SEO Blog | Digital Ducats Inc.

Jun 02 2020

The Benefits of SEO: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Search engine optimization is one of the top choices for business owners who are interested in the growth of their company. The benefits of SEO are quite numerous however the reality is that this online marketing strategy has become more of a necessity than a luxury.

The number of companies that actively invest in SEO is growing. In fact, 61% of businesses have stated that SEO will have a place in their budget in 2020 (up from 44% in 2018). With more companies investing in SEO, the leaders will keep leading and putting distance behind those who aren’t following suit.

SEO isn’t a quick process and with most SEO companies you have to pay before you play. At the end of the day, the benefits will far outweigh the cost as the process is essentially adding value to your website on a regular basis.

Here is an infographic on how the process works.

Here are a few benefits of SEO that will put your mind at ease when you make that inevitable decision to invest in the future of your company.

#1-Increased traffic to your website

In order to drive traffic to your website, your pages need to rank highly. It also helps to have a lot of relevant backlinks that can send your site traffic from relevant sources.

There should be no doubt anymore that search engine optimization is a necessary function for competing in the search results. Google recommends that website owners seek the help of an SEO professional to ensure the correct development of a website.

Implementing a custom SEO strategy will target your audience, optimize your content to get a higher ranking and drive more traffic.

#2-Increased development in your niche

A great deal of SEO is publishing content about the major topics and subtopics of your website or company. The process for publishing SEO optimized blog posts identifies areas in which users are showing interest. By addressing the most commonly searched problems by providing solutions, you develop your website to be a major resource in your niche.

As you build on the quality and quantity of content assets on your site it triggers more appearances in the search results for keyword related queries. This drives more relevant traffic that converts at a higher rate.

#3-Brand recognition

Most people prefer to buy from a brand they trust and recognize. Search engine optimization creates more keyword appearances for search terms that are related to your niche. The more a user comes across your website while doing their research, the more likely they are to trust your company.

#4-More new clients

The domino effect is in play when you increase rankings for important keywords to your business. The higher your page ranks, the more traffic is generated. Increase the number of visitors on your site and that results in more leads and new clients.

#5-Reach a targeted audience

One of the biggest aspects of creating SEO content is keyword research. A consultant goes through a series of routine checks to make sure a keyword will drive the right traffic. During the process, many related search terms and topics become apparent and thus become included in the strategy for optimizing a page for a keyword topic.

#6-Higher user engagement

If you’ve done your research correctly, your pages should contain all of the topics that a user is looking for when they search for your keyword. Competitive analysis of the ranking pages will identify what content or multimedia is working best to hold the audience’s attention.

#7-More leads on a consistent basis

The primary reason to optimize your website is to drive more traffic that is interested in what you’re offering. As you develop more content that is specifically for users on each stage of the buyer journey, your site becomes more capable of converting visitors along their journey. The results are more leads on a regular basis.

#8-Improves site structure

The structure of your website plays a role is the experience your users have-which, in turn, sends ranking signals to search engines. It’s important to have a site that allows a user to navigate easily from wherever they are on your website.

When a site is organized by topic, it makes things easier for users to experience more depth within your topic. The organizational structure referred to as topic clusters contribute to higher rankings for a specific keyword topic.

#9-Blueprint for growth

An SEO campaign will target a specific keyword and develop a page or multiple pages around that topic. A great deal of research goes into identifying the best keywords to fit the website’s strategy.

One of the greatest benefits of SEO is having a plan in place for driving traffic. When your company has an established blueprint for achieving specific goals, success can be measured, adjusted and accelerated.

#10-Increased revenue

New leads, new clients and increased revenue all fit into the same overarching goal. The whole point in investing money into your website is to make more money from the increased traffic.

One of the benefits of SEO is the fact it provides one of the best ROI’s in the marketing industry. What could be better being found by users who are actually looking for what you offer?

Conversions are higher than those of paid advertising. However, unlike PPC campaigns, when you stop paying for SEO services, your site continues to drive traffic, leads and new clients to your business.

#11-Alternate stream of income

For companies whose sales have traditionally been in person, SEO can offer an alternate stream of income once they make products available for purchase on-site.

This additional revenue can overcome the inconvenience of distance for many potential clients. This can open up entirely new markets that would have otherwise been unattainable.

#12-Contactless service

Selling products online allows companies to continue making sales; even while regular store hours are closed. A website that ranks for transactional keywords can make money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Ecommerce is a quarantine-proof business if your products are also quarantine-proof. Another one of the benefits of SEO is that it connects customers and vendors despite any types of restrictions or limitations placed on physical interactions.

#13-Reach a larger audience

Search engine optimization allows your business to expand your audience. There are no physical limits. As long as your products or services are consumable by a global audience, the world is at your fingertips.

#14-Improve your online presence

When your company, brand or any keyword related search is made, you want your website to come up in the search results. Improve your online presence for anything related to your niche through a variety of platforms and practices. Options include but are not limited to content marketing, guest posting on high authority sites, expanding your social network, starting a YouTube channel.

#15-Enhance your local presence

As a local business, you want your neighbourhood to know about your company and think of your business when they need something you offer. Local SEO is all about improving your search visibility for localized searches of your products and services.

At least half of all searches made on Google are to obtain information on a local business. Local SEO in Toronto contributes to as much as 80% of businesses total revenue. This is one aspect of SEO that can’t be ignored by companies that offer local services.

#16-Explore a variety of traffic sources

Search engine optimization gives you the option to explore different sources of traffic. There are different search engines to optimize for, paid ads, local pack ranking, SERP features and social media marketing. YouTube, Amazon and even Facebook and other social sites are considered their own search engines, which gives companies more options for sources of traffic.

#17-Identify technical errors on site

Technical SEO can help your website by making pages accessible. Issues that affect your ranking are page speed, duplicate content and indexing issues. An SEO consultant will catch those problems and correct them before they snowball.

#18-Adapt to changes in the algorithm

Google is constantly updating its algorithm, which makes it impossible to stay at the top of a search result without proper maintenance. It is said the Google updates at least twice daily, with around four major updates a year.

An SEO professional can guide you in the right direction when major updates occur. If your ranking suddenly drops, you have someone to source the issue and get things back in order.

#19-Avoid/reverse search engine penalties

Many business owners will make mistakes that could cost them their website’s entire search visibility. For example, unnatural link building can result in your site’s removal from Google’s index altogether.

Ethical SEO experts are able to navigate around the penalties and filters that Google has set forth that would impede ranking and search visibility. It’s one of the benefits of SEO services provided by a professional. The steps to reverse a penalty are often more complicated than what an inexperienced person should undertake.

#20-Identify opportunities

The search results offer many different traffic opportunities that you can pick up on if you’re looking for them. SEO is the combined effort of a lot of smaller moving parts. Capitalizing on opportunities as they come can result in the top ranking, increased search visibility and a bigger bottom line.

May 27 2020

How to Outsource Freelance Writers For SEO Content Creation at Your Website

You want your website to grow in traffic and become a brand.

You want it to win SERPs, get backlinks, and – sooner, rather than later – convert.

For that, you work hard on crafting your website. UX design, colour psychology, UTP, on-page SEO, and social proof are all very well; and you already know who can help you with that. But the most powerful weapon to help search engines see you and communicate your brand message to consumers is… yes, it’s texts. Outstanding SEO content that would not only contain tons of keywords but also engage people, translate your tone of voice, and encourage them to click and buy is what you need right here and on a regular basis.

Savvy freelance writers would solve the problem.

Benefits are many: You save time and money, you don’t spend resources on workplace organization and training of full-time employees, and you get compelling content that drives organic traffic and works on your brand reputation.

But there’s also a reverse of the coin:

Looking for freelancers, you may face irresponsible performers who miss deadlines, ignore instructions, write poor texts, or disappear once they find a client promising to pay $1 more than you. Outsource is about the interaction of expectations, collaboration, insights, and personal traits: As an SEO specialist or a business owner, you want them to be cheaper and faster, while they want to write longer and sell texts higher.

To balance the process for a win-win, learn how to outsource freelance writers for your SEO content and how to work with them like a boss.

Where to Look for SEO Freelance Writers

Corresponding websites are many. Freelancer, Upwork, Guru, People Per Hour, Fiverr – each of them has its own approach but the same essence: post a job description, start receiving proposals, compare candidates’ profiles as well as ratings, prices, and portfolios, and hire those fitting your expectations and business needs most.

Tip: Don’t ignore freelancers living and working outside of the US. They work just as well as native-speaking SEO writers but may cost you less, so pay attention to professional background and experience rather than the country.

Screenshot of Upwork for how to outsource freelance writers for SEO content

How to Choose an SEO Writer

Sad but true:

Most people believe they can write.

Indeed, five in ten are bloggers today, posting to Facebook or Instagram with hundreds of likes and shares, which inspires them to practice freelancing or remote work and earn extra money. Good luck to them.

But when you come to find a professional who would create compelling SEO content for your website, you have to thread your way through the tons of their profiles… And you simply get lost there.

How to save your time, nerves, and money? How to understand which writer can deliver your keywords, search intent, and business message, not just put words on paper?

Pay attention to these aspects:

A writer is able to meet deadlines.
A writer is creative, with writing style and voice, but also adaptable i.e. able to follow your instructions.
A writer’s texts are thoughtful and well researched.
A writer is flexible, able to deliver SEO content when you need it or revise it according to your feedback.
A writer is accurate and attentive to details: They know the principles of critical writing, format texts properly, avoid most common spelling and grammar mistakes, design content from scratch, and clearly understand what you want from them.

The questions gathered by Corey Wainwright at HubSpot will help you understand if a particular writer meets your business needs. Ask them before hiring.

How to Organize Your Work with SEO Writers

First and foremost:

Make it clear for a freelance writer what you want from them. In other words, craft guidelines right and avoid quirky mistakes while training a writer.

Details to include in your guidelines:

Target. Tell a writer about your small busi ness and its target audience, as it will help to create engaging content. Specify a type of content you need from a writer – informative, entertaining, or marketing. Also, explain what message it should communicate to the audience. Include all necessary keywords and search intent for a writer to understand your target audience better.
Task itself. Include information on formatting and visual elements: how to format headings, lists, citations; paragraphs length; what links to include if any; what words to avoid (if you have a brand style guide, share it with your freelance writer so they could understand your tone of voice better); experts and resources to refer; a deadline.
Comments. Share some content assets for illustrative purposes so a writer could see what you expect. Encourage SEO writers to check a completed task for plagiarism to avoid duplications and unintentional rewrite. Give contacts of whom they could address for comments.

To save time and resources, organize your work with freelance writers effectively.

Work in Google Docs, as it’s among the best resources to access and manage fast.
Create a separate folder for your freelancer to save all texts there.
Write a strategic plan, and share its part about the content with a writer so they could see deadlines in advance and organize their work time properly.
Create a separate doc with all keywords, formatting rules, and guidelines so a writer could refer to it whenever needed.
Discuss payment details in advance; and, plan deadlines smart: Save some time for revision and edits.

And last but not least:

Don’t forget to control your freelance writer’s work for better efficiency. How much time do they spend on one task? How many tasks do they complete within a definite period of time? How many are still pending a revision or already expired?

Screenshot of Google Calendar for controlling your outsourced SEO writer

Google Calendar and Google Sheets are free yet compelling tools to control an SEO writer. Add tasks, change their status, leave comments for a writer to revise texts accordingly, and analyze their working efficiency with formulas.

Also, you might want to try a specific software, developed for business campaigns management. It analyzes completed tasks, grades them, regulates communication processes, generates reports, calculates expenses for every writer, and more.

Once organized, the work with freelance writers will save you tons of time and costs for SEO services. And nerves, which is sometimes worth more than monetary rewards, isn’t it?

Are you looking for SEO expert jobs? Find out more at Jooble.

Apr 30 2020

How To Build Local Links To Attract More Clients

Local SEO is a crucial part of any business whose clients are mainly sourced from a specific location. In order to take advantage of high converting local traffic, it’s important to optimize your website for a specific location. Build local links to improve your local search presence and drive more clients to your site from a specific location.

Building citations from directories and encouraging clients to leave a Google review will only get you so far. It’s important to acquire as many local links as possible to fuel your site’s local ranking ability.

The more ties you have to a locality with quality links, the more you’re able to demonstrate authority in your keyword topic and city.

Link building involves acquiring a wide variety of links that aren’t necessarily from high domain authority sites. The most important aspect of local link building is that your links come from relevant sites (niche specific) and are related to the area.

Major directory local link building

The best way to pursue link building is to build links in a way that is natural and logical. When a company first opens its doors for business, among the first logical places to get listed is in the city directories that locals are using.

Google Local Finder

One of the major directories that are obvious is Google’s local finder. The local pack (the three listings that Google highlights in a local search) is an excellent source of traffic for generating local leads.

Build local links to rank highly in Google's local finder

You can sign up to be found in Google’s local finder by optimizing a Google My Business profile. Use as much information as possible so that your site will be eligible for as many different types of searches as possible.

Bing local places

Bing has the second-largest share of searches as far search engine market share goes. Listing your business here is not just for that fact, but for the validation that Bing provides to your Google listing.

In order to optimize locally, your site should be sending as many ranking signals as possible. Confirming your name address and phone number across major directories strengthens your local ranking in Google’s local finder as well as localized search results.

Use the option to synchronize your Google My Business account information with Bing. Any changes made to your Google account will automatically be updated in Bing. Not only is this advantageous to maintaining your ranking signals through identical NAP details but it saves you time from filling out all the information again.

Yellow pages business | Local business marketing solutions

This is another major directory that your business will benefit from being listed. Yellow Pages has a dozen other affiliate sites that collect your information from their database. If you’re listed on Yellow Pages you automatically get listed in other directories that will add to validating your local presence.

City-specific directories

The next tier of directories you should pursue is those unique to the city in which you are ranking your website. Create a listing in directories that receive traffic and which people are actually using to find local places.

You can search for city directories by typing in [your city] + directory. Vary your search by typing [your keyword] + [your city] to see what directories are ranking for that keyword. If a directory shows up in the first few pages of search results, it’s a good indication that there’s value in listing your business in it.

Niche-specific directories

The same concept should be applied to niche-specific directories. Be more selective about the directories in which you create a profile. Low-quality sites may have an adverse effect on your ranking. Search for niche-specific directories by typing in [your keyword] + directories to get a list of options.

Unstructured citations

These types of links are considered to be the most valuable for building a strong local link profile. An unstructured citation is a mention of your company on a site that doesn’t specifically have a place to fill it out.

You receive structured citations on directories, review sites and other sites that provide a specific place for listing your information.

If a company mentions your website on their blog, it’s an unstructured citation. It is much more difficult to acquire backlinks such as these which is why they are so valuable. They represent a true vote of confidence in the credibility of your company.

How to get an unstructured citation

It all boils down to outreach. To get another site in your city to mention your business, you need to ask the site owner to link to your site. This is most likely to happen from clients, vendors or businesses in a close vertical to your own.

Obviously a direct competitor isn’t going to want to send traffic to your site. Look for companies in the same city that offer related services and products. You can form a coalition of sorts to help promote each other’s business with a link arrangement or content collaboration.

For example, if you own a restaurant the bakery in which you get your dinner rolls would have no problem linking to your site. They have a vested interest in your success so they are an excellent link prospect.

In many cases, you may need to be creative with the ways you acquire your backlinks. One option is to create content for another site’s blog. Infographics typically have more leverage because of their visual appeal.

Related reading: A Crash Course In Broken Link Building

Resource page link building

Discover local sites that have published resource pages that list links they have found useful to their business. Website owners will often link to their vendors, suppliers and other organizations that are related to their products and services.

You can use the search operator “inurl” when searching Google to display sites with a specific keyword in their URL. Most resource pages are titled “Resources”, “Links” or Resources and Useful Links” so the URL will typically reflect those keywords.

To find these pages type into Google searches such as:

[your keyword] inurl:links

[your keyword] inurl:resources

Resource page results for Toronto websites with keyword "software"

Choose sites that are relevant to your site and would be a good match for the link prospects list of resources. Having a resource page of your own can help leverage your success rate, however, keep in mind that too many link exchanges may trigger an unnatural link pattern.

Related reading: 9 Effective Backlinking Strategies for 2020

Local charities and organizations

There are many organizations that list the names and websites of sponsors who have contributed to their cause. Making a donation to these sites can earn you a spot on their list.

You can also donate products and services to those that will benefit from your offering. For example, if you’re a web designer you could offer to revamp a local charity website. The likelihood of the organization allowing you a link from their site goes way up with acts of generosity and kindness.

Job postings

Post a listing for a job offering on local sites. It’s an easy way to tie in your business with the city in which you’re trying to rank.

Host an event

Use sites like Meetup to host local events. Not only will you build local links from the event your posting on the site, but also it’s a way to build new connections with businesses in your area.

Local newspapers

If you have some newsworthy content to promote, local newspapers can be an effective source for local links. Whether it’s an event your hosting, or news that the community can benefit from, a link from a local newspaper will get your site in front of a local audience and contribute to your local ranking.

Review sites

Apart from the biggest review sites such as Yelp, every city has websites that are frequently viewed by locals who are researching businesses. Get your site listed here and encourage people to leave reviews about your services. These sites are specific to your city and will anchor your site as a local business in the area.

Build your local presence with local links

Local businesses do not typically have extensive high authority link profiles. It’s just not common for local businesses to invest large budgets into SEO content and link building campaigns. Most local businesses acquire natural links through directories and sites that are native to the city in which they do business.

Plan to build local links from a variety of the above-mentioned sources. Local links are the most powerful sources when it comes to appearing in local searches.

Don’t overdo any one type of link and maintain a natural acquisition of links throughout your campaign. Building 100 directory links in one day is not a natural link velocity.

As one of the highest converting sources of traffic, the local search results will contribute to the revenue your business generates.

Increase the number of local clients your business acquires with local SEO services in Toronto. Build local links to improve your local ranking for keywords that are vital to your business.