12 Things You May Not Know About Online Marketing

June 30th, 2016 by Michelle Neuhoff Boyd

While some aspects of online marketing may seem straightforward, some things might surprise you. Here are 12 things that surprised some of our team members when they started working at Search Influence.

1. When listing your business location anywhere online, you should use the USPS verified address.

“I worked at traditional ad agencies for over 10 years. It shocked me to find out that, when developing a website for a client, it is best practice to use the exact address that the USPS has on file for a business. And that same address should be used on all social media profiles, as well, to enhance a website’s search engine ranking. In my former life, we would simply use what looked or fit best.” – Melissa

2. Gain traffic to your website through local search results with industry specific directory listings.

 

“I was surprised to learn how many industry specific directories exist. Also, surprised to learn how valuable those can be for businesses to gain traffic to their website through local search results.” – Mary

(Note: Don’t have a physical location? Check out this blog about ways to improve the local search ranking for a service area business.)

3. Google My Business is important!

 

“I was really surprised to learn that Google My Business had such a large impact on website visibility. I thought, “Google Plus? No one uses that.” And that’s partially true. But having a page, verifying it, and having reviews can play a large role in ranking in the maps pack.” – Ariel

4. Google prefers location images for profile pictures on Google Plus.

“With my graphic design background and my love for branding, I was surprised to learn that Google prefers the use a picture of your business location (if you’re a brick and mortar shop) instead of a logo for your Google Plus profile picture.” – Michelle

5. Content on images cannot be crawled by Google.

“I was surprised to learn that Google could not track infographics on pages as static images, but we can help make them more Google-friendly through optimization.” – Kayla

6. Content optimization is for humans too!

“It may sound basic, but I was surprised to learn that SEO is geared just as much toward optimizing content for human users as it is for computers. When I first started hearing about SEO, I thought it referred only to technical, back-end fixes that would gain the attention of search engines. Working at Search Influence taught me that a huge part of SEO focuses on enhancing the overall user experience, not just making it easy for Google to find your website.” – Aubrey

7. Google penalizes sites from showing up in search results.

“I was surprised to learn about Manual Actions and how Google can penalize your website, removing it from search results or reducing its ranking. It totally makes sense now that I know more, but coming into the industry without much knowledge of the impact of manual actions, I was definitely surprised.” – Presley

8. Quality content can affect rankings.

“The importance of content! It makes so much sense once you actually understand how it affects your website’s ranking potential. I feel like it’s still the number one thing I harp on the most to our clients.” – Gussie

9. Meta descriptions are helpful in gaining user click through from SERPs.

 

“It never occurred to me that meta descriptions are something that needs to be created and are a valuable part of SEO. Now they’re one of the first things I mention when I tell people about the kind of content I work on, because who knew that could be someone’s job?“ – Meaghan

10. Schema markup can help Google locate the important information on your site.

“I think schema markup is really cool. I like how you can insert coding to “highlight” important pieces of information on a website, especially since Google is processing lots of information across the internet.“ – Jensen

(Note: Looking for Schema for Medical Clinics? Check out this blog about the recent Schema update.)

11. Online marketing best practices are always changing.

“Having worked for an online marketing company before starting at Search Influence, I was surprised to see how much the industry can change. There was about a three-month gap between my last job and Search Influence, and the environment of SEO was entirely different. Algorithm changes, social media image size changes, changes to what’s good practice and what’s not. Everything was different. Search Influence gave me the tools to navigate those changes and come out with more knowledge than I thought possible.“ – Eric

12. Attack your online marketing campaign from multiple angles for a greater impact.

“I wasn’t necessarily surprised by this, but what I love about what Search Influence does is that we fit all of the various components of online marketing together into such well thought out, comprehensive strategies for our clients. Offsite work to benefit organic search, social media marketing, onsite work + paid advertising efforts can complement each other so well and do such great things for small, medium, and large businesses when the work is synchronized with intent!” – Erica

Staying on top of your online marketing campaign can be tough. We can help! Contact one of our SEO specialists to find out more information.