Keeping up-to-date with the latest changes to Google’s algorithms is critical if you want to run an effective search engine optimization campaign. Google recently announced a major algorithm update that can potentially have a major impact on your SEO – especially when it comes to local SEO. Here’s a look at some of the key elements of the update (which has been dubbed “Pigeon” by some in the media):

Local Listing Packs appear to be going away. A glance at recent queries shows that far fewer SERPs than before include a local listing pack. Also sometimes known as a “Google Seven Pack,” these are the seven local businesses with contact information and a map showing a location that come up as part of the first page of a search. According to MOZ Cast’s SERP feature graph, the number of local listing packs fell from 12.1 percent of queries on July 23 to 3.3 percent just four days later. If you rely on local results to drive customers from their search results to your business, this could mean a short-term loss of business.

Traditional website ranking signals mean more for local results. While standard “SEO” elements have always played a role in forming local results, there was previously a certain separation between what impacted local SERPs and general SERPs. Not anymore. The Pigeon update appears to place a greater emphasis on SEO factors including backlinks and domain authority in determining local rankings.

Local directory sites are ranking higher. Sites such as Yelp have seen a significant boost in their rankings with the algorithm update. In fact, some search results have nothing but local directory listings on the first page. Make sure that your business is listed with the top directories in your industry and that the listings are complete.

Local carousel placements are untouched. Having a high-quality photo on your Google+ profile can help you to attract customers.

Working with the experts at eVisible can help you deal with Google’s algorithms changes. Contact us today and we can provide you with a consultation based on your unique situation and come up with a search engine optimization strategy that fits your needs.

Website visitors react to what they see in very predictable ways. Study after study has shown that how a person encounters a website will have a significant impact on how they react to it. Even with the exact same content, one website layout can increase the chances of conversions while another can make the site more vulnerable to high bounce rates.

A good rule of thumb to follow throughout your entire website layout and design work is to focus on what you want people to do on the page. A big part of conversion rate optimization is to understand the purpose of the page and getting people to have a laser-like focus on the page elements that will push them to do the task you want them to do. Whether it’s signing up for more information or making a purpose, every element on the page should drive a visitor to do just that.

So how do you do this? Here are just a few of the ways that you can increase your likelihood for conversion rate success:

Limit Choices: Too many choices can leave website visitors paralyzed by options, so they wind up doing nothing. Instead of giving visitors multiple different forms to fill out, limit them to one choice. Instead of having all of the different social media sites listed with sharing buttons, limit the page to the few sites that make the most sense for your customers.

Top to Bottom, Left to Right: People read websites like they read newspapers. This means they expect the most important information to be “above the fold”, i.e. above the first half of the page. They also are used to reading left-to-right, which means that you want to make sure that valuable information is on the left side of the page. Keep calls to action and other secondary content on the bottom half of the page. If a person scrolls to this part of the page, chances are that they are ready to take the next step.

Headline Sizes Matter: People are attracted to big, bold headlines that spread across the screen from the top of the page. Design your site so the most important information is encapsulated within a headline at the top of each page.

Use Images: Especially of people. Studies have shown that website visitors react particularly strongly when they see pictures of people on a website.

Think About Usability: If a person can’t navigate your website, they’ll click away rather quickly. Avoid this by utilizing a clean layout with a solid color contrast, plenty of white space and an avoidance of overstuffing the pages with too much clutter.

Keep Ads and Sidebars Away From Main Content: Whether you are selling ad space on your site or have internal links to other pages on your site, you want to keep these elements apart from your main content. Have a clear delineation between the main content and any sidebar content that might pull people away from your main message.

You don’t have to be an expert to know more about where your own website’s SEO stacks up against your competition. There are plenty of free and easy tools in place to help you determine where you stand from an SEO standpoint and what areas you can improve upon. This is great whether you want to do your own SEO or need to be more educated before hiring and working with an SEO firm.

We’ve come up with some ways that you can do your own SEO research and get a better sense of where your website (or the website of a competitor) stands:

Check Your Domain Authority (DA) Ranking. This is a number that shows how “authoritative” your site is, and how much credibility search engines give it. Your DA is determined by factors such as its age, link backs and overall SEO ranking. You can check this by going to Open Site Explorer (https://www.opensiteexplorer.org/). A DA of more than 40 is considered to be good.

Test Your Site Load Time. Google punishes sites that take too long to load. This can be because it has too many slow-loading site elements or isn’t optimized correctly. Check your site’s loading time at Pingdom (https://www.pingdom.com/).

Determine If You Have a Working Sitemap. Search engines such as Google want to see a well-organized website and a sitemap is proof that your site is easily indexable. You can see if you have a sitemap by typing your website’s domain name followed by “sitemap.xml” into a Google search.

Find Out If You Have a Robots.Txt File. If a robot.txt file has major disallows, it can keep search engines from indexing your site. Type in your website name with /robots.txt at the end and see what comes up.

Evaluate Your Meta Content: Open up your website’s source code in your browser and search for the relevant meta content that might be within. Google no longer uses meta keywords, so this isn’t important, but you’ll want to do a search for meta tags and meta descriptions to make sure that they are being used for each page. You’ll also want to make sure that you are using your header tags correctly.

Find Onsite Content: This is more important when you are reviewing your competitors’ sites. Find links to “blogs” or “articles” on their website. If you can’t find any, do a search for their URL with the word “blog” included. You’ll also want to see how frequently and recently they are updating their content.

Search for Longtail Keywords: You can enter crucial longtail keyword phrases that you want to rank for into Google to see where your pages come up. If they aren’t on the front page, you’ll want to work harder to get them up there.

eVisible understands how to help small businesses gain online attention in competitive markets. Our local business online marketing services leverage multiple components so we can create a total strategy that’s right for your situation. From planning to execution and reporting, we’re prepared to guide you through every step of the SEO process.

We also understand that you might want to do SEO work on your own, which is why we offer free and premium eVisible online marketing tools that you can use to audit your own website or get information that is valuable in helping you work with an outside SEO agency. Tools such as the free sitemap submission or the premium high PageRank blog posting will make sure that you get the most out of your SEO.

Creating a powerful headline is important — maybe even more important than you think. According to recent research, 80 percent of people will read a headline on a website, but only 20 percent of these people will actually read the article. The quality of the headline can make a big difference between the articles that are read versus the ones that aren’t.

So what makes a compelling headline? The team behind eVisible content writing services knows that there’s no “magic bullet” to assure that headlines will grab your readers’ attention. You’ll need quite a bit of trial and error to discover the type of headlines that will resonate with your target audience but doing it properly can pay significant dividends.

Don’t Be Afraid to Get Creative: A boring headline — even if factually accurate — isn’t going to drive people to your content. Any fears about using clever or “cute” headlines to draw in readers have been proven to be outdated with the rise of viral sites that get huge click-through and page view numbers with creative and witty headlines.

Consider Your Target Audience: It’s important to think about who you want to read your stories and what you want them to do when crafting a headline. If you are looking at closing sales, you need a headline that calls the reader to action. If you are simply looking to increase page views, you need to focus on grabbing their attention with the promise of something unique in the story text.

The Medium Matters as Well: You need to consider who your readers will engage with the headline when creating it. Sites such as Facebook allow you to use an image and, possibly, some additional “teaser” text as a sub-headline to attract a potential reader’s attention. Make sure you take advantage of these opportunities when you can.

Remember That People Are Curious By Nature: There are several types of headlines that have become popular in recent years:

• Lists
• Questions
• How-Tos
• Directly Addressing the Reader

But one of the most popular recent trends has been in headlines that use shocking language, over-the-top statements or emotional responses to get readers hooked. This is particularly true of viral news sites, which often use headlines such as “This Picture Shows Why Our Education System is Doomed” or “You Won’t Believe Why This Woman Was Sent to Prison for 20 Years.” They present bits of information that connect with people’s emotions and lead them on to want — and almost need — to click through to find out more. It’s powerful, effective and is a method that can make your articles go viral.

It’s easy to think that SEO work — whether it’s doing the work yourself or working with an SEO agency — will result in a boost in search engine rankings immediately. The truth is far different, as solid SEO work does not happen overnight. Effective search engine optimization strategy is a process that involves multiple steps; each of these steps needs to be executed flawlessly in order for real improvements in search engine rankings to occur.

A cornerstone of much of this early work will be the “under the hood” work that goes into ensuring that a site is ready to be indexed by search engines such as Google and Bing. This infrastructure work is far from sexy and it won’t lead to immediate results but making sure that issues such as broken links, site maps and redirects are in place are critical if any future progress is going to be made in implementing an SEO campaign.

If you are doing your own SEO work on your site, there’s a good chance that you’ll be overwhelmed at some point with the sheer amount of behind the scenes work that needs to go into getting a website completely ready for search engine optimization. In many cases, it makes sense to work with an SEO agency like eVisible, which has helped countless companies get through the initial steps needed to launch an SEO campaign. SEO firms understand the challenges of improving a website’s infrastructure and working with one from the start can help you to avoid some of the common pitfalls that can delay positive ranking results.

If you have made the decision to work with an SEO agency, it’s important to have patience through the early steps of the campaign as the firm deals with the infrastructure of your site. The changes that need to be made in order to make a site SEO friendly often can’t happen in a few weeks. It may take several weeks or even months before it’s time to develop content that will improve your search engine ranking. Having a plan in place from the start with your SEO firm that has a timeline with set deadlines will help you make sure your agency is staying on track while alleviating your concerns.

As Google and other search engines change their algorithms and refine the ways that they present search engine results, outsiders might think that SEO isn’t as important as it once was. After all, many of the strategies to boost search engine rankings no longer work under the new methods used by search engines. Some people might believe that this means that the amount of influence that an SEO expert can have over a company’s online success has been greatly diminished.

In fact, the opposite might be true. In many ways, it takes an SEO expert to fully understand the possibilities that exist for online marketing through search engine optimization. By utilizing a complete online marketing strategy that ties SEO into aspects such as social media, public relations and advertising, an SEO expert can still play a major role in shaping and perfecting a company’s online marketing efforts.

There are many ways that an SEO expert can provide unique value to a business:

Develop a strategy to boost search traffic. SEO agencies can draw from their experience to understand how similar businesses in a particular industries have failed or succeeded with organic search marketing. They can then use this knowledge to craft a unique strategy based on the strengths of their client.

Help convert visitors into revenue. It’s one thing to get people to your site; it’s another to have them become customers. Having a solid landing page and eCommerce setup can make this happen.

Identify and target the right keywords for a campaign. It’s still critical to identify the keywords and phrases that will attract the attention of your potential customers. The fact that Google has restricted access to referral data complicates things for non-SEO experts.

Assist with reputation management. An SEO expert is the right person to handle a situation when negative links are appearing highly in search results.

Fix lost traffic issues. When a site’s traffic numbers suddenly drop, it’s usually for a reason. An SEO expert can diagnose if there is a technical problem or other issue that is leading to a drop off in visitors. An SEO expert can also perform an audit at any time to find problems such as slow loading times or incorrect sitemaps that could be hampering overall traffic.

Leverage every outlet to spread content. You need to consider every possible outlet to get your message across and reach potential customers. SEO experts can utilize search engines, social media sites, content marketing opportunities and more to get people to know about your site.

The world of SEO is changing. Changes in the algorithms used by major search engines such as Google have redefined how a business can improve its page rankings. It’s no longer enough to have a standalone SEO campaign; today, you need to integrate your SEO tactics with other aspects of your online marketing if you want to find success and your social media presence is a big part of this.

The reality is that SEO by itself simply doesn’t work anymore. Combining your social media and SEO tactics is not just a good idea — it’s something that’s a must. A strong social media presence won’t directly increase your page rankings for your main site. However, it can help to spread the word about your brand and links to your site. If other people share these links, that will only help your overall SEO. This is the type of effective link building that works in the new world of SEO.

Small businesses also need to refine their focus on their target audience in order to succeed. More specifically, businesses need to understand the type of online content that customers are looking for in order to deliver this content to them. High quality content not only helps to attract customers but will help with Google rankings.

One way that businesses can help to improve their SEO presence is by utilizing the small business SEO services offered by eVisible. Our site has several free and premium tools available that let small business owners to do some basic but critical SEO work themselves. This can include keyword research, tracking social media involvement and monitoring the readability of content on a site.

Doing this kind of basic SEO work on your own can be extremely valuable for a small business. However, there are still likely to be many aspects of SEO that a business owner won’t be able to do on their own.  One of the most common SEO questions for small local businesses is how they can fit SEO into their (likely very limited) budget. The good news is that eVisible can help businesses of any size improve their online marketing with tactics that include search engine optimization. For a relatively small expenditure, a small business can positively impact their online presence.

There’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” SEO campaign. In much the same way that your business offers something different from your competitors, your search engine optimization efforts should also be individualized according to your unique needs. Delivering targeted SEO efforts for our clients is one of the things that set eVisible apart from our competitors and it’s something you should consider in everything you do with your website.

Much the same is true when it comes to developing the code and design elements on your website. You need to apply analytical thinking when it comes to how you create and deploy your website. Even experienced web developers can make mistakes that can impact the ability of their website to perform its best. Here are a few things that you should consider:

Start Small: Instead of launching your website with a huge set of features, start small with a clean, basic layout and design. You can always build it out as your business grows by choosing individual elements to add that have been carefully developed and beta tested.

Keep Your Code Flexible: While your platform doesn’t need to be completely scalable from the start, you also don’t want it to be so inflexible that making additions or changes in the future is impossible.

Make Your Code Easy to Deploy: Instead of trying to create a site based on the limitations of your code, work from the opposite direction and plan your features and try to come up with easily-implementable code that will get these features to happen.

Launch Your Website at the Right Time: Don’t rush your website to go live if the elements aren’t all in place. If customers come to your site and have problems with it, chances are they won’t be repeat customers.

Focus on the Customer: Think about how you can create a website that meets your customers’ needs. This should be more important than implementing any one piece of code.

Along with these code-based tips, there are other elements to remember as you start your business. eVisible – Internet Marketing Firm – can help you with this along with all other aspects of getting your company off the ground. A few things to consider include:

Focus on Big Picture Problems: Instead of developing a product or service that fills a niche need, try to make sure you have a model in place that will attract the largest amount of people possible.

Stay Involved…But Not Too Involved: No matter what your role is in the company, you need to know about every aspect of how the business is operating. At the same time, you need to let the experts that you hire or contract with take the lead in their areas of expertise.