by Francois Muscat | Mar 21, 2018 | Online Marketing, SEO
Google’s featured snippets are a massive talking point within the online marketing community at the moment – and there is no doubt as to why! They provide marketers with an amazing opportunity to get their content featured and, as a result, to generate more clicks to their website. Here is what you need to know about this relatively recent search engine revelation, and how best to use it to your advantage.
Google Featured Snippets and Traffic to Your Website
The question on most online marketing experts’ lips is not whether or not Google featured snippets help to generate more traffic to a website. But, rather, how much traffic they’re able to generate. According to ConfluentForms.com, a website that scores a Google featured snippet can expect to enjoy a resultant 20 – 30% boost in traffic.
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What Triggers Google Featured Snippets to Appear?
Most marketers assume that it is only question-based Google search queries that trigger the appearance of featured snippets. However, that is not the case. Research has shown that long-tail queries increase the chances of featured snippets appearing, and that they tend to pop up in non-question-based queries just as often.
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How Do You Get Your Website’s Content Featured?
Unfortunately, there is no quick SEO fix or code that can help you to score a Google featured snippet. The best way in which to make it happen is to keep creating original, high-quality content as part of a detailed content marketing strategy. Try to think about the type of information that your target market may be searching for, and tailor your content around this. You can also increase your chances of being featured by putting a targeted query in a <h2> subheading, followed by a concise answer. Long-form content is also favoured by Google, so don’t be afraid to elaborate further down on the page!
For more information about Google featured snippets, online marketing and SEO in general, get in touch with the WSI OMS team today.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 19, 2018 | Content Marketing, Google
As most people know by now, Google’s algorithms are continuously updated. If you have low-quality content or web pages, then you will start to lose rankings. The problem, however, comes when you’re trying to determine if your site is suffering from an algorithmic penalty or if the better content is simply outperforming your own content.
You can go to webmaster tools to find out if Google thinks there is keyword stuffing or keyword cloaking on your site (you will get a notification and then you can start investigating the problem from there). Checking your Google webmaster tools will highlight any crawl errors or other problems that you can start to solve yourself.
In 2012 alone, over 600 algorithmic changes were rolled out by Google. So, if you’re affected by an algorithm penalty, it’s not always as clear-cut. Google will often issue a news release if they have a big update that will impact many websites, such as the Panda algorithm, which is targeted at quality content, for example.
In general, if your website isn’t ranking where you want it to rank, it’s probably algorithmic. It’s always possible for you to check out what higher ranking web pages are doing and to tweak your own content and website so that you can improve your own rankings. As you change your site, the algorithms will reprocess the site and it can continue to rank better.
WSI OMS offers a range of SEO, link building and content marketing solutions that can help you boost your search results. Contact us for digital marketing solutions today.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 14, 2018 | Content Marketing
Whether you have plans to repurpose your content, or you simply wish to re-evaluate your approach to content marketing, performing regular content audits is an essential part of any successful digital marketing strategy. Here are a few ways in which regular content audits can help to improve your business and your online marketing efforts in general.
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Enhance Your Website’s SEO
If you would like to see a positive change when it comes to your SEO rankings, a content audit is always a great idea. This is because an audit will help you to:
- Identify those web pages with high SEO potential,
- Update these web pages according to the latest SEO best practice guidelines,
- identify content that hasn’t performed very well from an SEO perspective,
- Remove or change the content,
- you will also have an opportunity to evaluate internal linking, and
- Lastly, add more useful links to your content as you see fit.
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Enhance Audience Engagement
The whole point of content marketing is to encourage engagement from your target market. So, by performing a content audit, you will be able to maximise the engagement potential of each and every piece that you have published on your website. It will also provide you with insight into the topics and types of content that generate the best response from followers, thus enabling you to continue creating the right types of content in this regard.
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Enhance Your Website’s Conversion Rate
The most successful content marketing efforts will lead to more people actually buying what you’re selling. By conducting a content audit, you’ll be able to discover the following:
- which pages on your website offer up the best user experience,
- which pages on your website have generated the most leads for your business, and
- It will also allow you to identify the most important pieces of content for each stage of the buyer’s journey.
If you need assistance when it comes to mastering the art of the content audit, and content marketing in general, the WSI OMS team is here to lend a hand. Contact us today to learn more.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 12, 2018 | Content Marketing
Are you wondering how to get more traffic to your website so that you can get people interested in your brand and what you have to offer? Here are a few ways to increase your traffic:
Video marketing and YouTube can really boost your website traffic. You can link back to your website in your YouTube videos by including a link to your site in the first or second line of your YouTube video. Another way is to embed your YouTube videos on your website. This has an unintended advantage because if people watch the video on the site, it will up the time they spend on your site and this will boost your website’s ranking.
- Give Something Away For Free
This might sound counterintuitive to business people. However, giving something away for free is something that you can promote on social media. You don’t have to give something away for nothing though. For example, you can get someone to sign up for your newsletter in order to receive a free whitepaper. Your freebie doesn’t have to be something extraordinary, but the more special your freebie is, the more it will entice people.
- Search Engine Optimisation
The best way to increase your website’s traffic is to make sure your content ranks well in Google. Think about your users and what they are likely to search for. Then make sure that your website pages are tailored to these search terms.
There are a number of tactics that can be employed to increase traffic to your website. Whether you’re interested in link building, PPC, online advertising or social media marketing, WSI OMS can help. Contact us for more information today.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 7, 2018 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
As the owner of a business, if you have already embraced the power of social media marketing, you will probably be dedicating much of your time and energy into growing the following on your Facebook page. Seeing as though Facebook boasts nearly 2 billion users worldwide, it is no wonder that it has become a go-to hub for online marketing. However, just as the world of digital marketing is constantly evolving, so too are our favourite social media platforms. And Facebook is definitely no exception! Here are the most recent Facebook changes that every business owner needs to be aware of.
For most companies utilising social media marketing, up until now, the main goal has always been to generate as many shares and likes as possible. However, in 2018 and beyond, Facebook will be giving preference to posts that have generated the most engagement in the form of comments, rather than the posts with the highest number of likes and shares. Basically, any posts that elicit meaningful interaction will be favoured going forward.
In an effort to provide its users with a more valuable browsing experience, Facebook has recently implemented new guidelines for deprioritisation. In short, your Facebook posts will be penalised for a variety of things, including:
- Explicit calls for engagement,
- Passive content (i.e. Photos or videos that are not actively engaging user response), and
- Public content.
Knowing this, it would seem that strategic content marketing is going to be more important than ever before for those business owners hoping to make an impact on their followers.
Worried about your social media marketing strategy surviving the latest Facebook newsfeed changes? Fear not! The WSI OMS team is here to help. Contact us today for more information about our broad range of online marketing services.
