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Top 6 SEO Ranking Factors in 2019

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Top 6 SEO ranking factors in 2019

Where do you focus your energy when you’re trying to get your website to the top of Google’s search results? Most marketers focus a lot of their time and resources on “keywords” and ignore the other factors.

If you’ve been working diligently on improving your SEO ranking, but you’re not still getting the results that you want, then you might be ignoring some essential aspects of SEO ranking.

Here are the top 6 most important SEO ranking factors in 2019:

Website Architecture and Navigation

The website’s architecture and navigation are the first things you need to get right. Organize your website into subpages and have organized strings of text and content. When visitors can’t get the information they need on your website, they will leave the site causing a high bounce rate.

Content

Content is one of the biggest SEO ranking factors and there’s no alternative to well-written SEO content. Good content is easy to digest and understand. The structure ideally includes heads and sub-headers, numbered lists, statistical research and supporting images.

Mobile Responsiveness

Google penalizes websites that are not mobile responsive by knocking off their SEO ranking. More and more people are using mobile devices in consuming content, and not getting your website mobile response can hurt conversion and user experience.

Inbound Links

Also known as backlinks, inbound links are hyperlinks on the third-party page that directs to a web page on your website. Inbound links are important SEO ranking factors, as they tell Google that people trust what you say on your website.

Keywords

When done properly, keyword optimization is the most important SEO factor in your SEO arsenal. You want to include keywords or key phrases that people use in searching for information throughout your content.

Keywords should naturally sound and fit into sentences. You may also use long-tail keywords that could be used in a search.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are often overlooked aspects of content management systems. Meta tags are important as they help Google determine the specific goal of a web page. While meta tags are not your priority in getting clicks, it is still one of the important SEO factors.

These SEO ranking factors help marketers build awesomeness on their SEO strategy. If you want a comprehensive campaign that will get your website to the top of Google search results, contact our team at CSMS and we will come up with an effective plan to improve your ranking.

Paid Search Ad Trends: What Gets People Clicking?

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Paid Search Ad Trends: What Gets People Clicking?

There is a fine line between improving your brand promotional scheme and knowing your target audience, and that is creating paid search ads that get clicks. Want to take your PPC strategy into a higher level this 2019?

Here are paid search ad trends that will guide your PPC campaign:

Paid Search Ads That Make Searching Information Online Easier

People can easily recognize search ads, and these ads help them find the information they need. You can get high-quality site traffic through clicks if people find your ads informational and helpful. If the ads are not relevant to their search, chances are they will ignore the ads and opt for organic or nonpaid search results.

Paid Search Ads That Quickly Answers Their Queries

Users are more inclined to click on paid search ads that directly and instantly answer their search queries. Ads that give answers to people’s questions can help your business prove itself as a reliable brand to prospective customers. This will help you make a positive impression on them.

Paid Search Ads with Compelling Meta Tags

Businesses that invest in a compelling title or meta description have higher chances of getting clicks on their paid search ads. Your meta tags should be optimized to help people find relevant content and answers to their search queries. They should provide a high-level of information about your page and its content for web crawlers.

Paid Search Ads on Google Ads

Nearly 63% of people click paid search ads on Google than on other sites. For most searchers, Google is the go-to engine that helps them find information online. For years, it has become the primary source of information where businesses market their brand and products.

Paid Search Ads With Text Ads

Text ads simplify a web page’s content making it easier for searchers to identify if the content answers their queries. This is why most people prefer to click paid search ads with text ads on search engines. Your text ads should display your website’s meta tags which include the company name, web page title, and product description.

Paid Search Ads for Familiar Brands

For people who look for information online about products and retailers, branded search ads get more clicks. Majority of people online likely to click ads from familiar brands than those that they don’t recognize.

Paid Search Ads on Multiple Search Engine Platforms

To get more clickers, you should spend in paid search ads not just on Google but on multiple search engine platforms like YouTube, Bing and more. Other search engines may offer some marketing benefits that Google can’t provide. Engaging in paid advertising on different sites provides businesses a customized marketing experience and greater control over their target audience.

If you know how to format your paid search ads based on people’s preferences and needs, you can get more clicks than your competitors.

If you wish to learn more about effective paid search engine marketing, feel free to contact us at Cornerstone Marketing Solutions.

5 New Digital Marketing Updates You Should Not Miss

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5 New Digital Marketing Updates You Should Not MissAre your marketing strategies no longer effective as they were before? You are probably stuck with the outdated digital marketing techniques. Online marketing evolves from time to time, and you need to stay at the forefront of the latest marketing trends. Step up your game and get your business ahead of the competition with the latest marketing strategies.

Here are the five new digital marketing updates you should not miss:

Social Messaging Apps

There’s more to social media messaging apps than just sending texts and emojis to your friends. With billions of online users on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, and others social media messaging platforms, it would be a great help if you market your products and services where most potential customers hang out.

Personalized Approach

Customize your marketing if you want to stay on top. Focus on creating and providing personalized products, emails, and contents. For instance, you can personalize your content for your customers by taking their purchase history data and links clicked, so when they come back, you have everything ready and available for them. Personalization is equal to maximized customer enjoyment plus minimized search time.

Programmatic Marketing

Programmatic marketing is the act of using artificial intelligence to automate ad buying so that businesses can target specific audiences. One example of programmatic marketing is real-time auction or biding. This kind of automation is known to be more efficient because you can get a higher possible conversion rate and lower operating cost.

Video Advertising

As film equipment constantly decline in value, smartphone cameras continuously increase their quality, allowing business marketers to create personalized video messages and render a one-on-one video approach to their customers. This is much more effective than cold calling and emailing.

Chatbots

This artificial intelligence-based technology uses instant messaging so you can chat with your customers or visitors in real-time. Most customers prefer chatting with chatbots because they are responsive and always providing accurate and fast answers. They can become your business’ virtual assistants in providing exceptional customer service, automating tasks, and meeting the client’s expectations. Chatbots simply provide a win-win solution for you and your customers.

Give Your Business a Fresh Start in Digital Marketing

These five digital marketing trends can help rejuvenate your exhausted marketing strategies and ensure that your business is on top of everything. Should you need more digital marketing tips for your business, contact Cornerstone Marketing Solutions today.

5 Marketing Ideas that Will Light Up Your Sales Tree This Holiday

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5 Marketing Ideas that Will Light Up Your Sales Tree This Holiday

The holiday season is around the corner, and people out there are eyeing for deals and promotional offers. Take this opportunity to reach out to your existing customers, win new clients and boost your sales. We have compiled five (5) useful marketing ideas that will light up your sales tree this holiday.

Use Customized Holiday Hashtags

Don’t just go for what is common and trending. Try creating personalized holiday hashtags fit to your unique campaign needs. Use simple but powerful hashtags that leave lasting impressions to your customers about your brand and business. Create hashtags that describe your brand and the season.

Take Advantage of Email Marketing Campaigns

Promotions and discounts are holiday staples that you shouldn’t miss. One way to let people know about what you’re promoting is through email campaigns. Send direct email pieces along with the details of your special offers, gift guides, products sales, discounts and coupons and more. Plus, don’t hesitate on using branded content on your emails.

Make It Interesting

Be creative and innovative! Your holiday marketing campaign should be clever, humorous and interesting. Don’t rely on common ideas that people already know. Create customized videos or live streaming on social media platforms. Make witty and funny contents using holiday keywords. Focus on ads that stand out and trigger their curiosity. Always think out of the box for fresh and distinct concepts.

Give Your Website a Holiday Spirit

When selling your brand, it is crucial for your website to have some touch of the holiday. Add creative visuals and graphics that match with the season and the theme of your website. Then, hand out all your holiday-inspired visuals across your digital channels.

Plan Early, Start Early

Whatever marketing campaign that you have in mind, you should plan and execute it quickly. With that, you’ll be ahead of the curve and will have time to draw back once you see lapses during the process. If you start late on your marketing plan, you’ll run out of time to optimize your ideas for better results. As far as your marketing ideas are concerned, always get a head start to avoid unnecessary stress and mistakes.

Your goal is to convert your prospects to loyal, buying customers and generate bigger sales through these marketing ideas. Make your customers remember your brand by giving them first-hand experience and a holiday feel. For more marketing and brand promotional tips, contact us at Cornerstone Marketing Solutions.

5 Reasons Why PPC Marketing Is Important For Your Business

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5 Reasons Why PPC Marketing Is Important For Your Business

Whether you own a start-up or a well-established business, it is essential to immerse your business in powerful online marketing strategies like pay-per-click (PPC). Should you invest in PPC for your business? Let us tackle the five (5) main points that explain the importance of pay-per-click marketing to businesses.

  1. Budget Control

With a strategic pay-per-click campaign, all you need is a brilliant copy to attract targeted and relevant traffic at minimal cost. Everything is measurable- from the clicks you get to daily conversions, giving you better control of your expenses.  PPC offers you a clear-cut idea of your complete expenses and where they are going.

  1. Targeted Ads and Campaigns

When managing an online business, you need targeted traffic that can convert your visitors to potential customers. PPC allows a precise targeting technique using keywords, demographics, and interests of your target audience. At the right time and with the right ad, PPC ensures that your marketing ads are displayed to the correct audience while generating real and substantial leads.

  1. Quick and Consistent Traffic

Setting up a PPC campaign takes only half an hour or even less which makes it the fastest platform to run your business ads. If your business is looking for visibility and greater exposure, PPC can help generate relevant traffic within weeks. It can give you quick and consistent results in terms of traffic, leads and sales.

  1. Higher Return on Investment (ROI)

All businesses run on a single goal which is to generate the highest possible return on investment. Investing in pay-per-click marketing improves your ROI by displaying your ad campaigns in relevant places online particularly in your target market. Organize your campaigns and ad groups for greater chances of getting higher ROI.

  1. Brand Awareness

Your goal of creating an online marketing campaign is to make your brand known to your target audience. PPC can put your business in front of your target viewers whether local or global. Pay per click advertising is a brand marketing technique that converts your audience’s impression about your brand to sales and leads.

With all the benefits discussed above, pay-per-click marketing can work as the foundation of your business’ overall digital marketing campaign. Do you want to to take your business to a new level through a solid PPC strategy? Contact us at Cornerstone Marketing Solutions to start the ball rolling.

Build Your Online Reputation And Dominate Local SEO With This Tool

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Build Your Online Reputation And Dominate Local SEO With This Tool

Digital marketing presents a unique opportunity for business owners to develop a strong online reputation to boost sales and improve their bottom lines. The key is understanding how to be successful in leveraging the right tool to build your online reputation and dominate local SEO so you’re appropriately positioned to achieve your objectives.

Today, we will share you a powerful tool that can help you improve your brand’s reputation and propel your website to the top of Googles rankings.

Cornerstone Local is a fantastic add-on service that gives you the power to be in charge of your reputation and allow for lead generation.

Here’s how it works:

Earn New Business

No matter how large or small your company is or what technology you incorporate, Cornerstone Local gives you the power to be in charge of your reputation and allow for lead generation.

Generate more positive reviews

Recent studies show the most successful time for a review to receive one is as soon as the job is completed. Cornerstone Local gives you the ability to ask for the review before you left the job location. This is the proven way for your business to increase its online reputation by receiving positive reviews from clients and customers.

Dominate Local SEO

Cornerstone Local offers website integration which allows you to reel in the power of your growing online reputation and propel your website to the top of Googles rankings. The plugin options we offer are designed to allow you the ability to segment your reviews by local city, region or company representative.

Motivate Your Team

The team leaderboard is the perfect way to motivate your team of employees to see who can get the most reviews. Rankings can be viewed daily, weekly and monthly from our native mobile apps and leaderboard reports can be run from any date-range utilizing the admin dashboard.

Works on all platforms

Cornerstone Local works with any internet connected platform in addition with iOS and Android apps. The review forms are mobile optimized to work on all platforms with modern browsers.

Robust Reporting

Receive automated weekly review analysis via email. The dashboard allows us to offer a large variety of administrative reports. The reports are interactive, grouped by a date range, listed in detail and are all exportable.

Get Tons of Reviews from all Over the Web

Reviews are a crucial part of building your online reputation. Cornerstone Local will ensure your customers are routed to your preferred review pages such as Google+, Yelp, Angie’s List and many more. Cornerstone Local makes sure your business has the best reviews on the top review sites on the web.

Share your Reviews, Engage your Social Networks

Cornerstone Local offers Facebook integration to build social proof and keep your social networks dynamic. Integrate your review page with your Facebook page for an even stronger online presence that can be shared by your Facebook followers. The best reviews will be posted on your Facebook wall.

Ready to use Cornerstone Local to grow your online reputation and achieve your long-term goals? Talk to us today!

Top 5 Barriers To World-Class Digital Marketing And How To Overcome Them

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Top 5 Barriers To World-Class Digital Marketing And How To Overcome Them

Change management is an essential factor in a successful digital marketing. Unfortunately, most digital marketers are still in the early stage of digital transformation, albeit their customers expect a more solid experience from them.

Here’s a compiled list of top 5 barriers to successful digital engagement:

Lack Of Model For  Change

Without a model or process for changing your existing digital marketing strategies, your business will not hit the digital maturity. To overcome this challenge, start with your goals, and then strategize the steps you need to execute. From there, identify the technology you need to provide you with the capabilities. Use a tested and proven approach and ask for help from a professional digital marketing agency.

Limited Budget

A hard reality- many businesses have to deal with a restricted budget. The problem here is the inability to show how marketing affects the bottom line. Get the problem solved by developing a casual map showing the importance of digital marketing goals to drive success and how that success leads to larger achievements.

Pressure For Quick Wins

Due to the need for better digital marketing, there is pressure for short-term wins. It happens when long-term wins are not clear, and there is no solid sense of urgency to prompt change. The tricks here are to develop an engagement value scale, create a rule-based personalization using keyword combinations targeting your visitor segments, and know the campaigns that have the greatest impact.

Lack of Necessary Resources

Resources are crucial to business success. Needless to say, lack of necessary resources are one of the greatest challenges to digital transformation. To fix this problem, pay attention to the most important visitor segments by determining the keyword phrases and traffic channels that identify those segments. Focus on winning campaign themes. Leverage hero webinar topics and use them as an asset. The most important thing is to retain, up sell and cross-sell to existing customers.

Inability to Manage Change

Several factors such as doubt, fear, and uncertainty can paralyze an organization in managing change. The biggest way to get out of this dilemma is to listen to every input of your team.

Rounding off, all organizations are bound to face digital marketing hurdles. It takes courage, creativity, and willingness to listen to the experts to find your way out. If you need help with the leading-edge digital marketing practices, feel free to contact our creative team at Cornerstone Marketing Solutions.

5 ways to Measure and Track the Success of your SEO Strategy

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5 ways to Measure and Track the Success of your SEO Strategy

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it! Without measurement, your SEO efforts will not do any good to your website. But if you think that reporting keyword rankings already paint the full picture, you are mistaken. Going beyond keyword rankings can be the difference maker between a profitable business and a floundering one. Thankfully, one of the best tools for measuring SEO is within reach- Google Analytics!

Here are five must-know Google Analytics strategies that can measure SEO success:

  1. Know whether or not you’ve lost organic traffic.

It’s not wise to assume that you have lost traffic due to a decline in organic search traffic. As a rule, you need to know the exact reason. The trick is to segregate traffic in Google Analytics. To get started, launch the Channel Grouping Report. You will be able to view all traffic sources segmented based on the channel. Hit the Organic Search Channel, and you will get to discern whether or not you have lost organic traffic.

  1. Measure the Quality of your Traffic.

Quality SEO traffic is likely to be extremely subjective. When figuring out whether your SEO traffic has increased or decreased, one tool you can use is the Assisted Conversions Report. This report allows you to preset a date range and then come up with a comparison with the previous period. Through these monthly comparisons, you have got a good basis to understand and measure your conversion reports. If the ratio increased, it is an indication of a traffic decline. Simply put, aim for a small ratio as much as possible. In a perfect SEO world, 1:1 is the ideal ratio.

  1. Knowing how much you spend to bring in organic traffic.

Assigning monetary values to your organic traffic is also a clever strategy to measure SEO success. After knowing how much organic traffic you bring in, the next thing you must work on is to figure out how much do you spend bringing on this traffic, if you are purchasing it through Google AdWords. First, go to your AdWords account and then proceed to the Queries Section. Using the report, launch the Keyword Planner. Click Get Search Volume and Trends section. Enter your choice of top keywords from the Google Analytics Report. Enter the keyword into AdWords, and you will view a dollar amount to bid. Now that’s simple mathematics, isn’t it?

  1. Know when your page is loading slower than expected.

Before it even creates an unpleasant impact to user experience, you must figure out slow loading times.  From Google Analytics, simply go to Page Timings and then set the middle column to navigate the average page loading time. What you should see on the right column must be % Exit. Simply put, you will get to view the speed of your pages, along with the number of people who are leaving your page. Out of that, you can seamlessly draw correlations.

  1. Make your SEO Dashboard.

Another rule in SEO is to present data in the right way. To make your SEO dashboard comprehensive as much as possible, make use of the built-in dashboard. Many SEO geeks create their configurations accessible to the general public.

One of SEO’s toughest challenges is proving its value in figures. But as you can see, there are several ways to measure SEO success. Everyone can now reimagine what we can do with Google Analytics. It’s just a matter of putting serious thought into it.

How about you? What do you think is the best way to use Google Analytics?

7 Proven Online Marketing Tips For Small Businesses To Grow

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7 Proven Online Marketing Tips For Small Businesses To Grow

Not familiar with moving your advertising techniques online? Then this is for you! Here are some tips to create a solid advertising foundation that can transform your small business into a solid powerhouse.

Start by dominating social media.

If you want your business to thrive, then social media is your way. Nearly 1.7 billion of the whole population has access to social media, and this is a good opportunity to really connect with people, to build relationships and more importantly, to be noticed. The days of social media being used just for fun are long gone, and now social media is known as a strong platform to exercise the freedom to advertise content.

Engage on Facebook.

There are a lot of creative ways to sell on Facebook, which is one of the reasons why most markets tend to advertise there. Also, it is a lot cheaper and easier to operate, because most people tend to use it on a daily basis. You can even create your own page to post everything that could empower your business. Also, make sure that it is active most of the time, for that is one way to encourage your customers that someone is literally there.

Dazzle-in-Youtube (DIY)

A great avenue for using creative content is through the 3rd largest website in the world, Youtube. If you are not that much into blogging, then maybe visual presentations would get you going, and Youtube appeals to millennials easily. Video presentations online is a creative approach in terms of presentation that could put your business in the spotlight. Having a Youtube channel can let people or your customers get a glimpse of what they are looking forward to, and you can even make it informative and appealing at the same time.

Honor thy customers.

You need them more than they need you. As someone who is new at a business, you should be sensitive amongst every client or customer your product gets into because their feedback would matter, and their online feedback can be your exposure. Make your customers engaging and encouraged through online tags on posts. Being able to know a lot of customers could be beneficial to you, and to your business, because they can help you promote it, like by asking them to rate online, or posting your product on their feed, it can reach people outside your circle of customers,  that could be your potential customers in the future. Also, better give them what they expect, because after all, they are your online critics.

Increase your exposure.

Make your business known by coordinating with other markets or even by sponsoring small events. Anything that can increase your level of popularity to leave your product mark within the minds of any demographic. Coordinate and contribute to other businesses that are in for online advertising same as you, in that way you can reach an even wider scope of popularity.

Boost your content.

Everything is all about content, that is why it is very significant for businesses to feed valuable substance to audiences, something that could not waste their time. Look for inspirations; you could use blogs of the same businesses as you, to have an additional appeal to it. Repurpose your content into even greater forms, and also, broaden your ad at the same time. You can never be too specific.

Make it an elevated entertainment.

People on the internet can be so fed up with ads that they tend to ignore it. So, in all circumstances, also aim for entertainment. Have a factor of relevance, like being in line with a millennial trend; people would often applaud creative ads that could appeal to their interest, by making your product connect with something they give attention to. Always be creative and it can be achieved once you put yourself in their shoes.

All set? Add these tips to your approach and your small business would go for a big shot! Talk to us for more online marketing techniques.

5 Amazing Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Cornerstone Local

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5 Amazing Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Cornerstone Local

Ninety percent of customers read online reviews. You can use these actions to improve brand awareness and credibility among customers and increase sales.

Improve your online reputation today! Our Cornerstone Local service can help you do just that. Here are seven ways our add-on service Cornerstone Local can help your business.

MORE POSITIVE CUSTOMER REVIEWS

Recent studies show the most successful time for a review to receive one is as soon as the job is completed. Cornerstone Local gives you the ability to ask for the review before you have left the job location. This is the proven way for your business to increase its online reputation by receiving positive reviews from clients and customers.

DOMINATE ONLINE SEARCH RESULTS

Cornerstone Local offers website integration which allows you to reel in the power of your growing online reputation and propel your website to the top of Googles rankings. The plugin options we offer are designed to allow you the ability to segment your reviews by local city, region or company representative. This means you can arrange your best content, local customer reviews into city specific pages.

With the integration options offered by Cornerstone Local, you can harness the power of your growing online reputation and propel your website to the top of Googles rankings. Verified customer reviews are formatted, so Google, Bing, and Yahoo recognize them as legitimate and make it easy to plug them into your website automatically.

WORKS ON ANY PLATFORM

Cornerstone Local works with any internet connected platform in addition with iOS and Android apps. The review forms are mobile optimized to work on all platforms with modern browsers.

ROBUST REPORTING

Receive automated weekly review analysis via email. The dashboard allows us to offer a large variety of administrative reports. The reports are interactive, grouped by a date range, listed in detail and are all exportable.

SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

Cornerstone Local offers Facebook integration to build social proof and keep your social networks dynamic. Integrate your review page with your Facebook page for an even stronger online presence that can be shared by your Facebook followers. The best reviews will be posted on your Facebook wall. Remember, social sharing helps improve your reputation. Cross posting, reviews and check-ins all contribute to your success.

Your reputation is everything. Cornerstone Local is designed to help you control your online reputation and achieve greater heights for your business. Talk to us today!