If you have a website representing your business, you cannot choose to ignore SEO. It is a well-known fact; the chances of your website appearing on top of SERP are negligible without dedicated SEO efforts. Let’s understand the importance of local SEO services for small businesses.

Bring in More Customers

Today, local businesses need to have a local online presence to attract customers. Many people use the Internet when looking for products and services. Companies that offer local SEO services in Houston, can bring in more customers to your website which might also increase footsteps in your physical stores.

Failure to grab a significant amount of traffic in local searches translates to your business missing on hundreds of potential customers. Discovery is one of the important steps in increasing sales. SEO increases the online visibility of your website and your target customers are more likely to visit your website to make purchases.

With the right SEO tactics, your website will appear in the 1^st or 2^nd SERP which will ensure people looking for products and services you offer would visit your website.

User-friendly Website

Search engine optimization is not only about search engine and websites. The main focus of SEO is on the user. When users are happy, your search engine optimization will yield good results.  There are several On-Page SEO techniques that improve user experience and have short-term and long-term benefits.

Keep up with Competition

One of the reasons to partner with the company providing local SEO services Houston is to keep up with the competition.  Today, the majority of small and big entrepreneurs know the importance of SEO. This means your competitors must have already employed an SEO service to improve their online ranking and attract customers.

If you continue to ignore SEO, you are more likely to lose to your competitors. Hence, it is very important you partner with a local SEO services provider and make your website SEO friendly.

Better First Impression

The first impression is very important A positive first impression is more likely to become a  foundation for strong relationships with the customer. If your website fails to make a good first impression, you not only lose the customer(in the present) but it also reduces chances of the customer visiting your website in the near future.

The initial first impression can set the right tone for better communication and a strong customer relationship that is needed for business growth and cut through the competition.

Better Conversion Rates

Conversion rate refers to the number of visitors (prospective customers) actually making a purchase on your website. Increasing website traffic does not guarantee an increase in conversion rates. SEO-optimized sites load faster are easy to surf and visitors are able to find the information they are looking for quickly.

SEO optimization also ensures your website works seamlessly on a wide variety of devices like laptops, smartphones, or tablets. This means the user will have the same good user experience even when the user accesses your website from different devices.

A website that is easy to navigate and load faster catch the attention of visitors and they are more likely to stay for longer that gives you more conversions opportunities. The result is a large number of visitors will be repeat customers and subscribers to your services.

Build Brand Awareness

Small businesses with limited budgets cannot afford to allocate huge amounts for brand building. However, SEO can help in building brand awareness at lower costs. For example, when your website achieves higher rankings in SERPs for targeted keywords,  potential customers are more likely to trust your brand.

The perks of a trusted brand are many. People will be more inclined to buy from your business and the good reputation will also attract new customers.

Reduction in Marketing Expenses

Marketing is essential to reach your target audience.  However, small businesses cannot afford to spend huge amounts on marketing like big businesses.  Paid SEO tools like Google Ads allows you target ads as per demographics which ensures your ad mostly appears in front of your prospective customers.

Thus you can see partnering with a company offering local SEO services Houston can help you reap the maximum benefits of online presence and boost revenue generation.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a term that’s been around and recognized equally with SEO. Some companies choose to create in house teams while some other outsource it to agencies who also provide them auxiliary services like SEO and social media marketing. Whatever you choose, here is why SEM is important and why you include it in your business strategy, irrespective of your business size

# 1 – Improve brand awareness

With SEM, people searching for products or services related to what you offer to get to see your ads listed on top of results. Now, ads can receive clicks and make people more aware of your brand, which they may not otherwise have known about. In the event that they do not click the ads, searchers will still see them and can recognize the brand name or URL. If your search shows up along a competitor brand, even better. Now, imagine a new business doing this by themselves without SEM. The challenge would be far greater. SEM can give your brand the immediate visibility it needs.

# 2 – Improve conversions and revenue

Paid ads not only create an impression but clicks that can drive people to your product or service website. While SEO drives organic results and better rating on search engine pages naturally, SEM gives you the results faster. This brings you on top to a highly targeted audience. When you have a qualified lead and a good website in place, the chances of conversion are much higher. Thus, sales start improving once you implement a good SEM strategy. The technique can be applied not just to selling, but also when you want your customers to take a specific action like signing up for your newsletter, tiring out a beta version of your product, or participating in a contest.

# 3 – Better local marketing

Search engine marketing works beautifully well in targeting not just people all over the globe, but in specific localities or communities as well. When your business is a restaurant or salon that caters to a specific location, your interests obviously are in attracting more local crowd than advertising to a larger audience outside. When implemented well, search engine marketing in China can bring up your business in results for searches like “restaurants near me” or “ladies hair stylist near me”. In cases when you need to advertise to a specific country, like China, it also becomes important to use tools and search engine pages that allow those potential customers to be reached. Baidu SEM is a perfect example of this.

# 4 – Works for even small budgets

Typically, paid advertising eats into your marketing budgets. However, SEM is cost-effective. When done right, this method can give you very good results, including a good return on investments. The most common choice for SEM is the pay per click (PPC) model, where you are charged for your ad only when a person clicks the link to your website. Also, in most cases, you can work on search engine marketing with shoestring budgets. This makes it an ideal choice for smaller ventures that may not have deep pockets to market or advertise their brand to consumers. It also works for companies that need to spread their budget across multiple locations.

Not to mention how flexible SEM can be. When you see an ad doing exceptionally well, you can pump in more money, or add more keywords to target more people. On the contrary, if something doesn’t work, you can choose to end it any time you want.

# 5 – Gives you a competitive advantage

Sometimes it is difficult to surpass the top spot that competitors occupy in organic search results. This may be because you are relatively new or because you need a lot more SEO efforts to bring your page on top of the search rankings. However, with PPC you can get a top spot for yourself, alongside the competitor. Also, if they fail to use SEM to its full potential, chances are that you can get a sweeter spot on the search engine results page than them and make more conversions easily.

When done right, search engine marketing can give you a wealth of data about your consumers, and their behavior. This data can then be used later for other marketing efforts at a later point in time, or to fine-tune your efforts when necessary.

Penetrating the market successfully in China means brands are able to differentiate their products from substitutes in the marketplace. To achieve this type of brand consciousness can be very challenging; promoting your brand in China is a different ball game than other parts in the world. Here in this post, we will be exploring how businesses with assistance from a digital marketing agency in China can leverage for building their brand in China and have a pulse on the ever-changing evolving market.

Some Trending Strategies for the Digital Market

Short Videos – Short video format is the first major trend. According to Online Video Insight data, short video viewers have reached more than 350 million in 2018. Miaopai, a short video platform has become popular for branded content online. Weibo posts claim that those brands who are promoting their products and services through videos earn three to four times more. At the time of incorporating this strategy, the digital marketing manager must remember the rule “Five Seconds is All You Have Got!” that means you have to grab the viewer’s attention in the first five seconds.

Omnichannel Policy – There is no single algorithm or equation that will provide you accurate information on why and when each client will be making a purchase or an acquisition. Top e-tailers use Omni channel e-commerce because they have been building up offline investments over the last few years. The most popular e-tailer in China uses Omni channel policy named “New Retail” which was presented at the Single’s Day e-commerce festival in 2018. Over the years, retail customer interaction has been changing very rapidly from the traditional way of visiting stores to shopping at the comfort of our own homes through e-commerce and now to New Retail. Although the integration of offline and online (O2O) commerce is not a new concept, New Retail demands efficient customer-centric engagement that can be achieved seamlessly through leveraging data technology.

Enable Group Purchasing – It is a fast-growing trend based on hare/split model. For example, the social media model of Pinduoduo encourages a close group of people for buying together for availing greater discounts. It forms a great portion of the online sales of a few brands. Let us take another example, 10 percent of all online sales of a laundry detergent company is now done through the Pinduoduo platform with future sales predicted to escalate.

Word –of – mouth Phenomenon: Online buzz is the key to longevity and brand appeal in China

The development and maintenance of word-of-mouth through online is fundamental to sustain your business and is relevant in the Chinese market. There are some important tools for creating an online buzz which is described below.

• Social media networks – Weibo, Tudou, Youko, and WeChat

• Online Shopping Sites – Taobao

• News Websites – Sine China

• Online Communities – Douban

It is crucial that when you are choosing a digital marketing agency in China, they are updated with the most popular platforms as well as the current topics and issues trending on these platforms and to develop and use them for promoting your brand effectively. By using WeChat Mini app, which is an e-commerce platform where you can order and pay through online. Users also have the option for customizing their purchases in the app. You can select the color of the imprints, badges, and bag. After ordering you can track the shipment through WeChat pay option.

In addition to that, content marketing by the digital marketing agency in China on such media platforms must be engaging for consumers where the content should be informative and entertaining. This is vital as content marketing involves sharing and creating of online material like social media posts, blogs and videos that may not explicitly helps in promoting the brand but the intent is to stimulate interest in its products or services. This also allows a customer to hold sometimes negative, positive or long-lasting associations with a brand. Consumers post immediate and direct feedback on these platforms making it vital for a brand to be watchful of their promotions strategies and online behavior for preserving the brand’s image.

When you think of Chinese digital marketing, one of the names that come to your mind is Sina Weibo. It has around 313 million monthly active users that make it a gold mine for marketers. On Sina Weibo, you can publish posts or follow other users, celebrities, and brands.

Here we have shared a few tips related to using Weibo marketing to reach out to your audience.

Know Your Audience

The most important aspect of social marketing in China is putting efforts to know the audience. Understanding the important fundamentals of digital marketing and the mechanics of technology is one thing. Determining the tactics based on your marketing experience in Western countries can be a big mistake. You should not expect the same marketing tactics to bring similar results in China.

Local knowledge, data, and analysis of the Chinese market, and insights are keys to success in the Chinese digital marketing space. Marketers need to put time and efforts to understand audience (cultural and social differences) and create user profiles based on research.

They need to have a clear and typical image of the target user when seeking to engage through Weibo marketing. You can partner with a specialist Chinese marketing agency to gain rapid access to data and insights and speed up your marketing campaign.

A good marketing partner who understands Chinese audience well is a key to achieving success in the Chinese digital marketing arena.

Identify Industry Leaders

Weibo has a useful search feature that allows you to identify industry leaders in any business niche. At the start of building your Weibo community, you can use the search to identify users who are interested in a corporate Weibo account and connect with them.

Create Engaging Content

You need to create engaging content and keep in mind target audience’s interest while creating it. Weibo has a structured framework for content. At Weibo, the topics are divided into different categories and the accounts are tagged. One of the advantages of this is B2B marketers can see trending topic in different categories and visit the page of topics as per their interests.

The tagged categories in Weibo marketing are useful to identify thought leaders, follow them and identify prospects to engage. This also provides valuable insight to create helpful and engaging content that people seek and would happily share. On Weibo, sharing text with an image is a common practice of initiating conversations.

Since images are attractive to Weibo users and they can be searched on Weibo, posts with images are important. You need an SEO mindset to achieve success on Weibo. For example, if you have created a white paper, report, or infographic to share, you need to include appropriate keywords and images in the content so that people can easily find the content. By making the content easy to find, you help in access, distribution, and sharing of valuable content.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are important on Weibo. However, there is a slight difference in the use of hashtags in comparison to Twitter. For example, a hashtag on Weibo has two ## signs instead of one. The topics are identified by hashtags on Weibo and user can find topics through hashtags.

When a particular hashtag is popular or trending, the chances of its discovery by other Weibo users grow significantly. A hashtag can prove useful to gain new followers and earn fresh views.

Get Your Weibo Account Verified

Weibo follows a different method of user identification. Unlike Twitter where all users are same, Weibo has regular users, verified individual users (recognized by orange V icon), companies and organizations (recognized by blue V icon).

A verified B2B Weibo account brings in several benefits. For example, it enhances the credibility of the account and also improves the trustworthiness of the pages. The reason for enhanced credibility and trustworthiness is it signifies the company or the organization has submitted legal business documents and they have been successfully verified.

Also, a verified Weibo account enjoys special features in setting up the marketing campaigns, publishing posts and access to data and analytics. A verified account also has a higher authority to make profiles look attractive.

Do you have any questions about Weibo marketing tools to reach out to your audience.?

If you are doing business in China or aspire to do so then you simply cannot ignore WeChat marketing. WeChat offers businesses in China a unique platform to connect with their consumers and improve their brand visibility exponentially. WeChat is indeed a distinct platform to help your business thrive by connecting directly with your audience.

Here are five tips to market your brand on WeChat.

1. Create Relevant Content

There are popular WeChat features that make it really easy for members to follow and share the content of different types. Businesses need to utilize such WeChat features to convert followers to members of their account. Businesses can even continue to increase their followers with the help of relevant content. You can create videos, audio messages, texts, and photo features to offer your followers and members useful, fun, and creative content to forge deeper connections with them.

You need to offer them content, which is something they will find useful. You need to know what your consumers are looking for online and offer them relevant content for the same. If, for instance, your business is about silver jewelry for teenagers then you can create content featuring ways to use the jewelry for different occasions. You can also offer content related to cleaning and taking care of silver jewelry. You can create fun images featuring your products and share them on your WeChat account where your followers can see and engage with the available content.

2. Develop Innovative Promotional Deals

Businesses need to offer their followers innovative promotional deals to continue to develop a relationship with them. It is very easy to offer your followers loyalty programs via the app and send them offers using the geo-location feature of WeChat. The geo-location feature allows you to locate your followers and offer them promotional deals or discounts at the stores close to their current location. You can create innovative promotional offers that will create even more interest for your followers.

For instance, if a follower uses the discount to buy something and then post its picture on their WeChat account, you can offer them an e-coupon or another deal. Such offers can be really useful for new businesses.

3. Use Multiple Ways to Connect with Followers

WeChat offers many sub-applications that are easy to use. These sub-applications are often referred to as the platform’s Mini Programs. Businesses can use these Mini Programs for promotions as these help with easier social sharing. When utilizing the power of WeChat marketing, it makes sense to use all its features that help with social sharing.

You can also connect with your consumers by building small websites inside the platform. These mini websites are simple yet engaging enough to interact with your audience.

4. Launch Campaigns with Giveaways

Campaigns are indispensable for WeChat marketing. Businesses need to really invest in developing fun and creative campaigns to connect with their existing and prospective consumers directly.

For the success of your social campaigns, you need to offer incentives to your followers in the form of giveaways. You can advertise about a new product launch by offering it as an incentive to your followers if they answer certain survey questions or offer a creative punch line for the product.

But make sure that your audience doesn’t need to really work hard to win the free gifts or participate in giveaway contests. Make your campaigns really fun and easy to enter. Otherwise, a majority of your followers is not really likely to bother with it. Also, ensure that the campaign giveaways are worth it for your followers. It is not a good marketing strategy to waste your consumers’ time or tease them with useless prizes.

5. Utilize QR Code Marketing

Another effective strategy for WeChat marketing is to engage with your followers using QR codes. It can help you to drive offline sales with the help of online activities.

WeChat offers businesses a way to personalize their QR codes and use them effectively for various marketing tasks. Businesses can utilize QR codes for both online and offline marketing activities. It is easy to sync such activities on WeChat using the platform’s various features.

SEO can help you stay a step ahead of your competitors. But it is only possible with the help of SEO specialists who have the right experience and expertise.

SEO work is very technical in nature and consists of several steps. Each step needs to be performed well for your SEO strategy to produce the desired results. Anything less than perfection can mean a waste of your efforts and money.

Consider these reasons to choose SEO experts for your business.

To Benefit from their Expert Knowledge

You need to know everything about SEO to be able to perform tasks related to it. Not everyone has the knowledge and expertise to perform SEO work. SEO expertise comes with experience and investing time to keep up with the dynamic nature of the job.

Let’s say you need SEO experts Houston. But you can’t just hire anyone for the job. You will need to check if the prospective companies or specialists have the right experience and knowledge for local SEO. If not then hiring one may not be the right decision for your local business.

SEO experts need to be aware of the algorithm changes done by search engines, which is quite often. They need to constantly tweak their work to align it with these algorithm changes. These changes can happen any time and SEO experts need to keep pace with them.

SEO work requires extensive planning and research for keywords and content creation. Then each step included in the strategy needs to be performed properly to get the right results. A lot goes into link building and creating meta tags required for the job. Content distribution is also a very important aspect of the job. Only SEO experts Houston can perform these tasks well.

To Save Time and Money

Of course, you can learn about SEO and do the job yourself. But you will first need time to learn about SEO. Then you will need time to perform the necessary SEO tasks, which can be never-ending. If you are a business owner, you are not likely to have any spare time for such work. If you are a small business owner, you are more likely already burdened with every other aspect of your job. So, it is best to leave the work to experts rather than doing away with it for lack of time.

If the SEO work is not done well, you will end up wasting money allocated for the job. Hiring an in-house team of SEO experts can also be very expensive especially for small and medium enterprises. You will need to hire someone with expertise in creating SEO strategies along with writers, editors, and other personnel for working on all the tasks related to the job.

Instead of wasting your time and money, you can hire SEO experts and leave the job to them. SEO can be done for any budget and the ROI on it can be remarkable. So, with the help of the right team, you can benefit from SEO without wasting any time or money.

To Get the Desired Results

SEO actually works if done well. With the right experts at the helm, SEO can help your business increase its online visibility remarkably.

When a business is on top of the search engine result pages (SERPs), it really is a great deal. With so many competitors out there vying for the top spot on SERPs, SEO experts have their work cut out for them.

Consumers now search online for anything and everything. If you are a business owner with only a brick-and-mortar establishment even then local SEO can help your potential customers find their way to you. All this happens due to organic search results. For instance, if someone in Houston is looking for an organic food store then they are likely to search for it online. The SEO experts in Houston will create a strategy that will help those looking for organic products online to find the right stores. If you are that business owner of organic products then your new customers will find their way to you with the help of SEO. So, it is a good idea to leave the SEO work to experts.

Carrying out search engine optimization tasks in-house can be painful, to say the least. SEO experts are a better choice and they can give you the results you need in a time-bound and cost-effective manner. Plus, there’s long-term effort involved and you have a dedicated team that’s working to ensure that your web page ranks up there better than your competitors. However, choosing the best SEO expert is easier said than done and as a business, there are a few things to know about such teams before you hire them.

SEO results do not show overnight

If you hire an SEO agency or consultant with the hope of seeing results from day one, you are up for some disappointment. Optimizing web pages for search engine results isn’t a quick fix. Be it to increase organic traffic, help with paid advertisements, or resolve issues with penalties or algorithms, any effort related to SEO takes time, sometimes even months together. Any expert who promises you otherwise (those flashy ads that guarantee results within 15 to 30 days) is definitely taking you for a ride. While it may not be all that heartening, it’s definitely more believable to hear it from an agency that says it would take more than three or four months for your search engine ranking to show improvement and your website traffic to start growing.

Optimization is more than link building

Links may the basis for search engine optimization, but they are not all. SEO efforts need to spread across on-page optimization, off-page SEO tasks, quality content, and a focus on load time and page speed among many other things. The time it takes for your page to load or things like how responsive your website matters to all that traffic that comes visiting. A good SEO expert will show you the larger picture, and the benefits that come with it, rather than just focusing on back and forth links. Such a holistic approach is necessary to be able to convert traffic into qualified leads, happy customers, and in short, better revenue.

Keywords matter so does ROI

Keywords, like links, are an important component of search engine optimization. Business who aren’t well-versed with SEO often believes that when their website ranks on the top for a particular keyword, the job is done. What they fail to see is that the keyword or its set may actually matter very little to the product or service and may contribute very little or nothing to the revenue. When looking for The Woodlands SEO, be wary of people or teams who are excessively focused on improving keyword rankings. Instead, look for agencies or consultants who focus on the returns on investment than just a bunch of keywords. SEO efforts are implemented not to make your business look nice and fancy, but to give you better revenues. This can happen only of the optimization efforts are tied to metrics, where you’re able to see where the leads or conversions came from and how much of a difference they make to the bottom line of your business.

A multi-channel approach is better

An SEO expert in the Woodlands, who are focused on building multi-channel traffic, is any day better than someone who looks into just search page results. Such an approach that involves paid searches, social media campaigns and email marketing help you balance volumes should things get stuck on a particular source.

SEO needs money

Search engine optimization may be the least important on the marketing budgets for businesses, but such an approach is a sure shot recipe for disaster. This is because SEO efforts also involve paid marketing and you need to be willing and have sufficient money ready to be spent on landing page ads to be able to drive traffic to your website. This is in addition to the cost you incur for the agency or the consultant. Businesses who see this as an unnecessary expense are tempted to take the cheapest route or settle for a one-size-fits-all SEO plan, which does more harm than good in the long run. The money that will later be needed to fix damages can actually be a lot more than what’s needed to invest in a good quality SEO expert in Woodlands from the beginning.