It is 4:00 am and what do I hear? "Looking for roadside service for semi truck tire repair near Iowa City" Just before that the phone conversation was - "I'll Google it." Today it is not the phone book that you reach for when you need something. You "Google It" which puts a whole new perspective on how businesses today manage their online digital presence. Tips on How to Optimize Google My Business 1. Complete your business information and add a description 2. Upload more and better images 3. Respond to Google My Business reviews (yes, all of them) 4. Use posts to promote events, offers, and content 5. Create and upload videos 6. Add shortname Why Should I care about Google My Business? The benefits of Google My Business are threefold: 1. Increase visibility in search 2. Better shopping experience for buyers 3. More traffic to your website, social channels and front door The more Google knows about your business, the more types of searches you will appear in. That is where many businesses fall short. Because they are so close to the business, they forget some very important bits of information that Google would love to know. Here is just another reason that seeking out a digital marketing professional is so important. Let's start a conversation with our staff at Spin Markket so everyone finds you when they "Google It".

We are far from the days of digital being easy. The business world is online and competition is fierce. The industry is evolving faster and faster and if you are not nimble and focusing on the correct growth in 2020 all the clicks, leads, and purchases are going to the competition. Every year Spin Markket + Digital plans the most important strategies, channels, content, ad platforms, and digital direction we provide to our clients. With years in the digital marketing space we have seen a lot of change and 2020 is going to be the hardest year yet. Here are the 2020 digital strategies that we will be focusing on with our clients and want you to think about for your own digital marketing. 1. Master Attribution You may have Google Analytics or a Facebook pixel, but do you really know what turned that individual from prospect to profit? Do you know what platform is getting you the best bang for your buck? Now in today’s digital world individuals will visit your site several times prior to converting. They’ll find your Facebook ad, a blog, maybe a promoted LinkedIn article then return directly a week later and click a retargeting ad a day later. Then, they will finally convert! So which marketing channel gets credit? Was it your blog? The Linkedin article? Or was it the Facebook Ad? Make sure you have the right attribution model, so you know what touch point is influencing and contributing to the sale! Accurate data is going to be pivotal in 2020. Invest in hiring a professionals to setup your Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and Google Data Studio. Test everything and report multiple attribution windows (First Click, Last Click, Time Decay, etc) then compare to your backend numbers to ensure it is at least minimum 90% accurate. Short Example Of Spin Markket Dashboard All Our Clients Use To Measure ROI And Have All Digital Platforms, Campaigns, And Data In One Format 2. Organic Social is Going Obsolete In 2018 Facebook rolled out a huge change in organic reach for business pages after they decided to “shift ranking to make News Feed more about connecting with people and less about consuming media in isolation.” Similar changes are happening to Instagram and other platforms that were once organic utopias. Even in 2019 we continued to see a steady decline in the majority of platforms businesses previously invested a lot of time and money in growing. Page like campaigns and other social asset building strategies are turning into more vanity metrics then actual ways of increasing audience and sales. In 2020 we predict that more platforms will continue to become ‘pay-to-play’ and the days of reaching all your followers are long gone. Of course this doesn’t mean that there aren’t places you should be investing in organically (ie: YouTube, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Google Search). But if you think growing your Facebook Likes in 2020 is going to solve your sales problems, you are going to have a bad year. So what can you do in 2020 to dominate on organic? It is extremely important to selectively pick which platforms your business grows on and then use the other platforms for good old fashioned advertising arbitrage and retargeting. The platforms of course need to align with your demographic. If you own a funeral home, Tik Tok may not be the best platform due to its younger user base. But you should already be all in on Google Search, YouTube and other platforms where you can target people looking for relevant information. To be honest the one organic platform that is most effective across all businesses is Google Search. But you should be looking at YouTube as well. Most platforms burst your entire organic reach in the first 24 to 48 hours. With YouTube your views continue to grow quite significantly over the long haul. So you can post a video, maybe get 100 views the first couple days, but over time this number will continue to increase significantly if you know how to properly rank videos and even better, add a little paid promotion. Try this on Facebook and Instagram, you will get 99% of your views in the first 48 hours and then will never get any additional reach on the post. Making all that time you invested almost worthless after 48 hours. Be smart with your organic investments in 2020, make a solid plan with your agency and double down on the networks that will grow over the long term. Also only pay for growth on platforms that have organic reach. 3. Thinking in house…. Think again Now, In house marketing seems like a great idea, you have staff on the payroll you have them under your influence, you can be agile and responsive. Great! But what’s the reality… Unless you have endless hoards of cash it can be quite difficult to maintain the upkeep of world class media buyers, copywriters, graphic designers, video editors and web developers. Finding these skills in one or even several staff is almost impossible and YES you will pay a premium for these skill sets. And let’s be real they have a cushy job… they don’t always have to perform.. It’s not as if though you’re not going to pay their salary next month if they don’t drastically improve your business’s revenue. (and legally you can’t just sack them). Now, If you’ve read this far I’m almost certain that you’re a smart business owner and know that the ROI in marketing is paying word class marketers to think of new and innovative ways to acquire and retain lucrative customers. So, allow us to run the numbers for you · World Class Media Buyer – $6,000 / Month · World Class Copywriter – $7,000 / Month · World Class Account Manager – $5,000 / Month · World Class Graphic Designer – $4,500 / Month · World Class Video Editor – $6,000 / Month · World Class Web Developer – $5,000 / Month Total: $33,500 / Month or annualized: $402,000 Now do you really think this one media buyer will understand ad buying on all platforms? Facebook? Google Ads? LinkedIn? Content Networks? Tik Tok? … Probably not. We have to hire all these media buyers individually, a great Facebook marketer is usually never a world class Tik Tok marketing, or advertising on OutBrain and Taboola. Now, lets compare this to an agency like ours, we have hand-picked some of the best talent in the world (this is why we have staff globally). We spend thousands of dollars a year on training, development, software and testing with our staff. Our staff have all designed, manufactured, written and launched campaigns that have profitably generated millions of dollars for our clients online. Media buyers, copywriters, account managers, graphic designers, videographers, video editors, web designers and web developers. All of this world class talent at your fingertips, working in the trenches, helping you take your business to the next level for only $5-10,000 a month. (Yes, that is not an unrealistic spend level although we can provide services at a lower costs.) Or annualized: $60-120,000 You’re a smart business owner so we’ll let you make your mind up. 4. Content First In the Digital age we are no longer influenced by someone shouting from the rooftop “buy my stuff” “We’re better, our product is superior.” You may even be finding yourself asking the same question of businesses, “Why are they better”, “What makes this company superior to the other company.” You may even ask, “What’s this company’s mission, what do they stand for.” And these are all the questions people are asking of your company, and that’s exactly why “content first” is the way to sell and absolutely dominate an industry. Now what does “content first” mean, content first means producing informative content for the viewer (your prospective buyers) before you ask for the sale. Make a video, a blog post or even an animation showing why you/your company are the experts in your field, show the customer ways the product/service can help, show them what problem it solves, show them other ways you/ your company can improve their life, give them industry information. Think: How can I give information away for free that would improve my prospects life? Advertorials and Native Pieces are a great example of content first marketing Now, down to business. Why does this work? We have this psychological phenomenon called reciprocity. When someone does something nice for you, you want to do something nice back. Interact, encourage, support and ultimately become a lifetime customer to the company that helped you have greater knowledge when other companies just expected you to buy. An example of this is in December 2019 after Black Friday when we typically see campaigns fatigue. We started using content first for a client that sells different training worksheets and courses. Our direct response ads were working great and generating record high ROI, but we were starting to get stuck scaling and needed to get to the next level. So our plan was to go content first. Giveaway 6 eBooks in a listical article, no catch, completely free. In this article we would link to some of our paid funnels and insert options throughout for people to checkout our paid assets. This is of course a very simple explanation of the entire strategy but goes over the main principles. Results 2x increase in ROI compared to the direct response campaign 4x decrease in link click cost 2x increase in overall reach and impressions on the campaign This campaign didn’t just help us ROI more, but it also helped other campaigns by increasing our audience size and remarketing lists considerably. This strategy doesn’t just work on Facebook ads, it literally works across majority of paid networks. This is the future. Let’s call it stealth selling. Why does it work? Because users are tired of being sold items, most ads online are direct response and going directly for the sale and provide no value to the user. Users are more likely to click on articles and less likely to click on posts that they consider ‘ads’. 5. Multi-Channel is a Must What is multi channel marketing? Multi-channel marketing is the practice of using multiple mediums to advertise and reach prospective customers. This gives you the ability to reach customers you couldn’t reach on one platform alone. You may have a user that initially views your branded content on Facebook, then searches Youtube and again views you content and converts on the Youtube advertisement. And you will also have scenarios where an individual may not have Facebook, Snapchat or Pinterest, but they see you on Linkedin and Youtube when searching for solutions to their current dilemma. Social Media Users by Age Demographic 2019 Conclusion If you tackle these five items, you should see significant return on digital investment in 2020. They will help you save money, get a clearer picture, and make sure that you are expanding into the right places. (And do not forget to contact us at Spin Markket + DIgital as your partner in all that is marketing!

Business are counting down the days until we start a new fresh start for 2020. Thoughts of budgets, sales goals and other benchmarks have been completed or are at least at top of mine. So, to help you develop a marketing strategy let’s start first with determining how much we’ll be budgeting for a campaign or initiative, and then figure out how to allocate that spend across various channels and tactics. The only way you will really know how well your strategy paid off is by calculating the return on your investment. By doing this is we will understand – and prove – the impact of marketing on the business, while also giving us insight into where we should focus spend going forward. The secret is to understand all the ROI acronyms and formulas, as well as how and when to apply them. Let’s talk about the key ROI metrics you should know. First to consider is CAC—Customer Acquisition Cost You’re going to invest in many tactics to generate leads that ultimately convert to customers. The more efficiently you can help your company acquire customers, the more profitable your company will be. That’s why CAC is a key metric to guide your marketing investments: [All Marketing Costs Spent Acquiring Customers / Number of Customers Acquired] Keep those costs low and the number of customers high, and you’ve got a winning formula. Next, we need to understand CLV—Customer Lifetime Value Customer Lifetime Value is a calculation that everyone across the business should understand. In fact, some would argue it’s the ultimate ROI metric, as it defines the projected revenue and profit your company will realize from any given customer in full. For subscription-based services, the calculation is: [Average Length of Subscription x Monthly Cost of Subscription] For products and services, you’ve been selling for some time, you can come up with averages: [Average Monthly Revenue Per Customer x Average # of Months a Customer Stays With Your Company] Then there is the CPC—Cost Per Click This is defined as the actual price you pay for each click on your ad. You calculate this by dividing your ad spend by your clicks: [Ad Spend / Clicks] A successful CPC equates to low cost for a high number of clicks. Keep in mind that for CPC, you’re focusing only on what happens with your ad, which can give you a false sense of ROI. This metric won’t give you the full story in terms of how these clicks ultimately contribute to your company’s strategic business goals (i.e., revenue). One area that is always discussed is the CTR—Click-Through Rate Click-through rate is the number of clicks in your campaign divided by the number of impressions or deliveries: [Clicks / Impressions] Just like CPC, this measurement on its own can be misleading. LinkedIn research shows 80% of marketers report on CTR, even though this method doesn’t properly gauge business impact. While a vanity metric like CTR is simple and familiar, even a million clicks are meaningless unless they help your company generate revenue. So, what is the cost of each new customer, client or sale. The CPA—Cost Per Action or Acquisition answers that. With CPA, you calculate how much it costs on average for one person to fill out a form or become a lead using the formula: [Ad Spend / Conversions] To be meaningful, your CPA needs to show the payoff of your efforts in the form of a significant return on investment. Remember: low-quality leads are a waste of marketing spend and sales resources required to qualify (or rather disqualify) them. Along with CPA is the CPL—Cost Per Lead Just as it says, this metric determines the amount of money you spend to acquire a lead: [Ad Spend / Leads] As with CPC and CTR, CPL is not especially meaningful on its own. If you look at CPL in a vacuum – without also looking at value per lead – then you’re missing the most important part of the ROI formula. You need to know the rate at which those leads convert into closed deals, and the amount of revenue those deals added up to. My measuring these factors comprehensively, you won’t fall into the trap of focusing on quantity over quality and emphasizing cost over ROI. So now we need to discuss the CPO—Cost Per Opportunity This is a different – and more accurate – way of looking at CPL, measuring the cost of leads that the sales team deems worthy of pursuing. An opportunity is not only qualified by the sales team but has shown intent to purchase (making it more valuable than a lead). As with CPL, you ultimately want to know how many opportunities convert into closed deals and the amount of revenue associated with those converted opportunities. Factor in the CVR—Conversion Rate This is the percentage of users that take a desired action calculated as: [Conversions / Clicks] The higher the CVR, the better. That said, this is best paired with cost per conversion, which is the dollar amount you spend to acquire a conversion through a campaign. A low cost per conversion and a high conversion rate equates to a higher return on your marketing investment. Calculating the sale cycle is the LVR—Lead Velocity Rate This indicates how quickly leads move through the pipeline (which is why it’s also referred to as Pipeline Velocity Rate). The faster your leads turn into paying customers, the better for your company – it shows you are delivering high-quality leads that your sales team can quickly convert to a closed deal. To calculate this, you need timestamps associated with leads as they progress through the stages you track in your systems of record. You will need to coordinate with the sales team to get a full view of a lead’s movement from the initial to final stages, but it’s well worth your while. Understanding LVR helps you tweak your processes and tactics to generate revenue more efficiently. Calculating your churn factor or the NPS—Net Promoter Score As a growing number of companies emphasize customer retention, they are embracing the NPS metric, which is a way to measure customer satisfaction and get a baseline for the health of a customer retention program. You measure NPS by asking your customers one question: “On a scale of one to ten, how likely would you be to recommend (our brand) to someone else?” Those who respond with a nine or a ten are considered Promoters — loyal customers who will provide repeat business and referrals. Sevens and eights are Passive: They’re satisfied customers but not enthusiastic, so they are just as likely to go with a competitor come renewal time. Anyone under seven is considered a Detractor – an unhappy customer who can actively damage your brand. To calculate your NPS, subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters: [Promoters - Detractors.] Factoring in your ROI—Return on Investment As a marketer, you need to understand the impact of your marketing programs in terms of the return on your investments. You can calculate this for your brand marketing (driving awareness), acquisition marketing (adding new customers), and customer marketing (retaining existing customers). In many organizations, the largest percentage of marketing dollars are spent on acquisition marketing, which makes it vital to master the complexities of calculating ROI “beyond the click” to actual revenue. The ROI calculation for that is: [Revenue - Spend] And finally using the RPL—Revenue Per Lead At the end of the day, the truly telling metric is revenue per lead, usually calculated as revenue attributed to leads within a certain time frame: [Revenue Generated / Number of Leads] RPL is closely tied to CLV, as you want to understand how much revenue you’ll generate from each lead and, ultimately, each customer. All this data and information directly impacts what is your perception of your marketing success or failure and calculating the actual results. When it comes to measuring your marketing ROI, it’s helpful to master many formulas. Just don’t let all those calculations cloud your perception of what ultimately matters. Though you’ll want to calculate your results every step of the way, the bottom-funnel metrics are the ones that matter most. In other words, vanity and reach metrics should take a backseat to those measuring true business impact. Embrace this philosophy to earn more credibility with the C-suite and secure more budget as you prove the true value of marketing on the business. Let's start a conversation to assist you with your 2020 marketing strategy and goals. Contact us at Spin Markket + Digital today. 515-302-8026

No matter what kind of company you own, there are key trends that affect your industry each year. These may range from local laws to demographic changes. For example, as millennials take over the market and Gen Zs gradually enter it, you now have to contend with the internet generation. They are a lot pickier and more demanding than their predecessors when it comes to tech and website usability. Because of this, business owners who stay ahead of market changes should already have a website upgrade as a New Years resolution. Before you get ready to cross this off your to-do list, consider how to update strategically and the benefits of doing so. THE IMPORTANCE OF REGULAR WEBSITE UPDATES The internet generation isn’t the only reason that upgrading your website is important. Updates keep your website secure. It also aligns your website with new SEO developments and keeps customers happy. 1. Secures Your Website Forbes estimates that small businesses are the victim in 58% of malware attacks. To target businesses, hackers sometimes disguise phishing emails as email delivery failure notices or even bills. Websites may also get hijacked and held for ransom. These and other types of cybercrimes cost businesses an estimated $3 trillion overall by 2015. Website updates help to identify and patch vulnerabilities that often allow these instances to happen. Still, the first vulnerability to tackle is an outdated password. 2. Updates the Look If you built your brand on a retro look, the idea of going contemporary with your design may rub you the wrong way. However, with old themes come old designs that are often slower and take longer to load. The right professionals can show you how to strike a balance. This way, your site can function like a well-greased 2020 machine, even if it looks like a 1980s invention. Remember to consider how website changes affect the overall branding, such as the look of business cards and brochures. Keep it consistent. 3. Provides New Content Has your website been proudly celebrating its 10th anniversary for the last four years? This is one of the many mistakes companies miss when they neglect website updates. Failure to revise your website, especially when it comes to products and services, may cause confusion and even claims of false advertising. In addition to this, creating new content provides the perfect opportunity to evaluate your SEO strategy. 4. Reduces Bounce Rate Your bounce rate tells you how many people visit your website, look at one page and then hit the exit button. This may indicate several problems online, all of which you can fix with website upgrades. Some common potential problems include slow load times, ineffective calls to action and complex navigation setups. Note that high bounce rates affect your SEO and conversion rates over time. 2020 TRENDS TO CONSIDER FOR WEBSITE UPDATES Some trends last a few months and quickly get forgotten. Others may last a few years and experience the same fate. The trends you need to pay attention to are the ones that reflect a long-term movement in a particular direction. Use these to inform your strategic website upgrade decisions. 1. Landing Search Position Zero Marketers and SEO specialists spent the past few years vying for the top three positions in search results. There’s a result that ranks even higher than this now. Forbes calls it SERP position zero. This is a featured excerpt of text that appears above all other search results. Google even provides a link to the source of the text. 2. More Video Content Content is still king, but relying on written content alone may hold your business back. People watch more than 500 million hours of YouTube videos every day. Videos also trump text when it comes to retaining the original message at 95% to just 10%. To add to this, in 2018, millennials became the first generation to watch more online videos than traditional TV content. Believe it or not, marketers speculate that Gen Z will overtake them. Website updates must consider how the platform handles audiovisual content. 3. Natural Language Processing For years, businesses have tried to find ways to incorporate keywords into webpages that match the way people type them in. This often negatively affects readability. The need for this will reduce over time due to machines’ growing ability to understand naturally spoken languages. This translates into people asking Alexa and Google Home questions in full sentences to get a response. Your website content needs to reflect this. 4. Consumer Privacy Laws In 2018, the GDPR came into effect in the European Union. In 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act comes into effect to bring California up to EU standards. New York is also working on its own privacy laws, which promises even stricter guidelines than the previous two. These form legislative responses to a growing problem. Technology doesn’t just open businesses up to cyber-attacks. People and their data become vulnerable too. YOUR 2020 CHECKLIST FOR WEBSITE UPDATES The right checklist looks at the potential benefits you stand to get from a website upgrade as well as important trends. While not every item on the checklist may apply to your business, it’s still a good place to start. 1. Security Vulnerabilities If you do nothing else to your website for 2020, remember to update the security measures. If you decide not to do this, you could put your business and your customers at risk. Entrepreneur.com provides five specific tasks website admins should add to their checklist for 2020: Update all your software and add-ons.Install a web application firewall.Activate SSL encryption.Use a strong password.Back up your data.Activate SSL encryption. 2. Consider Analytical Data Even if you didn’t invest in thousands of dollars’ worth of software, you have analytical data at your fingertips. Start with Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Analytics tells you about your audience. The console shows you how your website performs when it comes to SEO. Use this data to inform your decisions about website updates. 3. Check Out the Competition Copying your competitor earns you no cool points with your customers or Google. Still, you won’t know how competitive your website is until you see what everyone else is up to. Some of your competitors will debut their upgrades early, often in time for Black Friday or Christmas sales. Note the functionalities they improved upon or added. Consider if you need to do the same or better. 4. Review the Landing Pages If you don’t plan to do an in-depth review of your website content for the new year, then at least take a look at your landing pages. These webpages allow you to customize your message to different subsets of your target demographic for various reasons. Website updates should include ensuring the landing pages in use are up to date and have an effective call to action. 5. Ensure Everything Works Sometimes an overhaul becomes so focused on adding new bells and whistles to the website that it neglects old functionality. Do all the main parts of the website still work? Did you remove pages you linked to in other parts of the website? Are your social media widgets still properly synced? Do the videos work? Did any of the images you linked to disappear? HIRE THE RIGHT PARTNER The sad truth is that you could create the best possible checklist for website updates and still miss the mark. The good news is that hiring an award-winning SEO company can change that. at Spin Markket + Digital we handle everything from awesome website add-ons to blazing-fast mobile website designs. Call 515-302-8026 today to get the ball rolling.

Marketing is a dynamic field in which to work. Strategies that do well today may get thrown out tomorrow. This may result from changes to how consumers shop, new technological advancements or updates to AI algorithms. These changes keep marketers on their feet. They also prompt business owners to work with marketing agencies that keep the pulse of the industry and its many changes. From alt tags to link-building strategies, good marketers work hard to meet clients’ expectations. Great agencies work even harder to surpass them. Like social media did years ago, SEO helps level the playing field for companies that can afford to invest in content. This content involves not just text but also videos and photos. These types of content allow marketers to include information that creates further context. By using meta tags and alt tags in particular, companies can capitalize on the benefits of semantic SEO. WHAT ARE ALT AND META TAGS? The use of tags is part of building on-page search engine optimization. To first understand why they are important, you need a good grasp of what they are. An alt tag is also known as an alt description or alt attribute. It adds text data to images so that search engine bots can “see” them. If the image fails to load in the body of a webpage, visitors to your website may also use alt tags to draw conclusions about what you tried to show. There are several different types of meta tags: * Viewport meta tag, which determines the scalability of a page: * Meta tag keywords, where you enter keywords relevant to your website * Robots meta tags, which tell bot crawlers how to treat specific content or webpages * Meta descriptions, which preview your article in search engines and some social media websites * Social media meta tags, which are similar to meta descriptions, but you can fine-tune them for specific social media platforms These are the main ones, but this article focuses mostly on the use of meta tags that include descriptions. These types of meta tags provide either an excerpt of the content or a summary of what it covers. Some sources say Google does not use some meta tags at all for ranking purposes. Still, meta descriptions may help to reduce bounce rates. Your website visitors may also rely on this to figure out if an article is useful before clicking on it. WHAT IS SEMANTIC SEO? Keywords have dominated SEO strategies for years. They still play a crucial role in helping search engines determine what results best meet users’ needs. However, search engines are now including additional factors to provide context. Context can completely change the underlying meaning of a person’s search query. Alt tags for images, excerpts of article text and even a user’s search history all contribute to the contextual data search engines now use to return relevant results. Semantic SEO involves the process of optimizing websites with the intention of improving the deeper meaning of the content. Depth helps Google and other search engines better understand the value a particular webpage may offer to people making queries. WHAT ARE SOME META BEST PRACTICES? Using tags to improve the customer experience and boost SEO takes time and practice. Some marketers become too focused on keyword stuffing alt tags and forget to consider the other aspects of a holistic approach to SEO. Best practices should take into consideration the contextual meta clues search engines now use to return the best possible answers to search queries. Consider Character Limits Most content management systems allow you to add meta descriptions that are as long as you want them to be. However, any characters beyond the 150 to 160 count may not show. Google reportedly does not consider the information here when ranking. So, writing anything more than readers can see is probably not worth the hassle. Create Unique Descriptions Alt tags and meta descriptions can sometimes feel like boring additions to a page. Because of this, many people try to maintain a standard formula that they can copy across with few adjustments. Note that one company may have several webpages show up on the first page of a search, so make it easier for users to differentiate between one page and another. Include a Call to Action It’s important not to go for the sales pitch too early. This can drive customers away or cause them to view the information you present as biased toward your business and your own self-interests. Still, a call to action in the meta description may prove useful. You may use CTAs as subtle as “Find out more” or “Call us for more information.” Some people have experienced success with more heavy-handed CTAs, such as “Buy one today” or “Schedule your appointment.” Ignore Meta Keywords Tags While Google continues to rely on alt tags, a decade or so has passed since it first began to ignore the information entered as meta keywords. As a result, some content management systems no longer include this for you while creating articles or editing web pages. It may not hurt to enter your best keywords here, but for the most part, you can ignore it. WHAT ARE SOME ALT BEST PRACTICES? How you use alt descriptions may play an even more important role in semantic SEO. This stems from the fact that Google and other search engines still rely on the text entered here to determine what the picture is. Start With the Most Useful Images Optimizing all the images on your website may take a long time. Your content management strategy and the age of your website may contribute to the length. Instead of trying to optimize all the alt tags at once, or in chronological order, it’s a good idea to start with the most important photos. Skip over generic stock photos and start with infographics, bar charts and photos of your products. Break Up Image Galleries Marketers often use images to break up long blocks of text in an article. However, some webpages may have lots of photos with few words. Adding alt descriptions can help to break up these intentional or unintentional image galleries to add meaningful words to the mix. Potential additions you may consider include not just what’s happening in the photos, but also the following: * Product specs * Date or location on candids * Summaries of the most important information under graphs and charts Keep It Natural Writing for people instead of bots is as important for alt tags as for meta descriptions. Remember that while search engine bots crawl the information, people read them too. Visitors to your site with slow internet connections or who have data-saving features turned on are more likely to encounter alt descriptions. Use keywords reasonably and avoid stuffing. Try to focus more on keeping the language conversational and fluid. WHY DO TAGS MATTER TO SEO? Meta and alt tags offer a direct way for you to tell Google how to treat your website content and what value it brings to customers. Meta tags, especially, get broken down into several useful types. You can rely on these to increase the level of control over what gets indexed on your site and what Google should ignore. You may also improve the customer experience. This, in turn, reduces your bounce rate and potentially improves engagement rates. Alt attributes also help with optimizing a type of content that many business owners may feel serves more entertainment and aesthetic value. You may now use those dozens of photos on your website to rank higher in Google Image searches. The more unique the photos and descriptions, the more likely you are to carve out your own niche. Even so, optimizing meta and alt tags requires knowledge of current SEO practices and the time to get it all done. This is why so many companies rely on professional services. Do you need help optimizing your website? Contact Spin Markket + Digital for a free website analysis today. 515-302-8026

As a proactive business owner, you often find yourself looking for new tools to improve your company website. Over the years, you’ve probably spent thousands of dollars on software and apps that don’t always give you the return on investment you need. You might also feel wary of any app that promises no-cost services. Still, there are some free platforms you should consider. Google Search Console is one of many provided by the world’s most popular search engine. The tech giant has positioned itself as an ally for small business owners all around the world. From Google AdWords to Google Analytics, there are many products available for you to give your business a boost. If you already use Google Analytics, you may wonder where the console fits into the bigger picture. You probably also want to know how this benefits your business. WHAT IS GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE? At first glance, GSC closely resembles Google Analytics. Some people might even say it looks like a watered-down version. This is not actually the case, however. If you used Google Analytics before, then you know it provides detailed information about website traffic. It tells you how many people use your website, who they are, where they came from and even what times of each day they are most active. In contrast, Google Search Console provides information on current website SEO performance and how to improve it. Without this information from GSC or some other source, it would be impossible to find out what areas to work on to boost search rankings. GSC offers some specific tools to help you evaluate your website: · Performance · URL inspection · Security and manual actions · Links · Speed · Mobile usability HOW DO GSC TOOLS SUPPORT BUSINESS OWNERS? The list above is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the tools available in Google Search Console. To better understand how these tools may help boost your business, it’s important to look at each one individually. Note that Google continually updates its console, but these features were available at the time of writing. Overview As the name suggests, the overview gives you a snapshot of your website’s performance. It includes your total web search clicks, index coverage and general enhancements. Note that “enhancements” is just the name Google gives to the core tools in its console. Performance This Google Search Console tool provides the most SEO-specific information of all the available options. It shares everything from your average click-through-rates per impression to a list of the most common search engine queries that bring people to your website. One of the most telling numbers here is the average position. Use it to get an idea of the average ranking position of your website in search results. URL Inspection Did you update an old page and want Google to index it immediately? Or do you suspect that Google may have missed a particular URL? Enter it into the prompt box provided and Google will tell you if it’s indexed or not. If it isn’t, you can request immediate indexing. Index Google Search Console’s indexing feature provides two tools: coverage and sitemaps. Check to see how many of your website links Google indexed and how many it did not. If the number of non-indexed pages alarms you, feel free to check the table to see which ones got excluded. Use the sitemaps feature to improve automatic indexing. Speed This is currently in beta or experimental mode, but consider it a feature likely to last. Google has not been quiet about the importance of speed to a website’s search engine performance, especially for mobile queries. Forbes estimates that decreasing the time it takes to load your page by just one second could grow conversation rates by 2%. Mobile Usability Speed is also closely tied to mobile usability. Forbes reports that by the end of 2019, more than 86% of the world’s internet users will use their mobile devices to access websites. The mobile usability tool from Google Search Console helps you identify issues that may make your website less user-friendly, such as content wider than the screen or too-small text. AMP This tool also gets tied to mobile usability. It shows you which AMP-rendered mobile webpages get shown in search results and which ones do not. Your customers tend to get the AMP version of a website if they click on a link from social media while using their phones. Breadcrumbs This shows errors and warnings Google Search Console found or generated while bots crawled your website. Note that Google uses breadcrumb trails to categorize and rank pages that form part of a hierarchy. For example, “Services” may sit at the top of a hierarchy, but then you have different types of services on pages forming a subset under this header. Products Here, Google shows you how well your product schema performs. Search Engine Land explains that this is important if you have an online store hosted on your website. Not only does Google identify potential problems, but it also guides you through the process of resolving them. Sitelinks Searchbox Want to know if Google is unable to read certain rich content on your websites, such as job postings or recipes? This is where you’ll find that information in Google Search Console. It tells you how many links are valid, how many have warnings and how many have errors. Security and Manual Actions When working to improve the SEO on your website, beware of black hat practices. If a human being reviews your websites and believes you’re trying to manipulate the search index or otherwise disregard Google’s webmaster guidelines, you get issued a manual action here. The good news is, Google tells you how to fix it. The security aspect of this tool checks for vulnerabilities on your website or signs that malware infected it. Links If you have a strong link-building focus in your SEO strategy, this tool helps you monitor your results. It tells you what pages get linked to the most, both from external websites and within your own website. This also lets you know what the top linking sites are as well as the most common link text on external websites that refer readers to yours. HOW DO YOU MAKE THE BEST OF GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE TOOLS? Even if you’re not a marketing and SEO expert, there’s no denying that GSC provides you with a good starting point. If you decide to hire out this work to an agency in the near future, you can still gain a better understanding of SEO, how it works and what those professionals are trying to improve. 1. Create Your Account The only way to access the console is to set up your account. The process is fairly simple. Just click the link and then “Start Now” to get the ball rolling. If you already have a Google Analytics profile, sign in under the Gmail account linked to it. Google Search Console may pull from that information and automatically create your account. If not, follow the guidelines to verify site ownership. 2. Fix All Errors Once you have your account set up, Google begins to notify you when you have an error. However, it may not point out errors it believes you already saw in the console, so always check that you have none there to rectify. If you do, follow Google’s instructions to resolve the issue. If you have no errors at all, then congratulations. You’ve done well so far! 3. Validate Your Fixes After you fix your errors, remember to validate this with Google Search Console. Sometimes, Google validates the fix almost immediately. Other times, it schedules this for a later date. If you successfully fixed an error, Google lets you know. A little-known secret among some web admins is that occasionally Google glitches and the error is false. When this happens, validating is all you need to do to fix it. This is as easy as clicking a button. 4. Monitor Average Position Your ideal goal is to rank in the top three results every time for any search result. No website can rank this highly for all their keywords, but you should aim for an average position that gets you on the first page. Consider that Google loads 10 results per page, so an average position of 10 or less is what you should shoot for. 5. Index Updated Pages When you update a webpage, don’t wait for Google’s bots to catch on, especially if the information is time-sensitive. Use the URL inspection tool to ensure Google Search Console always has the most updated information about your company. This reduces confusion when customers click on web search results and get information that conflicts with the preview. 6. Partner With Top Linking Sites Take a look at the websites identified as the common ones to link to you. Check the website to see if the overall message and brand complements your company’s. If yes, consider partnering with them for continued promotions and links. They’re already doing it anyway, so this is a lot easier than approaching perfect strangers with the same proposal. NEED SOME HELP? For some business owners, Google Search Console is a wonderful addition to their toolbox to simplify the SEO process. In other instances, adding yet another way to evaluate your website makes marketing and SEO seem complicated. This could mean it’s time to transfer those responsibilities to a partner to help you improve website traffic and conversion rates. Contact Spin Markket + Digital and let us do the heavy lifting while providing you the online resources and education of just what your digital footprint looks like. Call 515-302-8026 or email us at cheryl.ohern@spinmarkket.com