We at AVINTIV are celebrating our 5 year anniversary! A half-decade in business.
Over 54% of businesses fail within the first four years. It’s also a fact that over 80% of businesses fail within the first five years.
In five years, our company has grown year over year, oftentimes doubling in size, and has continued to change the lives of so many clients along with their teams and customers.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jon Boles, and I’m the Founder & CEO of AVINTIV.
I started AVINTIV five years ago for one reason: to provide marketing services for myself and others rooted in higher principles and authentic effort. At the time, back in 2016, I had an eCommerce and manufacturing company that I was trying to grow to all new heights. I continued to run into issues using other agencies and freelancers.
Back then, freelancers were ripping me off, not finishing projects, and requesting even more money for them to finish. I realized how the marketing world is truly like the wild wild west.
Large agencies wouldn’t even open their doors for me, and smaller agencies were fluffing their reports. No matter where I turned, there was always someone taking advantage of a business owner like myself, and I couldn’t find someone who authentically wanted to help me get to where I was trying to go.
Instead of losing more time and money, I hired an in-house team, and we ended up creating such a unique and engaging take on our branding, positioning, social media, and advertising that companies started reaching out asking for an intro to the agency that was the mastermind behind the work.
That’s when a light bulb went off. There were others out there looking for and wanting the same things I was after.
Being a serial entrepreneur at heart, I spent weeks researching, analyzing, and drafting up business and strategy plans to see if this new idea was viable.
A week later, I created Avintiv Media which is now known as AVINTIV. It started with just myself and the original team that was employed by my eCommerce company. That quickly evolved to a team of 5, then 10, and on and on.
What started as a simple solution to a wide problem many entrepreneurs have faced has led to working with some of the biggest brands in the world and generating hundreds of millions of dollars for our list of phenomenal clients. Many of AVINTIV’s clients have dramatically grown to new heights that they didn’t even know existed. We have even seen clients grow from 5 employees to 50+ in just 12 months or even grow from $2 million to $56 million in just 24 months.
Over the past five years, AVINTIV has won over 20+ best-in-class awards and has been featured in countless publications such as Entrepreneur, Yahoo Finance, Fox, CBS, NBC, AZ Foothills, AZ Central, Clutch, Scottsdale Health, and more.
Although we are extremely grateful for these accolades, AVINTIV doesn’t let the awards define who we are. We are defined by the passion and work ethic that we put into each and every project and the down-to-earth culture that we have been able to build over the years. Instead of sharing more numbers, we’d like to share some words that we live by.
Passion, hard work, and enthusiasm
Honesty & Integrity
Fearlessness
Commitment to Excellence
Empowerment
The words above describe AVINTIV. These words describe the world we live in, the journey we’re on, and the passion that fuels us as the heart of AVINTIV. These are words that we, as a company, live by.
One thing most agency owners can relate to is putting their clients first. Over the past five years, we have really gone above and beyond for our clients. We treat each business as if it were ours, and we have everything on the line. It has created so many lifelong relationships with so many companies and their team members.
We have also gone through numerous growing pains, just like any other company. With each speed bump, we have endured, we’ve learned to take a step back and see what the world was trying to teach us before growing to the next level.
When you’re growing at the speed of light, and you’re also in charge of your clients’ growth, you constantly have to reinvest in better systems, processes, team members, logistics, operations, and so on.
As time has gone on, we realized that to grow to the level of impacting the world, we would have to put our team, culture, and company vision before everything else. We knew that we had to make AVINTIV stand out from every other employer out there. AVINTIV would become a company that not only paid a great salary but a company that went above and beyond to be there for every team member and make sure that they’re constantly becoming a better version of themselves, especially at home and in their personal lives.
In doing just that, every team member rallies behind the company’s vision and continues to row in the same direction, allowing us to deliver on creating our phenomenal clients’ visions.
It’s still surreal knowing that we went from a three-person team to go on to work with clients like Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini and are now working with many 7-9 figure brands that are truly changing the world. The majority of our clients are industry leaders within the health and wellness, Cannabis, energy, manufacturing, eCommerce, and technology spaces.
Our clients are truly going above and beyond to make a difference in not only their customers’ lives but the planet as a whole. It is extremely fulfilling knowing that the brands we’re building and growing are playing such a vital role in how our world evolves for our children and their children.
What can you expect over the next 5 years?
We are BEYOND excited for the next five years at AVINTIV. To say that we have been working on a lot of fun internal projects would be the understatement of the year.
This year alone, we are hiring another 10 full-time team members and launching two new advertising departments and service offerings. For the first time ever, we’re launching our own internal lead generation system to be able to attract more phenomenal clients and be able to make an even bigger impact in the world.
Over the next five years, we plan on scaling our business up to 50-75 full-time team members, having clients in almost every major city/state in the U.S., and really pushing the boundaries of the agency space.
Our goal at AVINTIV is to be industry leaders that continue to push the status quo. We will continue to question everything and do everything in our power to make sure our clients are constantly winning and changing the world in the process.
Thank you to everyone who has supported AVINTIV over the last five years. This company is so much bigger than just one person or one team. It is so surreal to know how many people believe in us, and remembering that we’re still five years young is even more exciting.
AVINTIV is one of the most trusted digital marketing agencies in Arizona that offers top-notch search engine optimization (SEO), web design, and online marketing solutions to a wide array of industries. We bring our expertise, creativity, and dedication to every project we handle to help our clients grow their businesses.
Recently, SEOblog.com recognized our SEO agency as one of the Best SEO Companies in Phoenix in 2021. This acknowledgment, along with the numerous awards we’ve won throughout the years, speaks volumes about the quality of our services and our commitment to success.
At AVINTIV, building award-winning brands is our passion. We understand that the digital marketplace is ever-changing. That is why we stay ahead of the game when it comes to the latest industry developments and algorithm changes to bring top-of-the-line SEO services to our clients.
“We see the Phoenix SEO market still up and coming,” said Jon Boles, Founder & CEO of AVINTIV. “From what we’ve been able to see due to COVID is that we’re able to keep our core team in Phoenix/Scottsdale but be able to hire rockstar SEO team members across the country. What that does is bring unique approaches and strategies that not many companies in Arizona have tapped into yet.”
AVINTIV is bringing a lot of new strategic campaigns to our clients, which has helped them pivot during the pandemic and has seen sales increase dramatically.
“Jon and the Avintiv Media team actually care about your success. I have been with Avintiv Media from early on and the changes that come with the growth have been phenomenally handled and the amount of quality work has far exceeded expectations. Nothing is perfect however, it is how it is handled that makes the difference.”
– Brian Gamaly | Black Diamond Supplements
SEOblog.com, a leading thought-leadership SEO website and trusted directory for the best SEO companies, released the “2021 Best SEO Companies in Phoenix” in late January. Each SEO service provider was evaluated based on key quantitative and qualitative factors, including client list, portfolio, market presence, and online reputation.
We are thrilled to be recognized as one of the best SEO companies in Phoenix by SEOblog.com. We thank all our clients, partners, and our Avintiv Media team for their unwavering trust and support of our SEO firm. Contact us to learn more about our unique branding and SEO services. You may also write a review on SEOblog.com about your experience with Avintiv Media by clicking here.
Our team at Avintiv Media just got off the phone with our analyst over at Clutch! She called our offices to tell us that we had just been named one of the top SEO firms! Hiring an outside provider is a smart business move in many ways, and hiring SEO firms is even more essential. That is why we are so honored to be one of Clutch’s top SEO firms in Arizona for 2020.
Clutch is located in the nation’s capital city, just steps away from the White House in the District of Columbia. Their team of highly trained analysts takes the time to independently verify each and every client review they conduct, and then their editorial team curates and edits the content to present it in an easy to read format. When you’re purchasing B2B services, Clutch.co is the premier name for B2B reviews.
That is why we are so honored to maintain a superb average rating as seen on Clutch! In a recent review, the CEO of 11th Hour praised our branding work!
Thanks to other stellar reviews, we’re listed as one of the top SEO firms in Arizona and a leading global SEO firm!
“It’s a great honor to be recognized as one of the top SEO Firms in Arizona as it means we are truly impacting our client’s lives along with their company. Making a difference is what Avintiv Media is all about.”– Jon Boles, Founder & CEO
Contact us today to join our legions of satisfied customers!
Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t a marketing buzzphrase anymore. It’s one of the most important pieces to ensuring that you have a Google-friendly site.
It’s the strategy required to connect your brand’s online presence with your intended audience, and it drives your site’s design choices as well as its content development.
There is no off-the-shelf solution to SEO; your strategy must adapt to your industry, market segments, and brand. Here’s what you need to know to put search engine optimization into context.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” SEO is the action of optimizing your website and its pages to make them rank higher within search results of Google or other search engines. Optimizing your website and its pages with SEO in mind will help you get more traffic and convert more sales. SEO is a very important piece of your marketing plan.
One thing you need to understand about Google and other search engines is that they want their users to have the best customer experience possible. This can mean many things. For one, Google wants you to have a well-built site that abides by their rules and criteria on how they crawl your site. In seeing how well your site is built and how much authority you are in your space, they want to deliver results on the search engine page that are relevant to what the searcher is looking for. Once the user clicks on your link, Google wants your website to be of the utmost quality and delivers a great experience.
Google and other search engines will scan or crawl your site to understand what your site is all about. It mainly reads lines of code, which is why it’s very important to make sure your website is up to par, and your SEO is updated to Google’s standards. Those same crawlers bring all of that data back to the search engine to build an index. The index is then put through an algorithm that data with the query.
This will help Google and other search engines deliver more relevant results when users are searching for certain topics, keywords, or phrases. Google rewards those who have a user-friendly website that is optimized for a user’s experience.
Here are Some Actionable Steps to Make Your site Google-friendly
Provide Quality Content
No matter your industry or business model, content will always be king. If you’re like us and you don’t want your revenue stream contingent on a social media platform, then we highly recommend writing quality content.
You have to understand that most people that are going online are either searching to buy something specific or wanting to learn about a topic to eventually buy something. If you’re just focused on the sale and not providing people with value, it’s going to be very hard for you to outrank your competition.
Google and other search engines want relevant pages coming in the SERPs when a user is searching for something. The more quality and niche-focused content pieces that you have on your site, the likelier your site is to rank higher on the search engine results page. This will also create a relationship of trust and relatability with the visitors engaging with your content. This could result in that visitor making a purchase down the road.
When creating content, you want to keep two things in mind. Write your content for humans reading it, but also make sure it’s optimized properly for SEO. A good way of doing this is by providing many different types of content.
Blog posts and articles
Whitepapers
eBooks
How-to-guides
Infographics
Videos or Podcasts
You want to make sure you’re constantly updating new and fresh content. Google doesn’t want to rank a site that has 10-year-old articles that don’t have any relevance to the current date. You can also go through old posts and update the content to make it current.
One of the most important things when writing content is understanding SEO keywords and phrases. Now that you have quality content that you know someone will want to read, you must make sure that the content has relevant words and phrases so that a search engine will pick it up. You should start the article with your keywords and phrases in mind, so you can write the content around them. This will result in a higher chance of ranking higher in the SERPs.
Google also wants your site to be built for everyone. Your website should be able to be accessed and learned by literally anyone. It’s important that users who may experience some type of impairment or disability can still access your site.
Quality On-page SEO
Title Tags
Title tags are extremely important for your on-page SEO. These tags have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the average user searching Google and other search engines. The words will appear at the top of each tab in your browser for both organic results and paid ads.
Title tags explain what the page is about. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.
If you’re working inside WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very easily. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short.
Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would you say about your webpage versus your competition? Make sure to add in your relevant keywords and location if you’re a local business.
Meta Descriptions
Google and other search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value through your meta description. The meta descriptions also explain what users will find on the page, which is very important when you only have a split second of their time.
When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well-written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, which will create a higher click-through rate for the user.
We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long.
Add in your brand’s name, a keyword or two, and what users will find on the page. This could be the first interaction visitors will have with your brand. Make it a great experience.
Heading Tags
Heading tags are important for on-page SEO success. Your landing pages and blog pages should include multiple heading tags, ranging from H1 to H6. The most important heading tag is the H1.
The H1 heading is usually the page title or name of the page or post, which should be used only once per page. On a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. On a product page, your H1 would be the name of that product.
As you write your content, you can also use the H2 and H3 headings to introduce different sections of your page or content. An H2 heading is like a chapter in a book. The section you’re reading now is an H3 heading since it’s a sub-section of a chapter (H2).
It’s rare for typical content to get ‘deep’ enough to need the use of H4 tags and beyond unless you’re writing extremely long or really technical content.
Internal Links & External Links
Links are extremely important to the success of your overall SEO. Earning high-quality links from authoritative domains will strengthen your SEO greatly. We’ll go into more detail when we talk about off-page SEO.
Internal links throughout your site and blogs will deliver a better user experience for your visitors and will also enhance your SEO.
Internal linking to other pages of your site will strengthen the keywords and have Google and other search engines determine where to rank a particular keyword. The crawlability of your site will improve drastically when you internally link your pages, products, categories, and blogs. This will result in Google and other search engines showing the site’s most important pages.
When you add a new link to your homepage, it becomes easier for Google to see that you’ve updated your site with new content instead of crawling the entire site again. The more you do this, the more Google realizes that you care about the user’s experience.
Internal links also provide a higher chance of your visitors staying on your website longer. Google takes notice when there is more engagement across your site and relevant pages.
When doing internal links to other pages on your website, we recommend staying between 4-6 links. You want to make sure that these links open in the same tab so the user can see the flow.
While doing internal links to external websites, we recommend staying between 2-5 links depending on the size of your content. When these links go to external websites, you want to make sure they open up in a new tab, so the user doesn’t leave your site.
Make sure you’re using anchor text that relates to the URL that it’s pointing to so you don’t get penalized by Google.
Optimize Images (Alt Tags)
Make sure you don’t spend all of your juice on writing the content and then slack on providing high-quality images. When choosing what images to use with your website or post, make sure they are unique and page relevant. Users are much more likely to engage with an image before they begin reading a post.
With how popular Instagram is, our society is trained to look at images first and content second.
Same as social media, when using images on your site, make sure you’re using the highest quality images possible. Google and other search engines prefer higher-resolution images.
You always want to keep page speed in the back of your mind when adding images. Scale down your images below a 150KB file size to ensure that it doesn’t affect your website speed in a negative way.
When adding an image, you want to make sure that you always add in the image alt-text. An optimized alt-text gives Google another clue about what your page is about. The alt tag should be used to describe what the image is about so it’s visible to Google’s crawlers.
Page Speed
Google now expects every website that wants to rank higher to have its website built properly with an amazing customer experience with quicker page speed.
Over 47% of users expect a website page to load in two seconds or less. Even worse, over 40% of users won’t wait more than three seconds before leaving the site. Everything is customer-centric, and to win in a competitive market, you must focus on the customer and not the competition.
You can always get a FREE SEO Audit from our team to see what needs to be done to speed up your site.
Quality off-page SEO
Links and Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is extremely important for any brand that wants to dominate its industry.
One of the most important aspects of off-page SEO is building backlinks. Google and other search engines use backlinks to indicate the quality of the content that’s linked. A site with many high-quality backlinks will usually rank higher than the same site with fewer high-quality backlinks.
There are three main types of links for off-page SEO:
Natural links are given from no action being done on your part. Once a brand or site has authority, other sites will want to link their content and pages to the brand or site. Example: Entrepreneur.com is writing an article about an entrepreneur, and they reference your company in their article, backlinking it to your site.
Self-created links are created by the business owner or marketing team when adding backlinks from sites like online directories, forums, blog comments, press releases, etc. Just make sure you stay away from black hat SEO techniques.
Manual links are acquired through planned link-building initiatives. This can be done through a variety of third-party outlets. One major one is content syndication.
Links that have the most value are the ones that Google and other search engines will be ranking the highest in the SERPs. There are quite a few variables that define “value” to Google and other search engines. Some of those variables are:
The authority of the linking site
The relevance of the linking site’s topic to the topic of the site that created the link
The “freshness” of the link
The number of other links on the linking page
The trustworthiness of the linking site
In Conclusion
There is a lot of information to go over when thinking about the perfect SEO strategy or campaign to launch. Don’t get overwhelmed, as there are a lot of great SEO agencies that can help you accomplish everything that we’ve gone over in this article. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an SEO audit, feel free to contact us.
Due to the high risk of spreading COVID-19, many businesses, and healthcare providers have reduced or stopped seeing patients in person altogether. Social distancing is extremely smart right now, but what happens to patients that truly need to see a doctor or medical professional? People still need a way to continue to get medical care and treatment, especially from the safety and comfort of their own homes, which is why virtual healthcare is the new norm.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the needs for telehealth, telemedicine, and virtual healthcare massively skyrocket for people around the world. March 2020 alone had a 50% increase in telehealth visits due to the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts are also expecting that medical care visits will be over 200 million this year, which is way up from their original expectation of 36 million visits for all of 2002.
Now is the time to offer telemedicine for your practice as many people are still in need of medical treatments. We are going to be going over Google’s new search feature for virtual healthcare and how you can do the same.
Google Connecting People to Virtual Doctors
Google has decided to help people connect with their health care providers much more easily. Google’s main priority is to provide people with access to high-quality and authoritative information for their healthcare needs.
Google is currently rolling out new features in Google Search and Google Maps that will make it easier for people to connect to virtual doctors much easier. This feature will apply for any size medical practice that can offer telehealth services.
This new search feature will decrease the amount of stress and time when looking for help online. You won’t have to click on a medical provider’s name and then go to their website to see if they offer virtual healthcare options. Searching Google can be a daunting task, let alone for someone who needs medical attention.
Google My Business Profile Displaying Virtual Healthcare Options
This new virtual care feature is for healthcare providers like doctors, hospitals, and mental health professionals. Someone searching for medical assistance might see a “get virtual healthcare” link on their search results or maps. The person searching will be able to click on their link where it will bring them to the healthcare providers’ website for more information. You will see later on what we recommend doing for that landing page.
Due to every state having its own rules and regulations about what is currently open or closed, we’d recommend updating your information in your Google My Business profile. Google is automatically putting a link directly to healthcare providers’ COVID-19 information page on Google Search and Google Maps, so make sure to update yours. If you haven’t done so already, we recommend reading Google’s best practices on how healthcare providers should update their websites with the latest COVID-19 information.
Landing Page For Your Telemedicine Options
If you want to do this correctly, we would highly recommend building out a telemedicine or telehealth landing page that is built specifically for virtual healthcare. The last thing you want to do is have someone click your virtual healthcare link, but your website says nothing about virtual healthcare options. Here is an example of a telemedicine landing page that we just built for a local Scottsdale, AZ medical provider.
Make sure that your telemedicine landing page is straightforward and clear to understand. The whole goal of this page is to ensure confidence in the visitor that they know who you are, what you offer, and how they can make an appointment.
Treat the page as if the visitor has never heard of telehealth or telemedicine. We recommend listing out, “What is Telemedicine?” and then explaining the specifics on why telemedicine or virtual healthcare is important and what the benefits are. Remember, virtual healthcare is brand new to a lot of people that haven’t experienced it yet.
Next, list out the virtual healthcare services that you offer, so the visitor understands what you do provide and what you don’t provide. The last thing you’ll want is having to turn down a person who truly needs medical attention for services that you don’t provide.
Last but not least, list out how to become a new patient, what they should expect, and a call to action to either call now or book an appointment.
Virtual Healthcare Options in Search Results
This new virtual healthcare feature is beginning as a pilot for search results in the U.S.
Google gave an example of someone searching for “immediate care,” and the search results showed available virtual care options and related information about the visit. Some of this information would be on out-of-pocket costs charged for a visit (for those that don’t have health insurance). This will be an easy way for people to directly connect with a virtual healthcare provider without ever having to leave their homes. Virtual visits should take place on the healthcare provider’s platform of choice.
Someone searching for healthcare will be able to directly see in the results what virtual healthcare options are available and what the out-of-pocket costs are for a visit.
In Conclusion
The world is changing every day at a rate that most of us aren’t used to. Being in the medical and healthcare industry, now is your chance to step it up a notch and provide that extra level of care for patients that need virtual healthcare. If you need any help with optimizing your website for COVID-19, setting up your Google My Business profile for virtual healthcare options, or building telemedicine landing pages, contact us today. We are ready to help our community just as much as you are.
March and April 2020 have been a whirlwind of uncertainty, confusion, fear, confidence, and a mixture of everything in-between. Every person and business in the world has been affected by COVID-19. It’s how we allow COVID-19 to affect our business that dictates our future journey. We’re writing an article on why local SEO is important for your 2020 marketing strategy because we chose to be the positive light helping businesses get through this difficult time.
You have a choice as a business owner. You can fold your arms, play the victim, and wonder why this has happened to your business and you. Or, you can take a step back, breathe, and plan how you’re not just going to survive, but figure out how your business can thrive. What can you do right now to bounce back 10x stronger than before?
We work with a variety of different industries, both online and local businesses, and thankfully they’re all doing well. We’ve helped every one of our clients pivot their business during these uncertain times, and it’s paying off for them. We’ve also had an influx of companies reach out to us to rebuild their branding, websites, and SEO as before COVID-19, they didn’t have the time to start these types of projects.
Businesses all over have been drastically affected by COVID-19. Right now is the time for smaller companies to go head to head against their much larger competitor. If you own a local medspa with 3-4 employees and a 3,000sq ft office space, you have an amazing chance of surviving COVID-19 as you may not have the same challenges as the medspa with 20 employees, 10,000 sq ft office space and a $30,000 per month marketing expense.
We can speak on this topic as we have medical clients in that space right now who are planning on even financially helping or buying the other medspas that can’t weather the storm as it’s a smart play right now.
Now, before we go too far off track, we wanted to give you an example of businesses that are getting hurt from being closed, yet still keeping a positive outlook on life and doing whatever they can to grow their business during COVID-19.
Local SEO and Why It’s Important During and After COVID-19
We are going to go over why local SEO is so important now more than ever for businesses in the following industries: salons, spas, health and wellness, plastic surgery, medical, restaurants, massage, and cleaning services. It’s April 14th, 2020, as we write this article, and the State of Arizona, along with the rest of the country, is in complete lockdown.
Right now, most cities and shopping centers look like ghost towns, and that’s okay. Do you know how busy it’s going to be when everyone can leave the house and resume their normal lifestyle? We’re afraid most businesses won’t even know how to deal with the increase in demand for their restaurant, salon, spa, or shopping center.
Think about it. Everyone has been cooped up at home for two to three months with their spouse, pets, kids, etc. They want out, and they want to get back to their normal life of eating out, going to the gym, watching a movie, etc.
This exact reason is why local SEO is so essential for your business. You should want your business popping up on the first page of Google and #1 in the local 3-pack Google map when searching for your type of business. We are going to go over what local SEO is and five reasons why local SEO is important for your business right now.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO (search engine optimization) is a way to optimize your business and its website to be visible and populate for location-based searches on Google. Local SEO is a strategy that can be incorporated into your marketing campaign to drive more organic traffic to your website, to give the user directions, and for the ability to call your phone number to visit you or set an appointment.
When a user is searching for specific keywords with the city, state, zip code, or near me searches added, your business should populate. Local search optimization is one of the best marketing tactics and strategies to grow your local business.
Below is an example of searches
Restaurants near me
Bars near me
Scottsdale Medspas
Medical clinics in Phoenix
Avintiv Media has our proprietary process on how we get our local clients ranking on the first page of Google and in the 3-pack map. Some standard strategies can include content creation, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization with an emphasis on local directory listings.
5 Reasons Why Local SEO Is Important and Should be Your Main Marketing Focus for 2020
1. When COVID-19 is over, traveling, eating out, and shopping will be busier than ever.
One of the biggest misconceptions when wanting to grow your business is building your marketing around current events. That is slightly true but mostly false. True SEO campaigns and strategies take 60-90 days before Google fully processes all of the changes and starts sending you more organic traffic. If you started local SEO today, you would start to see results around June 14th, 2020. June 14th, 2020, which would be weeks after the U.S. has lifted its lockdown policies, and people would slowly going back out and looking at places to eat and shop.
Not only that, I can attest to this, but most of us do not look like our best selves right now, whether it’s from nails or hair not being done or gyms being closed down. Gyms, medspas, hair salons, and any type of medical or health enhancement company are going to be booming with customers wanting to enhance their look. Is your medspa going to pop up #1 on Google when a user searches, or will your competitor take that spot?
A lot of your competitors are probably doing worse than you due to their company being larger with much more expenses. They are more than likely taking their foot off the gas, which is the perfect time to catch up to them before they even notice. We love working with the Davids of the world as we take down the Goliaths of the world. We genuinely want everyone to win, so we say that half kidding, but the other half being dead serious.
2. Local SEO stats you should know.
We can sit here and tell you why local SEO is so important for your business right now and in the near future, but we’d much rather you see real research and data.
3. Getting Your Business Listed on the Google 3-Pack Map
You, along with everyone else, have searched for something on Google and have clicked a business listed in Google’s 3-pack map. Most people never even go past the 3-pack map since Google launched it.
Ironically, Moz completed a study where over 44% of the people who performed a local search, then clicked on the 3-pack listing. Only 8% of those people chose to press “load more” to see the rest of the results. Do you want to be a part of the 8% group of businesses?
The Google 3-pack map has made it extremely easy for people to find a business’s website, address, or phone number with just a few clicks. If you’re using a new smartphone, which is highly likely, your phone will give you turn-by-turn directions to that business within seconds.
Below is an example of one of our clients, who is a local dentist and periodontist. We’ve been grateful to have been working with them for almost two years now. We rebuilt their brand, website, and completed local SEO with ongoing SEO support. Within just a few short months, her business was on page one of Google and the Google 3-pack map for competitive keywords within her industry.
4. Tourists and people that are traveling are going to use Google to find businesses near them.
Although it’s hard to imagine people traveling right now with everything going on with COVID-19, there will be a time in the near future when the world resumes back to how it was. When tourists travel to different places, they search Google for what’s around them. Odds are if you haven’t invested in optimizing your business for local SEO, they will not be finding your business.
As you can see in the image below, search engines (SEO) is the number one online used source for travel planning by leisure travelers and the second source for business travelers.
Make sure that you have a nicely designed website that will give your visitors a phenomenal experience; otherwise, Google won’t want to rank you towards the top.
5. Local SEO has the highest conversion rates out of all local advertising channels.
This reason is probably one of the most important because as a fellow business owner, we all understand ROI and revenue is much more important than analytics in a monthly report. There are many parts of SEO, but the two most significant elements are: getting your website more organic traffic and then having that organic traffic convert into paying customers.
There was a recent study done that showed an astounding 78% conversion of offline sales through local SEO, with almost 90% of those purchases being a physical store or location. Out of those local searches, 76% of the offline sales happened the same day, and 63% within just a few hours. I don’t know about you, but those are some pretty fantastic conversion rates.
When people are searching on Google through their mobile devices, chances are they are ready to buy something or come to your business within the next 24 hours.
In Conclusion
With the addition of Local SEO, you’ll also be one of those businesses that can proudly say we not only survived COVID-19, but we also set our business up for future success and it’s now doing better than ever. Are you going to be that person? If so, schedule a FREE SEO audit with us today to see how well your local SEO is performing.
By now, working from home is no shock to the whole world. As we write this article, we’re going on 33 days of working from home. Although we’re a digital marketing agency and can pivot fairly quickly, it’s a culture change and shock to a lot of people that aren’t ready for it. Not to mention, a lot of people have a problem when forced to do something, even if it’s for the best. Thankfully, our entire team transitioned to 100% remote with ease as we helped each other through the mental change.
After seeing and hearing about a lot of companies and people struggling with the 100% remote transition, we figured we’d provide some value and give you the top tips that have helped our agency pivot 100% working from home with ease.
Top Tips For Being Productive While Working From Home
Before we dive into the top tips for being productive while working from home, we’d like to touch on a few things. Everything in life, whether good or bad, is analyzed and processed by your mind, your emotions, and how you feel about situations. You can follow all of our tips, but if you’re doing it while the news is on or you’re scrolling through social media looking for COVID-19 updates, you might as well throw these tips right out the window. You must eliminate all stress from your life and put blinders on during this new world we’re living in. Try to focus on the positives that have come from this. We know it’s hard to be positive during a tragic time, but it is very much possible as we’re writing this article from a very positive and happy place.
Make sure your house is clean and stays clean.
I know we sound like your mom in the 3rd grade to make sure you clean your room before you can play with your friends, but we’re serious. If you haven’t read the book “Make Your Bed,” we’ll start with your first task. From the moment you wake up, you must start the day with a sense of not only accomplishment but a clean and healthy start. It puts your mindset on attention to detail mindset for the day. A clean home will create a positive and stress-free environment for you and your work. This current situation might be much harder for those of you reading this that have a few kids running around at home but ask for help from others.
A lot of people struggle with their schedule while working remotely, which is why we recommend scheduling your cleaning on your Google calendar, where you can see it every day. We’re not kidding. Schedule out your chores and cleaning time on your calendar so you treat it as if you would like any other task in your life. I’ve personally been doing this for years, and it works like a charm. Even if you have a cleaning lady or company that usually comes, odds are, we’re all cleaning our houses right now. A productive day starts with cleanliness and positive energy.
Make sure that you set up a remote office in a room in your home.
This one might seem obvious, but we have to remember that some people live in studio or one-bedroom apartments. This tip also goes to anyone that has an office at home but decides to use the couch instead. No matter how much “flow” you think you have from a comfy chair or comfy couch, you should still set up a designated office in your home. Your office will allow you to sit up straight in a chair and type effectively on your computer. It won’t have you getting comfy like a couch cushion would, which will slowly put you to sleep throughout the day.
You should also treat different rooms in your house for different purposes; otherwise, you’re going to go crazy by being inside your home 24/7. If you work, read, watch tv, and talk to friends on Zoom all from your living room, chances are you’re going to get sick of your living room and feel trapped very soon. Spread your time throughout your entire home. If you have a smaller house or apartment, feel free to get outside while staying socially distant from people.
Communication with your team is crucial.
When working from home, we’re forced to read lines in a text message, email, or Slack channel versus seeing that person and having a conversation face to face. We’ve all had someone misread our text or email before and take the message the opposite way that you intended it to be read. That calls for increased communication with your team during these times.
Our team has two stand-up meetings on Slack and Zoom every week, managers meeting every Friday, and we all work live in slack together from 9 am – 6 pm Monday through Friday. Although our team has been working until 8 pm – 9 pm most nights as a lot of our clients have tight deadlines for COVID-19 projects and not much else to do right now outside of work and binge-watch your favorite Netflix series, Tiger King.
Making a schedule is crucial.
Some of you might live by a schedule, and some of you might hate schedules. Now is the time to get accustomed to a schedule if you want to be productive while working remotely from home. Some of you might be single and alone at home, but some of you might have a significant other and kids at home, so it could also be pretty hectic.
We highly recommend putting everything about your day in your Google Calendar. You can then color code your day. I’ll give you an example. I wake up every morning at 6:30 am and spend the next two hours reading, meditating, and journaling. I mark that blue in my calendar for personal time. I then color code which subjects I’m working on throughout the day: content creation is yellow, SEO is orange, sales is green, creative or branding is pink, and so on. You don’t have to go that granular. You can just start by adding everything to your calendar and breaking it down, so nothing catches you off guard, and you can visualize everything you genuinely plan to get done for the week. The other cool feature of Google Calendars is that you can break down that goal or time slot into bullet points of tasks or goals in the description box.
Take a 10-15 minute break every 2-3 hours.
We started implementing this at our agency about a year ago. We saw research that increased productivity after taking a walk. When you’re staring at your computer screen for hours at a time, you need to give your eyes and brain a rest and refresh. Going for a walk is a great way to breathe some fresh air and get away from work.
We noticed that every time our team would walk around our neighborhood in Scottsdale, AZ, they would get a bunch of vitamin D from the sun, and see bright blue skies, birds chirping, and super green trees. How could that not freshen someone’s day up? So, we started pushing our team members to go on walks with each other. Going for a walk will also help you focus on the positives right now and show you how much bigger this universe is than just us and our needs during this time.
Set a timer on your phone every 2-3 hours, and it will remind you to go for a walk. We’d recommend bringing water with you as the odds are you haven’t hydrated enough while working away at your computer.
Use this software to work at home with ease.
Below is a list of some of the software we use at Avintiv Media to be productive while working remotely.
Slack
Slack is the same thing as an advanced chat room for your whole company. It’s a live chat system that allows you to take to your entire company or just one person at a time. Your company is a workspace, and it will enable you to organize communications by creating channels to organize group discussions. You can add text, links, files, and pretty much anything else inside slack that you would want to send to a colleague. Our agency counts on slack a ton, even when we are working at the office, since we have had remote team members all over the country.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is just as it sounds; it’s a shared calendar linked to your Google Account. Google Calendar allows you to quickly schedule meetings or Zoom meetings while getting reminders about upcoming meetings throughout the day. Google Calendar works excellently with teams of any size. You can view what your other team members are working on or where they have free time for an up-and-coming meeting. This calendar has been a massive lifesaver for us at the agency.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a free online cloud-based storage system that allows you to store and access files online. Odds are, your company either uses Google Drive or Dropbox to organize all of your company files. Google Drive syncs all of your stored files to any of your devices, whether it’s your desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet. You can access all of your files in the cloud.
Zoom
Outside of being one of the best stocks to have invested in for the beginning of 2020, Zoom is one of the top software programs getting everyone through working remotely. Zoom is cloud-based videotelephony, online chat, and business telephone service you can use to video chat clients, team members, friends, or anyone else who has it. Zoom allows you to share your screen or draw on the screen, so it feels like you’re still face-to-face with those you’re meeting. We highly recommend using Zoom for all teams who are working remotely right now. Zoom has been one of the most significant culture pieces that have been holding our teams together. Our team is a big family, and we all know how we feel when we can’t see family for weeks at a time. Zoom allows us all to see each other’s faces, along with our clients, faces, multiple times per week.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a cloud-based project management system that is suitable for all sized businesses or projects. We use ClickUp to manage all of our client’s projects, budgets, timelines, and internal processes. One reason we’ve been able to scale our agency so quickly is due to the level of quality of our work and our streamlined processes. ClickUp has enhanced our processes to deliver an even more phenomenal experience to our clients.
If you’re having trouble organizing projects or collaborating on deliverables with your teammates, then we highly recommend you look at ClickUp. It has saved a lot of our projects from colliding with each other, as a lot of our projects are from different clients with different deliverables and similar timelines. Even if it’s you by yourself, it’s an excellent way for you to stay organized on what needs to be accomplished with your projects.
In Conclusion
We understand that right now is a difficult time for a lot of people in the world. There’s no way of sugar-coating that. It’s not what happens to you that defines you; it’s how you react and handle those situations that define you. There are a lot of positives to look at during this massive refresh the world is doing. A lot of us have taken for granted the little things in life, like leaving our houses or going to a restaurant. Right now, you have the full power to be productive working from home and keeping a positive attitude about life and work. If you need help with your business or want to pivot your business, feel free to contact us, and we can chat.
With everything that’s going on in the world, having to think about you and your family’s safety is terrible enough, but to then have to worry about how your business will survive COVID-19 adds to the stress. Just know, I am writing to you as a fellow entrepreneur and business owner that has clients, team members, and a future to protect as well.
During times of crisis or significant change, no matter what happens, it changes things. Change is out of your hands. It’s how you react to the change that matters. Do you want your business to just “survive” COVID-19, or do you want your business to “thrive?”
Now is the best chance you’ll have to take a step back, take a full deep dive into your business, and audit everything. Audits are usually scary, but look at the world we live in today, everything is a bit scary right now.
Today, we’re going to go over advice on how to manage the impact that Coronavirus, COVID-19, has on your business and how to come out ahead.
Top 10 Tips For Your Business to Survive Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Before you go slashing every cost in your business, take a deep breath, and read this through before making any type of action. I’ll be the first one to admit that when business is going well, we tend to let costs slide or continue to spend money that we wouldn’t have spent the first week we launched our business. Now is the time to make your business as lean as can be.
Below is a list of items that we recommend cutting or working with:
Software that you don’t need at the moment
Programs that your company sometimes use and sometimes don’t
Advertising costs (Unless you have a business that is still positive ROI on your ad spend during this time, I would shift your marketing strategy and build your organic channels up, like SEO and content creation)
Rent – Contact your landlord and let them know what type of position you’re experiencing. Ask for an extension or some kind of help to get you past this difficult time. Do you have an online business? Is it time to go remote for 60-90 days and skip the office space?
Office expenses – You can momentarily pause or cancel phone, internet, wifi, water, food delivery, etc.
Accounting – Are you able to contact your bookkeeper and have them pause services for 60-90 days?
Hired contractors that are on retainer (not in-house team) – Are you able to lower your monthly retainer or renegotiate during this time?
These are just some of the examples that you can do to eliminate costs to your business immediately. I wouldn’t recommend cutting costs so low that it changes your flow of current business, though, as we don’t know how long COVID-19 will last. If it only lasts 30 days, you’re going to wish you didn’t cut certain costs. If it lasts longer than 90 days, then you might want to pivot your company a bit more.
A great way to track your company costs for FREE is by using MINT.
Go 100% Remote For The Time Being
Allowing employees to work from home is the best possible way to keep your business, your clients, and the entire community safe. We’re all in this together, and it’s our job to stay home to get in front of COVID-19. Avintiv went 100% remote starting March 13th, 2020. Here are the results:
Our team has daily standup meetings in Slack and we’ve been even closer to each other during this time.
Our team can be comfortable at home while working even more hours due to boredom or not being able to go outside (If you have a great culture, you won’t have to worry about your team being lazy at home and not working).
We have daily Zoom meetings, which has been a total lifesaver. Our team and clients are enjoying how much facetime they get with us now since it’s not back to back meetings.
Our team has become more healthy from eating at home, drinking more water, and taking care of their bodies more.
Grateful – our entire team has become super grateful during this whole COVID-19 experience as you never know how truly good you have something until it’s gone.
Work productivity has increased due to our team, not leaving for appointments, the gym, traveling, etc. – Everything they need is in their home, so they are much more focused.
We were able to cut office expenses that we paid monthly for since we won’t be using them for another 30 to 60 days.
Buy Your Raw Materials or Goods in the United States
I know this won’t apply to everyone. Still, if you’re a company that gets its manufacturing or white-label products or goods in China or outside of the United States, we recommend searching for local manufacturers that will be able to work with you. Costs are usually much higher in the United States than in China but do you should be able to negotiate with them now in this time of need. You might find a wholesaler in the United States that has a lot of inventory of that same item you were getting overseas.
If you’re in manufacturing, clothing, eCommerce, skincare, or anything in-between, look for a company that can supply you locally for the time being.
Read These Books ASAP
Some of you have already read these books, but they are incredibly vital for the future success of your company. Since you have extra time on your hands, it’s best to strategize for the future of your company versus just worrying in the present. I would read these in order from top to bottom.
Right now, online website traffic moves up and down from week to week. We’ve heard of record-high numbers and then record low numbers. Just think, the majority of the world is at home for the next 30 to 60 days. What are they going to be doing? They’re going to be searching online for things. The majority of the population is already going crazy stuck at home. That means that once the world can go back outside and resume life, they are going to be shopping, eating at restaurants, drinking at bars, traveling, and going about life as it did before COVID-19.
If your business isn’t ranking in the 3-Pack Google Map or on the first page of Google, you’re losing TONS of business to your competitors that are. If you’re a business owner who has faith in their business and wants to double down while others pause, you should be using search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. These SEO strategies will allow you to pop up first on Google when consumers are out and about again. Correct white-hat SEO strategies take 30-90 days to implement anyway, so you have nothing but time right now. Below are some examples of how well just a few of our SEO clients are doing against their competition in competitive industries.
Although times are scary for everyone right now, especially entrepreneurs, there is still a way to capitalize on this instead of just taking a huge loss. By getting your business to rank first on Google and in search results, you are providing value to customers who have just gone through what you went through. Then it’s up to you to give that customer a phenomenal experience when they find your business through Google.
Contact us if you’d like a FREE SEO audit or consultation on how to get your business to rank on Google.
Customer Experience
Just remember, with the whole world at home, and much more time on their hands, they are paying very close attention to everything right now. How you handle your business in times of crisis says a lot about your business and you as an owner. With that said, make sure you have a calm manner if you are posting on social media or in person. Don’t freak out. I repeat, don’t freak out. Right now, people want to find motivation, comfort and know that everything is going to be okay. Be the light that shines through this dark time.
When it comes to politics and emergencies like this, it is best not to take sides or post any type of fearful content on social media either. It’s best to create content that is positive, funny, and caring. Even if your business has lost customers or can’t be open right now, be the light on social media for your customers and your followers.
Now is not the time to show everyone your political beliefs or how you could run the country so much better. BE POSITIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA!
Once COVID-19 is behind us, you must remain calm. If customers shop at your business and you’re running around like crazy to make up for lost revenue, then they won’t be coming back anytime soon. Just remember, customers want to support businesses during tough times, and if you give them a phenomenal experience, they will tell so many friends about it.
Pivot Your Business to Online Sales
We have been coaching business owners for the last three years to take their business online due to how much quicker an online business can scale. Do you have a business that can be transitioned online?
If you’re a personal trainer or gym, you should be developing at-home workouts and getting them to your customer base as quickly as possible. Utilize technology like Trainerize.
If you’re a local restaurant/bar, take your ordering online immediately by adding functionality on your website for both takeout and ordering online. I would also recommend adding free delivery with no personal interaction with someone.
If you don’t have a website, now is the time to invest in one and get your customers shopping online.
Now is the time to totally think outside the box and ask yourself how you can provide tons of value to people that are stuck at home right now. Maybe you’re a local restaurant and bar, and you want to start a private Facebook Group where the community can still engage with each other.
No matter your type of business model, most of you will be able to pivot and do something online to keep your current customer base.
If you need help with this, contact us and we can assist you in pivoting.
Hire a Business Coach or Consultant
If you’ve done everything in your power to get to where you currently are and you’ve tried everything, then reach out to a business coach or consultant. Hiring a business coach or consultant can help you take your business to the next level by paying to save the time of trial and error. Make sure when you hire someone, that they have experience building companies and that they have strategies on how to get you through a crisis such as COVID -19. I’ve personally been a consultant to over 250 businesses over the last ten years, and I can assure you that most of you are not at your full breaking point, you just need help getting over this little hump.
If you’d like a free consultation call, feel free to contact us. Right now, our goal at Avintiv is to help as many businesses get through this troubling time as possible because it’s scary and not comfortable. We’ve been in situations of fear for over a decade and are used to fighting for our client’s lives (clients with competitive industries).
If Worst Come to Worsts, Take Out an SBA Loan
I would usually never recommend a business going into debt unless it was a strategy to leverage debt to grow quicker. In this case, some companies will most definitely need to take out some form of a small business loan to get through these troubling times. Lower your ego and know that it’s okay if you need to take out a loan. There is no time for you to feel sorry for yourself because you have a business to run and grow.
Below are some options for the best options for small business loans during Coronavirus (COVID-19).
What we’re going through right now with COVID-19 is scary. There’s no lie in saying that. When you created your LLC or corporation, you made a silent promise to yourself that you would do everything in your power to protect your business at all costs. Nothing has changed. Maybe COVID-19 is a huge wake-up call to a lot of companies out there that haven’t changed much up over the years. All I know is that everything in life happens for a reason and it’s not about what happens to us, it’s about we reacted to the situation and handled it. I don’t know about you, but I took a much deeper dive into my business and noticed there is still much work to be done to hit my full vision. If you need any help or even a little advice, feel free to contact us, and we’ll set up a time to chat with you. Keep your head up and stay positive!
If you’re a dentist or periodontist, it’s no secret that there seems to be a new dental office that opens up on every street corner now. Do you know the actual numbers, though?
In 2012, an article by Dental Economics stated, “In the last five years, competition has increased in dentistry. Seventy-five percent of dental practices have experienced production declines since the Great Recession. Many offices are in danger of continuing this trend if they do not come to terms with what it takes to grow a practice in the new dental economy.
In 2015, the United States had 195,722 practicing dentists. That’s the equivalent of having 60.9 dentists per 100,000 population.
Now that you understand the dentistry industry across the board is becoming extremely competitive let’s switch over and go over statistics from the lovely customers in the United States that use local dental services.
“77% of patients use online reviews when finding a new healthcare provider.”
It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re in; customers are looking to see reviews from other real customers. It shows social proof on the level of care and quality that your business has to offer. With something as important as finding a new local dentist, you better believe that the potential customer is researching your business and your reviews before making a call.
“75% of customers expect companies to provide a consistent experience across multiple touchpoints.”
In 2020, the majority of the potential customers that are looking to bring their business to you are researching you on multiple platforms. They’re looking at your Google reviews, Yelp reviews, website, and social media handles. They want to make sure that you’re the real deal before they bring you their business. Switching dentists or periodontists isn’t as easy as changing which restaurant you want to eat tonight.
Your online experience has to match across the board. Now is the time to tighten up all aspects of your brand, or your competition who do that well will continue to grow.
“70% of customers say technology makes it easier for them to take their business elsewhere.”
As we’ve mentioned above, with the amount of competition and level of technology we all have at our fingertips, finding a new dentist has never been easier for a potential customer. They aren’t just looking at your business; they’re researching 2-3 dentists and periodontists at the same time to find the right fit for what they’re looking for.
What is SEO?
For those of you who are reading this blog and don’t know or understand what SEO is, fear not, we’ll explain it.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of your website through organic search engine results.
For instance, anytime you type something into Google, the SERPs (search engine results pages) are showing you the closest information that you were looking for. Although there are a lot of variables on how Google shows its results, the majority of the search results on page one or two of Google have heavily optimized their SEO to be seen over their competition.
Example: You’re a Scottsdale, AZ, dentist, and your website pops up on page 40 when someone types in “Scottsdale Dentist” into Google. You decided to hire an agency to improve your SEO, and after a few months, your business now pops up on the first page of Google for “Scottsdale Dentist.” You can see how much value that would be for you. Thousands of people in Scottsdale will now know what your business is and where you’re located, which will increase website traffic and grow your top-line revenue.
Why is SEO important for dentists and periodontists in 2020?
Back in the day, customers would look in the yellow pages to look up local dentists. I’m sure you remember those days. Now, Google and SEO are the new yellow pages. If your business isn’t adequately listed or you haven’t optimized your SEO for dentists, it’s highly likely that not many new customers are finding your business online.
Referral businesses are not scalable. There will be a time when the referrals stop coming in.
When you optimize your website with SEO for dentists, and your website is popping up on the first page of Google, you’re essentially getting free traffic. If your site is optimized correctly, then a percentage of that traffic will convert into paying customers.
In this article, we’ll be going over five need to know tips on SEO for dentists and periodontists for 2020.
1. Determining the right keywords
Before beginning SEO, you want to research and learn the right keywords for your business to rank for. We would start by listing the services that you offer and follow that by the general location (city, state, local) search terms. A couple of examples would look like: Teeth Whitening, Crowns, Braces, fillings, local Scottsdale dentist, etc.
You want to make sure that you’re focusing on keywords that have the intention of working with a dentist. For instance, “at-home teeth whitening” is still teeth whitening, but that person doesn’t plan on going to a dentist. You would want to use the phrase “dentist teeth whitening near me.” You have to remember that Google’s primary goal is to provide solutions that match what the user is searching for; otherwise, it doesn’t give the user the best experience. Picking the right keywords is extremely important.
Ideally, you’ll want to have a mixture of keywords that have high search volume but also long-tail keywords that will be easier to rank for. If you try to search for “dentist” when there are 823,000 search volume, that will be much more difficult.
If you don’t know how to do proper keyword research, you can always contact us for assistance. Every successful SEO campaign should have very in-depth keyword research and planning done behind the scenes. The research dives into your brand, your competition, your customers, and carefully decide keywords and key phrases that people are searching for based on the research. The research will be able to tell what your competitors are ranking for and how much traffic is going to their sites based on each keyword. Successful campaigns will ensure that the research is utilized in both the on-page and off-page campaigns to ensure that your website will be on page one of Google for many of your selected keywords.
2. Having a well-built website with user experience in mind
One of the most important aspects of running a successful company in 2020 is having an up-to-date website with the basics that every consumer expects you to have. If you’re a dentist or periodontist with a 5+-year-old website that hasn’t been updated, you are losing thousands of dollars every single week.
Unique Website Design
In 2020, you need to stand out from all of the other dentist or periodontist websites that are out there. You have a one in one hundred chance of having each new potential customer choosing you. If your website doesn’t have a unique design or stand out, you won’t be among their top three choices.
With how many choices are out there right now, your website design, structure, colors, and layout need to match the flow and experience that your potential customers are looking for. If it doesn’t meet their needs, they’re right onto the next competitor of yours.
Avintiv Media has been named top Web Design Agency in the United States for the past two years in a row, and that comes from us understanding what customers are looking for on a website.
Responsive Design & Development
In 2018, over 58% of site visits were from mobile phones. If that alone doesn’t show you the need to have a mobile-friendly (responsive design), we go into more detail why its a necessity for 2020.
Google stated that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead. That’s a pretty significant number.
Back in July 2019, Google switched its search engine to mobile-first indexing. Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. If your website isn’t developed for mobile, then you can expect to take a hit with your rankings while your mobile-friendly competitors start moving up the rankings.
If you’d like to find out how mobile-friendly your website is or isn’t, contact us today.
Website Speed, Performance, and Usability
The world we live in has become more and more impatient. We are all used to being able to access everything with a button press of a phone now. You can order a car, food, and anything else you’d like from your mobile phone.
If your website speed doesn’t meet the standards of what a potential customer is looking for, then they will leave your site and go to your competitor.
Google started using site speed and performance as a search ranking factor for their algorithm starting back in 2010. That means, if your website is slower than Google would like, they are going to move you lower in the rankings as they feel it will give the person searching a lousy experience. Google is a business, and they aren’t going to show off websites on page one that aren’t optimized properly as it shows the business owner doesn’t care that much.
One of our client’s Google rankings started to drastically climb up towards page one after we made significant updates to the speed of their website. The example below is after just one round of updates.
Content, Content, Content – Content is still king
Content on your website is one of the most critical aspects of your website and SEO campaign that you can do. Having the right type of content on your dentist website or periodontist website is crucial. Your website visitors want to learn more about the services that you offer and also know that you’re legit and an authority figure in your industry.
The more optimized pages of content on your website allow you to rank for even more keywords on Google. You can’t rank on page one for “Dentist in Scottsdale” unless you have content on your website or SEO campaigns that matches that description.
The majority of the dentists that we’ve been able to get on page one of Google for over 30+ keywords have over 30 pages on their website.
Each one of your services needs to have its page and go into detail explaining what you offer with that service.
For a great example of one of the service pages, we’ve built for our client, check out Malek Periodontics.
3. Enhancing On-Page SEO for Dentist Website
Before today you have probably heard the term SEO before, but a lot of you want to know, “What is on-page SEO?”
On-page SEO is the SEO work that’s done on your website and individual pages to rank higher in search engines, earning more traffic and an increase in revenue.
One of the most significant factors that Google makes as it becomes more sophisticated is relevance. How relevant is your page or content to the search query? Google doesn’t want to give its users a bad experience by showing a page that has nothing to do with what they were wanting.
Think of it like you’re at a restaurant (Google), you order a hamburger (search for local hamburger restaurant), and the server (search engine) delivers a taco (local taco restaurant). Tacos are still delicious, but it’s not what you ordered. Get the point.
Below are the areas that we would focus on for any beginners with on-page SEO.
Meta Tags
One of the most important things to consider for on-page SEO is your meta tags. Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content to Google search engines and crawlers.
Meta tags provide more relevance syncing between your content and a search query searching for similar content. You will get higher rankings if the relevance of your meta tag matches what the user is searching for, along with their satisfaction.
Meta Titles
One of the most critical meta tags we’ll be discussing is your title tags. Meta Titles have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the regular user who’s searching Google. The words will appear at the top of each tab in their browser for both organic results and paid ads.
The title tag explains to the user what the page is about before they click on it. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.
If you’re working inside of WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The Yoast SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very quickly. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short. It will show “green” when it’s the correct length.
Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would you say about your webpage versus your competition? Be sure to add in your relevant keywords and location to help with rankings.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions help search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value. More importantly, the meta descriptions explain what users will find on the page if they click on the link.
When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, along with a higher click-through rate with users.
We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long. See an example of one of our local periodontist clients below.
Heading Tags
If you want to have any success with on-page SEO, heading tags are a necessity. Your website and every page should include multiple heading tags, ranging from the H1 to the H6. The most important heading tag is the H1.
The H1 heading is usually the page title or name of the page or post. On a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. On a product page, your H1 would be the name of that product. You can only use one H1 heading per page. Otherwise, you will get docked for SEO.
As you write your page content, you can also use the H2 and H3 headings to introduce different sections of your page or content. An H2 heading is just like a chapter in a book. The section you’re reading now is an H4 heading since a section of a subsection. This will help Google and other search engines be able to read the structure of each page and rank them accordingly.
Internal Linking
Getting your website content to rank correctly is going to need links. Google begins to rank your pages and posts better when they’re linked to somewhere else on the web.
Internal links are also important in connecting your content to give Google a better understanding of how your website is structured. This will also allow link juice to pass through your site better.
Internal linking can get broken up into two categories: internal and external.
Internal links throughout your site and blogs will deliver a better user experience for your visitors and will also enhance your SEO. An example of this can be seen below.
An internal link is a hyperlink that goes from a word or phrase on your website page to another website page or blog within your website. An external link is a hyperlink that goes from a word or phrase on your website page, which goes to an external website page away from your website.
You want to make sure that the internal links open in the same web browser tab so the user can see the flow. When doing internal links to external websites, you want to make sure they open up in a new web browser tab, so the user doesn’t leave your site.
When doing internal links, make sure you’re using anchor text (the word or phrase that is being linked) that relates to the URL that it’s pointing to so you don’t get penalized by Google.
Optimize Your Images
When you’re deciding what images to use on your website, make sure they are unique and relevant to that page. Users are much more likely to react to an image before they begin reading a post.
With how popular Instagram and social media, in general, has grown to be, our society is trained to react to images first.
When using images on your site, make sure you’re using the highest quality images possible. Google and other search engines prefer higher resolution images.
You always want to keep page speed in the back of your mind when adding in images. Resize your images below a 150KB file size to ensure that it doesn’t negatively affect your website speed.
When adding in an image, make sure that you always add in the image alt-text. An optimized alt-text gives Google another clue on what your page is about. The alt tag should be used to describe what the image is about, so it’s visible by Google’s crawlers.
We’ve already gone over what SEO is and also what on-page SEO is. Your head may or may not be spinning already. Either way, fear not, we’re here to help you.
Off-page SEO (or off-site SEO) refers to actions that happen outside of your website that have an impact on how your website ranks within search engine result pages (SERPs).
If you haven’t started with working on your on-page SEO, make sure you start that before diving into your off-page portion of your SEO campaign.
True off-page SEO is one of the most challenging but essential aspects of your SEO campaign. There are a lot of variables that come into play when perfecting your off-page SEO campaigns.
You want to make sure you stay clear from companies that promise you “x” amount of links for $200 per month. The majority of those companies perform black-hat SEO and will eventually get your website banned from Google. Don’t take shortcuts when it comes to your SEO.
Building quality backlinks is one of the most important aspects of off-page SEO. Google and other search engines use backlinks to indicate the quality of the content that’s linked. A site with more high-quality backlinks will usually rank much better than the same site with fewer backlinks.
For today’s article, we’re going to keep our recommendations simple and geared towards dentists and periodontists.
Citations and Directory Listings
Citations and directory listings are the first and easiest step for you to get more links to your website. Citations are mentions of your practice name, address, and phone number (NAP). You first start with having that information listed on your website, mainly on your contact page and also in the footer of your website.
Citations are a significant factor in how Google ranks businesses in its local listings. The more your business is mentioned online also plays into how high you rank in the listings.
Once you’ve made sure that your citation matches across the board, you can then get it listed in relevant directories.
You will then want to get your business listed in all local directories that apply to your type of business.
Make sure that your actual business name is listed in all of your directory listings, and it’s not a combination of the business name and the dentist’s name. This causes a lot of confusion for customers trying to find your business.
There are a lot of industry-specific directory listings. If you search for “dentist directory listings,” there should be a ton that pops up. Otherwise, you can always hire a company to submit your information to every listing that has to do with your business and industry.
The top three directory listings are General Business Directories, Industry Specific Directories, and Local Directories.
Google My Business
Your Google My Business page will be one of the most important aspects when completing your citations and directories check-list.
Google My Business page is one of the fastest ways of seeing results for SEO. Setting up your account is extremely easy.
Once your Google My Business page has been verified, you can then add photos and add more content to describe your business better.
5. Reviews
Online reviews are critical for many reasons, so don’t bypass this thinking that it’s not a big deal. Over 90% of people searching online look at reviews before visiting the business. That’s a considerable number.
Online reviews are also another way to increase your SEO rankings since Google uses reviews as another way of deciding how to rank your website. If you’re a local business with 10x the amount of 5-star reviews, the chances are that your business is going to be at the top of Google’s local 3-pack.
As you can see, our SEO client, Malek Periodontics, has 38 reviews with a 4.6-star rating, and they are #1 in the Google 3-pack listings. This has drastically changed the amount of traffic they have gotten.
The more 5 star reviews you get on Google, the more Google will want to show your Google My Business page off in the Google local 3-pack and will result in moving up the rankings in the SERPs.
You should always have a patient leave a review as they’re leaving an appointment or in a follow-up email with a small gift or incentive.
In Conclusion
As you can see, we went over a lot of information regarding SEO tips for dentists and periodontists. We showed you the data on how many people search online, how they decide on what company they buy from, and how you can be seen by more of your ideal customers. If you follow the above tips and strategies, you should get a lot more website traffic and, in turn, a lot more patients coming through your door. If you have any questions or want a quality SEO agency to assist you with all of this, feel free to contact us today.
Whether you’re brand new to link building or you’ve been doing it for a while, you will find value in this article. We will go over why link building is important, what to look for and what to stay away from when kicking off a link building campaign.
The SEO landscape is always evolving especially link building. The importance of building high-quality links has never been greater. If you don’t know what you’re doing, building poor-quality links can actually hurt you more than helping you.
The need to understand and fully implement a white-hat strategy has never been more important. If you want to thrive online for many years to come, it is definitely worth slowing down and fully understanding what link building is and how it can benefit your business.
Don’t get overwhelmed by all of this information. We’ve broken it up in bite-size chunks for you to easily understand everything there is to know about link building.
What is Link Building?
Link building is an action that happens offsite when another website links back to your website. Link building is a form of off-page SEO. A link is another way for users to navigate between pages and sites on the internet.
All business owners should be very interested in building links back to their websites as it drives referral traffic and increases the authority of the site. If you ask any SEO specialist, mastering the art of building high-quality links is one of the hardest parts of their job.
Why is link building important?
Link building is extremely important as Google uses it as a major factor in how it ranks web pages. Google stated: “In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”
Building high-quality links are one of the hardest aspects of SEO for any SEO specialist or SEO agency. With that said, to do high-quality links in volume, the costs associated are going to be much higher than what your competitors might be spending on SEO. When building links the correct way, it separates you from your competition in Google’s eyes.
There are many other benefits to link building that you will see later in this article.
The importance of links to Google and other search engines
There are ways in which Google and other search engines use links:
To discover web pages
To help determine how well a page should or shouldn’t rank in their search results
Google can extract the content of your pages and add it to their indexes once their search engines have crawled your site’s pages on the web. Once that is completed, Google will decide if they feel a page is of high enough quality to be ranked for relevant keywords. Google even made a short video to explain the process, called ‘How Search Works.’
As you’ll start to learn, Google and other search engines don’t just look at the content of each page, they look at the number of quality links pointing to that specific page from external websites. They also factor in the quality and authority of those external websites. The higher quality websites that link to yours, the more likely you are to rank well in search results.
In the late 1990s, one of Google’s founders, Larry Page, invented a way to measure the quality of a page based in part on the number of links pointing to it. PageRank took off and what a metric used as part of the overall ranking algorithm Google used.
The theory of a link being seen as a vote of confidence or authority was a huge hit. It wasn’t much longer before people discovered how to manipulate PageRank and certain search results for the keywords of their choice. Google was forced to continue updating its algorithm much more regularly to actively try to fight what was happening. They focused on filtering out websites that truly didn’t deserve to rank.
In turn, this is what led Google to begin to discredit a number of link building techniques that were previously accepted. One example is the Penguin update, which decreased the search engine rankings of websites that violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines or the use of black-hat SEO.
Google continues to enhance its algorithm to make it fair game to the over 1.94 billion websites there are in 2019.
What is a follow link?
As we’ve previously discussed, getting inbound links from authority websites provides an SEO boost. These links are hyperlinks that are pointing to a specific page on your website. The more links the better in Google’s eyes, as long as they are high-quality links.
Google looks at your website like you’re throwing a party. Is it 100 random strangers showing up that aren’t well-known or is it 300 well-known celebrities showing up to the party? Google watches your inbound links the same way.
As we previously mentioned, Google created a metric called PageRank to calculate the link points. In other words, link points are known as “link juice.” Hyperlinks allow link juice to flow through your site. The bigger and more reputable the site, the bigger SEO boost you get.
Follow links are links that Google counts as points or “link juice.” This boosts the page rank of the linked-to sites which helps increase the search results.
What are No-follow Links?
A no-follow link is a link tells Google to not count it as a point, so it doesn’t boost the PageRank.
A no-follow link is created with the no-follow link HTML tag, which looks like this:
A no-follow tag is a way that allows your site to tell search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or to not follow this specific link. A link can have more than one relationship (rel attributes). These two attributes help Google define the relationship a link has with a page that it points to.
Here are a couple of examples:
Forum posts
Blog comments
Certain blog sites
Wiki Pages
Paid links
Comments
Anything involving what Google calls “untrusted content”
The importance of links for your business
As you’ve read through this article, link building is very important to grow your business online. Every day, Google gets smarter and SEO begins to get harder. It is important to begin building high-quality backlinks so you’re not getting left in the dust from your competition.
Online Authority
The more link juice that you have, the higher your website will rank for the keywords of your choice. When your website ranks higher int he SERPs, you have a much higher chance of turning much higher traffic into paying customers.
Brand Building
High-quality link building can help grow your brand online and as more people see your logo pop up, you will start to be seen as an authority in your niche. You can dive into content creation, which will help build your brand as an authority for the topics that you’re discussing. Those articles can then be used in a link building outreach campaign that should help bring high-quality links to your website.
More Visibility
The higher your website ranks in the SERPs, the more visibility your website has. The majority of visitors don’t go past the first page of Google, which shows the importance of ranking as high as you can for select keywords. More visibility equals more traffic which will equal more conversions as long as your website follows the standard UI & UX guidelines.
White-hat Strategies vs Black-hat Strategies
Black hat SEO refers to strategies and techniques that are used to get higher search rankings by doing short cuts that go against search engine rules. Black hat SEO focuses solely on search engines with no human element.
What hat SEO refers to strategies and techniques that target a human audience as opposed to just a search engine, which is what Google wants you to do.
What is a bad link?
Google has majorly cracked down over the years ever since people started to manipulate PageRank and certain search results for the keywords of their choice. Google actually created a list of poor link building tactics that they won’t tolerate anymore.
Google won’t tolerate manipulative links that provide a site zero value, just to try to trick Google’s algorithms. Don’t get tricked into buying links that have nothing to do with your site or industry. As long as you stay away from links that are purposely meant for manipulation, you should be in the clear.
What is a good link?
Google and other search engines want to see links that provide value to the internet. The last thing Google wants to do is send you to a site or a page that you weren’t wanting to go to and end up giving you a poor experience. Create links that are relevant and trustworthy. The Search Engine Journal released an article that detailed characteristics of a quality link.
10 Tips for Link Building
Build quality relationships
Ask for backlinks
Create quality content on your blog
Write good guest posts for other companies
Discover your competitor’s backlinks
Create and launch infographics
Make your way on a “top” or “best of” list for your industry
Hire a PR firm to get you more local press
Look for pages that mention your competitors but not you
Mention influencers or other companies in your posts
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