In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, understanding how Google determines search rankings can be tricky.
While many website owners focus on optimizing for specific keywords and backlinks, Google’s algorithms consider a myriad of factors that go beyond these traditional SEO tactics.
From content relevance to a user’s browser history, Google’s approach to returning search results looks at aspects that the site owner can control as well as those that are specific to the user.
Digital marketers and website owners are always looking for ways to improve site SEO. Common strategies involve adding valuable content, optimizing page titles, choosing appropriate keywords, and obtaining backlinks. But beyond these SEO staples lie less obvious tactics.
One of these tactics is utilizing image metadata. While the significance of metadata is ever-changing in the evolving world of technology, it is important to stay at the forefront of what opportunities image metadata presents.
Let’s take a look at what image metadata is and what benefits are found in including it in, or removing it from, a file.
It’s gone by many names — Google Maps, Google Places, The Map Pack, Google My Business. Google Business Profile is a tool provided by Google to showcase your business’ location or service area.
Once reserved for local brick and mortar businesses, Google Business Profile is now essential for any and all businesses, from corporate headquarters to home-based businesses. While completing your Google Business Profile is a user-friendly process, features are ever-changing, so a set it and forget it approach is never recommended.
Here are some of the ways to optimize your Google Business Profile listing and make the most of this valuable search engine real estate.
Business reputation is something that can often be overlooked when developing online marketing strategies. With so much focus on driving traffic to your own website, it’s easy to overlook anything that isn’t right there where you can quickly edit and publish.
But think about what happens when someone has a bad experience at your business in the real world; they’ll usually leave your place of business and start venting their poor experiences to friends, family, and whoever will listen.
And those innocently listening ears consume this information and take it into account the next time they are selecting a business like yours. Likewise, if that customer has a good experience, they’ll do the same, which often results in strong word-of-mouth leads who become repeat customers.
Now, think about the same thing in an online world. We know people are less inhibited when expressing their feelings online. We also know that negative rants can become viral and make or break a business depending on how the company reacts — if they even react!
While we can’t influence the reactions of our customers once they step outside of our doors, we can ourselves react in a way that reflects the best characteristics of our business and shows potential customers what they can expect from us in the future.
In this multipart series, I’ll highlight some basic online reputation management strategies you can use to increase the chance of attracting new customers while keeping the critics at bay.