Blog, Latest SEO News & Tips

Apply Some Pressure to Your Home or Business

Sidewalk Pressure Cleaned If you own a home or business, you understand that maintenance is an important part of ownership. That dirt on the driveway, or heavy stains on the walls of your parking garage don’t have to be permanent fixtures. With proper cleaning and a little time and effort, they can sparkle and shine.

My new client, Florida Pressure Cleaning Solutions (FPCS), is an expert in pressure washing driveways, roofs, and pool decks, as well as office building exteriors and parking lots/garages. They offer high-quality, fast service 24/7.

I started working with Giorgio, the owner of FPCS, about a month ago, and helped him to increase his online visibility via social media as well as optimization of a new website. I’m happy to report that the site is now in WordPress, and steadily gaining momentum. Using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google +, we are slowly building and engaging an audience.

As a client, it’s important to remember that new sites take time to flourish. The same way one wouldn’t expect to be CEO at a new job, a website isn’t going to storm the first page of Google overnight. Those competitors in the top positions of the search results didn’t get there by coincidence, and it definitely wasn’t a quick process.

At any rate, I’d like to welcome aboard FPCS. For more info, please visit their website or call 786-483-8713. He will be more than willing to provide you with a free consultation at your convenience.

5 Ways to Maximize Content

Content is king. If you’ve read any SEO posts recently, you’ll see a lot of buzz surrounding content marketing and quality articles and blogs. It’s clear that strong content drives traffic to your site. This begs a few questions such as “what should I write about?” and “where should I post the content?”.

Here are 5 ways you can maximize your content for SEO, traffic, and rankings:

1) Make sure Your Content is Long Enough

No one likes to write. Even now I’m thinking, wow, it’s Saturday. I could be doing so many other things, but I’m writing this blog post. But if I’m going to put in the time, I might as well make sure to hit the 400 to 500 word mark. And yes, this post is over 500 words.

Google has indicated that lengthier posts have more authority and weight. The bottom line is a longer post has more information, so it’s likely more valuable.

2) Choose a Strong Topic

It’s important to choose a good tropic for your blog post. Don’t simply write for the sake of it. What’s happening in the industry? I’m writing about content marketing which is always popular. But if you’re a lawyer, maybe there’s a case trending that people want to read about so taking advantage of that works in your favor. This is a technique called newsjacking which is simply writing about topics gaining traction online.

3) Write for Your Audience

Consider who your target audience is when crafting a blog post. Who will read it? What’s their level of comprehension of the topic? It’s crucial to write something that not only can be easily understood, but that also will be relevant for your readers. This will encourage them to share the post online via social media which only helps your cause. More eyes equals more love.

4) Share your Post on Social Media

Whether you spent 30 minutes or three hours on your blog post, it’s not being utilized fully if you don’t share it on social networks. You have a Facebook page, Twitter, and maybe even a Tumblr, so why not post it there. It’s free backlinks for your post, increases the odds someone will actually read what you wrote, and helps drive traffic to your site.

Resist the urge to repost your article in its entirety. Instead, summarize what you wrote in a few sentences and post that. This way you can avoid duplicate content and share your article in more places.

5) Optimize your Blog Post

Before you share your blog post on social networks, share it in an e-blast, and post summaries of it on other sites, make sure it’s optimized. Add in-text links, create a unique title and description for it, and throw in some H tags for good measure. Finally, don’t forget to include a royalty-free image or a purchased stock photo.

Final Thoughts

I’ve done my best to share five simple tips with you to maximize your blog post or article. And I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to read through this post and digest what I’ve written. I truly hope you found it useful. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Affordable Art from Look Beyond

smoking dog A few months ago, I signed up a new client, Look Beyond Art Gallery. They sell unique and affordable art out of their Miami Beach shop and online. Their vast collection includes whimsical sculptures, pop-art paintings, furniture such as tables and chairs, and ceramic pieces.

Thierry Dufloo, founder of the gallery, is well-known throughout Europe for his framing shops. You can read more about him here on his art blog. He opened Look Beyond last year and already has plans to start selling framing services once again, here in Miami. This is a logical next step as you can purchase and have your art framed at the same place.

What really sets Look Beyond apart is their approach: art everyone can enjoy at reasonable prices. You’ll find pieces starting under $20 such as small prints as well as cool sculptures for less than $100. There are also a variety of iconic celebrity paintings for less than $30.

If you haven’t already, stop by the gallery or visit them online:

Look Beyond Art Gallery
1427 Washington Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
786-290-4801

The gallery is open 7 days and has extensive hours so you’ll never miss an opportunity to see their collection.

Client Spotlight: Experian Public Adjusters

Experian Ajusters I would like to offer a warm welcome to my newest client, Experian Public Adjusters. They are public insurance claims adjusters in Miami who specialize in fire, water, flood, hurricane and other property damage to your home or business.

Founded by Alex Alonso, Experian works hard to help you receive the maximum claim from your insurance company. By nature, insurance companies payout the least amount of money if say your roof has a leak and causes damage to your home. But Alex and his team work diligently to negotiate a better claim settlement to help you avoid the headaches that arise from these matters.

We at Sky SEO are also working hard to help Experian gain more visibility online by improving their social media presence, acquiring quality backlinks, and optimizing their site, which we redesigned at no additional charge.

For more information about Experian, visit their website to setup a free claim evaluation. They never charge a fee if there is not a recover or claim settlement from your insurance company. So before you do a random search online and choose the first insurance claims adjusters you see, check out Experian.

3 Tips for Local Optimization

Local Rankings Now more than ever your business’ local presence is important. Yes, you need organic rankings to be found online ― otherwise SEO wouldn’t really matter ― but ranking in Google + Local and showing up in business directories also drives leads.

Here are three tips to improve your local optimization:

1) Register your business with local business directories such as Yelp, Foursquare, CitySearch, and Yahoo Local. If you aren’t sure where you’re registered, sites such as Yext.com will do a free scan and show you where your completed listings exist.

2) Optimize your local business listings. Make sure to include your website and links to social sites such as Twitter and Facebook where possible. Make sure to use the same phone number and address format ― Suite 100 or #100 ― for consistency.

3) On directory sites that allow reviews, ask customers that have used your service or product to leave a positive feedback. Make sure they don’t leave reviews from your business PC or at your location as your IP address is tracked and the review may be flagged. Also, users which have done previous reviews may have a better chance of success than first-time users depending on the business.

So remember: setup directory listings along with any other link building you do as part of your local SEO strategy.

PPC Account Suspension: Not a Huge Hurdle

I was recently contacted by a prospective client who had his AdWords account suspended. He had approached a few different companies who advertise that they can do the following:

1) Determine why the account was suspended

2) Help to reinstate/unsuspend the account

I’m not claiming to be a PPC guru by any means. But I do have a lot of experience managing accounts, and I can tell you it’s really not that complicated to call Google and have the account fixed. Half the time it’s a simple change to the ad. The other half it’s a small issue with the landing page. But either way it’s not so difficult to correct your issues with AdWords.

I already made a call to Google for this client, and I can guarantee that shortly the account will be reinstated. So before you spend thousands of dollars having some experts unsuspend your account, send me an e-mail and we can work it out.

Current State of SEO

There have been so many changes recently to SEO as we know it. From Panda and Penguin updates to Google search algorithm to exact domain search changes, SEO just isn’t what it use to be.

But fear not. There is still hope. So what to do? Focus on strong, unique content. Build natural links from high quality sites, and avoid over optimizing your site. It’s sort of a shift back to 90’s style optimization.

Google is hoping to follow through on it’s original goal of 16 years ago: produce, the most relevant search results possible. That means indexing, crawling and checking sites for the best content. So ultimately, it’s your job to convince the spiders that your site has that content.

It takes time, but by blogging, creating good content pages, having press releases written, using social media, etc., these goals can be accomplished.

Absentee Website Owner?

business owner

By Bryan Wisotsky

Do you know your business Facebook login? Do you regularly check your website? Do you participate in the expansion of your online presence? Do you know which promotions are being offered on your site? If you answered “no” to most of these questions, you might be an Absentee Website Owner. That’s to say someone who is neglecting your website, a resource which is supposed to help you grow your brand and business.

Competing online is difficult as is growing your internet visibility. But you won’t get far if you don’t participate in the process. And it might seem obvious, but countless business owner who are doing internet marketing miss the mark.

Understandably, some business owners don’t have time to manage their internet marketing. And I’m not suggesting that they forgo attending to more pressing matters to tweet and blog. But there has to be a middle ground. And you as a business person have to be engaged. If that means getting a monthly report from your marketing company, then that’s a good start. You could even spend 30 minutes each night reviewing your site and social media effort.

The point is you need to be aware of what’s happening to succeed.

Does Your Food Truck or Restaurant Need Some SEO?

sushi

By Bryan Wisotsky

I’ve been a foodie for as long as I can remember. Even before being a foodie was a thing. I was the type of kid that was more interested in sushi and Falafel than Happy Meals. My appetite for food knows no bounds and covers cuisines ranging from Japanese to Middle Eastern.

Fast forward 20 years or so, and it dawned on me that I’ve worked with various clients over the years but never Food Trucks or restaurants. I have a strong passion for food and SEO so it seems only logical. And surely food entrepreneurs could benefit from SEO and internet marketing just like my other clients.

So today I am writing to future and prospective clients to say, contact me for a FREE consultation about how we can improve your online visibility for your restaurant, food truck, or Falafel stand. Moreover, I am willing to offer some FREE work on your site. That’s right, I will review your site, optimize it and maybe even throw in some links. All I ask for in return is a referral.

In the meantime, check out my food boards on Pinterest.