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How Does Houston Based Programmatic Marketing Work? Pt2

October 17, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

What Is Programmatic Marketing? – Part 2

Using programmatic marketing means you’re able to arrange the targeting of people to a much greater extent. You’re buying experience will be more flexible and easier. The opportunities will be improved as well. The programmatic technology allows you to accumulate customer data that helps you identify what the individual wants, allowing you to target them on specific sites that they are more likely to engage with and also at times they are the most likely to engage with the content. You may be starting to understand the effect of adblockers on programmatic advertising as your audience becomes aware of how their personal data is being used and they are seeing those ads stalk them everywhere they go on the internet. This has caused more users to take advantage of adblockers over the last couple of years. The exact reasons each individual uses these vary based on their personal concerns as well as the country they live in. Because more people have a greater concern about data security it is making marketers evolve in the way that they use advertising. In fact, some site publishers disallow access to viewers who use adblockers. Another approach, however, is to restrict how many retargeting ads show which will help users feel as though they’re not being stalked as much. This might be an effective way to get the users trust and make the experience less negative.

Global Programmatic Ads

One of the big reasons why data on customers is so highly valued is its effectiveness and this is why programmatic advertising is experiencing rapid growth. In fact, it is believed that this type of advertising will represent the majority of AD spend from now. In recent years, advertisers have spent over 3.4 billion dollars on programmatic training. It is almost 24% above what was previously spent. In the UK, this type of ad spend represents almost 80% of total spending on ads. Programmatic ads are the most popular in North America according to the World Federation of Advertisers and it represents almost 1/3 of all digital budgets currently being spent. The least keen on this type of ad spend are the Chinese and those in Latin America. These areas spend about one-fifth of their digital ad spend on programmatic ads.

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How Does Houston Based Programmatic Marketing Work? Pt1

October 12, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

What Is Programmatic Marketing? – Part 1

Programmatic marketing has been dabbed as the future of digital advertising. Therefore, what is programmatic marketing? What opportunities does it offer? Well, programmatic marketing is the future of advertising online. Google plans to use 60% of digital advertising revenue on programmatic by next year. Programmatic advertising will be included or contained in all digital platforms going over the next few years. This is according to Forrester. According to leading experts, the one thing that is standing in the way of this change is marketer’s lack of knowledge of the process. Furthermore, a majority of them are reluctant to give up previous ways of purchasing Ads, in favor of a complex and yet effective way. The truth is that a little knowledge will go a long way, and it is wise to get yourself introduced to the new concept known as programmatic marketing, which would be useful to digital marketers. Therefore, the million-dollar question is, what is programmatic digital marketing? What opportunities does it offer? And finally, what benefits does it offer? Well, if you are looking for these answers, then you should continue reading.

What Is Houston Programmatic Digital Marketing?

Programmatic marketing can be defined as mechanized bidding on promotion inventory as it occurs. Generally, it is a technique that will help show ads to specific customers, in certain specific content. Programmatic marketing is a general term, and therefore, they are generally categorized depending on if they involve real-time bidding or not. However, often it is considered to be real-time transaction bid. Since it generally involves millisecond actions when the page is lording, through algorithms, a programmatic marketing can seem a baffling concept at first. However, when you look at it in another light, it is very simple.

The Future Of Programmatic Marketing In Houston

According to Magna Global Programmatic Intelligence, programmatic marketing will take a learning curve that will take from 2014 to 2019. However, it has been estimated that by 2019, almost ½ of all advertising (which is much less compared to Forrester’s estimation), will be in programmatic. However, both agree that there will be a significant growth.

How Does Houston Programmatic Marketing Work?

The moment a person clicks on a web page with advertising space and designed for programmatic digital marketing, the publisher displays an advertisement impression for sale in an advertisement marketplace. The advertisement marketplace will then run an action among advertisers interested in displaying an ad specific to customers clicking the page. There could be many promoters challenging for the auction, and whoever wins the bid will then place the ad to the customer when a page is loading. Because the process is automated, and the maximum cost each advertiser is willing to bid for the impression, the action can be completed within seconds that it takes the page to load.

The Advantages Of Programmatic Marketing In Houston

The truth that programmatic marketing opens serious opportunities, that may not be possible if done manually. This marketing method gives advertisers the power to display ads without actually having to pre-negotiate the price and hence paid for what is relevant. At the same time, they can sign up for a minimum number of budget or impression, which makes it more flexible. Furthermore, they can buy digital media across publishers, which reduces administration costs.

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Houston SEO Pros Tell All – Keywords

October 12, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

Your First SEO Campaign: How Many Keywords?

At Houston SEO Pros we Picking out your targeted keywords is one of the earliest and most important steps you need to take in any Houston SEO strategy. The importance of smart keyword selection cannot be overstated; your campaign will never deliver the results you’re looking for if you pick the wrong keywords. Right along with identifying the most effective keywords, you need to decide how many of them you’ll actively work on.

You may be tempted to pour all your efforts into a solitary keyword. Resist that temptation! Even with the most modest of budgets, you can get better results out of a multi-keyword campaign. Any one keyword that’s popular enough to drive significant traffic to your site is likely to be highly competitive. In practical terms, it’s impossible to turn your site into a high-ranking performer for the single most effective keyword in your niche. Targeting one of the less popular keywords exclusively is also problematic. You might get great ranking results, but the keyword won’t send enough traffic your way by itself.

The next temptation that arises will be to target every keyword you can think of. The pitfalls here are not hard to see. If you spread your attention too thin, you risk shortchanging all of your keywords and wasting all your hard work. Producing only modest ranking improvements for lots of different keywords will result in an SEO campaign that has a minimal positive impact on your site.

It is best to divide your attention among a strictly limited set of keywords. This is especially important when your site is relatively new. Keeping your keyword list short allows you to give each search term an effective portion of your resources.

There is no single rule dictating how many keywords are right for your SEO campaign. The specific circumstances of your site and your niche have to play a role. As a first attempt, try targeting about five keywords. Make them fairly significant ones; confirm that each keyword is being used in at least 100 searches a month.

Five keywords might not sound like a lot. If you do your optimization well, though, you’ll be surprised by what a difference you can make. For one thing, very strong performance on one keyword will also improve your site’s ranking for slight variations.

If you make one of your keywords “mortgage tips,” for example, your optimization work will also improve your ranking for related keywords like “tips for getting a mortgage” and “tips on mortgages.” As long as your Houston SEO strategy involves producing quality content, you’ll see a “halo” effect as it also captures search traffic for related longtail phrases.

To extend the mortgage example, you might publish an article on your site that includes the phrase “where is the best place to get mortgage tips.” Though this phrase is too low-traffic to target directly, including it will improve your site’s ranking on the rare occasions a search engine user enters it. Remember, most keyword research tools don’t deliver solid tracking data on very long keyword phrases like this.

While longtail keywords don’t individually generate a lot of search traffic, when you consider them as a single class, they make a surprising contribution. By some estimates, up to 40 percent of searches are executed on longer phrases (those of at least four words). A site with diverse content that hits a lot of different longtail keyword buttons can pull in a lot of traffic even if no one phrase is particularly common.

Even if you follow the advice provided above and start with just five keywords, you’ll probably see your site rank well on several other phrases. Watch for developing patterns. Some of the largest volumes of traffic coming to your site through the search engines can come from phrases that fall outside your SEO targets. Many users will arrive at your site by searching for longer phrases that you’ve used organically in your content.

Besides being welcome in the general sense of “all traffic is good traffic,” these longtail hits have an additional benefit. Longtail searches often deliver more conversions than shorter phrases. People who have narrowed down their search for information to very specific terms are more likely to be closer to making a meaningful decision.

After you have an effective Houston SEO strategy in place and see some gains on the first five keywords you’ve targeted, it’s time to consider adding new keywords. One further benefit to keeping your target list small is that it accelerates the pace at which you see your results. Once your optimization efforts are live, you’ll have plenty of search performance data to examine with tools like Google Analytics. More experience will help you identify the most promising keywords to move onto next.

Call us or contact us today for your free consultation. Visit our blog for more related articles on how to execute the best SEO in Houston!

Don’t Fall Into A Hole When Executing SEO In Houston

September 24, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

Avoid A Houston SEO Disaster While Updating Your Website

If your competition has a great website. You may find that yours does not look that great. You could have some outdated content even. This means it is time to do an upgrade. Wait a second! No matter how good your site looks, you will find that your site has a great SEO equity. When you developed your site you will have normally taken into account some SEO work and that is one aspect of your site that can continue to work. What happens to everything that you have worked on if you do an update? Well, simply you could lose it all. Does this mean not updating is best? No. In fact, you will find that when you do an update you will be able to make changes more along the lines of what you are looking for.

You Should Check Out These Tips To Help Avoid Disaster

Make A Plan

You will want to make sure you look at a plan that can help you before you do anything. Why? Well, once you start to update the content and the structure of the site it will impact how Google is going to see your website. Make the goals attainable. You do not want to just settle for keeping your same rankings. You should make it a goal to do better than what you were.

Look For Information

You should use a crawler that is going to help you get an accurate date on the URL’s of each of your site, you can often use Screaming Frog or SEO Spider Tool. The report you get will give you information on what you should change, but also what is going to be a good building block. Some issues will be:

Links that are broken.
Duplicated titles on pages.
Metadata that is incomplete.
Content that is duplicated.

Get A Rank Report

This is going to be where you will check the search engines like Google and Bing to find out how well your site actually ranks for certain keywords. When you do a rank report, you should check to see which words you rank highly for and which ones you will need to do to improve on your rankings.

Get Current Data On The Site

What do you do now? You will want to look at the crawl reports and analyze how you are ranking for each page you have. Then you will want to look at the search engine marketing tactics you have employed in the past. You will want to look to see why some of the pages are doing better than others. You will want to look at the issues that are being pointed out to make sure they do not go on to the new pages.

Use 301 Redirects

Once you have removed a page during an update, does not mean they are going to be deindexed. As you are going to go about redoing your content you can avoid losing your standings in SEO terms by using a 301 redirect on the pages you removed. You will notice that the 301 will send the user to the page you need them to be at right away. You do lose some of the equity you are going to work on, but you will find that 90% of the rank power will go to the new page. So that is still rather powerful. You will want to make sure you plan and analyze the data, but also test the 301 redirects as they do take time. If you do not have the time to do this, then you may want to look at hiring an SEO professional to help you out.

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Beware Of SEO Poaches In Houston

September 21, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

What Are Houston SEO Poachers?

Sooner or later an SEO poacher will probably contact you, and these are con artists you want to avoid. SEO, short for search engine optimization, poachers could care less about your rankings, nor do they care about building a meaningful business relationship with you. Money is what they care about.

Do you know how to protect yourself from SEO poachers? You need to learn how to do this and how to spot them. With that said, if you want to find out more, then read on.

What Is An SEO Poacher In Houston?

If you want to hire an SEO company, then you need to hire one that will work with your goals in mind. A poacher uses shady SEO tactics and they steal clients from companies that have built a reputation. Poachers have no interest or intentions to help you succeed with SEO, and the only thing they are knowledgeable about is scamming people.

If you decide to stop using a reputable SEO company and go with a poacher, then you’re asking for problems. For starters, you’ll be putting yourself at risk of being hit with penalties from Google. If this happens, you’ll have to work hard for the next few weeks or months to get your rankings back. Let’s not forget your reputation will take a hit.

Spotting A Poacher

Do you know how to spot an SEO poacher? There are a number of red flags to look for. These red flags include:

Unsolicited Emails- These types of emails typically start off by saying someone referred them to you. They don’t mention who that someone is.
Errors Are Listed- The poacher claims there are SEO errors on your site. The chances are no errors exist and they are blatantly lying to you.
Emotional Appeal- An emotional appeal may be given to you. This may come off as the world will end if certain issues are not addressed. Some emails may claim you are missing out on a chance of achieving huge success if you don’t take specific action right now.
Blaming- The writer might blame your current SEO company for not taking care of certain issues. They will hint that your SEO provider isn’t doing a good job.
Guaranteed Results- The poacher may say they can give you guaranteed results. The truth is that nobody can provide guarantees like this, especially in regards to first page rankings for highly competitive keywords.
The Hook- The poacher eventually tells you to join them, and then they will tell you they will help you get results right away.

For more information, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Call us today!

Creating The Perfect Landing Page With A PPC Specialist In Houston

September 21, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

A Guide To Ensure You Design A Perfect Landing Page – SEO Houston Pros

The landing page of a website is one of the most important web pages on your website. They work very well when accompanied by a pay-per-click campaign. In order to ensure the best results, you want to ensure that all of the essential elements are included when you design your landing page. Since Google no longer provides information on keywords to webmasters, landing pages are now used to measure how well a website is performing. Like many SEO firms, we track our client’s landing pages using Google Analytics. This data provides us with information including the keywords that were used in a web search, how visitors come to a website and the links that are most often clicked.

In order to ensure your landing site is successful, you must include the following essential elements. Let’s take a look at each element and how a search engine optimization specialist incorporates them into a website to help ensure the success of a website.

A Clear Purpose – Webmasters must determine the purpose of a landing page. You must determine what you want your landing page to accomplish in order to determine the effectiveness of the landing page.
Creating Clear Call to Actions – The call to action must be tied to your website’s purpose and must support all of the other content found on your landing page.
Keep Your Landing Page Simple – The design, layout, and content should be simple and free from distractions. You should avoid including links to other content and information that can distract your visitors.
Edit Your Content – The content found on your landing page should be concise, yet persuasive. You need to understand that just because a visitor comes to your website, it does not mean that they will stay there. You must provide the information that they are looking for to keep them on your website and interested.
Earn Your Visitors’ Trust – One of the quickest ways to run off a visitor is to request too much information. One way to prevent this is to request a minimal amount of information when your visitor decides to sign up for your newsletter. For example, ask for your visitors’ first name and email address. If you are selling products on your site, simply ask for the vital information like billing and shipping information to process the order.

Creating the Perfect Design for Your Landing Page

Although a landing page contains valuable information, there is no proven method for the design and content of a landing page. Remember creating an effective landing page is different than designing the perfect newsletter or website.

The landing page should be used to direct attention to your call to action. When it comes to landing pages, less is more. When creating your landing page, the only clickable link should be your call to action. You may also want to include a link to your Home page at the bottom of the landing page in case more information is needed.

Your call to action should be placed before the fold. Before the fold refers to the area of the webpage that is visible when the website loads. This prevents your visitor from needing to scroll the page to find your call to action. You may also want to include a call to action elsewhere on the page especially if your landing page is long.

Avoid using too many images. Landing pages should only contain a couple of relevant images or one video. Any more than this can distract your visitors or cause your landing page to load slowly which can frustrate your visitors.

Single column centered landing pages should be used because they convert the best across all devices. Make sure that your design keeps your call to action as your focal point on your landing page. Try to keep the color scheme of your website similar to your company’s logo and color scheme.

You can avoid many of the common flaws that happen on landing pages by following the information listed above. Following this advice will help you to avoid many of the pitfalls that surround landing page design.

When it comes to using Google Analytics, you must remember that the most effective layout and design of a landing page often take time and several changes. What works for one website, may not work well for another website. The design of a website and its landing page will depend on the type of business as well as the type of visitors that typically visit a website. Therefore, it is recommended that different designs be tested to determine which design works best for your business.

Most people think that a website only needs one landing page; however, having more than one landing page can increase traffic to your website. And, the more traffic that you have, the more likely you are to make a sale or boost your company’s popularity. The best way to do this is to create a landing page for each service or product that your company offers. Then, write blog posts and content about these services or products and post them to your Google+ page, your Facebook and Twitter accounts. In addition, send out newsletters to increase interest and sales. The key to a successful website is to create relevant data that your visitors want to read and link the content to your landing page.

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Optimizing Your Houston Website With SEO & Keywords

September 21, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

Using Keywords & Houston SEO To Create Cornerstone Content

Having a keyword strategy is a crucial part of search engine optimization. Keywords contain phrases and words your prospective market are searching for. Keywords help people find a business like yours.

Keywords are a bridge that links people to your services or products. The right keywords combined with high-quality content can make all the difference in the world. In fact, it can help land your company on the first page of Google.

Building A Keyword Strategy By Creating Content

When it comes to creating a keyword strategy, it’s easier said than done. Keywords you use should do three things. They should interest your customers, help you rank in the search engine results pages and reflect the message your brand wants to convey.

If your keywords are obscured, then not many people will find you. They also have to be somewhat popular, otherwise, you’ll be buried by your competitors. Above all else, your keywords have to be relevant to your content, which should clearly highlight what you are providing and what you want to rank in the results pages.

Choosing Keywords

You have to choose the right industry related keywords. Think about what you want to accomplish when creating pages or articles. The key things to consider are:

Broad and generic keywords that relate to your industry, such as the word contractor or architect.
Keywords that relate to your service or product, which are specific words such as the kind of work you offer or the areas you specialize in.
Keywords that promote your company or brand. Think of using the name of your company and key staff members who have won awards or the name of your company and projects it has completed.
Use customer relevant keywords that focus on attracting buyers, such as taxes, school districts and the affordability of the regions you work in.
Location specific keywords are designed to target those who want to build or need a local business that offers what you offer.

There is a lot of thinking that goes into creating content, keywords, and Houston SEO. However, it is worth the work because nothing beats a first-page listing on Google. If you want to get there, then your keywords have to be focused and industry-related keywords need to be used.

You only want to create and implement a keyword strategy that is relevant and actually works in your industry. Also, realize that what works for one industry will not always work for a completely different industry. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the opposite.

Do you want to learn more about creating keyword strategies that work? Of course, you do, which is why you should contact us today. We will be more than happy to help you choose keywords that can be used to create quality and cornerstone content that stands a good chance of ranking on the first page of Google.

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Does My Website Need SSL?

August 30, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

Houston SEO: HTTPS SSL

Beginning in 2018 some web browsers like Firefox and Google began to signal that any website with HTTP is not secure and this resulted in many visitors choosing not to frequent those sites. This made it necessary for any serious business to get an SSL certification which gives them the extension of HTTPS. More than half of the sites on the first page of search results in the search engines have an HTTPS protocol. Most experts believe that this trend will continue to rise meaning that anyone who fails to make their site secure will not rank.

Does My Business Website Really Need HTTPS SSL?

In as early as August 2017 as much as one-third of all sites on the first page of search results were secure that means they had an HTTPS SSL. In less than a year from then, that number jumped up to a full one-half of the results that had HTTPS protocol. As more and more serious business owners change over their site to one that is secure this trend will continue to increase until anyone without it simply won’t rank. That is why Houston SEO experts always suggest getting an HTTPS SSL for better website SEO performance. Now when a searcher goes to a site and sees that it is not secure they will often leave the site before they have a chance to check out the sites services or products or content. Any marketing professional knows that it’s their job to prevent that from happening and to convert those viewers to customers and this means it’s necessary to secure the site with HTTPS protocol.

Will The Rates For Converting A Site To HTTPS Continue Rise?

Houston SEO expert estimates that secure websites will represent about 2/3rds of the search results on Google by the year 2023. A website will want to do everything possible to make sure they are not one of those that are in the minority. Current conversion rates have shown a 20% growth since the spring of 2017 and some experts believe that Google will continue to favor HTTPS sites over others in their algorithm although this is not certain. Even so, it is better to do it and be safe. To date, Firefox and Chrome are not penalizing HTTP sites but they are giving warnings to visitors that the site is not secure. Although most consumers consider this to be a good thing it is less so for businesses who haven’t secured their site.

How Can I Make My Website Secure With HTTPS Protocol?

It’s really pretty easy to secure your site and all it takes is purchasing and then installing an SSL certificate. For those who are not technically inclined, however, the installation can be a bit tricky. It requires understanding your server configuration and encryption and this means that most business owners will need some assistance for installation. Vladislav Denishev has a guide on exactly how to do this and you can check it out to learn more.

All New Websites Should Have An SSL Certificate

If you’re just getting a new website you should absolutely set it up from the beginning with HTTPS protocol. Setting it up as a secure site from the beginning will save you time and effort. Having an SSL certificate installed is pretty cheap and in some cases, it can be free. If you work for a company and are in charge of this, you should speak to your boss about allowing you to have it done.

Getting An SSL Certificate For An Existing Website To Improve SEO

It is important to know that if you are changing an existing site to one that is secure, it needs to be done with caution. Anytime you make changes sitewide it can cause some unforeseeable problems. Fortunately, it will often be very doable and relatively simple by using the control panel, provided that your host company supplies the SSL certificates. In the end, the extra effort will be worth it as your site is highly likely to get more traffic and better rankings.

Houston SEO Expert

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How To Respond To Google Reviews

August 28, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

Responding To Google Reviews

How to respond to Google reviews is one of the most popular and commonly asked questions by business owners. Reviews that customers leave for your business on Google can dramatically affect whether they choose to use your services or your pick your competitor instead. Positive reviews make it easier to obtain new customers or clients because it gives you immediate credibility. When people have great things to say about their overall experience with your company, potential customers/clients are more inclined to pick you. They also help your business appear higher in the search results, allowing you to capture a larger percentage of the people who are searching for the products or services that you offer. Responding to Google Reviews is an important step that many business owners neglect. However, it can make a real difference in how your company is perceived online. This process is about more than just hitting the ‘Reply’ button and typing in whatever comes to mind. You need to have a well-planned strategy in place to address both positive and negative reviews. Responding in the right way can make a big difference in your online reputation. Responding to Google reviews the right way is important for your business and online reputation as well as your local SEO, so keep reading this blog for more insight on how to do it the right way.

1. How To Find Google Business Reviews

The first step according to our SEO Houston Experts is to check whether or not you have any reviews to reply to. Accessing Google Reviews for your business is a relatively straightforward process. Here are the steps that you need to follow:

Visit business.google.com and log into your My Business account.
Click on the menu and choose the option that says ‘All Locations’
Next, to each of your business locations, there is a link that says ‘Manage Location’. Click on the link for the business that you want to manage.
Click on the ‘Reviews’ link on the following page. Then, click on the area where it says “Manage Reviews’.

That’s all there is to it. Once you are logged in and have navigated to the right place, all that is left to do is to begin evaluating your reviews.

2. Check All Of Your Google Reviews

SEO Houston experts want you to set aside time to read through all of your reviews, classifying each one as positive or negative. Chances are, most of the reviews will be positive. There may be a few, however, that are negative. Read the negative reviews closely, looking for any discrepancies or oddities that could indicate that they are fake. In today’s cutthroat business world, there are people out there who are willing to pay people to leave negative reviews for their competitors. There are also people out there who write negative reviews for fun. Identifying fake reviews is important. If you spot any that you know for a fact are fake, flag them. After that, you should have a combination of both positive and negative reviews left to respond to. In some cases, there may also be neutral reviews that are neither positive or negative. Determining how to respond to each review is an important part of maintaining your company’s reputation. Keep reading for some helpful tips on how to respond to Google reviews appropriately and addressing each situation.

3. Positive Review Responses

As long as you have been doing everything right with your business, you probably have a lot of positive reviews. Keep in mind, however, that you can’t just let these reviews sit unacknowledged. Instead, you need to go above and beyond to let the people who left the reviews know how much you appreciate their effort. Someone took the time out of their busy day to say something nice about your business. The last thing that you should do is ignore their comment. Instead, follow these steps:

Reply to positive reviews within a reasonable amount of time after they are left
Let the customer know how much you appreciate them leaving a good review
Speak from the heart – your authenticity will shine through

4. Responding To A Negative Review

Unfortunately, not all reviews are positive. Every business gets negative reviews at one point or another. These reviews can be difficult to read and can trigger a variety of emotional responses. No matter how they make you feel, however, you should never ignore them. Instead, you need to respond to the person who left the review to let them know that you take their concerns seriously. By responding, you can address any areas where your business fell short and can tell your side of the story. You also may be able to salvage your relationship with that particular customer. Here are the steps you should follow:

Let them know that you hear their concerns and that you are aware of the problem
If it was your fault, claim full responsibility for whatever happened and issue a heartfelt apology
Explain what went wrong
If necessary, offer compensation

SEO Houston Experts

Reputation management on the Internet takes a lot of work and presents some unique challenges. However, it is an incredibly positive way to control how people see your business. Most people rely on reviews when deciding which companies they want to do business with. By responding thoughtfully to all of the positive and negative reviews that your company receives, you can have a say in how people perceive your business. If you are looking for help with your Google reviews and SEO services then make sure to contact our SEO Houston experts by calling us at (888) 439-4224.

What Is A Local Citation

August 28, 2018 By SEO Houston Pros Leave a Comment

The Role Of Local Citations In SEO

According to top-rated Houston SEO experts, local citations are items that mention your company on the internet. It is a piece of information combining the company’s name, address, phone number, postal code, and website address. Citations in search engine optimization (SEO) are a core element to improve your ranking in local search engine results or local SEO. A local citation is available in different forms, including the following:

• Business name
• Business name and telephone number
• Business name, telephone number, and physical address
• Business name, telephone number, physical address, and website
• Business name and website
• Business telephone number

A full local citation should include the business name, the physical address, and the telephone number which is referred to as the “NAP.” Local citations do not always include all three of these items, and a citation that does not include all three items is known as a partial citation. You will hear Houston SEO consultants discuss an NAPW or a UNAP citation. Here the W refers to the company’s website, and the U refers to the company’s URL. The website link obtained from citations is valuable because it provides additional data to search engines; thereby, connecting the search engine to your company and allowing people to include it in the acronym. For assistance regarding your local search engine optimization and citations, contact the #1 Houston SEO Experts for help.

Types Of Local Citations

1. The Structured Citation

Structured citations include your company’s information (NAP) on a business listing directory. When you view lists of citation websites, these are almost always business listing directories where you are able to submit your company and receive a citation. Example websites for structured citations include the following:

• Yelp
• Facebook
• Yellowpages
• MapQuest
• Superpages

2. The Unstructured Citation

Typically, the unstructured citation is one where your company’s information (NAP) is found on websites that are not specifically business listing directories. For instance, you can discover unstructured citations on magazine or newspaper websites, blogs, wiki pages, and more like this.

Local Search Rankings & The Importance Of Citations

A citation can help search engines, such as Bing and Google, verify your company exists. When multiple reputable sources present with the same information about your company, it indicates to the search engines that your business is a legitimate one. By listing the company on prominent local and national websites, the company creates authority, establishes trust, and improves the ability to rank in local search engine results. Local ranking algorithms utilized by search engines regarding citations influence the local search rankings. For example, currently, local search specialists rate citation-related factors as influencing approximately 13% of the top 50 websites appearing in search engine results. The more websites on which your company information appears, the more prominent your business appears to search engines; it makes sense. If the algorithm sees the business information on many websites, as compared to those who appear on fewer websites, this will make you seem like a more popular company and offer you a boost in the rankings!

Houston SEO Executives

Providing a strong citation profile is one of the easiest means of optimizing for local SEO. Citations are considered part of the foundational basics for local search; thereby, by completing citations you can move along to other areas, such as engagement, link building, reputation management, and content creation. You should not need to worry about the citation profile again unless your information changes (such as moving locations, changing your telephone number, or altering your website domain). After reading this article, the most important key point to take with you is that business websites need local citations to improve their overall rankings on local search or local SEO. Houston SEO professionals are here to help you with your local SEO, all you have to do is call us today at (888) 439-4224. Visit our Houston SEO blog for more related content.