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Understanding National And International SEO

The majority of business owners with an online presence focus on local SEO. While this type of SEO has plenty of benefits, it also limits your audience significantly. Of course, it’s important to do a thorough evaluation of your business to determine whether your product or service caters to a larger audience outside of your local area. If it does, then it’s time to start thinking about national or even international SEO to take your brand and business to the next level. Here’s what you need to understand about the different types of SEO beyond local SEO.

Focal Points Of National SEO

National SEO is all about optimizing your website so it has a high ranking nationwide. You can put your business against some of the biggest competition across the country instead of only going against local companies. You’ll still benefit from keeping your local SEO strategy, but your national SEO strategy can put your company over the top. With national SEO, you want to focus on a couple of points in your campaign.

The first point to focus on is your brand. Before you start your national SEO campaign, think about your company name and branding as a keyword people might use. You might have already done this research if you have had a local SEO strategy, so you could get away with just making a few tweaks to make it more attractive to a national audience. Your competition will now be national brands instead of just local businesses, so you have to think above and beyond to compete with them.

The second point to focus on is keywords. With local SEO, you might have focused on geographical terms so your company shows up in local online searches. But when you go national, you have to focus more on broad keywords. The challenge with this is your competition will likely be using broad keywords as well, so you have to be strategic with the ones you choose to distinguish your company on a national level.

Why Your Company Needs National SEO

You need to take a close look at your company’s profits, website traffic, and other factors to determine whether a national SEO strategy is right for your company. When you’ve experienced success with your business in one area, the idea of expanding to other locations might be intriguing. At that point, it’s time to start looking closely at national SEO instead of focusing solely on local SEO.

Let’s say you have multiple locations across the country. Having a foundation of local SEO for each location is important before jumping into creating a national SEO strategy. In other words, if your local SEO strategy isn’t working for you, then chances are the national SEO strategy won’t either. But once you’ve set a solid foundation with local SEO, then it’s time to think on a national scale to fully maximize your business potential.

Types Of Keywords To Boost National SEO

Keywords for national SEO need to be broader so they can relate to a larger audience. Broad keywords are typically more difficult to obtain a high ranking with because most other national companies will be using them as well. Long-tail keywords you might use in a local SEO strategy include “best lawn care services near me.” You might be one of the top results locally, but that likely won’t be the case nationally when using broad keywords. Those keywords might be more general, like, “best lawn care services.” Now you’re not just competing with the lawn care service down the street. You’re competing with similar services across the country. You can boost your national SEO ranking by implementing detailed strategies and working with national SEO experts to boost your brand.

Things To Consider With International SEO

International SEO is much more than just a website translated into different languages. Once you begin gaining customers from other countries, you should tailor your content to them and give them the best experience possible so they will keep coming back. Website localization is something to strongly consider to maximize your international SEO. The key concepts of website localization are to display your website in the primary language the user speaks, as well as alter the currency, time region, and contact information specific to where the user is located. Not only will this make coming to your website more convenient to the user, but it will also give them more trust in your brand.

Implementing International SEO

Implementing international SEO can be the tricky part. Every international SEO strategy should focus heavily on content. You can choose to display your content based on geo-targeting, language, or a combination of the two. The difference is whether you simply want to translate your current website or if you want to create a separate storefront on your website for international customers. This is where having an SEO expert is valuable since they can make recommendations based on where your traffic is coming from.

A few other international SEO strategies to consider include setting up a URL structure that’s geared to international SEO, using hreflang tags, and localizing content in specific countries. These are all strategies you could consider on your own or simply leave them in the hands of an SEO expert since they might understand all of the technical aspects a little better.

Technical Aspects Of International SEO

Speaking of technical aspects of international SEO, a few of them you’ll need to think about include your website’s structure, the location of the server, and implementing hreflang correctly. Your website structure depends primarily on whether you want to target a specific country or a specific language regardless of the country. You will need to choose from using subfolders, subdomains, or top-level domains for your international website structure.

The location of the server plays an instrumental role in international SEO rankings. The farther away your server is, the slower the website speed will be, which will lead to a poor user experience. These are things that are taken into consideration for SEO rankings, so using a CDN is often the best approach to take.

Hreflang tags cross-reference different pages that have specific targeted audiences and have similar content. These have to do with displaying the correct website language based on the user and where they are visiting the website from. Not using the appropriate hreflang tags can hurt your international SEO significantly.

The Role Of Backlinks In National And International SEO

Whether your focus is on national or international SEO, backlinks are a vital part of your ranking. Google sees backlinks as a sign that your website is a trustworthy resource for information and will boost your ranking accordingly. If you take two websites with the same quality of posts and content, but one has backlinks and the other doesn’t, the one with backlinks should get a better SEO ranking.

There are various strategies you can use to get quality backlinks and you can be as creative as you want to be. A common strategy is to build relationships with other content creators from non-competing websites and share links with one another. The one thing you want to avoid is including an abundance of backlinks to websites that aren’t trustworthy. By doing so, you’ll hurt your SEO ranking because Google wants to see that every page you link to is at least as reputable as yours.

Work With SEO Experts To Expand Your Brand

Whether you’re ready to take the jump and focus on national or international SEO, working with SEO experts to expand your brand can expedite the process. With so many different factors that go into an SEO ranking, you could be spending all of your time working on it. And when you do so, other aspects of your business could suffer in the process.

WebNet Marketing Studio helps clients develop the right SEO strategy whether they want to remain local or expand nationally or internationally. We will consider all aspects of your business now and your plans for the future to determine the best course of action. Our team will work with you every step of the way to ensure everyone is on the same page and you can build your trust in us along the way. To learn more about how we can help expand your business, contact us at any time.

Focus On Local SEO To Boost Your Business

Any business that serves a particular geographic range or has a physical location can benefit from local SEO. When someone performs a Google search for any combination of keywords that are relevant to your business, you want your website to show up near the top of the results. Otherwise, potential customers might not even know your company exists and you’ll lose business to competitors in the area. You can set your company apart by prioritizing local SEO. Understanding local SEO isn’t entirely complex, but there are many different layers to focus on. We’ve explained those layers for you here to effectively boost your business’s online visibility.

Differences Between SEO and PPC

A common question business owners have is whether their marketing strategy should be focused more on SEO (search engine optimization) or PPC (pay-per-click). Both SEO and PPC strategies can be effective when used for the right type of company and the right strategy is developed, but there are some distinct differences between the two to be aware of.

Focusing your marketing strategy on local SEO can provide many benefits. The goal of SEO is to boost organic traffic to your website. This happens when you optimize the content on your website to give it a better chance of showing up higher in the Google search results, which increases the likelihood of potential customers clicking on it. Focusing on SEO as a business strategy isn’t easy and isn’t cheap, but it has consistently been more cost-effective for companies compared to other strategies in the long run. Building a strong SEO strategy can mean your business has established organic results that should keep you near the top of the results as long as you maintain the strategy and continue improving your local SEO.

The PPC strategy offers some benefits as well. One of the most obvious benefits is having your website on the top of the search results. So even if a user scrolls past the first few results, they will still see your company name at the very least. The key difference between PPC and SEO is that PPC marketing is essentially investing in advertisements to boost your brand. PPC advertising may not seem expensive at first, but it can get costly if you use it as your primary marketing strategy. Many companies have experienced success with PPC marketing. However, maintaining that success over the long term usually proves to be challenging and not as effective as prioritizing SEO.

Understanding Google My Business

Every business needs to use Google My Business to boost visibility in search results. With Google My Business, users will see your URL, a description of your business, photos you upload, business hours, contact information, videos, relevant links, and more. Optimizing your Google My Business profile is critical. The information you fill out should be accurate, and you should provide all the information you can to help potential customers answer their questions about your company. Completeness will help your company show up higher in the local search results. Just be sure to check your profile page regularly to see if you have any requests for updates or other questions.

Local Citations Are Critical For Local SEO

Citations are an important component of a local SEO strategy, and they are necessary to help you show up in local search results. Google constantly tries to provide the best information and companies in search results, and citations play a big role in their algorithms. You want your company to be mentioned on websites other than your own to be more reputable and viewed as a legitimate business. And when Google trusts your company, it will show up higher on the search results list.

When it comes to listing citations, you can either submit your company information manually to listing sites, pay someone to do it, or work directly with services specializing in this type of work. The main thing to be aware of is the information has to be accurate and consistent across all listing sites. Otherwise, Google will question the accuracy of the information and might not look at your company as being legitimate.

Discover The Opportunities Created With Local Links

Your link-building strategy is another important layer to consider when building your local SEO. A good mix of on-page and off-page links can help you move up in the search results since Google likes to see this mixture. Links should be relevant and lead a user to the page they are looking for within your website. This means placing links from service pages to your blog pages and vice versa so users can quickly and easily find what they are looking for on your website.

Off-page links are also valuable to boost your reputation within the industry. Don’t hesitate to put links to other websites if the information from those websites boosts your credibility. It’s also a valuable strategy to reach out to other credible websites and ask if they could link back to your website. Google likes to see on-page and off-page links, so the more reputable ones you can include, the stronger your company will appear in its algorithms.

Don’t Forget Local SEO In Your Blog Content

Your blog SEO can build your local SEO strategy tremendously. One of the goals of your website should be to keep potential customers on your site as long as possible. Another goal is to create a website they can rely on to get the information they need so they’ll keep coming back. Your blog content is essential to achieving these goals.

Blogs should elaborate on your products or services, why your product is superior to others, and even provide relevant information in your industry that consumers could find valuable. Blog content should not focus primarily on promoting your specific products or services, though. Boosting your blog SEO means answering common questions customers have about what you offer and becoming a valuable resource to answer future questions they might have. The more your website becomes a trusted resource for useful information for customers, the longer they’ll stay on the website and continue coming back to it, and the better your local SEO will be.

A Local SEO Marketing Company Can Help

With so many different layers to focus on with local SEO, it can be overwhelming for a business owner to cover all bases. And when you have a solid local SEO strategy, you have to stay on top of it constantly to maintain its effectiveness. You could hire someone to your team specializing in SEO, but that isn’t always effective for businesses. Instead, you could turn to a local SEO marketing company to boost your efforts and handle the maintenance of your company website in the background.

Business owners have plenty of things on their plate to worry about, and focusing on local SEO often is placed on the backburner. This isn’t good for the viability or credibility of your website or company in general, so working with a local SEO marketing company is well worth it. The company can do everything from managing your content to even creating content for you. They can help you develop an effective marketing plan that includes prioritizing blog SEO, creating eBooks, press releases, articles, and other SEO website content. And they can do this while you focus on other things pertaining to the growth of your business.

WebNet Marketing Studio offers a wide range of digital marketing services. Whether you’re a brand new company looking to establish an online image or if you’re an established company that needs to boost its local SEO, we are here to help. We have a simple process to help companies boost their marketing efforts, but we also tailor our services to meet your specific and unique needs. You have plenty of things to focus on as a business owner, so let us handle some of the back-end work to promote and market your company. SEO is a driving force of increasing your company’s visibility, so contact us today to see how we can have your brand listed higher in the search results and drive more traffic to your website as a result.

Any business that doesn’t have an online presence is missing out on many opportunities. According to a BrightLocal Consumer Review Survey, 90% of consumers looked up businesses online in 2019 before shopping with them. This isn’t to say those consumers would never visit an establishment if they couldn’t find any information about it online, but the chances would increase if they had an online presence. Having an online presence doesn’t merely mean having a website with the products or services you offer anymore. You have to also engage with your customer base and give them as much information as possible about what your company stands for so they can make an informed decision.

This brings into the discussion the point about reviews. It’s impossible to please every customer you have with the product or service you offer. Consumers particularly like to write reviews if they had even the slightest negative experience. However, most people will only write a positive review if their experience was outstanding. There are plenty of review platforms online today, but Google reviews are the most valuable for companies due mainly to their visibility.

Google Reviews Are The Most Visible

Google My Business listings include consumer reviews that are visible in general search results as well as in Google Maps. It’s easier than ever before for a consumer to read reviews about an establishment before visiting them. And chances are if the consumer is searching for a local establishment, they are motivated to visit one right then and there. If you have very few Google reviews or none at all, then your chances of earning the customer drop significantly. When you prioritize the value of Google reviews, then you’ll have a solid foundation for an effective marketing strategy.

The More Reviews You Have, The Higher Your Search Ranking

The value of Google reviews presents itself over time as you accumulate more reviews. The criteria Google uses in their search rankings include the number of reviews on your business, the average star rating and how many recent reviews you’ve received. While the quality of the consumer review is important, so is the quantity when it comes to online visibility. This shows how important it is to generate Google reviews consistently and even create strategies around it, which we will discuss later.

Negative Reviews Aren’t Always Bad

When it comes to Google reviews, or any reviews for that matter, negative reviews aren’t always bad. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should strive to earn negative consumer reviews, but it’s definitely not the end of the world when you get a few. A BrightLocal Consumer Survey reports that 82% of consumers will be put off by negative reviews. However, this number can change drastically depending on how you handle the negative review as a business owner.

For example, if a customer complains that your product or service didn’t work as expected or if they had a specific negative experience with your website or employee, don’t just ignore it. And especially don’t delete the review! Instead, take the review as an opportunity to respond and turn the poor experience into a positive one for the customer. Not only will the consumer remember what you did to remedy the situation, but other people will see your comments as well and you’ll make a good impression on them. No company is perfect in everything they do, so by responding to negative reviews and fixing both the customer’s issue and the root cause of the issue, other consumers will take notice and have a higher regard for your company.

Do You Want All Positive Reviews?

Positive reviews are great for obvious reasons, but having all positive reviews can make some consumers feel suspicious. In this day and age where it’s difficult to know what to believe online, too many positive reviews can give your business a too-good-to-be-true feel. On the other hand, it’s essential to offer a product or service and create a positive customer experience. A BrightLocal Consumer Review Survey indicates that positive reviews are enough to lead 27% of consumers to at least look at the company’s website and make an effort to contact them. Leading consumers to your website may increase the chances of them making a purchase significantly.

Do Reviews Help SEO?

Yes, Google Reviews can help improve search rankings. Online reviews send a strong signal to search engines that communicate expertise, authority and trust. Google Reviews are part of the over 200 factors involved in search rankings.

The Right Strategies Can Generate More Google Reviews

So what can you do to generate Google reviews and stay relevant online? Depending on your marketing budget, you may be able to begin a DIY campaign asking for reviews. The thing about consumers and leaving reviews is they aren’t going to jump through hoops to do it. Making the process as easy as possible, like sending them an email with a link to write a review, is always going to be more effective. If you require them to create an account or take any other step, your chances of earning the review will decrease drastically.

Some companies offer incentives to consumers in return for Google reviews. This is typically in the form of a discount code to use on a future purchase, but you can get as creative as you would like with a strategy. The important thing is to never ask for a positive review because you don’t want your company to have the reputation of having to beg for good reviews. However, it’s usually harmless to ask for an open and honest review from a consumer and give them a small token of appreciation in return.

WebNet Marketing Studio loves analyzing data and helping companies put together the most effective marketing campaigns possible. We always stay ahead of the curve and can help you not only generate organic reviews but also soar up the Google search rankings to improve your company’s visibility. No matter where you are currently at with your business and marketing strategies, we can help you achieve your goals. Give us a call or fill out our simple online form and let us know how we can serve you!

 

The Internet has completely changed the way businesses advertise to their target audience. It stands to reason that marketing techniques have also undergone major transformations. Reaching new customers, interacting with them, and building a solid business reputation requires a digital marketing strategy. If a business doesn’t have one, there’s no way it can compete in today’s competitive marketplace.

While most business owners understand the importance of digital marketing, many don’t know what it involves. This is a complex form of marketing with many approaches and techniques. Furthermore, it’s not an exact science, which means adaptation and improvisation are crucial. To give you a better understanding of what digital marketing entails, we’re going over several prominent tactics that make up a successful strategy.

Search Engine Optimization

Online marketing is about attracting more people to your website so you can convert customers. Effective search engine optimization (SEO) is at the heart of this. SEO is a set of processes that help you achieve higher rankings in search engines. It starts with your website. In order for your target audience to find your site, it must contain the right keyword phrases. These are the terms that people type into Google when searching for products and services. Another aspect of SEO involves getting backlinks from high-quality sites. This helps boost your website’s authority with Google. Finally, there are technical standards your website must adhere to. The way the backend of your website is coded and structured has an impact on your rankings.

Social Media Marketing

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have changed the way our culture communicates. Businesses can take advantage of social media’s influence in our lives to reach more people and interact with their target customers. A good social media campaign involves creating accounts on the right platforms and building your network of followers. Doing this successfully requires constant work. Posting industry-related content, informing people of upcoming sales and hosting giveaways can help drive more customers to your business. When your customers share this content, you’re expanding your reach without spending a dime. Think of this as modern-day word-of-mouth advertising.

Content Marketing

The content you put online is directly connected to the public’s perception of your business. It can also help you rank higher in search engines. Content marketing is a way of utilizing quality content to your advantage. The key here is “quality.” Years ago, simply adding lots of content to your website could help your search engine rankings. Now, the content you put out there must be well-written and informative. Many content marketing strategies include blogging. By adding a blog to your site and publishing articles with your target audience in mind, you can improve your credibility. These articles also make great additions of fresh content and material for your social media.

Pay-Per-Click

An effective way to fast track the success of your digital marketing strategy is to invest in paid search advertising such as Google Ads. This involves bidding on highly-searched keyword phrases. When a person searches that phrase, your ad will show up at the top of that search results page. Each time a person clicks on your ad, you’ll have to pay a small amount. This may not seem cost-effective, but if done correctly, paid search can result in a huge ROI. Not only does pay-per-click get your ad in front of more eyes, but it also focuses on your target audience. This means higher conversion rates.

Develop the Right Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Business

Remaining competitive in your industry requires a strong digital marketing strategy specifically designed for your business goals. It’s important you work with an experienced agency to ensure your campaigns are successful.

At WebNet Marketing Studio, we provide a wide range of digital marketing services. Contact us today to get started.