April 2019 Newsletter

New Tools at Top Of The List

Illustration of gear with tools in the middle

This year will be known at Top Of The List as the year of new tools, and we’re excited about them! Some tools have been exchanged for better ones, some have been upgraded, and others are brand new. But they’re all for the benefit of our clients. Here’s the shortlist:

  • SchemaApp – We subscribed to this service so we can manually create and organize schema code for our clients that is far more detailed than automated code. Using automated software that runs on the client’s web servicer in conjunction with our subscription that runs in the cloud, we get the best of both worlds for our clients and their all-important schema markup.
  • SpyFu – This tool helps us spy on our clients’ competitors concerning their online activities. SpyFu helps us find the competition’s most profitable keywords and ads for both paid and organic search, and learn from their successes and mistakes.
  • SEMRush – Primarily for Google, this tool gives us in-depth information about site health, featured snippets, keywords that bring in the most traffic regardless of whether they are the targeted keywords, and much more. While we’ve used SEMRush in the past, we upgraded our plan to get more out of this amazing tool.

Our clients have already seen some changes in the reports they receive as a result of implementing these tools. The real value will come when they start receiving the ROI as a result of acting on the data they provide!


7 Things to Know About Google’s Question & Answer Snippets

google search results page for are dolphins mammals

Google’s featured snippets are all the rage in the search marketing field right now, and with good reason! Being featured in a rich snippet can catapult your visitor count with just one listing. Mandie Allietta shows you 7 Things to Know About Google’s Question and Answer Snippets, which is one type of many featured snippet styles. Your website should be a resource by answering questions that your target market is asking. Featured snippets are one bonus Google is offering to encourage your business to offer that value — for both your own customers and your future customers. Top Of The List can help you obtain these snippets! We’ll work with you to determine where to include featured snippet content on your website, find out what questions your target market is asking online, help write or edit content, and add schema markup to the content so search engines better understand its value. Contact us today!


Online Reputation Management Strategies You Can Implement Today

Winning Review Responses on Google My Business, Bing Places, Yelp and Other Local Search Listings

Canva Chess Peice

Business reputation is something that can often be overlooked when developing your online marketing strategy. In this article, Nicole Vesota-Johnson asks you to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Think about what happens when someone has a bad experience at your business in the real world; they might leave your business and vent their poor experience to friends, family, and the dreaded forum, online. While you can’t influence the reactions of your customers once they step outside your door, you can react in a way that reflects the best characteristics of your business and shows potential customers what they can expect when doing business with you. In this multi-part series, Nicole highlights some winning responses to both positive and negative online reviews. Using these reputation management strategies you can instill trust in future customers while keeping the critics at bay.


Tip of the Month

Tip: Include your trademark and copyright symbols everywhere. To make your company name or brand stand out from the others, remember to include your trademark symbol in page titles and title tags everywhere your name is displayed digitally. Not only on your website, but also in social media channels, ad campaign portals, directory listings, and news articles. Not only does this help prevent trademark violations and instill trust, but that trademark will appear in optimal places you wouldn’t even think of. Here’s an example of where Top Of The List’s trademark shows up on LinkedIn when searching our name:

Screenshot of LinkedIn search for Top Of The List

Adding the ® instills trust, prevents copyright violations in the country where registered, and makes the link much more clickable.

Contact us if you’d like some help ensuring your trademark or copyright symbols are everywhere digitally. We can help you make the most of this valuable property!

NOTE: If you’re questioning how two other companies could take on our trademarked name, we learned the hard way. Trademark laws are only in effect in the country where they are registered and for Top Of The List, that was the U.S.


Just for Laughs

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn on my mobile phone’s flashlight for years, and he figured it out in a few seconds!” my daughter proudly exclaimed. She was referring to Conor, her son, and my 7-year-old grandson.

laughing dog

Since I, too, was curious about how to use the flashlight feature I asked him if he could figure it out on my phone. “Sure”, Conor said. He promptly took the phone, opened Google, and spoke clearly into the phone: “Flashlight”. The flashlight immediately turned on and we all had a big laugh!


Our best for your success!

The Top Of The List Team signature