I’ve got something to confess. I’m not the most technical SEO. I mean, I have a basic understanding of how crawling and indexing works, and I’ve overseen a few technical SEO projects – from a safe distance! But when it gets down to the nuts and bolts of technical SEO… Well, let’s just say, it’s not exactly lighting my fire. But that’s all changed, and it’s thanks to this month’s ‘Adventure in Local Marketing’ guest Cindy Krum, CEO and Founder of MobileMoxie. Cindy is not only super knowledgeable about the nitty gritty of technical SEO, she also has an amazing knack for making it really accessible and easy-to-understand. Cindy is one of leading experts in mobile SEO, but her knowledge doesn’t end there. She’s always at the fore when it comes to understanding (and predicting!) what Google is up to and how SEOs should be reacting. You might have seen Google’s recent Passage-based ranking announcement? Well, Cindy was talking about that two years ago! In this episode, Cindy gave me an absolute schooling on many of the latest SEO developments. We covered:
Ready to get technical? Listen to the episodeResourcesWe covered A LOT of topics on this episode, so here’s some more content to feast on.
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Tell us what you thinkI hope you enjoyed this more technical episode. We try to cover every aspect of local marketing, so if there are any topics you’d like us to focus on in an upcoming episode, leave a comment below. The post Cindy Krum on Building a Mobile-first, Future-proof SEO Strategy appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/31UH2BR Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/
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You asked, we listened! Our users wanted a faster, friction-free way to get reviews from their happiest customers, and that’s why today we’re launching the highly anticipated ‘Direct-to-Review’ setting for Get Reviews. It’s a simple change, but one that could make a world of difference to your review generation. With Direct-to-Review switched on, positive reviewers will automatically skip the ‘internal feedback’ step when completing review requests, so they can jump right to leaving you reviews on your preferred sites in just two clicks. That means far fewer dropouts in the Get Reviews process, a shorter journey for your customers, and crucially, more reviews for your business. How does Direct-to-Review work?Here’s the current flow that Get Reviews takes your customers through:
Now, here’s what that looks like when Direct-to-Review is switched on, and your customer gives you a positive score (you can set the threshold of this yourself with ease):
How to switch on Direct-to-Review for new Get Reviews templatesNo need! We’ve already done it for you. This feature has come after such high demand that it just made sense to have it switched on as a preset for each new Get Reviews campaign you set up, and we’re confident you’ll agree when you see the results. Want to keep asking your happy customers for internal feedback? Cool! Just be sure to switch ‘Direct-to-Review’ off when setting up a new campaign, and you’re golden. What about my existing Get Reviews campaigns?For your existing Get Reviews campaigns, you’ll need to manually switch Direct-to-Review on. It couldn’t be easier, though: just head to the General Settings for any Get Reviews campaign and you can’t miss it! The best campaigns are updated regularly to coincide with seasonality, so this is a great opportunity to freshen up your campaigns! Will negative scorers still be able to leave a review?Yes. In order to comply with review gating guidelines, you cannot prevent unhappy customers from leaving you a review. Although they will have to go through the extra step of leaving you private feedback first, they will still be offered the chance (though not necessarily encouraged!) to leave a review at the end of the process. Why wait? Get started today!We’re confident you’ll see many more reviews coming through this shortened flow, so we’d recommend updating your current Get Reviews campaigns pronto. If you’ve always been on the fence about Reputation Manager, this is a perfect excuse to try it out! Want to know more? Check out the official Direct-to-Review FAQs here: The post NEW: Direct-to-Review Makes It Easier for Happy Customers to Leave Reviews appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2HMIK0E Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ We’re excited to again be partnering with Local University to offer BrightLocal readers 10% off LocalU Advanced Virtual, the online conference filled with advanced local search insights and tactics from the brightest minds and biggest names in the business, this time taking place 9am-5.30pm ET on Tuesday, November 10th. The last virtual event, back in June of this year, was a huge success, and we really enjoyed being part of the experience. We’re confident the team at Local University will be able to follow up with another fantastic selection of speakers and invaluable, actionable topics and Q&As. What is LocalU Advanced Virtual?
With 13 speakers and breakout sessions, this LocalU Advanced November 2020 is even more of a bargain than last time! Plus, if you’re not in a US-friendly time zone and can’t catch the talks live, don’t fret: all tickets guarantee private links to recordings of each and every session for you to watch at your leisure. Check out the lineup below and book your place at the LocalU Advanced page here, and remember to use the promo code below when you buy your ticket to secure 10% off your purchase. LocalU Advanced Virtual Agenda Overview – November 2020
The post Get 10% Off LocalU Advanced with BrightLocal appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2ZpTfxE Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Advance Your Agency is a BrightLocal series designed to equip you with the skills, knowledge, and advice necessary to take your agency operations to the next level. Before you get to work understanding your client’s problems to be solved, you’ll first need to educate them on local SEO. To appreciate the value that your agency is going to provide, the client must understand the ins and outs of local SEO, and how you deliver that will vary greatly based on their knowledge level, learning style, and resources. In this month’s Advance Your Agency guide, I’ll talk you through how best to educate clients on local SEO, so you can get to work on improving your client’s prospects and showing value. ContentsWhy is education important?It can be tempting to want to dive straight in with a new client and begin showing value right away, but without the education step, your hard work could go completely unnoticed. Educating clients is important for several reasons:
Getting to know your clientUnderstand your client’s knowledge levelFirst things first, you’re going to want to assess your client’s knowledge level. They’ve reached out to you for a reason, so we can speculate that they’ve got some ideas about local SEO, but it’s important to get an understanding of where they’re really at so you can begin to fill in the gaps. This should be a fairly simple process. You can begin by asking them if they know what a local (or “nearby”) search is, if they’re familiar with Google My Business, and if they have an understanding of search engine optimization on the whole, too. Some agencies might actually opt for a pretty thorough process here and even go as far as to provide their potential client with a quick survey to fill out. This is a great way to work out your client’s local SEO knowledge “score” before moving onto other things. If you do go down the survey route, try not to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty, but instead, offer broad questions that can be expanded upon in a one-to-one phone conversation if needed. Just remember, it’s worth taking surveys like this with a pinch of salt as some clients won’t necessarily want to admit where their knowledge gaps are. And let’s be real, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know (just speak to any college student ever). Next, depending on your client’s knowledge and understanding of local SEO, there will be a few different ways to proceed. Whether they know nothing or have a decent knowledge, it’s still important to be confident in the way that you communicate, as education is undoubtedly going to play a part somewhere down the line. Uncover their learning styleWhile getting an understanding of your client’s local SEO knowledge is arguably the most important step, it’s also vital to shed light on your client’s learning style. After all, different people will respond better to different approaches. Is your client pragmatic, matter-of-fact, logical, or creative? Are they time-poor, under-resourced, or ultra-involved? All of these things will play a part in how best to communicate with them. Time-poor clients might not have time to sit on a call for an hour while you go through the process, can you fire over a doc for them to peruse in their own time instead? Creative clients might prefer to get involved in a collaborative discussion on the matter, while pragmatic people just want to do. We’ve drawn together a few examples to help you out. Once you know your client’s learning style, simply cross-reference it with this quadrant below and you’ll be able to identify the best learning methods for them. The simplest way to determine your client’s learning style? Ask! There’s no shame in asking them how they best absorb information — you could even include this in your knowledge survey at the start of the relationship. However you choose to ask, knowing your client’s learning style will help a great deal down the line. You’ll know how, and with what, to engage your client, which takes the guesswork out of the equation. Educating your clientOkay, onto the really important bit. Now that you understand your client’s knowledge level and how they learn, you can cater your education methods to your client. In this section, we share our top tactics for effectively communicating with your client. Through these you can educate clients on the basics of local SEO, as well as the very real benefits it provides. Know your stuffDo your researchYou’d think this is a given, but it’s worth saying anyway — do your research! You’re going to need to try to explain and educate on local SEO as simply as possible, and we all know that you need to understand something inside and out in order to communicate it in the best possible way. So before you begin, make sure you’re in the know about everything you ought to be, and that you’re aware of any recent changes. Doing research also goes beyond just the realm of local SEO. Make sure you’re familiar with your client’s business so you can tailor your communications to them. Personalization is a priceless tool that can help things feel more relevant and memorable to people, and you won’t be able to use it without knowing the client’s business properly. Leverage FOMOWe all know that fear of missing out (FOMO) can be a powerful tool when used correctly, and when it comes to educating clients on the benefits of local SEO, it can be even more helpful. That’s why it’s important to have a grasp on your client’s competitors and how they’re performing, too. I spoke to Bowler Hat’s Marcus Miller to get his take on educating clients, and he said:
You’ll notice that Marcus also brings the concept of local SEO back to the real world. Phone books may be a thing of the past, but local Google searches really do work in much the same way (except there’s less alphabetical favoritism!) Don’t just rely on one formatUse videoVideo can be a great way to educate clients quickly and simply. If you don’t have the resources or desire to create your own in-house videos to serve this purpose, there are plenty online that you can use. SearchLab‘s Greg Gifford provides a shining example in his ‘What is Local SEO?’ video for SEMrush Academy. Or, for those more logically-minded, this simple math video, also from Greg, could do wonders. For logic-lovers, it’s hard to argue with basic math, and you can bet this example will be retained. Using video can be a quick and effective way to educate clients on complex matters. If your client is time-poor you’ll want to share short, snackable videos like the ones linked to above. If you’ve got the luxury of a more involved and time-rich client, you might want to point them in the way of a webinar or two to further expand their knowledge. Either way, don’t just rely on long-form blogs to do the educating. Local SEO is complex, and videos can help to bring it to life much faster than print. Show and tellDon’t just tell your clients about local SEO, really show them how it works in the real world. If needs be, get in your car with your client and drive around the block. Show them how their maps rankings change as your proximity to the business does. For some people, they really do need to see it to believe it, and while using an online rank checker definitely has its uses, for this first phase, showing the client in real-time how their rankings can drop will have 10x the impact, especially if they’re more pragmatic. As proximity is a key part of the Google local algorithm, this is a really key concept to illustrate. Take a look at our example route below. Driving around the neighborhood is a great way to showcase how positions in maps will change based on the user’s proximity to the business. During Covid times, hopping in a car together may not be feasible, in which case you can lean on a free tool like Local Search Results Checker to mimic the process. Make the most of metaphorsWho doesn’t love a metaphor? Painting a picture for your client can often be the best way to get your point across, especially for visual thinkers. When it comes to using metaphors and analogies, though, it’s important to use ones that hold meaning to the client. Are they a big sports fan? Use that to your advantage! A big 80s film geek? Take a leaf out of Greg Gifford’s book. When teaching beginners about the importance of local link building, Greg displays the following image: For those who don’t know, the character in the middle is called ‘Link’, from the movie Encino Man. (Geddit? Link to the past?). Now, the trainee has a visual to associate with the teachings on link building. It may seem silly, but using tactics like this is a great way to make principles stick, as long as the visual fits your client’s personality and your agency’s brand. Whatever metaphor or visual example you’re using, make it relevant and relatable as it’s far more likely to stay in the client’s mind this way. Another popular metaphor used commonly in local SEO is that of citations and poker. A lot of people struggle to determine whether or not citations are still important, so often experts will rely on poker metaphors to explain this. For example, citations used to be a difference-maker, but now they’re simply known as “table stakes” — you need to have citations on the table to enter the game and be in with a chance of winning. Keep clients in the loopShare your reading listIf you want to get clients more involved with local SEO, then share your reading list! There are plenty of great blogs, forums, and Twitter accounts to follow that can help shed light on the ins and outs of local SEO. There’s absolutely no harm in pointing your client in the right direction using these. Alternatively, if you’re working with a time-poor client, then simply shoot over an article you find interesting every once in a while to keep them in the loop or sign them up to a relevant newsletter (with their permission, of course). Some local SEO agencies, like Sterling Sky, have their own newsletter, which is a great way to keep clients involved and educated on an ongoing basis without much commitment. Provide regular updatesWe all know that communication is important, and you’ll likely be reporting back to clients on a monthly basis anyway, so there’s no reason education shouldn’t be folded into this, too. Sterling Sky’s Joy Hawkins recommends:
Giving your client the information they need in a report and then explaining it verbally can be a great way to ensure that all communication styles are covered. Plus, you’re educating your client while simultaneously reminding them of the value your service is providing. Take off your marketing blindersGet on their levelTo us, it might seem that the benefits of local SEO are clear, but finding the right way to communicate these is vital. From speaking with your client throughout the setup process, you’ll have an idea of how they operate and communicate, so try to mirror their language (without being inauthentic) where possible. Avoid jargon, and instead focus on the real-world benefits that local search marketing and optimization can have. For example, instead of saying “optimizing GMB can boost your position in local map rankings,” say “filling out your Google My Business listing properly and fully can mean you’re more likely to get seen in local search results”. Sometimes it can be hard to step outside of your role and see local SEO in the eyes of a newbie — but, where possible, try to leave the jargon at home or you could end up alienating your client. Put your client in their customers’ shoesIf your client is really struggling to understand the value of local SEO then you might need to participate in a little bit of role-playing… No costumes required! Blake Denman of RicketyRoo actually suggests his own unique approach to put the client in the shoes of their customer and flip the perspective:
With this tactic, you can also hone in on specific areas to show the impact of different parts of local SEO. Ask your client to look at their reviews afresh, as if they were experiencing this business for the first time. What kind of impression do they leave? If there are no responses to negative reviews, for example, that’s going to leave a sour taste in the mouth of a prospective customer. You can do the same thing here with your client and their website. Instead of going through it with the eyes of a business owner, ask your client to visit the website as if it was their first time experiencing it. How easy is it to navigate? Does it load quickly? Does it answer the questions a searcher would be looking for? And even on a basic level, is the business’s name, address, and phone number easy to locate? Getting a client to see things the way their customer would can help better their understanding of what value a local SEO agency brings and what opportunities they might be missing without one. Invite questionsIt’s important to make sure you’re not just throwing information at your client without a break. When you’re explaining and educating, be sure to regularly ask if your client has any questions, and invite them to challenge anything they don’t quite understand. A healthy client-agency relationship is a two-way street, so it’s important that the client knows their questions are being heard and valued. Plus, it will help you get a feel for what is and isn’t sticking so you can go back over the basics if needs be. Create an FAQs page or documentLet’s be honest: you’re not always going to have time to go into this much detail with clients, and that’s understandable, but it doesn’t mean that these important steps can be neglected. Create an FAQs or education page on your website (or in a shareable document if you prefer), where you provide more in-depth answers to commonly asked questions. You could even record a quick-fire FAQ video to ensure visual learning types are still being catered to. Here, you can include a gif of maps rankings changing as proximity changes (to replace the old ‘driving the car around the block’ trick) and insert photos to demonstrate more complex concepts. It’s also worth including screenshots so clients can get more familiar with things like GMB and citation sites. It’s worth remembering, though, that this should be considered a bonus, rather than a replacement for one-to-one chats. It will still be important to sit down and speak with your client one-to-one but this will save time and help to fill in the gaps that bit quicker. In fact, having a page or document like this will be super helpful for clients to refer back to should they find their knowledge is slipping. Putting exclusive content like this in your client’s welcome pack is a sure-fire way to make them feel in good hands and that you’re already providing value before the relationship fully kicks off. Dos and Don’tsWe’ve just fired a lot of tactics at you. Refer back to this dos and don’ts for the basics.
ConclusionEducating your clients on local SEO is vital if you hope to provide them with value and retain them. By educating your clients properly, you’re setting yourself up to have more successful, stress-free, and time-saving experiences when working with clients. Just remember it’s all about catering to the client, and education is no exception here. Have you got any top tips when it comes to educating clients? Share them with us in the comments below and keep the conversation going! Further ReadingThese resources will be instrumental in helping you to educate your clients or padding out your agency knowledge. For you:
For your client:
The post How Can I Educate My Clients on Local SEO? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/37MQwD1 Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Ben Fisher is one of only three Platinum Product Experts for Google My Business. He’s a master of the spam redressal form, is always on top of the latest news, and loves to share his knowledge with others. Here, he explains the new ‘Direct Edit’ feature in Google My Business, or, as he’s calling it, the Transparent Merchant Experience. In 2017, Google My Business (GMB) launched the ability to update your business information, make posts, upload photos, see how many views you have received, and more, within SERPs. The blog post they released was then titled ‘Manage your business listing without leaving Google Search.’ Now fast forward to 2020, and they have upgraded the experience in a blog post titled ‘Update your Business Profile on Google Maps and Search‘. See the difference there? The main change is how Google says what a knowledge panel is now. As of 2020, it is no longer a business “listing”, it is a business “profile”. What is the goal of GMB Direct Edit?The goal is to meet merchants’ expectations and not force them into using GMB web or GMB app, and therefore keep them on Google Search, as this is where these merchants want to engage with their business profiles. The product, Google has found based on its feedback from merchants, is the business profile, not GMB web or GMB app. This is because 90% of Google accounts have between one and three GMB profiles. Merchants see that this is what people are using and brings them customers: a business profile. Internally, Google calls this the New Merchant Xperience (NMX) (They felt that ‘X’ was cooler than ‘E’). In 2017 they called it just ‘editing your business details’. In 2020 some have called it ‘direct editing’ or ‘inline editing’. I think it is much more than just an editing experience, and I will go into why as we progress. I call it the ‘Transparent Merchant Experience’ (TME) as I feel this sums up the intent, research, and behavior with this Google Search and GMB feature. “Why?”, you ask. Well, we need to think about where this is heading by looking at some of the clues in the current form of NMX. According to a Google spokesperson, features include:
The update, and continued expansion, is geared toward that 90% we talked about earlier. When you search for “my business” on Google, if you are a manager or an owner (sorry, this is not available for site managers yet), then you are shown up to three business profiles from your account. This is more than fine for that 90%. For users like us, as agencies, we will see three business profiles and a ‘view all businesses’ link to redirect us to GMB web. Why only three listings in Google Search?The rule of thumb is if an account has more than three listings, then GMB web is the surface of choice. This experience is optimized for single listing merchants or just a few. Remember, 90% of accounts only have a few listings. Google believes that those who have more than three listings in an account, like an agency, prefer to do things in a list mode or perform bulk actions. I predict Google will do more for those of us who manage more than three listings by enhancing the bulk capabilities of GMB web. In the meantime, there is an option that is independent of the Direct Edit experience, and that is to search for your business and select it. This will then take you to the Direct Edit pages mentioned earlier. How will the Direct Edit experience affect agencies?As an agency, part of your job is to take care of and keep tabs on your clients’ business profiles. This has been around in one form or another for a while. So rest assured, this update is not a threat. If it were, you would have experienced the consequences already. The goal of this expanded experience is meant to address the single listing owner mainly. And the behavior of most small merchants is just to edit necessary business information. As an agency, you are handling much more than just GMB. You are helping write content, analyze results, direct strategy, and likely much more. This is not “another way that Google is trying to get between you and the customer”. This experience has been around since 2017 and has not hindered the ability of agencies to acquire new customers. If anything, it allows merchants to experience GMB for the first time and then seek out professional help. I would encourage agencies to do this, let your customers know that you have everything under control and that if they need an edit, post, or photo uploaded, then you will handle it. If they want excellent reporting, you can help with that. This new feature in GMB is not going to change anything. It has been around in one form or the other for a while already. Let’s talk about that performance pageThe new performance page is customer-centered on insights and performance data. Google has historically had a publisher/advertising background, so GMB Insights have been focused on impressions and views. But merchants want to know that if someone is searching for something, how successfully the business profile is helping customers get what they are looking for. You can get to this data from the ‘views this month’ on search or the promote chip. The nice part about the performance page versus Insights is that, while Insights are calculated on a rolling 28-day window and reports on a week, month, and quarter, the performance page (pictured above) is calculated on the first day of the month for the previous month and has custom monthly timeframes, up to 6 months. Plus, the same time frame for a year-over-year comparison is featured. This is useful, especially for seasonal merchants. If you select only one month, then you can see daily values. And of course, you can explore how your business performed this month compared to the previous year. What might be added to the performance page?It is not hard to imagine that performance reports may eventually come in the form of emails and/or mobile notifications. Currently, the interaction data sets are set to focus on customer interactions — primarily calls and messages. I can see this expanding to include quotes, reviews, bookings, and possibly more interactions, including sales. What will also be interesting is to see if queries will be included in the performance page. It only makes sense that profile search queries will come to this Direct experience. Currently, the data is calculated quarterly (with a way of seeing it monthly and weekly) I would assume, if implemented, this will also be monthly and again with no rolling 28-day window. Lastly, I would love to see how many people discovered my business profile on desktop search, mobile maps, Google search mobile, or even maps desktop. This is something we Product Experts asked for two years ago at our Product Expert Summit. It will be interesting to see if Google decides to implement this in the future. One thing I believe is certain? This has been an ongoing experiment for three years at the time of writing this. Google has been experimenting with and taking merchant feedback very seriously. We have seen more and more functionality roll out and it appears to be based on data and what merchants really want. This is great news for agencies! As more merchants become actively involved with Google My Business, an exponential number of merchants will need assistance, which means an ever-growing opportunity for growth. The post What is Google My Business ‘Direct Edit’, and What Does It Mean for Agencies? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3jhY16M Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Many small local businesseses have a hard time optimizing their site for speed. Why is that? Well, site speed optimizations tend to require web development skills which most small business owners don’t have, and developers can be quite expensive. What can you do if you don’t have the skills or budget, but still need to improve your site’s speed? In this article, I’ll explain how you can make improvements to your site speed even if you don’t have access to a developer. Why improve site speed?User experience and conversion rates can be negatively affected if your site is slow. It’s very common that your potential customers browse their phones for local services while they are watching TV or while they are running errands. So mobile speed is super important for local business websites. Mobile searches surpassed desktop searches in 2016. According to one study, 56% of mobile searches done on the go have local intent. And I’m sure that today, that number is much higher. Compared to desktop devices, mobile devices have a much slower download speed. Because of that, websites that are already slower will have an even harder time loading quickly on a mobile device. How does this affect local businesses? The average bounce rate for pages loading within two seconds is 9%. As soon as the page load time hits four seconds, the bounce rate soars. The bounce rate at five seconds is 38%. In a nutshell, a page’s load time directly impacts bounce rate. This will in turn have a negative effect on conversion rates. Source: Cloudflare Want to see how your site stacks up? You can check out site speed benchmarks from Google here. How to improve site speedDo you want visitors to leave your site or do you want your visitors to convert? I’m betting it’s the latter. So you need to optimize for speed, after all… MO’ SPEEDS = MO’ LEADS! For this tutorial, I’m going to show you how I used a couple of different paid plugins on a local optometrist’s website. The price to use both of them starts at about $60. This will make it much easier for you to speed up your site. Also, I hit a few snags during the site speed improvement process on this site so I’ll show you how to overcome real problems that may arise. Before making any speed optimizations make sure you are using a quality web host. There have been many times that a client’s site speed improved a ton just by switching hosting companies. If you are spending $5/mo on hosting, you may want to consider an upgrade. Additionally, I do not recommend making site speed improvements on a live site. I recommend using a staging site because some of the settings you are going to mess with can cause what users are seeing to “break”. A staging site is a copy of your live site. This allows you to try out plugins and edit code without affecting the live site. Baseline metricsBefore getting started we need to take some baseline measurements so that we can see if the site speed improved after the optimizations were made. I use a few free third-party tools for this: Google Pagespeed InsightsGoogle Pagespeed Insights gives you a speed score for mobile and lists specific site speed improvements you can make below the score. Google Pagespeed Insights also gives you a speed score for desktop and lists specific site speed improvements you can make below the score. GTmetrixGTmetrix checks how fast your website loads. WebPageTest.orgWebPageTest, as the name suggests, tests your website’s performance. *Note: Only the first test showed a grade of A for “First Byte Time”. Each test afterward showed an ‘F’. Content Breakdown by Domain (WebPageTest.org)Site Speed OptimizationsOk, so let’s get started! Let’s take a look at the site speed optimizations I performed. WP RocketThe first step I took was that I installed WP Rocket and disabled a plugin called SG Optimizer. SG Optimizer is a plugin from SiteGround but it conflicts with WP Rocket. So if you are not using SiteGround as your host, then you don’t have to worry about this. In WP Rocket I turned on the following settings: CacheMobile Cache: I checked this box to enable caching on mobile devices as well. Cache Lifespan: I usually choose 7-10 days here for most small business sites. The cache lifespan determines how long you want cached files to be saved. The default limit is set to 10 hours. But you can set it to a shorter timeframe if you are adding and updating content on the site multiple times a day. You can also set it to a longer timeframe if you don’t update your website frequently. If a site is posting once a week at most, you can set the cache lifespan to seven days. File OptimizationOnce again I recommend making a staging copy of your site and testing it out on staging first, especially when using the “File Optimization” settings. So what’s going on here is you are going to possibly make some files smaller and combine some files which can reduce page load times. In some cases, this may break things. A web developer could probably configure this section quickly but since you are doing it yourself, there will be some trial and error and testing required. What I do is check one box at a time, clear the cache, and then view the page. If everything looks ok, then I go back and check another box and repeat this process. At the very least, you should be able to check all of these boxes and not have any issues, but I can’t guarantee that. CSS Files:
JavaScript Files:
After you think you are done, you need to make sure to test any actions on the site as well to make sure they are still working. Examples include filling out forms to make sure they are submitting, clicking on toggles and tabs, etc. If an action has broken on the site it’s probably due to the JavaScript file settings you chose in the “File Optimization” settings. Try to undo them and test it again. MediaLazyLoad: I enabled LazyLoad for images, and iframes, and videos. If you have YouTube videos on your site you can check the box to ‘Replace YouTube iframe with preview image’. However, I had issues with this once, so be sure to play the videos after checking this box to make sure they are working fine. Emoji: I also checked the ‘Disable Emoji’ box in order to use emoji style from the user’s browser instead of loading an emoji file from WordPress. PreloadPreload Cache: This tells the browser to download and cache resources like CSS or JavaScript files as soon as possible. It’s used when those resources will be used on the current page you are loading. I also checked the following boxes:
Prefetch DNS requests: This tells the browser to download and cache resources like CSS or JavaScript files in the background. Prefetch is given a lower priority so that it doesn’t interfere with the downloading of more important resources. It’s used when you know you’ll need that resource on another page that will be navigated to soon. I used WebPageTest.org to see all the domains that have to be “looked up” when loading the site. Content Breakdown by Domain (WebPageTest.org) Then I copied all the external domains (and their subdomains) from the Content Breakdown by Domain report from webpagetest.org (pictured above.) Include “//” in front of each one like so: //www.facebook.com //www.youtube.com //www.google.com //fonts.gstatic.com //www.gstatic.com After you have your list, paste it into the Prefetch DNS requests section in WP Rocket. Add-onsI turned on the following ‘Add-ons’: Google Tracking: WP Rocket will host Google Analytics scripts locally. If you are not using Google Analytics, then you don’t need to turn this on. But you should be using Google Analytics! Facebook Pixel: WP Rocket will host Facebook Pixels locally. If you are not using a Facebook Pixel, then you don’t need to turn this on. Cloudflare: This site happens to use Cloudflare so this integration was set up. If you don’t use Cloudflare, then don’t worry about this one. ShortPixelShortPixel makes optimizing all images on your site a breeze. It compresses all images and thumbnails for you. After compressing all the images, it automatically replaces all the original images on the site. I installed ShortPixel and used the following settings: General TabCompression Type: I chose ‘Lossy’ for this site. If you don’t want images on your site to have a visible loss in quality, you may want to choose Glossy or Lossless. If you are not sure which one to use, read this guide from ShortPixel. Include Thumbnails: Turn this on so that thumbnails (not only large images) are compressed. Image Backup: Turn this on. It will allow you to restore images to their original state or to convert them from Lossy to Lossless and back again. Advanced TabWebP Images: Choosing this option allows WebP versions of your images to be served if a user’s browser supports it. According to Google, “WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters, and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster. WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at equivalent SSIM quality index.” Cloudflare API TabThis site happens to use Cloudflare so this integration was set up. If you don’t use Cloudflare, then you don’t have to worry about this setting. Processing ImagesAfter you have chosen all your settings, click on ‘Save and Go to Bulk Process’. This will start the compression process and will take a while. After bulk compressing the images, you can see how much disk space and bandwidth you saved. Saved bandwidth is calculated at 10,000 impressions/image. One Last TweakThe home page had a slider that contained four large slides/images. The client was fine with replacing this with just one static image. Doing this shaved off even more loading time. In cases like this, I highly recommend that you use one static image with a CTA on top of it on the home page, instead of using a slider. Removing Unnecessary CodesAfter installing and configuring WP Rocket and ShortPixel there were still many other site optimizations that could still be made. I’m going to show you how to do some of the easier ones that don’t require a developer. ‘Reduce DNS lookups’ was one of the leftover site speed suggestions. There are some things you can do but they are a little complicated and require technical skills. But what you can do to improve this is simply remove unnecessary third-party code from your site. Once again, I used WebPageTest.org to see all the domains that have to be “looked up” when loading the site. This can show you what scripts are on the site and then you can decide if any can be removed. Removed Unused ScriptsI could see in this list that the site had Hotjar installed on it. I asked the client if they were still using Hotjar and they said “no”. So I simply removed this script. That instantly removed six requests from the list. Content Breakdown by Domain (webpagetest.org) Redundant Facebook and Google Maps EmbedsThis site had Facebook and Google embeds in the sidebar more than once. So I removed the duplicate embeds and cleaned up the sidebar. Store Files LocallyYou will notice in the screenshot above there were quite a few domains from Google and Facebook. In WP Rocket, I used the Google Tracking and Facebook Pixel add-ons. Now these files will be stored locally instead. When you host these files locally, all the requests for them are from the same domain. After taking these steps the number of requests for this site went from 115 to 44! ResultsGoogle Pagespeed InsightsYou can see that the mobile score from Google can still be improved. I’m actually glad this happened with this project because it shows realistically what challenges you may face when optimizing a site for speed. GTmetrixWebPageTest.orgContent Breakdown by Domain (webpagetest.org) Before and After Chart
Remaining Issues‘TTFB’ stands for ‘time to the first byte’. This is how long it takes for the first byte to be received by the browser after an HTTP request has been made. TTFB was not great on any of the site speed tests except for the first one on webpagetest.org which must have been a fluke. A high TTFB can be due to poor hosting or could be from routing through Cloudflare. This site seems to have decent hosting so most likely it could be Cloudflare. ConclusionSo there you have it! You can speed up your local business website with just a couple of paid plugins. Of course, you can’t fix everything but you can knock out quite a few quick wins on your own. Although site speed is just one small piece of the local SEO puzzle (among the likes of GMB optimization, reviews, and link building), it can have a considerable affect on bounce rates, conversion rates, and user satisfaction. The post Simple Site Speed Improvements for Local Businesses appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3nYFtMz Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ With so many changes happening in the world of local marketing, it can be a big job to keep on top of what’s new. Each month, we pore over all of the local SEO press to pull out the most important insights and changes, and create a quick and handy quiz to help local marketers feel sure they’re on top of the news. Answer the How did you fare? Share your score with us on Twitter using #LocalQuizness. To catch up on any of the news stories covered in the quiz, peruse the complete reading list below:
Thanks for quizzing – we’ll be back next month with all the top stories! The post Local Quizness October 2020 – Test Your News Knowledge! appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/33I6VWJ Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Referral marketing, a tactic that relies on word of mouth and recommendations to gain new business, is one of the most effective forms of marketing out there, and especially so for local businesses. Did you know that over 60% of marketers claim that referral programs generate high volumes of leads? By harnessing the experience and enthusiasm of your local community, you can quickly build your company into a beloved local brand. This increased brand recognition can also lead to some more direct benefits for your business. Leads generated via referrals are 36x more valuable than a lead generated by a cold call, 10x more valuable than a trade show lead, and 4x more valuable than a web lead. In this article, we’ll look a little deeper into how leads from referral programs can benefit your business, and then show you how to use them effectively. The benefits of referral marketingThere is a clear and obvious reason why so many successful businesses use referral marketing: it works. In fact, nearly 80% of marketers claim that referral marketing generates good to excellent quality leads, and represents the second-highest source of quality leads overall. For businesses looking to market within local communities, referral programs can be even more effective. The impact of referrals is increased when used for small businesses because a positive review from a trusted friend within a customers’ community is a far more effective way to establish trust than a cold call. Source: Campaign Monitor Customers who are converted in this way are also far more likely to make repeat purchases and to refer their friends in turn, which results in them offering a 16% higher customer lifetime value. How to build a successful referral programDespite these benefits, many small business owners are hesitant to initiate referral programs, believing them to be complex and potentially costly. In reality, they are neither. There are essentially three steps to setting up a successful referral program: 1. Treat your customers wellThe first step is not even directly related to referral systems but is fundamental to their success. You need to make your customers feel positive about their purchase, and about their relationship with you as a brand. There are many ways of doing this. Some concern the way that your business is organized. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 86% of marketers believe they will become responsible for the entire customer journey by 2020, and there is a good reason for that: marketers often have a better understanding of what drives customer behavior than sales teams. Then there are techniques focused on customers themselves. You should seek to build trust with your customers by ensuring that you store their data responsibly, but also give shout-outs to customers who are using your products in creative ways. Stress that they may be using your product, but it’s their hard work that’s driving their success. Acknowledge these customers, and they’ll remember it when it comes time to ask for a referral. 2. Make it easy to refer youNext, make sure that your customers know how to refer their friends or colleagues to you, and that they can do so easily. Research shows that over 80% of satisfied customers are more than willing to refer your company, but only a quarter actually do. In most cases, this is simply because customers are unaware of how to do so. A customer may leave your store feeling that they want to tell their friends about you, so make sure they have a way of doing so. This is particularly important for local marketing because word-of-mouth recommendations are extremely effective in driving community sales. You can even directly ask your satisfied customers to mention your store on social media or include an easy way to invite a friend or relative. Either way, make sure that you acknowledge the role of the community in allowing your business to grow and thank them frequently. 3. Reward Your ReferrersRewards for referrals are the high mark of well-developed marketing programs and can take your referral marketing to the next level. However, they can be difficult to use, especially with local marketing campaigns. Source: Referral Candy This is because offering a straight money reward for successful referrals can seem a little tacky: you are essentially bribing your customers to do your outreach marketing for you. You should therefore offer rewards that are non-monetary, and seek to reward organic referrals rather than paying people to construct them. These rewards can include gifts, an annual subscription to a relevant publication, or a cash donation to a charity. Measuring the success of referral campaignsMake sure you are tracking the success of your new referral program, so you can tweak it to make it more effective as necessary. Working with data can be a challenge for small businesses, but don’t be intimidated: there are plenty of courses out there that will give you the skills to work with data effectively and to use the in-built features of your website to track referrals and customer journeys. There are several metrics that you can use to measure the success of your referral campaign as well. The first is the number of users who are sharing your invites. Another is the actual number of referral page hits that you get. Perhaps the most important metric to measure is the churn rate or the number of customers who break things off with your company. A higher churn rate clearly indicates that the products or services you are offering to customers are not what they were expecting. A lower churn rate, on the other hand, indicates that your referral marketing campaign is succeeding. Keeping things secureRemember that when in the marketing game you are always handling sensitive information, including personal and financial customer data, and protecting this data must be a priority. You also need to make sure that you use a referral program that comes with a security system to help protect yourself against hackers. This means that you will not need to manually track each individual referral and can have peace in mind that your program has a solid layer of defense against cybercriminals, who have become an even bigger threat since the pandemic hit. The best security measures to protect your referral program include having strict terms and conditions in place to mitigate fraud, a transaction ID monitor, a duplicate blocking feature, and to always use a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt all business and customer data sent over your company network from hackers. While many local businesses with smaller budgets skip utilizing a VPN believing it saves them money, the truth is you don’t have to spend more than $6 for a quality VPN provider, so there’s really no excuse not to be using one. Successful examples of referral marketingTo provide some inspiration, here are three examples of businesses successfully using referral marketing to increase their leads and generate new customers: PupsikPupsik is an online parenting company that offers a point-based system. Each time a customer refers to a friend who purchases something from the store, the customer will receive 250 points plus a bonus discount on particular items. Dave’s Heating and CoolingDave’s Heating and Cooling is an HVAC business based out of Maryland. Both the referrer and the friend will receive a $50 credit to use on a future purchase when the friend becomes a new customer. No Place Like Home Pet SittingNo Place Like Home Pet Sitting is a pet sitting business based out of Lithia, Florida. They offer a unique referral reward system in the form of getting 10% of your friend’s invoice from your future invoice when you refer them. ConclusionLocal marketing can be difficult, and especially so when your business is new. Often, getting the first customer is the most difficult step of all. Referral marketing is so effective because it allows you to leverage the enthusiasm of your first few customers, and to quickly build a base of brand awareness and community trust. Just remember:
Ultimately, this will result in more customers, higher revenues, and more referrals, so your marketing efforts build their own success. The post How Local Businesses Can Harness the Power of Referral Marketing appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/33FeBZT Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ At the end of August, Apple revealed it would be launching its very own ratings solutions within Apple Maps. Talk of “Apple reviews” flew around the Twitterverse and, as usual, there was a lot of conjecture about what this new feature might mean. Apple Maps ratings (yep, that’s right — ratings not reviews, though they may be on the way) has been in beta testing in iOS 14 and will soon roll out globally. The update was first spotted by Twitter user, Beau Giles. Source: 9to5mac Currently, Apple Maps relies on review data from third-party solutions such as Yelp, Foursquare, and Tripadvisor. The news of Apple ratings comes after Apple Maps introduced a host of new features back in February, including favorite locations and indoor maps. With so much noise surrounding the announcement, we wanted to clear up what’s new, pose some potential questions and outcomes, and explore what this new feature might mean for local SEOs. ContentsWhat’s New?Instead of relying on the likes of third-party review sites, Apple Maps will soon house its own native ratings. Removing the use of third-party review sites should give both Apple and searchers more control. As it stands, if users want to explore more business reviews through Apple Maps, they’ll be directed to download the Yelp, Foursquare, or Tripadvisor app, which doesn’t make for the best user experience. From what we can see, Apple Maps’ new ratings system will operate much like Facebook recommendations, with users being allowed to leave a thumbs up or a thumbs down for the business. This differs from Google Maps, where users are able, and encouraged, to leave detailed reviews. So, although both Apple and its users will benefit from more autonomy, it could be argued that searchers will be left with less data to make an informed decision — they’ll be missing out on all the great content reviews provide, such as “huge beer garden!” or “make sure to order the vegetable dumplings”. That said, Apple Maps will be making use of different ratings categories. So instead of giving a business one thumbs up or thumbs down for all its offerings, users can rate products and services separately. In addition to the introduction of Apple Maps ratings, Apple will also be giving users the opportunity to upload their own photos. Similarly to with reviews, photos on the app are currently pulled from Yelp and other third-party review sites. According to Apple, all photos uploaded will be checked manually by a team (more on this later). Question Time!The news of Apple ratings has definitely left me with some questions, such as “What could Apple ratings mean for the future of the review economy?” and “Could this help tackle map spam?” Read on to indulge in a little self-Q&A and get our thoughts on what Apple Maps ratings could mean for the future of local SEO! What do Apple Maps ratings mean for Yelp and other review sites?Previously, Yelp held relevance in the local SEO sphere in no small part thanks to its relationship with Apple Maps. After all, without Yelp reviews, you’d be limiting how much information potential customers could get from you through Apple Maps. In fact, local SEO experts such as Cori Graft would remind people of the relevance of Yelp because of its integration with Apple Maps. (And yes, although Apple Maps may still be less popular than Google Maps, it’s worth remembering that Apple has made countless improvements to the software over the years, and that many iPhone users will never switch from their default phone app, which, naturally, is Apple).
Plus, according to Statista, Apple Maps receives 23.3 million unique users per month. So, if Yelp were to disappear from the app, that’s a huge amount of reach it’s missing out on. So does this mean we will see fewer local SEOs focusing on Yelp when it becomes irrelevant to Apple Maps users? Certainly, some people were pleased to see the back of it…
When will Apple Maps say goodbye to Yelp for good?Although it’s likely that Apple Maps ratings system will replace Yelp’s position in the app, we don’t yet know when the transition will occur. It’s unlikely that Yelp reviews will disappear from the app overnight, given that Apple Maps currently relies on the review site to provide content to its users. So, Apple Maps ratings will need time to populate before it says goodbye to Yelp for good. Here’s what a local business search currently looks like on Apple Maps. You can see that there’s plenty of data being pulled from Yelp, including photos: To avoid sacrificing the amount of data that Maps currently relies on, I’d expect to see the gradual fade-out of Yelp from Apple Maps over the coming year, but your guess may be as good as mine. (And if you have got a guess, feel free to share it with us in the comments of this blog!) How will Apple Maps encourage ratings?The topic of when we’ll see the back of Yelp for good in Apple Maps also begs the question, will Apple incentivize its Maps users to leave ratings? If Apple needs to populate its ratings content before saying “see ya later” to Yelp, then they may well need to encourage users to leave ratings of their own accord. Although we wouldn’t expect any form of monetary or prize-like incentive, it could be the case that Apple Maps launches something akin to Google’s Local Guides program, which sees loyal users rewarded with badges and native perks. Will Apple ratings become Apple reviews?It’s still early doors, but this announcement got me wondering, is Apple ratings just the beginning? Will Apple Maps venture into fully-fledged reviews like Google Maps? In this iteration of Apple ratings, it seems that users will be able to leave a thumbs up or thumbs down across multiple categories, such as product and customer service. But surely searchers want to see more detail than a mere thumbs up or thumbs down reaction — especially in light of recent Covid-19 restrictions. Searchers want to know how well restaurants, bars, and shops, etc., are adhering to guidelines, and reviews provide a great platform to discuss those more nuanced topics. Again, we’re still pre-launch right now, but it may be the case that Apple Maps launches its ratings system with just a handful of select categories, with plans to expand on them to provide searchers with more detailed answers in the future. Is a picture really worth a thousand words?Although users won’t be able to leave written feedback along with their ratings, Apple Maps has introduced the option to upload photos. So, this begs the question, is a picture really worth a thousand words? It could be argued that written reviews aren’t actually necessary if you can share a photo of the location, products, and safety measures being taken. Really, only time will tell if users find the combo of thumbs up/thumbs down and photos to be sufficient to make purchasing decisions. It’s also worth noting that Apple has said it will be checking any photo uploads manually. This differs greatly from Google Maps, which auto-approves all photos (photos can then be flagged for removal, but if left alone they’ll stay put as intended, much to the chagrin of many business owners). Although this approach may help to reduce map spam and irrelevant images, it’s hard to see how scaleable it may be. Could Apple ratings reduce fake reviews?One thing that has stood out as a key differentiator between Apple Maps’ and Google Maps’ approach to reviews is who is eligible to leave a review or rating. While Google Maps allows anyone to leave a review, Apple Maps will only allow ratings to be left by users who Apple can verify have visited the establishment in question.
This could certainly go some way to reduce map spam in Apple Maps, specifically fake reviews, as users wouldn’t be able to recommend businesses they hadn’t actually visited. As of yet, however, it’s not clear what “checks” Apple will perform to ensure the ratings left are authentic. Hot TakesAs always, when something like this hits the local SEO community, we take to Twitter to explore how local search marketers have responded. Some seemed to think the change came late in the game…
…while others were simply grateful for the improved user experienced provided by this solution:
Next StepsUntil Apple Maps ratings officially launch, there isn’t a huge amount to do. That said, you’ll need to be prepared for when they do arrive. It goes without saying, but when Apple Maps ratings do launch, you’re going to want to make sure you use them. That means getting access to an iPhone, updating to the latest iOS, and simply having a play around with the new Maps features. Ask yourself: How quick is the process? How easy is it? What kinds of questions are being asked of users? As ever with reviews, it’s vital to ensure you understand what the searcher will be going through. That way, when the time comes to ask your customers to leave a rating on Maps, you’ll know exactly what you’re asking of them. With that in mind, you’ll also want to prepare any signage (online or offline) to also encourage customers to leave a rating on Apple Maps. Simply adding a line like “Leave us a thumbs up on Apple Maps!” should do the trick. We’ve obviously discussed that Apple Maps ratings won’t allow for written feedback at this time, so make sure any signage or copy you do adapt doesn’t ask customers to mention specific services or products, as you would with Google reviews. What do Apple Maps ratings mean for BrightLocal customers?Currently, we’re looking into if and how we can incorporate Apple Maps ratings into our existing Reputation Manager offering. As of yet, there’s no information as to whether this feature will be accessible to non-Apple users or via API. With Google Reviews, business owners can share a Google My Business review link with customers to direct them to leave feedback. However, no such thing has been announced for Apple Maps yet. As always, we’ll be keeping a keen eye on the situation and will update our customers when we can. Final ThoughtsThough this change to Apple Maps is largely unlikely to threaten Google, which boasts the most users in the navigation apps space, it is certainly worthwhile for businesses to consider how this change may affect them, and to prepare to adapt accordingly. Shifting focus from the likes of Yelp to Apple Maps, at least while we see how ratings play out, would be the sensible course of action here. What do you think of the introduction of photos and ratings to Apple Maps? Will it change how you approach online reviews? Share your thoughts in the comments below! The post Apple Maps Ratings: What’s New and What’s Next? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/33l0SqR Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ |
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