TOP SEO COMPANIES AND AGENCIES IN CHICAGO 2020

Use Meta Descriptions To Boost SEO

Meta descriptions are snippets of text (no more than 158 characters) that appear under a link in Google’s organic search engine results.

Although meta descriptions have no direct impact on rankings, they are extremely useful in getting people to click on your links. Since the goal of SEO is to convert — that is, get Google users to click through to your webpage — you can easily see why meta descriptions matter.

How To Help Your Writer Write Your New Website

Making sure your new business website has effective content is one of the most important things to accomplish. It’s wise to have a professional writer create website content, since that is the best way to ensure proper grammar, content structure, and most important, a clear and persuasive flow of ideas and information that leads site visitors to buy and inquire.

What Your B2B Website Needs In 2019

As every year, some important B2B website features will change in 2019, and others will remain the same.

One thing B2B companies should especially keep in mind in 2019 is not to get carried away. Web design firms naturally get caught up in all the latest web design trends. And this year, a lot of cool stuff is going on — broken grid layouts, video backgrounds, particle backgrounds, integrated animations … the list goes on and on.

SEO Is Good For Everything

One of the most persistent myths in business is that SEO is bad for business, that SEO messes up your company website with tricks and gimmicks that turn off visitors, create a poor user experience on your site and make a terrible brand impression.

The 1200 point SEO Checklist

All the SEO/marketing tools we've seen, together, cover less than 10% of our audit checklists.

Tools have a place. We employ dozens in these checklists. Most are free. The audits that require paid software contain a warning before the audit begins. Several do certainly accelerate these audits, but tools are tools, not systems.

Google Ranking Factors

There's a lot of bad information available about what makes a website rank. Most of all when nobody cites sources. The products and services that stem from that recklessness tend to be worthless or even dangerous.

We actually know a lot for certain about Google. Real SEO knowledge doesn't come from a blogger, forum, or get-rich-quick scheme. In 2019, the best information comes from three (individually imperfect) sources.

BigCommerce SEO Plugins

BigCommerce offers a wide range of useful plugins to help you make the most of the platform for your store. A handful of the plugins are built specifically for SEO use. In this post, we will review how to use the BigCommerce apps marketplace and install plugins, and review the plugins built for SEO use.

7 Expert Tips for International SEO

Congratulations, your business is finally ready to go global! But taking your business to new markets means that you need to think carefully about how to establish your presence in different countries. There's a lot more to it than Google translate.

This month we asked the experts for their best tips for international SEO.

Reach a Larger Audience with Structured Data and Featured Snippets

At first glance, structured data and featured snippets may not appear to have a lot in common. Structured data is a technical element, and a featured snippet is content related. Despite what might appear as two different SEO elements, your chance of earning a featured snippet improves by using structured data. Together, they make it easier for you to connect with your target audience.

Let’s explore how this works and what you can do to capture that prized featured snippet spot.

7 Tips for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search continues to evolve and transform the way we interact and search the web. It began years ago with Siri. Personal assistants like Alexa and Google Home led by advances in machine learning and AI and the increased accuracy they’ve brought have dramatically expanded its practice.

Let’s take a closer look at the voice search landscape and then explore seven ways to ensure your brand is voice search optimized.

Effective keyword research is the foundation for strategic success

In order for a business to be found online by interested parties in the era of Google, its website and content need to be optimized for specific keyword terms relating to what it does and sells.

But it isn’t just about optimizing web pages and content to be found by people – it’s about being found by the right people. The fundamental benefit of keyword optimization is that it allows businesses to generate high-quality, targeted traffic. In other words, people interested in what the business does, sells or has to say.

How to Optimize Content for User Search Intent

Every user search has a purpose. Finding out movie times, researching a health concern or any of the million-plus possibilities are done with specific user search intent behind the action.

Even if the intent is somewhat whimsical, the searcher seeks a specific piece of information. For example, a group of friends out for drinks talking about a trip to Las Vegas and instantly doing a search for airfare. Micro-moments like this are opportunities for brands with a response that matches the intent behind the search.

On Page vs Off Page SEO: Whats the Difference?

When it comes to SEO, there are several tactics that can help make your website rank higher in search engines.

These tactics fall into two broad categories: On Page SEO and Off Page SEO. While the end goal of both of these categories is the same (more website traffic, better keyword rankings, etc…), On Page and Off Page SEO strategies are very different.

How to Evaluate the Usability of a Website

Your website is an important part of your business. Whether you’re a B2C or B2B company, most people will turn to the internet before making any decision. If your website isn’t easy to use, potential customers may turn to a competitor.

How do you evaluate the usability of a website? There are several things you need to consider, such as ease of use, user-friendliness and the overall design. We’ll go over everything you need to know about website usability to help you with your online presence.

Three Scary SEO Mistakes to Watch out For

As Halloween approaches, many people are looking for a good scare. That said, your digital marketing campaign is the last thing you want to get spooked about.

Watch out for these frightening SEO mistakes:

Everything You Need to Know About Link Building in 2018

Link building is one of the most important SEO strategies. It’s a great way to build the quality of your domain which will help your website rank. Those two sentences probably left you with a lot of questions such as what’s link building, how does it help my website and how can I build links?

Fear not, we’re here to help. Below is our guild to help you understand link building, its important and some of the strategies SEOs use to build links to websites.

Why Does SEO Take so Long to Show Results?

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a great business opportunity. It can bring you more website traffic and increase your online sales, all without being required to make a purchase (unlike paid search marketing).

With so many benefits and a non-existent price tag, you would think that there would be no complaints about this digital marketing tactic.

10 Umbraco Maintenance Tips to Keep Your Site Running Smoothly

Your website is a living and breathing entity that needs constant care and upkeep, and sites hosted on the Umbraco CMS are no different. While there are standard best practices to maintaining your website, Umbraco offers numerous features and packages that require their own special love and tenderness. Below, we put together a list of Umbraco maintenance tips that you should keep top of mind when looking at your Umbraco website, and how you can keep it running at peak condition at all times.

Why Marketers and Content Editors Choose Umbraco CMS

It’s no wonder they call Umbraco “The Friendly CMS.” It’s easy to onboard your team, capitalize on open source for developing, and create a website that engages, informs, and inspires your most coveted audiences. What’s more is that it gives your marketing team the ability to create backend dashboards, allowing them to quickly update and publish content.  Beyond that, you can customize Umbraco on both the front and back end, as well as your dashboard, to get full control and visibility over your website and how it’s presented to the world.

How to Use Goal Values in Google Analytics

Goal values are a rigid monetary amount assigned to specific, non-eCommerce actions on your website. Marcel works with many B2B lead gen sites so lets say your website’s overall goal is to generate sales leads through contact forms. Let’s also picture that you’re already tracking the volume of leads generated. On their own, you can evaluate your leads in Google by the time of day, source of traffic, initial page viewed (landing page), number of visits before converting, number of days before converting and much more.

Using Internal Linking to Drive SEO Results

SEO is mission-critical in digital marketing. We know you already know that, of course. But the techniques surrounding quality SEO are too often more mysterious than they ought to be. One high-octane tactic for driving SEO results is using internal linking. Read on to learn what internal linking is and why it’s important. Then stick around to learn both how to stay on top of internal linking and how to win with it. 

What Makes a Good SEO Report?

When we're talking to prospects and marketers, one of the biggest issues we find they have with their current search engine optimization (SEO) agency or strategy is receiving a report that ties everything together. From research to tactics to results and next steps, having a comprehensive SEO report that paints the whole picture is imperative for any business who invests in SEO as part of their ongoing digital marketing strategy.

How to Get Rich Snippets

You’ve probably heard of rich snippets if you’ve done any kind of SEO research. So what is a rich snippet exactly? Rich snippets are the enhanced information that’s displayed on a search engine results page (SERP). For comparison sake, a regular snippet is also displayed, but doesn’t contain the extra information. For example, a regular snippet for a recipe would have the URL where the recipe’s located, plus the meta description of the recipe, or the first few lines of the recipe.

How to Choose a Professional SEO Agency

A successful Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, strategy can improve your company’s online presence, help generate leads and assist in converting those leads into customers. At the heart of an effective SEO strategy lies the integration of industry and company specific keyword variations through your web content. The keywords increase the search ranking of your website to drive traffic to all its pages and build loyalty to your brand. You can easily harness the power of SEO to the benefit of your marketing program by working with a professional SEO agency. To get started, utilize this guide to find out why you need this partnership – and how to find the perfect SEO agency for your needs.

How to Keep Your Website Optimized in 2019

Appealing to modern consumers is no easy task. Most consumers use the power of the Internet when trying to do some research on a business before using them. This is why having an online presence for your brand is so important.

Studies show businesses with a website increase profitability by nearly 25 percent. The key to having success with a business website is finding ways to optimize it over time. Failing to keep up with modern technology and online trends can lead to your website becoming unappealing and outdated

Are you looking for ways to optimize your website in 2019? If so, check out the helpful tips below.

The 5 Best Google My Business Tips to Maximize SEO

Whether your business is a small, local brick-and-mortar store or one with a large, booming online presence, search engine optimization (SEO) is essential. SEO involves the process of increasing the traffic to your website by improving your website’s ranking on search engine results pages. There are a number of best practices that will help your ranking grow, but one of the easiest and quickest is to ensure your Google My Business page is set up for success.

5 Ways To Turbocharge Your Blogs SEO

Search engine optimization experts have been telling small business owners to blog for years.  It has been standard advice for any small business owner who is trying to improve their search engine rankings. However, many small business owners are still very frustrated that their dutiful blogging habit has not resulted in strong search engine traffic.

This article will cover five practical techniques that any small business owner can use to turbocharge their blogs’ search engine optimization. Based on sound research and the latest trends in SEO, these tips will help your blog go from a nuisance to a valuable source of traffic for your business.

How to make meaningful Search optimizations for eCommerce brands

In previous posts, I’ve discussed many of the paid search challenges that eCommerce brands selling thousands of products face. One additional challenge that is sometimes overlooked is the difficulty in accumulating adequate performance data at the keyword level to make meaningful optimizations. For some brands in certain industries – insurance for example – there are a smaller number of products and relatively common ways to search for them. Life insurance, homeowner insurance, car insurance, and variations of those phrases likely make up the bulk of converted search volume. For eCommerce companies with massive SKU catalogs, converting product searches are often specific, with very little traffic associated to each search. In some cases, certain keywords or products may only have one or two conversions in a year. Now, you might think, “why bother with those long-tail keywords that seem to be exceptions?” For brands that sell a lot of different yet specific products, these long tail searches can account for 20-50% of search revenue cumulatively.

5 Local SEO Best Practices Your Business Needs to Follow

Do you have a small business or a company with multiple brick-and-mortar locations? If so, it’s imperative that you’re actively optimizing your website using local SEO strategies. Local SEO tactics include everything from claiming a business listing to managing online ratings and reviews.

There are many important ranking factors beyond standard SEO practices to take into consideration when optimizing your site for local search results. Here are 5 best practices to follow when  optimizing your website for local SEO.

How SEO Supports Your Brand Strategy

First things first, Search Engine Optimization and Brand Strategy are not mutually exclusive. Like chocolate and peanut butter, SEO and Brand Strategy complement each other in a way that is far more delicious than the sum of their parts.

Use SEO To Dictate How Users See You

The most important aspect of any brand strategy is brand image, i.e., how users feel about a brand. As marketers, it’s our job to cultivate a brand image that compels the target audience to convert.

SEO supports brand image by making it easier for users to find, and interact with brand online.

Far more than bidding on keywords, a comprehensive SEO strategy includes everything from social media marketing to improving the overall user experience.

In fact, we have already shown that even a 6 months – a year of SEO has the potential to improve brand image exponentially.

What a Typical Year of SEO Looks Like

It’s not hard to find SEO advice. A simple Google search will reveal thousands of SEO “how to pages” in less than a second. Yet, even with those thousands of SEO content pages there is still a lot of misconception surrounding SEO.

SEO is a big part of what we do at VisualFizz, and we aim to clear up the misconception concerning SEO, what it does, and how long it takes to work.

How to Optimize Your Site for Featured Snippets

If you're looking to generate any reliable web traffic based on the percentage of relevance in search engines, you should consider optimizing your site content for featured snippets.

What Are Featured Snippets?

A Featured Snippet is a general term for any search result Google shows to a user. They show up as the page’s title, a link to the website, and a brief excerpt of a website's page content.

A featured snippet answers a question. It is the answer box displayed at the top of search engine result pages. It’s usually located just below paid ad content. These are also referred to as Position 0 in search engine results pages, or the position above the #1 ranked search result for the topic. They usually include an image, the source page’s title, and the URL. Beyond that, they also contain more information than a general snippet by summarizing the content of the page.

There are four types of featured snippets:

7 Off-Site SEO Techniques That Work

With the constant evolution of social media and the internet, the landscape of SEO strategies changes so rapidly that sometimes it feels almost like a full-time job to keep up. To boost organic website traffic and raise brand awareness, it’s impossible to ignore how important SEO actually is. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the best off-site SEO techniques to elevate your website beyond the ordinary.

3 Quick Tips for Improving Your Keyword Research

By now, you know that implementing keywords into the content on your website, blog, and URLs are key strategies for improving your SEO ranking. However, including the wrong keywords or too many keywords can be just as detrimental.

Although you may not always notice them, keywords play an integral role when it comes to helping a small business get found online. So let’s get to it by breaking down the long and short (tail) of it.

How to Run a Local SEO Audit for Your Business in 12 Steps

Businesses on page 2 of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) might as well not exist.

It sounds harsh but it’s the reality that we all need to accept. Unless they feel like spelunking or unless they feel like there’s some strange magic beyond Page 1, no person is going to look beyond the top 10, especially when they’re hungry.

You know the drill—you’ve got a mad craving for a hamburger, but it’s 11 p.m. on a Tuesday and your favorite spot is closed. So, you pull out your phone and do a little Google search for open hamburger restaurants near you. Google presents its top 3 local options in the “Snack Pack” at the top and 10 other organic results toward the bottom. You pick one store and place your order or pop into the burger joint.

If you’re the local burger joint, you want and need to appear on the first page for those target keywords. So how do you get them there?

You’ll need to do a local SEO audit to find out. Here’s how to get it done.

Voice Search Is Changing SEO. Are You Ready for the New Tide?

Over the last five years, virtual assistants like Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Siri have become commonplace amongst the technology we use every day. Amazon alone says that it has sold more than 100 million Alexa-powered devices since the technology first became available in November 2014. The sales uptick of convenient, easy-to-use virtual assistants is leading to another shift in the landscape of SEO, and it’s revolutionizing how people buy cars and houses, learn the meaning of a word, or get directions to that new restaurant everyone has been dying to try. 

SEO or PPC? Finding the Perfect Fit for Growing Your Business Online

You don’t need to be an expert in all things marketing to understand the value of a digital strategy for your business. Your goal is to get loads of online traffic funneling toward your website because this is how leads are formed and conversions are made. The goal is simple, but the process isn’t. There’s a lot of advice out there about which digital strategy is best for producing the results you need.

The only problem is this advice usually doesn’t take into consideration the unique nature of your individual business. Even with so much advice floating around, each business is forced to answer the age-old question for themselves – SEO or PPC, which is better for my company?

What’s the Real Difference Between Organic and Local SEO?

Your ability to connect with your audience is paramount to the success of your business. When consumers are looking to gather information about your business, product or service, the first place they turn is their favorite search engine. So, if you want any chance of connecting with them, you need a strategy in place to make sure your business ranks in search engine results.

The strategy you need is search engine optimization, or SEO for short. Search engines like Google determine which sites they’re going to place in search results based on many different factors. Google’s algorithm alone has at least 200 ranking factors, and the weight put upon each shifts frequently. SEO is an approach that focuses on best practices for earning a favorable nod from search engines and ranking high in results.

5 Common Mistakes That Can Tank Your Digital Marketing Results

In the digital world, things can change in the blink of an eye – especially for businesses who are trying to navigate their way to the top of the heap in search result and drive traffic through digital marketing. The rapidly changing landscape means that small businesses need to be at the top of their marketing game, but this can be a challenge. Small and mid-sized businesses sometimes struggle gaining their footing when it comes to marketing, and as a result, make a few errors along the way that hamper their results.

It’s ok. We all make mistakes. However, businesses like yours can’t afford to keep repeating the same mistakes or to let past marketing errors hold them down. So, where do you start to ensure that your marketing strategy is on the path to success? Here are 5 of the most common marketing mistakes you want to avoid.

How to Maximize Engagement with Content Tailored to Your Sales Funnel

The ability to attract new customers and nurture them to the point of conversion and beyond is the backbone of any business. It’s impossible to survive without doing this, but for many businesses the whole process is extremely challenging. It requires that you not only understand your target audience but that you also know how to appeal to them throughout the entire customer journey.

In the marketing industry, we conceptualize this journey in the form of a sales funnel. The prospects at the top of your funnel are going to be in a completely different point in their customer journey than the ones you’ve nurtured to the point of purchase. Content marketing is the most powerful tool you have for fueling movement toward conversion.