Citations- The Only Constant in the Future of Dynamic Local SEO

A visit to any community blog, forum or social media site is enough to give a person the impression that citations indeed are the future of Local SEO. With the numerous discussions, reviews, opinions and trends about local businesses jamming the internet, citations have become a perpetual topic of discussion for all.

Many aspects related to Local SEO are dynamic in nature, but in the present scenario, the heart and soul of Local SEO is “Citation” and this fact is not going to change as far as we know.

At this point, understanding the Importance of Citations as the core principle of Local SEO will prepare you for almost any change that may happen.

Let us delve deeper into this topic and explore the basics of citations in simple terms, refraining from the use of technical industry jargon.

After reading this blog, you will know-

1. What are Citations
2. How Citations benefit Local & Small companies
3. How they impact Local SEO
4. Why Citation Consistency is so important
5. Conclusions

What are Citations?

If you look up the word citation online or in a dictionary, you will find a number of definitions. The one that’s most relevant to the meaning of local citations in our context is:

“The act of citing or quoting a reference to an authority or a precedent”

How does this definition of ‘citations’ translate for local businesses when it comes to local search?

A local citation is simply an online mention of your NAP (business name, address and phone number) that acts as an authority for search engines. These are typically found in online directories and community blogs.

Unlike links, citations don't need to be linked to your business's website in order for you to be credited for them.

Why are Citations Important?

Consumers mentioning a local brand within an online platform can offer a number of benefits to small businesses and local brands that ultimately allow such businesses to increase their visibility within each major search engine.

Citations offer the following benefits:

They impact local search ranking because search engines rely on the consistency of your business details in an online database.

As we know, Google likes to have lots of information about your business that it can refer to. The more evidence it can find, the more credibility it gives to all that information and your business.

Citations also support online conversions. They help customers find your business.

Online consumers are more likely to engage with a local business if they have positive reviews. According to a recent report offered by BrightLocal, 74 percent of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.

How Do Citations Impact Local SEO?

In simple terms, citations help you get discovered by the people looking for the services you provide. But as with everything related to SEO, citations too seem simple in principle; there is a lot going on when we dig deeper into this.

Citations from well-established and indexed portals (E.g. - Yelp) help increase credibility and trust points search engines assign to your business's contact information and categorization. Quality and quantity of consumer citations and NAP determine how well you rank in local search results.

Since Google has to manually review business details for millions of companies, it uses only those data points, it can process programmatically to establish your rankings on the search engine results pages.

Why Citation (NAP) Consistency is So Important?

The most important thing is to make sure that all of your business data is consistent across the internet. For example, having one citation with your phone number as “72959599″ and another as “1800 959599″ can weaken the power of both the citations. Even having “St.” on some and “Street” on the others can affect your online credibility.

It may not seem like much from the surface, but in reality, it can make a big difference.

Remember that at the end of the day, Google is just a machine, albeit a highly intelligent, astute and hungry one.

You need to feed it consistent and quality data if you want to be rewarded in the local search results.

Conclusions

Nowadays, being #1 on Google is no longer enough to be successful.

Attracting your customers and persuading them to buy from you is not enough either.

To be really successful, local businesses need to avoid citation inconsistency and provide experiences that elicit positive online reviews as it can catalyze word-of-mouth marketing across social networks and other user-generated content websites.

Most of the big brands have understood it already.

For most of them (Nestle, Pepsi, Telstra, Samsung and more), brand reputation and loyalty are very important as they help them to build brand knowledge and let people understand their brand idea.

Though we cannot fully foresee the future of Local SEO, we can predict a few things based on historical evolution-

Perhaps one day, Local SEO will only be about ‘Citation & Nearby’-

And how it happened, won’t really matter then...

We would love to hear your comments and views.

You can talk to us on Facebook, Twitter or through the comments section, below.

So shoot away all your questions- we may even feature them in our upcoming blog posts.

PHP vs Node.js

PHP and Node.js are two very different elements of web development. While PHP is mainly a server side scripting language, Node.js is a framework that can be used to develop full fledged web applications. Yet their performance are often compared. Both PHP and Node.js can be deployed on the server side of things, and have numerous advantages over one another. For instance, the ease of learning is countered by the raw speed of Node.js. If PHP is inconsistent, Node.js takes time getting used to. If...well you get the point.

With 20 years of experience under its belt, PHP dominates a major share of the internet. But is it good enough to face the sheer force of Node.js? Find out with this PHP vs Node.js performance comparison.

PHP vs Node.js Performance Comparison
www.clixlogix.com/blog/node-js-vs-php-two-prog-languages-walked-into-an-agency

Internet Marketing Strategy – Semantic Markup

In recent times, the most innovative shift that we have seen in the internet marketing world has been the search engine’s ability to understand the “meaning” behind the content and queries. The old ways of producing SERPs, based on the progressive ordering of less relevant sites are getting redundant. Google has taken a big leap in optimizing the format of the ordered list from the one based on just the plain text or keywords matches to the one that accounts for the sentiment, intent, freshness and relevancy of the content.

Through Semantic search, the goal is to respond to both implicit and explicit queries based on the meaning behind the queries. Most webmasters are familiar with HTML tags on their pages. The purpose of HTML tags is to display the text included in the tag. However, the HTML tag doesn’t include any information about the meaning of the text string. This leads to the irrelevancy of the content or results that appear on the SERPs.

Semantic markup is a crucial starting point for the search engine optimization to factor in the underlying information hierarchy of a webpage. Images, video and flash elements require supplementary HTML-text to be seen by a spider. A “spider”, also known as a “bot,” is a program which analyzes (“crawls”) website content, then indexes the site to enhance its visibility on the search engine.

Semantic markup goes beyond the plain text and explains the meaning of the data to search engines. It effectively caters to the optimization of content rather than just keywords.  Semantic markups are accompanied with rich snippets that give the users an engaging experience. Seeing the images, ratings and reviews on the SERPs itself, without going through the numerous clicks and hefty sentences, is a big plus for the internet marketing. 

Markup types use microdata and data classification to “talk” to search engines. Just as HTML integrates with the browser to display the content, microdata and data classification explain the search engines about the content and indexing.

There are different types of markups that you can use. It can be perplexing when you’re just starting out and aren’t quite sure which markup to go for. It helps to look at a list of options.

Organization Markup

Organization markup provides search engine users a way to connect to your site with an iconic image. By using this markup, you can make your logo appear on the SERPs. You can also specifically set the location of your preferred logo on the search result pages. You can also link your website’s logo back to the homepage. This is something that Google always likes to see. 

Markup like this is a good way to give your preferred image a preference over others, for example when Google shows the Knowledge Graph on the right hand side based on users’ queries. This gives a strong signal to Google’s algorithms. So whether your website is big or small, adding this markup to your website highly recommended.

Video mark up

It enables you to mark up the video information on your page and potentially get a snippet in search results. You can find the instructions to implement the video markup at Schema.org and also on the webmaster tools. The Webmaster Tools link has instructions for the Facebook share method, which is especially useful if you’re posting a lot of videos on Facebook.

Events Markup

Events markup enhances the visibility of the events. Though, an excess of promotional language in events markup must be checked. A sale or discount are not considered to be an event for the search engine purposes. For an event to obtain events rich snippet, it must meet three criteria:

·        Must have a specific date for the future

·        Must be free from any kind of promotional offer or pricing information.

·        Must carry a specific location.

I hope this blog proves to be helpful for an internet marketing agency to realize and keep up with the marketing trends.

Gauging the Proficiency of A Web Design Agency

In this digital world, nobody buys a product or a service without beseeching the 'Omniscient Google' for all the accessible choices. Your website's first impression on its visitors can make for a lasting impression of your company. Getting it designed by a professional agency can be a profitable investment made.

A plethora of agencies providing web design services promise increased web traffic and a high rate of conversions for your website. These services can either create your website from scratch or redesign the existing one to make it more appealing and SEO-friendly. Before handing over the fate of your business in their hands, you must examine their efficiency of handling it.

Here are some important questions you should consider asking before employing a web design agency:

•    What Services Do They Lend?

An agency granting web design services can fetch you cost-effective results by handling the design, development and marketing of your website.

Ask them for case studies involving websites that necessitated advanced coding competence. Know if they possess sufficient SEO expertise to create an SEO-friendly website for you.

•    What Are The Charges?

Do not hesitate to ask the service agency about the breakdown of how your money will be invested throughout the project. Make sure that the prices they offer conform to the promised working hours and deliverables. 

Ask the web design firm if there's provision of billing for work done outside the agreed scope of work, such as adding extra features to your website.

•    What Are Their Achievements?

It is advisable to hand over your website-designing project only to a dependable agency providing effective web design services. Requesting the agency to share their client retention rate and statistical records of previous project results can help deduce their proficiency.

Hiring an agency granting web design services can extend the horizon of your business to reach customers worldwide. A well-designed website can make a lasting impression of your company on potential customers. Therefore it is better to enquire and examine well before availing these services to ensure that you put all your eggs in a sturdy basket.

What Makes A Web Design Agency Stand Apart From The Rest?

Hiring the right web design agency is one of the most crucial decisions you can make in the quest to boost your business’s growth and recall value. A high-quality web design agency can put a face to your business in the form of a website that is aesthetically appealing, compelling and memorable. Before making a decision as crucial to your business’s fate as choosing a good web design agency, you must make a list of some questions you’d like to get the answers to. Getting to know the agency’s ideologies and familiarizing yourself with pertinent case studies that reflect the agency’s expertise and success are some of the measures to ensure that you select the right one out of the milling lot of agencies striving to get your attention.

It is preferable to choose a web design agency that understands the weightage that the various elements of a website; from design to web copy and branding strategy, carry in determining the impact the site has on visitors. What makes certain web design agencies stand apart from the rest is the research and strategizing that goes into the web design and development of your website. Carefully mapping out your target audience’s needs and correlating them with your business ventures is the first, and the most significant step, in developing a great website.

Things to know before hiring a web design agency

• ·        Previous work conducted by the agency

Ask for case studies reflecting the success rate of the websites designed by the agency that relate to your particular niche. A web design agency that has considerable experience in catering to the target audience of your business is more likely to be in sync with their likes and dislikes.

• ·        Affirm the expanse of the agency’s expertise

If the web design team you are hiring only has expertise in putting together a great looking website but doesn’t know how to drive traffic to the site through search engine optimization (SEO) practices, then you may be settling for a raw deal. SEO is an integral part of developing a website. Web design that does not take into account the ranking factors used by Google to index websites may not be able to get you high visibility on the Web. Some of these factors include providing valuable and unique content to users, building a well put-together site architecture and offering breadcrumb navigation to site visitors.

• ·        Determine the fee you’ll be required to pay

It is essential that you clarify the fees that you’ll be required to pay and assess if the money demanded is in accordance with the work hours and deliverables promised. Also, get to know if there are any provisions for working upon suggested revisions or adding extra features and the changes in the fee structure that may be incurred because of the same.

Landing upon the right web design agency can make your landing page a popular haunt for impressed visitors. If you’d like to not only bring in sales but also drive the popularity and goodwill of your business, it is imperative to be careful while looking for a suitable web design agency.

SEO Reseller Packages: A Boon for Your Business

In today’s age and time, the Internet has become a potent medium for businesses to expand their reach to a large number of potential consumers. With 91% of online experiences starting with a search engine and 70% of users clicking on organic search results, the importance of SEO or search engine optimization cannot be denied. Another staggering statistic that puts the seal on the indispensability of SEO for any business is that 91.5% of online users only choose to click on the results that appear on the first page of a search engine’s results.

Despite the nagging importance of SEO for helping businesses become more visible on the Web, not all web design agencies, PR firms and internet marketing agencies have SEO professionals on board. So what if your clients ask you for SEO services in addition to the ones you already provide? It wouldn’t be ideal to, unwillingly, redirect them to an industry competitor. What can prove useful in such cases is to avail SEO reseller packages.

SEO reseller packages allow you to have an SEO reseller agency do all the SEO work for your client, behind the scenes, while you handle your clients’ orders, billing and report circulation. The SEO agency signs a non-disclosure agreement insuring that confidentiality is preserved throughout the process. The end result is that your client thinks highly of you for providing a comprehensive range of services while you are able to make profits.

The cost of an SEO reseller package is considerably less than what it would cost you to hire and sustain a team of SEO experts. This is why becoming an SEO reseller can give you an edge over your industry competitors. When choosing from different SEO reseller packages, you should make sure that you assess the expertise of the company by asking them plenty of questions and getting to know their past success stories and client retention rate.

Full Screen: The Future of Web Design

Bigger is Better. A significant number of brands and businesses have used this adage as an inspiration to create bigger, better, faster, shinier products and services. Even the world of web design hasn't been untouched by this wave of 'bigger' ideology. Over the years, the web developers have been pushing the borders of web browsers to make things easier for the everyday internet user. The browsers have been optimized to the point that there are cases where there are no borders on the browsers, no room for pesky ads but pure unadulterated view of the online content you are currently viewing. These kind of websites are aptly called Full Screen Websites.

Full Screen Sites are the new 'hot cakes' of the web design paradigm. Everyone wants them, those that have had them are divided on their value, and some are just too awed to even have an opinion.

A full screen website encompasses the complete display estate of your device and fills the entire browser window with content solely belonging to the website. They generally look better and are more interactive than conventional websites. The principal aim of a full screen website is to‘immerse’ the user into what the website wants the user to see with additional disturbances carefully masked by the layout and effects.

A wonderful example is WhiteBoard Inc's website

It has a minimalistic look with short but sweet content spread throughout. Just like a full screen website is supposed to be.

This 'fullness' of the web isn't something that happened suddenly. Instead, the design has slowly yet steadily evolved over several years from 'a black screen with pixels' mode to the 'fluidity of the responsive design' to finally arrive at the full screen design. This infographic below designed that shows the evolution of the web design over the years better than any bunch of words can describe.

There's no doubt that full screen websites are amazing but they also have their faults. Their suitability is highly content-specific. They tend to demand more processing power. And they are a bit complex and challenging to design. All these factors make the transition of the web design to full screen a bit more complex than it appears to be. Here's another visual that lists 'the goods and the bads' of this new web design trend. If you want to read more about how the web is going full screen, then check out this informative blog post on the future of web design http://www.clixlogix.com/full-screen-web-design/

In short, don't just jump on the full screen website bandwagon. Analyze your website's content type and its business goals before you 'stretch' your online presence. Take help from a professional web agency.

If your analysis tells you that going full will help you go bigger on the web then contact Clixlogix, an amazing web design agency with expert developers for your next favorite online possession.