3-legged stool to illustrate 3 principles of good SEO

Succeed on Google with 3 Basic SEO Principles

/0 Comments/in , , /by
3-legged stool to illustrate 3 principles of good SEO

For Function and Simplicity, Nothing Beats a Three Legged Stool

Anyone who is familiar with my newsletter knows that I’m a big fan of keeping things ultra simple. Most of my connections on LinkedIn are C-suite executives like me who value the briefest explanation possible.

So here is a quick overview of 3 guiding principles that will get you the most visibility on Google. It’s what’s we teach in our digital marketing courses as the 3 pillars of SEO.

Relevance

What if you have a severe headache and you want to see what remedy Google can give you? So you type “best home headache remedy.” Now let’s pretend you get a page of results for home head cold remedies? Sure, the words are similar, but you’d be irritated (even more so because your head is hurting!) that Google isn’t giving you something that is…yes, you guessed it…RELEVANT to your search or your needs.

So Google prioritizes results that they feel are relevant to the searcher’s “intent” (in other words, what they really want, regardless of what words they use). Google has gotten pretty good at this over the years, by the way.

Relevance is determined by how well you write the content on your page. It has to be good quality, and structured the way Google wants to see it. We call this “content marketing.”

Also, you might want to do something called “on page optimization,” which goes a bit further in creating a relevant page.

Authority

Ok, so let’s stick with our headache example. Let’s say that you get a bunch of results that really do seem to be relevant to home headache remedies, but when you visit the pages you see that they are from very questionable sites. They might be full of ads, or perhaps they link you to dangerous and pornographic corners of the Internet. Well if you’re like me, you would also think that the search results were poor.

Knowing this, Google tries to show you websites that are authoritative to avoid getting you justly irritated. How do they do that?

Google has very sophisticated ways of looking at a given website and the sites that are linking TO that website. If your website is linked to by other websites that are high quality, with lots of sites linking to them, and (this bit is important) if the sites that are linking to your site have something to do with the subject of the page, then it helps you appear to have authority.

Getting more Authority is usually based on creating useful content that webmasters, online journalists and bloggers want to link to, along with outreach to make those people aware of it. We call that “link building,” although you can also think of it as link “earning.”

Technical Stuff

Ok, finally we come to the toughest bit of this. And here’s where having someone working for you, whether a contractor or an employee, who knows the technology of SEO and how Google works is extremely important.

To determine if your site is relevant and authoritative, Google needs to “crawl” all over your website with their analytical programs (a part of the mechanics of this is those programs that SEOs call “spiders” or “bots” or “crawlers” … although that’s only part of it). There are all sorts of things you can do to a website (usually accidentally) to make it confusing to Google. If you want Google to give you the best results, they need to easily understand your site. We call this “Search Engine Friendliness,” or SEF. This is not the same as SEO, but you can’t have S E O without S E F.

How do You Know if You’re Getting the Best SEO?

If you are working with an SEO company, or even in-house staff, make sure they can explain each of these three pillars of SEO to you and how they are addressing them. If they struggle to give you an explanation you, as an executive, can understand, then they probably don’t understand it themselves.

And while we’re adjacent to the subject of how to hire an SEO, here’s a video from former Googler Maile Ohye about “how to hire an SEO” that is as useful today as it was in 2017.

More Tips Like This Are Coming to You Soon!

The above explanation and tips come from my soon-to-be-published book, The CFO’s Guide to Demystifying Internet Marketing. The complete book addresses a need I’ve been aware of for years in business, especially for my colleagues who are extremely busy executives: a resource that can bridge the gap between the marketing department, the tech people, and the C-Suite. And don’t let “CFO” in the title fool you, any busy executive can get tremendous benefit.

google my business logo

Google Reviews: Why They’re Important and What to Do About Them

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Why GMB Reviews Are So Important

What we’ll cover in this post:

  • The importance of Google reviews to your online reputation
  • How to respond to both positive and negative reviews
  • A step-by-step how-to on the process

In order to get the most out of your Google My Business listing, it is important to keep up with reviews on a consistent basis.

Responding to Google reviews is just as influential as the reviews themselves. It provides prospective customers with a feel for what you’re like, encourages more customers to leave reviews, and can sometimes result in people amending their initial negative reviews and ratings to positive ones.

gmb review example Responding to reviews will also help you to stay on top of your online reputation, make improvements where necessary, and identify strengths to focus on.

It is important to take special consideration when replying to negative reviews. Be professional and calm when responding to these while also providing either an explanation for the negative experience the reviewer had or a resolution.

If there is no explanation, or if you feel the reviewer is being dishonest or misrepresenting their experience, it is never a good idea to express this in your response.

In the case that a disgruntled person or business competitor is deliberately committing libel or slander there are further actions that can be taken, but that is a bridge to be crossed when the time comes, and going about this is to be resolved circumstantially.

How to Respond to Google Reviews

Here is a step by step guide on how to respond to your Google reviews:

Step 1: Sign in to Google My Business

Access the Google My Business dashboard by navigating to business.google.com.

 

 

If you own or manage your business listing but are directed to a page with a search bar in the center that prompts you to “Find and manage your business,” no need to fret. Simply click on the Google My Business logo in the top-left corner of the page.

 

 

Step 2
Click the three horizontal bars in the top left-hand corner and click on your listing from the “Locations” menu.

 

 

Step 3

To the left, you will see a panel containing multiple options (“Home”, “Posts”, “Info”, “Insights”, and below “Insights”, “Reviews”). Click on Reviews.

gmb diagram
It will then, at the top, show you all of your reviews which you can sort by All, Replied, and Haven’t Replied. To the right of these options, there will be three horizontal lines. Click on this to see further ways in which to sort your reviews if you wish to, such as ranking them from highest to lowest or vice versa.

At the bottom of each review, you will see an option to Reply. Simply click on this, type your reply, and click Post Reply. If you have already replied to a review, instead of presenting you with the Reply button you will see the option to either Edit or Delete your reply.

 

Responding to these reviews, good and bad, is essential for local SEO. We hope that this has helped you understand Google Reviews the process so that you can climb your way to the top 3.

 

promotion image for the Google My Business Free SEO Workshop

New! A Free Google My Business Workshop from the Horizon Web Marketing Academy

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

All About Our Google My Business, Free SEO Workshop Training

The Short version

  • Even voice search like Google Assistant or Siri relies on Google Search, so
  • If your business is invisible in Google, it’s invisible
  • Google has every business in its database, somewhere
  • Google My Business is the tool Google has created for you to manage your business in their database
  • Google My Business is often wrong, and you need to manage your business for accuracy and success
  • Our free workshop is coming up and will help you

Already know you want to go? Here are some quick signup links

Sign up here for the Grand Junction evening workshop. Wednesday, November 13th at 7pm.
Sign up here for the Grand Junction Saturday morning workshop. Saturday, November 16th at 10am.

The Full Version

How successful will you be in a local business if no one knows about you, or if they can’t find you?
 
No business can succeed if it can’t connect with potential customers. Gone are the days when that connection came through the local Yellow Pages.
 
People look for local retailers and service providers in a bunch of different ways, but they all seem to be driven by the Internet and, usually, by Google.

Think of voice search. Someone with a clogged drain, or looking for a Japanese restaurant, or searching for the best deal on gardening equipment, are increasingly likely to speak that into their mobile phone.

“Hey Google, what’s a good plumber near me?”
“Siri, where’s the closest restaurant that serves sushi?”
“Alexa, where can I buy cheap gardening equipment?”

If someone is using Siri or Google’s voice assistant, their voice question is turned into a Google search. The Google results are then interpreted by the auditory response the questioner hears. (If they are searching on Alexa or Cortana the search is handled by Bing.)

Logo for Google Voice Assistant

Whether a person is looking for what you have to offer on their computer, by typing into their phone, or even by speaking a question to a digital voice assistant, whether you reach that customer depends on whether Google or Bing know about your business and consider it relevant to what they want.

This brings us to “Google My Business.”

Google’s goal is to index (which is another word for saying “to catalog”) every business on planet earth. They most likely have your business in their index, whether you’ve helped them or not. The management tool for refining the information that Google has about every business is called “Google My Business.”

Using Google My Business, a business owner can manage the information about their business that Google has. This is important because Google gets things wrong about businesses all the time. Wrong address, wrong phone, wrong mapping location, wrong business category, etc.

The only way that you can make sure Google’s information on your business is accurate is by checking it and making changes where you need to. You do that using Google My Business

You may already have done this…or started to! You may already know a bit about Google My Business. But did you know that there are things you can do within Google My Business that will significantly increase your chances of being seen by your ideal customer?

promotion image for the Google My Business Free SEO Workshop

This, in turn, brings us to Optimizing Google My Business, and this free workshop

The world of Google My Business is constantly changing. In fact, it changes so fast that even professionals have a hard time keeping up. For example, in my role as an SEO consultant and trainer, I spend at least an hour every day monitoring changes to Google’s methods and learning new ways of taking advantage of, or protecting my clients from, those changes.

Now you can hire me on an hourly basis, but my time is, frankly, too expensive for most small businesses. This means that most small businesses have to take responsibility for their own “SEO.” If you’re in that boat, you need to know at least enough to make sure you have your ducks in a row so that you don’t lose out to competitors.

We’ve designed the business training at the Horizon Web Marketing Academy to help people just like you succeed in doing the basics of SEO yourself — even with limited time, and limited technical knowledge — without hiring a high-priced SEO agency. In some cases, our “low cost” training is even free.

This is one of those free opportunities that really has value

The workshop we’ve designed, and that I’m blogging about right now, is not some 2-hour sales pitch. In fact, if you look at the training videos I’ve posted on Horizon’s YouTube channel, you can see that they are not heavily focused on sales (probably not focused enough on sales, between you and me).

This workshop will show you the key steps in engaging with Google My Business and optimizing your own business listing for success.

When you are done you will have the knowledge and confidence to make sure you have done right by your business and set yourself up for the visibility you deserve when people look — however they look — for what you have to offer.

Why are we doing a Free SEO Workshop like this?

It’s simple. We believe that the best customers are found when a business is generous. For us, being generous means that we share some of our knowledge and experience without charging you every time we do.

Of course, (to state the obvious) we hope that when you get acquainted with the knowledge and experience that we have to offer, you’ll be interested in our other consulting and training services. Either way, you’ll come out ahead, we promise!

Sign up here for the Grand Junction evening workshop. Wednesday, November 13th at 7pm.
Sign up here for the Grand Junction Saturday morning workshop. Saturday, November 16th at 10am.

Google Ads logo

How to Add a User to Your Google Ads Account

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

Don’t Share Credentials! Add a User to Google Ads the Right Way

This video how-to tutorial will walk you through the procedure for securely adding a user to your Google Ads account without having to hand out your Google sign-in credentials.

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Ross with Horizon Web Marketing and the Horizon Web Marketing Academy. As an agency, we often will start serving clients who have a Google ads account. One of the things that we’ll do is manage their account or do an assessment of their Google ads account. If you’re watching this video, it might be that you’ve been asked by your agency to grant them access to your account. Now, often what merchants will be tempted to do is pass around their own login information. Often people who are becoming clients of Horizon will offer to give us their account information.

screen capture of tools in Google ads
You find Access in tools within your Google Ads account dashboard

Typically, we encourage clients not to pass around their own Gmail login information, so I’m going to show you the better way to be able to allow someone into your Google ads campaign, so that they can help manage that campaign. There’s two basic levels of use or access to your campaign. We’re going to run through them now real quickly. I’m at the introductory screen of a Google ads campaign, this is a demo account and I’m going to go up here to tools and settings. Notice that under tools and settings, I have a choice that’s called account access, so I’ll go ahead and click on that.

Once it comes up, we’ve got a number of choices up here. We have users, managers, and security settings. Now, the type of access that you would initiate from your ads account is to grant another user, for example, an employee, maybe a freelancer who’s working with you, another manager, to grant them access to your ads account. So we’ll start with that tab, it’s the default users. And you can add a user by clicking on the plus button up here at the top, and then it will give you a choice as to what level of access you’re going to be granting this user. It’s also going to ask you for an email address.

Now in this case, I’ve got another demo account I’m going to add access to using a Gmail address, it’s hwmadsdemo2@gmail.com. Now typically this has to be an email address that is able to log into Google. It doesn’t have to be a Gmail address, but it has to be an email address that’s tied to a Gmail address with Google. And then we’ve got email only, which is basically, that’s often for someone who just needs to see reports. Read only is for someone who needs to see everything that’s going on, but you don’t want them to change anything.

Standard allows the user to be able to make changes, and the only difference between standard and admin is an administrative user then has the rights to be able to add or delete users, managers and so forth. We’ll go ahead and select standard access for this, and then down at the lower left we’ll click send invitation. Now at this point, the person that you’ve invited, does not have access to your account until they accept the invitation. At any time, you can go up here to this actions button, if you feel like it’s been a mistake, or you’ve changed your mind, go ahead and click on revoke, and then they won’t be able to get into your account.

Let’s switch over to another screen here, and I am in the inbox for that email address. So this, if you look up here at the top right, I’m logged into hwmadsdemo2@gmail.com, and here is the email we’ve received. So the user you’re inviting, we’ll get one that looks like this and you click on it, and then it will give them a more complete message, and they can go ahead and click, accept invitation. And notice how they do want to confirm the email with one more step. So we’ll go ahead and click continue. And then it takes them over and logs them into the Google ads account with those rights that you’ve defined for them.

On your side of things, going back here to this screen we were at before, this is the account that has granted the access, now let’s go ahead and do a refresh on the screen. And notice, now we have hwmadsdemo@gmail.com, or adsdemo2@gmail.com has been added, there’s the access level, you can change that from within this interface, you can also remove access to the account. The one other category of user is managers. Now managers is a different animal. You notice when we click on managers, there is no blue plus button. There’s no way to simply add a manager. The way this is going to work is, a manager needs to request access to your account.

And in order to do that, they will need to have you provide them with this account number that I’m pointing to in the upper right hand corner. This number here 786-806-4225, just like a US phone number. And that number you provide to the agency. And now an agency has a special, what’s called a manager account, for example, at Horizon Web Marketing, we have a manager account that we use to manage different accounts for our clients. And then the agency who has requested access will use this number, and will submit it through their manager account, and then you will show in here, you will show that a specific manager account has requested access to your account, and you’ll be able to approve it from this screen.

Those are basically the two levels of access that you need to know about, if you’re collaborating with others in your Google ads account. I hope this has been useful for you. If you’ve got other questions about things I haven’t covered in this particular account, please do leave them in the comments below. We try to respond to all comments, maybe not within a day, but we get around to it. So, leave us a comment, tell us what you’d like to learn, and give us a subscribe and a thumbs up if this was useful. Again, my name is Ross Barefoot and I’m with Horizon Web Marketing and the Horizon Web Marketing Academy, and we’ll see you next time.

picture of keys illustrate adding users

How to Add a User to Google Analytics (and 6 more “add user” how to’s)

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by
picture of keys illustrate adding users

Adding a user to Google Analytics is easy!

  1. Log in to Google Analytics with your usual login credentials
  2. Click on the “gear” icon or the word “Admin” in the lower left of the screen
  3. At the Account level (the far left column of choices), click on  “User Management”
  4. In the pop-up overlay, click on the blue circle with a white “plus” sign in the top right corner
  5. Enter the email address of the person you want to add (it has to be an email that can log into a Google account, whether or not it’s a gmail account)
  6. Specify the level of privileges you want to assign to the user in the lower part of the screen that appears
  7. Click “Add” (blue button at the top right of the screen)

This is just one of the how to’s that we need to walk new clients through when we start serving their digital marketing program. So, to make it easier to see the instructions that are relevant, we created a playlist of 7 videos that will show you how to add a user to:

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • Google Ads
  • Google My Business
  • Google Merchant Center
  • WordPress Dashboard
  • YouTube Channel

If you’ve just started in digital marketing delegation, whether to an agency or employees, you’ll have to share access to critical properties. NEVER pass around your credentials to do that. These videos show you a better way.

(Do you need a video that we haven’t made yet? Tell us in the comments!)

To Our Agency Friends: Feel Free to User these Resources for Your New Clients

Below the embedded playlist below, there’s a link to the playlist itself. These videos are meant to be useful to our clients, but if they add value to your operation, we certainly don’t mind you sharing them.

Care to share?

Here’s a shareable link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9rAOPzj1j1VfqFqbs8Ov7qO7LlVdW1HB

Just need to access a specific “How to Grant Access” video?

Here are some direct links you can use:

Or, copy the code below and you can embed the full playlist on your own website customer service page.


<iframe 
src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL9rAOPzj1j1VfqFqbs8Ov7qO7LlVdW1HB&rel=0" 
width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">
</iframe>