What is the difference between SEO and PPC on Long Island?

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Back in the day if you had issues with your plumbing, you were stuck with two options: Crack open the yellow pages and search for a plumber or go with whoever is well recommended. Search engines are modern yellow pages. The first couple of listings are paid for by the highest bidders and the rest are free. So why would you spend money on a listing if you could just make one for free? Well, when we consider the pros and cons of both tactics, we see that the optimal solution often combines a fine balance. With the hundreds of thousands of listings like yours, the only way to get on top of that list is to gain credibility. That’s why it is so important for companies to research digital marketing services in New York and Long Island, to find the best fit for their brand.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Customers have no time to go through multiple pages just to find what they’re looking for. They assume that Google is serving them the best answers right off the bat. And without paying top dollar to be on top of the list, you must show search engines that your ad deserves to be high up on the search results. SEO takes time and effort. A lot of it. And since Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, keeping up could be a challenge. So how does one rank to be deemed “worthy” by Google and show up on top of their search results? If your website provides visitors great user experience, then customers will not only stay on it but will keep coming back for more. Let’s look at the two main pillars of SEO and how they are essential in the ranking of your website.

 

 On-Site SEO                                                                                                                           width=

  • Metadata – properly labeling your pages give search engines and users more information on what the page is about. Putting your keywords in your title tags helps boost your click-through rates. It is also important to make sure that you have the right number of characters in your meta-tags because if your titles and descriptions are too long or too short, that can count against you in terms of SEO.
  • Page URLs – shorter URLs and using your target keywords in your URLs increases your chances of ranking.
  • Page Speed – according to Google, a load time of 1 to 3 seconds increases bounce rates up to 32%. Loading time is crucial and it plays a big part in a visitor’s user experience. At Skyrush Marketing, we consistently check our clients’ websites’ page speeds. If the load time is too long, we work to optimize the site. One example of this is compressing images.
  • Content – if your website has no content then what is there to rank? And having the exact information in which visitors are searching for brings up your ranking in search results. It is important to value both quality and quantity when it comes to the content on your page. If you have all images and little to no text, this will hurt Google ranking.
  • Cross-Linking – this is a valuable way to optimize for search. Linking to other pages of your site gives search engines more content to trace and the keywords associated with them. For instance, when Skyrush wrote new web content for one of our clients, a leading medical facility, we focused on linking services such as spine surgery to other pages related to the spine, such as informative blog posts or FAQs.

 Off-Site SEO

  • Backlinks – search engines find new webpages by following backlinks from existing webpages. Being part of reputable directories is a great way to add authority to your online presence.
  • Social Media – posting content constantly is a great way to engage more with your audience. Creating a plan and sticking to it will also impact how often your content shows up in your audience’s social feeds.
  • Shareable Content – blog posts and articles that can be shared as guest posts or on common blogging platforms such as WordPress and Blogger.
  • Influencers – influencers can connect with your audiences as trusted peers. Finding the right influencers who are authentic and trusted can transform your audience into loyal customers. Skyrush Marketing has long-lasting relationships with influencers in a variety of fields such as technology, medical, and automotive.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)                                                           

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Pay-per-click advertising is your first-class ticket to the top of the search engine results. But just like overpriced airplane tickets, you are going to have to be willing to pay top dollar every time somebody clicks on your ad. Note that Google’s number 1 priority is the searcher and it is their job to serve the right information that people are looking for. Credibility and proper optimization will always be a factor when trying to make it up on the search results. Going back to what we were talking about earlier. If you were going to put out an ad in the yellow pages back in the day, then you should be qualified to deliver quality service. Being well-recommended and advertising your services at the same time is a great balance when it comes to the success of your business. That pretty much goes the same for SEO and PPC. A well-optimized website is a great foundation for PPC.

There’s a lot that goes into paid search. The very first thing you need to figure out before giving Google your money is what is your goal? Is it to promote awareness, gain leads or sell more products? Having clear goals will make your success easier to measure. From there, you can come up with an appropriate budget to spend.

At Skyrush Marketing, your Long Island digital agency, our team of marketing experts specializes in both SEO and PPC. With the perfect blend of SEO and PPC, our digital marketing team on Long Island can help you achieve each one of your business goals while heavily impacting your company’s online presence.

Contact Skyrush Marketing for your free consultation.

 

 

 

Healthcare SEO

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When you have the flu and you need to find a new doctor who can take you right away, what do you do? Many people will begin by searching on the computer or their smartphone and the most popular place to start is Google. A simple query like “urgent care near me” or “primary care physician in…” can yield tons of results on Google, but for the most part, people won’t look past the first page.

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So, if you’re a healthcare provider, ranking high on Google should be a priority if you want to increase your website traffic and number of new patients. This is why SEO (search engine optimization) is going to be one of your most important tools when it comes to digital marketing. In this post, we will go over some of the best tactics for healthcare SEO, so that you can start moving up the SERP and appeal to more potential patients. It’s important to remember that SEO is a continuous process and will require a long-term commitment to ensure consistent results, but by following these tips, you can get started and then work to build out a long-term SEO strategy for your healthcare facility.

Top 3 Tips for Healthcare SEO

 

  1. Choose Keywords Wisely: Think about how people are searching on Google. In today’s day and age, most internet users don’t type complete thoughts into Google. Instead, they search how they talk, meaning they may ask questions or use location modifiers like “near me”. Be sure to do your research about which keywords your competitors are ranking for and also determine which keywords generate the greatest search volume. There are some excellent tools for conducting keywords research, including Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Answer the public. Google’s Keyword tool and SEMrush will tell you the search volume and competitive ranking of different keywords. They will also give you keyword suggestions. SEMrush is also great because you can conduct a competitive analysis, comparing your keywords and their rankings to those of your top competitors.

 

  1. Optimize Your Meta-tags: The keywords that you focus on for your specific healthcare facility should be present throughout the content you create for your website and other platforms. In addition, the keywords should be in your title-tags and meta-descriptions. The title-tag and meta-description are what users see when they search on Google. For instance, if I conduct the same search, “urgent care near me,” I can see that each result has a title-tag and meta-description.

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When you are creating your titles and descriptions, it is crucial to keep in mind the character limits. Titles should typically 65 characters or fewer. Descriptions should be under 150 characters. However, you want to make sure that your titles and descriptions are long enough to convey the important information. In the example above, the title is exactly long enough o fully display and the description is fairly comprehensive. In the example below, the title gets cut off and the description isn’t unique for search engines. Rather, it is just pulling the first 150 characters from the page.

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These might seem like small details, but they really make a different to the user in terms of experience and ease of acquiring the information they need.

 

  1. Create Unique Content: You need to post content regularly to promote your website. There are multiple platforms for promoting content including a blog, ebook, and social media. When you are developing content, you want to make sure that you’re writing about topics that users are actually searching. This means you need to do some research, similar to when you were searching for keywords. You can use SEMrush and Answer the public to get ideas for content, including questions that people ask and trending topics.

 

If you have a blog, you should be posting at least twice per month in order to reap the benefits of the content. In addition, share your posts on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The most important thing is to make sure your content is original. If you copy the same material from another website, you’ll actually hurt your SEO efforts. Therefore, it is important to have a team of content marketing specialists and copywriters to keep the original content flowing.

Get Started with Healthcare SEO

If you’re ready to get started with SEO for your healthcare facility, take the points from the post above and set up a short-term plan. If you want a team of SEO experts to get the long-term plan in place and deliver results consistently, contact Skyrush Marketing for a free consultation. Skyrush Marketing is a digital marketing company serving New York and Long Island.

 

Native Marketing 101

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Do you sometimes notice ads trying to casually sneak into your social media feeds? That’s because consumer preferences have changed when it comes to consuming online content. Digital Marketing has also evolved and marketers have been using a marketing strategy called Native Advertising. Nowadays, it’s pretty hard to differentiate between ads and original website content. Some may look at this as a good thing but is it? Are these businesses trying to mislead their consumers into buying their products without them knowing? Who is protecting consumers from being misled into consuming paid advertisements? Let’s break it down and learn more about Native Advertising.

 

What is Native Advertising?

 

Native Advertising is a seamless way for brands to get their message across without disrupting the user’s online experience. Flashy banners and pop up ads can sometimes be annoying and consumers have trained themselves to ignore some of these types of ads. Some have even resorted to using programs like adblockers to avoid disruptions. These ads are well integrated and fit into the look and feel of whichever website, program or app you are using.

 

Benefits of Native Advertising

 

One big thing that Ads need to combat is Ad Fatigue. This is when an audience becomes too familiar with certain ads and eventually stop engaging with them. While the average display ad can get old and users lose interest, native ads have overcome this challenge. Brands are starting to create paid advertisements that mimic the content their customers are already engaging with. This strategy leads to increased click-through rates and conversions.

 

Cracking Down on Advertisers

 

To regulate the use of Native Ads, The Federal Trade Commission provides Native Advertising Guidelines for Businesses to protect consumers from being misled. Advertisers are required to disclose when content is sponsored or paid for to help consumers know when they are viewing ads. So how does one spot a native ad? Let’s list down the different types of native ads and see their different distinguishing features.

 

Types of Native Ads & Examples

 

In-Feed Units

 

All these ads that you see labeled as sponsored are in-feed units. You can mostly see these paid ads as you scroll through your social media feed or your favorite publisher site like Entreprenuer.com. These ads are strategically placed to be inline with the content you are currently viewing.

 

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Paid Search Units

 

Paid Search Units are usually seen on search engine results pages. Businesses bid for the top spots and are made to look like organic search results.

 

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Recommended Widgets

 

Recommended Widgets are ads usually placed on the side of a webpage or at the bottom of an article. This ‘“recommended” content is paid for and is also similar to the content you are viewing.

 

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Promoted Listings

 

Similar to Paid Search Units, Promoted listing are listings that are paid for by businesses placed on top of and are made to look like organic search results.

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In-Ad with Native Element Units

 

These types of native ads are contextually relevant to the website you are on and are designed to look like the content you are consuming.

 

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It’s safe to say that all the different types of native ads we shared have one noticeable similarity. All native ads are strategically placed within the media they are in and are designed to seamlessly flow with the user experience. And the only way to spot a native ad is if it is labeled as sponsored, recommended or ad. Unlike disruptive ads, consumers don’t mind native ads. Consumers have a better chance of engaging with native ads since these ads are related to the content they follow.

 

Skyrush Marketing’s Expertise in Native Advertising

 

At Skyrush Marketing, our team of experts specializes in native marketing. We understand what it takes to create an effective native ad that not only blends well with the user experience but also engages with your target audiences. Our highly competitive digital marketing tools and strategies ensure the growth of your brand’s online presence.

 

 Contact us today for your free consultation

 

 

 

 

What Are Customers Saying About Your Brand?

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Your Online Reputation Matters

We all know that people talk about brands they like or don’t like. Now, in the booming digital age, it’s easier than ever for consumers to share their experiences with a brand for millions of people to see. What they say matters – it can make or break your brand’s reputation. Most people will check for online reviews before they buy anything online. That said, negative reviews on Google can immediately turn people off from buying your product or service, while an encouraging positive review can draw in new customers.

Online Reputation Management

Because it’s so easy for people to spread the word about your brand – good or bad – you need to play an active role in building and maintaining your brand’s reputation. That’s why online reputation management (ORM) should be a critical component of your digital marketing strategy. In essence, ORM is all about managing your online presence through managing SERPs for online media and web content.

To start, you need to build your online reputation. There are tons of ways to do this, but overall, the process includes a combination of content creation and SEO. For instance, consider the following initial steps:

You can’t build your reputation by simply creating content. Instead you need to use digital marketing techniques to boost SEO, making the positive content more readily available for potential customers.

When Your Online Reputation is Damaged

In an ideal world, your ORM is focused on continuing to build up positive reviews, but inevitably your brand will experience some setbacks in terms of negative reviews. This is natural, and it’s important to be prepared to handle these situations. While one negative review probably won’t destroy your brand’s reputation, there are certain “online reputation bombs”, which have the potential to do just that, affecting your sales in the long term. Here are a few examples of “online reputation bombs”:

  • Multiple Negative Reviews: When more than one customer starts posting negative reviews, these reviews become more visible on Google and can start to severely impact your reputation. There are even specific websites like Ripoff Report and Pissed Consumer, where consumers are encouraged to post their most negative experiences with a brand.
  • Hate sites: Negative reviews are one thing, but sometimes when people are so angry or upset with a brand, they’ll go so far to create hate sites. It is important to note that some of these sites even contain illegal content regarding insults and false accusations. However, when potential customers come across these sites, they are quickly deterred form making a purchase.
  • Negative Media Coverage: Contrary to the common phrase, there is such thing as bad publicity. While often times people associate this specifically with celebrities who are controversial, it also applies to companies and brands. Negative TV, print, and online media coverage can damage a brand’s reputation quickly.

Saving Your Reputation

If one of the previously mentioned online reputation bombs strikes, it’s important to know how to navigate the situation professionally. Below, we outline some steps to take to rebuild a damaged online reputation:

  • Aggressive SEO: Focus on promoting the most positive content about your brand. This will prevent false information from appearing on the first page of Google when users search for your brand. This is when it’s time to develop a search marketing strategy.
  • Review Removal: If you find a negative review by a customer that makes a false claim about your company, or the review was clearly written with the intent to destroy your brand’s reputation, you may be able to remove the review. It’s important to note, that if someone leaves a valid negative review, you should not try to hide it, but rather respond professionally. But, if the review breaks certain legal guidelines, you can react quickly to remove the review before it does too much damage.
  • Online Investigations: When there are serious attacks on your brand’s reputation, it might be time to hire a professional online analyst to investigate the threat more closely. Skilled online analysts can use email tracing, data cross-indexing, along with other techniques, to get at the root of the problem.

Skyrush Marketing Provides Reputation Management Services

At Skyrush Marketing, we know that ORM is not as straightforward as one may thing. We got through all the steps necessary to maintain your brand’s reputation by monitoring all of the platforms on which your brand appears, identifying inappropriate and spam comments quickly, responding to negative reviews honestly and professionally, getting consistent positive reviews, and more. Our digital marketing experts take the time necessary to develop the best ORM strategy for you based on your business objectives and current reputation.

Contact us today to restore your brand’s reputation

 

 

 

Getting Your Google Ads Certification

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If you’re new to digital marketing, then it’s important to learn as much as you can about Google Ads. Previously known as Google Adwords, Google Ads is the platform through which you can run search and display ads on Google and the Google Partner networks. Even though many people assume this platform is only useful for marketing agencies, it’s important for businesses to have an understanding of Google Ads in order to collaborate with their marketing teams. There are a lot of different aspects of the Google Ads platform to master in order to reach people who are interested in the products and services your business offers.

How does Google Ads Work?

First, it’s important to understand how Google Ads works and what the ads look like on Google. Let’s start with search ads. When someone searches on Google and the search engine results page (SERP) comes up, the ads are listed on the top section of the results. These are identified as ads as shown in the image below:

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As you can see, the first three listings on this page are ads, and the fourth listing is actually the first organic search result. This means that the businesses with the three ad listings had to pay to get that placement. Google Ads works on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. That means that businesses bid to get the top spots and pay as someone clicks on their ad. On the other hand, the fourth listing on the page above did not pay to get that spot on the SERP. Instead, it used Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In our other blog post we cover the difference between SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), but for this post, we’re going to dig deeper into SEM.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Google Ads. The platform has evolved rapidly over the years, and the latest version of Google Ads includes new features such as responsive search ads and responsive display ads, which incorporate Google’s machine learning algorithms to present the optimal combinations of ad headlines, text, and format to appeal to your target market.

So, how do you learn everything you need to know about Google Ads?

There are multiple approaches to learning the ins and outs of Google Ads. At Skyrush Marketing, we suggest a blend of learning techniques that involves the following:

  • Self-guided research
  • Interactive training sessions
  • On-the-job training
  • Official Google Ads Certification

Let’s go into more detail about each of the steps to mastering Google Ads.

  1. Self-Guided Research: When you begin to explore Google Ads, the first thing you should do is start researching the platform on your own. You want to learn as much as you can about Google Ads through authoritative websites, blogs, colleagues, and other sources. For instance, you may reach out to one of your LinkedIn connections who is certified in Google Ads and ask for some information. You may also conduct some of your own Google searches and go through the Google Ads help pages to read about the basics. In addition, niche bloggers will often cover overviews of Google Ads to give you a sense of the general functionality of the platform. After you spend several hours (which can be spread out over several days) reading about Google Ads on your own, it’s time to move on to the next step.

 

  1. Interactive Training Sessions: There are tons of interactive training sessions available for Google Ads. The most popular, or course, is the training provided by Google. You can access the Google training tools on the Academy for Ads website. This training provides you with small chunks of information and questions throughout the modules so you can test your knowledge as you go. While the training isn’t individualized, it gives a great overview of what Google Ads is, how it works, and how to navigate it to achieve specific goals. All of the digital marketer at Skyrush Marketing have gone through the Google Ads training course and felt that it was an excellent experience to follow-up their initial research. There are other courses you can take too, such as:

 

All of these structured courses offer a unique experience as they are designed and led by someone different. Taking multiple courses allows you to gain multiple perspectives about Google Ads and fill in the blanks that may be left in just one course.

  1. On-the-Job Training: Even though all the Google Ads courses that are available online are helpful, there’s something to be said about actually creating your own Google Ads campaign and testing out the platform yourself. At Skyrush, our digital marketers enjoy showing our clients how Google Ads works. That way, they can explore the features on their own and really get a feel for what services we are providing and how we are optimizing their campaigns. Most of the digital marketers at Skyrush agreed that the on-the-job training that was included before they started working with clients on their own gave them much more confidence in their ability to master Google Ads.

 

  1. Official Google Ads Certification: While official certifications aren’t everything, at Skyrush Marketing, we understand that keeping up with all of our Google Certifications ensures that we are always on top of the leading trends in Google. All of our digital marketers are certified in Google Ads and they renew their certification each year. The certification exam is a structured multiple-choice exam provided on the Google Academy for Ads. We recommend studying for the Google Ads Certification exam and getting as much hands-on practice as you can before taking the exam, so you feel comfortable applying your knowledge. Set aside enough time to go through each question thoroughly, because you don’t want to miss questions due to rushing. Once you pass your certification exam(s), you’ll earn a Google Badge on your profile, which can help you stand out from others.

Now that we’ve gone over how to master Google Ads and why it is important, it’s time to get started. Remember, if you need assistance setting up your Google Ads campaign or you want a professional team to manage your campaign, contact Skyrush Marketing and we can provide you with paid search and display advertising services.

Contact Your Long Island Digital Agency Today

 

If you are interested in working at Skyrush Marketing, contact us at [email protected]

Voice Search is a Game-Changer for SEO

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Voice search isn’t a completely new concept – it’s been around for a few years – but this year it’s expected to really take off. It’s critical that businesses understand how voice search impacts their SEO strategies, especially since many do not seem to be changing their marketing tactics as voice search rapidly expands. Our SEO team is always up-to-date on the latest trends and in their opinion, voice search is going to be a game-changer for 2019.

In this post, we look at the information and advice from our digital marketing team’s SEO experts, culminated from years of experience in the industry, and break it down into manageable steps for improving your SEO strategy in the age of voice search.

“When people use Siri, OK Google or another software that uses voice search, they typically ask fully-formed questions.”

Why is this important to know? When we are searching the same way that we speak, it changes the keywords that businesses should focus on. For instance, when you’re typing a search into Google, it might read “coffee shop New York”, but if you’re talking to Siri, you’re more likely to say, “What is the best coffee shop near me?”

It’s time for brands to focus more on long-tail keywords. You want to capture the most relevant questions your customers are asking and develop your content to specifically answer those questions. In addition, make sure that you’re directing users to the right landing page – one targets that exact question rather than a more general overview of a topic.

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“Keep the copy conversational. People are asking a question – they want an answer that matches their own tone.”

This goes along with creating the appropriate landing page. When the user’s device reads out the answer to their question, it shouldn’t sound like the material was written by a machine. So, when you’re writing the content for your landing page, keep it conversational. Think of it as simply answering the question the customer asked, just like if they were to ask you in-person.

This isn’t just about giving your customer a better experience or making it easier for them to search – it matters to the Google raters. Part of the new criteria for your Google rating is how well a search response sounds, in addition to how well it answers the question.

“People are looking at the answer box (featured snippet) first, so it’s important to structure your content appropriately.”

When you’re using voice search, the answer box (featured snippet) is where a large chunk of voice search results come from. The goal of the answer box is to give users a quick, yet accurate answer. This lets them avoid reading the whole article, while still getting the gist of it and providing them with the exact information they need.

Typically, you want your content to be structured so they could easily answer a how/what question. For instance, to get your content showing up in the answer box consider including FAQ pages, bulleted lists, and charts that are easy to pull answers from.

“Don’t forget about technical SEO. Being at the top of the search engine results page matters.”

Keep up your technical SEO efforts as you optimize for voice search. You need to build a strong foundation for your website to come up on the search engine results page, and that is a long process. In one of our other posts we covered how to improve your Google E-A-T rating, and that still applies here.

Don’t forget about technical aspects like mobile speed, proper page headings, and structured schema markup. All of these aspects will continue to play an important role in allowing search engines to understand your content.

Get More Tips from Skyrush Marketing’s SEO Experts

Skyrush Marketing is a leader in digital marketing in the New York region. Unlike other large agencies, we don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all digital marketing. On the contrary, we customize our strategies for each of our clients to ensure optimal results. Our experienced SEO team is on top of all the latest trends and strives to keep our clients ahead of the competition. We work with a wide range of industries and businesses of all sizes. There’s no project too big or too small for Skyrush to handle.

To find out more about how we can help you get ahead of the voice search trend, contact us today for a free consultation.