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Tag: SEO

  • Do you want more Google Reviews?

    Do you want more Google Reviews?

    In the 21st century, Google is the first point of contact between many customers and businesses. From finding businesses nearby to looking up a forgotten phone number, we search keywords in Google to help us find anything and everything we want to know. And if we want to find out how one business compares to another, we Google them to learn about other people’s experiences.

    Why should you care about Google Reviews?

    Local search engines love online reviews for one primary reason – consumers love online reviews! Did you know that Google uses these Reviews as a factor in their ranking algorithm.

    So, let me start with a very simple example. Let’s say you’re looking for a Website Designer in Coquitlam.

    Right away, you can see the user ratings and the number of reviews prominently displayed in both the search results and the accompanying map. If you click on the place pin of one of the businesses, you can also see brief summaries of the latest reviews shown alongside the businesses information including the address, hours of operation and phone number.

    This example illustrates the fact that customer reviews are among the first things people see when they search a business category on Google or Google Maps. It has also been shown that positive reviews provide your website with a greater boost to conversion rates compared to any other local SEO effort.

    For local businesses, online reviews help increase the degree of trust felt, based on feedback from other people with similar needs. A 2014 study discovered that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.

    Do you want more Google Reviews for your business and for your website to appear higher in local search engine queries? Ask us how we can get more Google Reviews for you!

    I want more Google Reviews!

  • SEO and the Keywords Meta Tag

    The Keyword is ‘Keyword’

    If you’ve done any SEO, you know it’s all about keywords. Once you establish what your site is about, you do keyword research, keeping an eye out for low competition, high traffic keywords you can take advantage of. Then, you implement your keywords throughout your site, trying to fit them organically into the content of the page as well as in the meta tags.

    Writing or editing content to include keywords can be tricky. Overloading a page with keywords is dangerous, however, as it might be considered spamming. This is dangerous because it can result in a penalty to your ranking.

    Abused and Misunderstood

    Then there’s the ‘keywords’ meta tag. If you don’t know its history, then it probably seems like an essential meta tag. The truth about the keywords meta tag is that it’s not only deprecated, but using it can actually benefit your competition. All you really need to know to be justified in rejecting this tag is that Google doesn’t support it. When the keywords meta tag was used by search engines, it was abused by crafty marketers who stuffed it with unrelated (but popular) search terms to boost the rank of the site. It’s clear why a meta tag that allowed the manipulation of search engines had to go.

    It’s Harmless, Isn’t It?

    You aren’t penalized by Google for using the keywords meta tag. However, you are essentially giving away your keyword research to other people who are doing SEO for a competing site. Right-click and view source – that’s all they have to do. Of course, if someone really wants to figure out what keywords have been used on a site, they can go through each page and read through all of the copy and meta tags. The difference is that using the keywords meta tag makes it so easy to copy that they won’t be able to resist.