Samuel Edwards

Chief Marketing Officer at SEO Company

In his 9+ years as a digital marketer, Sam has worked with countless small businesses and enterprise Fortune 500 companies and organizations including NASDAQ OMX, eBay, Duncan Hines, Drew Barrymore, Washington, DC based law firm Price Benowitz LLP and human rights organization Amnesty International.

As a technical SEO strategist, Sam leads all paid and organic operations teams for client SEO serviceslink building services and white label SEO partnerships.

He is a recurring speaker at the Search Marketing Expo conference series and a TEDx Talker. Today he works directly with high-end clients across all verticals to maximize on and off-site SEO ROI through content marketing and link building. Connect with Sam on Linkedin.

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Using Rich Snippets to Increase SEO Click-Throughs
Samuel Edwards

Using Rich Snippets to Improve SEO, Link Building & Click-throughs

Rich snippets are the bits of information that you see alongside major entries in Google’s (and other search engines’) SERPs. Rich snippets are actually a form of structured data or structured markup, which is an organizational format used by search engine crawlers to properly understand and categorize your site, while using bits of that information to aid searchers in finding their intended destinations. Rich snippets usually appear in the SERPs like this: On the surface, it may not seem like rich snippets have much power, but they’re growing in importance as search engine functions expand and users demand more from their typical onsite experience. The Purpose of Rich Snippets First, you have to understand why rich snippets exist in the first place. Providing information to searchers The first and perhaps most important role of rich snippets is to provide valuable information to searchers. As a simple example, the meta description of a given page always pops up under the page title. This description informs a reader of what they might expect should they decide to click through, and could either persuade or dissuade that user from clicking accordingly. Other information, like product information, review ratings, and notifications like “in stock” can also qualify as rich snippets so long as they appear in Google’s actual search result. Providing categorization information to Google Google loves rich snippets because they help its algorithms understand the purpose of individual pages. Your page titles do much to inform the search engine about the topic of your page, but rich snippets offer more in-depth, specific information that Google can then use to ensure your site shows up for relevant searches. Providing raw information to Google Additionally, Google uses rich snippets (and other forms of structured markup) to accumulate raw information that it can then compile in its Knowledge Graph, which provides direct answers to common user questions. This doesn’t help your site in any meaningful way, but it’s another reason why Google loves to see rich snippets. Increasing your domain authority (eventually) Currently, there is no ranking benefit to including rich snippets throughout your site. However, Google recently implied that rich snippets will be considered in its master ranking algorithm eventually, meaning your inclusion of rich snippets will eventually pay off in the form of higher ranks. How Important Are Rich Snippets? Now that you’re familiar with the general purposes of rich snippets, we can take a look at exactly how important each of these functions are to your site. Earning higher rankings Like I mentioned above, currently there’s no direct ranking benefit in including rich snippets on your site. However, if your rich snippets are detailed and compelling enough to encourage a greater number of click throughs, you might earn a slight increase in rank from that extra relevant traffic. In the future, rich snippets can (and almost certainly will) benefit your rank. Increasing traffic Rich snippets are highly important for attracting more links (instead of manually building links) and clicks from your search rankings. In fact, you can generally count on an increase of up to 30 percent when you include rich snippets versus leaving them out entirely. That’s a major increase for a relatively simple step, so it’s definitely worth your time to include. The more detailed, concise, and compelling you are in the language you use, the better results you’ll see. Multiple purposes Also keep in mind that some pages (and some sites in general) stand to benefit from rich snippets more than others. For example, an ecommerce site might be able to show off newly discounted prices, or items that are in stock, or user ratings of specific products all within a search entry to maximize the chances of eventual conversion. Sites that can take advantage of this should always use rich snippets, no matter what. The future of rich snippets In the next few years, Google is going to do more to reward sites that offer rich snippets, and users are going to become more reliant on them to make informed decisions. They’ll also become easier to incorporate and manage as technologies respond to these needs. In short, rich snippets are very important already, and will continue to grow in importance over time. How to Implement Rich Snippets Some CMSs offer easy editing for rich snippets, enabling users to directly manipulate the information that search bots pull from your site. In other cases, you’ll have to enlist the help of a developer, who can directly encode the information in the code of the site. Either way, you’ll have to make the time and effort to establish appropriate rich snippets for each page of your site. If you aren’t familiar with structured data or microformatting at all, a good place to start is Schema.org. Schema microformatting is the generally accepted system of categorization on the web, sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Yandex, and other major brands. On their site, you’ll find all the tools, tips, and instructions you need to incorporate proper structured markups on your site. If you haven’t already, work to include rich snippets for all your site’s pages. They’ll work wonders in increasing click throughs to your site, and in the future, they might even increase your rank. Just be sure to keep a close eye on new developments in this area, as microformatting is liable to evolve over the next several years. If you need help implementing your rich snippets, we can certainly help! Or, if you want to learn more about our white label SEO and content marketing services? Get in touch today!

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Cheap SEO Isn’t a Good Idea – Here’s Why
Samuel Edwards

Cheap SEO Isn’t a Good Idea – Here’s Why

Cheap SEO services are everywhere. All it takes is a couple of spare dollars and you can pay someone to optimize your website, improve your online business, build backlinks, or improve your search engine ranking. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Cheap SEO sounds nice in theory, but it’s not worth the headache or the hassle. Here’s why. What is Cheap SEO? If you visit a popular freelance marketplace like Fiverr, you’ll see an array of affordable SEO services for just $5 to $25. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything that costs more than just a few hundred dollars. From off-page to onsite to technical SEO – you can have it all for a tiny investment. Run a quick Google search for SEO services in your industry and you’ll run across hundreds of cheap search engine optimization (SEO) “agencies” (which are actually nothing more than one-man shops started by someone with an introductory understanding of online marketing and an affinity for drag-and-drop website builders). These companies will promise to provide intensive SEO strategies for a low, one-time price of $500 or less. Cheap SEO, affordable SEO, low-cost SEO – you can call it whatever you want. We all have our own subjective definition of what “cheap” or affordable SEO services actually means, but it’s essentially any SEO package that’s priced well below industry standards. While inexpensive SEO services might fit into your budget, you have to consider whether it’s actually delivering a tangible return on investment. In many cases, the answer is no. And if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter how affordable SEO services are – they’re a waste of your time and money. The moral of the story when researching SEO agencies is that cheap SEO services aren’t good, and good SEO services aren’t cheap. 7 Reasons Cheap SEO Services are a Bad Idea Just because someone is willing to sell you SEO services at a steeply discounted rate, doesn’t mean you should take them up on it. Here are some specific reasons why paying for inexpensive SEO is such a bad idea: 1. Cheap SEO Services Cut Corners If you’re paying a so-called SEO expert such a small amount for their services, do you really think you’re getting their best effort? You’d be fooling yourself to say yes. If an SEO is only getting 20 percent of the going rate for his services, you’re probably only going to get 20 percent effort. The other 80 percent will involve cutting corners, skipping steps, and automating tasks that should be done manually. 2. If The SEO is TOO Affordable, You Won’t Be Able to Afford Results There’s only so much that a digital marketer offering affordable SEO services can do with a few hundred dollars. He can conduct some keyword research, tweak a couple of technical elements on your website, and maybe even optimize a key sales page. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the financial resources to address the two most critical elements of any SEO or online marketing strategy: content and links. Without content and links, your SEO efforts are futile. It doesn’t matter how flashy your website is, or how many of Google’s rules you follow, you simply can’t gain the reach, exposure, or rankings that you need to generate results. A single piece of content can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to write, edit, and publish. How do you expect to generate dozens of original articles and blog posts if you aren’t paying your SEO enough to cover these costs? Even the most affordable SEO companies don’t have the financial resources to produce quality content. If they promise lots of content at such a low rate, they’re doing something fishy. (Run a quick search for content spinning and you’ll probably get your answer.) As for links, the second integral component of SEO, there’s simply no way to plan and execute a powerful link building strategy without money. In addition to creating the content, it takes a lot of time to network, establish relationships, and secure link placement on authoritative websites that provide actual value in return. Instead of paying for quality links, a cheap SEO service will us gray or black hat techniques to find spammy websites and questionable blogs who will link back to your website. Eventually, this could lead to stiff Google penalties. 3. Cheap SEO = Generic SEO Strategy Search engine optimization is a highly unique endeavor. No two websites or companies can use the same strategy and generate identical results. A customized plan is necessary. The problem with cheap SEO services is that they have to use scalable, cookie-cutter strategies to save time and improve efficiency. This means they use the same SEO strategy for both a national ecommerce store and local SEO for say a bank or car wash.  Local SEO, while it may work for a small business website, is no match for large budgets pushing national campaigns. If you pay for a cookie-cutter strategy, prepare to get cookie-cutter results. What you really need is an affordable SEO service that learns the ins and outs of your company and develops a unique strategy designed to propel you to the top of the rankings in the search engines. 4. You’re Paying for Someone Else’s SEO Learning Curve While not always the case, someone’s pay is generally indicative of their experience. Someone who charges $100 per hour for his or her expertise is typically going to be more advanced than someone charging $15 per hour. While there’s a time and a place for letting people improve and grow their skillsets through experience, you don’t want it to be at your expense. If you’re paying for the cheapest SEO package in the industry, you’re probably paying for someone else’s learning curve. That’s a big mistake! 5. You’ll Risk Your Company’s Reputation & Rankings Do you know what happens when you cut corners, miss key steps, and pay for a bunch of sketchy backlinks to point to your

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How to Enhance Your SEO with a VPN
Samuel Edwards

How to Enhance Your SEO with a VPN

Have you considered using a virtual private network (VPN) to supercharge your SEO strategy? When you use a VPN as an SEO tool, you’ll get access to accurate organic search results from around the world. If your goal is to reach a worldwide market, this article will explain how you can add a VPN to your SEO toolbox for improving your data. What is a virtual private network (VPN)? A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your computer and a remote server. When you load a website using a VPN, your traffic flows through the encrypted tunnel, which means it can’t be read in transit. Encryption makes data unreadable to anyone without the decryption key. The unreadability makes encryption the best way to protect against data breaches. When data is encrypted, it doesn’t matter if it’s stolen because it can’t be read. As your traffic flows through the encrypted tunnel, it picks up the remote server’s IP address before it lands on the website you’re trying to visit. This effectively hides your true IP address. Without a VPN, your internet traffic is unencrypted and your internet service provider (ISP) can see all the websites you visit. However, with a VPN, your ISP can only see that you’ve connected to a VPN and can’t see any internet activity beyond that connection. While VPNs are promoted as the ultimate privacy tool, they have limitations. Thankfully, those limitations aren’t applicable to your SEO strategy. How using a VPN can help your SEO strategy To rank your website for competitive terms in the search engines, you have to know how your site is doing in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Are you on page ten? Page five? Are you on the first page of results, but toward the bottom? You need an accurate view of how your web pages are ranking in order to improve your position in the SERPs. However, international SERP rankings are often skewed because of factors like cookies, page trackers, personalization, and geo-restricted content. Search results vary depending on a variety of factors, including location. The same keywords will produce different search results for users in different locations. For instance, the top search results for a given phrase in one country might not even show up in another country. You can’t use your real IP address to see how your web pages are ranking in other countries. Using a VPN is the only way to get an accurate view of international SERP rankings. Your browser must believe you are actually located in a given area in order to produce accurate search results from that area. When you use a VPN to access international search results, you’ll also get access to the meta descriptions associated with the top-ranking web pages. You can use this information to further refine your own meta descriptions. Once you know how (or if) your web pages are ranking in other locations, you can tailor your SEO strategy to target those locations. Tips for using a VPN to access international search results Whenever you access the internet, it’s not just your IP address that gets logged. Your computer’s MAC address and browser are also recognized. This is in addition to cookies stored in your browser. The following tips will help you get around these factors and access genuine international search results. 1. Use a different browser or go incognito Your internet history will affect your search results, even when using a VPN. Your internet Cookies and cached pages are stored locally on your device and will come into play regardless of your IP address. To ensure you get accurate international results, use the incognito mode in your browser to avoid bringing your cookies and browsing history into play. Or, use a new browser you don’t normally use. For example, if you normally use Opera, switch to Safari for your international searches. This way, you can clear your cookies and cache after each international search without having to delete the cookies you actually need. 2. Don’t sign into your Google account Make sure you’re logged out of your Google account before searching internationally. Google personalizes search results based on three main factors: Your IP address. If you’ve been using a VPN for a while, you’ve probably noticed that local searches bring up local businesses in the same zip code as your remote server’s IP address. The zip code specified on your Google account profile. If your account zip code doesn’t match your IP zip code, you’ll get a mix of results from both locations. Your search history. Google stores your search history from the day you open your account. When you’re logged into your Google account, your search history will be used to personalize your search results, even when you’re using an incognito browser and a VPN. When you’re performing international searches for SEO, keep results clean by not signing into your Google account. 3. Use a dedicated laptop for international searches This might seem too extreme for some, but if you really want to take precautions, use a dedicated laptop to perform your international searches. This way, there’s no chance your MAC address, cookies, or internet history will be factored into your search results. This is the ideal solution if you can’t download new browsers and you don’t want to delete your cookies or browsing history. 4. Use a VPN to preview your pay-per-click (PPC) ads Most people use Google AdPreview to check on their ad positions for various searches. This tool was created to avoid skewing your click through rates (CTRs) by running regular searches and not clicking on your ads. While you can set your location before searching, Google Ad Preview doesn’t always provide accurate results. Sometimes it skews the order of PPC ads and displays organic rankings incorrectly. You can bypass this dilemma with a VPN. Using a VPN to check on your PPC ads will show you the actual order of organic search results and paid ads as they display in

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Do You Need an Agency for SEO for Link Building? How You Can Tell?
Samuel Edwards

Do You Really Need an Agency for SEO or Link Building?

The fundamentals of SEO appear simple on the surface, but the increasing complexity in the space typically requires more technical expertise. Whether your hire an agency or bring your SEO service in-house is a business question you will have to answer. But make no doubt about it: even Fortune 100 companies with large, best-in-class in-house SEOs can still benefit from an outside agency team: Agencies can help you scale faster Agencies typically have publisher/website relationships that even the largest organizations lack Agencies can act as a helpful feedback and sounding board for digital marketing decisions Agencies, on the other hand, can be expensive and/or difficult to work with—so how do you know if one is right for your situation? The Problem with Do-It-Yourself SEO The notion of keeping your own SEO in-house is appealing; theoretically, you can get results while still keeping full control over your work and save money by not paying an agency. However, there’s a significant problem with the idea of DIY SEO: available expertise. You can hire yourself an SEO expert who is well-versed in what’s necessary to gain momentum in an SEO campaign, but that doesn’t always translate to working efficiency or even ground-level experience. SEO involves many working parts, including, but not limited to: design and structuring of your site creation of original content management of social media posting of offsite links website monitoring and regular audits much more Finding an individual who is an expert in all of those roles is extremely difficult, and hiring a full team with split roles is ridiculously expensive. By working with an agency, you can gain access to a full team of experts who truly are experts in their respective fields. That expertise translates to more effective, meaningful work, with a wider reach and fewer holdups. Narrowing your scope of work to the talents of one expert (or worse, one person who only knows the fundamentals) could end up costing you far more money in lost time and inefficiency. The Fear of Hiring an SEO Agency There are two main fears keeping people from pursuing agencies: money and control. The money factor is simple: SEO agencies are expensive. But if you’re already planning on paying the salary for one person, why not take that capital and invest it in a full team of experts? Most agencies also offer several tiers of plan options, so you can almost always find something that aligns with your SEO budget and your goals. The control factor is a bit more complicated. Some entrepreneurs prefer to keep their SEO development in-house simply to have more transparency into the process. Once the work is handed off, it becomes a mystery, and the agency starts directing the process. Though you’ll always have to abandon some level of control, most agencies fully report their efforts and the rationale behind them, and are flexible enough to accommodate most special requests. Surefire Signs You Need an SEO Agency’s Help If you’re weighing the options, as you should, you may find yourself struggling to objectively determine your need for an agency. Fortunately, there are a handful of surefire signs that you’ll need an agency if you want to gain momentum in your campaign. You have an immediate problem that needs addressed Most website owners are reactive rather than proactive. When things are humming along, site traffic is steady or growing and leads are flowing, the SEO agency is not top-of-mind. But when things go wrong, the SEO agency is then on speed dial. An SEO emergency is a very common time to engage with an SEO agency. You don’t have—or understand—the right tools What tool do you use to audit your content or audit your backlink profile? What features of Google Search Console do you use on a regular basis? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, or if you don’t have a readily available list of tools to help you with your SEO campaign, it could be a sign that you may need help. You’re overwhelmed with the number of tasks involved Managing an SEO campaign seems simple up front: post lots of content and build good links. But there’s a seemingly infinite number of tasks that goes along with those core onsite and offsite strategies. The work can quickly pile up, especially if your SEO manager has other responsibilities. It might be too expensive to hire another person, or there might be too much work to internally delegate, but at some point, you may need to enlist the help of an agency to reduce the workload, especially if you’re engaging in the process of building quality links for SEO. You aren’t involved in multiple mediums Do-it-yourself SEO professionals sometimes get tunnel vision. They get stuck in using a set range of mediums—like a blog and a Twitter account—and they keep rehashing the same old strategies. They’ll still get results, but nowhere near the results that a full-blown, multifaceted, diverse campaign could bring. Take a look at how many channels you use to operate, and ask yourself how many you’re missing. You aren’t seeing the results you want This is the simplest, but perhaps most important sign that you need to enlist the help of an agency. If you’ve been going strong for a few months, adjusting your strategy and trying your best, but you still aren’t seeing the results you wanted, an SEO agency might be able to take you to the next level. At the very least, they can analyze your campaign and figure out what’s going wrong. The Importance of Choosing the Right SEO Agency Going with an agency isn’t enough. There are hundreds, if not thousands of SEO agencies out there, and each one of them is unique in terms of plan offerings, team composition, specialization, and even working relationships. There are several factors to consider when you start making your selection. Specialization  Your needs are unique, and you need to find an agency that suits them perfectly. For example,

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Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing Guide
Samuel Edwards

Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing Guide

As business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers, we often use the word “marketing” in a general sense that can apply to any and all situations. But in reality, there are many subsets of marketing. And as the audience and interactions change, so should the tactics. In this guide, we’re going to take a deep dive into the world of B2B marketing: what it B2B marketing? how B2B marketing differs from B2C marketing what it takes to develop a B2B marketing strategy and best practices for B2B marketing via email, content, social media, and more! Let’s get right into b2b marketing… What is B2B Marketing? B2B marketing, which stands for business-to-business marketing, is one of two major types of marketing. (The other being B2C marketing, or business-to-consumer marketing.) The technical definition of B2B marketing is the promotion of products and services to other businesses, typically involving more complex products, longer sales processes, increased sales volumes, and multiple decision makers. The simpler, layman’s terms definition is that B2B marketing is one business promoting its products and services to another business with the intention of ultimately making a sale of that product or service. In today’s business world, successful B2B marketing involves a combination of strategies, mediums, and marketing channels, social media channels. It combines both digital marketing and traditional marketing tools with the ultimate goal of maximizing exposure, driving engagement, and ultimately producing conversions. How Does B2B Marketing Differ From B2C Marketing? One of the big questions people often have is, how is B2B marketing different from B2C marketing? After all, don’t they both involve the same goal of promoting a product and eventually closing a sale? While B2B and B2C marketing might share the same goals, the approach is very different. Their respective strategies and applications are quite unique. (And so, too, are their target audiences and the ways in which they consume information.) B2B marketing is all about targeting the needs, challenges, and interests of the individuals who make purchasing decisions on behalf of their organizations. (They aren’t technically the buyers.) In other words, the organization is the customer. The individual being marketed to is merely one of the decision makers. B2C marketing is much more direct. It targets the needs, challenges, and interests of individual consumers who are making their own purchase decisions. There’s no additional layer to consider. (There are situations where this can get somewhat complex – like if your target customer or target audience is a five-year-old boy, but the mother is the one making the purchase – but, for the most part, the customer is purchasing the product for themselves.) To better understand the differences, check out this chart comparing B2B and B2C marketing (and how business customers differ in each category). B2B Marketing B2C Marketing Customer The B2B customer is a rational buyer who makes logical decisions based on a predefined process. The B2C customer is a much more impulsive buyer, often making purchases decisions on the fly. Purchase Motivation These customers are typically driven by very logical and financial incentives. They’re hardly ever swayed by something that doesn’t align with their organization’s established goals and processes. These customers can be highly emotional and may make impulsive decisions in the moment. However, it all depends on the customer and their personality and needs. Purchase Process Customers will usually work with others, including account managers and salespeople. They want to get approval before proceeding. Customers prefer to make purchases directly and don’t usually need to involve others in the decision. (Though in major purchases, they may.) Focus The focus is to generate leads and build up a list of qualified buyers who could eventually become customers. The focus is on brand building. Businesses want to create a brand that people recognize, like, and trust. Tactics/Approach Lead nurturing is the main aim of B2B marketing. There’s no anticipation of making a sale on the spot. Leads must be “dripped” on and given time to consider the purchase. Each “type” of customer is sent through a personalized customer journey that speeds up the process and moves them from awareness to purchase at a much faster rate. Content Most of the content created is going to have a very professional, educational feel. Most of the content created is going to be highly-relevant and personal. Depending on the brand, it could be quite casual and relaxed. Channels Primary channels are email, video, mailers, etc. Primary channels include email, SMS, social media, etc. Data B2B marketing strategies rely a lot on the company, industry, location and other basic information that’s known about the company based on their website and industry insights. B2C marketing strategies use whatever information is available, including age, gender, purchase history, interests, hobbies, income, demographics, location, etc. Purchase Purpose In b2b marketing Customers generally make purchases for long-term solutions. They’re making major investments. This results in longer sales cycles, extended contracts, and (perhaps most importantly)longer relationships with the companies. Customers aren’t usually looking for long-term solutions, nor do they enter into a purchase with the intention of developing a long-term relationship. The purchase is designed to satisfy an immediate want or need. Developing a B2B Marketing Strategy (Funnel/Stages) Every customer, regardless of whether it’s a B2C or B2B situation, goes through a journey. However, the B2B buyer’s journey looks a lot different. Understanding what it looks like will help you understand how to craft an effective marketing strategy that moves a lead through the process from awareness to conversion. While the B2B buyer’s journey rarely plays out in a predictable, linear fashion, it can be broken down into a logical series of stages and decisions. It usually looks something like this: Identification of the problem: We need to do something about this so that we can [insert goal or desire]. Exploration of the solution: What products and services exist in the marketplace to help us solve these problems? Building out requirements: What features do we need in a solution? Selection of supplier: Based on what we know,

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BrightLocal vs. SEO.co: Looking for a BrightLocal Alternative?
Samuel Edwards

What Are Some Good Local SEO Alternatives to BrightLocal?

Every business, at some point, needs to establish a digital presence. This usually starts with setting up social media profiles and building a website. The next step is to drive traffic using SEO techniques that help it rank higher in search results. No matter how good your web design is, it won’t get your business the required attention if your website isn’t SEO optimized. According to a study, you can drive 1000%+ more traffic through SEO than organic social media. There are several methods to optimize your website to make it rank better on the search engines. But small businesses usually outsource their SEO to one of the many companies that promise total search engine domination. Others invest in related tools and resources to start working on SEO in-house. If you plan to take the second route, the question is: “Which SEO management and reporting tools are the best?” Well, that is a genuine query for most business owners who want to be assured of good ROI before spending on these tools. So, anyone investing in SEO with the same intent will be concerned about making the most out of it, i.e., choosing the best tool available. As simple as this question sounds, it takes thorough research to answer it. BrightLocal and SEO.co certainly come to mind as top contenders in this category. These are top-trending tools for creating, optimizing, and implementing SEO strategies, and many people struggle to choose between the two of them. Let’s compare BrightLocal and SEO.co in terms of the efficiency and the value they can add to your website. What Is SEO? Before we narrow down to comparing BrightLocal and SEO.co’s services, first be clear about SEO. Search Engine Optimization is a method to get traffic on your webpage organically through search results and recommendations. It is meant to get you quality traffic that will perform the desired actions on your website. High-quality traffic is the kind of traffic relevant to your website’s niche and is convertible into leads or revisiting customers. Now that we know what to expect from BrightLocal and SEO.co, let’s see how well they do at their jobs. SEO.co Vs. BrightLocal If you didn’t know it before, SEO.co and BrightLocal are both SEO management and reporting tools. Their job is to do the SEO analysis of your website and provide you a report of how well you’re doing. They also recommend some local SEO health improvements for your website. SEO health refers to how easily users can find and reach your website using the search terms or keywords relevant to your website. Adding local citations to your website is also essential to SEO. It will improve the SEO ranking of your website and help people find your business efficiently. Understanding The Ranking Maintaining your website’s rank on search engines is vital for your customers to reach you. Both platforms allow you to maintain and update your website’s ranking status compared to other websites with the same local search relevance. These platforms provide you features that can allow you to analyze and understand the rank of your website better by keyword tracking. Keywords are terms that people use while searching to reach your website. So, these platforms will cross-reference the keywords you have used in your website and what terms people use in searches. This feature helps in knowing whether your website is performing well on the local listings or not. SEO.co provides a detailed SEO audit where it addresses the elements that directly influence the ranking of your website. From keywords and Title tags to structured data and link growth SEO.co will provide you a complete analysis. It will also analyze your competitor’s website – how they are using SEO and SEM to maintain their website ranking. Moreover, it also suggests actions that you can take to fix the detected issues. Visualized Analysis Through Dashboard For your ease, the information extracted from the analysis in the form of auto-generated reports will be available and accessible through the dashboard of these tools. You can conveniently understand your ranking by looking at this dashboard. The graphs and pie charts make it much easier to grasp the knowledge of your SEO. The user dashboards of BrightLocal and SEO.co are distinctive. SEO.co’s dashboard has a design supporting the comparative analysis of multiple businesses. You can also manage the SEO rankings of companies with different citations. The monthly reports that can be accessed through the custom dashboard include KPI benchmarking, rank tracking, PPC performance & backlink acquisition reports, and Google Analytics optimization. BrightLocal has multiple tools that can be combined and used to produce an impressive UX of your website. Furthermore, you can manage the SEO rankings for businesses with multiple locations. PPC Management & PPC Audits The added SEO services that SEO.co provides and BrightLocal doesn’t are PPC management and PPC audits. These services are essential in improving your website’s overall search health. Running your website’s PPC audit can help detect and address the issues that exist within your campaign. Hence, a PPC audit provides you insight that will assist your campaign in performing better than your competitors. The aspects that will be covered in this audit include: Budget waste Conversion tracking Account activity Display campaigns Negative keywords GEO Targeting Mobile apps Ad copy review Call tracking Click-through-rates PPC settings review Quality score distribution Budget efficiency Device distribution General strategy review Dayparting analysis Keyword auditing Google shopping audit The best part about choosing SEO.co is that you will get a complimentary PPC audit at the start, which saves a considerable amount of money that you would have otherwise paid for this service. Establishing Brand Reputation What you post on the internet about your website matters a lot in building your brand reputation. Be it online reviews or website content or blogs, content matters. Therefore, you must have search engine optimized content on your website to make it easier for users to reach your website through the keywords. In order to soar up in the

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