Category: SEO

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Search Engine Optimization in 2021

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

Cortex Search Engine OptimizationSo if SEO is that simple, what’s all the confusion?

Part of the confusion is the comparison to where SEO was at 10-years-ago. Search engine optimization has always been a mix of content and good coding. You used to be able to do a lot more with the coding to help influence the way that a “search engine robot” — or simply “bot” — would search through your site you see if the search term was relevant to your content.

Now, bots work on an algorithm that makes the content a much “heavier-weight” in value, providing a better search-term result for the person searching the relevant search term. The term “weight” is the term used to express the value of the components that make up an optimized website or webpage.

In the world of Search Engine Optimization, content is king!

Content is King in Search Engine OptimizationThe weighting is constantly analyzed by search engines for different factors. However, experts agree that the content of a website is one of the most important criteria for ranking in search engines.

So how much content do I need? Well, the optimum length for a webpage or a blog is a minimum of 300 words, however, we also know that longer content produces higher search rankings… so is longer, better? Not really, it all depends on your goal(s); simply put, studies show that longer content dominates page one of search rankings. Webpages and blogs with 900 or more words are considered “cornerstone content” and this gives the highest weight to the search engine bots for a positive return.

So what SEO do I have to do to optimize my site?

Well, the first thing that we do is take a look at the site and the content and the coding. There are so many things that come into play as far as factors of what the search engine optimization companies, like Google and Bing, I’m looking for in the results that they returned for you. this is their value proposition, in general: “Delivering the best search results based upon what you are actually searching for.”

That said, SEO is much deeper than it used to be 10-years-ago — and for that matter even 5-years-ago!!  SEO is a balance between what topic you have on your page, the length of your copy (how value-rich your content is), the keyword focus density, whether it is optimized for mobile.

So, how do I optimize my website for SEO? Here are 8 simple steps:

  1. Analyze all of your website data. 
  2. Conduct thorough keyword research. 
  3. Produce long and value-rich content. 
  4. Optimize for on-page SEO. 
  5. Optimized for off-page SEO. 
  6. And then Optimize the website for mobile. 
  7. Speed up the pages. 
  8. Get quality backlinks.

BAcklinking in Search Engine OptimizationIt should be noted that backlinking has been a point of much debate over the past 5 years. The reason is that a lot of SEO strategies focussed on backlinking and in 2021 the latest algorithms from the search engine optimization companies have changed the weight of backlinks to help stop search engine spamming (trying to get you to see their site because they have lots of people linking to them); the strategy now is relevant-backlinking.

Does backlinking really help my SEO?

Backlinks are essentially links from a page on one website that point to another website. If you link to another website, then they have a backlink from you.  the advantage of backlinks or because the search engines see that as a sign of legitimacy. So essentially when done correctly, backlinking can help legitimize your site and make you come up higher in search engines. 

Some search engine experts swear by them, and other search engine experts don’t give backlinks much weight. the reality is, none of us really know as the algorithms that are written by the search engine optimization companies are a very closely guarded secret. They (SEO companies) give us clues but they never really tell us exactly how much weight each component factors in. we do know, however, that content is King.

Are you looking to see how your site ranks?

I provide an evaluation for marketing efficiency and content. This $75 service is currently on sale through March 31, 2021, for 80% off or $15 and at that price, you cannot afford to be uninformed. Schedule a time for marketing efficiency and content evaluation here.  What you get is a clear report as to the things you need to do for the optimization of your website. Optimized websites will help you generate more sales and that is the goal of your Search Engine Optimization, right?

Let me be more direct, the bottom line is of your Search Engine Optimization to make your content seen by more people so you are known as the expert, which in turn leads to more sales; the reason you are in business. Read other blogs on SEO or General Marketing or Social Media or Copywriting, all of which will help you increase your sales.

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Social Media, Groups Or Pages; Which Is Best?

When Social Media started in 1997, there wasn’t much to it.

It started to get its rise in the early 2000s — when the first big-idea(s) regarding the power of online networking started and was in its infancy.

Social media Pages and Groups

In fact, there were many great ideas that came across the social media platforms at the time. Two of the most popular features, with the staying power of time (amazing within a social media world), have been “groups” and “pages”. Now, almost all of the major networking sites, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, NextDoor, etc., have them for you to join or create.

As such, we are now in a time where these features, and how they work within the platforms, are fairly standard… yet they serve two very distinct purposes.

So what are the Social Media differences regarding Groups & Pages?

Essentially, if you’re looking to establish a brand and promote your business to a large number of people, a Facebook or LinkedIn Page makes the most sense. If you’re a new or small business looking to establish a presence, a group can be of great help, especially if you sell niche products.

Further “Groups” are great for things you are passionate about that you want a sense of community. Pages, on the other hand, are more for broadcasting your message or narrative of your brand. They will both support your big-ideas, blog announcements, daily thoughts, however, the decision on which to have, is largely how you want the interactive & engagement aspects to take place.

So… which is best for you?

Social Media GroupsSocial Media Groups

Groups make it easy to connect with specific sets of people, like teammates or coworkers. Groups are dedicated spaces where you can share updates, photos or documents and message other group members, which makes them great for networking as well as sharing.

Facebook is easily the largest social networking site in the world and one of the most widely used. The general advantage of Facebook is that your message can get to virtually everybody who’s on social media anywhere in the world. The disadvantage is that your message can get to virtually anybody who’s on social media anywhere in the world, so you have to be clear about the purpose is of your group and ensure your description is easy to understand, as well as, create a set of rules and guidelines, so you can moderate the page effectively.

This also goes for the other major business networking site, which is LinkedIn. I personally love LinkedIn and they have a very strong library of groups that you can join. However, with both of these group platforms, if you are not regularly active, you can get lost in the mire of it all.

Social Media Pages

Inherent to the nature of social media, pages are unique in that they are primarily for a business’s brand and are, overall, fantastic for being able to capture a brand’s web presence. However, you are much more likely to get an issue-based engagement directed at your customer service.

Soocial Media PagesPages are great for customer service in that you can see who your directly dealing with — as Facebook has vetted that for the user to be able to speak to you — in other words, the customer has almost immediate access to you and your service-complaint-department, allowing them to feel more in control; one of the key component to an effective customer service department.

There Are Many Social Media Platforms With Groups & Pages

I am not sure of how many platforms have groups and pages, as that number is changing almost monthly. However, most Social Media allow you to create, manage and engage, within a much more specific way via your interests. Some of the top ones are:

      • Facebook
      • LinkedIn
      • NextDoor
      • Twitter
      • Instagram
      • Pinterest
      • Reddit

Social Media Facebook Likes100+ Social Media Demographics that Matter to Marketers in 2021

Hootsuite just released “100+ Social Media Demographics that Matter to Marketers in 2021” where “Understanding social media demographics will help you fine-tune your marketing strategy and reach the right people with your message.” It’s a good read and I highly recommend it!

Anyway, if you need guidance with your marketing, Cortex provides a variety of services that may be a good fit for you. Please reach out at 1-888-502-3523 or schedule a quick chat and I will call you.

Writing Your Social Media Descriptions

Are you a small business owner that is struggling with the all too typical problem of not knowing what to write, how to start, or how to position what you want to say to be compelling and influential? I know you did not get into your business to write about it, however, this is overwhelming for many.

Cortex has you covered; I specialize in creating compelling content & marketing copy when you find it difficult to create it yourself. Let’s have a no-cost, no-obligation quick chat and let me help you get seen, get heard, and get noticed!

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Being Mobile-Ready, Are You Ranking?

Being mobile-ready is crucially important, and as more people are now mobile dominant, finally, Google pulled out all the stops in helping businesses that support the mobile user.

All websites ranked in Google will switch to mobile-first indexing in March 2021.

What does this mean and are you prepared and focusing on being mobile-ready? Your website may not rank well when Google goes mobile-first indexing.

Google has announced that in March 2021, all websites will rank organically based on how the mobile version of your website performs.

With this change, your organic traffic will be directly impacted whether or not your customers use mobile regularly. Where you show up on the Google search engine results page will be impacted by mobile website speed, ease of mobile navigation, and what keywords you rank for on mobile.

When was your website built? Was it designed with a mobile responsive or optimized approach?

Being Mobile Ready in 2021SEO Is Changing Forever Regarding Being Mobile-Ready

There have been several huge SEO changes over the years. We all know about Panda and Penguin, but the big consumer-facing changes may have an even bigger impact — like Google’s Knowledge Graph. Knowledge Graph optimization is simply the process of helping Google understand what your web page is about. This is the future of search, a fact that became evident after the release of Hummingbird.

The biggest change of all, however, has been the mobile revolution.

Google announced its mobile-first index in November 2016 because they were trying to solve a problem.

Being Mobile-Ready Requires Up-To-Date Technology

If your site is older than 3 – 5 years old and/or you’re unsure of its mobile readiness, your website might not be designed responsively or optimized for a mobile-first world.

Essentially, you have until March 2021, giving us a few months of time to develop and implement a plan to protect and increase your traffic.

If you’re looking for increased organic traffic and conversions in the years to come, contact Cortex Marketing today for a free consultation and assessment of your website’s mobile performance.

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Top 5 SEO Mistakes — According To Yoast

Copywriting SEOOverall, this Top 5 SEO Mistakes post by Melina Reintjens, of Yoast SEO, is great on several levels. It not only covers crucial SEO points that are often missed by web-content copywriters, but it also covers the pushing of your message from the perspective & verbiage of the recipient/target — and that is deep inside my wheelhouse!!

See Other SEO Posts and Articles

Copywriting is a crucial element of every SEO strategy. High-quality content is what helps you rank and sets your site apart from all the other sites out there. So, you’ll want to do SEO copywriting the right way. Preferably without making any fatal mistakes. Want to know what not to do when you’re writing SEO copy? Let’s have a look at five mistakes to avoid!

Are you struggling with more aspects of SEO copywriting? Don’t worry! We can teach you to master all facets, so you’ll know how to write awesome copy that ranks. Take a look at our SEO copywriting training and try the free trial lessons!

Top 5 SEO Mistakes #1. Not starting with keyword research

SEO copywriting always starts with keyword research. Now, it may be tempting to skip this time-consuming task and just wing it, but that can seriously harm your chances to rank! You can write tons of awesome content, but if it’s not optimized to rank for realistic search terms that people actually use, it won’t help you one bit. So, always take some time to think about the terms you want to be found for. Take keyword research seriously, it’ll definitely pay off.

Top 5 SEO Mistakes #2. Forgetting about search intent

Before you start writing, as you’re doing your keyword research, it’s also crucial to take a good look at search intent. You need to have a clear idea of the kind of intent that’s behind your keywords. People could be looking for information, a specific website, or they might want to buy something. Why is search intent important for SEO copywriting? Well, for example, if you write a sales-oriented, persuasive copy for a keyword that only has informational intent (rather than transactional) odds are you won’t rank. You simply won’t answer the searcher’s needs. Or, even if you do rank, visitors will likely leave instantly because they’re looking for other types of content. You don’t want that!

The solution: as you’re doing keyword research, analyze the SERPs, so you have an idea of the intent behind the keyphrases you’re targeting. Write your content accordingly, giving some thought to your text purpose, tone of voice, length and call to action, for example.

Top 5 SEO Mistakes #3. Not using synonyms

Search engines these days are incredibly smart: they understand that some words can have the same -or similar- meanings. Use that to your advantage! Don’t stuff your text with contrived occurrences of your exact focus keyphrase. Instead, make sure you use synonyms of your keyphrase. Not only will that help avoid repetition – which makes texts boring and hard to read- but you’ll also increase your chances to rank for related keywords!

In short: don’t make the mistake of neglecting synonyms and related keywords or keyphrases. Did you know that Yoast SEO makes optimizing for synonyms and related keywords a lot easier? The Yoast Premium plugin finds your focus keyphrase, even if the words appear in a different order in the same sentence. In addition, it allows you to optimize your text for synonyms and related focus keyphrases. That makes the plugin (almost) as smart as Google. I guess the real mistake here is not getting Yoast SEO Premium.

Top 5 SEO Mistakes #4. Not thinking about the user’s perspective

Something that often goes wrong in SEO copywriting: content that’s solely written from the site owner’s view, without taking the user into account. No wonder, as it’s very hard to forget everything you know and put yourself in your user’s shoes. Nevertheless, it’s important to try! You’ll soon realize that your user won’t really care about your product-related jargon, or why you think your product is awesome, or your blog post interesting. They want to know what problem of theirs you will solve, or what they will get out of reading your blog post.

Here are two short examples to give you an idea of the difference:

  1. We released Yoast SEO 12.X! It’s full of bug fixes, so we really believe you should update.
  2. The latest version of Yoast SEO, 12.X, is here for you! Time to update, so you’ll get the smoothest experience of the plugin.

Which of the two appeals most to you, as a user? It’s probably the second one, right? Think about that when you’re writing your own SEO copy!

Bottom line: don’t make the mistake of neglecting your visitor’s perspective in your SEO copy. That also includes writing too much ‘I’ or ‘we’ in your content. Make it about your user, not yourself!

Read more: Engaging your online audience: 8 practical tips »

Top 5 SEO Mistakes #5. Writing unreadable texts

A final SEO copywriting mistake that people often make, is that they write posts that are hard to understand. A huge missed opportunity! If you make sure your it’s easy for everyone to understand the message of your text, you’re opening up your content for a wide audience. That’s why writing a clear and readable text is a considerable part of your SEO copywriting strategy. People should be able to understand what you want to tell them. If you create copy that’s easy to comprehend, people will be less inclined to leave your site. They might even want to read your next post.

We know writing is hard. But there are things everyone can pay attention to to write a nice, clear text. Don’t use too many long sentences. Avoid using many difficult words. If you write for more than one region, check if you didn’t make any confusing mixups. Check whether the structure of your text is clear. The Yoast SEO plugin helps you with the readability analysis, which includes the Flesch reading ease score. And there are other tools out there to help you write texts that are nice to read, such as Hemingway. So, there are no more excuses not to write a lovely, readable text!

Conclusion on SEO copywriting mistakes

SEO copywriting mistakes are made when people focus too little on the quality of their texts and skimp on preparation. But your rankings will soon pay the price… So make sure each text has an original idea, a story, that’s well-thought-out, factoring in the site’s visitors. And, your copy should be nice and easy to read. It’s a lot of work, but Yoast SEO can help you get on track! And, if your copywriting is starting to look good, you can check for other common SEO mistakes!

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How Digital Marketing Trends Can Help Your Business

If you are looking for a way to scale up your marketing to have an edge, digital marketing trends help you understand what you don’t want to leave out of some digital marketing tactics. As more consumers continue to make their journeys online to make purchases, knowing how best to utilize the digital marketing strategies available could prove to be most potent at making the best out of the growing digital marketing opportunity. According to the folks at Serpwatch, 48% of consumers start their mobile research with a search engine.

To further highlight the rate of adoption of digital marketing trends, 64% of consumers say that watching a marketing video has influenced their purchase decision in the last month.

The main goal in digital marketing trends is basically a particular form of user action which could be to register on your website or buy a product.

However, owning a small business limits your reach to the area in which the business exists and those who become acquainted with the brand via word of mouth. Exploring digital marketing trends, on the other hand, increases reach. Companies that blog receive 97% more links to their website. 

Digital marketing trends can offer your business some benefits. Here are some of them.

  1. Monitoring of efforts: When carrying out digital marketing, you are able to track your efforts to find out exactly how effective your campaigns are across all media from the very moment a user visits your website, down to when they leave, and even further. By tracking your digital marketing campaigns, you get to see which trends are working and which are not so that you can tailor your campaigns to greater success. This is a clear plus over offline advertising media.
  2. Increase revenue: Within a few months or weeks, it is okay to say that your revenue would increase. However, you must consider every factor so that you stay right on track.
  3. Have a level playing ground: Often, it is difficult for small businesses to compete with their bigger counterparts. Digital marketing eliminates this barrier and places your business in a position to compete online, both nationally and internationally.
  4. Target your ideal prospects: With digital marketing trends, you can be sure that the right prospects are viewing your content. SEO offers you the opportunity to reach prospects who are searching the web for content related to your business. Digital marketing trends allow you to target consumers who are likely to be interested in your content.
  5. Cost-effectiveness: Another plus for digital marketing trends is that they provide an inexpensive marketing stretch that can be adopted by any start-up or existing business. Here, companies of all sizes can take up affordable options for marketing and advertising their businesses. This can often result in a higher return on investment.

Final note

Digital marketing trends presents itself as essential requirements for any business that wants to do very well for itself. If you are not taking advantage of the myriad of opportunities presented by digital marketing trends, you are cheating yourself out of the chance to grow your business online.

7 Trends You Must Know For a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign

Bottom line, digital marketing trends help you focus on a successful online presence, however, the first steps to good SEO, is having a conversation. Contact us today to discover how your business could do better online. Phone chats are always free at 1-888-502-3523 or set up a meeting via our online calendar.

Josh Wardini SkydivingIf you would like to support the author of this blog, you can visit Josh Wardini on his LinkedIn page, or visit his site. Josh is a long-time digital marketer with a focus on SEO. A Python enthusiast scratching the surface of deep learning, machine learning and narrow AI.  Based in Portland, Oregon 3 months per year, inspired by Anthony Bourdain to stay in transit the remainder.

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