Quality content has become one of the most important elements of online marketing. Search engines are constantly revising their algorithms to improve search results and satisfy online consumers who want to find information and solutions. Sites with high quality, legitimate, credible content are among the top results. Sophisticated search engine algorithms penalize sites that provide a poor user experience with low quality content, awarding such sites low search rankings.

Internet savvy marketing professionals recognize the need for quality content in online marketing strategies. A Content Marketing Institute study found that “93% of marketing professionals create, or plan to create, content marketing as part of their overall programs in 2012.” Why?

• Original, relevant content improves search engine rankings and increases conversion rates.
• Informative, useful content generates targeted website traffic and provides new sales leads.
• Great content pieces are shared by visitors and can spread quickly – virally – further improving search rankings.
• Quality content builds trust and establishes a reputation of leadership, resulting in customer loyalty and referrals.

What constitutes “quality” content?

Consumers search the web for information to help them solve a problem or to learn something. They don’t want a sales pitch. That fact means companies must rethink their approach to online promotion. A highly effective emerging strategy for writing content pieces is to fashion them so they don’t overtly look or sound like they are selling. So how can you write such quality content?

• Deliver content that is well-crafted, customized, and professionally written. It should engage the visitor, keep them on the page longer, and represent you as an authority on the topic.
• Focus on addressing one topic in a content piece. To gather the material for an article, for example, you might select a topic and make a list of questions and answers that address the topic thoroughly. Visitors who find the information they seek will be encouraged to stay longer on your site and to share your content, which will improve search engine rankings.
• Review a list of questions Google uses in assessing “higher-quality” sites vs “lower-quality” sites. Fresh, quality content, frequently updated, helps your site rank high for the long-term.

Social content, blogs, videos, articles, press releases, posts, reports, surveys – all aim to provide content that your visitors will enjoy reading, watching or listening to, and sharing with their family, friends, and colleagues. Attracting more targeted visitors and earning their respect with quality content will build a strong network of linking and extended visit times, putting your site among the top search rankings and ultimately increasing sales!

Your online marketing program must include quality content writing and expert web design to be successful. Contact the professionals at seenBEST Internet Marketing in Phoenix, Arizona to create a winning web strategy…and you’ll soon begin reaping the benefits of quality content and online marketing!

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For most businesses with a website, the foremost source of traffic to their website is user searches. Over 70% of users click only on the top 10 results from a search, and ignore the search results that fall further down on the page or beyond the first page. How do companies get the number one spot? Or one of the top 10? Or at least one in the top half of the first page? Answer: by recognizing the power of optimizing their websites for search engines. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., use complex algorithms to determine the order in which companies will appear in the search results. These algorithms include hundreds of ranking factors that determine the position a company website will appear when a user search is made.

SEO – search engine optimization – is one of the most important marketing tools a small business can invest in. SEO can produce an extraordinary return on investment (ROI) by increasing a website’s online visibility, thereby attracting visitors who convert into customers. Company listings displaying in the top half of page one search results capture 99% of consumers, which could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue per year. Most business owners miss out on the vast majority of internet traffic, and sales, that would otherwise be theirs if their website was optimized for search. Small business owners must not underestimate the value of SEO and its impact on the bottom line.

Online marketing success requires setting goals and developing a strategic plan to achieve those goals. Some of the elements of search engine marketing – SEM – strategy include:

• creating an attractive website with rich, constantly updated content
• developing a carefully researched and employed keyword list to use in headlines and copy
• properly designing video, photos, graphics and other website features
• having all of website code reviewed and optimized by an SEO expert
• developing a strategy to acquire high quality inbound links to the website
• using metrics to track traffic and rankings

A well executed SEM campaign assures your advertisement and website link appear immediately at the top section of page one in the search engines. How sure can you be that SEM will work? How long will the process take? As with other forms of marketing – newspaper, yellow pages, TV, radio, direct mail – there are no guarantees. However, unlike other forms of marketing, SEM allows the small business owner to track rankings, traffic and sales to see quantifiable results.

Let’s go on a short journey into cyberspace and review an example of what this might look like.

• Let’s pretend you are a hair stylist.
• You cater to the Phoenix, Arizona market.
• Your business name is “Swank Salon.”
• A Google search for “Swank Salon” lists you at Page 1, Rank 1.
• Fantastic!

As the owner, you might be overjoyed that you rank well for that search term, but does a high ranking on your name profit you? Probably not! Searches on your company’s name will rank your company high in search engines. But searching on your business name only works when the user already knows it. Usually, new customers will not know the name of your business. They may only be searching for a company that can help them fulfill a need and will instead search for a keyword or phrase that describes what they are looking for in their own words. If your goal is to increase traffic to your site and attract new clients, you need more than high ranking on your name – you need to rank well for the right keywords.

Are you using the right keywords in your content for your local market and target audience? Let’s Google “hair salon phoenix” to find Swank Salon. Are you attracting the largest number of local visitors possible to your site with these keywords? At this point, comprehensive research is needed to determine the search terms your business should be ranking well for based on the amount of search engine traffic tied to those terms. This research draws upon specific information collected from the business owner about the top competition, target client, and the industry.

As we conduct deep research for Swank Salon in SEO for the hair stylist industry, we learn:

• 2.8 million people search for “haircut salons” every month
• 2.3 million people search for “haircuts” every month
• 1.8 million people search for “hair salon” every month
• Fewer than 100 people search for “swank salon” every month

From this research, the company that can gain the most business from online shoppers is optimized to rank well for “haircut salons.” Only a proper SEO review can ensure that your website is using the correct terms to rank well. If Swank Salon relied on the keywords “beauty salon haircut” for SEO or the keywords “swank salon”, they would get fewer than 300 searches per month. The salon would lose out on the 2.8 million other consumers interested in their services who are searching on “haircut salons.”

So how does Swank Salon rank in “haircut salons phoenix”? Doing a Google search places them near the top of the list. But they are not the top. The sites at the very top are pulling in 70% more traffic from these 2.8 million consumers. Swank could use an SEM and SEO campaign to get the number one spot. Is search engine optimization all you need to bring in business? Not quite…

What happens when you click on the link to the Swank Salon website? Ugh! The poorly designed website will cause most of those 2.8 million visitors to back out of the page and find a salon with an attractive website that is easy to use. For a small business to achieve a high return on their SEO efforts, visitors must both (a) see the site listed near the top of search results and (b) like what they see so they stay on the site long enough to make a purchase. For example, take Cloud 9 Spa, a competitor to Swank Salon. While Cloud 9 Spa has a superior website design that appeals to their target client, their ranking is horrible. By appearing on page 2 for most relevant searches, they are getting very little of the total traffic available. Their website may be superior, but they suffer from low visibility. They could benefit from increased SEO and SEM that would place them above Swan Salon. Their superior website design would then capture thousands of dollars in increased revenue as a result.

SEO is one of the most successful marketing tools today. To take advantage of the tremendous online opportunity to grow your small business, you have to invest either money or time. As a small business owner, do you have time to become an SEO expert? SEO success takes a lot of work and time to achieve, even with the most sophisticated SEO techniques and skills. You may be able to learn the basics, but your business will grow much faster and you’ll see a greater ROI much sooner by using an online marketing firm experienced in web design, SEO, and content writing. You will also save a lot of money, by investing your marketing budget into the proper areas immediately via the expert strategy and guidance your SEO team provides.

In addition to expert search engine optimization, you should find a firm that will do more than promise to drive traffic to your website. As demonstrated in the example above, money spent to drive traffic to a poorly designed website will most likely result in lost sales. The professional team at seenBest Web Design in Phoenix, Arizona, provide you with comprehensive online marketing services at affordable rates. We provide you a complete team of experts in the fields of online marketing, content writing, web design, SEO, SEM, programming, and social media. We will design the best website for your business. Then we will drive traffic to your website, and get your website ranked above all of your competitors.

Can you afford to let your competitors capture the bulk of the sales from your target market? Give us a call and let us design the best website for your company, and then put expert online marketing strategies in place to get your website seen first, before the competition. We offer a free one hour consultation and will sit down with you to learn about your business and provide a custom plan tailored for your needs, call (602) 456-0150 to learn more.

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Why is professional web design so important for the success of your business? It has a lot to do with packaging, which is one of the most important aspects of marketing. Imagine that you’re interviewing a dozen candidates for a new assistant position to work for you directly. Who are you more likely to hire: A candidate who shows up late in torn jeans, doesn’t seem interested in the job, and doesn’t speak to what you’re looking for? Or the well-polished candidate who is dressed nicely, friendly, knowledgeable about your company, and hits it off with you right from the start?

Packaging is the process of glamorizing your products or services in order to attract the customer’s attention. When there are hundreds or thousands of other websites offering the same products or services as your business, would you rather be the poorly dressed applicant with a communication problem or the sharply dressed and crisply spoken candidate that appeals to your customer’s needs? Most people on first glance will choose the business that presents the most pride in their company by exuding a professional image through their website.

A website makes a statement about your company. It is often the first and only impression potential clients have of your company. Attractive web design lends credibility to your business and leaves a positive impression on visitors. Researchers have found that people form an opinion of a website and the company it represents in less than one second. If that opinion is not positive, they will immediately click off your site to go to another site. With so many options available to the digital consumer, how do you create and design a successful website that sets you apart from the competition?

Designing a website that stands above the competition requires a combination of several unique talents that are often difficult or impossible to obtain in one place. There are a lot of ‘web designers’, ‘web design companies’, and ‘do it yourself website’ packages out there. Unfortunately, very few of these available options master the complex art of successful web design that will result in increased sales and business leads. Doing this correctly in a way that doesn’t waste your time or your money requires:

• A good understanding of web psychology
• Extensive experience with marketing technique
• Current knowledge of web usability issues
• The unique ability to position one company apart from and above all others
• A grasp of modern design standards and skills with the manipulation of digital imagery to tell a story

A professionally designed website will capture visitors in those crucial first seconds, stand out from the competition, build customer base and increase sales. Consider these elements when looking for help to design your next corporate website:

• Adoption of user experience conventions. Users expect to find certain things on every website, such as a clear to understand company logo and message, ease of navigation, and the ability to quickly find the information they are looking for.
• Principles of layout design and proximity. Design must consider the psychological effect of such elements and principles as graphics, white space, cleanliness, placement above and below “the fold,” and grouping like items.
• Valuable, quality content. Users want information about your company’s products and services. Quality content will improve your search engine rankings.
• Load time. Speed is key. Users will wait no more than 8-10 seconds for a page to load. And search engines will rank your site higher when pages load faster.
• Browser compatibility. Your website must follow standard protocols to open properly in any browser.
• Search engine optimization (SEO). Sites listed in the top half of the first page of search results capture 99% of all new business generated online. Keyword selection, localization, and constant updating of content are some of the elements necessary to get a high website ranking.

Today, over 86% of small businesses have a website. With so much competition, making your website stand out is challenging. A professionally-designed website will reach more people and give your company the image you want to portray. seenBest Web Design employ a team of online marketing experts with over a decade of experience designing successful websites that get results. Contact us today for more information (602) 456-0150.

How important are high rankings for your business website? The higher you rank, the higher the traffic, and no surprise, the more you’ll generate in new business. SEO is an investment well worth it. You’re not spending, you are investing in your company. To me, spending money on marketing is when you print 5,000 fliers and pass them around town. That’s not really an investment, because 99% of those fliers are going to wind up in the trash and you’ll never see any result. On the other hand, online marketing when done correctly is building long term traffic to your website, which results in permanent links, which results in more traffic. It’s a cumulative effect that will increase your traffic, and new business, gradually over time.

If you’re not already invested in internet marketing, you’re really missing out. Businesses in your industry that have already started marketing online have since gained a considerable advantage over you, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be to take traffic away from them. The time is now to start thinking about the future of your business. This isn’t a get quick rich scheme, but it’s a proven mechanism to building wealth over time. Even a small investment now will pay off big for you later.