help improve visibility in both traditional and video search results.

Remember to monitor video performance through analytics, track viewer engagement, and encourage social sharing to expand your video’s reach.

Social sharing of your videos should occur across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social sharing expands your video’s reach and signals to search engines that your content is valuable and relevant to a broader audience.

9. Use SEO tools

To stand above your online competitors, you need to have the right SEO knowledge. Essential SEO tools enable you to track your SEO performance, save time, and explore new possibilities. You can quickly check your website’s ranking position, traffic level, incoming links, social media results, and other metrics that play a significant role in your strategy. WebCEO has created 21 SEO tools that can help you achieve a high ranking on the SERPs. Small to medium-sized enterprises can efficiently monitor their metrics using these tools.

Here’s a quick list of SEO tools that are necessary for modern businesses.

Keyword Analysis Tool

You’ll have no need to switch between several keyword tools for great keyword ideas. Find thousands of keyword suggestions with the WebCEO’s Keyword Research tool.

Apart from the great keyword suggestions regularly found in the Google Keyword Planner, you’ll also get popular keyword phrases from the Google search bar autocomplete, the People also ask widget, and other sources.

• WebCEO Keyword Research

Rank Tracking Tool

Check rankings across traditional organic results, SERP features (Knowledge Panel, videos, images, maps, hotels, People also ask, and more), as well as paid results (ads, Places, shopping and hotels). Always know if a specific landing page is outranked by another page of your site.

WebCEO tracks all these types of results and shows special icons for each type of rank result in your SEO ranking report.

• WebCEO Rank Tracking

Link Analysis Tool

Get a full list of domains linking to your website with the Linking Domains report. Inspect whether the linking domains are diverse enough, take into account monthly organic traffic to the linking domain. Prove your website’s authority and make your backlink profile powerful using the WebCEO Backlink Checker.

Remember! It’s better to get a link from 100 domains each than 100 links from one domain.

• WebCEO Backlink Checker Tool

Afterword

There is so much work to do to maintain website optimization. Google changes its algorithm daily to provide users with better experience. Organic linking is effective if paired with high-quality content. The more organic links you get from trusted websites, the more search engines will consider your site as trustworthy too. For this reason, SEO tools plus a professional SEO agency can save you more time, effort, and money. This makes working less of a hassle and more productive.

Remember to focus first on making solid content and make an effort to understand basic SEO. With the frequent Google algorithm changes, heading into 2019 is a great time to reevaluate your strategies. As a marketer and a business owner, it’s vital to adapt to a changing marketplace. By hiring a local SEO provider, you are choosing to focus your valuable energies on tasks that matter the most and allowing their expertise to work for you.

The post 9 Modern SEO Practices for Money-Making Marketers appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

In the previous chapter, we discussed important off-page SEO factors that need to be constantly monitored and implemented for the growth of your website’s popularity. Today we will discuss local SEO. 

Local SEO is a huge topic for discussion. Google says it wants to give everybody an opportunity to be seen in local search results. If you are in the local league, then this chapter is a must read. 

CHAPTER 5: LOCAL SEO

Spotlight: GOOGLE MY BUSINESS – A MUST HAVE

Google My Business was launched in 2014 and has been helping local businesses get seen on the SERPs, primarily as Maps results. It’s the most important directory listing of all these days. You must have this directory filled out with important information for prospective customers.

This is the way the information about your business is presented in local search results on a desktop:

and on a mobile device:

N/B: These screenshots are for business categories that supply customers with food and beverage. If your business is from another category, there is a subtle difference between sections presented in the side bar except for permanent ones.  Permanent sections are: Home, Posts, Info, Insights, Reviews, Messaging, Photos, Website, Users, Products.

Basically, you will only need to fill out some forms. Once your listing is accepted, you will be able to see analytics data and this data can also be imported into the WebCEO tools.

The “Insights” section will provide data on:

• queries your business was found for;
• the way customers reached your business: direct, discovery or branded search;
• where your business was found (the “Views” section): on Google Maps or Google Search;
• customer actions: website visits, direction requests and phone calls;
• popular time: time periods your business is demanded most often;
• photo views.

After that you will want to update the information as often as possible to give customers only the freshest data. 

• Apart from that, you will be able to “work with your customers”: process incoming reviews (reply to them, edit them and delete) via Google My Business, start messaging with your customers, and upload some posts and photos. 
• If you don’t have a website for your business – it’s not a problem anymore, because with Google My Business you can easily create one.  
• You can keep track of your business even if you have a chain of stores and you can add as many users as you wish to the account. They will help you manage and watch everything that happens at your office/restaurant/cafe, etc. 

Google My Business has become a major free business listing platform. Don’t wait to create an account there! As soon as you’ve done this, WebCEO will open a new door for you. 

WebCEO’s Google My Business Module was created to help users keep an eye on their local performance and reveal their weak and strong sides of their business activity. WebCEO integrates well with Google My Business. 

WebCEO adds some extra conveniences such as an easier location switcher if you manage a chain, an opportunity to find and analyze your competitors and add their domains to other WebCEO tools. Also, WebCEO allows a user to compare and analyze data from different time periods. 

Spotlight: LOCAL FOCUSED WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION

To perform well in the SERPs you will not only need an optimized Google My Business account, but also some work done on your website. People will find your business because of keywords you are going to optimize your website for.

Your goal is to appear in the Google Local 3 Pack:

Here are some tips on local optimization that you should check with double accuracy:

• Localize your keywords adding the exact business location to your content: coffee houses in New York, best pizza in Washington, DC., etc.
• Use long tail keywords that include other words people use to describe your location and specific well known places that are near business.  
• Create a page with a detailed NAPU, working hours, service/product description, and pricing;
• Make your website mobile-friendly because people mostly use local search on their mobile devices;
• Insert important information about your special services and products in a snippet, such as “Pastry for special occasions. Wedding and Birthday Cakes. Christmas Pies. Every day, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Online orders. Free delivery”;
• Create content that will be relevant to your local business: this is an opportunity to increase your authority. Create more than three pages of content with keywords that are relevant to your business, for instance add a brief history of your industry, fresh news, announcements, updates, seasonal menus or special offers, prominent figures, and so on;
• Google My Business is not the only local directory on the Internet. Submit your website to other major and popular directories, such as Facebook, Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, Yellow Pages, etc. 

 IMPORTANT!  Google no longer shows self-serving reviews that were inserted in a website’s markup or taken from third-party websites. This change was implemented in September 2019 as a part of the Google September 2019 Core Update.

Spotlight: COVID-19 MEASURES TO FOLLOW

I doubt this section will be breaking news, but Covid updates show Google you’re an active business, so it’s important to keep this in mind:

1. Implement changes Google offered and present new services.

Google has helped local businesses via Google My Business. They implemented new types of attributes that help potential customers to see what businesses are safest to attend. 

Change your workflow according to some of these attributes (better to work on each of them):

Mention the opportunity for contactless payment. 

Google introduced a new feature – Food Ordering. You will get a button “Online Order” right on the SERP. You will have to cooperate with “approved third party providers” to activate this type of feature. 

We can’t predict how long the situation will last, but we are sure that these types of services – that ease people’s interaction with local businesses – will be popular forever. 

Consider the opportunity to always work with delivery, takeaway, online ordering and so on. 

Even such businesses that require a physical presence can be adjusted to current times: there are a lot of services for communication or video presentations and other types of activities. 

Of course, if your business is open to welcome visitors, remember to mention online that you follow basic safety measures, such as handwashing and antiseptic stations and servers wearing various forms of protection. 

2. Modify content on your website.

If there are any changes you want to introduce regarding COVID-19, emphasize them on your website:

• Banners on the index page of your website

This is a perfect place for advertising banners and announcements. Such announcements can cover new services you would implement for people to know about them and use them.

• Content and snippets

Ad banners will eventually be removed from your index page, but you can immortalize information by adding it to the main website content. Hence, it will also be seen by people in the SERPs. 

Also, edit your snippets to outline new available services. This can be a temporary decision for the time when you want to draw the attention of a greater audience. 

Spotlight: PPC/GOOGLE ADS FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES

Google Ads is not a compulsory way to promote your business. However, it will be extremely useful if you want to get quick results. The difference is in the working process: you have to work on your ad in a local-focused way, i.e.:

• define products you want to advertise and Google will show this ad to people who use similar queries to find that very product within the area you’ve chosen;
• create themed landing pages, two or three pages for each campaign, to analyze which one works better and brings more traffic. Remember that these should be relevant to the products you are going to promote. 
• you have to choose localized keywords and point to the exact territory you want your advertisement to be shown within. Don’t forget to indicate specific languages your marketing campaigns are built for, etc.;
• prepare text that will complete local criteria: these may be seasonal or holiday discount events that are typical for a particular area. Use local services, i.e. delivery companies that are available in your region, to make a user’s online and offline experience better and easier.

Spotlight: GOOGLE LOCAL SERVICES ADS

[ currently available only in the USA and Canada ]

Aside from Google Ads there is a platform from Google that will help you find more clients on the Internet. That is Google Local Services Ads. This is more than just advertising; this is a guarantee from Google that your business deserves its place under the sun. 

Access to Google Local Services Ads gives you a line of real benefits: 

• more real clients;
• client flow management;
• clear picture of your advertising campaign success;
• an opportunity to ask your clients for reviews;
• the procedures are similar to Google Ads;
• you will pay only after a real call or message.

Local Services Ads operates two types of badges one of which a business gets after signing in to Local Services:

GOOGLE GUARANTEED

To receive this badge your business has to go through a background check and license and insurance verification. This badge is for in-home services, such as plumbing, locksmithing, electricity, etc. 

The peculiarity of “Google Guaranteed” is that you not only have Google’s praise and opportunity to appear in local services ads, but also coverage from the company for unsatisfied clients (max. $2000/CAD $2000 per business for a lifetime). 

HOW DOES GOOGLE COVERAGE WORK?

An unsatisfied client has a right to submit a claim and receive his or her money back from Google (the amount of money spent on a service, not $2000 at once). But only if the service was booked via Google Local Services Ads. Google will give the business a chance to resolve the conflict and, after its own investigation, the outcome will be announced

N/B: you can’t use the badge on your website. It appears only in local services ads listings.

GOOGLE SCREENED

This badge is available for such spheres as Law, Financial Planning, and Real Estate.

A business can apply for the badge only if it has a 3.0 rating or higher. A business will also go through a massive background and license check. 

The Google Screened designation doesn’t have Google coverage. 

Tools to use:

Google My Business will help you manage all the sides of your local performance and make it visible on the SERPs.

Google Local Services Ads will help you a lot in advertising and looking for real clients. 

The WebCEO Google My Business Module will extend your possibilities in interpreting your local SEO results. It will show you how well you’ve been doing during specific periods of time and will help you organize communication with customers and conduct analysis of your competitors without extra clicks and page shifting. 

As an all-in-one SEO platform, WebCEO guarantees you an easy workflow. Integrations with valuable sources of data help users engage themselves and get profitable results while saving time not gathering data on their own from many different places on the Internet.

IN CONCLUSION, we hope that we have comprehensively answered your question “how to do SEO yourself?” These chapters were rich and full of cost-effective DIY SEO tips. We hope that all our tips and explanations were clear to you.

It’s time to work! Create a to-do list for yourself and start the work as soon as you are ready. It is important to not only keep track of new features, updates and services, but also to implement them and always keep them in your mind. 

WebCEO is ready to help you with new ideas that appear on the radar. Start your journey with WebCEO’s Keyword Research Tool and optimize your website to attract new customers and increase your rankings!

The post DIY SEO Guide for Beginners: Attract Local Customers Online. Part V appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

If you are not a fan of getting outside help, but still want to fine-tune a website, this DIY SEO guide will come in handy. 

Doing SEO yourself isn’t difficult but carries great responsibility. We will start from the very beginning and touch on all the important aspects of working on your or your clients’ projects including monitoring results.

Let’s take a deeper look at the steps you will need to consider to do SEO properly! 

CHAPTER 1. Explore Your Niche: SEO Research and Analysis

First and foremost, it’s important to remember there isn’t such a thing as “I’ve gone through this step and don’t need to come back to it anymore”. 

Each stage in the process of research, analysis and further optimization will complement the next one and sometimes you’ll have to go back and do previous steps over and over again. 

SEO is a never-ending process. Don’t forget that search engines are constantly developing, new rules are set and more and more players, such as your competitors, will be joining the game. 

You should always keep abreast of the latest trends and work on your own performance.

The SEO Glossary of must-know-terms

White hat SEO refers to website optimization that is performed without violating Google webmaster guidelines. 

Black hat SEO in contrast refers to website optimization that is performed with violating Google webmaster guidelines, e.g. keyword stuffing, spammy links, irrelevancy, invisible text, etc. 

Search engine ranking factors are a set of factors a search engine “takes into consideration” while ranking websites on the results pages (SERPs).

Spotlight: TARGET AUDIENCE IDENTIFYING

A target audience represents people of a specific age, gender, nationality, locality, line of work, or lifestyle who may be interested in your content and who you create and distribute your product for.

You will not take big steps in website optimization without knowing who is and could be interested in your content and whom you will create your content or products for. 

When you want to sell a house, you won’t like it if it will appear in front of someone who can’t afford it. 

Your website will gladly welcome people who meet your requirements. Your purpose is to identify those requirements and adjust to them. It concerns everything we are going to discuss. 

Identifying your target audience and providing people with the content they were looking for will give your website more of a chance to be found and remembered. 

There are several ways to work with an audience:

1. Identify who already visits your website (for currently operating websites). 

The best way to find out who you work for is to analyze people who are already your clients. 

There are non-tool methods like: surveys on the website and – you can ask some questions about their education, occupation, hobbies, age, gender and a lot of other things during the signup process.

Why is every detail so important?

With this type of data, you can attract similar groups of people using special methods that will resonate with the audience better than general ones. 

For instance, you can bring their attention via specific phrases, colors, website design, advertisements and other things. If these features will be adjusted to your target audience’s needs, they will come to your website with greater desire. 

The best and fastest way is to use tools. The most popular one is Google Analytics. It is a free tool from Google which will show you a detailed report on your current audience. This will provide data like age, gender, and interests. The field of data available in this service is enormous. You will get to know where your users live, when they come and how much time they spend on your website. 

You’ll create a full-scale portrait of your audience. 

WebCEO integrates with Google Analytics. If you need an all-in-one SEO platform to keep track of your audience and analyze it without switching between different tools, use WebCEO’s Google Analytics Module:

2. Identify your potential customers (for startups). 

If you want to identify your future audience:

• create a persona to see whom you will most likely deal with;

A persona is a model of your future audience. It is presented as one person or a group of people with a set of common characteristics intrinsic to your potential clients. A persona is helpful if you will conduct a marketing campaign, design a product or a website. 

 The whole impression of personas changes day by day. Before starting to create one, make sure you know how to build an accurate portrait of your intended audience.

• analyze the audience of your competitors (how to identify them you will find out later): take into account their social media and interaction with customers, the feedback on their website and the general style of presenting and promoting their goods;

• conduct surveys on other platforms, like YouTube, where you can get answers from a lot of people. 

Spotlight: COMPETITORS

[this step is not required to be performed right away; however, it will ease your life further]

Admire your competitors. Even if you hate them, start liking them because they are the biggest and richest sources of information. Your competitors’ success is the best example of how to work. Analyze them carefully and show some respect. 

WHAT ARE WAYS TO IDENTIFY COMPETITORS?

The following methods are prescribed to be performed manually:

• Identify your niche down to the narrowest field. 

Here’s an example: information technology is an enormous niche with hundreds of branches. You can’t take everyone who performs here as your competitor. Take a narrow field you perform in: if you are a small software company, take into consideration only similar companies that work with or create the same type of product as you do. These are your competitors. 

Analyze their keywords and then work on your website. We can’t deny that eventually you will start growing, your company will become more authoritative, but from the very first days of your company’s existence you can’t compete with big corporations.  

• Make yourself a customer. 

Not literally. Behave as a customer who wants to learn about products you are going to sell. Type a query that is related to your business and analyze the SERP: who gets the first positions, how long those companies have been performing in your niche, why they are better, etc. You should look through the competitors’ statistics. 

• Go to Q&A websites and look for questions regarding your niche.

On such websites as Quora or Reddit, people often describe their experience with specific products, sometimes even with evidence. Be careful: there are a lot of PR-specialists there. However, it’s not a reason to give up. Read as many answers as you can and analyze the situation. Even if you have only marketing specialists’ answers, this will be a great opportunity to learn how to handle marketing and what your competitors’ strong sides are.  

Once you’ve done a manual check of competitors, SEO tools will help you accomplish even more:

• The WebCEO Rank Tracking and Competitors Metrics Tools. In seconds WebCEO will show you a list of your most dangerous competitors with detailed data on their rankings. Then the Competitor Backlink Spy can show, a few seconds later, which webpages are backlinking to more than one of your competitors!

Spotlight: KEYWORD RESEARCH

In-house SEO comprises multiple tasks. Unfortunately, you can’t avoid any. 

One of the hardest tasks is keyword research and optimization: with proper keyword selection you are halfway to be seen on SERPs. 

Keywords are words or phrases a webmaster uses while creating content on a specific topic. These are relevant to searchers’ queries so that people could find your content easily.

There are short tail keywords (1-2 words) and long tail keywords (>2 words). Long tail keywords are better: these are more topic oriented.

Without keyword optimization, you are very unlikely to appear on SERPs for a specific query, even if your content satisfies readers’ needs. 

SEO TIP:

1. Choose a niche you are going to perform in;
2. Create a list of keywords that are most relevant to your niche and are possible queries of your potential customers;
3. Create high quality content with keywords that are relevant to your niche and topic specifically and place them on a website;
4. Place keywords where they are required: titles, headings, sub-headings, visual media, alt text, URLs and other. 
5. Edit and publish your material.

Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. will take the rest under their control: once a user has typed a query, a search engine will start its work and present thousands of results for a searcher. It will look for relevant information by analyzing keywords placed on websites. 

It’s important to remember that Google doesn’t pay attention to keywords only. It also analyzes each aspect of a website’s performance, including technical factors, and chooses the best options based on the general picture. 

If your content and “reputation” are top-notch for a specific query, then you are most likely to be amidst the chosen ones:  

Google does a great job constantly updating its search algorithm, so be careful and prepare your team for days of hard work! By the way, coffee and donuts will be of the greatest assistance for you!

HOW DO I FIND HIGH VALUE KEYWORDS?

Online SEO tools such as the WebCEO Keyword Research Tool will help find the most successful and up-to-date keywords and phrases for you to use in your tags and content. Be sure to use localized words such as place names to attract as many readers as possible at a local level as well. 

You will get extended data on important metrics for evaluating keywords’ chances to succeed, such as global KEI, number of global searches, average CPC, bid competition, and search trends. 

There are a lot of other useful SEO tools that are simple to handle, free, or low-cost. We’ll bring such tools as Google Keyword Planner (Google Ads), Keywords Everywhere, Ubersuggest, and AnswerThePublic to your attention. These services are well done and will help you a lot during the process of keyword research, analysis and selection.

WHAT SHOULD YOU REMEMBER ABOUT WORKING WITH KEYWORDS?

• No keyword stuffing! 

 Keyword stuffing is an excessive number of keywords on a website’s page. An average quantity of keywords is ~1-3%.   

• Use keywords that are relevant to your topic!

No “pasta and pizza” if your niche is “cleaning services on Mars”.

• Use mostly long tail keywords: these work better because they specify a searcher’s intent:

Use “coffee and donuts nearby” instead of single “coffee” or “donuts”.

Tools to use for SEO Research and Analysis: 

Google Analytics will help you analyze your audience and traffic. 

Google Keyword Planner will help you find keywords for free along with the advertisement details on them.

WebCEO Set:

The Keyword Research Tool will help you find the most valuable keywords for your content with a full metric profile. 

The Rank Tracking Tool – the “Dangerous Competitors” tab specifically – will help you identify your most hazardous competitors and use information on them, such as the backlinks they share with other competitors, to conquer your niche.  

WebCEO’s Google Analytics Module will help analyze traffic for those who don’t want to go through thousands of tabs and prefer to work with an all-in-one SEO platform. 

CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST CHAPTER

Today we have tried to briefly consider what awaits you in research and analysis. These important factors and tasks will help you complete other SEO procedures. These are only the first steps in a lot of work. Stay tuned for further action!

The second chapter will be uploaded soon!

The post DIY SEO Guide for Beginners: How to Start the Process of Website Performance Optimization? Part I appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

How long have you been on the Internet? Long enough to understand what it is and how specific things work? You might have already caught the trick: the Internet is not a constant thing; it’s not the same as it was twenty years ago. The only constant thing about it – the Internet is changing every minute. Websites are getting better or worse, outdated by their appearance or the data they present. Their quantity is growing second by second and the competition for a user’s attention is getting more serious.

That is where SEO enters the game. 

If you are an ordinary visitor who searches for a specific type of information, you won’t see websites fighting to be the first and best result for your query on SERPs. You won’t see this, but fights on the Internet are hot as Hell.

If you do business on the Internet, you will most likely take an active part in these fights and, consequently, must know what SEO is and how to do it properly. If you are just starting your way in this niche, we will be honored to disclose the world of SEO for you and show what will most help you in 2021.

What is SEO and Why is it Important

SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and is a process of optimizing your website and content to be as high as possible in organic search results and get more traffic to your site. The process of such optimization includes working on different aspects of your website performance: technical, on-page (content and appearance), off-page (means of getting external popularity and recognition), link management and so on.

In simple words, a webmaster applies different techniques and strategies to make a website he or she owns popular, recognized, relevant and authoritative for users and search engines. The more the level of satisfaction with your website, the higher your website is in organic search results. Making it the first result on SERPs is the main goal of SEO.

SEO is important because it results in better website performance, better content and better user experiences. Each party gets something in the end:  

• Users get high quality content and a great place to learn something new;
• A search engine provides users with top-notch results;
• A webmaster attracts/gets more traffic, active users, conversions and revenue.

Why is SEO important for business?

The main reason is popularity:

• SEO makes a business visible on the Internet and in real life. The Internet works faster than people talk. SEO makes your business recognizable;
• SEO teaches webmasters how to make valuable connections with other websites from the same or related niches and build links that promote a website on other platforms;
• SEO includes not only organic & vertical search (maps, images) but also paid search, where a company promotes its goods and gets more conversions.

How SEO Works

Basically, SEO doesn’t work, it brings results if YOU work hard. SEO is about changes you implement.

To be more accurate, SEO consists of advice, techniques, strategies and ways of improving a website’s performance from experts and professionals, guidelines from search engines and pieces of advice from experienced users. It “gives” you points and principles to consider while working on your website to create the best user experience. If you diligently pursue all the steps, your efforts will be rewarded with better traffic, higher rankings and more conversions.

Types of SEO and SEO Tools

There are two general types of SEO: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. The first one is about working on your website in an honest way following search engine guidelines: you’ll spend a lot of time and get strong results. The second one is all about sneaky tactics and dirty tricks for getting fast results: you’ll get fast results and a fast escort to the bottom from a search engine.

There are many SEO Tools. You can decide which of them to use depending on your goals.

If you want to work more on your content, you are most likely to use content SEO tools that were designed to give practical advice on how to optimize your copy for better rankings. This may concern keywords, content ideas, uniqueness checks, structure reorganization, optimization for a featured snippet and so on.

Technical SEO tools help to detect and “cure” technical errors if these are present on your website: page not found, broken pages, broken links, and so on.

Local SEO tools aim at improving your rankings and visibility in local search results. This type of tool concerns only local businesses.

SEO analysis tools are focused on detecting problems that may affect your rankings: meta tag optimization, site speed, mobile optimization, redirects and so on.

As you can see, there are a lot of SEO tools you can choose from. Just set your goals and start working. A decent set of SEO tools is a must have for webmasters who want to take the highest position on SERPs. Some prefer separate tools for a specific type of SEO research. Some like services that are able to cover multi-direction research about a website’s performance.

What is the best SEO software? – you may ask. There are a lot of good platforms you can reach your goals with. We want to present you a list of the best SEO tools for 2021!

GOOGLE SEO TOOLS

First, we can’t ignore Google SEO tools. The best free SEO tools you can get in the niche are run by Google. There’s Google Keyword Planner, Search Console, Trends, Analytics, PageSpeed Insights. All marketing people need to be logged into these on their browsers.

This tool allows you to check the mobile friendliness of your website and see if there are SEO issues (like duplicate titles and descriptions). You may even receive email alerts when Google identifies issues on your site. Unfortunately, it won’t show you a full list of technical and SEO issues on your website. An additional site audit tool is a must-have too, so you can see a full picture.

Summary: Good enough for an instant check of a website’s technical issues and mobile friendliness, but it won’t compete against the top SEO tools.

Official website: https://search.google.com/search-console/about

This is also free and it will help you get plenty of keyword suggestions, so you can research them and narrow your keyword list. You can also get bid estimates, so you can plan your advertising budget. Once you have found the best keywords for your website, you can add them to your advertising plan. You can also add them into a major SEO tool platform like WebCEO. You may finalize a list and launch a marketing campaign any time you are ready.

Summary: Google Keyword Planner is a must; it’s really informative. But you will have to wait until your account is matured to see accurate data.

Official website: https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/

Well, everything looks good, but when it comes to doing even more effective work, you will face the downside of free keyword tools. They usually have low limitations and really lack statistics data. You will have a hard time evaluating monthly searches, bid competition, search trends etc. – so it might not be so easy to pick the most effective keywords on a free tool. Even the AdWords keyword tool won’t give you precise data when you have just created a vendor account: you will only see huge ranges (for example, 1-10k). Once your account has matured, you will see more precise data, but that takes time and money.

ALL-IN-ONE SEO PLATFORMS

All-in-one SEO platforms can be more practical to use: there will be no need to switch between different tabs in your browser and always do separate reports. With a platform, you will feel free to focus on your goals while the software takes care of most of the monotonous tasks. So, which of the best SEO tools do you have in mind now?

Pricing: $119.95-$449.95/mo depending on the plan

At the very beginning, this platform was a great competitor metrics tool. But after a few years of work, they turned into a typical online SEO software: a rank tracker, an SEO auditor, a backlink checker etc. Using this platform will cost you $99/mo per user. That said, every additional user will cost you $70/mo. SEMrush has its own backlink tool, which is not the best, but they have integration with Majestic if you pay extra.

Summary: Some tools may be confusing at first. You can give this platform a try with the free trial period and understand if you like it or not.

Official website: https://www.semrush.com/

Pricing: $99-$999/mo depending on the plan

At first, Ahrefs’ specialization was with backlink checking. They had one of the biggest backlink databases in the niche – over 16 trillion known backlinks. Then they decided to develop more marketing SEO tools and offer a full SEO & marketing platform. Ahrefs is known for comparing websites, backlinks, PPC, organic keywords and shifts in rankings; it’s also good for page evaluating and exploring keywords. However, users have also been calling Ahrefs pricey and difficult to navigate and use.

Summary: This platform is mostly known for its backlink opportunities. They are doing really good in the niche, but the data in the non-backlink related tools is not always accurate.

Official website: https://ahrefs.com/

Pricing: $99-$299/mo depending on the plan

Having been the choice for digital agencies and optimization nerds since the turn of the century, the WebCEO platform comes with advanced tools for everything SEO: keyword research, backlink research, technical and code audits, rank tracking, social media citation monitoring, sitemap creation, manual submissions, internal link auditing and landing page optimization tools, all combined with competitor monitoring and research. Unlike SEMrush and other platforms that draw data from Majestic, the WebCEO Majestic backlink data doesn’t cost extra with fixed price plans and is only 40 cents per 1000 backlinks found when using the WebCEO Agency Unlimited Plan.

WebCEO is best known for its white label SEO implementations where partners operate their own tools on their own domains or subdomains. You can also place a lead generation button on your website to give your site visitors free site audits.

WebCEO fixed plans have no extra costs while the WebCEO Agency Unlimited Plan is very clear about its variable costs including $2 per active project per month + $4 per 1000 rank queries + 40 cents per 1000 backlinks found + 49 cents for processing more than 5 free site audits per day for your site visitors via a lead generation button. And that’s it. No hidden costs exist.

Official website: https://www.webceo.com/

Complete the Hardest SEO Tasks with WebCEO Sign Up Free

Pricing:

• Moz Pro: $99-$599/mo depending on the plan
• Moz Local: $129-$299/year depending on the plan

Moz has its own tool for backlinks and every SEO professional knows about its metrics: Domain Authority and Page Authority. With these metrics you are able to evaluate your website’s link profile. They offer a keyword tool, a link explorer, a rank tracker, an on-page grader, a web explorer and other online SEO tools. However they don’t have any tools for social media marketing. Their Keyword Research tool won’t give you precise info on local keyword demand per month – only ranges, so you’ll have to guess what keyword will be more useful among many.

Summary: Moz is quite popular, but their Rank Tracker doesn’t have instant rank checking so you will just need to wait in a line. Sometimes there is just no time for that.

Official website: https://moz.com/

Pricing: $69-$499/mo depending on the plan

Serpstat is a relatively young SEO platform with a set of decent tools for website optimization: Keyword Research (with its own keyword database of – as stated on the website – more than 5 billion keywords), Rank Tracker, Backlink Analysis, Site Audit, and other. Users emphasize its simple and extremely convenient design although it’s a little bit outdated by appearance. Serpstat seems to have affordable pricing plans starting from $69/mo. A plugin, created by the company, shows a page analysis, domain analysis, and the SEO parameters of a specific webpage. This can be added to such browsers as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.

Summary: Serpstat has proved itself to be a powerful newcomer. However, in comparison with the other more established all-in-one platforms, Serpstat is a bit weaker in terms of experience and its list of tools.

Official website: https://serpstat.com/

KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS

those that show you keywords you haven’t thought about but your potential customers have been thinking about:

This free SEO tool provides a lot of keyword suggestions from Google and Bing. They call themselves ‘a goldmine of insight for today’s marketers’. You can see an aggregated view of search queries with hints about the motivations and emotions of the people typing them. This will really help for inspiration and consumer insight in the age of Google. However, to use the full functionality of Answer The Public you will have to pay $99/mo.

Summary: This online SEO tool is really great to find keywords you never thought about; however, the tool may show keywords which are not relevant. Also, it may not work as well with very specific keywords.

Official website: https://answerthepublic.com/

Pricing: $27-$54/mo depending on the plan

LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords are keywords related semantically to a main keyword. Such keywords help search engines understand your content better. LSIGraph offers you a number of keywords for your niche & topic so it’s up to you to produce contextually unique content. With a subscription you get an unlimited number of LSI keywords with important metrics such as precise search volume data and latent semantic value; you will be able to discover top performing content, serve your clients with White Label CSV & PDF reports and monitor your profitable keywords with the Project Manager Library. 

Summary: These keywords won’t drive you to position #1 instantly, but this will help your content ranking over time, when SEO effort has already been put in.

Official website: https://lsigraph.com/

Pricing: $20-$40/mo depending on the plan

An SEO tool created by Neil Patel, Ubersuggest declares itself to be an all-in-one SEO platform that offers tools for keyword research, domain research, backlink research, and site audits.

Patel’s Keyword Research Tool shows an overview of the Google SERPs for keywords with visits shown!  You will see who your direct competitors are with a full profile on their estimated monthly visits by your keyword, domain score, number of backlinks and social shares.

Summary: Neil Patel did a great job creating a convenient tool for copywriters and webmasters. However, there are two disturbing points we want to underline. You can’t see global search results for a needed keyword. Instead you will get search volume only by a specific country.

Official website: https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

Pricing: $33-$299/mo depending on the plan

SpyFu has been successfully playing on the market for over a decade. Besides dealing with competitor keyword research (both for organic and paid search) the service has developed into a platform that allows users to conduct multiperspective research on their and their competitors’ keyword performance: competitor research and analysis, detailed competitors’ and your PPC campaign examination, SEO analysis, ranking and backlink analysis, SERP analysis and more. Its interface and data presentation are extremely convenient and they have PDF reporting.

Summary: SpyFu is a well-known and recognized SEO tool for spying on competitors. This platform gives a lot of data for a user to analyze and use for future campaigns. However, their set is not as full as with all-in-one SEO platforms, so the possibility of doing multifaceted research is comparatively less.

Official website: https://www.spyfu.com/

Pricing: $10-$1000 depending on the plan

An extremely useful and convenient tool which shows search volume on a query when a user starts typing it. Keywords Everywhere uses data from Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, EBay, Etsy, and other important chill out spots. In addition, this tool shows such graphs as “Related keywords” and “People Also Search For” with the data on global monthly search volume, CPC, and AdWords competition. A user can easily export these lists in a CSV format.

Summary: A cool and useful tool which has two disadvantages. First, it works in just two browsers: Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. You will need to install one of those if you don’t currently use them. And there are details which are absent but could have been of great value – this tool doesn’t have search trend and keyword difficulty features. Second, it’s become a paid platform. Actually, this is not as tragic as you might think because the price is pretty affordable: for 100,000 keywords (with CPC, search volume and AdWords competition data included) you will pay only $10. You won’t need to pay until you reach the given limit.

Official website: https://keywordseverywhere.com/

SITE AUDIT AND SEO ANALYSIS TOOLS

Google and the visitors of websites love fast loading sites with zero technical issues. So you have to audit your site for errors on a regular basis. Mobile friendliness, page speed and errors – every factor is critical.

Pricing: $29-$79/mo depending on the plan

This is a great choice for those who are working for locally oriented businesses and doing local SEO. It will be easy for you to uncover technical issues with the site’s local SEO profile. The most useful thing about BrightLocal is the ability to audit, clean and build citations from the most popular sites. Also, with BrightLocal you will never forget about Google My Business – we all know how important it is to register one’s location and keyword descriptions with search engines.

Summary: Their automated reports look really good! You’ll have to schedule a report and then wait a long time until it is scanned.

Official website: https://www.brightlocal.com/

You should ask yourself if you really need a standalone tool for technical/SEO audits. The big all-in-one SEO programs offer great auditors, so it will be much easier to use a platform instead of a variety of different SEO tools with separate logins.

LINK BUILDING AND ANALYSIS TOOLS

Pricing: $49-$399/mo depending on the plan

It shows special metrics like trust flow, citation flow, historical index, fresh index, etc. With all these metrics you can see your improvements and progress. You will see must-have data on your backlinks, so you can estimate if they are naturally earned or you’d better get rid of them. Also Majestic is a data provider – and the best SEO tools use their data.

Summary: Majestic is really cool and affordable – the biggest database on the web, with an easy interface and good usability. However, there are SEO programs that show backlinks divided into two columns: natural and unnatural.

Official website: https://majestic.com/

Pricing: €229-€2799/mo depending on the plan

This is a useful tool designed for link building and analysis. There are a few great features like link prospecting and outreach. Their most popular feature is Link Detox which scans all your backlinks and shows the ones which are at risk of a Google penalty (or already are under penalty). This tool makes identifying unnatural links easier, and a chart shows your backlink situation in percentages. In a quick glance you can analyze your backlinks and decide what to do next.

Summary: These online SEO tools are just what you need when you are running short on time and need a quick backlink profile analysis. They also offer other important SEO tools and detailed reports.

Official website: https://www.linkresearchtools.com/

Pricing: $14.90-$153.90/mo depending on the plan

Linkody is an amazing backlink monitoring tool that every webmaster should possess. Its main focus is set on monitoring your backlinks as well as tracking the success of your link-building efforts.

What’s more, Linkody automates the whole process for you! You will get notified when you gain or lose any backlinks and you will have a full overview of the necessary SEO metrics to assess your backlinks. To help you improve your link-building strategy, Linkody will give you insights into your competitors’ link building strategies.

Summary: This SEO software analyzes your backlinks as well as your competitors’ while also keeping an eye on the backlinks you are losing. Its detailed reports help you sculpt a link profile full of high-quality backlinks.

Official website: https://www.linkody.com

RANK TRACKING TOOLS

Google is completely local now, and obviously you will want to track your rankings across all the locations your customers are expected to be searching from. Rank tracking tools will always cost you some money.

Pricing: $25-$180/mo depending on the plan

This tool offers Rank Tracking, Analysis & Research and Reporting. This is a good tool to get up-to-date and easy-to-analyze SEO rankings for your website. Pro Rank Tracker supports most popular search engines, including organic desktop and mobile results, and other search elements. All the data you get can be analyzed so you see the progress. This tool also offers reporting options, so you are able to generate reports (white-labeling options are included) and send them to your clients and colleagues.

Summary: The tool is really good for rank tracking. You have to keep in mind that if you track the same keyword for a different location, on desktop and mobile search, it will cost you as 4 different terms.

Official website: https://proranktracker.com/

Pricing: $59.99-$179.99/mo depending on the plan

The tool allows you to track your global and local (by country) keyword rankings. Unfortunately, you can only rank by Google USA or Google – Your Country or Bing USA or Bing – Your Country so rankings data won’t be super accurate. You will be able to sort your keyword lists by search volume and rank; you will also be able to track changes in your rankings over time. This is standard for the industry. As for the pricing, tracking 50 keywords will cost you $59/mo.

Summary: Users enjoy WooRank’s simplicity and user-friendliness. I wish they had more accurate location data and the crawler was faster!

Official website: https://www.woorank.com/

Starting Price: $240/mo depending on the quantity of keywords and websites

It shows your SEO performance on one big dashboard. This tool takes data from Google Analytics, combines it with your rankings and allows you to solve issues. So you are able to easily and quickly find keywords which are already popular and converting.

Summary: At first, their interface is like a challenge. You have to look attentively to find powerful features. Luckily, their support is always ready to assist.

Official website: https://www.seomonitor.com/

Pricing: $49-$499/mo depending on the plan

This is a hybrid of a keyword research tool and a rank tracking tool. Its functionality has a lot in common with SEMrush, Authority Labs etc. Users enjoy getting what they need from the tool with no bells and whistles; such as advanced Featured Snippets ranking data.

Summary: Tracking your performance is easy once you get used to the interface of the tool. The reports take time to be generated so it is better to schedule them.

Official website: https://www.advancedwebranking.com/

In conclusion, to choose from all these best SEO tools, you should first decide which SEO tools and features you really need. Sometimes you can benefit even from Google SEO tools, but in most cases you will need a full SEO tools list. So, just calculate your monthly budget, remembering there may be limitations and hidden costs for different tools. This may help you pick the best SEO software.

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The post The Best Free and Paid SEO Tools for 2021 [Tried & Tested] appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Who isn’t happy to hear a client’s positive feedback? It’s even better when it’s detailed and has suggestions about improving your service. Our post today is about exactly that: an interview with one of our long-time clients. They shared their SEO experience and expertise with us, and now we’ll share it with you, our readers.

Meet Robert Holzler, Director of Web Development at Grapevine Communications, a full-service SEO agency in Sarasota, Florida. We sat with Robert to discuss his company’s trials and successes, and here’s what he told us.

Q: How long have you been working as an SEO agency and how long have you been in the SEO niche?

A: Grapevine started offering SEO in 2014, so 6 years. Our web developer has been doing SEO since the mid 90’s. We started offering SEO as a service shortly after he came onboard in 2014.

Q: And what is your global mission?

A: Grapevine’s mission is to put the interest of our customers in the forefront and to seek business relationships that are mutually fulfilling, while providing growth and profit for both parties.

Q: Do you remember your first steps? Did you start with a few tools for different purposes or with an all-in-one SEO platform?

A: Our Director of Web Development started working on SEO before there were any all-in-one SEO platforms. We have seen the industry develop from basic word counters, to keyword density analyzers, to placement trackers, to full-fledge SEO platforms.

Q: What SEO tools are a must for you or any SEO specialist?

A: WebCEO is a vital tool in our SEO toolbox. We also use a host of browser-based tools like Web Developer, BuiltWith, and Keywords Everywhere.

Q: Have you tried other SEO platforms? What was the decisive factor that made you choose WebCEO?

A: Yes, many. WebCEO’s full featured, holistic approach to SEO was the key deciding factor. Instead of using two to five different tools, we get everything we need in on platform.

Q: When was the first time you started using WebCEO? What SEO tasks have you solved with this platform?

A: We migrated from WebPosition Gold to WebCEO in late 2016. While the initial move was due to the termination of WebPosition’s platform, I am very glad we made the switch. WebCEO is a much better product in every measurable way. The branded reports and portal immediately impacted our bottom line by reducing the labor hours needed to produce client reports. It also increased sales by providing us with an effective pre-sales evaluation tool set, allowing our sales team to target and speak knowledgably about a potential clients’ current optimization and placement status.

Q: How does WebCEO help you with your work?

A: It is an essential tool for analyzing client websites and tracking placement over time.

Q: Which SEO tasks eat up most of your team’s time?

A: Content optimization takes up most of the labor hours for SEO. Blending effective SEO content seamlessly with a client’s existing content takes time and skill.

Q: What are your top 3 most used WebCEO tools?

A: Site Health is my favorite tool. We use the Site Health report, landing page scanner and automatic report emailing most.

Q: Are there any features you would like to see added to WebCEO? Do you have any recommendations from your SEO team on how we could improve WebCEO to help manage your SEO workflow?

A: We recently suggested a tool that would scan pages on sites and compare them to the cached/indexed content at Google to let us know if/when recently optimized pages had been found and indexed. That way we are not re-optimizing content before the impact of the work has yet been seen.

It would also be good to have Bing analytics and Bing My Business integration. While Bing is significantly lower priority than Google, we still consider them important to a well-rounded SEO program.

Q: Are there some SEO hacks for gaining high rankings and driving traffic to a website that you can share?

A: We don’t believe in using hacks of any kind for our clients because we see them as both short-term solutions and potentially dangerous to the client’s long-term placement goals.

A proven SEO technique that we recommend is the creation of micro-sites and doorway pages. If a client needs placement for a set of keywords that are difficult to integrate with existing content, these methods are a great way to build periphery content and focus the attention of searchers on that content.

Q: How exactly did WebCEO help your SEO team save time and costs?

A: Having all the tools in one place and the ability to create detailed, branded reports for our clients with the click of a button saves us a huge amount of time each month. By saving time on reporting, we can spend more time on optimization, which means we get better results and clients are much happier with the results. The branded portal access we provide clients help educate our clients and provides a level of accountability that our clients really like. This also saves us time and money because we can refer clients to the portal when they have questions about placement and optimization progress.

Q: I bet you also send SEO reports to your customers. Could you tell us more about it?

A: In conjunction with access to the branded online portal we create a summary cover page for the branded report that WebCEO generates. That provides clients with both the high-level information owners need and the in-depth information their in-house web team needs.

Q: Which WebCEO functionality really helped your agency grow the most?

A: The automatic, branded email reports have been great for Grapevine. We use them as pre-sales tool, and for billing support and customer retention.

Q: Is there anything you find unique about WebCEO?

A: It is, hands down, the most full-featured SEO platform we have used. It is the perfect combination of developer tools with a well-designed UI, which provides our team with a fantastic user experience.

Q: Let’s talk about your SEO agency some more. Could you tell us about your most recent success?

A: Last month we had a client go from 12 #1 placements to 140. The same client saw an increase of 198 top 5 placements leading to a month-over-month increase of 39% in organic search traffic.

Q: That’s really impressive. Having so much work, did you ever miss a deadline?

A: It is an extremely rare event that we miss a deadline. Our production manager meets with the team regularly to get the status of projects and keep our team on track for meeting deadlines. Our production team regularly cross trains so projects can be migrated to the colleague with the capacity to complete it on time and budget.

Q: What advice can you give to SEO Agencies to avoid the pain of missed deadlines?

1. Set achievable goals and timelines.
2. Set client expectations before the project is started.
3. Don’t over-sell your capacity.
4. Plan for failure so you are prepared when it happens.

Q: With so many clients, how do you keep an eye on their profiles?

A: The WebCEO All Project Dashboard is a great way to get a bird’s eye view of all our SEO clients.

Q: Let’s hear your professional opinion. How often do you recommend SEO & technical audits? How often do you usually schedule reports?

A: Depending on the size of the site and how long the client has been using our SEO services, we may perform technical audits anywhere from 8 times a month to once a month. We find that multi-hundred page sites with lots of external links need the most attention.

Q: Could you tell us about the most remarkable challenge that your SEO Agency faced?

A: Our biggest challenge for providing SEO services was finding a software vendor that was as dedicated and reliable as we were. Finding and partnering with WebCEO was one of the best choices we ever made for growing our SEO business.

Q: What is your agency like now compared to how it was when you started?

A: We are growing in every sense of the word. In the past six years, we have grown from a primarily traditional media marketing, advertising and public relations agency into a full spectrum agency with over half our production team engaged with digital marketing and advertising. In a time when other agencies are laying off and downsizing, we are adding production capacity and taking on new clients.

The post SEO Agency Success Story: 198 Top 5 Google Positions in 1 Month appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Merry Christmas to all your homes and home pages!

Have you already cooked your Christmas turkey? Or do you prefer ham with cranberry sauce? The time flies way too fast, as eggnog is already waiting to be drunk and colorful lights are blinking on the walls and Christmas tree, spreading the holiday spirit to every corner. Santa will soon be by your chimney carrying his bag full of presents and dreams that will come true in 2020!

This is the end of a decade! Can you believe this? This is not an everyday event!

If you are at home now, celebrating the holiday already, it’s high time to light up your fireplace, put on your warmest and softest sweaters, put presents under the decorated Christmas tree or fill Christmas socks with little surprises for your relatives! Prepare some hot tea or cacao, if eggnog is not your cup of tea, and say kind words to people who surround you every day! It’s Christmas, guys! That very day for kindness and wish lists, plans for the next year and carols under the falling snow.

The WebCEO platform is not an exception to this! We all have wishes we want fulfilled in the coming year. Let me present some 2020 WebCEO Christmas Wishes:

MAY YOUR HEAD EXPERIENCE NO ACHE BECAUSE OF ANOTHER GOOGLE UPDATE!

From a user’s perspective, we all understand that Google algorithm updates are not a bad thing at all. These help users get the best search results and provide them with satisfying conditions for work. Still we want to wish you one thing: May your website fare well against any updates and not experience any rank drops!

MAY YOUR RANKINGS GO HIGHER & HIGHER & ALWAYS BE ON FIRE!

Website rankings are important. This is that very thing each webmaster literally fights for. The higher your rankings, the higher your website is on SERPs. We want to wish you really productive days of working on your website’s performance. Be brave enough to reconfigure your strategies, choose new keywords and optimize your website and content for them. Make 2020 the starting point for your greatest achievements in the new decade!

MAY THE KEYWORDS YOU CHOOSE CAUSE TREMENDOUS BREAKTHROUGHS!

Keyword selection plays one of the most important steps in the process of your website optimization. Do it thoroughly and you’ll see great results. Neglect the matter and you’ll see how your website goes down. We don’t want you to experience the latter, which is why we work hard every day. May this year bring you more ideas and keyword combinations you might use to break into the SERP’s top spots!

MAY THE LINKS YOU BUILD BRING YOU ONLY TRAFFIC AND GREAT SEO VALUE!

Backlinks are the goal of any webmaster and copywriter. To receive a link from an authoritative source is a dream come true, especially if your website has just started its work. Write great content on popular, in-demand topics and get your backlinks! However, we have something to add here: may all your future backlinks be semantically relevant to the content you create!   

MAY GOOGLE LOVE YOUR QUALITY CONTENT!

Some websites have a tendency to produce content that is not as great as it was in earlier days. Still they receive a lot of backlinks while resting on their laurels. We wish you to always produce only high quality content and be highly appreciated with valuable and DESERVED backlinks!

MAY 5-STAR REVIEWS IMPROVE YOUR LOCAL RANKINGS!

Following local SEO procedures has become more important for local businesses. Since Google no longer displays self-serving reviews in the SERPs, now it is essential to gather great reviews in other directories to increase your popularity and attract more of an audience. May your work be rewarded with the recognition of customers who will not be shy to express their opinions and give a maximum amount of stars to your business!

MAY YOUR WEBSITE APPEARANCE FACILITATE THE BEST USER EXPERIENCE!

A great user experience is appreciated a lot. Even if you think that it is not as important as a service’s functionality, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. People like with their eyes and prefer services that look great and are convenient and easy to handle simultaneously. In 2020, this trend will continue. If you are going to redesign your website or create a new one, may the user experience on your website be of the highest quality and greatly reviewed by visitors in the future!

MAY THE COMING YEAR MAKE YOUR BRAND NAME STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD!

A lot of experts say that working on your brand recognition is essential for your SEO nowadays. We couldn’t agree more. The more frequently your company/product/blog name is mentioned outside your own website, the more trustworthy and recognized you will become in the eyes of users and search engines. We wish your brand to be known everywhere and attract more and more attention every day!

MAY THE WEBCEO TOOLS MAKE YOUR SEO DREAMS COME TRUE!

We work hard every day to provide our users with the best SEO tools possible. We always appreciate your feedback and take it into account while considering new updates and improving the service’s performance. We have some grand plans for 2020 and hope you will be looking forward to their realization!

MAY YOUR HEALTH BE STRONG AND YOU YOURSELF ALWAYS INSPIRED!

Work takes a lot of our time and strength. We often forget about our health and put other obligations to the fore. Your body and your brain need some rest from time to time, so let’s not betray ourselves and take care of our health – mental and physical – together. Let’s make the coming year full of beautiful events! 

This is just a half of all the wishes we wanted to share but… this is Christmas and we’re all busy so we decided to mention only the most important ones! Feel free to add your own points in the comments section.

May this Christmas be the best and warmest! Merry Christmas!

The post 10 Christmas Wishes for 2020 from WebCEO for Your SEO appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Most people who try to optimize their website for SEO by themselves struggle with it. That’s what allows SEO agencies to exist and prosper in the first place. However, this business is no walk in the park, either. Sites need to be thoroughly analyzed, issues need to be found and fixed, and reports need to be ready on time. Handling all this work is the only way to make a profit.

So how do SEO agencies stay afloat? I can best speak about the one where I work. Our way of solving problems and keeping our customers satisfied lies in using the right SEO tools for agencies – in our case, WebCEO tools. This is a story about how they helped us go from being limited both in the number of clients and in the level of analysis, to an SEO agency with a greater capacity to serve more clients and a raised level of analysis and deliverables.

Specifically, there are three factors that made the difference of which I will speak on this occasion: reports, analysis, workflow.

Reports for clients

As an agency, we work with online SEO tools and send monthly reports to clients. These reports include data on traffic and ranking and we always prepare a detailed report of the activities we carried out in the past month in favor of the client. Before working with WebCEO, we used to fulfill our tasks on a Word file, cutting and pasting screenshots of different tools and platforms such as Google Analytics, Search Console, IBP, Facebook and more. It really had a very bad appearance, but the most important thing is that it took us a long time to make these reports, which limited the entire operation and affected the number of cases we could take as clients.

When working with WebCEO, the generation of reports is done in a single click, and the outcome looks much more aesthetic and professional. The fact that you can link WebCEO with other tools means that the report you generate already includes data from these tools and everything looks homogenous.

To summarize, before WebCEO it took us at least 3 hours to generate a report and today it takes us approximately 30 minutes to generate a report (including its review). I did not mention that the whole interface and therefore the reports are available in the language I need (Spanish).

Some characteristics of the reports that especially help us are:

1. Content control: There are endless topics and sections that you can include in the report, but you do not always want to include everything (either because you do not want the client to be exposed to certain information or because you want to offer different content at different levels for clients). The WebCEO platform allows you to easily include or remove sections of the report, at the client level. You do not need to define a format for every client but rather customize the content of each one. The level of content control does not end with whether you include a section or not. It goes further and allows you to define what type of view you are going to show for a tool (for example: with or without technical explanations, data order, etc.).

2. Report branding: I can add a well customized cover, a header with our logo and our slogan, a footer with our contact information + an adaptation of report colors to our logo. Personally, I like to change the cover often by featuring special topics on holidays or special occasions. I also use this flexibility of appearance to do SEO work for other digital marketing agencies that are not specialized in SEO – I give them reports with their own logo and slogan.

3. Shipping and automation options: Reports can be scheduled to be generated automatically on a certain date and sent automatically to the client.

Analyzing fast

The SEO analysis includes, among others, a review of code errors, competition analysis, backlinks analysis, and other factors which usually require several tools to review, some free and others paid. You can link your Analytics, Search Console and Facebook accounts to WebCEO and have everything joined together. In addition, they have alliances with third parties such as Moz and Majestic, so I don’t have to pay a lot to have all these tools separately.

As an agency director, I’m able to quickly see and analyze the situation of all my clients in a few minutes through a control panel; I can filter according to several criteria to detect clients that have not advanced as we expected, a client that suddenly has an unexpected jump in the amount of backlinks, etc. This control panel is also accessible to my account executives so that they can oversee their specific clients.

The platform has 16 tools to execute SEO (from technical audit, analysis of backlinks, SEO optimization, loading speed, etc.) but I am going to talk here about 4 that I find really worthy in my daily work:

Rank Tracking: I very much appreciate here the possibility of reviewing mobile vs. desktop computer browser ranking and the possibility of reviewing rank positions in very specific geographical areas such as cities. I love the different options that I can see in the results: by word, by URL, by label, comparison with different dates, seeing the track records of the ranking of each word and seeing the actual SERP results.

Dangerous Competitors: I love this tool because it helps me quickly see who my competitors are on Google and with what keywords they are competing with me. I am also using this very broad report to provoke my prospects by showing them who their competition really is; they are always amazed.

Competitor Backlink Spy: Lists the best backlinks of my most dangerous competitors and lets me know when one of these competitors just received a new high quality backlink.

Internal Links Optimization: This tool helps me analyze in minutes the architecture of internal links on the page, as well as understand the hierarchy of internal pages regarding authority. I’m even embarrassed to say that before WebCEO we did not analyze this type of thing and today I cannot analyze a client without examining this aspect on their website.

Workflow and other extras

I have dozens of clients in my agency. Several account executives take care of more than 10 clients per month each. You can calculate that an executive dedicates approximately 7 hours a month to analyze each client and to perform tasks that have to do with this client (in addition to the account executive I have a support team that performs tasks such as link building, copy writing, etc. which are not included in these 7 hours). Before WebCEO, I could have never analyzed a client in 7 hours, this means I could have never reached this number of customers. WebCEO made my work process easier, so I could suddenly attend to more clients without leaving aside the level of service that I give to each one and without affecting the results.

WebCEO has several features that help me manage my agency. I’ve already talked about the reports that save me a lot of time and the control panel that helps me see the situation of all my clients at a glance. But there are many other functions:

User profiles: I have created user profiles with different permits and views. My executives have a certain profile, I have another, other members of the team have another profile and I even facilitated access to my clients with a special profile where they can see online only some of the tools and see their ranking results, their report, etc.

Tasks: Task Manager is a section where I can generate different task lists and assign them to different members of my team. For example, I have created a list of steps and tasks to perform in case of migration to https (you will be surprised how many tasks are involved in this migration if you do it with SEO in mind). I can assign this list of tasks to a certain account executive to work on for a certain client.

Alerts: I have programmed alerts that notify me and the account executive if a client has a suddenly lowered position, if his competitor has risen in position or if the website suffers from a technical failure.

Free evaluations for prospects: I added a button to my web page where I am offering my visitors a free evaluation of their web page. It is fully automated, and I am not aware that it is happening until I get a notification to my email with the report and contact information that was also sent to the prospect. It’s a good way of turning visitors into prospects without much effort.

I have been working with WebCEO for 2 years now; what impresses me the most is its support capacity. The possibility of contacting them directly with such ease and the willingness of the team to help you is something that I do not see much in other companies, whether they provide SEO software for agencies or not.

The post SEO Tools for Agencies: Pro Functionality & Unlimited Users appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.