Proliferation

Mar 21
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The Worst Websites for Mobile

By | Mobile marketing, SEO | No Comments

In 2016, mobile is continuing on its path to take over the Internet, from mobile holiday shopping to checking the latest Utah-area news. In an effort to boost search engine optimization — also known as SEO — and stay in the good graces of Google, most reputable websites work hard to make their websites mobile-friendly.

That said, not every website does a good job of optimizing for mobile. While some websites just don’t really seem to grasp the concept of mobile, others appear to be actively working to intrude upon consumers’ mobile experience as much as humanly possible.

Some of the worst offenders are the websites of local news stations in Utah and throughout the country. Local news websites are often littered with photos, advertisements and clickbait news stories. Some small-town news websites in Utah will inundate the viewer with pop-up information, or even highjack the viewer’s ability to scroll—resulting in a cluttered, jumpy mess of a mobile site. Not exactly great for SEO.

Other websites that offer a mobile app — such as YouTube — will upon entering the mobile version of the website present the viewer with an obnoxiously large plug for the app version. Such pop-up ads often have a very small ‘x’ in the corner that is rather difficult to hit just right on a tiny phone screen.

In these cases, the viewer is often unable to exit out of the advertisement on the first try, and instead gets redirected to an app he or she had no intention of downloading in the first place. Luckily, Google has recently released SEO penalties for sites that do this; however many mobile sites are still guilty of this infuriating practice.

Other mobile sites are simply not optimized for mobile. High school and university websites are notorious for this; it’s nearly impossible to use a university’s website on mobile, even the more reputable ones. In 2016, that’s simply unacceptable; if mobile is the next big thing, webmasters need to get with the program — just say no to unoptimized mobile websites.

Mar 15
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How to Grow Your Small SEO Agency to the National Level

By | content marketing, SEO | No Comments

For agencies specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), life is all about getting the client’s website to the top of a search engine’s results pages (SERPs). Yet while the goal of any small SEO agency in Utah or elsewhere is to bring to the client Internet fame and fortune, what about the SEO agency itself?

Most SEO agencies start out small; they may employ only a handful of professionals. Yet even the smallest of SEO agencies has the potential to grow into a regional, national or even multi-national force. Here’s how.

Start with Referrals

For the infant SEO startup, the best way to get those first few influential clients is through referrals. In the beginning, referral clients may not be your biggest clients, but they are without a doubt the most important. Gain both clients and a professional reputation going forward by treating your first clients really, really well.

Use Content Marketing

In the current era of the Internet, content marketing and SEO go hand in hand. Today’s search engines only care about keywords and backlinks so much; the real driver of search engine results is high-quality content. And lots of it.

Not only should a good SEO agency provide content marketing for its clients, it should also use content marketing to promote the agency itself.

Blog Well, and Blog Often

The quintessential aspect of content marketing is blogging. You should blog about everything from SEO to content marketing (meta, I know) and social media marketing. By blogging well and often, you aim to establish your agency as a thought leader in the industry.

Get Out There

Once you’ve established your agency as an industry leader of sorts, the conference invitations will come rolling in. Go to conferences everywhere, from Utah to the East Coast. Speaking at conferences only serves to further solidify your place as a leader in the SEO industry — so put yourself out there.

Get Specific

Once your agency is really beginning to thrive in the SEO community, you can start making bigger moves. The best way to bring your agency up to the national level is to specialize in one very specific industry in particular.

Don’t just do SEO in general, do SEO for rodeo services or office suppliers in Utah, for instance. Pick a niche market, and then dominate it. By going niche, you become the sole resource for that market — and that’s truly powerful.

Capture the Niche Market — and then Go from There

Once you’ve captured your niche market, the only way to go is up. From being the lead SEO agency for one particular market in Utah to the go-to agency for that market at the national level, the best way to get there is to go niche.

So what are you waiting for? Get started on your SEO empire today.

Mar 14
0

Negative SEO Might Just Be Black Hat Tactics, But We’re Not Fooled

By | content marketing, SEO | No Comments

Black hat SEO is slowly (and thankfully) becoming a thing of the past; however, its replacement is just as threatening. A new, more cunning type of search engine optimization has emerged in the shoes of black hat tactics: negative SEO. As with all things search engine-related, it doesn’t matter if you’re geo-targeting specific keywords in Utah or running a full-fledged campaign across the Midwest — negative SEO can affect the rankings of any business or retailer.

Negative SEO Is Black Hat SEO 2.0
Negative search engine optimization is basically just an updated version of black hat SEO; in a nutshell, it’s a series of unethical tactics that can be used by almost anyone (with the appropriate skill set) to successfully sabotage a competitor’s search rankings. Negative search engine optimization can be aimed at local competitors from Utah to the East Coast — it makes no difference to negative SEO.

Some of the tactics employed during a negative search engine optimization attack can include website hacking, the generation of a large quantity of inbound spam links to a website, content duplication and distribution and the creation of false social media profiles with the intention of destroying a company’s online reputation. A business on the West Coast can use any of the above tactics to target a competitor across the nation — whether they’re located in Utah or on the East Coast — to negatively affect their rankings and online reputation.

How to Treat Negative SEO Bullying
All of the above-listed tactics sound like an intense dosage of SEO-bullying; however, how successful are these tactics? Are they tangible enough to be considered an actual threat? Absolutely. And to make matters worse, negative SEO is cheap — it can cost as little as five bucks for someone to initiate a series of negative search engine optimization tactics. Your best bet? Invest in the necessary tools to prevent an attack from happening in the first place.