Best Free SEO Tools

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

There are hundreds if not thousands of Search Engine Optimization (Best Free SEO Tools) you can use. And they can get pretty pricey if you’re not careful so you need to be picky which ones you pay for and which ones you use a free version instead.

Thankfully there are tons of free ways you can check different SEO attributes and rankings which can save you both time and money. Here are some of our favourites at Rad websites.

1) Small SEO Tools (Free)

This site is one of the best Free SEO Tools out there because it has all types of free tools you can use in order to do keyword research, site analysis and even check your competition. A part from Google’s own tools, this is probably the best you can get without entering in your credit card information. While you can’t go as deep as some of the paid tools, Small SEO Tools is great for people who want to be able to fix some of the more common SEO issues without spending a ton of time and effort.

How To Use This Tool

Enter your website into any of the offered tools but I would recommend start with the SEO website checker, especially if you’re looking for some quick SEO wins. This tool will give you an idea of how you score and how you stack up against your competition. You can then dive deeper using some of the other tools.

2) Google Analytics (Free)

This is the tool you must definitely use on a weekly basis, even if you don’t really care about SEO. Google Analytics tracks all your traffic to your website and you can analysis which marketing channels are working and which aren’t. You can see what pages your clients are most gravitating towards and which ones need improvements.

How to Use This Tool

You need to sign in to your Analytics account to start using this tool. Once you have added your website, navigate to the Tracking code under the property column and copy the code. Paste the tracking code in your SEO plugin. We recommend either Yoast or All In One SEO.

You should get verification that you’ve done this correctly. It will take a little time to get used to navigating Google Analytics as there are so many different options and customizable features but once you do, you’ll see the power of it.

3) Google PageSpeed Insights (Free)

Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool that checks the speed of your site and provides suggestions to how to improve it. Page loading speed is one of the most important elements of a website. Better site speed leads to increased user satisfaction and higher rankings.

How to Use This Tool

Enter your website URL, click the “analyze” button, and the tool will automatically check the speed and overall user experience of your site and provide a score – for both desktop and mobile. You need to opt for a score above 90 to offer your users a better site experience and to increase your chances of ranking higher in the search results.

4) Google Search Console (Free)

Formally Google Webmaster, this is yet another Google tool that allows you to search for errors on your website that could potentially harm your SEO score. Primarily it allows you to check and submit a sitemap which is the overall architecture that Google views your site in.

How To Use This Tool

You’ll have to sign into your Google Search Console or create a new account if you don’t have one already. Once you are in you’re account you’ll have to attach it to your website. You can do this in a variety of ways including through domain access, your website code or a website plugin. Once you have hooked your website up, you’ll able to navigate with the bar on the left-hand site which will give you a variety of options.

5) Mobile-Friendly Test (Free)

Mobile-Friendly Test is a free tool that lets you check the responsiveness of your website on a mobile device. With Google’s emphasis on mobile-first search queries on mobile devices are at least 50% in your industry — and in many cases more. Therefore it’s important to optimize your site for mobile devices.

How to Use This Tool

Enter the URL of the site that you wish to test and then click the “run test” button. In just a few seconds, you will know if your website is mobile-friendly or not.

6) Ahrefs Backlink Checker (Freemium)

Ahrefs offers a free back-link checker that allows you to check the top 100 links pointing to any website. Back-links are important because they are one of the ways Google checks to see how popular your website is and whether the website provides useful information.

How to Use This Tool

Enter the URL that you want to analyze and the tool will not only show you your domain rating score.

7) Keyword.io (Free)

Keyword research is undoubtedly one of the most fundamental tasks that every SEO specialist needs to perform, but researching is a time-consuming process without access to the best tools. Keyword.io is an easy and free alternative to Google’s Keyword Planner and it offers lots of relevant keyword suggestions for every type of research.

How to Use This Tool

Enter your main keyword in the search box, click on the desired search engine or platform, and then select the targeted country from the drop-down list. Once you press search, a variety of options will appear.

8) Moz Local (Free)

Moz has a free tool called Moz Local which is great for local businesses that want to be found within a particular neighborhood. Moz Local offers a comprehensive view of a website’s profile and web presence. By analyzing the most popular online directory’s, it gives a score on how well you rank and where you can improve. A great thing about this tool is that you don’t need a paid Moz account in order to use it.

How to Use This Tool

Enter the company’s name and street address and click search. It will take up to 30 seconds to analyze and will display where that company is indexed and where you could add it for improved search results. It is particularly useful to create links from sites like Yelp, Facebook, and Foursquare which will increase your domain authority.

So, these are the best free SEO Tools, that you can use and get better website ranking on Search Engines. If you need our SEO Experts Help, Feel free to Contact Us.

4 SEO Myths Hurting Your Business

by Marketing Strategy TipsSEO Tips

Search Engine Optimization is a fast-changing field that is constantly moving and shifting as Google keeps changing the rules about how they operate. Part of the problem is that Google doesn’t tell us exactly what those changes are as they protect their algorithms are top secret.
Because of this, there is a lot of misinformation surrounding SEO and how to best make it on the first page of Google. Here are a 4 of the most common myths that we’d like to dispel.

How To Easily Do An SEO Audit

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

In this blog post, we’re going to show you how to do an SEO audit.

If you’re like a lot of businesses out there, you’re probably not getting the traction to your website that you want. You have a great-looking website, you have a great product or service yet you aren’t getting enough sales. What went wrong?

Well the first thing you need to do perform an SEO audit to see where you stand and what improvements need to be made.

What Is An SEO Audit?

As a business owner, you should know what a SEO Audit is, and why it is crucial for your online presence. You need to identify issues that could and would prevent your website from being ranked on any search engines.

SEO Audits gives you a precise and detailed perception that gives you an overview of your site’s online presence. Ignoring these identifying issues, and your efforts will be in vain.

In other words,  your hard work will be paid off once you regularly audit your site. Also, this will make sure it’s properly crawled and indexed.

Pro tip: To make your content stand out, discerning content-related issues, indexing, proper use of backlink analysis, learning site architecture, and social media engagement are important factors to use in your internet marketing.

These components when understood and practiced will be important in helping you to identify strengths, weaknesses, and your website’s potential in gaining traction online.

Keep in mind that when you lose out all on the traffic, your possible sales will go down the drain. Quite the opposite when you regularly audit your website.

SEO Tool List

So how does SEO Audit procedure go? Here are tools you need to know:

  1. Moz Site Audit Tool
  2. Google Analytics
  3. Google Search Console
  4. Google Page Speed Insight

Starting The SEO Audit

The Crawl: This procedure is so important that you need to run it first before you do the other steps. Why is this important? Because this is where you identify your website’s problems, i.e., duplicate contents, low word count, unlinked pagination pages, excess redirects.

Moz Site Audit Tool

  1. Go to the tool and open application.
  2. On the top right of the screen, click new site audit.
  3. Create new project.
  4. Then enter your domain name followed by your project name.

With the exception of the limited checked pages, there is no need to edit any settings. However, if the need arises, remove URL parameters, bypass restrictions, or allow or disallow some URLs.

  1. On Page SEO Score.
  2. Organic Monthly Traffic.
  3. Organic Keywords.
  4. Backlinks.

As you scroll down the page, ‘Top SEO Issues’ will appear. Click on any of the URL for more information on your website’s issues. This way, you can review the pages; decide whether you need additional content. It’s crucial that you’ll have an insight on how Googlebot is crawling your site. You’ll know when your site is ranking well by manually searching your site.

Other Aspects To Check

When looking for relevant search results, how many of your pages pop up after? Do they come up first in the list when searching your site? Do you see your site in the list of end results when giving assessments?

Keep in mind though that despite your page’s not being at the top rank, it doesn’t mean that your page is uncrawlable, it only suggests that you need to realize the problem and what needs to be done.

You need to do this procedure in order to know if your page’s variation is in the right arrangement, in combination with duplicates. How do you do this? Go to Google and run a “site:domain.com.”

This will list indexed URLs for your domain. If you have mix site versions, then you potentially need to addressed to it. It’s important to run site search in order to have a preview of any used subdomains.

Checking your site’s indexed URLs is another procedure, it’s like running the same procedure as the above. You’ll be surprised to see a few pages Google has indexed after doing this.

Are these the results that you expect after a search? Then if not, there’s an issue that needs to be fixed. (The main culprit is usually the faceted navigation needs to be indexed). However, if it’s less than what you expected, your site then is being crawled or indexed.

How To Use Search Console

Seeing a drop in your site’s ranking or failing to rank high as it should be is anticipated once your site has violated Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines; this is where Manual Penalty comes in. If your brand does not rank then your site will be deindexed.

You can avoid this by checking in to see whether a manual action has been issued against your site by using the Search Console; look for:

  1. “Security and Manual Actions” tab down the left-hand side of the menu;
  2. Look for the manual actions link.
  3. Click, then you will be directed to your status.

You can relax if you see the result with a green check. On the other hand, if an issue appears in a list, then you need a Manual Actions Report.

It has been an important factor for Mobile Ranking for a long time. Remember that User Experience is prevalent in SEO success so site speed is important.

In fact, data shows that if there’s a significant bouncing from a user, this increases a slower page load. The faster the page loads, the better result from SEO and UX perspectives. Use SEMrush Site Audit report to see load time statistics and list of highlighted errors.

SEO Audits and SSL Certificates

Implementing an SSL certificate is important if your site runs on HTTP. Once you run https://www.domain.com in your browser and see that your site remains on the HTTP protocol you can relax and head on to the next step. On the other hand, you need to address this issue if you are redirected to an HTTP version.

Make sure to keep up with the trend of having a mobile-friendly site. UX is a must if you expect to reach the top. You can check this on Search Console, look for Enhancements tab in the Mobile Usability section for any issues.

SEO Audits and Indexation Issues

How to analyze and resolve indexation issues? You will see valid pages or ones that have warning, plus, excluded pages as well as coverage errors, if you go to the index tab of the Coverage page in Google Search Console.

Prevention of site from being crawled and indexed is expected if there are underlying issues. Address this ASAP! Underlying common errors include:

  1. Pages that have a noindex attribute and that are submitted in a sitemap.
  2. Pages blocked from being crawled in your robots.txt file but that are included in a sitemap.
  3. 404 pages submitted in a sitemap.

Excluded URLs are pages that are not currently in Google’s index. This includes:

  1. Pages excluded with a noindex attribute
  2. Pages that redirect
  3. Crawl anomalies
  4. Canonicalization issues
  5. Pages that are crawled but not indexed
  6. Not found (404) errors
  7. Pages blocked by your robots.txt file

Deeply analyze the report and only clean the areas of concern. Of course, these reports don’t need to always be cleaned up. Usually, there are specific reasons these exclusions happen, i.e., due to site migrations. Those are the best moment to clean those reports.

Page user experience is the main goal in Google’s future objectives. A combination of Core Web Vitals signals with Google’s for a better Search ranking which gives better metrics for page user experience is a feat.

Other Tips to Improve your SEO Audits

Be a social media butterfly. Use social media as your tool for your SEO efforts. Let the dynamics of this platform be a conduit for consistent backlinks and engagement. It has the power to increase the number of your backlinks.

Those who follow your content might be more likely to link to it. This increases your brand awareness through queries about your brand. Also, let us not forget the “mentions” and “tags” that social media can offer to your brand.

As we take everything into account, we have touched on some techniques on how to do SEO Audit. We have given tools and procedures on how to fix issues and deal with it to keep your site up to its rank.

Final Thoughts

Always bear in mind that search engine algorithms, best practices, market trends, and most especially your competitors are always keeping track. So make it a habit to keep your site up to date; address issues immediately after audit. Eliminate duplicates. Monitor your site analytics, and make sure you’re engaging in any social media platforms.

The more your presence you have in social media, the further you’ll push your relevant search terms. Be consistent, and your SEO ranking will soon reach the peak of success.

How To Build Quality Backlinks with Infographs

by SEO Tips

It’s no secret that in the age of social media infographics are popular. Chances are you see at least a dozen a week, more if you’re spending significant time on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Many popular websites use infographics to quickly get information across to their readers and they often go viral on social media. More importantly, a good infographic can help you build quality backlinks and enhance your website’s SEO.

Why Is AJ Frey So Sure About Your Website’s Success? 

by Ecommerce TipsMarketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO TipsWordPress Tips

Why Is AJ Frey So Sure About Your Website’s Success? 

On his website he’s described as handsome, debonair, suave, charming and a technology-lover who also loves Ghostbusters, StarWars and cheesy 80’s TV. You may disagree with all of the above–after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or the buyer, according to AJ Frey.

However, one truth that is undeniable is that AJ Frey is an incredibly brilliant Search Engine Optimization specialist aka SEO expert, who hates pay per click. Thought that would get your attention! It is no secret that AJ Frey has a sense of humour.

But when it comes to his clients and helping them to achieve website’s success, he will do whatever it takes to position your product or service on page one. AJ Frey is the owner of Best SEO in Canada.

He Offers a comprehensive range of SEO services, dedicated to driving traffic that meets your lead, acquisition, or sales objectives.

But why Is AJ Frey So Sure About Your Website’s Success? Because success leaves clues. What he has done for others he will do for you. Let’s look at some of what he’s done for others and for himself to make it to page one on Google’s search engine: 

1. Experience and Process for SEO Delivery

When it comes to SEO these days, anyone with a laptop, access to the Internet and a WordPress-installed blog can boast of being an SEO expert After all, YOAST plug-in is the #1 WordPress SEO plugin, and is available on all WordPress sites.  

What you won’t see behind those claims, however, is the experience and process they take to deliver results. This is fundamental, and something you should watch out for. When a so-called SEO expert is offering his or her service, the first thing you should do is visit his/her website.

Next, do a simple search in Google to see if they show up on the search engine’s organic positions. If they don’t, it means they have little to no experience, nor have they implemented whatever SEO strategy they are claiming to deliver. How can you give what you don’t have?

Therefore, a fundamental characteristic of great SEO experts is that they have experience implementing SEO for themselves first. In addition, they should have a process, showing you how they intend to make your website a success:

2. Thought Leadership 

SEO is always evolving, as you no doubt have seen with the genesis of BERT–Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), which is another attempt by Google to improve their natural language processing in order to better understand the search queries of their end users.

And if you’re just returning to the planet and have no idea what I’m talking about, check out this article (link to: What is the Best Word Count for SEO in Canada?). 

This is Google’s last major update. However, in one year alone, Google made upwards of 3,200 updates to its search engine algorithms. How can you be expected to keep tabs of all these updates while focusing on managing your business?

You need thought-leadership, and that’s another characteristic of great SEO experts. They must know what is happening in the industry and are able to adjust accordingly. Ensure they’re keeping up with these ever evolving SEO best practices and are sharing tips to help your business adjust for maximum impact.

3. An Outstanding Portfolio

Experts aren’t born, they’re created. Becoming an SEO expert overnight is impossible.

In order to be an SEO expert, you have to put in a lot of work and dedication. Experts study a lot and practice a lot. This gives them impressive portfolios which every SEO expert wants to show off.

Who wouldn’t toot his own horn? In the world of SEO the louder the horn the better. When an SEO expert works with a client to put his/her website on Google’s page one, this gives him/her a feeling of great pride and accomplishment.

And they should feel proud of their accomplishments. Getting on Google’s page one is hard work! Naturally, they are going to publicise this great feat by posting it on their websites. 

This is good for you. This is your opportunity to scroll through their portfolio to see the kind of work they have done and are doing. You will also get to see the calibre clients with whom they work to determine if you, too, would want to be in that “club”. 

As an SEO expert, AJ Frey is no exception in wanting to highlight his outstanding portfolio. Here you can peruse some of the work he has done for clients just like you. 

4. Real Life Testimonials

Naturally, if an SEO expert has a portfolio, it means he/she has clients. What do satisfied clients do? They give testimonials. So not only do SEO experts toot their own horns, but their clients toot louder.

Developing winning SEO strategies, managing their implementation, and guiding teams on their execution to generate results is not easy. When an SEO Expert does all this hard work and gets those fantastic results, their clients reward them with testimonials, having gotten value for their money. 

Thus, sharing real-life testimonials is a characteristic you’ll find with most great SEO experts like AJ Frey. 

5. We’re a Team of Creatives

When you hire AJ Frey you’re not just getting the most brilliant SEO expert on the planet, you’re getting his team — an eclectic group of creatives with various backgrounds, who manage to work together with our clients to plan out and implement an extensive strategy to boost your website in the Google rankings.

10 years ago a crack squad SEO unit was sent to prison by a Google court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped a maximum security stockade, changed their SEO strategy, and went underground.

Today still wanted by the search engines they survive as web designers and SEO specialists. By bringing together a team of the very best SEO experts in Canada with specialties in site optimization, mobile UX, link building, analytics and SEO content, AJ Frey is sure about your website’s success. 

AJ Frey doesn’t only talk the talk, but he walks the walk. He specialises in helping anyone (small businesses, large enterprise businesses and everything in between)boost their online presence and get found on not only Google, but all major search engines across the world – not only in Canada.That’s a recipe for success–your success!

6. Only SEO-optimised Content Marketing

And that’s not all!

AJ Frey, through his evolving proven whitehat secret recipe generates millions of organic SEO traffic to his clients’ blogs and websites–all done organically. I.e. no Instagram and Facebook Ads.

Only SEO-optimised content marketing. It is for this reason that many small and large businesses trust AJ Frey to deliver SEO strategies that put them on Google’s page one. 

7. 5-star Ratings 

Still don’t see why AJ Frey is so sure about your website’s success? How about this: Across several review sites, including this one, this SEO expert’s team of creatives’ expertise and penchant for perfection have seen them receive 5-star ratings from happy customers. 

8. King of Backlinks 

At the beginning of  the article we mentioned BERT–Google’s AI that interprets data on a page and delivers meaningful search results for your keyword search.

One of the algorithms BERT interprets is the number of backlinks pointing to web pages and websites on a whole.  The more backlinks, the more BERT sees your site as authoritative.

However, due to its “intelligence”, Google’s search engine cannot be fooled by many backlinks that are from dummy sites, or sites with irrelevant information–though many have tried.

When it comes to acquiring backlinks, AJ Frey comes highly recommended as the king of backlinks.

He will help you to generate high-value backlinks, ensuring search engines interpret your website as important and rank it above those of your competitors for keyword searches. This is another reason AJ Frey is so sure about your website’s success. 

When you sign up for one of AJ Frey’s SEO packages you receive expert consultations, market and keyword research, search engine webmaster tools setup, and a myriad of other tools that will aid in the success of your website. 

Whether or not you own an ecommerce website, or maybe you just have a simple landing page, but you want it to be on Google’s page one for your keyword search, you need a team of creatives who are passionate about organic traffic and SEO white hat best practices.

You need AJ Frey–who is sure about your website’s success. 

What to Expect from The Best SEO in Canada

1. Onboarding and Project Management

We value your business. We understand how important your website is to you. In order to assist you to reach your goal(s), we will assign a project manager to handle your account. He/She will need access to some of your assets. 

Depending on the scope of work, this could mean anything from access to your website/blog, your Google Analytics login info, your in-house staff, etc. This is why an onboarding process is important.

From this exercise, the project manager will be able to advise concerning the management of your project. I.e. how long the process will take, what is the full scope of the project, etc. 

2. Strategy session 

Of course, before your project manager proceeds with the onboarding process, a strategy session is organised. Your decision to work with AJ Frey, an SEO expert, came from the desire to rank high on Google’s search engine.

Or, it may be that you are seeking to generate more traffic to your site. Whatever the reason, you’re here for results. You have heard that AJ Frey can make your business successful, and trial and error is costly. 

We know that no two businesses are alike, therefore, the SEO strategies that work for one may not work for the other. Great SEO experts like AJ Frey, from experience working with different businesses, know this.

Thus, we do not simply take your information and send you proposals. Instead, and in order to help you, we allow you to share your unique needs and business case during our strategy session.

3. Research and Recommendations

After sharing your needs and business case with our SEO expert during our strategy session, your information is then used to conduct in-depth research. This is done in order to gain insights into your industry and your target audience. 

Once done, our SEO expert will share the results of the research, and offer recommendations based on the findings, in order for your website to be successful.

We use all the available digital channels available to you, including telephone, email and video conferencing. 

4. A Contract Detailing the Deliverables

So far, you’ve had several “meetings” with our SEO expert, and no mention yet of a contract. We believe in value for money and putting our money where our mouth is.

So, we will only offer a contract for your acceptance, after our strategy sessions, which includes a digital project kickoff meeting with your team (onboarding) and platform specific optmsation consultations (See numbers 2 & 3 above).

If our strategy session and follow-up discussions with our SEO expert looks like a good fit for the exchange of mutual value, then and only then you’ll receive our contract for your business.

Not only that, but our brilliant SEO expert won’t just send you a contract, but you’ll receive the contract detailing our deliverables–what we’ll deliver, how we’ll deliver and when you should start expecting results.

AJ and SEO  

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not a one-size fits all, fly-by-night strategy implemented by black hat SEO “experts”. SEO takes time before its results become apparent.

Any SEO “expert” who tells you he/she can produce overnight success is clueless about SEO strategies, or is practising black hat techniques–which will find your website being penalised by Google for illegal practices.

The minimum time on average for any signs of improvement is approximately 3 months. It could be sooner, but we do not make wild promises. We prefer to be conservative, and work hard at fulfilling our obligations. 

AJ Frey is an incredibly brilliant Search Engine Optimisation specialist aka SEO expert, who hates pay per click. His strategy, which he calls his secret sauce, is a white hat, Google-friendly strategy that is guaranteed to get you positive search results, regardless of the search engine. 

He offers a comprehensive range of SEO services, dedicated to driving traffic that meets your lead, acquisition, or sales objectives. If you give it approximately 3 months, you’ll start seeing results—qualified traffic, leads and sales. 

AJ Frey can do all that was mentioned above and then some. As you have seen from the testimonials, many clients have testified to the success of their websites. If he is able to help make their websites successful, he is sure about your website’s success.

A few words From AJ to You

Hi! I’m AJ Frey, and I would love to hear from you.

If you enjoyed this article and are in need of digital marketing, a cool website, or improving your ranking on the search engines, contact me at 1 250 801 6588, or just leave me a comment in the box below by way of introduction. Your website’s success means business for me!

My team and I will help you build a RAD website that will attract customers through good design, cool integrations and SEO. 

So why is AJ Frey so sure about your website’s success? Because you found him on page one.  If he can do that for himself, imagine, just for a moment, what he can do for you! 

He hates PPC! That’s someone you want in your corner. 

Post COVID Marketing Strategy: A Complete Guide

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

Even for the strongest brands, COVID-19 has had a notable impact on businesses around the world. While some industries experienced a boom – (food delivery services have never been so rampant) – most saw a decline in revenue over the last few months. Unfortunately, we aren’t out of the woodwork yet. With a predicted second wave and the ultimate economic crash from a worldwide shut down, businesses are frantically looking for ways to just keep afloat at best. Then, thinking about marketing post COVID isn’t a farfetched idea.

The first thing business owners look at, usually to cut, is their online and offline marketing strategy. With less revenue running through monthly statements, it seems common sense to cut the expenses of marketing and advertising. That just might backfire, though.

In these uncertain times, there’s no argument that business owners need to adjust their post COVID marketing strategy. The key however, is adjustment- not exclusion- to help keep maximum dollars flowing through. Unsure of where to even start? Check in with us, and we can have a look.

Keep Your Customers (And Prospects) In The Loop

Consumers are looking for stability and timeliness right now. They are fearful and hesitant in many areas of life that are usually the norm, and they are looking to public figures and organizations for answers and consolidation. Open communication between businesses and their customers is not only important for customer relationship management and retention, but also to instill confidence within prospectives.

Keep your customer base informed of what your business is doing to keep safe and well during these times, how you are protecting your employees and any steps you are taking to help the community during COVID-19. Even when most people agree on how annoyed they feel about being constantly bombarded with COVID news, you should take advantage and creating momentum for your marketing post COVID.

Be sure to update your hours on your Google My Business listing if they are modified. Make ensure your online ads demonstrate the same correct information. Use social media and other avenues of communication to keep close with your customer base.

Get Your Business Online- And Thriving!

If your business isn’t online, or is barely on the SERP, you’re likely in trouble. With many retail locations still closed, hours reduced and many consumers still choosing to quarantine, online shopping has skyrocketed over the last few months. (To little surprise, Amazon saw a 26% growth rate in the first quarter alone!)

The people and demand are there. It’s just in a different place, and your marketing post COVID should show them the way to find you. People are still spending money, it’s just online. Consumers are still looking and browsing- in fact, more than usual, out of boredom – so the opportunity for brand awareness and sales is still prominent.

In short, if your business thrives on retail sales , it’s time to move online.

This could mean building an e-comm store from scratch to sell your products, or adjusting your online marketing strategy to get noticed and drive conversions as you would in your physical location.

Service based business? Yeah, those are tougher. Keep in mind though, when quarantine lifts, people are going to resume needing those services. Use this opportunity to generate brand awareness and (if you’re smart about it) offer incentives for pre-booking.

Don’t Stop Running Your PPC Ads

Admittedly, there will be companies that choose to eliminate their PPC ads for budgetary or process driven reasons. But, if you can continue to feasibly run PPC ads- do it! During these times, the fall out of some of your competitors will drive the CPC for your key terms down and shoot you higher on the SERP ranking. People are bored and online, so using your ads to offer sales and incentives can (and does) drive conversions and sales.

Even decreasing your budget, but staying within the Google Ads auction, helps you remain relevant on the algorithm and helps to keep establishing domain authority. Pausing your ads takes you off the map and when you re-enter the market, you start again as somewhat of a newbie.

On average, PPC accounts have seen their ROI go from 31% to 53% post COVID-19.

Re-Evaluate Your Communication Methods

The majority of businesses out there have transitioned at least a portion of their communication to online mediums like social media, blogs and timely website updates. Like we mentioned earlier, if your business has yet to come online- you need to. Like, yesterday. (Even as we are slowly emerging out of COVID-19, the way consumers shop won’t be going back to normal anytime soon.)

Buying is happening online, as is entertainment. Then, you need to communicate with people where they are- which is at home, on the computer.

  • Email marketing open rates soared from 2% to an average of 6% during COVID-19. That’s massive.
  • Social media engagement rates increased by 61%.
  • Messaging across Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp increased by over 50%
  • Twitter experienced 23% more new users during this period.
  • Engagement rates with business accounts increased by 17.5%
  • Users are thriving off one-on-one interaction with users and business accounts alike

If social media and email marketing wasn’t really “your thing”, it has to be now. Even for those who do their part online, you should ideally look at how you’re addressing your consumers.

  • Are you ramping up your posts and communications?
  • The noise is bigger now on social media- so you have to be louder.
  • Are you providing opportunity to converse directly with your consumers?
  • In your narrative, are you keeping consumers up to date regarding COVID-19?

These are questions worth looking at when re-evaluating your communication strategies.

Look Into Offering Payment Plans

It seems a little random, but offering online payment plans for goods and services has helped some of our clients boost conversion rates and direct sales. Money is uncertain for a lot of consumers still, but the demand to buy isn’t.

Teaming up with payment plan providers is a great way to offer your customers easier and less overwhelming purchases during these times. Including payment plans within your offerings has helped many businesses see an average of 12% increases in their conversions and sales.

Signs You Need To Invest In Your SEO

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

As a business owner, you’re juggling a hundred different balls in the air. You’re managing suppliers, customers, staff – the last thing you want to think about is your search engine optimization. After all, it’s difficult, time-consuming, and technical. However, there are probably some signs in your business that you may want to invest some money into search engine optimization.

How Do I Build Domain Authority with a New Site?

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

Working on a new site for it to rank on the first page of Google is no easy feat even for experienced developers who’ve done it countless times before. The scenario is the same, but newly-built business websites have unique needs and challenges to address. Then, the question remains for everybody: How Do I Build Domain Authority with a New Site?

Superb design, fail-proof content strategy, and a handful of marketing campaign ideas – you think you’ve got it all. But no, you haven’t touched the surface just yet. 

The objective of every new site is to rank high on search engine results pages for high-volume and high competition keywords. If you watch some videos that explain how this works, you probably think it’s doable. Yes, it is, but it will take some time. Don’t expect to achieve something overnight. It simply doesn’t work that way. 

A relatively new site comes with inherent disadvantages, including the lack of content history and backlink profile. Having a low domain authority is expected, and every other site out there has gone through this process, too.

The lack of domain authority makes it quite a challenge to keep up with the more established websites in the same niche or industry. But don’t lose hope. The reason why you’re here is that you intend to learn about building domain authority for your new site, and that’s what we’ll talk about for the rest of this blog. 

The Value of Domain Authority

Google does its job by deciding which pages to show first when someone types a search term, say for instance, “how to replace a roofing shingle.” This search returns hundreds of thousands of relevant pages that contain or target the keyword phrase.

Since Google and other search engines genuinely care about convenient user experience, they will rank websites based on content relevance and a cluster of other parameters. This is where the concept of domain authority creeps in. 

You won’t see your new site about roofing products/services on the first page of Google because there are older and more established competitors that rank for the same keywords. But since you are on the bottom, there’s no other way but up. 

Domain authority is never about the metrics. It is not something that the search engines use to rank websites for their SERP. Instead, it is more of a barometer that determines how well your new website is expected to perform against everyone else.

Increasing your site’s domain authority doesn’t affect whatever your competing sites are doing, but it increases your chances of ranking high in the SERPs. 

Ways to Build Domain Authority 

Building domain authority with a new site is an indirect route of increasing its potential of finding its way on the first page of Google. Before you commit to doing the things that we’re about to discuss, you must acknowledge that this will only work with time. In others, there’s a waiting game in place. Be patient, and your website get rewarded eventually. 

1 – Link Building

Google loves link building, and so you must embrace it, too. The rule is simple – have high quality and authority sites link to your website. If you’re successful at that, it creates an impression that those authority sites trust your brand or company.

It may sound cliché, but that is because it works since the search engines notice it right away. If you already did some link building before, be sure to perform a backlink audit. It gives you a clear picture of your backlink profile, including the existence of harmful backlinks. 

Don’t get too excited about link building; we’ve seen a lot of people overdo it. The last thing you want is to damage your website’s reputation by linking to shady sites.

Back in the day, private blogging networks were considered an authority, but that’s no longer the case. Google is quite strict when it comes to the practice of spamming your links. Adding harmful backlinks to your website will do more harm than good on your domain authority score. 

Focus on high authority sites and publications instead. You want to fill up your link building profile with wholesome and relevant links. 

2 – Content Remains King

Content marketing is and will always be the foundation of a website. It’s an indispensable component of building your domain authority. The role of content is to keep the landing page in order while you simultaneously inject new stuff.

Google loves it when you regularly incorporate fresh content that is not only relevant to your niche but something that attracts prospective customers. Furthermore, adding new content provides new opportunities for backlinks and added keywords. 

Don’t fall for automated or spun content to fill some pages of your new site. Everything must be new, original, and unique. Come up with something that Google sees as something that bears no resemblance of published content on the web. 

3 – Social Media Boost

We’re not just talking about creating social media profiles and linking them to your new site.

To successfully build domain authority with a new website, you must up the ante by keeping those social platforms active. Google is on the lookout for social signals, i.e. shares, likes, and retweets of your content. These are invaluable things that Google uses in evaluating both page and domain authorities of new sites. 

Come up with a strategy that will increase social proof of your content. It drives traffic to your pages and will eventually boost your authority score. We don’t have to tell you how crucial social media presence is in terms of driving online traffic. 

Wrapping It Up

The pain of seeing your new website make slow progress must serve as a motivation. Don’t feel bad if your site isn’t on top of Google at the moment; we’ve all been there. As mentioned earlier, it takes time for results to come in, but don’t remain idle. Some people don’t see progress because they lack consistency. Put in the effort and time in building domain authority because it gives you proven results. 

Why It’s Important To Keep SEO Momentum Going

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

It’s a great accomplishment when you reach the first page of Google. You probably have an influx of clients and a boost in revenue. All those blogs, white papers, website links, and digital marketing efforts are finally paying off. You’re successful enough that you don’t have time, or perhaps the will, to market yourself. After all you’re a success so that means you can take your foot off the pedal, right?

WRONG!

Keyword Stuffing Is an SEO Killer

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

Keyword Stuffing Is an SEO Killer (And Here’s Why)

Guys- keyword stuffing kills your SEO.

SEO and keywords go hand in hand. Arguably one of the most important aspects of sound SEO, keywords play an insanely vital role in your search engine placement.

They are the link between what your potential clients are searching for, and when/how thy view your business online.

Singular words, or phrases- keywords help connect search engine users to your online content. Keywords are found everywhere within your online strategy- social media, your website, PPC and even Youtube!

Too little, or the wrong keywords? You may as well be sleeping on the Internet.

With that being said, it would make sense to choose a few top performing keywords and use them everywhere and as much as possible. The more the merrier, right?

And the more anchors you have to your line content from each search, the more you will be seen.

Well, no. Not at all actually. The intelligence of search engines far surpasses shoddy practices like keyword stuffing- among others, like backlink farming, spam ads and duplicate content.

What Is Keyword Stuffing?

Funnily enough, keyword stuffing used to be considered a leading SEO practice.

Loading the same keywords into every area of your online content- both the front and back end – used to gain an unfair rank advantage in search engines. The top SEO experts would stuff the same few keywords in their meta tags, content, backlink anchor text, alt images etc. for simply better SERP rankings.

But even back in the days where it was acceptable, it was still spammy and annoying- but Google and other search engines found it downright devious in a world where transparency and genuineness is heavily demanded online.

You will 100% be penalized for keyword stuffing, but it doesn’t mean that content curators out there don’t do still do it for rankings until they are caught.

Why Does Keyword Stuffing Kill Your SEO?

The minute Google noticed the amount of keyword stuffing going on out there, they were quick to crack down and implement strict guidelines on how repetitive you could actually get when curating content.

Seriously, they wrote an article about it.

And why goes Google care so much about keyword stuffing? The answer to that lies in the user experience. Google wants to uphold themselves as the search engine that delivers valid and helpful answers- if they can’t, people will just use other sources.

To increase the quality of each searchers experience, Google updated their algorithm to scan and point out keyword stuffing. If you’re manipulating your SERP rankings, rather than earning it, your content will be penalized.

And really, it’s not all about Google and SERP rankings. Don’t forget, actual humans read your content- and it’s them that will be the true qualified leads and sales. Keyword stuffing can never sound natural, and it will never sound genuine. To the average human, it will read as robotic and repetitive and that’s bad online marketing all around.

How Do I Know If I’m Keyword Stuffing?

Of course, there is no easy answer to this question. It’s a total grey area.

Keyword stuffing vs. keyword optimization is a tricky thing for even SEO experts to master. The execution of just the right amount of keywords and strategic placement is an art in itself.

At the end of the day, you’re satisfying the need for transparent and genuine content for the user with the demands of a robotic search engine.

And that’s tough. But what you’re aiming to achieve is health keyword optimization, working natural and true content around a few keywords that accurately describe your business.

Healthy keyword optimization does not force content based on leading searches- it will mirror what your business offers and what your specific market is searching for.

Your content should also provide helpful, relevant content specific to your business as a primary goal, with strategic placement of relevant keywords as a second goal.

There’s a Formula To Avoid Keyword Stuffing

As with a lot of content creation, there isn’t a black and white rule to avoid keyword stuffing. At RAD, we do use a benchmark that  helps us create natural, engaging content. Without the use of repeated keywords every two sentences.

We write with keyword density in mind.


Keyword Density =
(Number of words in copy) / (Number of times keyword appears in copy)
Best practice is to remain around the 2% mark. This indicates your copy is natural but contains enough keywords to help positively boost your SERP ranking.

There are some companies (and sadly, agencies) that will try and by-pass this by putting text on the page that is the same color as it’s background. Readers can’t see it, but search engine crawlers can.

PSA- Google knows, and you’ll be penalized.

Others repeat keywords in comments, reviews, in the sites code and more to again, trick the search engine crawlers but not interrupt the user experience.

Again, Google is smarter than most of us and will catch it.

The best way to avoid keyword stuffing is by curating raw, real and smart content. That engages readers on a natural level. Your website will rank higher on the SERP engine- and stay there- by appeasing Google AND your readers. Yes, it will take longer- great SEO is gradual and requires consistent work. If your work is wholesome and true, your place on the SERP will be as well.

SEO Practices That Make Google Penalize You

by Ecommerce TipsSEO Tips

Updated: Dec 15, 2022 10:00am SEO Practices That Make Google Penalize You
Originally Published: Dec 15, 2021 8:43am Top 10 of the Worst SEO Practices That Make Google Penalize You

SEO Practices That Make Google Penalize You

One of the worst things that could ever happen to an eCommerce website is a fall in ranks. Usually, bad SEO practices  are the usual suspect behind. And that is mild if you compare it to what can happen when you’re penalized by Google. But what could ever cause Google to penalize you?

A lot, actually. You’d be surprised by the number of black hat tricks or bad SEO practices employed by webmasters in order to appear on Google’s page one. However, for the purpose of this article, we are only going to list the top 10 of the worst SEO practices that make Google penalize you. 

1. Keyword Stuffing

There was a time when site owners actually got away with this bad SEO practice. But I am getting ahead of myself. You’re not sure what I’m talking about because this is such an old practice–perhaps before your time. What is keyword stuffing? Let me let Google tell you:

“Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

In other words, Keyword stuffing is when you place your keywords too many times in your web content. You’ve probably seen it, because unfortunately, it is still being used today, but didn’t know what it was. Have you ever been to a website after your search term produced some favourable looking results, but when you try to read the article it doesn’t really make sense? I like WebFX’s example (The keyword, in this case, is “yellow rubber duckie.”):

“Get a yellow rubber duckie for your children”. A yellow rubber duckie is a charming toy, so buy a yellow rubber duckie today. With a yellow rubber duckie, you can have tons of yellow rubber duckie fun. It’s easy to make bath time great with a yellow rubber duckie, and a yellow rubber duckie from our company guarantees yellow rubber duckie enjoyment.

According to Google, don’t do that. Not only will it damage your brand, but you will lose credibility with your clients. Your website falling in Google rankings is also a negative outcome.

2. Duplicate Content (Whether Yours Or Others)

What is duplicate content? Let’s hear from Google: Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or are appreciably similar.”

In other words, either you or someone working for you decided that the content on another website matches info you would like to share with your audience. However, instead of using the content as reference, you instead chose to copy word for word that content on your website.

If that is you, stop it! It’s not worth it. We know content is king. That’s why the Best SEO in Canada offers evergreen content at affordable prices. We guarantee that every article written will pass plagiarisma.

We know that by and large, people are honest, so sometimes mistakes happen. You didn’t deliberately set out to duplicate content, however you recently updated content on your website, accounting for the duplication. If this is you, don’t panic. All you have to do is use 301 redirectswhen you create new pages so that the old pages are no longer accessible.

You can also use the tag: rel=canonical for pages with similar content, in order that Google, or any other search engine for that matter, will know which content is the original; while the “no index” tagshould be used for those pages you do not want Google to search.

Let’s take this article  for example: You’re reading this article, Top 10 of the Worst SEO practices That make Google Penalize You, and we noticed that it was getting traction and moving up the ranks, we could not use this content on any other page or website that we own (even though we are the original owners of the content). We would be penalized by Google if we were to “duplicate” this content.

 

3. Scraped Content

Further to #2 is scraped content. What’s the difference, you ask? It’s like apples and oranges. They are both fruits, but not all fruits are apples or oranges. So scraping does result in duplicate content, however, the act of scraping is deliberately copying and pasting content and publishing it as your own.

While Google will overlook duplicate content if they recognise that identical content which (often unintentionally) appears in more than one place on your site, they will penalize websites with scraped content–and you can bet they know the difference.

 

4. You’re linking to low-quality sites

According to Google, “Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

So, if you have links pointing to low quality websites, Google will penalize you.

 

5. You’re buying links

Further to #3 above, is the practice by link builders and some webmasters of purchasing links. Whether you choose to pay for a slot on a blog post so you can add links, or you are directly purchasing links in a directory, buying links is one of the fastest ways for you to get penalized by Google.

According to Google, exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links is considered a violation of their guidelines.

 

6. Coaking

“Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected”. (Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

It is a very bad SEO practice to show one content to the web crawlers in order to rank higher, while showing a different content to your site visitors. If you do this, you will be penalized by Google.

BTW, Google is aware that hackers use cloaking to hide their activities, so the only instance you will not be penalized by Google is if your website gets hacked.

7. Auto-generated content

Interestingly, this makes the top 10 list because Google does take action against websites where content is automatically generated (also called “auto-generated”—content). Believe it or not, filling pages with auto-generated contents  is a sign of  bad SEO practices.

If your content is “translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing”, “generated from scraping Atom/RSS feeds or search results” and “generated through automated processes”, among others, they are all considered auto-generated content and will be penalized by Google.

This is sometimes done to save time and money, but you could end up being penny wise and pound foolish. If you must have these types of content on your site, Google has some best practices you can implement to prevent them from showing up in Search.

 

8. Doorway Pages

This is an interesting one, because there was a time when doorway pages were considered good SEO practice. To use BrightEdge’s example, “…a nail salon with two branches that wants to bring in traffic for two cities may have pages targeted for each city that have the same or similar content and describe the same nail salon”.

Six years ago, this would have been an okay SEO practice. However, the good must now suffer for the bad, as search engines realize unscrupulous black hat technicians have manipulated the system to create doorway pages that lead searchers to intermediate pages (as final pages) that are not useful.

So have you guessed what are doorway pages? Indeed, it’s having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page. But in the case of Bad SEO practice they are sites or pages created to rank for specific, similar search queries.

According to Google, “They are bad for users because they can lead to multiple similar pages in user search results, where each result ends up taking the user to essentially the same destination”.

 

9. Hidden Text

While hiding text in and of itself is no longer considered them as bad SEO practices, Google may consider it a violation of their webmaster guidelines and penalize you.

There is a saying, it’s not what you do, but how you do it. This would be one such time. For example, if your website includes technologies that search engines have difficulty accessing, like JavaScript. Or if there is sensitive information you do not want everyone to have access to.

What Google penalizes is the deliberate attempt to manipulate the system in order to trick search crawlers.

For example, making your keyword text the same colour as the background of your website or locating text being an image. Because search crawlers are robots, or bots, they don’t see the Internet the same way we do. They can see your “invisible” keywords.  And they are smart enough to know the difference, especially in cases where keyword stuffing is present.

10. Sneaky Redirects

According to Google,

“Redirecting is the act of sending a visitor to a different URL than the one they initially requested. There are many good reasons to redirect one URL to another, such as when moving your site to a new address, or consolidating several pages into one.

However, some redirects deceive search engines or display content to human users that is different than that made available to crawlers. It’s a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines to redirect a user to a different page with the intent to display content other than what was made available to the search engine crawler”

So there you have it: Straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth. Need we say more?

 

Final Thoughts

We at Best SEO in Canada know you would never wittingly use any of these top 10 worst SEO practises that make Google penalize you. But just in case you unwittingly did and now your website has lost its ranking. Don’t panic. It’s reversible. Let us help you.

AJ Frey and his team “have a constantly evolving proven whitehat secret recipe that can help you get on the first page of Google and start converting potential leads into actual, paying customers”.

If you have questions about avoiding bad SEO practices or can suggest a few more, send them to us in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

2020 SEO Trends – Why Backlinks Need To Comeback

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Yearly ChangesWordPress Tips

Improve your SEO with Backlinks

As if there wasn’t enough to add to SEO best practices, we want to touch on backlinks.
Okay, no- we really want to dive into backlinks, because they are just that important.
As Kelowna’s leading premier WordPress marketing agency, we work around the clock to boost our clients search engine ranking. Our toolbox is full – website development, content creation, keyword research, social stacking- but backlink building is always directly on our radar.
We’re not going to lie to you; even as SEO professionals, backlink building is hard. Backlinks are a huge part of SEO best practices, but take time and knowledge to build.

What are backlinks?

Referred to as “online citations”, backlinks are simply links to your website, or web resource, from an external website, or web source. Web sources can mean articles, directories, online archives etc. They act as a vouch of confidence for your website and content, both to users and search engines.
Backlinks are typically the hyperlinks you see in articles (you know, the clickable text underlined in blue) but can also be image tags, social stacking or listings.
Rad- we’ve got the textbook definitions out the way.
Now let’s talk about how backlinks are super essential for your website- and why.

Do Backlinks Improve SEO?

Yes. 100% they do.
Good quality, reputable backlinks boost your SERP pretty aggressively and actively contribute to your overall online marketing.
That’s why prior to Google’s Penguin algorithm update, SEO professionals around the globe were doing anything they could to gain backlinks.
Take a wild guess how Google felt about that. Let’s back up a little.
The obsession with backlinks began in response to Larry Page’s algorithm contribution- PageRank. This particular algorithm basically determined the order of search results- so who would show up or not. PageRank was the first algorithm ever used by Google to index sites and use this index to determine websites rankings.
Guess what PageRank focused super, super heavily on?
Backlinks. Once the cat was out of the bag, the frenzy of every SEO professional around to get as many backlinks as possible to boost their SERP ranking began.
It was seriously like wildfire. Experts starting bypassing the natural requirements of the algorithm- clean, quality backlinks, and creating backlink farms (as we cover later.)

So, how do backlinks help your SEO?

They are a prime example of speaking both to the user and search engines.

Backlinks and Linkjuice

Backlinks indicate trust, relevancy and authority to search engine crawlers. By another reputable site linking to yours, they are vouching for your site and letting Google know that “hey, they’re great.” It accelerates your exposure to Google bots and get your site indexed faster. Good quality backlinks produce “linkjuice” which is credible equity from one site to another. The more juice you have given to you, the stronger your site will perform in search results.
Kind of like, Redbull giving you wings. Popeye and spinach. You get the idea.

Boost Referral Traffic with Backlinks

Backlinks provide you with referral traffic. And who doesn’t want extra traffic to their website? Better yet, the traffic coming from these high quality backlinks is going to be pretty targeted and relevant to you. Free traffic is pretty rad. Search engines think so too- the more quality traffic you drive to your site, the more they notice you and the more likely they are to index you with a little love.

Rank Higher for Keywords with Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks, our little blue text links (or anchor links) even help with your specific keyword ranking. Google crawlers go as far as to see how much “support’ you have for any given keyword on your website’s pages. If they find your keyword relevant to the rest of you, it will boost your exposure on that single key term as well.
Backlinks aren’t all for the search engine though. Remember- there’s a user on the other end of the computer.

Backlinks Help You Get Seen

Backlinks give you great brand recognition and exposure. They act as somewhat of a review- a link to your site from a credible site will not only promote your brand but also – again- vouch to the user that your website is A-Okay. Repeated mention of your website throughout credible sources just adds to brand recognition; people see your brand and begin to recognize it within their online experiences.

Don’t Resort to Backlink Farming

Backlink farming is the very reason Google’s Penguin update ever came into effect.
Like we mentioned earlier, SEO experts were desperate to get hundreds of backlinks for their site once the ball dropped on PageRank- Google’s first algorithm for ranking that focused lots on backlinks.
Of course, deceptions of this algorithm were pretty easy to brew up (likely why Google stays so hush-hush about their algorithms nowadays.) By creating networks of spam websites and directories with the sole purpose of all linking to each other, paying your way into hundreds of unearned backlinks became a widely used tactic in every level of SEO out there.
That’s where the ability for site crawlers to determine the quality of the links, not just the number of them, was born.
And it’s fair. Reputable backlinks are built on trust, relationship building and genuine online presence.
Backlink farming is still a grey area. While giant networks and rings are easy to define as backlink farms, there are operating businesses out there that offer backlinks in return for pay. Crowned “black hat SEO”, buying backlinks poses as “backlink strategy growth” and still remains…..questionable.
Buying backlinks might grab you some short term SERP rankings. You might even get away with it for a while and see a huge change in your website analytics and rankings. But once Google figures you out, you can kiss goodbye to your growth – buying backlinks is a direct violation of Google’s advertising code.
Listen, don’t shoot the messenger, ok? Buying backlinks is so much easier than organically building them and can seem like a great option for those wanting to really boost their site.
We get it, honestly we do. But it’s really not worth it.
Organically growing backlinks takes time and effort, but it will pay off.

How to Build Backlinks- Naturally

Now, we can’t let our own cat out of the bag and give away all the secrets.
But, here’s some practices you can undertake to start building an army of reputable backlinks:
Add links on all your social media profiles – (hey, social stacking!)
Monitor your best performing posts and pages, and expand them routinely.
Create content that is useful and exciting to a reader- content that helps them solve a problem and share it among their networks for the same reason
Off page, build relationships with influencers, industry leaders and bloggers to trade valuable backlinks. Believe it or not, you can also strategically work with your competitors to do the same thing!
Monitor your competitors backlinks, and look to see if you can also be placed within those sources as well.

COVID-19 Pandemic and The Internet

by Marketing Strategy TipsOnline Marketing TipsSEO Tips

What the COVID-19 Pandemic Means for Online Businesses (And Tips to Adapt)

There is no shortage on fear, panic and anxiety surrounding COVID-19 and the halting affects this pandemic has had on our everyday communities. As the world dwindles down to ordered self isolation and essential services only, many business owners are left wondering how they can start planning ahead to survive post COVID-19.

The virus has either slowed or shut down almost every industry out there, leaving local businesses unsure of how to proceed in these times of major uncertainty. For many, the online space can provide relief by providing a platform in which they can continue operations.

See how this webmaster built a platform that allowed food truck owners to keep making money during COVID-19 Pandemic.
Many businesses are turning to the net- scrambling up advertising campaigns, websites, online stores etc. To help continue driving sales within communities that are practically in hiding. With critical emphasis on no human contact, the online space has become the only way to safely shop, communicate and keep up to date with the world.
And while we live in times where the Internet seems to rule the world, it isn’t until it’s our only option that things begin to change. In the case of COVID-19 Pandemic, the Internet is certainly not immune- and the digital space has shifted massively in the last few weeks.

The team here at RAD shares the five biggest impacts that COVID-19 Pandemic has had on the online space. And some suggestions on how to cope.

How COVID-19 Has Shifted the Digital Marketing Space

COVID-19 Has Dominated Google Search

Not surprisingly, the virus is a leading search term on Google. In fact, Google is calling it the biggest search term trend in searching history- and that’s a pretty big title to have.
Direct searches about the virus have increased an average of 4000% each day. But the influx of searches related to the virus has presented our team with a different set of data than we’re used to seeing.
Our PPC Queen, Alex, has seen a massive increase in searches not common to our everyday lives. The term “national emergency” has spiked 1950% in less than six hours, while there have been similar increases in terms like:
“what fast food restaurants are open ?”
“will grocery stores be open tomorrow?”
“is the housing market going to crash?”
“when are taxes due Canada 2020?”
What does this mean for businesses?

It means that people’s focus really isn’t on much else right now.
Rightfully so, the panic has shifted a huge chunk of daily searches to the virus and everything surrounding it. And the noise of the virus is drowning out a lot of businesses looking to thrive online.
Alex shares that there isn’t really a whole lot you can do in terms of redirecting focus. Rather, you should look at how you can direct your business into the line of focus. Monitor search term reports, actively add to your negative keyword list & adopt those long-tailed keywords in your campaigns!
Mobile Search Traffic Has Dropped 25% (h3)
It’s been a while since desktop searches have grown, but with everyone stuck at home, it seems the mobile phones have been put down.

Website Optimization:

For us, it means two things. Alex mentioned that the costs of PPC advertising may rise, as mobile traffic is generally cheaper than desktop.
However, the biggest concern lies in website optimization. And how a shift of what the user sees- will affect conversions during this time.
Because mobile has led the majority of web traffic for the past few years, mobile optimization has been a hot, hot topic. But websites have almost been over-optimized for mobile, leaving the desktop experience falling short in comparison.

AJ, our SEO & Web Development Boss, shares that a websites design and content should be reviewed and modified to ensure a positive desktop experience for the user.
Example? The CTA rich pop ups you banned from your site to improve mobile experience? Those could make a comeback as you revert back to different conversion paths.

What You’re Reading Everyday Has Changed

Centre content around leading search terms.
Sounds like the classic principle behind online content creation, right?
It is- but when the entire Internet has shifted their focus to something a little out of the ordinary. It can be difficult to align content with what’s popular at this moment.
But if you can, you should. Just as with more routine content marketing, don’t create completely irrelevant content in the hopes of joining the masses of similar content.

Our content expert, Joel, suggests incorporating the COVID-19 virus and it’s effects into your content if you can naturally do so, and

keeping the following in mind:

Use your content to keep people informed. The community expects a response from your business, during these times. They are seeking security and comfort, and that includes being kept in the loop by familiar faces- and brands. Use this time to try and instill well being into your customers, fostering and nurturing relationships with them as you remind them that you are beside them in these times as well. Provide relevant policy updates, proactive measures you’ve taken or hours of operation etc.

Don’t add to the panic! Be a credible, reliable and neutral source- even as a company. Avoid spreading anything but pure facts, and watch your language; it can be easy to talk in an alarmed or dramatic tone.
Convey empathy, compassion & humility. People will remember who and what helped them during these times- be a positive voice amongst the negativity when creating content at this time.
There is no level of tact that’s acceptable- at this time, anyway. “HOT COVID-19 Sales!” -Don’t do that.
Social Media Usage is Through the Roof Not surprising.
Scrolling the ‘gram really does help pass the time of quarantine boredom, but communities are also turning to social media for help, answers and- shopping?

Yep, that’s right- online shopping and particularly on social media, is up by 35%.
Call it impulse buying, boredom shopping or catching up on purchases they haven’t had time to make in store. Whatever it is, businesses are finding some relief in the increase in online shoppers.
With social media usage being sky high, it also gives you a great opportunity to keep your brand and business relevant. Use this platform to introduce reformed content (see Joel’s suggestions above) but to also stimulate conversions using organic or paid initiatives.

Remember though, content for social media differs. Having a sound social media strategy and lots of visuals will help drive engagement with an audience that’s listening more than ever.
Organic Web Traffic Has Decreased In Almost Every Industry (h3)
We’re talking like a decrease of 25% on average, over all industries- with only four seeing increases (healthcare, finance, food & media.)

The biggest? With a near 50% drop in organic traffic, the travel industry is suffering during this.
And let’s be real here- we can’t really counteract this. There’s going to be a drop in traffic, sales and business. These are scary times, and people rightfully are focusing on other certain things.
This won’t change for a while, but you can look at ways to drive as much traffic as you can during this time. Here’s what has worked for our clients lately:

Content!

Create content that supports people at this time. Create content that gently reminds users of your brand and your mission. Use this time to separate yourselves from the vultures of the net. Those that exploit and capitalize on the fear and panic of COVID-19.

Promotions and offers.

People are still shopping, just in a different format. To help drive conversions, consider promotions and offers to add. That further incentive shoppers may need- and to help generate a buzz.

Join in the Conversation.

Offer support, offer sympathies, share valid information and helpful content. Immerse yourself in the current conversation, instead of trying to create a new one.