Thank you for the response, Linda! We really appreciate it.
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BlueCorona
@BlueCorona
Job Title: SEO Manager
Company: Blue Corona
Favorite Thing about SEO
Making Data-Driven Decisions
Latest posts made by BlueCorona
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RE: Do people receive notifications when you respond to their Google reviews?
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RE: Review markup not showing up in SERP anymore
Hi There!
I would run your review schema through the structured data testing tool another time to double check that nothing has changed between when you implemented the schema and now: https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/
Keep in mind that Google gets to choose whether or not they want to show the review schema on the SERPs. So, your best bet is having the schema on your website and knowing that it passes the schema grades—but know that there is a chance it will not appear on the search results. Google chooses who it shows up for and when it shows up, which can be annoying but as long as you have it implemented correctly you're doing everything you can.
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RE: How do I rank inside the knowledge panel in the "people also search for" section?
Hi Brett!
I've actually been wondering this same thing for awhile now. From what I've found, there isn't a way to specifically manipulate anything on your website with anything (i.e. schema, etc.) that will help get you in this position of the knowledge graph. At the moment, it seems like it is mostly pulling companies that are ranking prominently in the area. That being said, I would focus on getting your website to be one of the most authoritative in the area to improve your chances.
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RE: Can I use the same interior photos for multiple stores in Google My Business?
Hi there,
This is a great question.
Recently I've found that Google is placing high value on photos on a business's GMB profile. Because of this, I suggest that you do not use one set of interior photos for all of the locations. While I don't think you will necessarily get penalized, it's probably best to follow the guidelines Google has in place In case they do penalize you later down the road -- and then you would have to go back and make adjustments after the fact. Even if it takes some time, I would focus on getting photos of each individual location for their profile.
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RE: How do you do Local SEO in a small town?
Hi Taylor,
When working on SEO in a small, local area, it's likely that (depending on the size/population), Google won't have enough data to generate a local pack. This proves to be both good and bad for you because 1) you don't need to fight for the space in the local pack, but 2) now you need to dominate the organic search engine results.
In order to dominate these results, you need to focus both on on-site SEO AND off-site SEO.
Your on-site SEO should focus on targeting the local area. What can you do to really localize the content? Build out local blogs about events in the community? Build out even more localized pages based on areas within the town? The options are endless.
Here are some suggestions for successfully tackling off-site SEO:
Link building
- Create linkable content – If you have relevant, authoritative content on your site, it’s more likely that other sites will want to link to it.
- Ask for links and be generous with your links – That’s right, just ask for them. Nicely, of course. When you come across other sites whose readers might benefit from your services or information, ask that site to link to yours. And you can also increase your link karma by linking to other sites whenever you can.
- Comment on blogs – This method can be tricky; some blogs don’t allow links in their comments, and you never want to come across as spammy. But if you have something relevant to say about a blog post on another site, commenting and adding a link to your site isn’t a bad idea.
Social Channels
- Optimizing your “about” info on every site – Make sure your contact info is consistent and correct, and create a description that uses words your potential clients would search for to find you. Customize your social media site URLs—this is also called creating a “vanity URL.” For example: facebook.com/bluecorona.
- Creating high-quality posts – Pay attention to grammar, tone, and content. Make sure what you’re sharing is relevant to your target market. And use high-quality photos when you have them. Remember, every post is a reflection of your business. Always put your best foot forward.
- Measuring your results – How do you know if your social media strategy is working? Track your reach, conversions, and sales! Find out what works, what doesn’t, and never stop fine-tuning your strategy.
Local Listings / Citations
- Citations are another critical part of offsite SEO. A citation is any mention of your business on the web. For example, if you are quoted in a local newspaper story online, and you are identified as the president of your company, that’s a citation. Even if the mention doesn’t include a link to your site, it’s still valuable. There are many ways to increase your citations. This is another ongoing strategy that you’ll have to devote some care and attention to, but it has a high return on investment!
Hope this gets your started in the right direction! Let me know if you have additional questions.
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RE: Does Google want contact numbers in the meta description?!
Adding your contact number is allowed, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it -- especially if you use tracked phone numbers on your website to track the leads coming in organically, direct, paid, etc.
i recommend mkaing your meta descriptions catchy and include a call to action that will entice them to click through to your site, which is where they will find your contact information.
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RE: Republishing blog content on LinkedIn and Medium
Both Andy and Patrick have provided great responses, and took the recommendations right out of my mouth!
I agree, LinkedIn is a better platform for you to reach your relevant audience so posting your content there is ideal. Don't worry about posting content that already exists on your website, you shouldn't get dinged for it.
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RE: If I use schema markup for my google reviews, would it be smart to have Google review's on my home page?
If you do decide to add schematic markup to your website for reviews, ensure you are following the guidelines. These were recently updated and you want ep avoid being penalized for featuring third party reviews incorrectly on your website.
Instead of featuring the reviews themselves, you could features your overall google rating. But if you do this, we recommend making sure you include a link to your Google profile to verify that the rating is correct.
Let me know if you have any questions about implementing the schem correctly!
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RE: How many keywords should I optimize a page for?
Hi there,
The bad news is that there's no "right" answer to this question. Search engines only reveal so much about what goes into their ranking algorithms, so it's hard to say what strategy is the best one.
One thing that's for sure, though, is that you want to avoid Google viewing your keyword optimization as keyword stuffing. I would strongly advise against the second option you mentioned (optimizing for several different keywords), because that would mean you'd mention three or four different keywords multiple times, which Google might view as keyword stuffing and/or providing a poor user experience. Both of these things could result in lower rankings.
The safe, and generally effective, bet is to choose one primary keyword that's as specific and relevant to your page as possible while still averaging a decent monthly search volume, and back it up with a secondary keyword that's also extremely relevant but isn't your primary keyword because it doesn't have as high a search volume. That way, you'll draw relevant search traffic to your page without it feeling spammy.
Hope that helps. Happy optimizing!
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Do people receive notifications when you respond to their Google reviews?
If someone leaves a review of your business on your Google My Business listing, and you respond to that review, will they receive an email notification of your response to their review?
We are working with a client who has unanswered reviews from several years ago, and though it's best practice to respond to all reviews, we didn't want to respond to reviews from 2013 if the person (who has likely forgot about their experience with the business in question) is going to get an email notifying them of our late response to their review.
Thank you!
Best posts made by BlueCorona
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RE: How many keywords should I optimize a page for?
Hi there,
The bad news is that there's no "right" answer to this question. Search engines only reveal so much about what goes into their ranking algorithms, so it's hard to say what strategy is the best one.
One thing that's for sure, though, is that you want to avoid Google viewing your keyword optimization as keyword stuffing. I would strongly advise against the second option you mentioned (optimizing for several different keywords), because that would mean you'd mention three or four different keywords multiple times, which Google might view as keyword stuffing and/or providing a poor user experience. Both of these things could result in lower rankings.
The safe, and generally effective, bet is to choose one primary keyword that's as specific and relevant to your page as possible while still averaging a decent monthly search volume, and back it up with a secondary keyword that's also extremely relevant but isn't your primary keyword because it doesn't have as high a search volume. That way, you'll draw relevant search traffic to your page without it feeling spammy.
Hope that helps. Happy optimizing!
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RE: If I use schema markup for my google reviews, would it be smart to have Google review's on my home page?
If you do decide to add schematic markup to your website for reviews, ensure you are following the guidelines. These were recently updated and you want ep avoid being penalized for featuring third party reviews incorrectly on your website.
Instead of featuring the reviews themselves, you could features your overall google rating. But if you do this, we recommend making sure you include a link to your Google profile to verify that the rating is correct.
Let me know if you have any questions about implementing the schem correctly!
-
RE: How do you do Local SEO in a small town?
Hi Taylor,
When working on SEO in a small, local area, it's likely that (depending on the size/population), Google won't have enough data to generate a local pack. This proves to be both good and bad for you because 1) you don't need to fight for the space in the local pack, but 2) now you need to dominate the organic search engine results.
In order to dominate these results, you need to focus both on on-site SEO AND off-site SEO.
Your on-site SEO should focus on targeting the local area. What can you do to really localize the content? Build out local blogs about events in the community? Build out even more localized pages based on areas within the town? The options are endless.
Here are some suggestions for successfully tackling off-site SEO:
Link building
- Create linkable content – If you have relevant, authoritative content on your site, it’s more likely that other sites will want to link to it.
- Ask for links and be generous with your links – That’s right, just ask for them. Nicely, of course. When you come across other sites whose readers might benefit from your services or information, ask that site to link to yours. And you can also increase your link karma by linking to other sites whenever you can.
- Comment on blogs – This method can be tricky; some blogs don’t allow links in their comments, and you never want to come across as spammy. But if you have something relevant to say about a blog post on another site, commenting and adding a link to your site isn’t a bad idea.
Social Channels
- Optimizing your “about” info on every site – Make sure your contact info is consistent and correct, and create a description that uses words your potential clients would search for to find you. Customize your social media site URLs—this is also called creating a “vanity URL.” For example: facebook.com/bluecorona.
- Creating high-quality posts – Pay attention to grammar, tone, and content. Make sure what you’re sharing is relevant to your target market. And use high-quality photos when you have them. Remember, every post is a reflection of your business. Always put your best foot forward.
- Measuring your results – How do you know if your social media strategy is working? Track your reach, conversions, and sales! Find out what works, what doesn’t, and never stop fine-tuning your strategy.
Local Listings / Citations
- Citations are another critical part of offsite SEO. A citation is any mention of your business on the web. For example, if you are quoted in a local newspaper story online, and you are identified as the president of your company, that’s a citation. Even if the mention doesn’t include a link to your site, it’s still valuable. There are many ways to increase your citations. This is another ongoing strategy that you’ll have to devote some care and attention to, but it has a high return on investment!
Hope this gets your started in the right direction! Let me know if you have additional questions.
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RE: How unique should a meta description be?
The most important thing to remember is to make the meta description relevant to the specific content on the page, since the point is for the user to be able to see it in search results and decide whether the page's content will provide the answer for their query. So unfortunately, using a templated meta description may be detrimental (though it would be a lot easier when doing a find + replace sequence!). Your best bet is to, over time, write individual meta descriptions that serve as an explanation for the content on the page. Good luck!
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RE: Does Navigation Bar have an effect on the link juice and the number of internal links?
Hi onurcan-ikiz!
Moz has a great blog post that discusses how many links is too many. I would check that out for advice—while there isn't an exact number of links you should not exceed, many people suggest having fewer than 100 links per page.
If you main navigation as a lot of links I would be worried about the link juice. When your website receives a backlink from another website, hopefully with a high domain authority (YAY!), the link juice is being spread out to ALL the pages being linked from the page they are linking to.
This means if www.cnn.com (who has a domain authority of 96) links to your company's homepage, they would be spreading some of their authority to you through "link juice". But instead of retaining majority of that juice/authority on the homepage (thus increasing the authority on that page), you are going to be spreading fewer and fewer amounts of that authority through all 100+ pages linked from the main navigation.
Check out this link juice diagram to get a visual representation of what I am talking about.
Hope this helps!
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RE: The importance of meta keywords?
Hi EPPD!
Google officially announced in 2009 that meta keywords was not a factor in ranking at all. I also believe that the description isn-t a ranking factor—the reason you need to focus on the description is to ensure that it has a strong hook that accurately reflects the content of the page to entice the searcher to click on the link.
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RE: Best way to advertise cosmetic dermatologist on Facebook in the UK?
We had a plastic surgeon client who had the exact same issues. What we did is we brainstormed the results. How the person would feel, what the person wanted to accomplish, etc. What we figured out worked best was to appeal to those end results and positive desires without trying to manipulate someone's feelings. For example, you could use the confidence angle, like "Walk into a room with confidence" and whatnot. You'll probably notice that there's always an underlying cause for people to wish to get cosmetic surgery, whether it's health reasons or a personal goal, or self confidence, so use that knowledge to better reach the people who are more likely to use your services. Hope this helps!
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RE: Too many on page links
Hi Becky!
First, I would like to say this is it great you are being proactive in making sure your webpage doesn't have too many links on it! But, luckily for you, this is not something you need to worry about. 100 is a suggested number but not something that will penalize you if you go over.
Google’s Matt Cutts posted a video explaining why Google no longer has that 100-links-per-page Webmaster guideline—so be sure to check that out! It's commonly thought that having too many links will negatively impact your SEO results, but that hasn't been the case since 2008. However, Google has said if a site looks to be spammy and has way too many links on a single page—Google reserves the right to take action on the site. So, don't include links that could be seen as spammy and you should be fine.
Check out this Moz blog that discusses how many links is too many for more information!
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RE: Ranking 1st for a keyword - but when 's' is added to the end we are ranking on the second page
Hi Brett,
Your confusion is understandable. "Button" and "buttons," for example, are so closely related that it seems strange that Google would identify those as two separate keywords. However, it is important to remember that Google search results aren't always based on a semantic understanding of the search, and Google can't always assume that a word modified with an s on the end always means the same thing as a word without an s on the end. Take the words "cosmetic" and "cosmetics," for example. So it has to treat plural and singular versions of a word as two separate keywords that rank differently based on competition for those keywords.
Here is an article that offers an opinion on how you should handle trying to rank for both the singular and plural form of a word - you may find it useful: http://www.business2community.com/seo/singular-plural-keywords-always-seo-0974028#DJv4kwHCfdUFBPG2.97
Hope this helped!
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RE: Content Below the Fold
Any content below the fold will still be read. Are you trying to hide it but still get the SEO value? If that's the case, I would create a collapsible tab to keep the content on the page but hidden. If you want it to be visible, leave it as is and don't worry about Google not reading it—it will be read.
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