Marlin Consulting Solutions

Marlin Consulting Services Ensure Client-Friendly Business Solutions for Great Results Ahead

seowerkz — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 19:56:40 +0000

Marlin Consulting Solutions is an SEO-giant in Jacksonville and is known for one-of-its-kind, best-in-class execution on all aspects of digital marketing including advertising technology, and conversion methods. Their practical, ROI-oriented approach helps businesses make their presence felt in the world context. Read further how the company has been successfully scaling business brands to their desired level of success.

Every new and existing business needs SEO. It not only gains them better visibility online, but enables them to generate more traffic and leads. Marlin Consulting Solutions takes care of the entire spectrum of digital services, from digital PR to technical SEO, thereby ensuring long-term stability of client websites on popular search engines.

Established in 2009 in Jacksonville, Florida, Marlin Consulting has achieved a significant milestone in the digital space by offering amazing SEO and Digital Marketing experience to its customers by devising and implementing effective SEO strategies. The company has always been a trusted choice for the small to mid-size businesses and uses SEO for Online Sales, Lead Generation, and Increase in Overall Revenue.

The company creates the best user experience (UX) to its users to convert the visitors into customers. Professional developers in the company maintain the site efficiently so that the owners can keep their focus on the business growing activities.

The experienced digital marketers in the company improve the internal structure of the existing websites and develop effective website pages using on-page optimization techniques to rank them on Google. The ratio of their sky-rising ROI ranges up to 20:1, 80:1, and even 300:1 ensuring multiple times sales to their customer businesses.

The company provides exceptional customer experiences with great results and this is the reason why Marlin Consulting wins a lot of businesses from the competition.

It is a Google Certified Partner and presents a FREE 17-page SEO website analysis before actually proceeding with the marketing plan. It gives free access to the exclusive SEO, social media tools, and SEO intelligence APIs along with offering other range of services including website design, website hosting, WordPress maintenance, and management services.

Marlin Consulting Services turns search engine rankings for a website into revenues by:

Appointing local SEO professionals to dedicate a business’s success.
Providing event-based marketing services.
Growing the customer-base with confidence.

The actual process of digital marketing in the company involves executing SEO for increasing traffic and boosting leads, online media management, real-time data analysis, reporting and analysis, and penalty recovery, if any.

The company is well recognized and appreciated for their excellent performance and is ranked as the top digital marketing company in Jacksonville in the GoodFirms ranking list. GoodFirms is a top review and rating firm that presents a growing and ever-promoting platform for the businesses to grow.

About the Author

Working as a Content Writer at GoodFirms, Anna Stark bridges the gap between service seekers and service providers. Anna’s dominant role lingers to form every company’s achievement and critical attributes into words. She strongly believes in the charm of words and equips new approaches that work, always with concepts, something new to create, and something unique to enhance the firm’s identity.

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Domain Authority: What It Is & How You Can Boost It

seowerkz — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 15:09:00 +0000

For business owners who are (and should be) constantly working to boost SEO (search engine optimization), understanding Google ranking factors is key. In fact, domain authority is one factor among 200 which Google uses to calculate domain ranking scores.

Every business owner prays for high Google rank and FREE (organic) website traffic. However, many assume that by increasing website authority, automatic boosts in both Google ranking and organic website traffic will be the natural result. While it’s absolutely true that beefing up your website authority is advantageous, you also need to focus on getting those coveted high-quality backlinks from strong, authoritative websites.

Domain Authority:

In short, domain authority is a ranking metric. This metric predicts how your company website might rank on SERPs (search engine results pages). The ranking score ranges from 1 to 100 and the higher your website’s score, the better you can expect it to perform in search engine page results. The authority of your domain speaks to its relevance to a given topic, however it is not synonymous with page authority which entails on the ranking of specific pages and not an entire domain.

Digging even deeper, domain authority measures the potency of a website’s backlink profile in comparison to all the other websites in their index. All major SEO tools use this metric, however the difference lies in the name and method by which it is calculated. For example, the Domain Rating website authority metric runs on a logarithmic scale from 0-100. Logarithmic simply means there is a greater challenge in going from DR 69-70 than 9-10. If you are still confused, let’s approach this as if we are talking about a computer game. Let’s say that you started the game with a status of “good” and, after a couple of hours, reached a status of “great”. However, obtaining an “outstanding” status is going to take you several months of hard work and dedication. Even then, there are no guarantees of ever reaching this highly sought after status.

You should also understand that the logarithmic scale means that a website that has a DR 20 rating holds more than twice the authoritative status as a website with a DR 10 rating.

Factors for calculating domain rating:

Number of referring domains: the number of websites which link to a website or specific page. It’s important to note that a higher number to referring domains is not necessarily synonymous with a higher domain rating because only ‘followed links’ are taken into account when it comes to domain rating calculations. Domain rating isn’t improved with UGC links, nofollow attributes and sponsored links nor can subsequent links from the same website boost your domain rating because backlinks aren’t taken into account. Only referring domains factor into the calculation.
Domain rating scores for linking sites must be factored into your domain rating calculation because anyone can obtain endless low-quality website links. At the end of the day, it’s all about quality over quantity because backlinks with low domain rating scores aren’t going to increase your own domain rating like backlinks from sites with high domain rating scores will. In other words, you want backlinks from sites who have continually increasing domain ratings in order to increase your own domain rating score. It’s best to think long term from the standpoint that if you build a link today from a DR 15 site whose owner works equally as hard as you have to guild authoritative links long term, then it stands to reason that that same link could eventually be from a DR 40 site at some point down the road. In other words, if you only ever built on that one link, it would be logical to expect your domain rating score to increase over an extended period of time. If you find sites with low domain rating scores, but they have a great deal of potential, then it could pay off in the long run to build links from those sites. You just need to verify that potential by checking their content for high-quality material and check their link growth. Consult your local SEO Jacksonville expert regarding this process. The referring graphs domain will reveal the potential of the stie. If the graph slopes upward, you have a solid indication that their domain rating score is on the uptick and will spike over time.
Referring domains each have a number of sites to which they link. For example, if you build a ‘followed’ link from Guardians of the Galaxy and another one from Space Monsters and both have the exact same domain rating score, how would you know which one would contribute most to boosting your own domain rating? It really all depends upon how many sites each one links to with a minimum of one followed link. In other words, the more inimitable the sites to which a website links, the less domain rating value it is able to pass. It’s best to check the Linked Domains report using the filter ‘followed’ links. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy links to nearly fifty times more websites than Space Monsters. Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t going to improve your website domain rating, but Space Monsters certainly will. It’s important to note that there are a number of factors which go into determining a solid backlink. Not all links from Space Monsters carry more authority than links from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Increasing Domain Rating:

You can easily increase your website’s domain rating by building more ‘followed links’ to your site as long as sites from which you obtain those links don’t have lower domain rating scores and as long as they aren’t already linked out to a ton of websites. If your domain authority is ranking between 20 and 30, it will be much easier to improve than if it ranks between 70 and 80. Let’s break down the numbers and what they mean:

Below 30 = bad.

30 to 40 = less than average.

40 to 50 = keeping your head above water.

50 to 60 i= okay.

60 to 70 = pretty good.

Above 80 = you’re rocking it.

Try to avoid building links to random pages as this process isn’t going to work favorably to boost your domain rating score nor will it actively beef up your organic traffic. In other words, your primary goal should be to link build specifically to pages that you would like to rank higher on Google. When your focus is solely on increasing your domain rating score, your organic traffic will suffer. Organic traffic is more closely associated with the number of referring domains to a specific page and not so much with the domain rating score of a particular website.

Building links to a page you’d like to rank in Google:

Quality is key. People don’t want to link to subpar content. You need to ensure your content is noncommercial, helpful and has an established history of getting backlinks. It’s tough to get links to content that is solely about money making. Focus on creating helpful blog posts or a utility such as a calculator or another type of free tool. Furthermore, incorporating stats that can easily be referenced by other bloggers all fall under the category of “helpful” and are known to attract backlinks from over 800 referring domains.

NOTE: It’s crucial that when you are searching Google for the topic related to your content focus that you check out the number of referring domains to pages with a top-ranking status because the higher the number of links, the better!

Selecting a solid topic:

Check out seed keywords on Keywords Explorer by checking the “all keywords” report. This report will reveal keyword suggestions according to the seed.
You can then build a comma separated list with words such as why, how, who, what, guide, stats, etc. to add to the “include” filter. Make sure to then check the “any word” toggle which will ensure topics with higher citability and utility are filtered. You should also filter for keywords which have a higher score for Keyword Difficulty. For example, anything over 40 should yield topics which have a good track record for getting links. Pages which have a high Keyword Difficulty score will have tons of backlinks because that score is based on the average number of linking websites to high scoring results. You can then create content in line with search intent once you’ve found a relevant topic in the results.

Stay authoritatively relevant. People need to know your content exists in order to link to it. You’re going to have to spread the word and start contacting relevant people: people featured in your post, those who’ve authored content regarding similar topics and those who’ve linked to content regarding similar topics. Remember: internal linking improves important page authority.

Be sure you are always working to build high-quality links from websites which are authoritative and relevant to the pages you want to rank because your domain rating will naturally soar based on this practice.

If you’re looking to improve your domain rating, contact Marlin Consulting Solutions today. We can assist you boost your domain authority and reach your dream domain ranking.

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Connect with Your Customers by Sharing What You Love

seowerkz — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 13:40:00 +0000

Customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand are more likely to maintain loyalty to said brand. Building that connection can be difficult for a business, but let’s remember that your business was built by you, a human. In a time where every company is vying for attention, you can use your hobbies and passions to gain the attention of your consumers.

Social media simultaneously provides more opportunities to connect with your customers than ever before while providing a great platform to humanize your brand and build trust with consumers.

The down side: your competitors know this to be true, as well! You need to stand out from the crowd and apart from your competition, while actively communicating to your target audience that you know their pain and you have the solution to their shared problem. How? By sharing what you love.

I don’t mean telling them your favorite flavor of ice cream. I’m talking about sharing your passions, hobbies and interests.

Emotions are a huge part of decision making, as much as we love to deny it. Your customers make emotional decisions every single time they interact with your brand. It doesn’t mean they’re having some kind of epiphany every time they make a purchase, but they buy a product or service based on their connection to your brand. They also feel the anticipation of happiness when they decide to buy.

Hobbies Play a Vital Role

Authenticity – People are incredibly good at spotting fake enthusiasm. You can’t fake happiness when you’re talking about something you love. If you share your passion in a video on social media or write about it in a blog post, your genuine enthusiasm will show. It’s real and being real humanizes your otherwise cold and unfeeling brand.

Trust – Your customers will gain insight into who you are and what drives your brand. This insight will help you connect with your customers, building more brand trust. By nerding out about your hobbies, you’re not selling them anything. You’re simply sharing a little bit about who you are.

Relatability – Almost every single person has a hobby. Even if it’s not the same as yours, people will know the feeling of being completely absorbed in a pastime. We all have that one thing we could talk about for hours and hours. Your customers will be able to relate to you through this.

Conversation starter – In the same vein of relatability, sharing your hobbies is a great conversation starter; a way to encourage your customers to interact on social media. Just like you could talk at length about your own hobby, your customers will be only too happy to share their own passions, taking pride as if they are “in the know”. This allows them the opportunity to feel valued beyond what they contribute to your bottom line.

In closing, if you connect with your customers it plays a HUGE role in strengthening consumer loyalty, generating FREE word-of-mouth advertising, building brand credibility, and helping you stand out from the competition. When consumers feel they have a story to share, they will be only too willing to spread the word about you and your brand to anyone and everyone. It’s a win-win!
Contact Marlin Consulting Solutions the top-rated SEO company in Jacksonville, FL. We offer SEO services that will help you grow your business online.

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What You Need to Know About HTTP vs. HTTPS

seowerkz — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 13:50:00 +0000

Consumers spend nearly one million dollars online every sixty seconds, vulnerably entrusting their personal and financial info into the hands of business owners. While this is obviously great for the bottom line, attackers are becoming increasingly skilled at getting a hold of sensitive login and payment info such as credit card and bank account numbers. These annoying hackers don’t discriminate and will go anywhere regardless of the type of business or location. All they need is an untrusted router or IPS. This means that all public WiFi networks can be vulnerable to security threats. You need to know for certain that your website isn’t going to be one of them.

What is HTTP & HTTPS?

There are protocols for the transfer of sensitive info to the internet and this is where HTTPS and HTTP come into play:

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.

HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.

HTTPS encrypts HTTP requests and responses, ensuring that hackers do not see specific payment info. Instead, they see random, nonsensical characters. Basically, it’s like shipping off your household documents in a fireproof, indestructible lockbox with a secure combination. Only you and the recipient would know the combination. If the box were to fall into the wrong hands, your documents would be secure. The “wrong hands” wouldn’t have the combination.

What you should know is that multiple things occur during the formation of a HTTPS connection, but the most important thing to note is that HTTPS relies on Transfer Layer Security (TLS) encryption in order to secure connections.

Now, a lot of things happen when a HTTPS connection is formed. Mainly, HTTPS relies on TLS (Transfer Layer Security) encryption to secure the connections.

Let’s talk about TLS Certificates:

TLS (also known as SSL or SSL/TLS) certificates are a type of digital certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). Installing a TLS certificate on your server is the only way to enable HTTPS protection on your company website.

The CA acts as a trusted third-party in the relationship between server and client. While TLS certificates can be issued by almost anyone, browsers only support publicly trusted CA’s. It’s easy to check website TLS certificates by clicking on the lock icon in the browser’s address bar. You will also be able to see the issuing CA and you can easily click through the certificate to review info such as the “issued to:” line. There are various types of validation protocol for TLS certs which determine whether the certificate will be free or paid.

FREE TLS CERTS only do domain validation and they come with your hosting and CDN plan. A CDN is a network of servers linked together with the goal of delivering content as quickly, cheaply, reliably, and securely as possible.

While basic domain validation is great for websites and blogs that don’t utilize consumer personal and payment data, you’re going to need more than the basics for your business website.

- DV TLS CERTS give the appearance of security, but have no “Issued to:” line on their icon. “Let’s Encrypt”, a non-profit CA, issues the most common DV TLS cert which is used by most companies who offer automatically renewable, free TLS certs. DV-only certificates are the only TLS certificates issued at scale automatically.
- Organization Validation (OV) & Extended Validation (EV): It’s likely that your website collects sensitive payment info, so EV might be the better solution as its verification process is more rigorous. EV runs about the same price as OV and it is considered to be more trustworthy.

Wildcard & SAN TLS certs are fabulous multitaskers as they secure numerous (sub)domains simultaneously and side step the need to purchase more than one TLS cert in order to perform multiple functions. EV TLS, for example, would be great for mcs.com, however an additional cert would be necessary for blog.mcs.com.

Wildcard certs also multitask in securing innumerable subdomains. SAN certs can also secure multiple domains.

HTTPS strengthens SEO

HTTPS beefs up your website’s privacy, security and SEO goals via:

Verifying that the website is the correct one on the server.
Mitigating third party tampering.
Ensuring greater security for consumers.
Communication/URL encryption.
Personal data protection (browsing history, credit card info, etc.).
Preservation of referral data.
Lightweight ranking signal.
Enhances security and site speed.

Furthermore, there is a strong theory which suggests that HTTPS has the potential to improve website dwell (a strong ranking factor). Also, bear in mind that if your company website is on HTTP and you are relying on Google Analytics, for example, for website analytics, referral data will NOT be passed from HTTPS to HTTP pages. Most of the web runs on HTTPS which is how most clicks on links from other websites (your referral traffic) is sourced.

HTTPS also utilizes modern protocols (such as TLS 1.3 and HTTP/2), enhancing your website’s overall speed and security. This might not make sense as HTTPS can appear slower than HTTP on paper due to the multiple added security layers, BUT it is a prerequisite for the utilization of modern security measures and up-to-the-minute performance technology. Staying current is crucial as Google views page speed as a lightweight ranking factor.

The Setup Process:

Start with HTTPS at the onset. This will avoid migration errors and you won’t need to worry about HTTP. Your hosting provider or WordPress maintenance services Jacksonville can easily guide you through the necessary steps in support of the most current HTTP and TLS protocol version. The final step: implement HSTS.
If your website is already HTTPS enabled, ask your hosting provider to guide you through the process of checking for common errors. You probably aren’t set up correctly.
If your website is still running HTTP, the difficulty of migration will depend on some variables: website size/complexity, type of CMS, hosting provider and technical abilities.

While you might be capable of doing the migration yourself, here are some things you should take into consideration:

Review your CMS/server/hosting documentation and cautiously proceed. You’re going to need to take your time as there are multiple steps which must be executed on the migration checklist. This process could take a TON of time to complete and there’s no guarantee that you will be able to perform it correctly. Consult WordPress maintenance services Jacksonville in order to ensure a future-proof implementation and your sanity!

Sidestepping HTTPS migration mistakes:

Even if you could complete the entire HTTPS migration checklist, you’d probably still come across some errors. Here’s the deal:

In 2016, 10,000 top-ranking domains were found to have the following HTTPS mistakes:

Sub-optimal HTTPS on 90.9% of domains.

65.39% of domains did not have HTTPS working as it should.

Temporary 302 redirects on 23.01% of domains rather than permanent 301s.

It was pretty gruesome. You’d be wise to check for the most common migration mistakes:

Are all of your website pages on HTTPS? Crawl your website thoroughly in order to find leftover HTTP pages (review your migration checklist). Ensure your crawler is up-to-date with all the required URL sources. You don’t want to leave any of those pages unchecked, however, be sure to note that pages which are not included in your sitemap which have zero links pointing to them won’t be discovered via crawling. Unfortunately, this happens with dedicated PPC landing pages quite frequently. You can export the URL list from FB Business Manager. Google Ads is another ad manager from which you could export a URL list. Next, ensure proper migration of orphaned pages and update to the newer HTTPS format in your campaign dashboard.

Do you have HTTPS pages with HTTP content? A common mistake which occurs when the original HTML file uses HTTPS while loading BEFORE a resource file was updated to HTTPS. This particular issue is manifest in crawling and internal pages reports.

Are your internal links updated to HTTPS? Unnecessary redirects occur when internal links to HTTPS are not updated, so be sure to update, update, update!

Are your tags updated to HTTPS? Canonical and Open Graph tags and URLs need to be updated to HTTPS. Canonical tags inform Google regarding the most authoritative pages among a collection of duplicate (or similar) pages. Open Graph tags are used to optimize social media posts, some of which require URL tags. The easiest way to find pages with HTTP canonical and OG tags: set up a custom filter in Page Explorer and rewrite to https:// once migration is completed.

Do you have failed redirects? A simple site audit will allow you to spot failed redirects. Just review the report and correct the issues. Upon clicking on “View affected URLs,” you’ll see a full report with default columns and metrics, allowing you to get a detailed breakdown of all the affected URLs.

Split up the redirects, but strive for the least number of redirects.

Review the number of inlinks (URLs that link to the URL affected by the redirect chain). Exchange the links on those pages for URLs that return a 200 HTTP status code and click through the number of inlinks to review all of them. Be sure to check the redirect chain URL inlinks as they will be tagged “standard 301 redirects” in the 3XX Redirects report when performing subsequent crawling.

In Closing:

Between 88-99% of Chrome browsing time is spent on HTTPS websites which means that the majority of high-traffic websites use HTTPS. While there is still much to be desired regarding TLS support quality, the migration process isn’t the “be all, end all” of HTTPS setup. Consumers will benefit from your efforts to “keep up with the Joneses” when it comes to trends in web performance and security. They will appreciate your implementation of up-to-the-minute features as manifest evidenced in your company’s bottom line.

The post What You Need to Know About HTTP vs. HTTPS appeared first on Marlin Consulting Solutions.

The Best Places to Feature Your Logo

seowerkz — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 13:51:00 +0000

A logo is so much more than a pretty face! It’s got the potential to unite your visual branding to convey a message to your audience. This seemingly innocuous image is actually quite powerful if you use it correctly. Sadly, many brands treat it as an afterthought, quickly forgotten by consumers. Businesses lose the opportunity for their audience to visually connect with the brand. Afterall, beauty is nothing apart from brains!

When your logo is used to its full potential, it can quickly become the first thing your customers recall when they think of your brand. If you’re doing things right, they will relive all the good feelings they associate with your brand when they see that image in their mind’s eye.

Here are some of the best places to feature your logo:

In your website header. For many new customers, their first experience of your brand will be via your website. Having your logo featured in your website header will ensure that they have a clear idea of who you are and the message you want to convey.
In your social media. Branding goes beyond your website. It can be easy to treat your social media pages as a separate entity, yet they are a vital part of your visual branding. Make sure to include your logo on every social media page you have.
On your invoices. Invoices aren’t very exciting to look at. In fact, most of your clients will likely give them a cursory glance. However, the presence of your logo on your business invoices catches the attention of your customers, signifies your professionalism and is a visual representation of your cohesive business elements.
In purchase confirmations. Your customer is going to be in “feel good” mode when they’ve made a purchase from you. In those immediate moments after a purchase when their order confirmation appears on the screen, you’ll want to capture that positive emotion and link it to your brand. This is exactly where you want to be sure your logo is featured.
On your emails. Newsletters, promotional emails and even basic customer service responses all present an opportunity to share and connect with your customers. Consider including your logo in your signature whenever you communicate with them.
In your downloadable content. If you offer downloadable content – a paid product or free ebooklet – make sure to brand it! Having your logo featured on the content will raise the trust factor and create an opportunity to stay in your customers’ minds for longer.

You can increase your level of engagement by using your logo both on and offline if you think strategically. The goal is to raise brand awareness and increase lead generation. Remember: your logo is often the first insight a consumer will gain into your brand. It should be featured on every piece of information, material, digital media and element of your business! Don’t use it sparingly! Go all out and be liberal!

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3 Simple Ways to Deliver Proactive Customer Service

seowerkz — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:26:00 +0000

All business owners were and are consumers first. As such, you’ve likely already experienced the difference between reactive and proactive customer service. Reactive customer service addresses consumer issues after they’ve occurred. A bit like over-the counter-medication, this form of service acts as a means of aiding in the recovery process.

RingCentral surveyed 6,000 consumers of whom a measly 13% reported ever having received proactive customer service. Not. Good.

Proactive customer service involves making the first move to help consumers BEFORE they reach out to you regarding a specific problem or issue. It all boils down to who is acting first and being more proactive in today’s digital age which leads to higher customer satisfaction. Being proactive with your customer service can:

Increase customer retention.
Decrease frustrated customer calls and complaints.
Attract new customers.
Increase productivity and efficiency.
Make consumers feel empowered.
Improve consumer trust in your brand.
Strengthen your brand’s credibility.

Implementing great proactive customer service isn’t rocket science, although some businesses might lead you to believe that it is. The concept is actually quite simple and the steps are easy:

Perform regular updates. No plan ever runs smoothly and life has a habit of derailing deadlines. I’m sure you know this all too well. Perhaps you even find yourself scrambling for extra time or extending business deadlines. This is where your consumers need to be kept in the loop. Don’t leave them feeling as though you’ve completely forgotten about them. If you are waiting for your customers to complain because you are faced with service delays, you are behaving reactively rather than proactively. If you are addressing your customers before they raise concerns, you are wisely providing customer service. Whether via emails, social media announcements or changes to your website copy, proactive customer service will ALWAYS be most appreciated among your clientele.
Schedule routine reviews of social media comments. Social media isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and it’s a great platform where your customers love to share their opinions. While you might already be encouraging your customers to tag or message you with questions, you are still exhibiting reactive customer service. Taking the time to read your customers’ comments gives you valuable insight as to how you can help them. By inserting your own comments, you are letting them know you’re actually paying attention beyond responding to a direct message or reacting to a tag. This lets them know you are listening and you are truly interested in what they think.
Check in regularly with your customers. While this might seem like a “no-brainer”, it’s easy to forget to simply ask your customers if they’re happy. Although many people are all too happy to share their experiences on social media, some of your customers might be holding back. If you want true, honest feedback, consider checking in on them from time to time BEFORE small issues snowball into HUGE problems. Consider implementing surveys, polls or just a few routine questions on social media to get people talking.

The bottom line is that your consumers want more customer-centric experiences with your brand and that means you’re going to have to offer them consistent, proactive levels of service. While sitting back and waiting for consumers to come to you might seem like the easier option, you’re risking a lot in the way of customer retention, new converts and lead generation and profits. Be proactive with your consumers AND with your bottom line!

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Create a Custom 404 Error Page

seowerkz — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 13:02:00 +0000

There aren’t words sufficient for expressing the frustration of a consumer who experiences a 404 error message when visiting your business website.

A 404 not found error is an HTTP status code that means that the page you wanted to access couldn’t be found on their server. 404 errors are bad for business because:

They drive consumers away from your website.
They hurt your bounce rate.
They cost you money.

Broken links are the cause of 404 errors. When webpages are renamed or moved and the internal link remains unchanged, a broken link is the result. If a web page has been permanently deleted, the page address changed or if there is a lack of proper navigation, broken links occur which generate a 404 error message.

When there is no custom page setup, the error can be quite generic and off-putting; the easiest way to lose potential customers. When consumers encounter 404 errors on your website, it decreases the amount of trust they have in your brand. These errors alert them that something is broken and, for whatever reason, you haven’t fixed it. This begs the question: What else has this company not addressed?

Customizing a simple 404 error page on your website has multiple benefits:

Reassurance – A custom 404 error page provides reassurance to your consumers. They can clearly see that an error has occurred, but the page reassures them that it’s not their problem. A good 404 error page will offer links to resolve the problem and also a search box.
Consistency – With the use of a custom 404 error page, your brand can be consistent with how your website is represented. Generic 404 pages are unbranded and can present a jarring experience to your visitors.
Reduces bounce rate – When your visitors see a custom 404 error page, they’re more likely to stay on your website as they’ve been presented with alternative actions they can take. The custom error page helps to encourage them to stay put, rather than clicking back to the search engines.

Customizable – One option that isn’t always considered is to turn the custom 404 error page into an opportunity for conversions. For example, you could add a special offer or a CTA that takes your visitors through to a lead magnet. These could be updated on a regular basis.

Shareable – Creating a memorable custom 404 error page affords you the opportunity for brand recognition outside of your own website. By injecting a little humor or self deprecation, an amused visitor may share your brand on social media with their followers. Clorox does a great job of turning an otherwise frustrating error message into clever, memorable entertainment.

You likely never considered a 404 error message to be a deal breaker, however your consumers sure do! All the website traffic you could lose over a dreaded 404 equals profit loss for your business. In addition to the direct impact of those lost visitors to your business, the indirect damage can be even more devastating! Take the time to customize a simple, clever 404 error message and reap the benefits!

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How to Create the Best FAQ Page

seowerkz — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 13:18:00 +0000

Having a solid FAQ page on your business website is an absolute must! In fact, you really should have numerous FAQs relating to various services or products you offer.

Your FAQ pages:

Streamlines customer service.
Leads to happier customer experiences with your business website.
Saves consumers time and eliminates unnecessary frustration.
Prevents your customers from needing to contact you for simple answers.
Reflects your personality.
Improves SEO.
Helps you build brand trust with your target audience.

As a business owner, you already know it’s important to put your best foot forward every chance you get. The same principle applies to establishing your FAQ page. You want to follow best practices in order to deliver the most value to your treasured customers. Unfortunately, a bad FAQ page can turn a customer away fast and at the most crucial point: when they are most curious to learn more about your products and services.

Here’s how you can ensure that your FAQ page is outstanding and one from which your consumers will gain value:

Find your most commonly asked questions. First things first! You’ll want to know what your most frequently asked questions are before you can create your page. Where do your customers communicate with you? If you have a ticket system in place, you can easily access a wealth of data there. If your customers reach out through email or direct messaging, you can identify the most commonly raised questions which you respond to the most.

Write your answers. Once you’ve identified your main questions, it’s time to create content and answer these questions. Be concise, yet offer informative answers. Your customers don’t want to be overwhelmed by copious amounts of text, wading through endless paragraphs for simple answers. Try to answer each question in a simple, clear way that your customer can easily and quickly absorb.

Use categories. Splitting your questions up into categories makes it easier for consumers to find the answers they’re looking for. Think about which questions could be grouped into which category. For example, if you offer a subscription based product, you could group questions about billing and refunds under one category.

Always keep your page updated. A big mistake that a lot of businesses make is allowing their FAQ page to become stagnant. In reality, customer questions change a lot, depending on their needs. It may be that you offer a new product or service or your target audience has changed. Your FAQ page needs to reflect those changes. Make sure to keep it updated with the latest questions.

Remember, the main goal of your FAQ page is to provide information on frequent questions or concerns. If the format is organized, providing useful information, you have another successful avenue by which to add value to the lives of your customers. You will find that your brand credibility is strengthened as you continue to build trust with your valuable customers. Your bottom line will thank you!

The post How to Create the Best FAQ Page appeared first on Marlin Consulting Solutions.

Grow Your Email List Through Blogging

seowerkz — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 14:07:00 +0000

Content marketing and blog posts are an excellent source for increasing website traffic and expanding your company’s email list. Instagram and TikTok might be all the rage, but they’re no substitute for the written word. Furthermore, no blog post will ever require expensive equipment such as video cameras and live recording devices in order to communicate valuable information to your consumer audience. The truth is that when your posts deliver coveted answers to consumer questions regarding your brand, the search engines take notice. With a little SEO work and some optimization, your blog content can rank highly in SERPs (search engine results pages), attracting visitors to your website. In fact, companies which blog eleven or more times each month average three times the website traffic than businesses which blog once a month (or not at all).

Your blog posts establish your brand’s credibility, positioning your business as an authority on a subject. However, failure to include a next step for readers is a common, costly mistake.

Here’s what you SHOULD be doing with your blog posts in order to grow your customer database:

Offer opt-ins. While 95% of users have a functioning email address, they can’t sign up for your newsletter if they don’t know you have one. Incorporate links to sign up for your email list throughout your entire blog as well as the individual posts. Opt-ins can be a form in which readers input their email addresses or a link to a sign-up page. You can incorporate opt-in forms on your website header, footer, sidebar, as a pop-up or at the end of each post. You want to place them where readers will notice.

Incorporate personalized CTAs (Call to Action). A personalized CTA which offers something to your customers will compel them to stop and fill in their email info. Be sure your CTAs stand out and are noticeable among the existing content. CTAs should be visually appealing while matching the rest of your website. In addition, be sure to use direct, interesting copy to describe your CTA so that customers will want to click on it.

Lead magnets are crucial to a thriving email list. Lead magnets are offers which attract consumers to your email list. A good lead magnet is the entire reason a consumer will want to receive email from you, so you need to think carefully about what it is you’d like to offer! Readers will want to know what kind of email they are signing up for and whether or not it will be of value to them. Imagine being invited to a restaurant without having the ability to choose what you will be served. I doubt you’d go.

Clarity is key and you need to offer your readers relevant content and info in order to get them to subscribe. AND, while this might seem obvious, don’t forget to connect your CTA with your preferred email platform. Your landing page sign-up form, should you choose to have one, will connect new subscribers with your email list so they are signed up to receive your next email.

Email is one of the most important tools in your brand’s arsenal. In fact, email list building should definitely be incorporated into your marketing strategy! Afterall, 80% of online users say that email is their preferred marketing method.

The post Grow Your Email List Through Blogging appeared first on Marlin Consulting Solutions.

5 Ways to Improve Your Marketing Results

seowerkz — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 13:58:00 +0000

The best marketing campaigns are the ones that are constantly being tweaked and optimized to improve their results. This is known as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). If you’re not currently getting the best results from your marketing efforts, you need to take a good look at what you’re doing and make some changes.

Improve your landing page – Your landing page is the page that someone will reach after clicking on your marketing campaign. This should not be your home page. It should be a page which specifically focuses on a product or service that you sell. Make sure the content on your landing page reflects the copy in your marketing campaign. There should be symmetry so that someone clicking through to your website knows they’re in the right place.

Adjust your audience – If you’re running paid ads or carrying out SEO work, make sure you’re targeting the right audience and the right keywords. Don’t be afraid to test new audiences and look for additional opportunities. You need to think about what interests your ideal customers and what they’re searching for when they’re looking for your products or services.

Change your frequency – Is your audience seeing marketing communications from you regularly? If you don’t send out regular emails, it’s easy for your business to escape the minds of your ideal customers. Make communication a regular thing with your audience and you’ll increase your chances of generating more sales.

Increase your budget – Sometimes your marketing budget isn’t quite high enough to get the results that you want. If we take paid ads as an example, you may have a budget that is too small to be able to compete for popular keywords. When this happens, your budget is used up too quickly in the day and then your ads stop being visible.

Try something new – If a marketing method just isn’t working for your business and you’ve given it a reasonable period of time, don’t be afraid to try something different. There are a lot of ways that every business can be marketed and the right option for your competitors isn’t always the right option for you. Sometimes doing something different can help you to stand out even more with your ideal customers.

Every business owner wants to get the most bang for the buck when it comes to marketing strategies and solid results. The key to improving your marketing ROI is to practice ongoing measurements of the results and make adjustments to your marketing strategies accordingly. Winning campaigns can only be found via consistent measuring and optimization which will collectively reveal what works and what doesn’t.

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