Tag: Local SEO

When to Hire a Local SEO Company: 6 Questions You Need to Ask Before Hiring SEO Services

Post author By Netlynx
Post date March 8, 2024
No Comments on When to Hire a Local SEO Company: 6 Questions You Need to Ask Before Hiring SEO Services

Although 75% of companies invest in SEO in big and small ways, businesses still debate if they need professional assistance with SEO. In this article, we will break down why you should hire a local SEO Company and 6 questions that you should ask an SEO consultant to determine if they are good at what they do.

When To Hire A Local SEO Company?

Here are 3 questions that will pop up in your mind when you are ready to hire a local SEO company.

1. Am I Ready To Expand My Business?

While it is possible to optimize your digital assets in-house, it is expensive, time-consuming, and not foolproof. Having 1 or 2 in-house people writing SEO content, optimizing the website, and building authentic backlinks is not feasible and will take a lot of time.

Hiring a professional SEO company will ensure that you get faster results in less time. Most SEO companies have a team of experts who specialize in different areas of the service ensuring that you get a well-planned, and managed SEO strategy that brings you under the spotlight.

2. Do I Want To Optimize Internal Workflow

It’s harder to manage SEO services when your company does not specialize in it. Not only will it drain a lot of resources, but you may need to learn about SEO to establish KPIs and milestones – both of which will exhaust time and finances.

By outsourcing local SEO services, you can rest assured that the experts are managing your SEO needs and re-direct your resources in staff who specialize in your industry. This will optimize internal workflow and bring you under the spotlight at the same time.

3. How Quickly Do I Want To Build My Local Presence?

As mentioned above, any company can do in-house SEO, but since SEO is a time-consuming process, it will take longer to build it with a single person. It may take years before you see any traffic coming to your website through search engines.

Although some aspects of SEO do take time, like Google indexing and building a content inventory, an SEO expert can work on a few things that will quickly optimize you for search engines. This includes things like building a faster website, optimizing the website for customer experience, and setting up a Google My Business page for local SEO.

Questions You Need To Ask Before Hiring SEO Services

The SEO industry is saturated with service providers and only a few are experts. Here are some quick questions you can ask potential service providers to determine if they are the right fit for your brand.

1. How Many Years Of Experience Do You Have?

This question quickly establishes the service experts from the service providers. Try to look into multiple resources for the company’s authenticity. Social media platforms and Google reviews can give some idea on how experienced and authentic a company is. However, there is a disclaimer – there are many good companies out there with little to no social media presence. In this case, you should directly ask the company for case studies of past works and customer testimonials.

2. Do You Provide Other Digital Marketing Services?

Many SEO companies are actually full-service internet marketing companies that provide SEO as a part of their services. This is beneficial for most B2B and B2C brands as it means you can get more than just SEO services. SEO is a small fraction of digital marketing and web development services and working with a full-service internet marketing company would imply that you can start by building a strong website, UI/UX design, followed by local SEO and other digital marketing services like social media marketing – all from 1 service provider.

3. Do You Outsource Or Provide All Services In House?

While many good companies have a freelancer model, i.e. all their services are outsourced and they have an in-house management team, companies that have an in-house team are usually more affordable and better at managing project deadlines.

Always ask your potential service provider how many people will work on your project and if they are a part of the in-house team. Genuine digital marketing and local SEO companies are happy to provide you with this information.

4. How Will You Improve My Local Visibility?

Good local SEO is a systematic process that spans somewhere between months and years. A good local SEO company will incorporate local directories, backlink generation and hyper local content to improve your local SEO.

Do not work with companies that promise results in weeks or months. Local SEO is 90% skill and 10% luck and even the most experienced SEO specialists do not have control over the time taken by third-party websites to enlist you. Companies that guarantee results in weeks are either inexperienced and don’t understand how local SEO works or use black hat techniques that can damage your online brand image in the long run.

5. Will You Provide Monthly Reports?

Monthly reports help us understand what is working and what isn’t. Even the most experienced SEO companies cannot speculate any progress without having a proper reporting system in place. So when a company takes time to assess its progress and make the necessary changes to its SEO strategy, it is usually a good company. Asking a potential service provider if they provide reports and which software they use to track data will provide good insight into their experience and capacity to bring good results.

6. How Often Do You Revise And Edit Existing Strategies?

Good local SEO specialists use consumer behavior and data from local directories to improve their strategy. We need to give a strategy some time for it to work, hence changing it too soon will not guarantee success. On the other hand, if you take too long to spot redundancy in a strategy, you will exhaust a lot more resources before you see success. So, knowing when to change your strategy is important and good companies usually wait 3-4 months before they re-assess their existing initiatives.

Conclusion

We hope this article sheds some light on differentiating good local SEO companies from mediocre ones. You may not need SEO services as soon as you start your company, but as you grow and notice an increase in demand, you should outsource your SEO needs to an experienced company. Netlynx Inc. has 12+ years of experience in local SEO services and is always looking forward to bringing brands under the limelight.

Tags Local SEO

Website Design

13 Common Mistakes To Avoid In Web Design and Development

Post author By Netlynx
Post date March 8, 2024
No Comments on 13 Common Mistakes To Avoid In Web Design and Development

There are currently about 200+ million active websites and around 250 thousand websites are made every day. This means 1 simple thing, it doesn’t matter which industry you belong to, if you are online, you will get a lot of competition! This is why you need to bring your A-game to the digital world and these common mistakes can hinder your online. Use this article as a cheat sheet to avoid the 15 common mistakes of web design and development.

Why Is Good Web Design Important?

A good website acts as a bridge between your potential customers and your products and services. Having a good website does the following:

Create a good first impression
Improve online presence through SEO
Act as a brand collateral

13 Common Web Design Mistakes To Avoid

Sometimes, even the most experienced web designers overlook these common errors. It doesn’t take a lot of time to identify these pointers and create a clear website right from the beginning, however, if these pointers go unnoticed, it can damage a business’s reputation!

1. Lacking A Clear Purpose

Before creating the website, ask yourself ‘Why do I need a website?’. This can save you a lot of hassle. Establishing clear vision and mission statements will provide an outline for website visitors and encourage them to take action without feeling too overwhelmed.

2. Poor design

Leading from the previous point, poor design is often a result of a lack of purpose. More often than not, when we don’t have a clear idea of where things will go, we add too much on a single page. This overwhelms and confuses users – and a confused user is an unhappy user.

Good design is one that has direction and hierarchy. Each section needs to have a clear break with elements (like buttons, text and sliders) designed and sized according to their importance.

Experienced website design agencies build websites that follow a customer’s natural viewing pattern – like the ‘F’ pattern or the ‘Z’ pattern.

3. Poor Navigation

Imagine going to a website and not being able to find what you are looking for. Wouldn’t that upset you a lot? Well, turns out this happens more often than not. A simple sitemap will save you a lot of time and energy needed to fix poor navigation on a website.

You can still get away with a mediocre navigation bar if you have less content on your website. But as the pages start to build, good navigation needs to be prioritized. Your web design partner should club your content based on the topic and sub-topic they are written for.

Secondly, navigation should change on different viewing devices. For instance, a desktop version of a website can have a navigation bar, whereas the same website will need a hamburger menu on mobile and tab versions to optimize screen real estate.

4. Non Responsive Design

A website should automatically adapt to the size of the user’s screen and appear uniform on all platforms. This is a bare minimum criterion in today’s world; especially because our viewers are so accustomed to receiving exceptional online services.

Having a non responsive website can mean 2 things:

Your website does not adapt to different screen sizes, causing awkward and overlapping versions of the original design
You have created different designs for different screen sizes

Either ways, a non responsive web design is frowned upon for the following reasons:

It shows branding inconsistency: A good website should create a sense of familiarity. But when customers re-visit your website from different screens and get a completely different design, they may feel overwhelmed and not connected with the brand
Increases overhead costs: It is more expensive to maintain 2 different designs than a single responsive one
Poor user experience: A non responsive website may work particularly well on one screen but not as much on another. This leads to poor user experience and fewer conversions/inquiries in the long run

5. Not Catering To The Masses

A recent survey published by WHO states that there are about 1.6 billion people with disabilities. Visual impairment and hearing difficulties can affect the way a person views your website. While certain industries must have ADA compliance, we feel that everyone should make their website more accessible to the masses. Not only does this improve user experience, it builds a long term bond with customers who may have been indirectly denied service from a non compliant website.

We provide ADA compliant services. Feel free to discuss this further with us.

6. Poor Website Security

It is our responsibility to provide customers with adequate security on the website. Good security measures establish us as a responsible brand and build trust amongst customers. Web developers should automate website updates to effortlessly maintain security at all times.

Additionally, websites that deal with logins and payments should compulsorily have SSL certificates. Additional features like ‘Login via Google’ improve website security and protects sensitive information.

7. Bad Search

If website navigation is not on point the search icon can retain customers. A simple search will give customers what they are looking for. To provide an optimized search feature, web developers must constantly update the functionality with new search terms and keywords. The updates must consider typos and human search behaviors; there’s nothing worse than customers not finding what they are looking for because of a typo.

A search feature does require regular upkeep and many websites can do without it. So, think twice before adding one to your website because a poor search feature will do more harm than good. Bad search leads to bad user experience and if customers don’t get what they are looking for, they will simply go to your competitor.

8. Poor Colour Scheme

A balance of brand colors is crucial for a positive image. Just like the order and sequence of content, a disorganized display of color schemes can give you an unpolished appearance. Well thought out brands start with a brand profile that outlines its’ brand colors. Ideally, a brand should have primary colors, secondary colors, and complimentary colors with their hues laid out.

A good brand profile will save you the hassle of rectifying poor color schemes on a website. Make sure your brand color scheme is a collaborative effort from your brand manager and designer. Their input will build a brand identity that strikes a balance between creativity and professionalism.

9. Poor Use of CTA

Call to action or CTA is the soul of our website. It is the reason why we build a website. After all, what is the point of it if we don’t give customers the chance to communicate with us? So naturally, if a CTA is not designed properly, poorly placed on the website, or worse, not placed at all – it will hinder your conversion rate.

Well-designed CTAs that are placed properly and have a clear message will increase long-term customers. Make sure your CTAs match your brand color scheme and are mobile responsive. Check out our article on The Art of Creating Engaging and Effective Call to Action buttons to know more.

10. Unoptimized 404 Error Pages

When a customer clicks on a page that cannot be found, they will get a 404 error page. Many web designers forget that this page can be customized as well. You can redirect customers when they enter a non-existent link. Sometimes companies temporarily take down their site to make developmental changes. This is an excellent opportunity for brands to use their 404 error page with personalized content and contact information.

11. Poor Use of Analytics and Heatmaps

You can have the best website possible, but if you don’t make use of analytics and heatmaps, you will fall behind the competition. Analytics and heatmaps show us how our customers are behaving. A quick look at your heatmaps and you will get an idea of what your customers like and dislike the most about your website.

Your web design service provider should install heatmaps and analytics on your website. Timely auditing and analysis will help them build a more optimized website.

12. Slow Website

We see this often where companies may have a fast desktop website version but the mobile version is much slower than the recommended loading time. Since most visitors use their mobile devices to browse your website, this hinders their ability to use it.

Currently, an average user expects a website to load within 3 seconds so if your website is not up to the mark, you should look into the following:

Do you have unnecessary plugins and extensions on your website? If yes, you should remove them.
Are your media files too heavy? You can either compress them or use an external link.

13. Overuse Of Features and Plugins

Now with the last point, we want to re-iterate what we mentioned in our first point. Too many features and plugins reflect a lack of direction. It not only confuses your audience but slows down your website causing UX to drop significantly.

You must plan your website and prevent the overuse of existing plugins. A good web developer uses modern coding techniques and can build lighter versions of some extensions – customizing them for your website. When good planning meets excellent developers and designers, you have magic!

Conclusion

So here are 13 of the most common mistakes to avoid when designing your website. Your website is the face of your brand, you must handle it with care. Netlynx provides web design and development services. In fact we have a checklist that we frequently update, making sure that none of these mistakes are present in your website. Get in touch with us to know how we can help you.

Tags Local SEO, Web Design, Website Design

SEO

Here’s How Netlynx Can Increase Local Organic Traffic in 2024 Through SEO: 13 Tips for Success

Post author By Netlynx
Post date March 6, 2024
No Comments on Here’s How Netlynx Can Increase Local Organic Traffic in 2024 Through SEO: 13 Tips for Success

Having a website increases your chances of finding your target audience online. But what good is that website if it does not appear on search engines? Improving your local SEO will automatically boost your number of offline customers. Research suggests that in 2022, 98% of netizens used search engines to find out about local businesses, and around 42% of local searches involved Google Maps.

So, if you want to have a local online presence, it’s time you start building it with a few simple strategies. Here are 13 tips for local SEO success in 2024.

1. Get Your Website On Google

Does your website rank on search engines? Here’s a quick way to find out, search your website name on Google and see what comes up. If your website and social media handles are listed there, you have your bases covered and you can tick this off your list.

If it does not rank on Search Engines, it’s time to get to work. The quickest way to get your website noticed is to index it on Google Search Console. This will inform Google that your website exists and, if they find it authentic, they will rank it on their search engine.

Indexing pages on Google Search Console does provide crucial insights about your website. For instance, if your website is not secure or has many 404 error pages it will not rank on Google. Indexing pages on the search console will put these issues under the spotlight, giving you enough time to assess and improve on them.

2. Provide Value

In this SEO rat race, we often forget that we are writing for human beings and not search engine bots. An important ranking criteria for Google is noticing customer behavior. If your website is keyword optimized but fails to provide the necessary information, you will have a high bounce rate (meaning that customers will leave as quickly as they visit the website) and search engines will rank your website lower.

On the flip side, if customers visit your website and stay on each page for a long time, maybe even going to the other pages, search engines will know that you provide customers with a lot of value and hence will improve your website rankings.

3. Create A Blog

A blog section is one of the best ways to get noticed by search engines. A well-maintained blog does the following:

It establishes you as an expert in the industry
It builds a rapport between you and your readers
Content that answers FAQs and ‘How to’ questions are far more likely to rank on Google
Provides opportunities for interlinking pages
Increases chances of backlinks
With more content, you show search engines that you are an authentic website that provides valuable information to your customers

For your blog to rank, you should not just create a blog and add a few articles in it. You must be consistent with your posting game. When you have a blog posting timetable, you not only give your potential customers something to look forward to, but show search engines that you are dedicated to providing authentic content.

4. Optimize Content For Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are the pieces of content that come in the rank 0 box section when you ask Google a question. The top organic search result receives 19x more traffic than the first paid result for the same search term. Hence writing content that gets noticed by featured snippets can be an asset for your business.

How can your website rank on featured snippets?

Usually FAQs and answers to ‘wh’ questions (who, where, what, when; additionally ‘how’) show up on featured snippets. If you are trying to rank your website through blog articles, you do not need a separate FAQ section as long as you write your article in clear paragraphs. You can either have a subheading with a question (like how we have here), or you can start a new paragraph, try to answer the question with as few words possible and try to incorporate a few keywords that sound natural in the sentence.

Try targeting long-tail keywords if you are particularly aiming for a local presence. Local content is comparatively sparse thus increasing your chances of ranking on search results.

5. Add Keywords Without Sounding Robotic

You might be confident that your customers will find value in your page once they land on it. But there’s one thing that comes between you and your customers – the search engine. Keywords are the only way to communicate with search bots and if you use it to your advantage, you can make the search engine your ally, encouraging it to showcase your content on the top.

The first step to a keyword strategy is knowing your target keywords and studying their keyword difficulty. If a keyword is rated high on the difficulty rate, it means that the keyword has a high search volume and is difficult to rank on and the opposite is true for keywords with a low difficulty. A local SEO consultant should help you find keywords that have decent search traffic and yet are easy to rank on.

Once you know which keywords will connect you to your target audience, it is important to sprinkle those keywords throughout your content. Now, search engines know that companies are trying to get recognised through keywords, and hence they have been improved to notice artificial-sounding content. So, do not overstuff keywords or add it in a way that makes your content sound artificial.

6. Create A Content Strategy

Amateur businesses will only focus on creating blogs or website pages. An SEO expert will help you create content that strategically complements each other. So for instance, if you are a lifestyle company that sells kitchen appliances, you should write articles about different types of the same appliance or how different appliances complement each other (for instance, writing about the best heavy duty blenders and then writing about the best portable blenders would allow you to interlink the two articles, in case the reader wants to explore different varieties of blenders).

An experienced local SEO company like Netlynx includes the following parameters in a content strategy:

Blog posting calendar
Content clusters (creating groups of content that can be interlinked with each other)
Keyword strategy (creating a healthy balance of long tail keywords and short tail keywords)

7. On Page SEO (Meta Tags, Titles, And URL Slug)

This is one of the most crucial steps for SEO optimization. It may not take more than 30 minutes but will make a massive difference in the way search engines rank your content. Add the primary keyword, meta titles, meta tags, and descriptions on all your pages and blog content before publishing them.

The url slug should also be optimized according to the keyword. Here is a quick and easy checklist to refer to before you publish your article:

Make sure your primary keyword is on the H1 heading
Have the primary keyword on any H2 or H3 heading
Make sure your primary keyword is in the beginning of your article
Add the primary keyword to the cover image alt text
Make sure the meta tag and meta description have the primary keyword
Add 3-4 pieces of media content (photos/videos) on your article
Add at least one internal link to your blog
Add at least 1 external link to your blog
Use lighter images and videos on your blog page to maintain website speed

8. Optimize Images

Usually, viewers who use auditory applications to read out a website will now know that you have added images. Therefore adding an organic sounding alt text will improve your website’s user experience. Many novice companies stuff keywords on their image alt text which has a negative impact on the SEO. Instead of this, you can create an image alt text that sounds natural and relevant to the context.

9. Conduct an SEO Audit

Sound technical SEO improves your chances of showing up on Google’s very first page. But when you have many website pages, it is hard to keep track of which pages are optimized for search engines and which ones are not.

When you conduct an SEO audit it helps you stay ahead of the SEO game. Check out the next section for SEO parameters.

10. Follow SEO Best Practices

Use this as a checklist for SEO best practices. Make sure you:

Get an SSL certificate to remove the ‘unsafe’ alarm on your website
Fix 404 errors on your website, with a ‘re-direct’ code
Monitor and improve website speed
Optimize your website for both mobile and desktop users
Remove duplicate pages and content
Fix/remove broken links

Just a few of these simple observations can make a big difference on your website.

11. Spread the word

When you are completely new online, no one is going to spread the word for you. You have to spread the word yourself. Using social media platforms like the company page or your own pages will boost SEO through backlinking.

Encourage customers to tag you on their posts or mention you on their websites. Create referral programs and incentives that encourage customers to talk about you online. The more they spread the word, the better your local SEO health.

12. Start Building Backlinks

A backlink is a link created on a third-party website that re-directs customers to your business. Both follow and no follow backlinks improve your SEO health. The great thing about creating blog content is that you increase opportunities for others to use your content as a resource on their own website.

Additionally, you can increase backlinks by applying to local directories and offering to guest post for industries that co-exist with yours (for instance, a television company can partner with a sofa company to promote the idea of a comfortable viewing experience).

13. Constantly Update Old Articles

When we are constantly in the loop of producing new content, older articles quickly become forgotten. Remember that a good SEO strategy builds over time. When search results start noticing your company, they are far more likely to rank older articles first, because they most likely to gain maximum daily traffic.

So, make sure your older articles have all the necessary article links. Update the page meta tags and descriptions as the need arises and do not shy away from adding new research and findings to the old articles. When you have a sound combination of adding new pieces of content and improving your old articles, you become a strong competitor in your industry.

Conclusion

These 13 tips have a strong impact on local SEO health. Always remember that you cannot build SEO overnight. It needs patience, consistency, and dedication. With local SEO experts on your side, you too can build a significant online presence within your locality!

Tags local presence, Local SEO, local SEO experts, Organic Traffic