As a digital marketer or brand owner, it’s crucial to protect the value of your copyrighted content to ensure your website reaps the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO). Not only is content important for SEO, but it’s also a valuable asset for brand differentiation and engagement. Learn more about the SEO benefits of protecting copyrighted content and how to find its illegal misuse so you can take proper action to safeguard your brand.
Why Quality Content is Essential for SEO
In May 2020, Google released a core algorithm update to improve how the search engine assesses content in order to present the most relevant and authoritative content to users. The update essentially reinforced the importance of quality content. When content is original and fresh, it will be more relevant to the user’s search intent which will increase the chances of Google rewarding the page with higher rankings in search results.
Google’s Content Recommendations
There are two primary recommendations that Google offers to site owners – focus on content and get to know the Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Google uses what’s known as ‘E-A-T’ (which stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) to determine content quality so it can give users the best content for their search query. Here are five easy ways to improve content quality:
Make it easy to read
Use a visually appealing format
Include quality images
Add appropriate resources/links
Make it easy to access
Freshness can also be a ranking factor, depending on the topic. For example, freshness is a major consideration for time-sensitive events and information like a sale, promotion, live webinar, conference, etc. By offering the best content you can, Google’s algorithm will reward your page.
What is Duplicate Content?
There’s a LOT of content on the internet and, unfortunately, there are people that will steal content from other websites, resulting in search engines detecting duplicate content. Basically, duplicate content is content that appears on more than one page on the internet. Duplicate content can impact search rankings because it’s harder for search engines to decide which version is more relevant to a search query.
If you have duplicate content within your own site, it’s not as big of a problem. Simply add a rel=canonical tag on those pages to specify which page is the “correct” one to rank in search results. However, other websites that have your content can lower your page’s rankings and divert organic search traffic from your page.
How to Find Illegal Use of Your Content
Protecting copyright content is a must for preventing duplicate content issues that’ll lower your website’s search rankings and improve your ROI. Controlling your content’s distribution ensures that your investment and brand are safeguarded. You can manually search online for your copyrighted content, which can be time-consuming and not 100% accurate since you can miss pages that are using your content.
Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising may seem completely different as one is free organic traffic and the other is paid traffic, but there are several ways that SEO can improve your PPC campaign’s ROI. If you don’t put any effort into SEO, it’ll hinder your campaign’s performance and increase ad costs. See how SEO affects PPC advertising and why they should work together in your business.
Benefits of SEO for PPC Advertising
While there are certainly differences between SEO and PPC, it’s important to remember that they both fall under the umbrella of search engine marketing (SEM) which means they influence each other to a certain extent. Here are several notable benefits of SEO for improving PPC advertising so you can have an effective strategy.
Gain Greater Visibility in Search Engine Results
When you have top-ranking positions for both organic search results and PPC ads, your website will have greater visibility on Google’s search results page, which leads to higher click-through rates. This is particularly important for mobile search because ad space is smaller. For example, a typical Google search on a smartphone shows four PPC ads – two at the top and two at the bottom of the results page. However, ten organic results (including the ‘local packs’ section) are displayed on the results page. Those four ad positions have become even more competitive!
Raise the Quality Score of PPC Ads
Google Ads uses ‘Quality Score’ which is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Other PPC networks have similar concepts. For instance, Facebook Ads uses ‘Relevance Score’ which operates under the same principles. When your ads and landing pages are deemed relevant to users, your Quality Scores go up which means higher ad positions. Optimizing your landing pages for related keywords and improving user experience is crucial for increasing Quality Scores.
Lower PPC Ad Costs
Higher Quality Scores not only lead to better ad positions, but they can also lower your cost-per-click (CPC). Optimized landing pages that closely relate to your PPC keywords and ads will be considered more relevant and higher quality than if the pages are unrelated or too general. In essence, having a landing page that performs well in organic search will enhance your PPC’s effectiveness and lower ad costs, generating a higher ROI.
Discover High Converting Keywords
Keyword research is critical for SEO and PPC. Without it, you wouldn’t know which keywords to optimize your website for or which keywords to include in your PPC campaigns. By linking Google Ads and Google Analytics, you can discover keywords that have high conversion rates and add them to your PPC campaigns as well as optimize your website for those keywords.
SEO and PPC Should Work Together
Approaching SEO and PPC as unrelated will hold back the full potential of your search engine marketing. That’s why they should work together so you can see better results like reducing ad costs and increasing clickthrough rates. In addition to learning about how SEO and PPC influence each other, one of the most effective ways to improve your digital marketing is by using accurate, innovative, and responsive solutions.
Explore Adretreaver’s cutting-edge products to see how they’ll benefit your ads and content.
Search engine optimization (SEO) makes it easier for customers to find your business by understanding and improving your website which is why SEO audits are indispensable for digital marketing. Without them, it’s harder to find out if you’re using tactics that no longer work or discover opportunities that will help your business grow. Learn more about SEO audits to see how they can improve your SEO strategy and benefit your overall digital marketing.
Why is an SEO Audit Important?
Performing an SEO audit is crucial for an effective strategy because it allows you to discover its strengths and weaknesses. You’ll be able to identify and overcome a variety of issues such as:
Algorithm updates
Webmaster guideline changes
Outdated content
Website errors
Low-quality links
Poor user experience
An SEO audit not only helps you find anything that’s negatively affecting your website’s optimization, but also other digital marketing strategies like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, and email marketing.
Your website is critical to the success of your digital marketing because if the pages are ineffective with other types of traffic (e.g. paid, direct, referral), then you’re missing out on gaining and retaining more customers.
When Should You Do an SEO Audit?
A general rule of thumb is to do an SEO audit once a year, but some brands do it more often like twice a year or every quarter. A yearly SEO audit is typically enough for most businesses though. Make sure to keep records of everything you do so you can monitor progress year over year and streamline the process. Additionally, having documentation can help you make a stronger case for your company’s leaders to continue or increase investment in SEO.
How Long Do SEO Audits Take?
Depending on the size and number of your web properties, an SEO audit can take a couple of hours or several months. For example, an SEO audit for a small business that has a 10-page website will be a lot quicker than an SEO audit for a corporation that has multiple websites with hundreds of pages. Regardless of how long the audit takes, it should always include a thorough review, analysis, reporting, and strategic recommendations.
What’s in an SEO Audit?
In essence, an SEO audit reveals the website’s strengths and weaknesses and provides actionable recommendations based on real data. The audit begins by defining your strategic objectives, then conducting multiple analyses to get a holistic view of your SEO and create recommendations.
An SEO audit typically includes:
Keyword analysis
Competitor analysis
Technical analysis
Page-level analysis
Content analysis
User experience analysis
Link analysis
Citation analysis
Google Analytics and Search Console are invaluable services that can you perform these analyses, however, you may need to invest in paid tools to get deeper insights and save time.
Use SEO Audits to Enhance Digital Marketing
While SEO audits are crucial for improving your website’s rankings in search results, they also can be used to enhance your overall digital marketing. Improving your pages will both boost your rankings and conversions from PPC, email, and content marketing campaigns. In addition to doing regular SEO audits, you should also implement cutting-edge solutions that will make your web ad placements more accurate and protect copyrighted content to increase its ROI.
Check out SEO Ranker to see why brands are using our innovative, responsive products to get more out of their digital marketing.
While it is that having a business website improves or to business credibility, in 2020 over forty percent (40%) of small businesses were without an online face, then, the pandemic hits.
2020 and onward determines the new way of representing business is online be it e-commerce or otherwise. Having an online presence gives a way for your potential customers to find you and also a way to give information about what you do and who you are.
Let’s Talk Needs
There are multiple features to consider when building a website as you want to ensure that your online market is getting the best. This includes but is not limited to the design, development, and maintenance of your website. Here goes some information on the must-haves for your websites.
Domain
First, your domain is your name or website address, it is also the URL that will appear once a visitor is on your website, simply put this is what your customers will know you by. It is advised that once available use a domain with your company’s or brand’s name. For example, searching for Adretreaver will be adretreaver.com, Google will be google.com, Yahoo as yahoo.com and the list goes on. The extension (this will be .com or .org to the end of your domain) is dependent on the reason for your business, for example, organizations usually have .org, the educational institution uses .edu and the list goes on.
Once you have confirmed this you need to get your domain name registered, in getting a registered domain name last for a year, and then you will need to renew the registration, yes, this is done annually.
Where Can You Get Domain:
Here is a list of places or websites you can visit to get your domain set up kick start and they will take you through to the end. Note this is done in no specific order:
This can be easily considered the home of your website content. A web hosting service is that which provides a space on a server for website files on the internet clients. This is the space that allows the maintenance and visibility of your content on the world wide web.
It is indeed a fact that the company your domain is registered with does not have to be your hosting company. One should also take the time out to research the domain or hosting company to ensure it is cost-effective and has all that you need for them to cover. Here goes a listing of a few of your hosting choice again in no specific order of rating:
Your hosting selection can also be dependent on your business size. If small, medium, or large and low risk there are inexpensive ways to host and still have the perk/features of your own server space. Here is a list of ideas that you may want to consider:
Email Hosting:
The email web hosting service allows you to create email addresses using your domain name (eg., support@adretreaver.com or info@adretreaver.com ) the amount you create is dependent on your account type and size.
Cloud Hosting:
This is unlike your usual server hosting as it affords greater flexibility through cloud resources, using a cluster of different serves to host a website or application. What this means is that once your initial server is experiencing downtime another from the cluster steps in and continue.
VPS Hosting:
Virtual Private Server (VPS), is awesome for websites with mid to high traffic levels. This gives high performance in that it isolates a portion of your server giving a private environment along with the dedicated environs.
Shared Hosting:
For this hosting type, multiple websites can be hosted on the same server. It is low in cost since many users shared resources hence, the cost is dived among users. This is usually recommended to users who a looking to establish an online presence and is easy to upgrade.
WordPress Hosting:
This is particularly geared towards optimizing WordPress websites in that it facilitates bringing the best forward from optimizing the environment, website speed, and security in hosting.
SSL Certificate
A Secure Socket Layer usually just SSL for short is designed to provide security over a computer network, it is a cryptographic protocol. This certificate authenticates your websites and enables connection by allowing the switch from HTTP to HTTPS to protect you from the exchange of valuable data.
How does it work?
Your SSL certificate works by using its algorithms to scramble data such as personal and sensitive data, preventing the easy to read or fetch by hackers. It ensures the data passing from user to websites or systems to systems remain unreadable to the eyes they don’t belong.
Process includes:
Request connection is sent to browser or system
Browser or system identity is requested
The hosting server sends a reply by sending a copy of the certificate
Checks are done to see if this is a trusted signal is then sent to the webserver
If trusted a digital signature is sent to an encrypted session can begin
Template/Theme
Feature and functionality are two (2) of the main highlights that should fuel your newly built website and this is whether you are using a template or a theme. Though clean and simple should be the order of the day one should ensure to select a solid theme that displays all the best parts of their business or a template that affords all the best parts too.
These two terms I have seen confuse newbie website creators of owners so let us tell the difference and additional information. A theme gives the pre-created canvas to work with (theme gives color, space, layout, and the feel) of what you want to build. Templates can be classified as the child of the theme as the changes in your template are done through editing the CSS and HTML codes in your theme.
Content
Your content includes videos, text, or pictures that are shared on your page for the user to interact with. It is advised that you have all content together before starting the process of build or before contacting the developer.
This is advised as developers and designers usually charge for their time (the longer the time frame the more it cost), and for a new company with what to use all penny wisely.
Do not do an overload or try to get everything in for the first launch you will always have time to add more content. For the initial launch aim to get all that is the must know to your prospective customers.
Motivate your visitors by ensuring your content is consistent with your business and your social media pages if there are any. Your web page also should aid in the decision your visitor takes to ensure your call to action and the most vital information is strategically placed on the website.
Marketing
Now you are satisfied with the finished product and you have launched your website, the real work begins and this is to get as many eyes as possible to your website and also that they are organic and using.
There are many avenues to have your marketing done from social media ranking and marketing to search engine optimization (SEO). Another route is once you are knowledgeable of the field you are in and what people are looking for you can go with incorporating the correct keywords and this will drive more organic visitors to your site.
We do know as new website owners you are looking to have your website on the top pages of your favorite search engine or the most popular search engine but remember that takes time. There is, however, an easier way than perfect keywords and it is called pay-per-click. While it is that this may be adding cost to one’s budget pay-per-click advertisement guarantees your website begin in the competition for the keywords you want to use.
Conclusion
Now you have all the tools and information needed to make a professional website always remember it takes time to build your marketing audience so be patient.
Things To Have Before Approaching Your Web Design Team
This article will cover a few areas for our readers who are not interested in a do-it-yourself (DIY) project.
For our article titled Building a Website on a Budget, we covered the areas in building an easy simple website that will cover all the areas of your digital needs. In that, some vital areas may be missed and were not covered as you were focusing on too much as the architect.
While you are trying to hire a web designing team it can be a bit tricky as you may need to check on some specific areas to ensure they fit your niche.
In this we will be covering:
Budget
Template
Custom
Plan
Goals
Purpose
History of Designer Team
Visuals
Revision Process
Involvement Need
Budget
In all planning, we always make a financial mapping of where we want to be. With this, you know where you are going and the cost to get there.
We prepare for it all, in sorting or budget planning you need to research on “rate for web designer”, this gives the added confidence needed to approach your prospect.
In some cases, you are head set on the individual or company you want to do business with, in that case, contact them directly or via the website to get a possible number.
It is always best to design on your spending size before approaching your designer.
Some companies or individuals will post their pricing categories on websites or varied digital marketing mediums. These may also be categorized by tools used or be it a template or custom website.
Template
In your daily browsing, you may come across quite a few templates like websites some recognizable others may not be so easy.
The modern website usually chooses this as it is an easier do-it-yourself (DIY) which result in an automatic lower cost.
With being templated you may not have much to offer a visitor that another website gives in visiting, this is so there is not much to change with a templated site so your first-time visitor may get the feeling as though I have seen or visited this space before,
Custom
Selecting your custom route may mean that your project will take a bit longer this is so as your website will be building from the ground to get to the awesome finished product.
This will also be a bit more on the costly side and as you were able with the templated version to have a DIY project, without a solid experience in the web designing field you may not be able to take this project on yourself.
While the look and feel can and may be the same as the template your designer will have much freedom to manipulate the design as seen fit and hence may give your audience a fresh taste when visiting.
Plan
Your plan includes it all, from the beginning which includes the budget to the color scheme, number of pages, the audience you will be targeting, and the platform to build on and launch.
This is the area where you decide based on the service you are providing you ask some of the most important questions.
How interactive my site should be?
What are some of the features my visitors will need? In this, you can think it up based on what you will need, and feel free to ask a friend or colleague’s opinion.
To ensure you have covered the above questions and you are on top of your planning (crossing all t’s and dotting the I’s), you can make a planning wish list or vision board.
Play blocks – WISH LIST – on a rough old blue background. Quite even focus.
In planning your marketing, you ask yourself, what are some of the more economical ways to market your website in its space? Some of those are:
Blogs
Emails
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media
The route that is a bit less economical is by contacting a company that uses click-through rate tools (CTR). In this, they simply handle the SEO parts for you.
Goals
Remember the wish list and vision board mentioned above? That will for sure have all the goals for your website on there if you are precise in all areas.
Your goal should be all you know your company or brand needs and with that know how to get there. Before approaching any designer, you need to know exactly what that is.
Most individuals, are designing a website to boast sales and improve brand awareness and in getting there they will need to generate leads, improve CTR (for existing site owners), and adequate to high CTR for new site owners.
While it is that a web designer can help you get there we advise you to do your research and while you may not have all questions answered you will have most. Having done your research helps as some designers or designing companies do charge for consultation and brainstorming your ideas.
Purpose
The purpose of your site drives the goal and this drive the design which affects areas such as the number of pages, the title of pages, and the content on such page. In the event you are uncertain about the pages or number of pages you want to have, start with the general expectation and then go from there:
Home
About Us
Services
Contact
In recent times a creator would have created a webpage for you and that is that but now, creators are conscious of the fact of ranker on the varied search engines and in this want to get the best of it over some time.
It also helps if you go ahead and research others’ work in the niche that you are creating the site for those pages will give you great ideas.
Your site will best serve its purpose if constantly updated and trending, so be sure to post fresh content as often as possible. This content should never be random but must be associated with what your site and product are about.
History of The Designer
There are a few questions that you need to answer before signing off on a designer. Note not all answers may be the ones you want but the designer should check the majority of the boxes. Here are three you can start with:
May I see the work you have done before?
Have you worked on projects similar to what I am requesting?
What is the possible timeline for delivery?
These questions are usually selected as a starter, if your designer cannot see your end goal and guide you along the correct path in the event you are a bit off, it would not be the correct one. The project would take twice as long if you and your selected design do not see the same finishing line.
Visuals
Visuals or images you will need to gather before closing in on your designer, these include, photographs, videos, logos, and animations. Some designers will indeed assist in the event you are using stock images. Stock photo is not the way to go for all as some website needs personal touch dependent on your products and the service you will be offering.
In obtaining all images for your website always remember the copyright and infringement act. What does this mean? This means your images need to be:
Photograph by you (or you being the owner of)
Created by you
Purchased from a professional site that has the authority to sell images
What level of involvement do you think you want to have in the design process of your project (website)?
You have done your vision board and all plans are clear after meeting with your designer but, you need to make clear what level of involvement you will have. This will also gauge the number of meetings and how often.
What if there are additional decisions that are to be made? Do you trust your designer enough to level it all up to them?
We always advise all clients and prospects that when we leave that meeting understanding your goal a mutually beneficial contract is drafted which set the base of our relationship going forward.
Your budgeted your finance for the project also budgets your time and ensures you invest in a design that respects that.
Revision
Ensure you review all that is needed for this project before approaching the designer, this gives the assurance that all that is needed for this meeting is there. Do not pressure it, it is just as simple as going to another meeting and you want to ensure all files are there when you are called on (only that you will be doing the calling).
Revision is also a must as, you and your designer of choice should also have an agreement on what this process will be (weekly, biweekly, …).
A full walk-thru of the project must be done prelaunch.
Now that you have all the vital parts all the best on your new creation or plan. I hope these pointers give you all you need for the new step.
