Posts about search engine optimization

How the Evolution of the Google Search Engine Has Changed Business

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The word “Google” has become nearly synonymous with the concept of “search” over the past couple decades. With the emergence of technology such as voice searches, one must wonder if the word “Google” will someday replace the word “search” entirely (Lost your keys? Just Google them!).

Businesses are learning that they are left behind without a presence on Google’s search results pages. Gone is the heyday of direct mail and billboards – if your customer can’t find you on the first page of search results, do you really exist? No matter who you are or what your business does, you need to know about the evolution of Google search to understand how your site will be affected and what you can do to beat out the competition in this space. Hence, we’re looking into the history of the Google search engine, the world’s most famous algorithm.

Just BackRub It

steel chain with shallow depth of field representing link building

While the full history of search engines began several years before, Google started in 1996 as a concept engineered by two Stanford students in a dorm room. While other search engines primarily collected and retrieved URLS and titles based on pure keyword match, the earliest iteration of Google was different. The early Google search algorithm, then named “BackRub”, utilized citations to help provide searchers with valuable search results. It gave pages “value” based on how many times they were mentioned (linked to) across the web. Pages that had a lot of links pointing towards them were given stronger rankings on the search results pages, as the number of mentions indicated that the page was important to readers.

Does that sound familiar? If you have some knowledge about search engine optimization, you’ll know that gaining links to your site is one of the most powerful ways to rank in higher positions on search pages and get more traffic and conversions. Maybe the name has changed, but Google still values the “backrub” your site gets when another reputable site links to it.

You (Can) Always Get What You Want

Have you ever Googled something and been amazed by how perfect the results were? Contrary to what you might think, Google’s algorithm can’t read your mind – well, not exactly.

The minds behind Google spent the years after its inception looking for ways to make the algorithm produce more relevant results for searchers. They found a lot of nifty ways to achieve this. In 2000, the great evolution of the Google search engine began when the team started to tweak the algorithm that helped bring trustworthy and relevant pages to the top of the search results. There have been a lot of changes to Google search over the years, but some notable updates include:

  • google search timeline of changes to google's algorithm2003: Google began cracking down on sites that were manipulating the links-as-votes algorithm with huge sites created simply to link to other sites. In fact, Google is still perfecting the way it determines “good” links and “bad” links – which is why trying to manipulate Google’s algorithm by purchasing or trading links is an unwise long-term decision for your site. Google will find you, and it will penalize you.
  • 2010: Google started taking into account signals from social media when deciding what pages rank highest. Similar to links, social signals help indicate that a site is a place that people like and trust. That’s right–Twitter is not just for the kids anymore.
  • 2011-2015: The Panda algorithm updates went live to help demote ad-heavy and thin content pages, which offer a somewhat unfriendly user experience. With this big round of changes, Google helped push up high-quality content and websites to the top of the list. A grammatically-incorrect paragraph or two just doesn’t cut it anymore.
  • 2012-2016: The notorious Penguin updates took a swing at websites using spammy tactics to improve their rankings, such as keyword stuffing. In other words, if you’re writing for the machines and not humans, Google probably doesn’t like your site.
  • 2015: Google announces that machine learning was being built into the algorithm and was one of the most important ranking factors. Essentially, Google is not just reading the words we search, but also interpreting what we really mean when we type them.

The continuous improvement of Google’s algorithm is one of the reasons it has dominated the history of internet search. While Yahoo! technically existed before Google, people flocked to Google due to the ever-improving relevancy of its search results. Sounds as if we like having our minds read – and sounds like we should be trying to read our site visitors’ minds when creating our sites, too. Google’s doing it, after all.

Don’t Rage Against the Machine

google voice search smartphone

What’s next for Google, then? A robot that comes to your house and answers your questions before you can ask them? Maybe not yet – but we’re not that far off.

Mobile technology is driving changes in Google’s search algorithm and layout, and up-and-comers like voice search are beginning to change the way we search and the way Google answers. “Googling” is ingrained into nearly every moment of our daily lives. We don’t look through the phone book to find a plumber anymore – we Google “plumbers near me”.

And even the concept of Google has taken over the way we do things – everything from dating apps to shopping sites operate using intelligent search algorithms that want to read your mind and give you what you want.

While other mediums will still hold value, search is becoming the main battleground for all kinds of businesses – ecommerce, service, even entertainment. Search is where you win conversions such as phone calls and form fills, or where you lose customers with weak rankings and spammy-looking titles. Google constantly looks for ways to give better search results to searchers, and sometimes, sites get hurt when Google decides they’re not good enough.

But why fight it? Give Google what it wants – because it’s also what every business’ customers want. They both want to see high-quality and easy-to-use sites that answer their burning questions. If there’s anything business owners can learn from the history of the Google search algorithm, it’s that it just wants the results that are best for everyone.

You know what they say – build a great site, and the customers will come.

Ready to get in Google’s good graces? We’ve got you covered. Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter for the digital marketing advice you need to step up your site’s performance, or get in touch with us to learn more about how a digital marketing agency can grow your brand.

40 Questions To Ask Before Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

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Maybe you’re planning to hire a marketing agency for the first time. Maybe you’ve been burned by a black hat SEO agency and have sworn you’ll be more particular about the next marketing partner you choose. Whatever the case, you know that when hiring a digital marketing agency, you need to do your research and ask all the right questions.

Not sure if you’re covering enough ground with your current list of questions? We can help with that. We’ve come up with a list of 40 questions to ask before hiring a digital marketing agency. Many of them are questions that our clients have asked us—or that we wish would come up more often!

No time to read the list right now? Save it for later:

40 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

Jump to a section:

SEO

  1. How will you improve our search engine rankings? Get the agency to talk about their process. Watch out for agencies that use black hat techniques (such as buying low-quality links) or promise that they can get your page to rank number one for certain keywords.
  2. What’s your process for earning high-quality links? Does the agency have a database of relevant placement opportunities and a process for reaching out to bloggers?
  3. Do you follow Google Webmaster Guidelines? Your agency should always follow the Webmaster Guidelines to help Google find, index, and rank your site. Following these guidelines will also help your site avoid penalties.
  4. Have you ever helped a site recover from a penalty? Can you tell me about that process? Hopefully, the agency hasn’t gotten any of their clients penalized, but they may have had new clients come to them needing help recovering from a Google algorithm penalty.
  5. How long will it take to see results? The agency won’t be able to give you an exact date, but effective SEO campaigns should start positively affecting your site in about three to six months.
  6. What will I need to do to make the campaign successful? Find out what information you can give the agency to make your SEO campaigns as successful as possible.

Content Marketing

  1. Can you show us some writing samples? Any agency that offers content marketing services should be able to show you examples of their writers’ best work.
  2. How will your writers familiarize themselves with our business and industry? You need to know your agency can handle the amount of research needed to produce authoritative content for your business.
  3. How do you optimize your content for readers and search engines? Learn about the content team’s process for connecting with your target audience. Find out how closely they work with the SEO team and whether they optimize their content for relevant keywords.
  4. What types of content do you produce? Find out if the agency has experience producing not just website copy and blog posts but also infographics, video scripts, short animations, email campaigns, eBooks, and more.
  5. How many internal and external content pieces will you create per month? If your goal is to stay top-of-mind with your audience by publishing a new blog post every day, you’ll need to make sure your agency has enough bandwidth.
  6. Will you be publishing new content on our site? Find out if the agency can add images, format content to appeal to online readers, and publish the final product to your site. If the agency doesn’t handle publication, you’ll have to assign an in-house team member to stay on top of it.
  7. What metrics will you report on? The agency should go beyond just vanity metrics (traffic, social shares, number of comments) and measure how their content assists in conversions.

Paid Search

  1. Do you have a Google Partner Badge? If your agency has a Google Partner Badge, it means they have employees who are certified in Google AdWords, have access to their own Google Agency Team, and keep up with the latest AdWords innovations.
  2. Do you offer services across multiple PPC platforms (not just AdWords)? While Google is the most widely used search platform, it may be worthwhile to find out if your PPC agency also uses Bing Ads (especially since Bing has a 22% share of desktop search traffic).
  3. What tools do you use to optimize your paid search campaigns? The agency you’re interviewing might use paid search tools that would be too expensive for you to bring in-house. They may also have proprietary tools that you can’t get anywhere else.
  4. Will we be able to see actual spend within AdWords? Your agency should be transparent about how they’re spending your ad dollars.
  5. What metrics are included in your standard reports? CPC, CTR, ad positions, conversion rate of keywords and landing pages—your agency should deliver easy-to-read reports that make it clear how your paid search campaigns have been performing.
  6. Do you have experience managing paid campaigns on Facebook and LinkedIn? As organic reach on Facebook and LinkedIn decreases, it’s becoming more valuable to hire a marketing agency with experience in paid social media.

Social Media

  1. What social channels should my company be on? Chances are, you don’t need to be on every social media network in existence. Your agency should be able to recommend the channels that are most relevant to you based on your audience and business goals.
  2. What is your process for community management across platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.)? A good social media team should be prepared to respond to comments and facilitate conversations on all your social channels—and to look for ways to connect with customers across those channels.
  3. How will you ensure our social media presence reflects our brand? Your agency should be thinking of social media strategies that are consistent with your brand rather than just resorting to tactics they’ve used for other clients.
  4. What is your content development strategy? Find out how closely your agency’s social media and content marketing teams work together when it comes to producing social content.
  5. How do you measure ROI on social media efforts? Your agency should be able to describe how they’ll track campaigns and measure the results in relation to your goals (e.g. conversions, revenue, customer acquisition).

Web Design

  1. Can you show us some of the websites you’ve designed? Although your website obviously won’t look exactly like the others your agency has designed, it’s good to get a sense of their aesthetic before you commit.
  2. Do you custom-design websites or use templates? If you have a limited budget and your website isn’t a major source of sales, a template site might be enough. However, if you need a unique site that will generate leads or sales, you should talk to agencies that offer custom design services.
  3. How much input will I have in the design? Find out if you’ll be able to see the website and provide input as it’s being created. You should also find out what the agency’s process will be if you don’t like the initial design.
  4. Will you use responsive design? Any good web design agency knows that websites need to look good on all screen sizes, from smartphones to desktop monitors.
  5. Will my website be able to scale as my business grows? Your agency should design your website so that more products, services, navigation options, and other features can be added as needed without a complete site redesign.
  6. Do you offer ecommerce services? If you have an ecommerce business, you’ll want to work with an agency that can handle shopping carts, support for multiple currencies, updating prices to reflect discounts, and more.
  7. Do you offer ongoing maintenance once the site goes live? Will the agency be able to handle troubleshooting post-launch, or will you have to find another vendor to maintain your website?
  8. What role does SEO play in your site design? Will your web design agency also be able to produce keyword-optimized content, add title and meta tags, implement a crawlable link structure, and use other strategies to make your site SEO-friendly from the start?
  9. Do you set up Analytics tracking when designing a new site? It’s important to get Google Analytics tracking set up with your new site so that you can begin viewing behavior and performance metrics.
  10. What kind of security features do you offer? It’s a good idea to make sure your agency can set up a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate to establish a secure connection for traffic between the web browser and server.

General

  1. How will you help me stand out from my competition? Your agency needs to understand your target audience and what you can deliver to your audience that your competitors can’t.
  2. How will you improve my site’s conversion rate? The agencies you interview may talk about how they can improve your visibility and increase traffic to your site, but they ultimately need to increase conversions/sales to make your investment pay off.
  3. What experience do you have working with businesses in my industry? It’s nice to know if your agency has experience with other businesses in your industry, but it’s not necessarily a deal-breaker if they don’t. You could also ask: What steps will you take to become an expert on my business and industry?
  4. How will we communicate? Find out who you’ll be working with on a regular basis and how often you can expect to talk with them.
  5. How will you report on our progress month-over-month? Will the agency deliver an easy-to-read report and summary every month? Will they walk you through the report in a monthly meeting?
  6. How do your different marketing efforts fit together? Ideally, you’ll find a digital agency that sees all its departments as working together towards big-picture goals, rather than existing in separate silos.

We hope these questions will help you in hiring a digital marketing agency. And don’t forget: Leverage offers all the services described above. Contact us to learn more, and subscribe to our biweekly newsletter to have helpful marketing advice delivered to your inbox.

Leverage Makes Clutch List of Leading Austin SEO Firms

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Clutch badge for Top Austin SEO Firms in 2017

Here at Leverage, we think our SEO team is pretty great—and so does Clutch. Clutch.co, a Washington DC research firm that reviews and rates marketing, development, and design firms, named Leverage Marketing to its 2017 list of outstanding Austin SEO firms.

Clutch evaluates firms using both qualitative and quantitative factors, including experience level, technical certifications, and market presence in the SEO industry. Clutch also conducts interviews of existing clients to understand how each marketing agency develops strategies, addresses challenges, and manages SEO campaigns.

We’re thrilled that Clutch has recognized Leverage not just for our technical experience but for our level of client satisfaction.  We also appreciate our clients who took the time to provide their feedback to Clutch. And, of course, we have to give a shout-out to our SEO team for their hard work and search engine savvy!

3 Reasons You Need Video Marketing in Your SEO Campaign

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Growing a customer base through SEO can be a time-intensive process. To see great results, you’ll need to seize every opportunity to create growth. Amplifying the growth of an SEO campaign is all about finding strategies that appeal to both your customers and the search engines – which is why video marketing and SEO are an ideal combination for growing your audience and keeping readers on your site.

Sound appealing? Check out our top three reasons why your site should start incorporating SEO video marketing.

Grow Conversions

Did you know that YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world? It’s used more heavily than Bing and Yahoo combined. That is some pretty solid evidence that people like to watch videos. Video is a highly-accessible medium through which to communicate ideas to pretty much any demographic or target audience. Adding videos to your site offers an easy way to keep users entertained and captivated by your site.

The most important result that can occur from engaging your site visitors with helpful, interesting video content? Conversions. SEO video marketing can grow conversions significantly. Including video in an email marketing campaign has grown leads from email subscribers by 51%, and including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%. The ultimate goal of any SEO campaign is to keep growing conversions and gaining qualified leads, so you’re missing a huge opportunity to boost conversion rates if you’re not considering video SEO efforts.

Develop Your Online Image

Hand pushes play button on webinar, illustrating video SEO conceptTo see long-term results from your SEO efforts, you’ll want to keep growing your brand and establishing your site as a trusted corner of the internet. By creating SEO-optimized video content, you can help your site become a thought leader in its niche by answering common questions and providing information about products, the industry, or services via videos. It also provides a way to reach out to busy searchers looking for straightforward info. One simple way to begin achieving this kind of thought leadership is to create a basic explainer video or two – check out our guide to making your own explainer video here.

Building out SEO-optimized video content that can be found on search engines such as YouTube as well as your site is a way to round out your reputation across the web and drive traffic back to your site. You’re also increasing your brand’s visibility by growing the number of places and ways that potential customers can find you. And best of all, sending more traffic to your pages will help your site achieve better overall positions on search engine results pages in the long run.

Finally, don’t discount the power of SEO video marketing to differentiate your brand in a positive way. For example, ecommerce businesses have begun to use video to better display their products, and service businesses can capture glowing customer testimonials in video form. Seemingly small details like this help encourage potential customers to choose you when making a decision. Check out our list of out-of-the-box ways to differentiate your site and grow your web presence.

Gain an Edge Over the Competition

Chances are, your competition is implementing some sort of SEO efforts as well. You’re competing for the same or similar search queries, and competition can get tight. Video can give you an edge on the search results page.

Video content now appears on search result pages with written content. This is especially true for “how-to” and informational search queries. Rather than writing another blog post or infographic, why not try getting some of that valuable visual real estate on the top of the search results page?

Don’t let your industry or subject matter deter you from delving into video. As the example snippet above shows, people are looking for answers on even seemingly mundane topics. Don’t let your competitors grab this opportunity first – start pursuing video marketing for SEO now.

Still have doubts about implementing SEO video marketing? Consult the video marketing pros at Leverage. We’ll help you choose the right video strategy and integrate SEO best practices to give your site a boost. In the meantime, sign up for the Leverage newsletter today for more free digital marketing pointers and factoids.

6 Unique Ways to Use Video in Your Marketing

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Scroll down your Facebook feed, catch up on Twitter, or rummage through Instagram, and you’ll notice immediately the use of video in marketing. Visit a major retailer or electronics developer’s website and you’re likely to stumble on how-to and explainer videos.

Why use video in marketing? Because leverage green computer with mock facebook on screen and videosopportunity exists to market your goods or services within those channels to customers who need and want them with a bit of clever video creation.

It’s no simple task to learn how to use video in marketing, but there are some rarely traveled avenues for video that your competitors probably haven’t explored yet. The following unique ways to use video in your marketing all require only a basic video setup with a microphone and some free space.

Attention-Grabbing GIFs

Animated GIFs don’t just have to come from your favorite TV shows and movies – you can shoot a custom video and turn it into an animation that will pull your website visitors’ attention immediately.

eric promotion highlight animation pointing at text to the leftUse GIFS to:

  • Draw attention to a CTA
  • Make an offer
  • Enhance branding
  • Inject personality

You can use GIFs on your website, in your emails, on social media, and in presentations. Just don’t overdo it – too many GIFs in inappropriate places will hinder your professional credibility. If you don’t have software like Adobe Photoshop to make custom GIFs, use Giphy’s GIF Maker to assemble your animations.

Video Email Signatures

Give prospects, business partners, and clients a chance to look through another entertaining and enlightening window into your business by adding a crafty signature video to your email signature block.

 

The video should exhibit your individual personality and include some elements of your work culture. There’s no one format, and you can film it anywhere at any time. Like most videos, keep it short – it should be fun for the viewer and heighten their goodwill and respect for your company.

Weekly Broadcasts

leverage purple computer showing weekly broadcast showWeekly, monthly, or even daily broadcasts uploaded to YouTube are beneficial to your SEO and can also be easily posted and shared through major social networks like Twitter and Facebook. If your site garners a healthy amount of traffic, you can also feature them on an exclusive part of your website and encourage visitors to register for other special content that you provide.

Assemble short videos to:

  • Display new products
  • Update customers on upcoming products
  • Announce new services
  • Provide industry tips

If you haven’t addressed them in a while, you can also just say hello to your audience. Your broadcasts are most likely to catch views if you share them on social media and encourage others to share as well. However, you can still get some traction by recording periodical videos to create a library of company news and events as well.

Interviews with Influencers

leverage green computer showing interview with influencer

Influencers hold phenomenal authority in the world of social media, which gives them the ability to direct customers to a product or service they deem worthy of their fans’ attention. If you’re using influencer marketing as part of your marketing plan, you’re already on the right track to reaching your target audience and bringing your product or service to the people that are currently looking for it.

 

Influencers and video both currently dominate social media. Combine these trends to multiply the results of your efforts.

Broadcast and record live chats and interviews with influencers about your product. Do it question-and-answer style or just spend some time thanking an influencer for his or her endorsement and reinforcing the reasons that your product or service is worthy of attention from influencers and their followers. You can then turn your live videos into exceptional testimonials for your website.

Unscripted Testimonials

leverage purple computer showing video testimonialVideo testimonials exist scarcely in the deep recesses of the Internet – but that’s not because they aren’t effective. Text-and-photo testimonials still dominate because they are easy to make and post. But by employing only a small amount of additional effort, you can collect a few video testimonials that will tell more than text ever could.

Coordinate with happy customers and offer them an incentive if they don’t seem to have time to fit you in. A one-off free service or product offering is an incredible price for a video testimonial. Prepare a short list of questions to ask to get organic responses and provide the list to the customer beforehand.

Try some of the following questions:

  • What do you like about our product or service?
  • Can you tell me a story about a time when our product or service helped you or your business?
  • Why do you plan to continue to buy or use our product or service?

Bring customers or clients in for a shoot (don’t forget to ask them their name and company while recording), send them on their way, then do a quick edit for a 30-second testimonial and you’ll capture a new level of trust from your audience.

Offline Customer Service

leverage green computer with hammer and wood showing offline service videosCustomer service representatives often have a script from which they read to help customers solve their problems. Save your customer service team some time and eliminate the troubleshooting script with a video or series of videos that attempts to show customers and clients how to solve basic problems without human guidance.

Draw from an available Frequently Asked Questions database or start collecting information from your customer service department. Then draw out a script with step-by-step instructions on how to fix problems. Give the videos a single, cohesive format and brand them so your customers know that it’s your company that cares enough to give them a hand solving their problems.

Get creative with your videos, and no matter how you’re doing them, make sure:

  • Your brand is clear
  • Your actors are recurring
  • Your video fulfills a need
  • Your video’s content has not been done before

Follow content marketing best practices (provide useful information, don’t manipulate your audience, etc.) when creating and sharing videos to increase their power. When executed correctly, videos can enhance almost every part of your digital marketing strategy. Try to find new ways to integrate video into multiple marketing channels at once to take your brand or company to the top – fast!

Leverage knows video marketing. We stay up to the minute on video trends to keep our skills sharp and share information with trusted readers and clients like you. Stay afloat in the video information flow by signing up for our newsletter today. It’s easy, free, and loaded with marketing magic.

9 Free SXSW 2017 Interactive & Networking Events

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2017 is a unique year for South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, TX. Fresh visual technology and virtual reality will play a larger role than ever in the interactive sections of the event, and emerging mobile app capabilities are likely to dominate the floor. The ever-revolving marketing sphere turns on the axis of new technology, so wise marketers are already looking for free events that will upgrade their digital marketing game for the rest of 2017.

Enjoy these free SXSW 2017 Interactive & networking events and share the info with your fellow entrepreneurs, marketers, and friends. These events are accessible at no charge with a free guest pass unless otherwise noted.

Treehouse Old School Happy Hour

DateTimeRSVP
March 86:00 PM – 9:00 PMYes

Treehouse is not only hosting a happy hour with free drinks, food, and music at Old School in Austin, they’re also giving away free one-month memberships to Treehouse for Business. The happy hour will unfold crawl-style, and you’ll get the chance to experience both Austin’s most unforgettable food and drinks as well as some of the most influential speakers of SXSW.

treehouse old school happy hour shot of crowd enjoying drinks

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Austin Tech Happy Hour

(Note: This event allows entry by ticket. Free tickets are likely to run out fast, so reserve your tickets right away, or you may have to pay for tickets or cash at the door.)

DateTimeRSVP
March 95:30 PM – 7:30 PMYes

The Austin Tech Happy Hour has been running for ten years, and it’s stronger than ever in 2017. Admission gets you two free drink tickets so you can loosen up with Austin’s tech crowd before the SXSW truly kicks off. The emerging technology community will be there ready to make friends online and offline.

austin tech happy hour logo

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SX Create

DateTimeRSVP
March 1011:00 AM – 6:00 PMNo

SX Create dives into the world of emerging technologies and the ways they can be customized and manipulated. Kids and adults alike can take in the wonder of 3D printing, drones, robots, biohacking, and whatever other secret projects with which inquisitive minds have been tinkering.

sx create r2d2 droid

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Decoded Fashion: Content Is Still King

DateTimeRSVP
March 123:30 PM – 4:30 PMYes

Decoded Fashion wants to explore new and exciting ways to bring original content to fashion-hungry audiences. Even if you aren’t in the fashion industry, you’ll have the chance to learn a thing or two about PR, influencer marketing, and the very personal journeys that lead customers to relevant content.

decoded fashion house logo

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Amazon Web Services ATX Startup Crawl

DateTimeRSVP
March 135:00 PM – ?Yes

Amazon Web Services is pulling together Austin’s hottest startup businesses for a bar crawl that entrepreneurs and job-seekers alike won’t forget. The crawl is offering free drinks and pulled in a whopping 12,000 registrants last year. Guests can enjoy free drinks, check out local office spaces, share résumés, and talk with ambitious startup owners and employees.

atx startup crawl logo

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Digital Media Women: Burgers & Bubbles

DateTimeRSVP
March 133:00 PM – 7:00 PMYes

Women are a powerful force in digital media, and the leaders of Digital Media Women want everyone to know about it. This is your chance to talk face-to-face with existing and upcoming digital media leaders as well as find out the secrets of women who are innovating at the forefront of technology. Plus, there’s food and tasty beverages.

digital media women sxsw 2017

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Women in Digital Meetup

(Note: This event is already waitlisted, and the event coordinators are attempting to reserve an additional tent for those who want to attend. If you’re interested, register right away.

DateTimeRSVP
March 134:00 PM – 7:00 PMYes

It’s no secret that women are playing incredible roles in digital media and marketing, and this SXSW Meetup is set to celebrate the success of Women in Digital as it exceeds 450 members. This event is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet some of the most astounding minds in digital marketing and media and join a powerful network of hard-working women.

women in digital homepage screen grab

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Pet Rescue Lounge

DateTimeRSVP
March 135:00 PM – 1:00 AMYes

Pets are near and dear to the dog and cat lovers of Leverage Marketing, a sentiment shared by nearly all of Austin. Meet like-minded individuals that can’t get away from their preoccupation with pets, and help find homes for deserving dogs and cats while enjoying unique entertainment from famous pets and free pet swag!

pet rescue lounge event logo

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Local and Vocal

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March 154:00 PM – 11:00 PMYes

Local and Vocal is an event that focuses on local Austin talent in entertainment. If you’re a marketer, you’ll have a rare opportunity to find talent to which you can offer your unique services. This event includes free drinks for those who are over 21 years old – which, of course, lends itself to some serious networking.

local and vocal sxsw 2017

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Even though the events are free, we welcome you to support the event coordinators, participants, and local businesses by enjoying an extra drink or dish. Network, learn about new technology, and hone your marketing skills at these free SXSW 2017 Interactive & networking events coming your way very, very soon.

 

Want more free stuff? Sign up for our awesome Leverage Marketing newsletter. It’s packed with news about digital technology, marketing, business trends, and can’t-miss bulletins – and it’s all for free. FREE!

How to Improve Your Click-Through Rate in 3 Steps

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You’ve spent time crafting helpful, easy-to-navigate web pages across your site, and you’re excited to watch your site traffic and conversions soar. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy – people browsing the internet have a lot of paid and organic links to choose from on search result pages, and convincing web users to click on your link first isn’t an easy task. Increasing your click through rate (CTR) can make an impact in many ways. Not only do users need to click on your pages, but they need to click on them often and stay on your site – search engines tend to reward pages with high CTR with more visibility on search engine result pages. Luckily, there are several simple ways you can improve click-through rates for your links that appear on search results pages.

Write a Page Title that Stands Out

To inspire browsers to choose your page out of all the other options on the search results page, you’re going to have to create a title for your page that captures attention and makes readers want to know more. Simply stating the topic of the page is not going to do much to help improve CTR – you want to give searchers a reason to choose your page first.

There are some easy ways to make titles more click-able and appealing to internet users:

  • Make an emotional appeal. If there’s a way for you to stir the emotions of readers with your content, spin that to your advantage. Instead of offering “The Best Boutiques in Austin,” try eliciting an emotional response with something like “Local Austin Boutiques You’re Missing Out On.”
  • Solve a problem. Chances are, the searcher reading your headline is looking for a solution to some problem. Improve your click-through rate by simply giving them what they’re looking for! An article titled “Romantic Food Trucks in Austin” doesn’t promise to solve my problem quite as well as “Take Your Date to These Austin Food Trucks” does.
  • Create urgency. Is there something on your page that can help your searchers RIGHT NOW? Will they miss out if they scroll past your page? It’s easy to skip out on “Great Places to Eat Cupcakes in Austin,” but “Austin Cupcakes You Should Try Today” helps me picture myself working the trip into today’s plans.

An important factor to remember when crafting a page title to improve CTR is that the title must accurately describe the full content. Misrepresenting your content may increase how many clicks your page gets in the short term, but it won’t bring many valuable leads or search engine ranking boosts over time. To avoid writing a title that is misleading, get into your reader’s head and think about what content on your page that a reader might be seeking when they search on Google or Bing. A great page title will satisfy the reader’s intent by delivering content on the page that lives up to expectations.

Add a Meta Description

Search engines like to give browsers some idea of what to expect once they click on a link – that’s why they include a short snippet of your content below the blue link and URL on the search page.

Did you know that you can control (to some extent) what search engines display in this valuable space? By adding a meta description to your page, you can indicate to search engines what your article is about, and you can improve your click-through rate significantly if you perform this function well. While search engines may not always choose to display your carefully-written meta description for every single search, a relevant meta description can get a lot of visibility on search pages.

Adding meta descriptions to your pages is usually a simple task. Website platforms often include fields into which you can add a meta description without any knowledge of coding, and SEO plugins for common platforms such as WordPress almost always include user-friendly fields for adding your meta description to a page.

When composing your meta descriptions to improve CTR, similar rules apply to the ones for writing a great title – stir emotions, offer solutions, and create urgency. Sprinkling in short calls-to-action to “check this out,” “get this offer,” and “try this hamburger” help persuade readers that there is something they really, really want to experience on the other side of that blue link.

Think in Numbers

Quantify ideas to bring attention to your links and increase your click-through rate. Numbers add structure, organization, and trust to what otherwise may seem like a lot of meaningless words. Ask yourself: how can I summarize the unique selling propositions of my website, brand, product, service, or content in numbers? Is there a way I can use numbers to describe the past or the future?

For example, maybe you’ve served 100,000 scoops of ice cream, offer the only $0.99 hot dog in Austin, or expanded your seating area by 20%. If working numbers into your page title and meta description is relevant and truthful, it’s a great way to grab a reader’s attention and boost CTR on search pages.

Even if numbers don’t make sense for a certain page, think of other ways you can summarize what the user can expect on a page. For example, articles written in list format with titles like “5 Hidden Gem Music Venues in Austin” promise straightforward answers and simplicity.

Ready to improve your click-through rate? The digital marketing experts at Leverage Marketing can help you with that. We’ve got the experience and industry savvy to give your search CTR, traffic, and conversions a boost. Get in touch with us today.

What Google Analytics Doesn’t Tell You

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Google Analytics is an undeniably helpful tool for businesses. Having the ability to track the activity and behavior of the users of your website can be a powerful measurement and decision-making tool. However, Google Analytics does have some limitations when it comes to getting the information you need. Here’s a roundup of some basic disadvantages of Google Analytics’ limited information and some suggestions for ways you can compensate.

Why Are We Seeing These Google Analytics Metrics?

One of the obvious disadvantages of Google Analytics is that it doesn’t point to why a trend is occurring. You can stare at your traffic report all day, but you won’t be able to see exactly why organic traffic plummeted last week. You’ll need other tools and skills to figure that out.

Acting on evidence of symptoms without discovering the source is an automatic reflex of many people, especially when conversions are taking a nosedive. Before slashing the budget for any campaigns, dig into what’s going on behind the scenes. Are important landing pages of your site malfunctioning and throwing 404 errors that are driving your bounce rates up? Or is something external driving your traffic down, like the entrance of a new competitor on the search page?

The Fix: Utilize free tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools site to stay on top of technical site issues that you may not notice at first glance. Sidestep some of Google Analytics’ limitations by utilizing the annotation tool on reports. This will allow you to mark important event dates that may affect data, such as the launch of a new marketing campaign or the release of a new homepage design. Keeping track of key activities will add value to your reporting system and help you identify causes of change faster.

Google Analytics session graph

Your new best friend is at the lower right corner.

Who Is Visiting Your Site?

Google Analytics won’t tell you exactly who is using your website. As a user of the internet, you may see that as somewhat of a relief. However, much to the disappointment of many Google Analytics newbies, the platform has limitations when it comes to offering deep user insights such as contact info or names.

The Fix: If you’re looking for a way to get a little more information about who is using your site, you can set up unique IDs for users that will allow you to differentiate individual user patterns. This unique ID will connect a user’s sessions between devices, so you’ll be able to get a more accurate measurement of how many unique users are accessing your site and where they’re accessing it from. Learn more about this capability here.

What Are Site Visitors Looking For?

What do users want?  A disadvantage of Google Analytics is its lack of direct insight into what brought customers to your site and what they’re looking for there. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t find answers by yourself.

The Fix: Gather basic information about user behavior on your site. Find out what pages have high bounce and exit rates, and explore the differences that exist between organic, paid, referral, and direct users. Perhaps your highest bounce rate exists among organic visitors on your About Us page. What is it that organic search customers aren’t finding on this page? Making simple changes in the content, page layout, or call-to-action structure could be all it takes to bring your bounce rates down, or perhaps it will take a more extensive effort. While Google Analytics does have limitations, you can still learn a lot about user behavior simply by connecting the dots.

While Google Analytics can’t get into the minds of your users, you can. Finding out what your users need from your site can feel like guesswork sometimes – but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re stumped, hiring a digital marketing team can help. An external team of digital marketers is a powerful way to get a comprehensive picture of the success of existing digital efforts and to identify what can be improved. At Leverage Marketing, we’re experts at digging out the Why, Who, and What that Google Analytics doesn’t tell you. Get in touch with us today, and we’ll help see through the limitations of Google Analytics’ reporting interface and help you make real decisions that grow traffic.

Technology Trends Driving Digital Marketing in 2017

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Introduction

It’s only the beginning of 2017, but it’s clear that digital marketing technology trends will change the way we do business. With a rapidly advancing tech sector, marketing and technology work hand in hand to create new methods for companies to target consumers and change the digital marketing landscape. With 2016 over, there are emerging digital marketing technology trends we can identify that will drive the market in 2017 and beyond.

While it’s impossible to know for sure which technologies will have the biggest impact, we think these are the ones you should invest your marketing efforts in and look for when planning how to use digital technology in marketing in 2017:

Livestreaming

As a technology, livestreaming has been around for more than a decade. But in 2017, we’ve finally reached the point in marketing and technology where it’s easy to implement due to faster Internet on smartphones and advanced marketing techniques. With companies like Facebook, Periscope, and YouTube enabling companies to stream their videos easily—it’s up to your marketing departments to decide how best to do it.

Using livestreaming successfully is difficult, as your audience will often dictate how conversations move and what kind of content they want to see. So, make sure your marketing and technology are adaptable to customer needs. Whether you’re holding Q&As about your brand, livestreaming special announcements or product introductions, or hosting a panel, make sure your client is your first concern. Livestreaming won’t be perfect, but you want to interact with your customers through the platforms that matter to them (whether that’s Facebook, Periscope, YouTube, or even Spotify).

Drones

Drones are one the most exciting products of the last several years. Companies and consumers are interested in them for many purposes: war, commercial, or personal. Simply put, drones are everywhere. With models that can capture high-quality 4K video and high-resolution photos, they’re perfect for marketers. Whether used for livestreaming or just taking photos, drones are a brand-new medium that mixes digital marketing and technology.

With their ability to fly high in the air, drones are ideal for taking gorgeous shots of real estate and architecture for those firms. They’re also an innovative new way to capture a wedding or other special event from a new angle. With the ability to explore new viewpoints and vistas, drones can take pictures and video for travel and tourism companies.

Drones are a new frontier for marketing companies—they can traverse new areas and shoot photos at angles humans just can’t. Incorporating drones into your marketing campaign is necessary to stay ahead in the game—just make sure you’re following FAA and local ordinances.

Amazon Alexa and Google Home

With the advent of voice recognition that finally works—digital technology and marketing are changing to meet the demands and new challenges of integrating with systems like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Both of these virtual assistant programs can coordinate with your app ecosystems, including Spotify, Nest, IFTTT services, Uber, Google Calendar, and hundreds of services. They can control aspects of your life with an ease that was heretofore unimaginable. But what does that mean for marketers? When you can order the latest gadget from Amazon with your voice, how do you market to consumers?

Without needing to search on a smartphone or computer, keywords become less useful. I’m not saying keywords or SEO are going the way of the dodo, but marketers must search for new ways to reach out to customers ordering from smart assistants. Marketing and technology meet in targeting the individual through the smart voice-controlled gadget ecosystem—learning about them and figuring out new ways to market to them. Marketers must understand how to use the technology in the right means to reach their consumers.

Wearables

When you hear wearable, what do you think? Perhaps an Apple Watch comes to mind, or Google’s failed Glass experiment—but wearables encompass a broad class of connected devices that are quickly becoming a digital marketing technology trend. Wearables can, of course, be smartwatches, but they can be technology embedded into clothing, fitness trackers, virtual reality devices, and much more.

With focus turning to wearable devices as a new way to consume media and grab consumers’ attention, content marketing needs to shift to meet those needs. It’s difficult to read a lengthy online article on a small wearable screen—some wearables don’t even have screens. Content marketing may need to shift its focus to audio, which wearables will have connectivity for, in the form of Bluetooth headphones.

There will also be new forms of interactivity marketers can work with to engage their consumers. With virtual reality devices like the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, and Google DayDream, VR is coming into the mainstream. Alternate reality and virtual reality will be new lands for consumers to explore—and places to create content to peruse. There are opportunities for location-based content, weather-based content—countless opportunities we couldn’t imagine ten years ago.

Conclusion

With the new year, it’s clear that new digital marketing technology trends will drive the industry in exciting directions. Whether it’s coming up with new ways to reach consumers with social media and livestreaming, taking advantage of the unique capabilities of drones, or utilizing the extensive connectivity of Amazon Alexa and Google Home, marketers have their work cut out for them this year. Wearables and Virtual Reality headsets represent the new frontier in technology, as content marketing must adapt to the new ways the public consumes content. The possibilities with these technologies are almost endless. Technology and marketing must continuously evolve together as marketing professionals determine how best to utilize digital technology in their marketing arsenal.

Make sure you’re on top of the latest digital marketing technology trends by talking to the marketing masters at Leverage Marketing. Read our Guide to Planning Your Digital Marketing Budget eBook to figure out where to spend your budget to get the best return. We’ll help you understand the sophisticated new marketing technologies and how to take advantage of them.

3 Bad SEO Practices to Resolve in 2017

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Everyone loves getting a fresh start in the new year. While you’re making plans for a better you in 2017, you should also make resolutions to improve your website. While you may achieve your personal goals with new running shoes, your website may need some search engine-friendly content or a break from bad SEO practices to reach its potential.

Luckily, it’s not too difficult to give your website a little TLC this year. Start off your January by tossing out bad SEO tactics and bringing in healthy new practices that will help your website attract more visitors and deliver more conversions. Here are three common but bad SEO techniques that you should say goodbye to in 2017.

#1. Keyword Stuffing

keyword stuffing concept

You may know a little about keywords and SEO. Keywords are the words and phrases that connect your site with the things for which people are searching. For example, if you sell reusable water bottles, a couple of keywords you may use could be “plastic sport water bottle” or “best reusable water bottle.”

However, one common SEO mistake lies in the assumption that all Google and Bing are looking for is keywords, so the more keywords you stuff into your content, the better you’ll rank. This belief results in content with phrases like “best reusable water bottle” stuffed awkwardly into every sentence on the page. Not only can the search engines detect that you are trying to manipulate them, but users reading your content will find your information difficult to digest and spammy in nature.

Quality and user experience beat pure quantity. Today’s search engines are looking for user-friendly, informative content. Keywords are still important to integrate into your content, but the search engines can tell if you’re trying to trick them into giving your page a higher ranking. Prioritize readability and incorporate key phrases in places where they naturally belong to make pages that both search engines and readers love.

#2. Duplicate Content

Remember in school when your teachers and professors lectured on about the dangers of plagiarism? Guess what? That wisdom applies to SEO, too. Copying content from other places on the web or even replicating original content on several pages of your own site is always an SEO mistake. Google and Bing don’t see duplicate content as worth indexing if they’ve already found it somewhere else, and your web pages will be in danger of getting buried.

It may seem easier to just copy and paste relevant info on different pages of your site, and you may not see the harm if it is, in fact, original content that you wrote. However, in the end, the search engines will still see it as duplicate. It’s a bad SEO technique that can only hurt you.

Take the time to give each page unique, original content. If you have many pages that reuse the same material, ask yourself why your current site is structured in this way, and consider using this SEO mistake as an opportunity to tighten the structure of your site for a better user experience.

#3. Buying Links

buying links concept

You may have heard about the power of links for building your search engine credibility. It’s not all bunk– relevant links to your site do help search engines recognize your site as legitimate and helpful for users. However, not every link leading to your site is going to help your search rankings. In fact, bad SEO practices in this area are becoming increasingly risky for websites. If your site has a large number of links that seem suspect to the search engines, it could receive a penalty and never see the light of a good ranking again.

If you’re investing funds in a service that is purchasing links leading to your site, stop immediately. Even if you have used purchased links as a successful strategy in the past, keep in mind that Google, Bing, and the other major algorithms are constantly on the prowl for suspect link-building schemes, and these search engines are only getting better and better and detecting human misconduct. In short, this is not a scenario in which you should attempt to outsmart the machine – it will ultimately be devastating to your site rankings when things go south.

If you’ve pursued some potentially-unhealthy link-building activities in the recent or distant past or suspect that similar bad SEO tactics have occurred in the past, it may be time to reach out to the professionals to clean up your link portfolio.

Keeping your new year’s resolutions can be hard, but SEO doesn’t have to be. Bring in our seasoned team of SEO experts to help your site recover from the bad SEO practices in its past. We’ll help you get back on track.