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Marketing

Search Engine Optimization Solutions for Small Businesses

Though there are no shortcuts to dominating online with your business, there are many steps that small businesses can take to enhance their search engine optimization and compete in the digital world. Over time the importance of a web presence that is easily found has become critical to the success of a business, even a physical storefront. With the limited number of results on the first page, what can a small business do to compete with larger companies? Search engine optimization solutions can help small businesses remain competitive and increase the number of visitors that will find them organically through search engine results pages. To do this, it is important for small businesses to invest in building their online presence to rank higher. Here are some search engine optimization solutions for small businesses:

Get Your Business on the Map

One of the easiest, and most efficient, search engine optimization solutions a small business can complete is successfully “getting their business on the map”. If you have ever searched for a service in your local area, you likely saw different businesses placed on a map at the top of the Google search page. These businesses have utilized the power of Google’s FREE GYBO program. According to GYBO’s own statistics, a business that is online can grow 40% faster than the competition that isn’t. Furthermore, these businesses are twice as likely to create jobs as a result of this growth. Struggling to get through the GYBO process? Let us know, we can help!

Gather Reviews

After your business has successfully completed the GYBO requirements, you are now ready to start building your online presence. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ask your customers for reviews online. This can include multiple different platforms including Google, Yelp, Angie’s List, Trip Advisor or any other review site that meets the industry of your company. To specifically build your Google ranking, however, it is encouraged that you gather as many reviews as possible through Google’s own review system. Any reviews, good or bad, that you receive will be available to potential customers and attached to your business profile. For this reason, it is important to focus on providing the best customer service possible for your clients or customers to bolster your review status.

Get Social

Social media platforms have grown substantially recently. With targeted advertising opportunities on Facebook and other social platforms, you have the ability to pinpoint exactly who you are trying to reach. Finding these individuals and building a relationship with them through social media can help not only increase real-world visits but serves as one of the most powerful search engine optimization solutions as well. For example, say you have just completed a new blog that will resonate with your target audiences you have been growing. By posting this blog to your social media, you are creating shareable content that your customers will want to share because it aligns with their needs or wants. When this happens, more people can find your website and you will continue to grow.

Why Skynet Solutions?

You can always get in touch with the experts at Skynet Solutions for help with your online business listing, website development, social media marketing or anything else you need to help make your business succeed. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2017 your business’ best year yet. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on FacebookTwitterGoogle+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

How Important is a Mobile Friendly Website?

We now live in a digital age where information is at our fingertips at all times. The arrival of internet connected phones has allowed consumers to find information no matter where they are. Fortunately, business owners can benefit from this phenomenon as well. The addition of mobile friendly features into your updated website design is paramount in the modern age. In fact, mobile and tablet access has actually surpassed desktop internet usage. The affordability of new mobile phones and tablets has allowed unprecedented internet access worldwide and this trend shows no signs of slowing.

Why is Mobile Friendly Important for Business Owners?

When searching for search engine optimization solutions you have likely come across the phrases bounce rate and click back. These two factors play a critical role in how users are interacting with your website and, in turn, how relevant is should be in the search results. Let’s look at what each factor means:

Bounce Rate

A bounce from your website is logged each time a user visits your website but doesn’t visit another page. This can be tracked if the user clicks an outbound link or manually enters a new URL.

Click Back

A click back occurs when a user visits your website and either doesn’t like what they see or can’t properly use it. In this instance, the user will click the back button on their browser and find a more relevant search result. Google also calculates the time the user spends on each page while visiting your site before performing either a click back or bounce. These factors play a critical role in how well your website ranks in the search engine.

But how can a mobile friendly site help improve these numbers?

When you invest the time in creating a mobile friendly website, you ensure that the information presented will be easily seen by visitors. This can immediately help decrease the number of click backs and bounces seen by the website owner because a large portion will likely be using a mobile device. Ultimately, this tiny detail can help your website rank higher in the long term as Google continues to focus on mobile friendly search results as a ranking factor. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on FacebookTwitterGoogle+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

The Benefits of Business Automation Software

Many modern companies utilize business automation software to perform basic business processes. This can help facilitate the removal of manual user actions required to complete a variety of tasks. The more technology sources a business utilizes the more beneficial utilizing business automation software becomes. Business automation software can help transition your manual triggers into automatic software implementations. For example, instead of requiring direct communication when a task is completed, business automation software can automatically send a message when the task is completed. Here are some benefits to utilizing business automation software for your business.

Cost Reduction

One of the biggest benefits of utilizing business automation software is the ability to cut costs associated with performing these tasks. This can often come in the form of reducing needed manpower from other operational areas by completing tedious tasks automatically. Business automation software keeps employees focused on core tasks and increases productivity.

Effective Marketing

Another benefit of business automation software is the ability to simplify marketing and customer service tasks. For example, if your website posts a new blog to the website, business automation software can automatically post it to your social accounts. This can help lead to social media engagement as well as increased web traffic.

Decreased Administrative Tasks

One of the biggest time killers for business owners is the requirements for general administrative tasks. Business automation software can assist with client management, auto-responses and providing general reminders. If you have a specific need in your business to help cut down administrative tasks, personalized software can likely help.

Faster Communication

If your business must manually create invoices for products or services, the process could likely be cut down tremendously. Business automation software can be created to automatically provide invoices quickly and efficiently with little-required input. This means your business can get paid faster and communications can be increased dramatically.

Why Skynet Solutions?

Our business automation software allows you as the business owner to focus your time and efforts less on the busy-work and more on the fun stuff. We want to help change that with our business automation software. And rest assured, if none of our existing software works for your business, then we will do what we do best and create custom automation tools specifically for your business. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on FacebookTwitterGoogle+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

Building Engagement While Blogging

Over time, it seems like many bloggers have done away with the comment functionality on their posts. Often this stems from the arrival of unwanted spam and advertising comments or a few negative comments that led to a bad experience. However, with the ability to approve comments before they are posted, WordPress can help you be comfortable with the comments being added to your site. Blog engagement comes in a wide variety of forms. However, post sharing through social media or direct comments on your blog posts should be your primary focus.

These two factors can help with indexing and drive consistent traffic to your website. The consistent addition of new comments on your blog, and your responses, can help ensure your pages don’t become stale and remain active. However, unless your content is phenomenal this likely won’t happen on its own. Here are some steps you can take to build engagement while blogging.

Provide Value

To bring traffic to your blog, you will need to ensure that your posts are giving some form of value to your readership. Depending on your business and business practices, this could be humor or just standard posts that strengthen your products and industry. By giving your readers value, they will be more likely to interact with your information.

Focus on Originality

If you are taking your blog ideas from other websites, hundreds to thousands of other people are as well. This can bury your posts in the search rankings and harm the exposure your website is receiving. To remedy this, flex your creative muscles and think of fresh, new content that others will want to share.

Provide a Call to Action

One of the easiest ways to build direct engagement on your blog is to ask readers to participate. Give them questions inside of the body of the content that will make them likely to respond. However, make sure you respond to each comment, otherwise, readers will have no incentive to continue commenting. This is also a great way to get the pulse of what your readership is looking for in future content.

If you need any help keeping up with your blogging requirements or updating your content, call the content creation experts at Skynet Solutions. We can write interesting, fresh content for any industry or business, as well as handling your social media and other marketing needs. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on FacebookTwitterGoogle+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

Ranking Your Website in Competitive Markets

To ensure your website is successful it’s important to strive to reach top search engine ranking. However, some very competitive markets are seemingly impossible to rank in when pitted against conglomerates and other large-scale companies. Don’t let this discourage you, there are several strategies you can use to gather your share of the market!

One of the most common mistakes website owners make is tailoring their content to try and rank for general keywords. However, if you have a clearly defined niche audience you are attempting to reach, you could be ranking higher in their search results than large companies. To do this, companies have to understand what makes their product or services stand out from the large corporations and target those audiences extensively. To do this, smaller companies must be more concise with what market they are attempting to reach and focus on less competitive search engine terms.

Large companies have many resources and funding that small business owners won’t. Trying to be competitive for general keywords will likely only end in a hurt wallet and no increase in business. For example, the supplement industry is very competitive. With the wide variety of products available to consumers, it is important to find your niche and exploit it when crafting new, engaging content. Instead of saying just “protein powder”, a smaller business could experiment with more detailed phrases like “protein powder for CrossFit athletes” or “protein powder for muscle recovery”.

By following this strategy, the small business will likely rank higher for these keywords because the large company has dominated the more general term. Search engines function to provide the most accurate result possible for their users. By clearly targeting your audiences based on how they search and the terms they use, you will be more likely to achieve sustained organic traffic growth.

If you need any help keeping up with your blogging requirements or updating your content, call the content creation experts at Skynet Solutions. We can write interesting, fresh content for any industry or business, as well as handling your social media and other marketing needs. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on FacebookTwitterGoogle+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

Does Social Media Impact SEO?

More and more, social media is solidifying its place as the most prominent activity in terms of time spent online. This has, in turn, led the generation and creation of overwhelming amounts of content that can be consumed by those willing to seek it out. It’s not uncommon for many small business owners to wonder if social media really has an impact on their search engine optimization or the value it can give them.

Direct search engine optimization currently is not part of social media posting. Social media posts are indexed but this doesn’t mean that every social media post is being indexed by Google or other search engines. With the wide amount of content being created, it would quickly engulf search results, making traditional search results buried in social media posts. In most cases, bots are unable to judge the credibility of the content or author of social media posts, making them less likely to be indexed. Social media does have a more indirect impact on SEO than you may have realized.

Social media platforms are an excellent source for both links and link sharing. This can benefit traditional websites by providing a conduit to their existing website for many individuals at any given time. Branding content can also be shared, making search result rankings higher in the long term. Search has become a prominent focus on social media channels in recent years.

For example, with Twitter users can add hashtags to their post which are then easily searched. Other content that is indexed includes keywords, images and other similar content. Even though social media platforms don’t have a direct impact on SEO for business owners, it is important to realize the positive benefits that can be achieved by remaining active on social media. By providing interesting and relevant content that can easily be shared, websites owners can expect more traffic than they would receive without social media platforms. Optimizing your pages can further benefit your business.

You can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for help with your social media management or anything else you need to help make your business succeed. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2017 your business’ best year yet. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on FacebookTwitterGoogle+ and LinkedIn!