Why is SEO important?

Having one website among thousands in the Pensacola area, and making sure people visit yours, can seem pretty daunting:
• How can potential customers in and around Pensacola, FL find you through all that’s out there?
• How can you make your website stand out from other Gulf Coast businesses and organizations in particular?
• What can you do to meet the needs of potential customers coming to your website?

Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo will review your website content and analyze inbound and outbound links to determine your business or organization’s credibility. To maximize credibility with Google and other major search engines, Advanced Digital uses SEO best practices to help you refine your website content for search engines, generate more user searches, and develop appropriate success indicators. Contact our team today!

If you get a negative review don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s not just you. You’ll never be able to please every one and not every person is going to like your service or product. That’s right. Whether your business is large or small, everyone is going to experience negative reviews in their business’ lifetime.

It is also important to realize that not all reviews will provide feedback that can benefit your business. Looking too deep into issues could end up harming your business or product.

Instead, start looking for repeated complaints or themes. Look for words like “disappointed” in negative online reviews. This will imply that customers may have had a higher expectation (that could not be met) of your product or service. After receiving a negative review, determine which aspect of your product or service needs improvement, brainstorm with your employees/business owners to come up with a solution to improve or fix the issue.

Did You Know: Yelp reviews will highlight words that are mentioned by multiple customers! Remember, the most important thing is not to take negative feedback personally! It’s just another way for your business to evolve.

Fake Reviews

According to Brightlocal, 97% of consumers has looked online for a local business in the last year, and 85% of those consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. In 2017, 79% of consumers read fake reviews about a business but only 89% of them realized they were fake.

So which platforms do consumers trust the most for reviews?

Facebook and Yelp, followed by Google and Better Business Bureau. You may find customers will leave more reviews on Google than on Facebook, or vise versa. Better Business Bureau acts as a mediator and will help customers solve complaints with a business.

Respond Quickly

It’s important to act quickly once a negative review is published. If a problem does exist, you’ll want to fix it promptly. If possible try to open lines of communication with the unsatisfied customer, while it’s still fresh in their head and possibly willing to change their review. It is important to mention calling or stopping by your office to help solve the problem in person, instead of through email. Additionally, this will show other potential customers that your customer service is a priority. (Note: if the resolution of the issue went well, ask if they mind updating their review about the experience.)

Managing your Reviews

Handling your online reviews, whether they’re positive or negative is extremely important. Respond to complaints in a professional manner. Providing positive reviews with a response, “Thank you! It was a pleasure working with you!” or “We hope to see you again soon!” shows potential consumers you’re interested in your customer’s feedback and care about their experience with your business.

Read through all the reviews people post online and don’t let frustration and anger take over. If needed, apologize and explain that you are sorry for their experience and explain how this is unusual within your business. Maybe consider offering a discount or special deal the next time they visit your storefront or purchase your services.

Have you experienced negative reviews? Tell us how you handled them in the comments below. If you’re in need of a search engine optimization company that can handle your local listings and review management, look no further than Advanced Digital.

Taking the plunge and opening your small business can be extremely tough and time-consuming. A large number of businesses fail within the first year or struggle to make it to the 5-year mark. How do you avoid being one of those statistics and succeed with your business?

Search engine optimization will help you climb above your competitors in organic, paid and local search results. One struggle a small business has includes finding funding to correctly market themselves to bring new and repeat customers. When search engine optimization is done correctly, the visibility of your website will increase leading to your return on investment.

So.. What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization is the process of getting your website ranked organically for specific keyword terms, by combining tasks such as: market research, keyword research, content creation, link building, etc.

Our SEO specialists work closely with all of our clients determining the right path for their business. We factor in your location, industry and overall business goals.

A few questions we ask:

Is your website mobile ready?: One of the key factors in organic listings is the responsive programming of your website. Search engines want all of your website’s information readily available to users. The SEO industry is constantly changing; just a few years ago, websites had subdomains specific for mobile browsers.

Do you have unique and valuable content?: Our team and in-house content writers will create fresh content on a regular basis.

Has on-page SEO been previously completed; should changes be made?: Title tags, descriptions, and internal linking are all extremely important aspects of the on-page SEO process.

Are you listed on relevant directories and social media platforms?: That’s right! Social media is a key element to your organic rankings. Not only do likes, shares and interaction lead to an increase in visibility, but it also builds credibility with your business.

Is your business credible?: Directories and social platforms open a path to build your business’ credibility. Reviews, testimonials, photos, etc. help encourage search engines as well as other customers.

The Advanced Digital team takes into consideration a business’ budget, competition and how quickly our clients want to see results. For quick responses, we will recommend a great Pay-Per-Click campaign by our certified Adwords specialist, as well as taking the time to increase your organic search result rankings with time and constant effort.

Call or contact us today to get started!

Moz, first created in 2004, is a vital tool to many search engine optimization companies much like ours. By 2009, Moz exceeded over 5,000 monthly subscribers and worked their way to hitting the Inc. 500 list in 2010. For over 10 years, Moz has become one of the leading SEO tools, although the analytics part of this tool did not become available to subscribers until 2013. Moz provides analysts with many tools from analytics tracking, keyword ranking monitoring, on-page grader and more. Our team finds Moz to be an integral part of our team’s daily optimization process.

What’s First?

Each Moz campaign is linked to a Analytics profile, we are able to begin ranking, link tracking and watch search traffic. Additionally, adding a competitor also gives us an insight on rankings and search visibility.

One of the main tools we use is “Site Crawl”, which allows us to find and solve website issues, including duplicate content, page titles and pages resulting in not found errors. Based off these reports you can shorten title tags, fix duplicate content and descriptions and find those pesky 404 errors you may not of even realized were there. All of which can assist in improving your ranking if taken care of.

Join the Community

A supportive community is a positive aspect of Moz. Complete with Mozinars (webinars, which can also be watched at a later date) and a Q&A section where other Moz and industry members can assist in answering any questions you may have about search engine optimization.

By utilizing Moz, our team is able to monitor, update and report our client’s website stats on a weekly and monthly basis. This month’s blog series will focus on this resource and all the tools it offers. Moz is a staple for our team and we are sure by the end of this blog series, it will be for you as well. Subscribe to our blog and follow us on social media to keep up with our future posts!

Do you have a favorite Moz tool? Let us know in the comments below!

Additional Blog Posts

Happy Holidays From Our Team to Yours!