SEO

The Anatomy of a Blog Post

March 7, 2013 by primm

Content, content, content. You hear all the time that good content is the backbone of your business’s online marketing strategy and that the company blog is an important part of the content-creation process. If you are new to blogging, especially in the B2B realm, figuring out where to start can be overwhelming. What does a good blog post look like? While all post formats and specific goals will differ between industries, companies, and people, there are a few key components that will make your content stand out.

An attention-grabbing (and SEO-friendly) headline

A strong blog post title is often the first thing your readers see and the first to draw them in to a post. It can and should be funny or thought provoking for the interest of readers, but make sure it also appeals to the search engines by including relevant keywords in a way that makes sense. Accordingly, make your lead paragraph as interesting and relevant to your purpose as possible. A good example of this is a Primm post from a few months ago: Snoop’s Rebranding.

An eye-catching image

Never underestimate the power of a striking photo for drawing readers into a blog post. Like your headline, it is best that whatever image you choose at least distantly relates to the goal and content of your post. Readers will lose trust in your work if they feel misled.

A concise and easy-to-understand text-body

The rule of thumb for blog post length is anywhere between 300 and 1000 words, so, as long as you write about something people really care about, you have a bit of leeway with their attention spans and the search engines’ web crawlers.

Keep your paragraphs broken up idea by idea. People like to be able to scan a blog post to get the general idea and big blocks of words will often deter them from reading.

Some kind of call to action at the end

Especially in the corporate blogging world, it’s important that a blog post sets forth “next steps” for its reader. Avoid hard sells (another way to lose reader trust), but do include encouragement for further engagement with your company. “If you need help with [blank], we’re here for you,” or “Follow us on Twitter!” Anything to help ensure that they establish more connections and associations with your brand.

Do you have questions about corporate blogging or need some advice about how to get started? Call or contact the experts at Primm (see what we did there?).

Mobile SEO/Compatibility and Your Company

July 18, 2012 by primm

Search Engine Optimization is a big thing that we preach at the Primm Company, but did you know that it is not just for your laptop or desktop computer?

Think about it, if someone is searching for something on their phone, there is more than likely a strong motive or intent to find something then and there at that moment. So make sure you are set up to take advantage of these everyday opportunities.

When someone searches something from their cell phone, they are not bound to a computer. They can roam the world and search for anything on a whim. Taking advantage of mobile search could help lead to increased impulse buys or need/want purchases for potential consumers when they search for your company. And this in turn leads to potentially more sales for your business.

Before you go off and tear into your SEO strategy, consider this: Do you need to revamp your site to make it more user-friendly on a mobile device? Do you need a separate site for just mobile phones? Or can you leave your site the same as it is now? These questions must be answered! A site that isn’t user-friendly but offers good information is useless in most cases, especially when a searcher has a four- inch screen to navigate your website.

So consider these things when thinking mobile. Give The Primm Company a call at 757-623-6234, and we’ll help you make the right moves.

Google+ Local

June 11, 2012 by primm

Google recently switched over 80 million business listings from Google Places to Google+ Local. It’s an integration of Google maps, Google Places, Google+ and Zagat reviews.

The change is an effort to make Google maps a more social experience. Let’s face it: We often turn to people and resources to help us make decisions—especially when it comes to the best places to go.

Now, reviews can only be left by people who have Google+ accounts. This provides more transparency, while also preventing the potential abuse the previous review system was prone to.

Google+ Local is slightly different than Google Maps, because the listings feature Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in your Google+ network. It’s integrated into Search, Maps and mobile and available as a new tab in Google+.

Each place you see in Google+ Local will now be scored using Zagat’s 30-point scale, which tells you all about the various aspects of a place so you can make the best decisions. For example, if a place has great food but horrible service, you might see a 28 in Food and a 3 in Service, and you’d know to place your order for pick-up.

Also with Google+ Local, the opinions of people in your Google+ circles are front and center. So if you’re searching for “pizza” on Google+ Local, your results might show a friend’s wonderful review of a pizza place down the street.

What does this mean for the business owner?

Google+ Local is a great opportunity for business owners to use social networking as means for improving exposure on the Google search engine, but it also means they need to upgrade to Google+.

While Google Places information has transferred to Google+ Local Pages, there is still another step to finalize the transition.

As a Google+ member, you can claim and optimize your business page. But if you’ve already claimed and optimized your Google Places page, which has now transitioned to Google+ Local, you still have to claim your Google + Local Business Page and let Google know you would like to integrate the two pages.

After you integrate the pages, you can add customers to your circles. This will create better search engine optimization for your site and potentially boost word of mouth advertising for your business.

On the downside, it’s now more important than ever to deal with bad reviews. Each consumer is connected to a circle of people far larger than their immediate circle of friends. One bad review will likely be seen by many more people than before.

Stay ahead of the game and on top of your listing. If you need help with your Google+ Local listing, give The Primm Company a call at 757-623-6234.

Sources: ENGadget, BDaily, GoogleBlog

Pinching Pennies on Your Web Site Will Cost You

June 4, 2012 by primm

A website is more often than not your first impression to potential customers, so why would any business want to stop spending money on one of their most important forms of advertising?

While some companies opt to save money by switching to a web developer that charges less, they usually don’t know what they are getting themselves into.

Is the developer experienced?
Is the developer part-time or full-time?
Will you be able to easily get in touch with the web developer when you need to?
Questions as simple as these need to be asked when cutting costs on something so serious.

We often have clients come in complaining about their previous web developers, how their site was never updated, or how their site traffic dropped significantly after the developer made changes. Don’t let this happen to you.

Get your site developed by a full time staff that is dedicated to your company and your success. In order to avoid web site mayhem, give us a call and start seeing results immediately.

Maintaining a Proper Business Listing

February 1, 2012 by primm

Maintaining your online business listings is more important than ever. Search engines now localize most of their results based on the location of the user, and GPS-enabled mobile devices rely heavily on accurate business listings to aggregate helpful information. Google reports that 20% of all searches are local, and 40-50% of all mobile searches are local.

Knowing this, it’s important to establish your anchor identity early on. Your anchor identity is your business listing—usually consisting of your business name, address and phone number (NAP).

Business owners must closely monitor the accuracy of their NAP information. Several sites create listings without a business owner’s knowledge by pulling information from various other listing sites on the web. That’s why it’s important to get things right ASAP. Here are a few suggestions for managing your online listings:

1. Don’t alter your business name.
Keep it consistent. Don’t use an abbreviation on one listing that you don’t use on another, and don’t add a new description to your name just because you started doing something new.
(Example: Bob’s Auto Repair Shop started tinting windows. They should not start listing themselves as “Bob’s Auto Repair and Window Tinting.”)

2. Maintain your real address.
Only use addresses where you have an actual business location. Lying won’t get you anywhere, and P.O. Boxes won’t help. (After all, the search engines know the post office’s address too.)

3. Use your primary phone number.
We focus on conversion tracking and think multiple phone numbers have a place in marketing—but NOT on your business listing. Consistently using your primary number will make your listing seem more reliable and will allow search engines to aggregate more information about you.

4. Only include information for the long term.
This is not a place for short term promotions. The information in your business listing is not as easy to control as you may think. It will be copied over and over again throughout the web, making it nearly impossible to edit everything.

5. Keep an eye out.
Set up Google Alerts to notify you every time your business name appears on the web. If someone posts incorrect NAP information for your business, you may be able to catch it before it spreads to too many other sites.

If you need help managing your online business listing, give The Primm Company a call at 757-623-6234.

Source: MarketingProfs.com

Google +

July 21, 2011 by primm

Google recently introduced its answer to Facebook: Google+. The familiar gray strip at the top of every Google page will turn black, and come with several new options for accessing your Google+ profile, viewing notifications and instantly sharing content.

Google+ is a social network, with a “steam” that operates very similarly to the Facebook News Feed. Users can share messages, pictures, videos, links, and their location with friends.

We’re waiting with bated breath at The Primm Company for company profiles to roll out. In the mean time, we’ve put together this summary to explain the current functionality of Google+.

Circles

It’s the “Circles+” that set Google+ apart from other social networks. In most cases, Facebook users share information with mass groups of friends. (Granted, there are ways around this on Facebook…but they’re tricky.)

Google+ makes it easy. The focus isn’t to share with a mass group of friends, but to share with very specific social groups. So if you want to post a picture on the internet of your best friend, four hours in to her bachelorette party…you can do it ever-so selectively by choosing which of your circles will see the post.

The circles are very easy to set up, allowing users to simply drag and drop their friends in and out of different social circles.

Photos and Video Chat

The photo tab allows users to easily see albums they uploaded and pictures in which they’re tagged. There are two really neat features that set Google+ apart from the competition. The first one is, again, the privacy options and sharing features. And the second is a nifty photo editor, allowing users to edit their photos after posting them. So the next day, when someone tells your best friend that you posted a horrid picture of her from her bachelorette party, you can quickly crop her out of the picture and plead innocence. (Then perhaps drop the tattle tale from the “People Who Can Keep a Secret” Circle.)

The video chat feature is one of the most interesting aspects of Google+. The creators understand how uncomfortable it is to invite people in to chat rooms or send them messages asking them to turn their webcam on. Thus, the “Hangout” concept was created.

Users click “start a hangout” and are instantly taken to a video chat room alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their circles to let them know their friend is “hanging out,” and they’re welcome to join.

If business profiles are set up the same way, this will be a great tool for businesses to manage customer service requests and coordinate meetings.

Sharing Content

Google+ Sparks is a collection of content (articles, videos, etc.), grouped by interest. If you click the “Recipes” spark, you’ll see a collection of recent and relevant information for that topic.

You can create your own sparks, which will help you (1) easily stay up-to-date on the subjects that interest you most, and (2) share things you like with others.

Users are also given the option to click the “+1” icon for websites and content all over the web. Whenever someone clicks the “+1,” it’s like giving it a thumbs up or your stamp of approval. As more people adopt Google+, this feature will undoubtedly play a role in search engine rankings.

If you’re interested in learning more about using social networking tools for your business, give us a call at 757-623-6234.

Source: Mashable