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Establishing credibility is important for all businesses. There are only so many brand names today that speak for themselves. I'm referring to global giants such as Apple, Nike, and Walmart. In these instances, consumers know those companies are legitimate. But the rest of us need all the help we can get to establish our credibility. That's why in the past, I've identified the top elements adding credibility to your website. Today, I want to explain one of those elements in much greater detail. Customer testimonials. Those of you currently displaying customer testimonials on your websites are off to the right start. But there is always room for improvement. If you're not using customer testimonials, that needs to change. One of the reasons why these testimonials are so valuable for your business is because they create social proof. Exactly how much of an impact will this have on your conversions? Here are some numbers you should take into consideration:
One of the best ways to learn how to do something is by following the examples of those who succeeded before you. I found some great examples of existing companies doing this right. I'll show you a bunch of different tips and tricks to help you correctly manage your customer testimonials. Here's what you need to do to succeed. Add a photo of the customerReading text without any visuals is boring. But adding photos will draw more attention to your testimonials. Not sure what photos to add? Instead of using a stock image, use a photo of the customer who wrote the testimonial. Check out this example from the Square testimonials page: I really like the way this review is displayed. It's clean, neat, visually appealing, and easy to read. The images draw your eyes to the review. Including a picture of the person who wrote the review makes it more personal. It shows that your testimonials weren't fabricated. People reading this can do some research and find out whether the reviewer actually exists. If you use this strategy for designing your testimonials page, make sure the testimonials look professional. Refer back to the example above. The images are nearly flawless. If you aren't great at taking pictures, review my guide on how to take and edit photos without hiring a professional. If the images look like they were taken on a flip phone from 2003, they won't add credibility to your website. But a clean photo of the reviewer will make a huge difference. Showcase the top testimonials on your homepageSome of you may have your reviews in a separate section of your website. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'll discuss why it's important to have a page dedicated to reviews and testimonials shortly. That said, these testimonials shouldn't be buried. Find your top testimonials, and add them to your homepage. Here's an example from the Uber website: If you scroll down the homepage, you'll come across these testimonials from the company's drivers. When we think of Uber, we normally associate it with the brand providing people with transportation. However, Uber also needs to make it appealing to drivers to join its platform, or its operation won't work. That's why it used these testimonials to appeal to prospective drivers. These reviews from current drivers will help encourage other people to drive for the Uber network. Uber plastered these testimonials directly on its homepage. As you can see, the company also included professional photographs of the people who wrote the reviews-a topic discussed above. Now the testimonials have much more value than they would if they were just words without any visuals. Those of you who already have lots of testimonials have an advantage over everyone else. Read through them, and select the top two or three to showcase on your homepage. Share the customer's credentialsYou already know a photo of the customer is important. But what else can add credibility to the testimonial? Show your website visitors who the customer is and what they do, assuming it's relevant to your products and services. Let's look at an example from HubSpot: If you are not familiar with this brand, HubSpot offers software designed for sales and inbound marketing. Now, take a look at this testimonial. It's from the director of marketing at AdHawk, another company in the digital advertising space. Showing the customer's credentials here is extremely relevant. If the director of marketing at an advertising company was happy with the service, it will encourage other prospective customers to make a purchase as well. This definitely adds credibility to the brand. Think of ways you can use the same concept on your own website. For example, let's say you own a business selling health and wellness supplements. Getting a testimonial from a doctor or physical therapist would add more credibility to your brand as opposed to a testimonial from a lawyer. Sure, a lawyer may be perceived as someone who is intelligent and powerful, but it's not relevant in this specific instance. Do you see the difference? It may be an easy fix for you to add these credentials to your testimonials. You probably already have that information on file. Now just update it on your website. Create a separate landing page specifically for testimonialsAs I said before, you should create a dedicated landing page for customer testimonials. Yes, your best ones should be highlighted and showcased on your homepage. But it wouldn't make sense to fit dozens of these reviews on the first page of your site. You should have a separate page because the volume of reviews will add credibility to the feedback. Consumers are smarter than you give them credit for. They realize you wouldn't put a negative review on your homepage. But how do the rest of your customers feel about you? Website visitors will be able to find this information by navigating to your testimonials page. Here's what this landing page looks like on the Shopify website: One of my favorite parts about this page is the title. Rather than calling it the customer testimonials page, the brand refers to these reviews as customer success stories. Automatically, these testimonials are perceived in a positive light. Notice what I pointed out at the bottom of this page as well. The company asks customers to share their success stories. I'll talk more about asking for testimonials in greater detail shortly. This is another winning strategy for testimonial pages. Highlight the best quotesWe've already talked about highlighting the best reviews. This strategy is very similar to that. Some testimonials may be longer than others. If a review is too long, website visitors might be less inclined to read the entire thing. But you still want to display these favorable reviews on your homepage. Take a snippet of those reviews, and highlight the best quotes from the longer testimonial. Look at how BuildFire implemented this strategy on its website: BuildFire is a platform for developing custom mobile applications. It took three quotes from different customer testimonials and showcased them on its homepage. BuildFire did a lot of things right with this strategy. First of all, it used three very different companies. Praxair is a brand that supplies industrial gases. Travelers is an insurance company. Preferred Materials is an asphalt and paving company. None of these businesses are related to one another. Now, this may sound contradictory to what I said earlier in terms of providing relevant testimonials. But every business in any industry can benefit from a mobile application. This idea is clearly displayed here by showing versatility of the app across multiple industries. Plus, these testimonials also include the credentials of the reviewer, which I previously discussed. Ask your customers to provide a testimonialHow are you getting customer testimonials? You can't get something without asking. Get out there, and simply ask your customers to leave a review. Ask right away. If you wait too long, your brand and the experience the customer had with you won't be fresh in the customer's head. Be polite. Make it easy for the customer to leave a testimonial. If you don't get a response, you can follow up with them one more time. That's it. Don't be annoying or pester them for a review. Here's a great example of an email template that can be used when you're asking for testimonials: It's short, sweet, and direct. Use this template as a reference when you're creating an email soliciting new testimonials. Use a star-rating methodIn addition to written testimonials, you can also incorporate a star-rating system. Check out this example from 99designs to see what I'm talking about: This is relevant to the discussion about power in numbers. It's easy for you to say your customers rate you 5 out of 5 stars. But how many people rated you? If you have a 5-star ranking but only three people left a review, it's not significant. Refer back to the example above. 99designs has a 4.7-star rating from over 36,000 reviews. In a weird way, it's almost better it's not a perfect 5-star review. If 36,000 people all gave your business a perfect score, it would be a little odd. Somewhere along the line, customers won't have the best experience. That's OK. These less than favorable testimonials will make the positive ones even more credible. It shows people your testimonials are legitimate. Plus, a ranking scale like in the example above will increase your chances of getting more testimonials. It takes only a second to click on a star as opposed to several minutes to type up a written review. Add testimonials to your product descriptionsAll right. I've already said you should include customer testimonials on your homepage in addition to having a separate landing page. But these are not the only places on your website where you can incorporate these reviews. Try adding a testimonial to a product description page. Look at this example from Slack: This landing page is for the company's product features. It's giving an overview of the way the conversations on this communication platform are organized. It includes a relevant customer testimonial in the bottom right corner. The executive director of technology at a major company explains how his business uses Slack to communicate with people all over the world. This endorsement is perfect for this product description page. Include video testimonialsIn addition to written testimonials, you can also incorporate video testimonials on your website. A video has the same impact as a photo of the reviewer. Adding a face to the review shows that it's legitimate. Ultimately, it adds more credibility to your brand. Furthermore, videos give off more emotion than photos. It's a much more authentic representation of how the reviewer feels about your brand. Here's a look at how ChatNow uses video testimonials on its website: As you can see, they also highlighted the best quote from the testimonial. If you use this strategy, make sure the videos look professional. Videos that are shaky with bad cuts and have poor quality won't have a positive impact on your brand's credibility. But you can't always rely on your customers to send you a professional quality video. Shoot these videos in-house if you can. You just need to find customers willing to be on film for you. It may be worth offering them an incentive for participating. Just make sure the incentive isn't perceived as a bribe for a positive review. Let your customers be honest with their video testimonials. It will ultimately be up to you to decide which ones should be published on your website. Turn testimonials into a case studyAt times, numbers speak louder than words. Just saying “Company XYZ really helped my business grow” is nice, but how did they do it? You can be more specific with a case study. Look at these testimonials from Hootsuite as an example: AccorHotels doubled its reach. WWF received 560,000 mentions for a campaign. These are specific numbers that explain how the software works. But those are just the highlights of the case study. The platform offers more in-depth descriptions of the results customers attained with the help of the product. This strategy also adds a personal touch to the customer experience. If your prospective customers read these case studies, they'll know how much effort your brand puts into helping each customer with their individual needs. I recommend employing this strategy if your business is results-oriented with measurable benchmarks. ConclusionCustomer testimonials on your website add credibility to your brand-but only if they're managed correctly. Add photos of the customers who write a testimonial. Include their credentials as well. Put the top testimonials on your homepage. But you should also have a separate page with the rest of the reviews. You can't get your customers to write testimonials unless you ask them. Mix up the style, format, and placement of your testimonials. Consider having a star-rating system and film video reviews as well. Add a testimonial to your product descriptions page. Those for you who are able to measure the results of your customer success stories, write a case study to go with the testimonial. If you follow the advice I've outlined in this guide, you'll be able to add more credibility to your brand by leveraging customer testimonials. Where are the top customer testimonials displayed on your website?
Social media marketing is no longer optional for small businesses in 2018. I see this problem all too often when I'm consulting small business owners. They have this mentality that social media won't benefit their companies. “Our customers know who we are, and they know where to find us.” Does this sound familiar to you? Don't get me wrong: it's great that you have established a steady customer base. But using social media to market your small business will help you get more money from your existing customers in addition to acquiring new ones. Failure to have an effective social media strategy can be detrimental to your small business. While you may not think your lack of a social media presence is having an impact on you today, it will eventually catch up with you down the road. So don't wait until it's too late to get started. You've got to keep up with the latest social media trends and apply them to your small business. If you're a small business owner not quite convinced you need to use social media to improve your business, you'll benefit tremendously from reading this guide. If you are currently using social media to market your small business but not seeing the results you hoped for, I'll steer you toward the path to success. Follow the marketing tips and strategies I've outlined in this guide, and you'll set yourself up for sustainable growth today and in the future. Create profiles on multiple platforms“We're on Facebook.” I hear this all the time when I'm talking with small business owners about their social media strategies. If you have a Facebook page for your business, that's great. You're headed in the right direction. But Facebook alone won't be enough to maximize your reach. You need to establish a presence on as many social platforms as possible. Here's a look at the social media channels that small businesses use the most: As you can see, Facebook leads the way for small businesses. Less than half of small businesses use Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter to market their brands. Furthermore, less than one-third of owners are taking advantage of LinkedIn and Snapchat. Before you rush to create a profile on all the channels listed above, it's important you understand your target market. For example, LinkedIn is more beneficial to B2B companies. That's because 80% of leads generated by B2B brands come from LinkedIn. Let's say your small business is targeting Generation Z as your primary audience. Well, 71% of Gen Z uses Snapchat at least six times each day. More than half of this generation uses Snapchat over 11 times daily. But if your small business is trying to generate leads from Baby Boomers, it wouldn't make sense to prioritize Snapchat. For the most part, starting with a Facebook profile is a safe bet. With nearly 1.5 billion daily active users, you can assume your target audience has a presence there. Believe it or not, after all these years, Facebook is still the fastest growing social network. So it's not going anywhere in the near future. After you create a Facebook page, you need to determine which other channels are suitable for your brand and marketing strategy. I'd recommend creating a YouTube channel. The video content you upload to YouTube will be easy to repurpose for your other marketing channels. These videos will give you an excuse to post content on other platforms when you're running low on ideas, but we'll talk about that in greater detail shortly. Define your marketing goalsYou can't just blindly start posting content on social media without some sort of rhyme or reason. Before you do anything else, you need to identify your marketing goals. These are some of the top goals that small businesses are trying to accomplish with their social media strategies: While lead generation, brand awareness, and customer engagement are all good reasons to use social media, it doesn't mean these should be yours. You may be using social media to provide better customer service or directly drive sales. Whatever your reasons, make sure they are clearly defined. Think of it as you would of any other marketing strategy for your company. You wouldn't run an ad on the radio or a print advertisement without establishing a goal first, so you need to treat your social media strategy the same way. Once you decide the purpose of your social media campaigns, it will be much easier for you to come up with content to post. As we'll discuss soon, it can be tough to think of ideas for new posts. But if you can establish what you want to accomplish with your content, you'll know what to post to achieve those goals. Post content on a daily basisNow that you have a social media profile on multiple platforms, you've got to make sure those accounts are active. If someone stumbles upon one of your pages and the most recent post was from three weeks ago, they aren't going to follow you. What's the point of following a brand that doesn't post content? Furthermore, think about all the people already following your business page. These people won't just navigate to that page on their own to see what you're up to. You need to post new content that will appear on their homepages and timelines. Let's take a look at how frequently small businesses are posting on social media: As you can see from this graph, just over half of small businesses post on a daily basis. This is your opportunity to stand out from your competitors. If your competition is only posting once a week or just a handful of times per month, it will be easier for you to make a lasting impression on your followers by posting daily. Each time you post new content, you remind your followers that your brand exists. When they need or want whatever you're offering, they'll think of your company as opposed to another small business in the area. One of the reasons why small businesses aren't posting content daily is because they simply don't know what to post. If you fall into this category, refer back to your marketing goals. For example, if your goal is to promote new products for sale on your ecommerce site, then post a promotional offer for those products. Repurpose previously published content. I briefly mentioned this earlier when we discussed why you should create a YouTube channel. Let's say you have an instructional guide or tutorial on how to use a product that you published to your YouTube page. You can post that same video or snippets of that video to your other distribution channels. Share new content from your website. Post links to your most recently published posts. In addition to posting content daily, it's also important for you to respond to your customers. I'm referring to direct messages as well as comments. 48% of consumers say that when a company is responsive on social media, it will prompt them to make a purchase. Give consumers a reason to follow youIn order to have a successful social media marketing strategy for your small business, you need to have lots of followers. Otherwise, nobody is going to see your content. Once you're able to grow your social following, it will be easier for you to convert your followers into customers. That's because consumers are more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media. Here are some of the top reasons why people would be interested in following your small business on social media:
So make sure your content is worth following. As you've seen, getting more followers will ultimately increase your chances of driving more sales. Run a contest. Promote flash sales and discounts. Just don't post too many promotions, or it will cause people to unfollow you. In fact, 46% of consumers say they'll unfollow brands that post too much promotional content. There is a difference between posting daily and spamming your followers. People don't just want to see posts from your brand. If you're posting several times per day, these posts will flood the timelines and homepages of your followers. Nobody wants to see that. If you want to post content multiple times per day, consider sharing ephemeral content, which we'll discuss in greater detail shortly. Form relationships with social influencersWhat if I told you there was a way for you to increase your social media presence without posting any content to your page? Well, as I'm sure you were able to guess, this is definitely a possibility. When people think of social influencers, they think of celebrities and athletes. But partnering with a celebrity probably won't fit within the marketing budget of a small business. However, influencer marketing is the fastest growing method for customer acquisition in the digital world. Furthermore, 67% of brands are planning to increase their influencer marketing budget within the next year. So how can a small business afford to implement a strategy like this? You can find social influencers who are much more cost-efficient than a celebrity. Try partnering with micro influencers to increase your product credibility. This type of influencer may not have millions of followers, but you can get them to post content about your brand for a few hundred dollars. You may even be able to get away with offering just offering them free products in exchange for a post about your brand. This strategy is effective because micro influencers have stronger engagement metrics with their followers. That's because they are just regular people. An average citizen can't relate to the lives of Kanye West and the Kardashians. But they can definitely relate to someone who has a regular job. Consider searching for social influencers who live within the area or region of your small business. It's more likely that their followers will be interested in supporting your brand. Implement automation toolsI know what you're thinking. Everything that we discussed so far sounds extremely time-consuming. As a small business owner, you need to wear multiple hats throughout the day. Depending on the size of your business, you might be handling the majority of the company's responsibilities. Becoming a social media content manager wasn't something you planned for, and it might feel as if there aren't enough hours in the day for you to handle this. Plus, hiring someone to take on these tasks can be expensive. That may not be something that your business can afford right now. Fortunately, automation resources will solve this problem for you. Check out my favorite time saving social media marketing tools. Using an automation platform will allow you to schedule your posts in advance. You can take time once at the beginning of your week to set the dates and times for your posts in the future. Another benefit of using an automation tool is the ability to respond to messages in a timely fashion. Rather than having to check each social platform individually for these messages, you can find software that sends all messages to one inbox. Then you can reply directly from the software. I highly recommend these tools for small business owners who feel they don't have enough time to effectively manage their social media profiles. Don't let that impair your marketing strategy. Encourage user-generated contentThis connects to my discussion about the type of content you should be posting. You can't go wrong by sharing content that encourages UGC. As you can see from these numbers, user-generated content has a direct correlation with the consumer buying decision. UGC will also help you build brand awareness. Here's why. Let's say you run a contest on Instagram where participants have to post pictures featuring them using one of your products. Your small business just got exposed to a wider audience. Anyone who follows people who enter the contest will see your brand being promoted, even if those people don't follow you. A whopping 92% of consumers say they trust a referral if it comes from someone they know. UGC is a great way for you to get more followers and ultimately turn those new followers into buyers. Take advantage of ephemeral contentEphemeral content is different from a regular post. This type of content is only displayed for a short period of time, such as 24 hours. The most common places where you'll find ephemeral content for social media is on Instagram and Snapchat. Both of these platforms have a “story” feature. I highly recommend using an Instagram story to promote your business. I briefly mentioned this earlier when discussing how frequently you should post content. If you want to post several times per day, do it on your story. This won't spam the timelines of your followers. If you haven't used ephemeral content just yet, give it a try in your next promotion to see how it goes. Broadcast live video streamsSmall businesses can also benefit from broadcasting live video content on social media platforms. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram all have options to do this. Just take a look at some of these statistics about Facebook Live: Basically, your live stream will boost your engagement metrics. It will also give you a more authentic interaction with your audience. You can use your live broadcast in many different ways. But one of my favorites for small businesses is a behind the scenes look. Show your followers what happens behind closed doors at your business. Give them a tour of your production facility, office, and introduce them to your staff. This will make them feel as if they are seeing something that's exclusive and ultimately bring them closer to your brand. Live video is also a great distribution method for product demonstrations, events, or Q&A sessions. Your live audience will be able to comment on your stream in real time. Make sure you acknowledge those comments and respond to your followers. ConclusionYour small business needs to use social media to stay relevant in today's day and age. Just having a Facebook profile alone is no longer acceptable if you want to maximize your social media marketing proficiency. Create profiles on multiple platforms as long as your target audience is active on those channels. You need to post content on a regular basis. Just make sure your posts are all related to your clearly established marketing goals. Your profiles need to be appealing to consumers. Run campaigns designed to get more followers. To further extend your reach, find social influencers to promote your business. Encourage user-generated content. Add ephemeral content and live broadcasts to your social media marketing strategy. If you don't have time to manage all your social media pages, consider using automation tools to make your life easier. Follow the advice I've outlined in this guide, and it will bring the social media marketing strategy of your small business to the next level. How is your small business leveraging social media to increase brand awareness and drive sales?
Have you noticed that Google is constantly making algorithm changes? And when they do, they rarely tell you the change they've made. They tend to keep it a bit vague, like this… So, do you want to know how got around this algorithm update? Well, before I tell you how, there are a few things you need to know. How Google worksCan you guess how many factors there are in Google's algorithm? SEO is complicated. If Google made SEO easy you would see product and service pages rank at the top of every Google search instead of content-rich pages. That means it would be easier for you to rank and make money, which would cause fewer companies to spend money on Google Ads. Just look at the image above, Google generated over 95 billion dollars in ad revenue. That's a ridiculous amount of money! Now, Google isn't just focusing on placing content-rich sites high up in the search results because they care about ad revenue, they do this because that's what you want. See, Google's goal is to provide the best experience for you. If you as a user wanted to see product and service related pages in the top of organic results, then that's what they would start doing. By providing you with the best user experience, this causes you to keep coming back to Google, which allows them to monetize through ads. If they didn't focus on user experience and making you happy, Google wouldn't be the most popular search engine. It would be Bing or some other search engine. So, when Google makes an algorithm change they are doing this because they've learned how to provide a better experience for you. They aren't making these changes because they want to screw up your rankings or ruin your business. Google isn't perfectSimilar to any other business, Google isn't perfect. They make mistakes (we all do), and sometimes the changes they make may not provide the best experience for you. When they may roll out changes, they may learn some adjustments didn't work out the way they wanted, which causes them to constantly go back and make tweaks. This is why you see search traffic fluctuations. Just look at my search traffic for all of 2017: When looking at the graph above, you may notice that I generated 6,162,300 visits from search of which 4,284,056 were unique. And if you look even closer, you'll see that 2017 started off really well. February was a great month even though it has fewer days. In February, I generated 390,919 visits from search but then in March, my traffic went down. And then in April, I saw another drop. The drop may not seem that big when you look at the graph, but April's search traffic came in at 292,480. That's a 25.18% drop in search traffic when you compare it to February. Ouch! I didn't make any major changes to my website that would have caused the drop and there isn't seasonality around that time… As you can see from the screenshot above, my 2018 search traffic shows a trend of going up and to the right (that throws the seasonality theory out the door). And honestly, I don't know if Google made any algorithm changes during that time in 2017 because I don't pay attention to them (I'll get into this a bit later). In other words, your traffic is going to fluctuate, and that is ok. But when you look at your search traffic, as long as it is going up and to the right year after year, you are fine. 2017 was a rough year for me as my search traffic didn't start going up again until August. I wasn't doing anything different, it's just the way the cookie crumbles. So why don't I pay attention to Google algorithm updates?I mentioned this above, and I know it may seem shocking. Yes, I do read up on them every once in a while, but I don't need Google to tell me about where they are heading with their algorithm. You, the user, tell me this. So instead, I focus on you. If I do what's best for you, eventually my site will rank higher. Sure, in the short run my rankings may drop, but I know if I focus on you (the user) it will give me the highest probability of ranking in the long run. Just look at my search traffic for the first 7 months of 2018: I've already beat my 2017 numbers! 5,017,790 is the number of unique search visitors that have come to NeilPatel.com in the first 7 months of 2018. The count for all of 2017 was 4,284,056. That's a huge difference. As long as I do what's best for you I know that my total traffic should go up and to the right. If you look at my traffic from when I started to blog on NeilPatel.com (August 2014) to now, you'll see that my traffic goes up and down each month, but the overall graph is up and to the right. So, are you saying that you don't care about SEO?No, I still care about SEO and I practice it daily. I just don't stress out about every Google algorithm update because it isn't in my control. This doesn't mean I ignore the advice Google gives. For example, when they announced that they were going to create a mobile-first index, I made sure I optimized my site for mobile. But trying to read into every Google update and making assumptions on what I should do next is like playing a game of cat and mouse. It's time consuming, exhausting and inefficient. You are better off spending your time making your website better for your users. Like I always say: Succeeding with digital marketing is a long-term game. Focus on the long term. So how do you ensure long-term success?I already showed you that my traffic goes up and to the right over time. Here's my secret to ensure that Google loves you in the long run. Please, please, please note that some of the tactics I'm about to share with you may reduce your traffic in the short run, but you will be better off in the long run. Strategy #1: Prune and cropA lot of marketers discuss how pruning and cropping your content can triple your traffic. If you aren't familiar with the process, it's as simple as updating your mediocre content and make it amazing. And as for your irrelevant content that is no longer valid, you would delete them and 301 redirect those URLs. I've done this multiple times on dozens of sites. I have friends who have done it as well. We all see one major trend from doing this… traffic usually drops. Even if those pages that you are pruning and cropping barely get any Google traffic, you'll still typically see a drop in traffic. The only time you'll see an increase is if your content was so bad, such as deleting short blog posts that are filled with duplicate content. Even if your blog is new, you should consider pruning and cropping once a year. It will ensure that you are updating your content, thus providing the best experience for your users. Here's the process I use to prune and crop (use Excel or Google Sheets to do this):
You should have a spreadsheet that looks something like this: I know the image may be hard to see, so here is a sample. Some of the data is junk and inaccurate in the sample. Also keep in mind that I am missing some data, such as meta description and social shares (I still haven't completed this spreadsheet). The reason I shared the sheet with you is that you'll notice I added a few additional columns such as “what to do” and “redirect to.” The 4 options I have under “what to do” are: optimize, delete, redirect, and nothing. Once your spreadsheet is complete, you need to manually review each URL and select one of the 4 options above. Here's when to select each one:
Strategy #2: Expand internationallyThere are over 7 billion people in this world, and most of them don't speak English. Yes, Google is a difficult beast to conquer, but it isn't in non-English speaking countries. Whether it is France, Germany, Brazil, or any other country where English isn't the main language… it's much easier to get to the top of Google. Sure, the search volume may not be as high in countries like Brazil, but because the competition is low, you can dominate fast. Here are the most widely spoken languages in the world: And here is the GDP per country: And here is the population per country: The best countries to go after when it comes to SEO are the ones that have a high GDP and a large population. Going international has done wonders for my traffic. In the last 31 days, the United States only made up 24.23% of my traffic. If you want to grow your global search rankings, just follow the steps in this blog post. It goes in-depth on international expansion and the lessons I learned from a Google employee. The cool part about international SEO is that it also creates a better user experience for your users as they will be able to read your content in their native language. Strategy #3: Fix broken links, images, and media filesLet me ask you a question… What if you were reading this post and half of the links you clicked on where broken? Especially the links that were supposed to teach you the steps you needed to take to grow your traffic? You would be upset, right? I know I would. And to make matters worse, what if half of the images in this post were also broken? Do you see how that would provide a terrible experience? Well of course you do. That's why you need to fix broken links, broken images, and broken media files on your website. You don't have to do this every month, but you should do this once a quarter. You can even use tools like Broken Link Check to make things a bit easier for you. Strategy #4: Fix errors within Google Search ConsoleEven if you don't log into Google Search Console, they will email you when there is a spike in errors. When you get these emails, make sure you fix them. If you don't know how to fix them, find a developer on Upwork to help you fix them. And once you fix them, Google will email you when they acknowledge the fix. It's really important to fix your Search Console errors. I know this is an obvious tip, but most people don't do it. This one little thing will reduce your search traffic fluctuations. You will never be able to stop the fluctuations, but this will help reduce them. Strategy #5: Build a brandDo you know what the future of SEO is? It's brands! The websites that dominate Google may not have the most backlinks, but they tend to have big brands. People trust brands, which means Google trusts brands. When you want to buy running shoes, what brand comes to mind? I bet it's Nike. When you want a credit card, what brand are you going to choose? Probably Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. You don't always Google for a product or service, in many cases you just go to the brands you are familiar with. Not only does building a brand help with Google traffic, but it helps diversify your traffic sources so you aren't just relying on Google search. If you don't believe that branding is valuable, check out this blog post. It breaks down how I grew my traffic from 240,839 to 454,382 visitors in one month (before exploding into seven digits) all because of branding. It even breaks down the steps you can follow to build up a brand for your company. It works so well, that I was even able to grow the brand value of my free marketing tool, Ubersuggest. Strategy #6: Keeping a close eye on my competitionYou don't have to be 10 times better than your competition to beat them. Just being a little bit better can do wonders. Now, if it was up to me, I would tell you to be 10 times better, but I know that can be expensive and is unrealistic in most cases. If you haven't, subscribe to your competition's website. From joining their email list to following them on their social profiles to even testing out their products/services. Do whatever you can to stay up to date on your competition. If you can beat them, even by a little bit, people will prefer your site over their site in the long run. This will help you rank higher and get more traffic (and sales!). And as I mentioned above, being 10 times better is a bit crazy, but usually when you do that your competition won't copy you. When you beat them by a little bit, that's where you will find yourself battling back and forth when it comes to winning over people (and Google). ConclusionIf you want to get around Google's algorithm changes, you have to stay ahead by focusing on your users. Do what's best for them and you won't have to deal with Google's ever-changing algorithm. If you don't follow the tips above, you'll save time in the short run, but you'll find yourself playing a game of cat and mouse in the long run. That just seems exhausting to me. I don't pay too much attention to algorithm updates and you shouldn't either. Instead, focus on providing an amazing user experience. That's what will cause you to win in the long run. Now, there will be times where your traffic will drop, but don't freak out. You can eventually come out on top by focusing on your users. And if you got to the top of Google by optimizing your site for search engines instead of people, you will eventually get caught up in an update. When that happens, check out this algorithm tracker as it will help you determine what's changed, what you did wrong, and what you need to fix. It's just tedious, which is why I get ahead, focus on the user, so that way I don't have to focus on Google as much. So, do you pay attention to every algorithm update Google does? The post How to Get Around Google's Latest Algorithm Change appeared first on Neil Patel.
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June 2019
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