All the different types and scopes of businesses need Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but service-based businesses find it more difficult to survive in the digital competition. For such businesses, designing a functional SEO strategy is the key to establish strong online presence, credibility, and audience trust. SEO comprises of several functional and visual elements which are significant for a service-based business to gather more traffic and increase chances of conversions.

A few such elements include focused keywords, meta descriptions, great user experience, faster loading pages, and alike. All of such factors add to the strengthened position of a service-based business among the competitors.

Following are the detailed reasons for why a service-based business needs SEO:

1.    Content Marketing

Service-based businesses mostly focus on their brand awareness through content marketing. While it seems to be the easiest marketing strategy, it needs a lot of effort to be really effective. As a business, you need to pay great attention towards the keywords your competitors are emphasizing on. It becomes important to include your services, locations, and other such factors in your content.

It requires good content marketing and SEO skills to incorporate these keywords into basic content as well as meta description, titles, and headlines, etc. Also, SEO tells where you should place what type of content. As an emerging trend, service-based businesses are also creating visual content such as images and videos. It is important to maintain a balance between written and visual content on your web pages.

This way, SEO contributes greatly to content marketing. It helps shape your strategy and make improvements according to changing trends in service-based business industry and digital environment.

2.    Structuring your web pages

As a service-based business, you must know that it is not possible to incorporate all your information, services, contact, and reviews on a single page. Your website needs to be divided into several web pages. As each of those pages has something new to offer, it should be well-structured.

A well-structured website allows ease of navigation and greatly adds to user experience. SEO dictates how web pages should be structured, how much information should be delivered, how to describe your services, how should negative space be utilized, and how should your offer navigational pathway. All of these are simple and basic SEO requirements, which, when incorporated, deliver beneficial results for service-based businesses.

3.    Simpler URLs

Here’s another significant benefit that SEO renders for service-based businesses. It helps design simpler URLs. Such URLs are easy to search, locate, and understand. Simply by clicking on a URL, you know where it is going to lead you.

This is especially important when establishing marketing and ad campaigns. As internet users click on URLs you have provided, they are most likely going to convert into potential customers.

For example,

www.abcservices.com/services/kitchencountertops is a simple and easily understandable URL. As the user click, he knows what kind of services he is going to come across. As SEO asks businesses to follow such practices, all of these simple things add to the overall better usability and sales.

4.    Effective link building

Link building is a critical factor that SEO puts great emphasis on. However, most people think that link building is important for product-based businesses only. It is time to realize that service-based businesses can equally benefit from link building. This enhances the need for SEO for service-based businesses.

Through link building, you can introduce your business and the services you offer in a better way to your audience. A number of bloggers and content creators write and produce content on different types of services. Linking your web pages to such an informative and productive website can make your business reach a wider audience. While the content offers benefits of a particular service, your business can deliver the needs.

Moreover, link building helps you establish credibility among content creators that attract more traffic and have more followers. This way, it helps in brand awareness and credibility.

5.    Increased traffic

One of the major concerns of service-based businesses is that they do not attract high traffic. And so, it isn’t very easy to generate leads and get conversions. As traffic is the first step, SEO helps focus on the traffic you receive.

Through focused keywords, good layout, easy navigation, and effective marketing campaigns, SEO increases your ranking on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). As you rank high on a search engine, more visitors will be coming to your web pages. This increases the traffic by large, which in turn enhances your leads and conversions.

6.    Data collection and analysis

SEO offers effective and comprehensive data collection and analysis. It compels service-based businesses to gather and interpret data through Google Analytics and other data analysis tools and software.

As product-based businesses have a great focus on these tools to improve their sales, service-based businesses can also increase their profits by adopting such tools.

As you gather, interpret, and analyze data, it explains where your website needs improvements. Also, you can run several tests that SEO recommends, such as A/B Testing, that offer valuable insights into the final results of a campaign even before you launch the campaign.

7.    Better customer service

Last but not least, customer service is an important aspect of a service-based business. Visitors judge service-based businesses over the reviews and testimonials their customers have to offer. Better your customer service, the more the number of customers you attract.

Without excellent customer service, you might receive enough traffic, but you will never be able to get enough customers. Thus, SEO is important to manage your customer service and make it better every passing minute.

Final Thoughts

SEO has great importance for service-based businesses. From content marketing to customer service, it plays a crucial role in managing your web pages, content, traffic, conversions, profits, speed, reviews, and whatnot. If your business is service-based, it is time you start focusing on a sound SEO strategy. It delivers better profits and a higher ROI. This way, you can stand ahead of your competitors.

 

 

The digital environment follows a faster pace. Your business operating in this environment needs to be innovative, updated, and trending all the time. It is important to know the current market trends, learn about the preferences of your target audience, and stay keen regarding the position and performance of your competitors. At the top, you need to be aware of your internal performance to maintain high quality.

Traditionally, all of this has been not very easy, but today, Search Engine Optimization Calgary (SEO) is here to make things easier and productive for you. As a business owner, having a sound SEO strategy is all you need for enhanced business progress, larger profits, and higher ROI.

Even though SEO consulting  is only a process to decide your search engine ranking, it can act as an effective tool all along. Knowing how it works can help you greatly. Before that, you need to know when your business needs SEO. Following indicators determine if your business now needs SEO to progress further:

1.    You don’t know how much traffic you are getting and from where

While your business website has maintained a presence online, you must know how much traffic you are getting and from where. Businesses work every day to increase the traffic on their websites. It allows more visitors and, thus, more conversions. If you do not know the size and demographics of your traffic, it’s time you take help from SEO analytics.

Various SEO tools such as Google Analytics helps you know your traffic, audience, and their online behaviors, especially regarding your website. You get to understand and improve a lot of things such as bounce rate, click-through rate (CTR), and whatnot.

2.    Your search engine ranking is declining

If you observe your search engine ranking is declining and you have fallen to a lower page, your business is in dire need of SEO. It is important to learn about the requirements of SEO and fulfill them to maintain your search engine, and keep improving it.

Various SEO requirements such as great content, visual content, better user interface, faster loading speed, internal and external links, etc. are important to comply with.

3.    You are getting lesser leads and conversions than before

If your business experiences lesser leads and conversions all of a sudden, it is likely due to abandoning SEO requirements. As long as businesses focus on SEO, lead generation and conversions take place at a good rate. A decrease in the rate means you should focus on SEO more than ever before.

4.    Your content is outdated and unattractive

Search engines prefer updated and engaging content. In this fast-paced digital environment, great content is what attracts your audience. If your business content is not updated, images and videos are not added, and you are not getting enough traffic, your business performs poorly.

Keeping up to the SEO requirement of captivating and topnotch content is significant. If yours is not, hold up to SEO. Know what SEO demands and update your business website accordingly.

5.    You have not worked on link building until now

Link building is another important thing to do for online businesses. It is a means to interdepend and interconnect with other businesses, blogs, and significant online websites. There are two types of link building, internal and external. Both are equally important to attract and engage visitors.

If your business has not worked on link building until now, learn how important it is for SEO. As you expand the reach with link building and establish a strong online presence, SEO comes into play. It recognizes your efforts and improves your ranking. However, link building is a bit tricky. You need to be careful when implying and choosing web pages to link. SEO analyzes the linked pages carefully.

6.    You have not established reviews and testimonials on your website

A good way to know regarding the performance of your business is by establishing reviews and testimonials. It is critical to allow visitors and customers to leave feedback. While a positive review establishes your credibility, a negative review makes room for improvements. Either way, it is beneficial for your business.

Moreover, it is a crucial aspect of SEO as SEO believes in gathering customer feedback. It increases your accessibility and helps you hold onto an effective SEO strategy.

7.    You do not have a proper plan to follow

Establishing a business and running it in this online world are two different things. Running your business takes more effort and focus. From marketing to sales and customer service, you need to have a proper plan to follow. Without a guide, you cannot do well in this competitive business environment.

If your business does not acquire a plan, it is best to create a sound and practical SEO strategy. You can find the flaws and limitations of your business through any SEO tool, a software or a human expert. Without an SEO strategy, it is difficult for your business to have a reputable online presence.

8.    Your social media marketing campaigns do not bore fruits

If you allow your content to be shareable and have created several social media marketing campaigns, you must be expecting good results. However, if you do not end up with one, know that you lack somewhere at SEO. With increasing competitors and toughening business environment, it has become important to focus on SEO. A focused SEO strategy is the one that is linked to all the domains and aspects of your business. Having that created will end you up with sweet fruits.

Final Thoughts

It is easy to know when your business needs SEO. All you need to do is keep an eye on the performance of your website. With rapidly changing trends and online business needs, you never know when someone takes your position. Staying aware of everything that’s happening in the online world helps you shape your SEO strategy accordingly. This way, you comply with SEO needs and requirements really well, which, in turn, delivers higher profits and ROI for your business.

Matching your local SEO Services to your business type can become a simple and streamlined process, if you could follow some of the guidelines from search engines like Google. The first step starts with the keyword research and content preparation. You need to search for the standard keywords and phrases that have least competition and searches per month. Then you need to group them with relevance to your business, products and service categories. Then you need to create your content around these keywords and phrases.

• Avoid too much of focus on keywords and concentrate on the content value.
• Use only those keywords that are relevant to the content in the web pages. You could use the others in your blogs, social media pages and other content based links.
• Avoid over-stuffing of keywords and balance the flow of information in the content.
• Use the keywords in combination with the city ad street names in the content. Specify the address, phone and add the location map to the web pages.
• Use synonyms to standard keywords around it.
• Make the content conform to grammatical, contextual and relevancy standards of Google.

Google My Business Standards – Listing and Indexing

• Web-Pages: Avoid filling all the information within few web pages. Your website could have as many pages as the number of products and services you offer. Make sure of adding pages for About, products (landing sub page), photo gallery, customer listing and testimonials, links to YouTube videos, service page (landing sub page) and the sitemap (most important page). You need to include the Name, Address and Phone (NAP) of your local business location in every page along with the link to the location map (preferably on the Contact page). Your home page should connect to all the pages and the sub pages may have interlinks with each other and to the home page. The users should able to navigate from the sitemap to every page and vice versa. You need to use Hypertext links between the pages apart from the drop down menu. This is because the search engines can’t see the menu in the web pages. Index the site on the search engines including all the pages with the sitemap. You could use XML coding and design for the sitemap and automate its updates whenever a new page is created or the content in the existing pages is edited. Make the pages responsive in design and conform to Google standards for text color, font, back and fore color, image size and clarity etc. The images should have main keywords relevant to the specific theme in the image Meta-data like title and descriptions. You could follow the same guidelines for the page title and Meta description.  Google says it has stopped looking into the Meta tags and back links. But still you could add them just to be on safer.
• Keywords: Add relevant keywords to the product pages along with city name, street name and other related words and phrases. For example, you can add the keyword Italian Pizza + in + Great Western Highway + Sydney + Australia. You could specify the local address and phone number in the same paragraph or the next. Similarly you can use specific keywords for every product and service page in the same manner. This approach increases the page visibility and page ranking, since every page relates to the specific products and services of your business. The other key element you need to add is your business name at the beginning of the keyword. Include your business name in the Meta descriptions.

Content Quality – Relevance and Continuity

The content quality plays a key role in attracting your potential audiences. It is important to keep the sentences short, relevant and simple. Avoid exaggeration and use of too many adjectives. At the same time you need to project the uniqueness of your products and seo services.

• Client Testimonials: Adding client testimonials to every web page (relevant to the context of the page) can enhance the readers’ trust considerably. They can attract more number of visitors to the specific pages. The page ranking and rating will naturally move up.
• Images and Videos: The images and video links you add to the pages need to be relevant to the text content of that page. For example, you may write about the technical specifications of a washing machine in a page. Make sure the images show the genuine parts diagrams (or pictures) of your product. Avoid borrowing from stock photos and use genuine photographs. You may need to hire a professional photographer. Follow the Google guidelines for the image size, resolution, color, magnification levels and other parameters accurately. Follow the YouTube guidelines for your videos and make it look professional in its approach. You can also add a transcription of the videos on the linking page and insert the relevant localized keywords into that content.
• Text Content: Break the text content into smaller and readable paragraphs. Add infographics and tables wherever required. Real time technical and statistical data can make the content relevant and interesting. You can expect the search engine ranking and customer rating to move up further on the scale now.

Social Media Connections – Inroads to Local Audiences

• Social Signals: Social signals are the views, likes, shares, reviews, comments and the ratings from the audiences in the social media. They could be related to the social media pages, blog content, website content, videos etc. Quality and relevance can generate more number of views. The audiences will share the links only when they like it. They may also write reviews and post comments. These parameters will naturally increase the page and site ranking in the search engines.
• Blog Links: Create genuine blogs with original content for the products and services listed on your website. Make sure you write only about the technical perspectives and user experiences, along with links to and from authority web pages. Once this part is achieved, the local SEO automatically gets connected to your business type.

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The Negative Aspects That Is Best Avoided

There are always methods to how matters can be handled to produce quick results with SEO services and it is often possible to come across consultants that give results that are given by these fast methods too.  But as with any negative steps, it is possible that the quick ways of doing things can result in certain negative aspects as far as ranking of sites are concerned and it is often the better informed of webmasters that would refrain from using these techniques.  Handled in brief is the more common black hat techniques as they happen to be called as laid out below.

Stuffing of keywords:

This is a practice to use more keywords than is necessary in sites and the related works.  What happens with this technique is that the algorithms that search engines use would tend to have a high score for the keyword factor while searching for a subject.  It then would put the particular site at the top of the search results.

The more advanced search engines do look for patterns that there has indeed been an instance of keyword stuffing.  And cases that need penal action are acted upon.  It is more common to disguise the keyword stuffing to the Meta tags that usually form the article write ups and blogs and search engines are alive to this factor and are in the process of taking steps that would bring such instances to the attention of those concerned.

Use of inappropriate keywords:

In this method, the site uses a lot of keywords that would happen to be inappropriate to the situation or the particular site.  Thus when a search engine comes across a site, it does score rather highly in terms of keywords but for a good part the keywords are not suited to the situation.

This used to be a usual method to driving traffic to sites that was in use some time ago with those that operated in the darker parts of the web.  But the improvements in search engine technology that sort of weeded out the keywords that were irrelevant to the situation at hand have reduced this practice to a fair bit.  In most instances the irrelevant keywords are considered as just an ordinary word than of any particular significance.

Use of hidden text:

Used rampantly in SEO practices to drive up traffic and increase the hits to a site, the text is hidden among the content and mostly would be keywords themselves.  Often when keywords are not easy to integrate to the matter this method is resorted to.   So when a search engine does trawl a site it does get to count the keyword used but a person reading the content would never pick up the words.

It could be said that the practice of hiding text is convenient to have as it provides an easier system to follow to create good compelling websites.  Rarely is the mind needed to be applied to in coming out with a presentable content and at the same time can rank highly with the search results.

Purchasing links or one of mutual exchange:

Links to a website bring on a factor of greater acceptance of the matter handled by the site.  There is a practice of purchasing links or going in for exchange of links.  It is more of a quid pro quid practice that people resort to by providing links to neighboring sites on an exchange basis and that will directly have a bearing on the ranking of each site individually.

With the future looking features of most search engines, it is possible to reduce this aspect to bringing in a positive result by the use of very advanced algorithm that considers the subject matter of the site under study and to determine if the linked sites are indeed relevant to each other.  These steps are possible only with a better understanding of the working of systems and most is introduced with more advanced systems in place too.

The inappropriate use of social media:

People that use groups in the various social media would have come alive to the situations when others would try and promote sites by sending links to people in the very group.  There are instances when the links are sent under the guise of more acceptable sites than what the promoter truly stands for.

This practice was in use much earlier when the groups were in use in Google and Yahoo primarily.  It is just that there has been a change of livery so to speak.  There is a simple method that can be adopted to prevent this or at best curtail this practice.  That is to report the trouble maker links to the system or site administrator.

It is only natural that the increasing use of social media and the ease of communication between people in a group only aid in the further propagation of this type of scams as such.

Cloaking of sites:

– In the very common form, cloaking is when sites present a particular version of the site to the visitor but using another version to present to the search engines.  It would so happen that the second version of the sites being presented to the public would be more coherent and more readable than the prior version.

Cloaking is rather an expensive method to improve ranking and it is only resorted to when the results do justify the means.  In a number of cases of ecommerce sites when a potential visitor could mean more business generated, this could be a viable turn of events.

Spinning of content:

Here the content instead of being regenerated or renewed is recreated by using software that can suggest and replace the words in the content bring under consideration.  This is often a very cost effective method that is resorted to when budgets are at a premium.  Most webmasters do not consider this a good option for the feel of the content produced by spinning software that usually stands out for the lack of a smooth flow of words.

MRC SEO Consulting

4911 30 Avenue Southwest Calgary, Alberta T3E0V4
Phone: +1 403-386-7427

Looking for a new MRC SEO Consulting Calgary SEO – SEO firm to handle your business and prefer a local expert? We are a local Calgary Search Engine Optimization Company that helps business in Calgary Alberta and area grow through online marketing and SEO.”TRAFFIC = SUCCESS. Let us help you get the traffic you need to grow your business. We are Calgary SEO and we specialize in Internet Marketing. You probably found us on the first page of Google, let us do the same for you. Our proven SEO (Search Engine Optimization) methods will help you get to the front page of Google, exactly where your customers are searching. Our methods include a process of 1. Analysis 2. Research 3. Implementation 4. Continual Reporting. First we take a good hard look at your current website and we make specific recommendations how to make it more profitable for you. Then we research your market and make even more specific recommendations as to what key words will work for you to enhance your positioning.We then link your site to other authoritative sites, implementing your new strategy. Finally we review how these new actions affect the dominace of your website and use tools to not only grow your site but monitor your ongoing success. Give a call today or send us an email so we can get started on placing you above your competitors.”

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SEO Tips

When it comes to the internet, it is all about being up-to-date. You have to keep up with every internet upload. If you want to be a part of the internet, you need to put content out there and make people want to read it.

Well, surely it isn’t that easy, or else everyone would have been doing it, and the whole point of search engine ranking would have been pointless.

So, only the smartest and the most efficient search engine optimization experts with latest strategies and techniques will be able to rank themselves on top of the SERPs.

Here are some of the tips and tactics that will help you get there:

• Mobile-friendly website:

If you are looking for a way to attract a broader range of visitors, then turn your focus towards mobile friendly websites. Almost everyone today uses a smartphone, and you need to create highly responsive websites that are attractive and work on all the devices.

• The increasing popularity of Voice Search:

It is all about finding the new way to make things easier for your users. Including a voice search option within the website allows the customer to share without all the typing hassle.

• Creating a super-fast website:

Ditch all the pointless data from your website, and your visitors will be happy to experience fast loading pages. If your website’s loading speed is slow, chances are that the visitors may not have the patience to wait and they might switch to a different site.

• Only put high-quality content on your website:

When you have a high-quality, well-researched content, it not only makes your customers happy but it is a great way of impressing Google as well.

• Don’t Ignore the importance of Social Media Marketing:

Social Media Marketing is a paramount technique that will help you get the attention of the people. Generate the interest of customers on your website by posting interesting things that will make them want to like, comment, and share them.

• When you are building links, it is all about quality:

Generating links are important; however, ensure that you create quality backlinks using right keywords. Creating 1 quality backlink is equal to creating hundreds of backlinks on non-quality sites. So, in the technique of backlinking, focus more on quality rather than quantity.

• Move towards “https:

Switch your website from ‘http’ to ‘https’ for securing your connection and other important data of the website. This will enhance your search engine rankings.

• Attract customers on other search engines as well:

Sure, Google is the king of search engines. However, it is not the only search engine available for practicing local Search engine optimization. Make sure that you don’t forget about attracting customers from other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. Customers from these search engines will also help you in increasing your rankings.

Closing Thought

Search Engine Optimization has emerged as a powerful online marketing tool. However, sometimes local  SEOs tend to get carried away with the process. So one of the best techniques of SEO is to keep it simple and smart.

 

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Top Effective Tools

Looking for tools that will help you improve your SEO process? Here are some of the best tools that help you identify the issues, optimize the website, and help you get ahead of your competitors.

1. Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is perhaps the most important tool for search engine optimization experts analysts. It is a data source that offers high-quality and detailed information. We are like in a Google-dominated age; it is what works for all of us. Besides, most of the other data tools just sponge off on the data provided by Google using the API. All the important and actionable information about the visitors of the sites comes from this significant tool.

2. Google Webmaster Tools:

After Google Analytics, let us learn about the Google Webmaster tools which are another critical source for online marketers. The tool is not just for webmaster; it highly helps SEO analysts as well. The tools have everything to do with local searching engine optimization.

Some of the best inputs from the Google Webmaster tools come from looking at the dashboard. SEO marketers need to be up-to-date with the dashboard of the webmaster tool. The tool offers the information similar to the Google Analytics, however in a simpler and less complicated manner. You have easier access to the number with lesser tweaking. One of the most important information provided by the Webmaster Tool is the link data. Keeping track of harmful backlinks is one of the best protective action that you can take to maintain the quality of your site.

3. Keyword Planner:

The keyword tool has now been replaced with keyword planner, and it is the best way to research keywords. You can access keyword planner by logging in to AdWords => Tools => Keyword Planner. Keyword Planner is the way to reach out for when you want to do keyword research. The Keyword Planner offers better functionalities than other keyword tools available. However, the Keyword Planner aims at AdWords generation instead of offering organic keyword research.

4. MozBar:

MozBar is a powerhouse of providing information and local SEO services has everything to do with having the right knowledge about stuff. The MozBar helps you in finding out the right stuff with just simple clicks. Just click on the MozBar button, and you will get all the report of the website. The tool has three categories- Page Attributes, Page Elements, and Link Data.

5. SEOWorkers Analysis Tool:

This tool allows you to plug into a URL of the website, even if the website that is not yours and helps you generate information. While SEOWorkers don’t offer anything new or unique, it surely does save a lot of time that goes into the analysis. Additionally, it offers background information as well. You will find some of the information like under-the-hood things that people generally don’t think about checking. Other helpful features show whether you are going in the right direction or need to work on some points.

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