Increase Website Traffic with Offpage SEO

 Increasing your organic traffic takes more than onpage SEO—that’s the easy stuff that you’ve likely nailed by now. 

Onpage SEO includes activities like: 

• Writing really good content that you post consistently to your website and social media sites.

• Developing metadescriptions that include your focus keyword. 

• Identifying keywords and phrases and using these in your headings and subheads, and using H tags

• Creating smart inner links among your website’s pages. 

• Optimizing images and using alt tags. 

Offpage SEO is an essential part of a successful SEO strategy 

Despite what they may tell you, even great content and good onpage SEO is just not enough for you to show up in search engines.

It’s the activity that’s OFF your website’s pages. It’s your total online and offline presence. It’s social media sites where you’re posting on a consistent basis. Offpage SEO includes brand-building and PR. Pitching articles to local publications or industry newsletters. Getting guest blogging and speaking opportunities and including links back to your website. It means networking and meeting people to grow your overall presence.

• These are examples of ways that you can build your offpage SEO:

• • Linkbuilding/Brand Building–Linkbuilding builds your brand. Building links starts with getting guest posts. Look for opportunities with online publications in your niche.

• • Content Marketing—this continue to evolve to include everything digital media. Content marketing fundamentally involves developing and distributing content across a growing number of channels. 

• • PR—developing relationships with online and traditional print media. Interviews, articles in the local paper or interviews on a popular radio program.

• • Local SEO—this includes Google Business Profile. Getting reviews on your GBP may be the single most important thing you can do for SEO. It’s also more accessible these days—you can access GBPs from Google Maps, etc.

• • Social Media—the social media universe is vast, and includes more than Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. Decide what you can manage and post consistently with backlinks to your website.

• • Influencer Marketing—developing influencer relationships can help you reach new audiences that might not be available to you. Considered part of offpage SEO.

• • Events—online and in-person events. Networking, meeting people and growing your community opens up new opportunities.

You’re familiar with the Local Pack even if you didn’t know it had a name

You may not have known that the Local Pack was a standalone product in the search space. Let’s say you’re going to be in Athens for a month and you’re looking for cafes with wifi near your airbnb. (This was my local search during May.) You’re served up a map with three listings, your location and three nearby cafes. This is your Local Pack. I found a delightful little café in my neighborhood that became my go-to home for the month. Besides the speedy wifi, I loved this little café for its yummy food and friendly staff—all thanks to Local Pack!

Quality: High-quality backlinks are key to increasing your Google authority

In their simplest form, backlinks are simply links from one website to another. But in terms of SEO, they’re powerful. Google uses backlinks as a ranking signal because the link implies that the content has value, is trustworthy and worth sharing. Local link-building should be your number two priority after onsite optimization. Earning backlinks from high-authority websites helps position your site as an authority as well. These high authority links work like a “vote of trust” from one site to another. Quality trumps quantity.

Backlinks tell search engines what your products and services are about. High-quality backlinks help increase a site’s ranking position and visibility in search engines. Our goal is to get relevant, high-quality links from websites with high domain authority (DA). Note that not all backlinks are created equal. If I get a backlink from The New York Times, it is more relevant and has a higher Google authority than if I get a backlink from a colleague’s website where I wrote a guest post about the five best meeting management applications.  

Relevance: Identify and concentrate on your niche

Focus on getting backlinks from sites that topically align with your own. If yours is a website about biking, you should aim for most of the links you earn to come from other biking websites–bloggers, biking clothing companies, biking trails, biking equipment, etc. 

Public Relations: The perfect way to earn authority links at scale

Digital PR is now the link-building tactic of choice for many SEOs. Use PR tactics to promote a great story and corresponding linkable assets. It’s possible to earn a significant number of links by pitching story ideas to publications, radio and other media. 

Google keeps getting smarter and what that means for us

Google’s maturation has evolved as we key in longtail keyword phrases and get back detailed search results. Google now understands nuances. If I’m writing about weddings, Google knows that I’m also writing about photographers, dresses, caterers, honeymoon travel, etc. Adding a do-follow link to your website will help you show up in searches.

Pay attention to anchor texts

Anchor text are the phrases, URLs or words such as “click here” and “learn more”. If you are the one publishing an article on another platform, try to include your focus keyword in the anchor text. For example, if your focus keyword is “AI content writer”, the more backlinks with this anchor text you get, the better. 

Google’s bots index information 

Search algorithms measure the overall user experience to identify relevance and provide information that’s valuable for users. When someone includes your URL on a post or as a guest blog, the search algorithm counts that as a citation for your business. Citations are about sourcing—citing your website as a source. Offpage SEO calls for adding your website to those local directories that are appropriate. Relevance is key, so look for industry-specific directories. 

GBP ranking factor guidelines

Relevance: Complete and detailed business information will help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches. 

Distance: How far each potential business is from the location terms used in a search. Google prioritizes by location. 

Prominence: Your overall online presence. More reviews and positive ratings will improve your local ranking.

Guest Posting—this is where backlinks begin, with good content. What happens if you’re not a writer? Think podcasts and webinars!

Podcasts–the perfect medium for those who don’t write. Podcasts are part of offpage SEO, just as influencer marketing is.

• • Reviews influence the way we spend our money. Getting reviews on Yelp and GBP should be a component of every marketing plan. According to Whitespark’s 2021 Local Search Ranking Factors report, reviews can influence both the Google Local Pack and Local Finder rankings as well as local organic rankings. 

Reviews are important component of offpage SEO

A Google Business Profile (GBP) review well may be one of the first places a user encounters your name and brand. An estimated 79% of people said they trust reviews as much as a personal recommendation from friends or family. Your GBP acts as a mini-website that is displayed on the right-hand side of the Google search results page, which business owners can manage. 

Feedback from your clients will produce more keywords and phrases—your company name shows up again and words about your services. It’s always a good thing to be drilling down into the big, robust Google network. You can use a vast inventory of proprietary apps for just about everything, including keyword research. But Google owns the search space. Using their tools means that you’re in synch with their way of doing things. We may as well take advantage of this.

Conclusion: If this seems like a lot, it is! But SEO builds on itself

Once you develop good SEO habits and start writing good content, getting quality backlinks and guest blogging opportunities, you will start building momentum. It’s important to believe in the process. Keep reading and start saving articles that would be the foundation for good blogs and guest posts. Add your own experience to make these articles meaningful. Include little case studies. Be patient because results are not immediate. 

You may find that you need help or want to outsource part of the content development or backlink-building part of the process. Maybe it’s posting to your social media sites that someone else can take over. It’s for you to assess as you start to realize more success. 

We help businesses optimize their websites and show up in search. Contact Being Top of Mind. We’re writers, SEO and digital media specialists.

Building your Google Authority with Backlinks

 

Why are backlinks important?

A backlink is a link from one website to another—a “link back” to a site. Search engines like Google use backlinks as a ranking signal because when one website links to another, it means they believe the content is noteworthy. 

It’s all part of building Google authority

Remember that old thing about the more times your name appears in the online space, the more likely you’ll show up in search? While that has certainly evolved, the basic premise remains true. High-quality backlinks help increase your site’s ranking and visibility in search engine results.

How do backlinks work?

Backlinks play an important role in search engine algorithm, SEO, and your overall strategy for growing your website’s traffic. Think of backlinks as conversations between websites. Let’s say that Olivia is a landscape designer who writes about winter gardening in her popular blog. Michael is a master gardener who owns a nursery and has a blog with a large following. He links to Olivia’s article on his blog. 

Because both of these blogs have large followings and authority, others will link back to these articles. This is how backlinks are built. These are the third-party links that you want—not the one-on-one links where you and I trade links. 

There are two types of backlinks

• A Nofollow tag tells search engines to ignore a link. They don’t pass any value from one site to another. These links will not improve your search rank or visibility.
• Dofollow links are what we all want. They come from respected sites, hold the most value and will improve your search engine (Google) rankings. A link from The New York Times has significantly more value than a link from your small community paper. 

Building backlinks to your site takes time and effort. If someone promises to help you show up on page one of Google, be suspicious. It doesn’t just happen. 

Here are five ways to start building quality backlinks for your website

1.     Add links back to your site from your social media profiles.

2.     Do a Google search for a post that’s already ranking well and then improve and expand it.

3.     Create list posts, “how-to” posts, “why” posts, infographics, or posts with embedded videos. These formats usually get more backlinks than standard posts.

4.     Write guides or how-to articles–comprehensive posts containing several thousand words.

5.     Look for guest posts on other blogs and websites. Opportunities are numerous. Every company providing products and services has a website. They generally have a blog because they need content, and they’re happy to have guest posts. They generally require at least 1,500 words and have stringent requirements. To find these opportunities, Google your industry, then something like “guest post opportunities” or “write guest posts”, etc. This is a project, not a one-off. It’s time-consuming and takes a commitment. There’s a big difference between a 1,500-2,000-word and a 500-word article, but it’s worth the effort.

Questions? Ask me about improving your Google ranking! 

We help businesses optimize their websites and show up in search. Contact Being Top of Mind. We’re writers, SEO and digital media specialists.

What’s the Difference Between a Pillar Page and a Landing Page?

Pillar pages and landing pages have completely different functions, but they can work together to help generate leads and show up organically in search engines.

What is a pillar page?

A pillar page, or content pillar, is part of a larger pillar-page strategy that provides in-depth coverage of a topic. The pillar page strategy is supported by subpages and blogs that provide relevant information on the same topic. It’s hierarchical, with all content rolling up to the main pillar page topic. Search engine crawlers prioritize websites with this kind of topic-organized content. It can help you rank for important inquiries. 

What is pillar page SEO? 

Pillar page SEO means identifying keywords you want to rank for and using these throughout your pillar page strategy. This is what it’s all about. Use those keywords in your headings, subheads and other text. Be sure to assign H1 and H2 tags to these headings. Be consistent—use these words throughout all of your online accounts.

Landing pages focus on a single topic: Lead generation

Unlike pillar pages that provide comprehensive coverage of a single topic, good landing pages can focus on a single objective—lead generation. A landing page is a dedicated page on a website that you land on directly from an external source such as a paid ad or email. It’s highly targeted, persuasive in nature, designed to connect with a predetermined audience. Landing pages can be constructed for SEO purposes to capture organic search traffic. They can also be used with paid advertising through search engines or social media.

Landing pages in a marketing campaign

Landing pages are usually accessed by a link from a paid ad or email. Traffic from paid ads has high commercial intent and is usually ready to complete an action. The page must be ready to fulfill that need. 

A landing page should be providing:

• A unique proposition. Define what makes your product so appealing and enticing. Why should the user take action? Use the proposition in the headline to gain attention and encourage the user to read the supporting copy. Follow best practices for writing headlines and subheads. Short, crisp, attention-getting headers. Easy to read fonts. Use an image that’s descriptive, one that helps define your further your proposition. 

Just one thing. Make sure you’re promoting one thing. I see this a lot. It quickly becomes confusing and dilutes your messaging. Make sure you’re promoting one product or one service.

• Call to Action (CTA). The most important part of the page. Make your CTA button obvious and stand out. Include a CTA above the fold and repeat at the bottom of the page. 
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• Benefits of the offer. Don’t sell features, sell benefits. How will this make the user feel? How will it make their lives or jobs easier, save them money, etc. There must be a visceral appeal.
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• Social proof. Word of mouth and social approval offer trust. People are risk-averse and reviews are now a fact of life. None of us makes a purchase these days without reading the reviews. We’re reassured by others’ positive experiences.

Can a home page be a landing page? 

Theoretically, your homepage is a landing page. But it has too many functions to be focused on landing page conversion. The home page usually exists as the portal, enabling a user to navigate to other pages. Despite the trend toward minimizing navigation, I don’t get it. Why make it difficult for users to find what they’re looking for? 

Unlike your homepage, a landing page is designed to convert visitors into leads. Landing pages are the gatekeepers to your most valuable content offers. Landing pages map to the sales funnel. 

• Awareness
• Discovery
• Evaluation
• Intent
• Action
• Loyalty

Aside from delivering on the promise and intent of the query, the organic landing page must also make the brand and offer clear. 

Ask us about how a pillar-page strategy and landing pages work together to help improve your ranking in search engines. Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing specialists.  

Is Local SEO Free?

The answer: Local SEO can be free if you stick to Google applications

There are hundreds of SEO applications that promise they’ll help you get better rankings, more customers and more revenue. Some of these apps are free; many offer a free trial with a fairly hefty financial commitment when that trial ends. Do your research, but if you stick with Google’s suite of SEO applications, SEO can be free.  

Local SEO strategy

It’s up to you to do some research and decide which application(s) best meets your needs. Most of us don’t have the bandwidth or budget to manage our clients, our lives and also be ramping up to multiple applications—there’s always a learning curve. Choose one or two apps that will deliver the most functionality. Read reviews and check with friends and colleagues who may be using these apps. 

To start with: You may want to invest in a website checker—an app that will scan your site and identify issues that are impeding good SEO—missing H tags on headings, broken links, missing alt descriptions on your images and even unique metadescriptions for each page. These are the things that your web guy isn’t going to do. Small things, yes, but collectively these add up. 

Best local SEO tools

While Google makes us all crazy, it does offer powerful free tools. This is not out of a spirit of generosity; rather, we need these tools if we’re going to be doing Google ads—that uber-lucrative business from which Google rakes in an estimated $100K/day. 

You’ll find that the big enterprise SEO apps get expensive--Moz, HubSpot, SemRush, Ahrefs, etc. These applications are excellent, with great customer support. 

Can I do SEO for free?

Yes. You can go a long ways toward managing SEO, including online ads, with Google’s free suite of tools. The following list includes descriptions of Google’s tools. 

Local SEO for small businesses

·      Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool lets you can track page speed on both mobile and desktop devices. Page speed is fundamental. If your site takes too long to load, you’ll lose your audience and everything else is irrelevant.

·      Google Analytics monitors activity and data. This is all the data you need about your site--tracking traffic, drilldown and conversions. 

·      Google Keyword Planner. Conduct keyword research that’s fundamental to your content marketing strategy. Google’s keyword planner may be the best, consistent SEO keyword tool for both beginners and experts. Other apps provide this service, but they come with a pricetag. Frankly, Google owns the search space. It makes sense to be using its keyword tools.

·      Google Business Profile. A recent article suggested that one of the very best things you can do for SEO is to get reviews on your GBP. Reach out to current and former clients and colleagues and ask them to give you a review—make it easy and send them a link. Anyone can access your GBP from Google’s apps—Google Maps, etc. Keep this page updated with new business information; upload blogs and images. You really want to be taking advantage of Google’s free tools.

·      Google Search Console. This Google tool gives users a snapshot of their site's performance, including organic search traffic, link data, and issues impacting the site’s performance. While any marketer can benefit from using it, this tool is really for those who are SEOs—those who are dedicated to improving search results. Which, really, should be all of us. Why have a website if you don’t want people to find it?

·      Google Trends. Another free Google tool. How to use this one? Use Trend Predictions. This can be a simple way to help with your keyword research. Google has added forecasting and trend data for existing keywords to the Google Trends tool. If your keyword is expected to k in the next few months to a year, go for it and target that keyword. A good example: Let’s say you’re writing a blog post on “baking croissants.” If you’re using the pillar/cluster model for content (which we are), you can use the related queries section in Google Trends to generate ideas for cluster topics. I’ve just started to use this app. 

“Can I do SEO for free?” When this question comes up, the answer is “yes”. Google owns the search space. Using its search tools makes a lot of sense—that they’re all free is a very nice feature. Contact Top of Mind Marketing to evaluate and build your SEO strategy.  

What If You Could Rank on Google Without Doing Ads?

What are online advertising platforms?

Online advertising has exploded. If you read any article about marketing these days, there’s just an assumption that you’re doing online ads. Google is raking in an estimated $100M/day from this business alone. Amazon’s right up there, helping Jeff Bezos finance his next trip to the great beyond. 

We advertise on Facebook and Linkedin, on Twitter and Instagram

Every business with an online platform is offering advertising opportunities. But online ads, (pay-per-click or PPC) are a bit of an art form. You can’t create an ad and expect it to just perform for you. You’ve got to test, monitor, make adjustments and swap it out to keep it fresh. Like a twelve-step program, it works if you work it. My experience is that many people launch their ad campaigns and assume that they’re going to be driving lots of new traffic to their websites and ultimately, new clients. Unfortunately, if you’re not committing to managing your PPC campaign, you’re likely wasting your marketing dollars.

It's hard to rank organically on Google 

It’s increasingly difficult to rank organically, which means it’s hard to show up on page one of a Google search without paying for ads. Take a look at a search results page and you’ll see that the results all say “Ad” next to them. Someone’s paying (a lot) to rank on the first or even second page of Google or other search engines. 

But what if you could rank high on Google without having to do PPC ads? 

I’ve been using some new software that’s based on creating content that matches the high-ranking search terms/keywords that people are keying into a Google search. For someone like me, for whom writing is easy, I can write a blog exactly matching those keyword phrases in my titles. These show up in my website’s information bar and Google recognizes these titles as part of its content indexing process. I use other highly ranked keyword phrases in my headlines and subheads and assign “H” tags to them, which Google also looks for.

This software, DemandJump, is giving me a blueprint—or think of these as breadcrumbs--for how to show up in search. The information is cumulative, of course, but I’ve been using this for a month or so, and I’m starting to see the results. I’m getting calls from people who saw me in a Google search. Happy. 

DemandJump’s content is based on a pillar strategy

DemandJump is based on creating a content hierarchy. At the top of every content pillar is a 3,000-word pillar page—this is an exhaustive overview of your business. Your individual landing pages roll up to your main pillar page. Blogs roll up to landing pages. It’s a hierarchy--layered, interconnected webs of content. Everything is connected, with links among pages and topics to keep the user engaged.

I love this application! Interested in DemandJump? Give Top of Mind Marketing a call and let’s talk about how this might work for your business. 

 

Case Study: Web Referrals Increase by 50%

Sometimes we forget how effective case studies can be

Rather than just telling your audience what you do, case studies are opportunities to actually demonstrate your ability to effect change, to showcase your expertise, to document how you’ve successfully helped your clients increase revenue.

An audit to understand marketing effectiveness                       

I’ve been working with one client for seven years. When we began working together, I did an audit to understand how they were spending their marketing dollars and how effective that investment was. They had a website and a presence on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, but posts were sporadic and haphazard. The person who had been writing blogs was neither local nor generating content that was relevant to their Bay Area clients. A monthly newsletter wasn’t showcasing their range of services.

Blogs became the workhorse of their content marketing program

My immediate goal was to improve the quality of their weekly blogs, which became the workhorse of our content marketing program. Well-written blogs accomplish a few things. They provide fresh content for your website and increase your SEO value, helping it rank in search engines. A blog is also an opportunity for you to share your expertise and position yourself as a thought leader. It doesn’t stop there. Your blog can be repurposed in your monthly newsletter. Excerpts can be used in social media posts. Add a link back to your website to drive traffic to your site. 

Increased web referrals by 50%

Over the course of the next year or so, our metrics showed that our steady efforts were paying off. Our website referrals increased by 50%. Since then, we’ve created a brand new website and rewritten the content, but we’ve continued to stick with our quality blogs, social media posts and monthly newsletter. 

Things that I do to help raise SEO value and clickthrough rates

• Create crisp, attention-getting subject lines for blogs and newsletters
• Identify and deploy keywords/phrases liberally throughout all content. 
• Write consistently high-quality content. 

What we’re doing during the coronavirus lockdown

This client has closed down one office, has most of his team working virtually and is expanding to new locations. Staying nimble and making critical business decisions as the economic landscape shifts is not something everyone can do. One thing I’ve always admired about this client is his ability to make decisions. No tortured conversations or looking back with regret. 

We’re also rebranding

We’re developing a new logo, which means new marketing collateral and a new website. In the virtual world that is the new norm—at least for the foreseeable future–we’re rethinking the way we’re perceived in the marketplace and the value we bring to our clients. Like every business owner these days, we’re identifying the pain point. When you break it down, it’s nearly always that simple. What is the problem that we can solve?

Now is the perfect time to work on your marketing! 

Is it time for a new or updated website or an expanded content marketing program? Contact us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

Single-Page Website: The Right Strategy for Your Business?

I’m working with a client who has a new business that he wants to promote. It’s related to his existing business, but we decided to brand, launch and market this as a standalone entity. We also decided that a one-page website was the perfect solution for his online presence—at least for now. 

Is a one-page website right for you?

How does a single page site work? It’s simple. There’s no clicking. Ever. No complex navigation schematic or buttons. Everything lives on one page. All you do is scroll. 

There’s lots to love about single-page websites

• Professional-looking sites; can be built in a matter of hours; they’re easily updated.
• High conversion rates—no distractions!
• Fall within mobile-friendly guidelines, look great across all browsing devices.
• Ideal for those who need a quick site for a promotion–a pop-up event or store. 
• Perfect solution for an artist, for instance, who might be doing a gallery showing. User lands on the site and simply scrolls down the page. 
• Call out contact information on the header and footer, plenty of room for featured information. 
• Ideal way to set up landing page for a campaign.  A single-page site lets you create messaging and efficiently run A/B tests.

Ideal for users accessing information on mobile devices

Another thing that makes this model attractive is that with an increasing number of users accessing information via mobile rather than their desktop computers, information delivery has been reengineered from a formal dropdown schematic with drilldown to one that is less structured and relies on scrolling. A single-page site fits perfectly into this design model.

Drawbacks? You’re missing out on search engine optimization opportunities (SEO)

Single-page websites are designed around a central topic or theme—a keyword–so single-page websites can only target that single phrase. Multipage websites have more chances of ranking higher in search because they’re optimized for more keywords.

Something else to think about: We’re on a site to find more information

On a single-page website, it’s generally hard to find specific, comprehensive content–there isn’t space to create a separate page for each topic. It can be frustrating to land on a site and find a couple of sentences that really don’t provide enough details to answer our questions. For a single-page site, you really need to think about key messaging, then minimize everything else. 

Include a strong call to action

On the other hand, with single-page sites, there’s nowhere for the user to get distracted — every part of the page leads them toward a conversion point, driving more leads and business. 

The right tool for the job: Single-page design deserves a place at the table 

While single-page design won’t take over the future of web design, it likely will continue to be included in web development conversations because it fulfills a genuine need. 

Do you have a business or product launch that would be a good fit for a one-page website? Contact Top of Mind Marketing about a one-page website for your business. We’re writers and content marketing experts.