News | Netsearch Direct

NetSearch Takes on IFA 2013

8 Mar

Here at NetSearch we are constantly reminding people of how important it is to be present in the digital space, but it is equally important to make face to face connections as well. This is why several members of our team recently represented NSD at the 2013 IFA Convention in Las Vegas. Our team made tons of connections with Franchisors and Franchisees and got the chance to educate people in different levels of the Franchise industry on online best practices and SEO.

Although the face to face connections made at the IFA this year were simply invaluable, there was also no lack of technological connections. Technology and Social Media played a big role in this year’s IFA, making it a sort of “interactive convention.” At the IFA there were computer stations set up in between booths at the Exhibit Hall where one could log on to tweet about their IFA experience or make an update on FranSocial, the Facebook/Linked In network for the franchise world. In addition, this was the first year that the IFA Convention utilized mobile in reaching its attendees. The IFA Mobile App was very popular amongst the show and many attendees used this to check Twitter activity regarding the show, manage their show schedules, and reference interactive maps of the Exhibit Hall.

The use of all of these new forms of digital media went along very well with one of the main topics of the show: SoLoMo. SoLoMo is a term that the marketing world has coined to describe Social, Local, and Mobile marketing. The ‘Social’ refers to the way that search is dependent on social networks. The ‘Local’ refers to how different search results are delivered to you dependent of where you are physically located – this is especially prevalent when the search is being done through a mobile device. Finally, the “Mobile” refers to need for mobile friendly marketing and websites. Our CEO, Mike Meyer, was able to head up a roundtable discussion for the best practices associated with SoLoMo. Overall, the presence of the digital space was very prevalent at this year’s IFA and we are excited to see what the 2014 IFA Convention will have to offer!

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Do you Know How Often to Optimize Your Site Content?

28 Feb

When it comes to content optimization, not everyone knows how often to optimize it. But, is there truly a correct answer to this question? Well, not exactly, there are ‘optimizers’ out there tweaking content every day on their own site. Then, there are others that haven’t optimized a single page on their site and may not even know what optimization means. For those who may not know what site optimization is, it essentially is Internet promotion to improve a site’s position and page rank as well as increase the amount of clicks and conversions. So, the answer to this question may depend on the person and what time frame they are currently using to optimize content. No matter how often you do optimize, there are certain times that it is essential to do so.

First, would be if your website is going under a re-design. This does not mean tweaking certain aspects of your site, it means to completely re-build your site. With a re-design you are trying to update the site’s aesthetics and navigation. So, when doing a re-design this is the best time to optimize your content as well. That way the launch of the new site design will also incorporate newly optimized content. What better timing would there be?

The next best time would be when you feel your current content is outdated and needs to be updated. If you are already updating your content on all pages then it would also be a great idea to optimize at the same time. Why not combine efforts? As you go through each page of content that you plan to change, you should look into ways to optimize each.

Updating content leads us into the next situation you should use when needing to optimize. That would be if your company is undergoing any changes. Changes within could be for multiple reasons where you may need to change and edit content on your site. When things happen within the company it may be an advantageous time to optimize content.

Last, and maybe the most obvious time to optimize, would be if it has been a long time since you optimized last. If you feel you have not optimized your site in a few months, then now would be a great time to start thinking about it. Those who frequent your site like to be reading the most up to date content that the company can give. So, going too long without changing and optimizing content would not be suggested.

If you have never optimized your site and may still be wondering what it means to have your site optimized, give us a call and we would be happy to help!

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Should Your Business be on Google+?

22 Feb

A few weeks ago Global Web Index announced the top social media sites of 2012, which was based off of how many active users are on each. A lot of people were surprised to find out that Google Plus has in fact surpassed Twitter in the 4^thquarter of the year. Within the month of December, Google Plus reached 343 million active Global users. You can go to Global Index for a more detailed chart of Social Media platforms across the globe and the amount of active users they each have. See below for the top four.

So, as we all know, Google continues to expand and create new products for their users. Google Plus has been around for a little over one and a half years. As Google Plus continues to grow in numbers, it is becoming more essential for businesses to be on this platform. There are other reasons to be on Google Plus besides being able to reach consumers on another platform. Some of those include:

The fact that everyone uses Google products
You can control your messaging
Google Plus helps SEO
Google Plus Local
Hangouts: You can chat face to face and make free video calls with up to ten people.
Sparks: Automatically loads articles and videos found on the Internet to your Stream, based on your interests. This helps keep businesses up to date within their industry.

Many believed that Google Plus would not be a big deal and as we notice it is continually growing. Their active users are increasing in numbers. Your business should consider optimizing your Google Plus page with great branding.

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Have You Considered a Mobile Design Strategy?

6 Feb

The web is on mobile devices and users are increasingly using the Internet on their smartphones. How does your mobile site look? Do you have one? Well, if not or you have no idea, it would be best to consider your mobile strategy. There are three basic categories you may find yourself in when preparing for your mobile design strategy. The first would be if your company is doing an entire site design for both desktop and mobile. Second, a re-design of an existing site and you would like to add a mobile site. Or third, you already have a well-designed site and would like to add a mobile one. Whichever group you may be in there is a strategy to consider.

To start, you should consider your business goals. What does your business want out of a mobile site? Meaning, if you already have an existing site, what are the most important components you would like to carry over to your mobile site? It is important to stay consistent with your brand but a mobile site should be a trimmed down version of your desktop version. A great idea that is suggested would be to review your analytics for the current site. There are a couple reasons as to why this is suggested. First, would be to see the percent of visitors you are getting from mobile devices. If you are not getting a high percentage of visitors, a mobile site may not be your top priority. If there is a high percentage of visitors from mobile devices, then it may be advantageous to get a mobile site. Next would be to see what browsers and devices your users are using the most. That way your company can use the information to target it as the most important focus. The best approach when implementing mobile design for all browsers and devices would be to consider a responsive mobile design. Responsive would allow the site to work on all browsers and devices without having any sizing issues.

For web design and general tips on how to make your mobile site user friendly, it is best to take the approach ‘less is more’. It is important to keep a simple mobile design. Users are using their phones as convenience and typically because they are not near a desktop or just prefer using their smartphones. So, having a full site on mobile that is hard to navigate with small print would not be ideal. Another great tip is to try and keep a single column format. Single column formats work better for sizing purposes and when flipping from a vertical to horizontal view. Another to consider is to have a collapsible navigation. That way if your company needs to provide a lot of content on a mobile site then you can create collapsible tabs to hide content so the site does not seem too overwhelming. One other great tip for mobile design is to make sure there is a visual element for clickable items. Mobile screens are obviously smaller than a desktop, users get frustrated when trying to click on an 8 point font link and click the wrong item or are unsure if anything was clicked. It is a great idea to give a visual element that lets the user know an item has been clicked. For example, making sure a link turns another color once clicked. It is also a great idea to show a processing visual element. So, if something is clicked on there should be something that shows up to let the user know it is loading. One last and maybe the most important design tip is to have a ‘click to call’ button. Meaning, when a user clicks the ‘call button’ their phone will automatically dial to your company making it extremely convenient for the user to give you a call. It gives the user the convenience of reaching your site and being able to call instantly.

There are many great tips out there and we hope you find these tips helpful when considering your mobile design strategy. NetSearch Direct offers mobile site design and would be happy to help design your mobile site or answer any questions you may have. Remember, we can’t hide from the technological advancements and it is best to adapt quickly to the changes and implement. It keeps your company up to date!

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PPC, SEO, or Both?

1 Feb

A business immersed in the world of digital advertising may know one question that is difficult to answer. That question is, ‘Do I go with PPC advertising or go with organic SEO?’ You might be wondering which one has more advantages over disadvantages and truthfully that is going to depend on your business and your business goals. There are a few topics to consider when trying to make this decision, but first what do each of these things mean? Pay per click advertising is exactly what it sounds like, a business pays per click on their Google ads. Which, at first glance may appear to be a bit pricy, but with further explanation it is not. Organic SEO searches are not bought, but are achieved through relevance by following SEO guidelines. Both are great ways to obtain leads for your business, but which is better?

Well let’s first look into the benefits because if the benefits of one vs the other is better for you, then that can make the decision easier. As mentioned before, PPC advertising at first glance may seem to be a bit pricy, but if the campaigns are well managed, the costs will seem more reasonable due to the outcome the campaigns can produce. The advantages of PPC advertising include, targeting specific demographics, immediate rankings and results, test search terms prior to optimizing, can select your daily budget, make instantaneous changes, levels playing field (meaning it doesn’t matter the size of your company),and increases local visibility.

Organic SEO also has its own advantages worth reading about. The first and foremost reason to try SEO would be that costs would only come into play if you were to hire an SEO agency. Another reason SEO could be better is because people tend to ignore the PPC ads and click on the actual search results. Less than 25% of consumers who search will click on a PPC ad over an organic search, thus giving organic searches more traffic for possible leads. Also, once a business has a highly ranked keyword it tends to find itself in a permanent position on rankings. This will hold true only if the business continues to watch their competition and keeps applying the most updated guidelines and techniques. So, now that you have seen some of the advantages for both PPC and Organic SEO there are a few things to consider in deciding which is best for your company.

The first thing to consider is how much your online marketing budget will support. Having a larger budget may lead you to PPC where you can set a daily budget. If your budget is more limited, your best option would be to work with the organic SEO methods. The next question your business should ask is what is the average cost per click in your industry? This question could also help in answering how much you are willing to spend. Some averages could be around $2 and the next industry could average at $28. It is a good idea to look into it because it could make your decision easier. The last question might be how competitive are the target keywords in your industry? High competitive rate may shift you towards running PPC campaigns and a lower competitive rate may allow your business to stay on top of the ranks.

There is one other thing that has not been discussed but, extremely important to realize. For some businesses the best option is to do both PPC and SEO at the same time for a few reasons. First, SEO takes roughly 6 months to fully optimize. So, the results are not immediate. Where, PPC has much more immediate results. Why not have a PPC campaign running and gaining leads for your company while your SEO campaign is fully optimizing? Once, your SEO campaign is fully optimized, then you can take the throttle off of PPC. We find taking this method produces the best results. If you are on the fence today about whether your company needs SEO, PPC, or both give us a call at (804) 228-4400 and we are happy to help!

Posted in Local Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

SEO Strategy for your Franchisees

18 Jan

As Internet marketing becomes an integral advertising tactic for all, companies are going to have to start considering their SEO strategy (if they haven’t already). Especially for corporations that need to strategize for themselves as well as all of their franchisees. The main question corporations may be asking is; How should I strategize for my SEO campaign for all of my franchisees? Should each location set up their own SEO separately or should the work be carried out through corporate? Simply put, SEO should be managed on a corporate level even if each franchisee has their own managers and/or marketing department. A corporation should hire one SEO agency to carry out each franchisees campaign. Continue reading to find out why.

First, your brand would remain uniform across all locations. The brand is what makes the company, and SEO does affect your brand. It is imperative that all locations carry out the same web design so consumers know exactly what site they are on, based on the web branding. Having SEO managed by one agency through corporate will allow for the brand to remain uniform, orderly, and efficient. Secondly, keyword rankings can get overwhelming when you have multiple franchises in one central location. Ranking of keywords is a competitive aspect to SEO. If you are a large corporation and have multiple stores/offices in one location they would essentially be competing against one another for rankings. This can become extremely complex and difficult. SEO firms have a wealth of knowledge and expertise in SEO giving them the ability to regulate the keywords and geographies being used, making the process a lot less complicated. Another reason as to why SEO efforts should be carried out on a corporate level would be because managers or marketing departments may not have complete knowledge on how to use SEO. Without full expertise, the effort managers might take could be what the industry refers to as ‘black hat’ SEO. Meaning, the tactics they are using are not ethical to the search engines. Corporate should make the decision to go with a white hat SEO firm that lives and breathes SEO efforts. Lastly and possibly the most important is that it is more cost effective. Instead of having each location buy separate SEO packages from all different SEO firms, corporate should find an SEO firm that offers a franchise package, which is at a discounted rate, and suggest it to their franchisees to invest through the same SEO agency.

NetSearch Direct offers a FranSEO package for franchisors to make an investment to fully optimize their franchisees. Call us today if you want to get a kick start to SEO for your franchisees!

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The Power of Reviews

9 Jan

With sites like Yelp and Angie’s List, consumers have been able to create, write, and post reviews about companies. But, do consumers actually read reviews? There was a recent study conducted by Weber Shandwick where the study showed that 65% of Americans are willing to purchase a brand they have not been considering due to a positive review. The study also showed that the average person reads 11 reviews before purchasing a product. Wow! That is a lot of reviews and if there is one negative review a consumer could be persuaded enough to not buy the product. So, what if your company does have negative reviews? How should a company go about it? We have a few ideas on how to try to avoid those harsh reviews!

1. Customer Satisfaction

The most obvious and number one way of keeping negative reviews away from your company is by, well, keeping your customers satisfied. It is inevitable to have some unhappy consumers, but as long as your company makes every effort to make them satisfied it will help. The best way to avoid negative reviews would be to make sure you do not give consumers any reason to criticize.

2. Send Private Messages

If you already have a negative review, contact the consumer who wrote it by sending them a personal message. Within that message you could extend gratitude for the issues they felt were pertinent. It is best to do this with a calm mind. Interpret what the issues were and then send a message on how you believe the issue can be fixed in order to gain back their satisfaction.

3. Separate Complaint Process

A possible way to avoid any complaints online could be to have a separate complaint process/platform that is easy to find on your website. This way the consumer could reach out in this form knowing it will be read by the company. Not all online reviews are going to be seen by the company it is written about. Knowing that the company has an actual complaint platform may reassure that the company is reading them and the consumer may not take further actions, that is as long as you respond to their complaint.

4. Increase Your Social Media Efforts

Consumers love responses. Nothing is more frustrating than voicing your complaint directly to the company and never hearing anything more about it. A lot of consumers have taken to social media, in particular, Facebook. By staying up to date and making quick responses to consumers writing on your social media can in fact fix a problem before it goes further. By answering people’s questions/comments/concerns immediately and giving a fair response, consumers will find that to be helpful and satisfying. Thus, not taking the next step and writing negative reviews throughout the Internet.

5. Motivate Positive Comments

If you feel you have had a current consumer that has had a great experience with your company then a possible route could be to encourage them to write a positive review for your company. Then, you can send a reward or discount for their next purchase in order to thank them for doing so.

NetSearch Direct offers Local Business Directory services with Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. The local business directories also allow for reviews from consumers. If your business directories have negative reviews we would suggest logging into those accounts and reaching out to those consumers directly. This would be the main approach we suggest to take and of course keep the five ideas above in mind too!

Posted in Local Business Directory, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments »

Have You Been Hit by Negative SEO?

28 Dec

Negative SEO is back in a big way. Although the concept has been around for years, the number of people acting on the various methods to harm a competitor’s rankings is at an all-time high.

So what is negative SEO and how does it work? I can answer both questions at once in simple terms…

Negative SEO is any action taken to intentionally harm the organic search engine rankings of any website. As for how it works; the most common method in use today is inundating a website with link spam. Here’s a common scenario:

A negative SEOer finds a website for which they want to reduce or eliminate organic rankings.
They then do a quick review to determine what keywords will get the site in the most trouble for “over-optimization”. This is because Google frowns on low-quality bulk link-building – or the purchase of any links at all for that matter (understatement of the year!).
Next, they hire a link-spam company that offers the cheapest and lowest quality backlinks available. This is usually a “link building” or SEO company based in a country where the Negative SEOer’s currency rate of exchange is very strong and where the inbound links will be from websites in countries that have no realistic interest in the site being inked to.

Here is an example:

The owner of JimsOhioWidgets.con wants to hurt “TomsOhioWidgets.con” – his main competitor. He knows that Tom beats his rankings for “Ohio widgets” so he decides to target those great rankings by making TomsBlueWidgets.con appear to violate Google’s user acceptance policy (by purchasing links).

The rest is easy. Jim does a Google search for “cheap link building in ______” to find just the right (meaning wrong) link building service and spends a few bucks to send hundreds of the lowest quality links possible to TomsOhioWidgets.con. Google sees a bunch of backlinks from sites 5,000 miles from Ohio that originate from very poorly written articles and blog posts. This is obviously link spam. And although it sounds ridiculous, this method used to work to help a site get good rankings. That’s why Google now penalizes for it.

So just how bad are the links? Here is a typical example of a post containing a link: “If and in the event of ever you might have the needs to have Ohio widgets, then you will wanting to have been to buy them in a place of reputation.”

I’m not joking. They are not all that bad, but it’s pretty crazy what some of these companies will post.

In the past six months we have seen more than one hundred fifty websites penalized by Google for link spam. Nearly 25% of the cases involved negative SEO.

If you feel that your website may be a victim of negative SEO tactics, please give us a call at 804-228-4400.

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Meet Will Altherr

20 Dec

NetSearch Direct is continuing to grow and grow as the year goes on. The newest face around the office is Will Altherr, who recently joined the Production Management team as a PPC Associate. Will works and continuously learns about PPC ad campaigns, SEO, web optimization, AdWords, and analytics. His daily routine consists of analyzing ads, creating ads, and making suggestions to improve ads. In the short time Will has been here with us he is enjoying the fact he gets to learn so much as well as his work life balance. Will used to work in the staffing industry related to accounting and finance, but has always tried to get his foot back in the door with digital marketing and now that he is here he has really enjoyed learning about PPC, SEO, and Analytics. He says the work life balance is also great. Will has always found enjoyment in problem solving, which makes his favorite part of the job being able to analyze underperforming ads and trying to figure out the solution to make it better. To him, it feels extremely rewarding when he can solve issues. Although Will is a new face to the NetSearch team, he is no stranger to the industry. Will has worked with online advertising for five years. He respectively has experience with management and consulting, working with accounts and selling. When asked where Will would like to see himself in the next ten years, he sees himself being a professional in online advertising. He would love to have multiple roles in Web Analytics, SEO, Web Optimization, PPC, Web Design, and anything that becomes new to this industry. He feels that as long as he is continuing to learn and make himself more of an asset, then everything else will fall into place. When Will is not working, he finds himself at the gym, playing sports, going to the movies, hanging out with friends, attending sport events/concerts, and trying new things. Will has also picked up a new language and is beginning to learn Spanish. When Will finds the time he also enjoys relaxing and watching TV. If Will was not working in the Search Engine Marketing World he would probably be working in the film industry making commercials for businesses. Will is very new to the Richmond area, as he just moved here from Northern Virginia. So, when it comes to his favorite restaurant, he says it would have to be Buffalo Wild Wings by default because it has been the only place he has eaten at. Maybe we can check back, in a couple months to see if he has coined a new restaurant as his favorite. When it comes to social media, Will finds himself on Facebook the most. If Will could travel anywhere in the World, he would love to visit the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. NetSearch is very excited to have Will bring his experience to the PPC team, welcome Will!

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The Best Way To Keep Up With Google? – Ethical SEO

14 Dec

It is a known fact that regular optimization of a website is a vital part of ranking well in search engines, especially Google. But, what some may not know is that SEO can actually hurt a site. “Over SEOing,” as we like to call it here at NetSearch, occurs when there are too many links going to a site. It is true in fact that link building can go too far. It is hard for the common consumer to understand that the same practices that can give your site great rankings and visibility can also end up getting you wiped off of the search engines completely.

The key way to make sure that your site remains in good standing with Google is to be sure that you or your SEO company always conducts SEO in an ethical way. Ethical you say? By this we mean that the only way to avoid penalties from Google is to organically link build – no paying for links, no using link farms, and no posting links in irrelevant directories. Some red flags that a “SEO-er” may take part in unethical practices is if their prices are extremely low, they guarantee first page placement in a very short amount of time, or they have no reporting to show the consumer exactly how they are running any given campaign. In the end the world of SEO is changing very fast and it is important to stay ahead of the curve before your webpage, and ultimately business, feels the consequences. To learn more about ethical SEO practices, see this recent article from Forbes.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Internet News, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »