Google update: Mobile-friendliness is NOW a factor in search results

two-and-eight-websites-are-not-mobile-responsive

Have you been hearing Google’s drum roll these past few days? Google announced earlier this year that it will be using mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, and this update rolled out yesterday. If your website already provides an optimized mobile experience, you should be benefiting from it immediately. Google has clearly stated that it’s in favor of a responsive design approach, yet two in eight websites are not mobile responsive. If you website doesn’t provide an optimized experience for mobile users it’s safe to say that Google will take this into consideration and your site will be listed lower in the mobile search results.responsive-design-more-important-than-ever

To get started, we would suggest testing your web pages to see if they are currently mobile friendly. Also, visit Google.com using your mobile device and search for your business. Google search should come back with your website near the top and with a “mobile friendly” tag next to the link, if your site is compliant.

We’re here to help! If you have questions about how this update affects your organic search ranking and/or what can be done to make your current website mobile friendly/responsive please let us know.

What Are The Key Metrics For A Successful Website?

Everyone wants to have a successful website, but finding the right path to follow can be difficult. While you may have plenty of great ideas and goals for your website, you may have no idea how to actually achieve them. Because of this, you should almost always seek aid from a professional web design agency. In today’s digital world, it is crucial that your website reflects the current professional standards in terms of content, design aesthetics, and technology. When redesigning your website, it should contain far more than just a new design. In order for success, it is vital that your new site design and content has been carefully and strategically completed by a professional to optimize achievement of your goals.

Continue…

Infographic: Google’s 200 Ranking Factors

There’s no denying SEO is important. There’s also no doubt there are multiple factors that go into an SEO strategy—but did you know there are hundreds of different ranking factors and tactics that you can utilize to ensure you stay at the top of the search list? This infographic, thanks to entrepreneur.com, breaks down and categorizes each of these crucial factors. Take a look – we bet you’ll learn something you didn’t know!

Continue…

Smart Web Design: Using SEO and PPC to Design Your Site

Often when designing or redesigning websites, we mostly think about the design and overall aesthetic, and less about the ability for users to find the site, or the overall optimization. What’s the point of a website that looks amazing but can’t be found and isn’t functional? Or even a site that can easily be found but isn’t visually engaging? The whole purpose of a website is for it to be found and for relevant content to be delivered to its visitors. The design and optimization of your website affects your SEO campaign, PPC campaigns, and the overall user experience of your website, reason why you need to makes sure to use a low code development software.  When building or redesigning a website or pages, it’s crucial to incorporate aspects of both SEO and PPC. These tactics should be utilized during the design process and also used for future optimization further down the line. Let’s take a look at some of the most useful SEO and PPC tactics and practices you should apply when creating a new website.

Continue…

Could Your Website Score a Touchdown?


It looks like the San Francisco 49ers couldn’t quite make it past the Baltimore Ravens in this year’s Super Bowl. In business, we also strive to pull ahead and stand out among leading competitors. Winning customers in a business arena can be a challenge. So, when faced head-on with competition, will your website stack up or are you just throwing a Hail Mary?

1st Down – Branding: Does your website and homepage reflect your product or services and who you are as a company? If the first impression of your website does not resonate with your demographic, you have lost their attention at kickoff. A cohesive brand image and identity is essential to gain credibility among your consumers or clients.

2nd Down – Layout:  Ease of navigation is key to pull readers into your content without overloading them with data and endless text. Think of your layout like a game plan where you want clients to look, click and how they drive into your website will steer them to take action or forfeit the search altogether. Simple, organized layout wins hand over fist against dense copy, dozens of tabs and multiple, competing messages.

3rd Down – Subscribers: Capturing visitors is a must; and integrating email marketing is the first step to turning these new subscribers and leads into loyal customers. Make the call to action simple and provide something immediate of value. Continue educating and send relevant communication for these prospects to stay engaged with you and your company.

Touchdown! Fans:  Done all of the above? Fantastic. Now integrate a blog and social media channels that your business utilizes. Get up close and personal with customers and clients, hear their praise and criticism of your industry and learn to be transparent- love this. Knowing your audience on a personal level will be invaluable, and the insights can leverage your business ahead of the game.

Extra Point – Content Strategy: From the copy on your homepage, to articles on your blog and pictures and questions asked on social media, creating a compelling message and valuable content unites all elements of your brand. Know your voice, where you want to position your business in the industry and your customers’ trust and loyalty will follow.

Need a conversion?
Think you may be lacking in one or more of these areas? No problem. Give us a call or shoot us an email today and we will get you and your website trained and ready for the big game.

Break!

Responsive Design & Mobile SEO

The digital environment is constantly changing. Consumers are consistently taking in information through various channels, which include: laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, and even smart TV’s. Smartphones especially, have become so indispensable to our daily lives that 80% never leave home without their phones in hand. Given this shift in devices and usage, organizations need to adopt websites that are functional, searchable, and provide a great user experience to visitors in all aspects. There are SEO’s for all types of businesses such as plastic surgeon SEO. This is where responsive design comes into play. Responsive design refers to having a website that is designed and programmed specifically so that the design layout is universal across all platforms. The chief benefit of having a responsive design is that you don’t need to have separate mobile, tablet, and PC versions of your site. Responsive design is a shift in how we view websites across all devices. However, most don’t realize that a responsive design layout is a little different from a mobile design layout. A mobile website refers to designing a website that will appear on smartphones and tablets in the most user friendly way possible for those screen sizes and the correlating style of interaction. Design layouts for mobile websites aren’t usually the same or largely congruent to the desktop version of the site.

Although design layouts and aesthetics for responsive sites are meant to span across all devices, optimization is still an important aspect of any website. Let’s take into consideration the following statistics:

  • 50% of mobile searches lead to purchase
  • 95% of smartphone users have searched for local information
  • 61% of users call a business after searching and 59% visit the location
  • 90% of these people act within 24 hours

Given that more and more people are searching for information through mobile devices, search engine optimization is an important piece of the puzzle that may sometimes get looked over. According to Google, responsive design and seo hamilton go hand in hand, more specifically mobile SEO. Mobile SEO consists of numerous best practices that should be implemented for optimal mobile usage, but here are a few key things to remember:

  • Fully optimize all local listings on both Google and Bing. Most mobile cenaless comprar search results are largely influenced by geo-location.
  • Target shorter keywords in order to show up in mobile search results. Most users searching through mobile devices tend to use shorter keywords, which indicates that these searches are usually fast or quick in nature.
  • Enable mobile web analytics in order to make data driven improvements to your mobile SEO efforts.
  • Focus on usability and ease of use.  Users are more likely to bounce from a mobile site if they can’t (1) easily find the information they’re looking for, (2) the load time of the mobile site is slow, or (3) the website isn’t optimized for mobile use. These among other things will deter a mobile user form your site.

It’s easy to see that responsive design and fully optimized mobile websites are a sign of the next frontier of the digital landscape and should be adopted by any organization that doesn’t want to be left behind.

Need a hand establishing your company’s online presence, specifically in the mobile space? Give us a call or shoot us an email today. Over the years, we have established a proven method to help our clients achieve their marketing goals. We have also built lasting relationships with strategic partners such as Apogee Results. Together, we can help your business be a dominant player on and off the field.

Why Your Business Needs a Blog

Nowadays, it’s rare to find a company without a website. And if you do, how annoying is it to scroll through Google and Yelp just to find their contact information? Having an online presence is necessary in today’s technologically centric world – just read our previous blog post about the importance of having a good web presence to see why.

What’s becoming increasingly important as well, though, is having a blog. Blogging has become a staple for businesses both big and small. It provides companies an outlet to show off their personalities, industry knowledge, and to engage their audiences with stimulating content. Nevertheless, blogging is a time commitment, so the big question still remains:

Continue…

On The Twelfth Day of Christmas, HMG gave to me: Twelve Websites Winning

Web design has changed exponentially since the advent of web 2.0 in the early 2000’s. What used to be static-only websites have now been replaced with dynamic ones that incorporate many design features including widgets, social plugins and much more. Here are 12 tips to keep in mind when building or rebuilding your website.

1.  Show value– give people a reason to visit your site and keep them there.

2.  What does your website do? Are you informative, are you selling something? Include a call of action and let it be seen on the site!

3.  Simplicity– Keep it simple while still getting your point across.

4.  Myspace is out! That means no blinking text or magic cursors!

5.  Popups– Do I really have to explain this?

6.  Keep the home page accessible. I’ve been to many sites where once I click a link on the navigation bar, I cannot get back to the home page- so frustrating!

7.  Follow in Apple’s shoes and drop Adobe Flash– it’s processor heavy and there’s no place to embed SEO.

8.  I KNOW THIS MAY SOUND DUMB BUT DON’T CAPITALIZE ALL OF YOUR CONTENT.

9.  Speaking of words and content, check your grammar and spelling please!

10.  Use keywords and descriptive text that relates to your business. However, don’t over-embed keywords in your content- keep it natural.

11.  Be accessible, yes add a Contact page and put an email, phone number, something!

12.  Navigation is key! Keep a global navigation bar that allows accessibility to all of your pages.

I know the post reads “12 Tips” but I’m throwing in a BONUS, yay! 

13.  Social media integration- the key to the popularity and national/global success of your website and business.

The 12 (Internet Marketing) Days Of Christmas!

This SEO company has found the best way to spread holiday cheer! See 10 marketing tips for all to hear!  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from your crew at HMG Creative. To celebrate the joyous season and year’s end, we now present the 12 Days of Christmas in its entirety, a campaign that is sure to make you laugh, smile and think about marketing in a whole new light going into 2013. Did you miss the the fun festivities, the first time around? No problem! But be sure to Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter, so you aren’t left out in the cold again. (You don’t want to be on that naughty list, do you?)

Enjoy our gift of discounts, actionable marketing ideas, Twitter tips, viral videos and more exciting content to take your business into the new year in style!
Now —  Without further delay — may we present:  The 12 Days of Christmas!
On the First Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Business Cards Half Off…That’s Almost FREE!
On the Second Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Two Tutorials
On the Third Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Three Experts Blogging
On the Fourth Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Four Calling Clients
On the Fifth Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Five Golden Rules
On The Sixth Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Six Birds-a Tweeting
On The Seventh Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Seven Shows-a Streaming
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Eight Fans a-Liking
On the Ninth day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Nine Clients Rocking
On the Tenth Day of Christmas, HMG game to Me:
Ten Blogs a-Buzzing
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, HMG Gave to Me:
Eleven Subscribers Snoozing
On The Twelfth Day of Christmas, HMG gave to Me:
Twelve Websites Winning

SEO – The Myths, the Facts, and the Secrets

If you have a website or use a search engine on a regular basis, it’s likely that you’ve heard of SEO Sydney or PPC. These two common acronyms are mentioned and preached every day. However, does everyone really know what they mean, or how they work? If you don’t, you’re not alone.

Let’s answer any lingering questions, settle myths, and clear the air of this Edmonton SEO madness! I’ve compiled the most common myths, most important facts, and the most exciting secrets in this post! I know what you’re thinking, “Whew! it’s about time!”

So let’s start from the top…

Define:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – An algorithm designed to impact visibility of web content (pages) through organic search results. Commonly used as a free alternative to PPC (pay per click) advertising.

Purpose:
Direct targeted traffic to your website without buying ads and clicks.

Myths:

…Your site will or can be optimized overnight
…Repetitive words and content will increase ranking
…Always use the most competitive words and phrases
…High page rankings are set in stone
…Organic “tastes” different

Facts:

  • Organic search results is a natural method for locating a webpage. This process will match search terms with relevant content on competing webpages. The stepbrother of organic search results is “non-organic”, or paying per click. “Paying per click” are ads that allow a company to blindly bid on highly competitive key search terms.
  • Relevant content is the fuel for your page ranking.  The more industry specific content your website holds, the more your website will be found, organically.
  • New content is the maintenance that will keep your page ranked. The most effective way is blogging and tagging with search terms. Google, and other leading search engines will reward your website for publishing relevant information. Since you know your business, show off and show off often!
  • Unique content is the muscle that carries web searchers directly to your website. Unique content can distinguish your brand and website from companies with the same industry focus and target.

Secrets:

  • Content is king. Keep relevant and new content flowing like a river! Adding content is important for your ongoing ranking; the most effective way is with a blog attached to your website. All blog content should follow the relevancy rules while it gives you space to display content that your website does not have room for.
  • Play to win. Similar to Monopoly night with your Grandmother, according to the company from Search-consulting.com. Compete, and compete often to maintain and most importantly to increase your ranking.
  • Leverage Google AdWords/Analytics.  Stay updated on monthly searches for keywords and phrases by using Google Analytics to view what keywords visitors used to find your site. Competition will change just as fast as your ranking does, so stay on top of your words!
  • Duplicate and be dumped. Search engines (especially Google) are smart enough to detect fluff and manipulation; so think of these algorithms as more of an art than a science.
  • By the numbers. If you’re more of a numbers person; you can make SEO a science project by using the KEI (keyword effectiveness index) equation. This will give specific words a rating based on the number of times a word is searched over the number of webpages displaying the word or phrase, for those in the SEO game is never ending. Using this approach will show you what words and phrases can give you the best chance of winning the keyword game.

The internet can be the most rewarding source of marketing if used properly. Website optimization best practices are ever evolving and will only become more competitive as time passes. Adopting this process now can completely change the way your business operates in a positive way for years to come. Check out the following and read more if you wish to find ways on how you can save money while using internet marketing for your business.