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How to Hire an Experienced SEO Companygoogle-analytics-seo

How to Hire an Experienced SEO Company

Published February 14, 2022

When looking to Hire an SEO Company, you need to make sure you have a clear understanding of what SEO is and how it works. You should choose a company that specializes in one or two key areas of SEO. It should have a proven track record of increasing rankings, traffic, and conversions, and its personnel should specialize in search engine optimization. An SEO company should also have solid analytics that will allow you to follow their progress, and a team of experts who are ready to share their knowledge with you.

Choosing a good SEO company isn’t as hard as it seems. There are plenty of factors to consider. Some SEO companies operate through monthly contracts, which gives you a predictable cost structure. Look for a firm that will explain after-hours interactions and what add-on services they offer. Another important consideration when hiring an SEO company is how much you want to spend. A good firm will offer a free estimate and a timeline of work, and should be willing to explain all of its costs and deliverables.

If you hire an SEO company, it is important to understand the process they use. While some SEO firms may claim to generate 50% more leads in six months, you should remember that SEO takes time and man-hours. You should be prepared to invest time in your SEO campaign if you want to see results. But it can be hard to determine whether or not you should do it yourself. To avoid the pitfalls of hiring an SEO company, make sure to ask questions beforehand.

An Austin SEO company that combines multiple marketing strategies should be able to explain how it works. The firm should also be able to explain how it works and how it benefits your business. For example, if you are looking for content marketing, a content marketing strategy that includes email and social media marketing can significantly enhance the results. A comprehensive approach to SEO can improve your business’s profitability and increase the number of leads and sales. These types of issues are critical and are essential for your success.

When hiring an SEO company, it is vital to discuss your expectations and the strategies they employ. The company should explain how it will measure progress and monitor backlinks. It should explain how it will analyze competitors and provide regular updates. You should ask questions during the consultation process and make sure the SEO company is transparent. This is an extremely important decision, and you should be comfortable discussing it with your SEO consultant. If you have a tight budget, you should always hire a smaller team of creatives to help you with the overall marketing efforts.

In addition to the many benefits of hiring an SEO company, there are several other benefits of hiring a company. It will allow you to focus on other aspects of your business while the company works on your SEO strategy. For example, it will help you establish a strong brand recognition and gain the trust of your customers. An experienced SEO company will not only do this, but it will also help you avoid mistakes that can limit your growth. The best companies will provide the right services. They will also provide you with the knowledge and expertise to ensure that your website gets the best results.

Hiring an SEO company is an excellent investment for your business. The right SEO company will optimize your website to get the most traffic possible. Your business website can be beautiful, but if it’s not optimized, it won’t be able to convert visitors into leads. An SEO company can help you get more customers and grow your business. You’ll have more time to focus on the things that matter, and an SEO company will do the rest.

SEO experts can help your website achieve higher rankings and better position in search engines. However, you should have clear goals and target audience before hiring an SEO company. The wrong audience can cause you to miss out on some of your potential customers. A well-developed SEO strategy will be able to attract potential customers. If you don’t have clear objectives, it’s hard to know if your SEO campaign is effective. Hence, you should hire an SEO expert that understands your business and its competitors.

How to Get The Most Out Of Your Google Ad Campaigns

Published September 27, 2019

Google Ad campaigns done right are a good way to drive highly qualified traffic to your website. Done wrong, you can waste money on clicks without getting conversions. The key to running a successful Google Ads campaign is to make sure people notice your ad, click on it and then call you or convert on your landing page.

Where to Advertise

Google Search Network ads, which you see on the search results page, have higher click-through rates than Display Network ads. Display ads appear on Gmail, YouTube, and other Google properties. You will get more impressions on the Display Network, however, consumers looking to buy usually start with a Google search.

Choose Relevant Keywords for Your Ad Copy

You want to bid on keywords with a high search volume which shows commercial intent. Use the AdWords Keyword Planner to build ad groups and specific campaigns with your keywords.

Next, you’ll write ad copy which reflects the user’s intent, Since you get two lines, use the second line to state your value proposition and how choosing your brand benefits the user.

Geotarget Your Audience and Schedule Your Ad 

Make the most of your Google Ad campaign budget by specifying who sees your ad. An attorney who practices in New Jersey wouldn’t want their ad shown to people in other states. If you are an online retailer who ships internationally, exclude countries where you do not offer shipping.

If you have a local business open during the daytime only, exclude your ad from showing when you are closed and there is no one to answer the phone.

Use Extensions

Extensions are very useful, especially the click-to-call extension for smartphone users. Imagine you’re frantically looking for an emergency plumber. The ad offering 24-hour service with a phone number you can click on will get more attention than one without the extension.

Quality Score

Learn how Google determines your ad’s quality score. They look at how relevant your ad is to the keyword and the quality and relevancy of your landing page. Google wants people who click on ads to have the same good experience as they do with organic listings. If your ad has a high-quality score, you’ll pay less per click and rank higher.

How to Write a Compelling Cover Lettercover letter

How to Write a Compelling Cover Letter

Published August 8, 2019

Writing a great cover letter can be a daunting task. A great cover letter is the introduction before the introduction and can make the difference between betting the interview and getting left in a stack of other uninspired applications. These four tips will help you get started on writing a cover letter that separates your application from the rest.

Think of it as a story.

If your resume is a timeline of your professional career, think of your cover letter as the story that accompanies it. Your cover letter is an opportunity for you to highlight your best experiences and explain to a potential employer how you’ve grown since any mistakes, such as losing a job due to poor performance. It’s also a great way to explain how seemingly mundane job experiences you had early in your career translated into useful skills. For example, a food service job you had as a teenager may have given you more discipline and the ability to keep track of several tasks at once.

Be honest and humble (but not too humble.)

Each job opening results in dozens of applications for hiring a manager to sift through, making them very good at spotting nonsense. Over exaggerating previous responsibilities, rank, or recognitions will likely immediately disqualify you from the position. Instead, point out your best traits and experiences and move on to talking about why those make you a great applicant.

Do your research.

If you were an employer, would you want to hire someone whose cover letter is generic or one that describes why they would work for the specific culture of your company? Do a bit of research about the place you’re applying to, and if possible relate your skills to the company’s mission statement. Most importantly, make sure to summarize instead of copying and pasting. You want to prove that you can think independently, not that you can plagiarize from their website.

Keep it brief and relevant

When searching for a new employee, hiring managers read a lot of material. Keeping your cover letter to one page unless otherwise specified on the application will make you more memorable than others who drone on at length. If you find that paring it down is difficult, pick the three most important parts of your education or work history to talk about and leave out anything else.

Composing a cover letter can be a challenge, but if you stick to these four tips you’re sure to stand out from the crowd. Best of luck in your job search journey, and happy writing.

 

The Board, Social Media and Liabilities

Published December 12, 2012

Today, what happens in social media or more aptly, cyber space, can directly impact a board and how a company is governed. Here are just five ways your company may be impacted. Are you ready?

1. Directors Liability: A crisis, such as when JetBlue passengers were stranded for hours on the tarmac or the major oil disaster in the G u l f o f M e x i c o, often will lead to widespread public discussion online. Increasingly citizens are using social media tools to organize protests and gather information which can be used in future litigation against responsible parties. Board members need to react to crises quickly and efficiently. Monitoring social media channels can help better assess risk and potential outcomes, and permit tailored responses to real concerns.

2. Union Organizing: Unions are making very good use of social media tools. A board not paying attention to social media chatter may be blindsided by a rallying attempt at their company. One for which they could have been prepared.

3. Whistleblower Crises: It may be that employees in a company have concerns that they feel are not being addressed. Monitoring social media channels may elucidate such issues and allow management to respond before a whistleblower feels the need to go public online. Awareness of chatter on social media sites will allow companies to better understand employee issues and take appropriate and timely action before crises hit.

4. Legislative Impact: Activist groups opposed to a company’s operations (i.e. oil & gas sector) are using social media tools to mobilize communities and to build potentially damaging cases against a company. These protests can result in legislative changes that block a proposed project. Be aware of opposition demands and  citizen concerns by monitoring social media channels – this will allow you to undertake public education programmes or perhaps to alter certain practices before projects get halted.

5. Stock Price Volatility / Insider Trading Claims etc.: An individual – intentionally or not – could post information online that leads to a sell-off or drives a sudden hike in buy activity, resulting in an investigation. Before such an incident can damage your firm and /or the reputation of board members monitor what is being stated and discussed about your firm on social media sites.

The challenge to successful business is often just being aware of what people think of you – are employees content, are communities supportive and are social and environmental issues seen as being addressed? Awareness allows us to respond before crisis hits – don’t get left in the dark, embrace social media, use these channels to get your message out and listen to what is being posted.

Ranking of Governments Engaged in Digital Diplomacy Through Social Media

Published April 24, 2012

The concept of Digital Diplomacy (sometimes called Virtual Diplomacy) is fairly new, arguably coming to the forefront of international affairs as a result of the failed Green Revolution in Iran in 2009 where social media played a role, albeit ambiguously in its effect. Then came the Arab Spring and the use of Facebook and other tools. Today, the most active governments are the U.S. and UK in using social media as Digital Diplomacy tools. Below we’ve provided a ranking of which democratic and non-democratic countries are most active in terms of international relations through digital media in Cyberspace.

Democratic Governments Using Social Media for Digital Diplomacy
As the graph below shows, the U.S. government leads the way with a foreign affairs department using social media actively to promote its foreign policy with a close second from the UK FCO. Australia is third but coming up fast. For the most part however, most governments tend to “broadcast” and not engage in dialogue. This graph “ranks” a government based on a) volume of content created and pushed across digital channels, b) number of channels they are active in and c) number of “entities” or people that push out content from that department. The highest a government can achieve for activity is a 9.

 

 

Democratic Governments Engaging in Dialogue with Foreign Citizens for Digital Diplomacy
Without a doubt, Australia leads in terms of responding to inquiries and having, albeit short, bursts of engagement with citizens from other countries. Behind them is the Netherlands and then the UK. We term “engagement” as responding to inquiries and questions and occasionally in Twitter, re-tweeting content from someone else. Engaging in dialogue however, can be a challenge for a government in international affairs as there can be serious implications. Over time, as diplomatic services become more familiar with and comfortable in the use of social media, engagement levels will likely change.

Methodology
For this research we used our proprietary software to analyze the Twitter accounts of confirmed government foreign affairs departments and then looked at traffic and engagement across blogs, Facebook and any other social networks such as YouTube. Rankings are designed to understand the level of activity use by each government in a channel. Human analysts then completed the work through link and data verification.

Keystone XL and The Impact of Social Media Study

Published December 1, 2011

Today we announced the release of our groundbreaking research into a major issue that crosses two borders – the Keystone XL pipeline and how social media was used.

We note that this was an in-house research project by our own team and was not sponsored by any company, organisation or individual. Some of the key findings of this report are;

  • This issue galvanised very large numbers of people, organisations and groups on both sides of the Canada-US border and social media facilitated cross-border connections and relationships.
  • Negative sentiment around Keystone has remained a majority view among people active in social media channels since this issue entered the public domain in July 2008.
  • Positive sentiment, however, has gained momentum over the past year and has nearly closed the gap with negative sentiment in some channels.
  • Our research also suggests that social media was vital in incorporating  the views of local, civil society groups from rural areas in a broad public debate.
  • Finally, the issue also moved into the social media dialogue surrounding the 2011 Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa this December.

We can certainly see the social media is having an increasingly bigger impact on our world beyond just marketing. Increasingly, citizens are learning how to use these technologies to organise and drive change not just in democracies, but in dictatorships like Egypt and Tunisia.

So what do you think? Will social media continue to be as or more important in society?

Senior Citizens and Social Media

Published October 7, 2011

It’s easy to assume social medias are the domain of the young and frenetic. To assume the “silver surfer” or the silver haired 55+ dem0graphic is rather technologically disconnected. That assumption would be wrong. Marketers would do well to take a second look at this market and it is growing. In Atlantic Canada and northeastern USA, the average age of a Facebook user is 53. In England we see a similar trend, though it is somewhat lower at 46.

How do figure that the Silver Surfer is more active than we might have assumed? As the Internet grew in popularity, it was first most popularly adopted by people in their 40′s, back in the mid-1990′s. Computers were triple or more the cost of what they are today and those that could afford them for the household, and the cost of Internet connectivity (dial-up no less!) were in the higher middle income brackets, professional and well educated. Now, 15 years on, they are into their 50′s and 60′s and they are active.

Reason for Engagement
The pie chart below indicates the reason Silver Surfers engage in social media. Friends and family come first; no surprise there. This is followed by hobbies (golf, knitting, sailing etc.) but shopping and banking comes in last. Silver Surfers are still untrusting of online financial transactions. We also found that this demographic is among the most vocal in local newsmedia websites for commentary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Channels Used
Here we have a graph of the channels used by various age groups. As we can see, Silver Surfers prefer to Forums and photo sharing. They may watch video but are unlikely to create and share videos through channels like YouTube or Vimeo. For social networks in Western nations they prefer Facebook for its ease of use (all things considered) and because it is more likely that’s where family and friends are. This research was conducted prior to Google+ launch.

 

Conclusions
Silver Surfers or Senior Citizens (classed by us as 55+ in this instance) are active in social media. They love to comment on news sites and as expected have strong opinions. For the most part, they prefer simple tools that fit in largely with services they are already familiar with. They quickly develop habits of use with preferred tools and are unlikely to change their preferences once established. New tools that take some exploration or anywhere near complex will not be easily adopted. They are “late adopters” of any technology and service online.

This is an active social media demographic. Marketers have an opportunity to engage in these channels and push products and services. We do note they are not likely to plonk down a credit card number into an online purchasing system unless they truly establish a trust connection.

Methodology
We collected and aggregated data from 2,500 profiles in Atlantic Canada and New England states and 1,200 profiles from England for a sample size. All data collected was publicly available. We did not access individual and/or private information. Over 1.5 million text files were analyzed using our Artificial Intelligence Engine and crawler, mediasphere360. Human verification of data was applied. The data was collected from June 2010 to December 21st, 2010.

Age Groups and Social Media Habits

Published March 14, 2009

As we spend a lot of time monitoring social media and the tools used, we are constantly looking at the data for broader insights into the how’s and why’s of social media as a whole. One aspect that’s always intrigued me is how various demographics use different tools. Here’s some of the key insights we’ve learned lately.

Ages 12-25: Tend to use more mobile social media tools, such as SMS/txt and mobile oriented social media tools. This pattern we’ve seen in the USA, Canada and Western Europe (especially Europe, but no surprise there.) This bracket also spends more time on MySpace, followed by NetLog and Bebo in Europe. This segment loves video and anything text better be short and sweet.

Ages 25-45: This group crosses over in a mix between Web-based and mobile usage. The most popular social media tool for this group is email, although we note a trend towards more use of Social Networking tools for communication. This group prefers Facebook followed by NetLog. We note that NetLog is 2nd to Facebook in Europe. Mobile usage of social tools seems to be around Twitter, Blackberry messenger or iPhone apps. We find so many similarities in usage patterns across these groups that we decided to lump the 25-45 group together, when they are ordinarily split into two segments. This group also likes less text in blogs and on websites and enjoys video. Their content creation however, remains heavily text-oriented and very little use of video.

Ages 46-55: This group generally sticks to the Web (about 90% of the time) rarely using SMS/txt messaging. They’ll use a blog but rarely a microblog. This group is likely to print and read a document on paper rather than a monitor. They are more distrustful of social media and the content therein. Their approach to content creation is textual and rarely visual through video and images.

55 and over: From 56 to 65 we see fairly regular use of Social Media and this seems to be driven as the result of familial communications. New tools are not easily adopted and this age range is more politically conservative and traditional in their media consumption habits (radio, TV, print news.) Use of social tools seems to be on services like Facebook where they can work within a set framework.

Once we get over 65, use of social tools drops significantly as would be expected. Clearly there are generational preferences to the tools available. One issue we did notice is that the under 25 bracket have little to no loyalty to a specific service, whereas the 25-45 bracket are far more loyal to a social tool/service.