​ Is your company's website out of date? Does it function they way you want and need it to, or is it failing to bring in traffic or actually turning away customers because of its poor set up or lack of compatibility with current tech? How can you tell when an updated website is no longer a wish-list item, but a necessary one? The following are indicators that it's past time for a change: Outdated content - If you have old coupons, sales, news, or blogs that are never updated, it gives the same i...

The hashtag has become a mini phenomenon due to the internet and social media. In fact, some people say that you can correctly differentiate between older and younger generations by showing them its symbol (#) and asking them what it is. Supposedly, Boomers and Generation Xers will call it a pound sign and Millennials and the younger crowd will call it a hashtag. Recently the Oxford English Dictionary even added the term hashtag, although they made a point of including what the technical term fo...

If you've been following this blog for awhile, you'll know that SEO has changed quite a bit in the past three years, and small to medium-sized businesses that want to make sure their companies show up in Google searches have had to navigate the changing criteria by which Google has determined what shows up in searches. We've known since last fall that Google intended to utilize RankBrain , its machine-learning artificial intelligence system as a big part of that, only behind inbound linking and ...

​ Previously we've discussed link building and how Google's algorithm rewards or penalizes different types. To review, Google wants to create an internet full of interesting and original content accessed organically. Essentially, it wants to mimic the way people socialize in real life - which means directing traffic to items of general interest and not to advertising or marketing (which most people recognize and either click out of or delete). We've focused on external links before. External lin...

​ A truly effective blog post will engage the audience and either educate, entertain, or otherwise enlighten. Remember, not everyone who reads the post has to be educated or entertained. On a company blog, you're trying to appeal to a specific audience - either your customers or people who might search for the terms or keywords you use in your pieces. Lure them in with your content, and then introduce them to what your company has to offer. A web post should: Be at least 400 words long. SEO copy...