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Do I Really Need a Website?

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Yes, you do. Many small business owners report they simply lack the time, skills and money to build a website. While some businesses say they don’t need one. The fact is, you need a website if you plan to have a successful business in the future.

Your company’s website can be an effective marketing tool that can also be cost-efficient. Let’s take a look at the benefits.

Available 24/7 

The best part about a website is they are always available and ready to serve your customers. Whether its relaying information, collecting leads or sell a product. It will be there when you are closed.

Creates Exposure

People search for services and products before they get to the “buying stage”. If you don’t have a website, you essentially don’t exist because you won’t show up in their search. Statistics show a website can increase your business’s revenue by 25% just by exposing your services and products to more people. That’s a huge chunk of customers you’re ignoring.

Want to dip into that 25% of customers you’re missing out on? Let’s build your first website!

Builds Trust

Building trust with new clients can be difficult. Having a website can verify your business and give reassurance that you are who you say you are. 64% of customers will not use a business if they can’t research them first online.

Get Found on Google

In addition to getting a website, it’s best to incorporate SEO. Search Engine Optimization sets your website up to be found on Google. People who search for relevant keywords, services you offer, or products you sell are more likely to find you with SEO.

Sell your Products & Services

If you sell a product, share it with the world. There are unlimited opportunities to increase your revenue from an online store.  79% of U.S. consumers shop online on their phones according to Pew Research. That’s 8 out of 10 people who can’t see your products.

Services are fairly the same, the only difference is the viewer hasn’t given you the money yet. Though many consumers will research services in their area 3 times before making a decision, don’t be taken out of the running because you don’t have a website.

Convenient for your Customer

You may want your customers to call you. The facts is that 67% of consumers prefer email or text to talking on the phone. Having a website can funnel customers to communicate with you whenever it’s convenient for them.

SEO tips

Tips & Secrets for SEO

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seo tips, learn seo, seo company

Online Marketing is crucial to any type of business, big or small. If you are a fortune 500 company or a local dentist trying to get new patients, online marketing can take your company to a whole new level. Though there are many Types of Online Marketing, we will be focusing on SEO Tips, Search Engine Optimization.

Since every company is different, these tips for SEO may not work exactly for your business. For a complete evaluation of your company and how to improve your SEO, we offer Free SEO Evaluations.

Learn SEO – M.A.D.A.M.S.

Since there is so much involved in SEO, we will stick it to some of the basic. These SEO secrets can provide a great foundation for any starting website.

Metadata – Page Titles & Descriptions

Metadata is the text search engines use to index your page. Like categorizing a page about Poodle into the Dogs category. This is the place you can put relevant keywords targeting your page in order to be found in search. Titles are the most important element in the metadata. Metadata Titles influence the most when Google Indexes your website. Descriptions are supporting text to the page titles. It’s best to place some keywords here but make it readable so viewer know more clearly the subject of the page.

Architecture – Website Structure

Everything from your code to your content is crawled by search engines. Google looks at your website structure to determine what things are important and less important. Navigation hierarchy is a great example. Have a page listing in the top navigation indicates to Google it’s important to your website topic. Now if you had a page buried in sub navigations where people are less likely to find it, Google may take that as a less important page. Another great example of the proper structure is organization. Countless times I find website have these issues where rogue pages are out of place making it difficult for people to find them or even transition to other relative topics on your website. Which leads us into our next section, Creating a fluid User Experience.

Design – User Experience

Google takes User Experience seriously. From navigating the website to color contrast, Google crawls every bit of code and text on your website. When a website is not Mobile Friendly, more likely people are going to leave the website. On average, 46% of the population search using their phones. When they click on a site that does not display properly, chances are they will leave the site entirely. Every website has its own goal either gain leads, sell a product or educate. When building a website keep this in mind to serve your target audience better.

Need Help Building a Website? We build websites tailored for you. Your success is our success! Contact Us Today

Authority – Link building – Directories – Business Listing

Building authority for a website is not easy. The best way is to encourage Google to trust your website. Here’s how…

Directories are great since they act as another venue to discover a business through search. Though in many cases, the information can be inconsistent. Making sure the information is correct will help Google trust the information it finds on the web. Link building is much like building friendships. Creating a referral to the website in order to increase traffic and authority. Lastly, and the most important… Google Business Listing. If the business doesn’t have one, hasn’t claimed or verified it then they are already losing customers. Zero-clicks means people find the business before even entering the website, most times through a Knowledge Graph. We can help you create, optimize, claim & verify your business listing. Contact us about SEO Services.

Make it your own – Content – Relevant – Unique

In the SEO world, content is gold. Always create content that is written for your audience and is relevant. If the business is not able to provide content in their own words, SEO content writing is available.

Copying content from the internet or Web Design Marketing Agencies who use the same content for all their clients can seriously hurt a business’s website.

Site Speed – Loading

A fast loading website is a productive website. 56% of all online traffic is done through mobile phones. Which is why Google decided in 2018 to crawl mobile-friendly websites as ranking factors before the desktop version. Here is why site speed is important. 53% of mobile users abandoned a site if the mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. Every one-second delay in site load time can decrease conversions by 12%.  Making sure the websites mobile load time is 3 seconds or less to prevent losing customer.

Hiring an SEO Company

Though you may feel confident to do SEO on your own, these are only a few tips in best practice SEO. Unfortunately, there is no “cookie cutter” way to SEO as every business is different and has different needs. When hiring an SEO Specialist or SEO Company makes sure the goals are realistic. I see countless companies promise “Rank 1 guarantee” when realistically there is no guarantee with SEO.

Basic SEO - What Every Business Needs To Know

Online Marketing is crucial to any type of business, big or small. If you are a fortune 500 company or a local dentist trying to get new patients, online marketing can take your company to a whole new level. Though there are many types of Online Marketing, we will be focusing on SEO Tips, Search Engine Optimization.

Since every company is different, these tips for SEO may not work exactly for your business. For a complete evaluation of your company and how to improve your SEO, we offer Free SEO Evaluations.

Why Can't Customers Find My Restaurant?

When someone is looking for lunch or dinner, customers typically resort to searching on Google or Yelp for good restaurants in the area. That means SEO for restaurants is no longer optional but nessecary to bring in new customers. Local SEO is extremely important to restaurants because its what customers see first when seaching for restaurants near me. Let’s face it — we are visual animals and customers skim quickly through web pages to find what they want. Having an appealing website with eye catching photos help gain attention and look professional. To get more customers, you will need a well designed website that is fully optimized to deliver results. 

Did you know that ordering online for catering services is now the most fashionable thing in the restuarant industry? Most organizations and individuals have invaded the online market to search for catering services as well as place orders for different foods and meals — all conviently located online. Coming in to order is the way of the past with delivery services and online ordering.

Upgrade Your Restaurant's Website
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Benefits Of SEO For Restaurants

Increasing Traffic to Your Website

When you invest in your website with SEO, you will increase the digital traffic to your website. More traffic to your website means more oppurtunities to gain customers. It also create more awareness of your restaurant and the services you offer. Imagine delivering pictures of your mouth watering dishes to hungry people searching for dinner. SEO can help get your website in front of those hungry people.

Building Brand Awareness

New restaurants can really benefit with SEO by creating brand awareness in your area. even if your a seasoned restuarant, search engine optimization can launch your business to greater heights if done by an expert. SEO experts in restaurants know what content to include and how to identify the right keywords for your restaurant. SEO websites for restaurants must contain the right content so Google can correctly and positively give it a high ranking.

More Money

More traffic to your restaurant website means more conversions. More conversions mean more money for your restaurant. This is why many restuarants are now seeing the nessecity for search engine optimization to help their business grow.  Competition in the restaurant industry has become fierce — don’t get left behind.

Increasing Customer Engagement

Good content is engaging and informative. People are becoming hungrier for good content and Google uses it as a ranking factor. Keep customers engaged with content they want to see like healthy cuisine, how to cut weight while eating healthy and other informative health news. Relative and unique content acts like magic and soon you will find your website flowing with more and more of visitors.

While content is extremely important, including a good keyword strategy to your web pages is also crucial as Google and other search engines use it to rank your website.

busy restaurant, digital marketing, local SEO

SEO Tools For Restaurant's Websites

Keyword Planning Roadmap

You should incorperate target search terms that will give your restaurant website ranking with search engines. Some restaurant websites have become very prominent online with simple keywords such as ‘Chicken Wings’ or ‘Pizzas’. A keyword plan with the right target can boost your restaurant business to greater heights in the long term.

Local-based SEO

Your restaurant serves customers within a certain range of your business location. Location-based SEO helps restaurants reach their goals through local SEO for restaurants by optimizing your Google Business Listing and geo-tagging. Local SEO ensures that your restaurant features prominently to customers searching for “food” and “restaurants” within your proximity.

List Your Restaurant On Review Sites

When your restaurant receives positive reviews from existing customers — it can propel your business even further. Word of mouth and online reviews are like stricking gold. They can make or break a thriving business. Make sure your restaurant is listed on Google My Business, Yelp, and Facebook. Reputation management is another key element in maintaining great ranking online. As hard as we try, every customer may not leave happy, so make sure to respond to reviews online — whether they are good or bad.   

Get Relative Websites To Link To Your Restaurant’s Website

When your website appears on other websites related to your business, it builds trust. Google uses backlinks as a ranking factor and can help improve your visibility in search. A great example would be a blogging customer tries your restaurant, writes a compelling post about it — then linking to your website. Not only do you gain a backlink but also referral traffic. Another way to discover your restaurant in search which means more people will visit your website and may become customers.

Online Ordering System

One of the biggest adjustments due to the pandemic is the importance of online ordering for restaurants. One of the many industries hit hard from Covid was restaurants and hospitality. The online ordering system is another SEO tool for restaurant to perform better. Many visitors now resort to online ordering and delivery services to get their favorite dishes and drinks. Even after Covid dissipates, online ordering will more likely be nessecity and be expected by customers to use. 

Mobile-Friendly Website 

And finally, make your restaurant website mobile-friendly. 75% of searches now happen through a mobile device instead of a desktop or laptop. Google recognized this and now ranks web pages based the user experience through a mobile phone. Not sure if your website is Mobile-friendly? Try Google Mobile-Friendly Test.

Get An SEO Expert For Your Restaurant

An SEO Specialist can provide maintenance to your website’s visibility, increase traffic, and gain more customers with measurable data!  Laced Media has the professional SEO experts to get your restaurant thriving. Schedule a free consultation call today.

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digital marketing for small business, is digital marketing worth it
SEO web design

Why is SEO Important in Santa Rosa

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Santa Rosa, CA to some may be on the smaller size for a city, but it’s actually fairly large in competition.

When researching a cities competitive nature, a few things go into the equation:

  • Population
  • Competition
  • Consumer Behavior

Population 

With a large Population, the reach is much larger.  Imagine talking to an audience of over 100k people, without a microphone. The first few rows might be able to hear but anything beyond that probably won’t. Having a website without SEO in a larger city is like not having that microphone. You’ll reach some but will fall short after a certain point. Get SEO on your website to expand that reach.

Competition

Competition plays a factor since other businesses may offer the same services. Competition helps drive consumers to do research about products or services before purchasing and discover you online.

Don’t get stuck behind. We offer SEO Packages that can fit your business’s needs. Get SEO and back in the competition.

Consumer Behavior

Lastly, Consumer Behavior can be a large reason to get SEO. Statistics show consumers do research 3 times before they make a final purchase. This means a company can be searched for multiple times in order to close a sale. Where do people search? Google. What influences Google Search Ranking? SEO.

The Facts About Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa has a population of 175k people with 56% white, 30% Hispanic, and the rest make of Asian, Black, and mixed. This is your local reach in Santa Rosa. Building a marketing strategy that caters to these demographics is ideal since these are your potential customers. Demographic research is a huge part in Local SEO for Businesses in Santa Rosa. Find out how well you rank in your local market with a SEO Audit. It’s Free.

SEO tips

Is Your Website Secure?

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How Do You Know If Your Website Is Secure?

As we launch ourselves into the 21st century with high-speed internet, mobile web searching, and tablet browsing. Have you ever thought that the information you enter on a website could be compromised? Is my website secure? Online security has become a huge priority within the last couple of years for websites that collect data, require a password, conduct purchases or have private information that some may want to keep confidential. Build trust with a secure website and give your customers the peace of mind to purchase, browse, and submit their information without the worry it will be shared. So how do I make my website secure? We will tell you here.

https, encrypted website, secure website

How Can I Make My Website Secure?

A secure website is marked with HTTPS at the beginning of the URL. Chrome has launched a new update this July to alert visitors if the website they’re visiting is secure or “Not Secure”. This can be scary for people looking to make a purchase on a website as identity theft is a real thing. How to get your website secure — you’ll need an HTTPS. You will need to contact your website hosting provider and get an SSL certificate. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and encrypts information passed through the internet like transmitting passwords, credit cards, or other personal information to and from your website’s server.

What Is HTTPS?

HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. Your website encrypts the data is transferred over a secure connection. … So, HTTPS does encryption of data between a client and a server, which protects against eavesdropping, forging of information and tampering of data.

How Does HTTPS Impact My Business?

Chrome dominates 59% of the market share of GlobalStats which leads into a recent consumer survey saying 82% would leave a website if it was not secure according to the HubSpot Research. This means 8 out of 10 people would leave your website because it wasn’t secure. Another way SSL impacts your business is Google has announced SSL is now a ranking factor in Google Search.

Do you need help getting your website secure? Get website services to secure your website and protect your customers’ information. Contact us about getting your website protected.

SEO web design

Page Speed, Waiting to Load

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Waiting For A Website To Load

Have you ever sat staring at your phone waiting for a website to load? Clicking the refresh button in frustration. It’s not your WIFI, its the website. On average, a user will look at their phone a total of 5 hours a day! The way people use their phones now have seriously changed within the past 10 years and is the vessel of obtaining information.

So Why Does Having a Fast Website Matter?

Users tend to be impatient in a world of instant gratification. Web pages that take longer than 6 seconds to load are prone to loss their audience. 1 to 3 seconds could lose 30%, 3 to 5 seconds may lose 95%. If your website is taking longer than 6 seconds, you’ve more likely lost a potential customer.

70% of phone connections will be at 3G or slower thru 2020 (information provided by thinkwithgoogle.com)

Website Speed Test

Check your website for Desktop and Mobile PageSpeed: Google PageSpeed Tool

If your website is producing some low numbers, you may consider a website redesign. Laced Media offers many types of packages that are affordable and specific to your business goal.

Website Speed Test

Users tend to be impatient in a world of instant gratification. Web pages that take longer than 6 seconds to load are prone to loss their audience. 1 to 3 seconds could lose 30%, 3 to 5 seconds may lose 95%. If your website is taking longer than 6 seconds, you’ve more likely lost a potential customer.

70% of phone connections will be at 3G or slower thru 2020 (information provided by thinkwithgoogle.com)

SEO tips

Yelp’s Algorithm & Why Your Reviews Don’t Show

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One of the biggest consumer review platforms online is filtering your reviews. Yelp developed its own algorithm in hopes to filter out fake or spam reviews in order to publish a more reliable customer review source. Unfortunately, some of those positive “legit” reviews are being filtered out as well.

Why Does Yelp Filter Reviews?

Yelp tries to filter reviews that it thinks are likely to be fake or spam. These could be reviews Yelp thinks are malicious, inside influenced, an individual who has never visited the business, or competitors attempting to damage the business’s reputation. Consumer Reviews are highly important to any business and can heavily influence a potential customer to choose you, or look elsewhere.

Yelp will filter out reviews good and bad based on some of these factors:

  • A reviewer with no photos, profile info, or profile picture
  • Lack of details in the review
  • A reviewer with only 1 review
  • Reviews from an account consisting of all 1 star or 5 stars
  • Frequency of reviews

How Do I Get My Yelp Reviews to Show?

A few recommendations you can try to help get those customer reviews to show on your Yelp listing:

  • Click the buttons: Cool, Useful or Funny for the 5 star reviews – normally located at the bottom of the review
  • Add the reviewer as a friend
  • Send a message to the reviewer
  • Respond to the review – I always recommend replying to your reviews, especially the harmful 1 star reviews

Interacting with the reviews and the Reviewers tell Yelp these are “legit” and hopefully sway them to start showing. You’ll want to focus on the 5-star reviews to interact with since this encourages visibility. The more people do this, the better. The customer can also increase the power of their opinion as well with the suggestions below.

yelp review for laced media, #1 digital marketing santa rosa

How to Show Yelp My Reviews are Legitimate

As a consumer, I would want my review I spent time writing to show. Here are a few recommendations to share with your customers to beat the Yelp Filter:

  • Write more reviews ( a lot more)
  • Fill out your profile and add photos
  • Connect with other members on Yelp
  • Write more details in your review
  • Leave “Tips” for the business you’re reviewing too
  • Become a part of Yelp Elite

Though doing these will never guarantee your reviews will show but it’s a step in the write (pun intended) direction!

Need some guidance with reviews and reputation management? Contact us to find out more on how we clean up an online reputation.

Reputation Management
Uncategorized

Why Am I Not Showing in Map Search?

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map locations, map pins, local listings

3 SEO Tips For Small Business With Big Results

It is more important than ever for small businesses — or any business, to do Search engine marketing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the biggest and bestest investments you can do for your business.  To grow your business and strengthen your placement in whatever industry you’re in, acquiring new customers and building your brand should be a top priority.

Running a small business is no easy task — we know from experience as we were all there at one point. The list of responsibilities and duties are endless with sometimes things falling between the cracks. Unfortunately, it’s very common for to businesses to push SEO to the back of the priority list.

This can be a huge detriment to a small business. SEO lets your online content work to help find and draw in new customers and increase traffic to your pages. People use search engines to find what they are looking for, decide what they want, and answer questions. Optimizing this process can optimize every element of your business from the ground up. 

How Important is SEO for Small Businesses?

Shopify has reported that e-commerce sales are expected to reach $4.5 trillion by the end of 2021. With this kind of online business traffic its absolutely necessary to drive customers to your content and products. While not all your  investments in SEO will pay off immediately — sometimes taking a year or more to gain revenue profits. SEO is no comparison in the long run. The overall, long-lasting benefit for your business can be game-changing. Here’s a few tips to get you started:

1. Local SEO Is Important

Local business When someone searches, “best Chinese restaurant near me” or “tattoo shops Santa Rosa,” the immediacy of these results can mean everything. With the rise of zero-click searches, you don’t even need to leave Google to get all the information you need. Contact information, reviews, and Google Maps directions will come up instantly on Google. 

Keep these steps in mind when trying to optimize how you appear in local searches. 

  • Build backlinks from local companies
  • Create location-based content
  • Encourage local reviews and engage with local influencers and social media
  • Optimize for local keywords
  • Take advantage of Google My Business page features

2. Get Into Snippets

Featured snippets are  seriously important in SEO and will continue to be as long as people keep searching for answers. Snippets are sections of a websites content that pop up on Google when you ask a question — in hopes to answer your question. This is position zero and where everyone wants to be. Getting featured on snippets requires careful attention to header tag, relevance, and formatted content designed to rank with featured snippet. 

3. Keyword Research for Popular Search Queries

Keyword research is very important to your marketing plan. Local search results often rely on quality, relevant, industry-specific keywords to draw in traffic and local visibility. The importance of keyword research is so important that it is necessary for all venues of digital marketing. With Google’s Keyword Planner, you can find industry-relevant keywords and local keywords to build a focus campaign. 

Keywords are constantly changing due to fluctuations in trends and online behavior, social media, new events, and even pop culture.

While you may have a well put together list of relevant keywords right now, chances are they will different in the future. This is why constant SEO management is important. 

Get A Free Website & SEO Audit

Is our job to know everything about digital marketing… so why not get FREE advice on your current website.

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SEO tips

Googling Your Business Can Hurt It’s Ranking in Google Search

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SEO cloud, web search, search engine optimization

Learn How Customers See Your Business In Google Search

Many companies want to know how well they rank in a Google Search for services and products they offer. A majority will Google themselves to see where they rank — and can be very disappointed. Google uses a wide range of factors to deliver customized results with every search. Googling yourself will not give reliable results on how customers see your business in Google search based on customized search.

Customize Search To Answer Your Questions

Google’s has refined their search results in such a way that it uses data you never thought it would. The goal for Google search is to deliver an answer to a questions or provide the best possible result to a search. So, Google will use information it has collected over time and include it in any of the future searches. Keywords Googled, phrases, or even websites visited.

How Does Google Know...

Google search has an extremely complex algorithm. Its purpose is to index (record and categorize) the world wide web. There are a lot of variables that go into how Google will return a search results list. Google is very hush hush on their algorithm though sometimes someone spills the beans. Here are a few examples of what may impact page rank in the search results for search queries:

  • Metadata, Descriptions, Headings and Titles
  • Previous searches and relative keywords
  • A well structured website with link building
  • Geolocation in reference to what is searched
  • and endless more factors…

What is An Algorithm?

Google algorithms is a computer programming that is set to deliver information in a very complex and specific way. Google’s search engine returns millions of results for you to choose from but how does it know what to list and what order to list it in? An algorithm.

Tips On Finding Your Current Position in Ranking

When Googling yourself, try using a Private Window or Incognito. This will eliminate some factors Google will typically use in search to make the results more relevant to your previous searches. Though this is not an indefinite way to see how you truly show for your potential customers, it’s closer to what they may see when Googling services you offer.

Need SEO on your website? Get a free SEO and website audit