But how does Alan Morgan Group help these businesses? This is what you may be wondering, and the answer is fairly simple, though it still requires plenty of time and effort. Alan Morgan Group knows the ins and outs of content marketing. It has the talent to help businesses with their content marketing efforts, regardless of whether they are starting from scratch or looking to begin rebuilding their image after previous missteps in their marketing efforts.

Content is King

You may have heard it before, but it bears repeating. Today, almost everyone turns to the Internet when they need information, and because of this, it is vital for every business to have as much information about themselves as possible available for potential leads. To use a phrase you have likely heard before, content is king for modern-day digital marketing efforts. The more mentions of your brand you have online, the better it is for your business. 

It is not enough to simply drop mentions of your brand in wherever you see fit. It is also vital to note the importance of having high-quality links as a part of your content and digital marketing efforts. Google identifies links among its three most important factors when it comes to ranking web pages. This alone should be enough to help businesses see just how important it is to include high-quality links on their web pages and within their content. However, this is still one area where businesses can find themselves stuck in their old ways, though Alan Morgan Group can find plenty of great link building opportunities.

Among the biggest details to note with link building is domain authority, this being the factor used by Google to identify the quality of a link. Domain authority refers to a site’s ranking ability. A site with good domain authority will rank higher on a search engine than a site with poor domain authority. Links from sites with high domain authority will, in turn, boost your own domain authority – and your own site’s ranking on search engines. 

Quality Content Makes a Difference

A mention from a site with high domain authority can have a tremendous impact on your own site’s ranking. However, it is important to note this is only half the battle and won’t be enough to keep you afloat if you aren’t taking the steps necessary to keep leads on your site once they find you. This is another area where Alan Morgan Group can provide valuable assistance, being leaders when it comes to content marketing.

We’ve spent some time discussing the technical aspects of your content, including linking. However, when crafting your content, you can never forget the importance of ensuring it is well-written and aimed at the specific audience you are attempting to target. The overall readability of the content should always be considered, regardless of the type of content you need, from pages for your website to blogs and product descriptions. While you may want your content to be interesting and engaging, it should also be easy to read and have a nice flow, as it is aimed at an online audience. Relevance is always vital as well; you want to keep your readers engaged, give them the information they need, and ensure they stay on the page.

Businesses aren’t always the best at curating content on their sites, which can lead to greater problems than you may think. When businesses have loads of irrelevant content or poorly written content on their site, this has the potential to do damage to their reputation and their brand. This is why working with a business such as Alan Morgan Group can be such an important factor in helping a business grow and succeed, whether they are building their domain authority from the ground up or helping restore it after taking a hit in the past. 

Control Over the Copy is Key

When working with a marketing group such as Alan Morgan Group, giving the marketer control over the content and allowing them to review it helps guarantee there are no potential issues to be resolved before the content is published online. It can also be critical to a business’s success and growth to give the marketing group control over the direction of the copy, especially when it comes to details such as choosing relevant material and ensuring it reads well. Allowing a marketing group to have final approval can prevent any possible brand damage and issues such as hits to domain authority while, in turn, helping a business build up their online presence. 

Alan Morgan Group is Content Marketing

For over a decade, Alan Morgan Group has been curating content campaigns for various brands in addition to managing website reorganizations. The company has delivered real results for numerous brands and can help you no matter your current situation and the type of content you need. Among the many benefits of working with Alan Morgan Group is the company has access to an array of excellent, trusted websites, ensuring they are able to place their clients’ links on sites with high domain authority. Meanwhile, their team of writers are all excellent and can craft high-quality content regardless of the brand and the industry they are in, so it is suitable no matter a business’s goals. 

Content is king, and Alan Morgan Group as a company truly knows this, which is why their team puts so much effort into crafting the best quality content possible. With their knowledge, expertise, and connections, you can have incredible content for your site to help push you to the next level and ensure you are always ready for any challenge. 

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What is SEO, what is SEM, and what is PR? These terms can mean different things to different people. Here are the definitions according to Wikipedia:

• SEO: “Search engine optimization is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results.”
• SEM: “Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages primarily through paid advertising.”
• PR: “Public relations is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.”

Definitions are all well and good, but more importantly, why do each of these marketing channels matter? We think there are three big reasons:

1. PR is often how people first hear about your brand, and first impressions matter.
2. Google and other search engines are usually where people go next to learn more about your brand, and the SEO and SEM results will influence their next impression.
3. When the PR article tells one story, branded search results tell another, and your landing page tells yet another, the consumer/customer is left confused.

When you properly integrate all three of these marketing channels, you create a virtuous cycle. People learn about your brand via PR from a news or medial outlet they already trust. Those users who research further get a consistent and connected brand narrative when they search your branded terms on popular search engines like Google and your brand surfaces at the top of the page in a positive light, and then the homepage connects with the article they read. An optimized conversion funnel and clear brand story will increase the conversion rates at each stage of this journey. You’ll also see a higher conversion velocity if your brand creates a “funnel” versus forcing potential customers to take a disconnected journey.

So, how do you achieve excellent, beneficial branding integration between those channels? There are some key steps to creating a well-rounded brand marketing narrative that is informative and engaging. First off, build out a clear marketing strategy, even if it is simple and plain vanilla. Second, ensure all team members are in sync with this strategy. Third, ensure it is written into the Objective Key Results (OKRs) for each person inside the organization (Marketing, Partnerships, Business Development, etc). If every OKR of every team member in marketing is correctly nested with the over marketing strategy you create an instant synergy. If leadership and managers actively engage with team members across functions then silos will decrease which will again increase synergies.

Lastly, interview your customers and listen. Just because you think you have a consistent message and story does not mean your customers feel the same way. Work hard to see the brand and journey through the eyes of your consumers and customers, not your own. When your team sees the brand through consumers eyes, winning is on the horizon.

The post The Importance of Integrating SEO, SEM, PR, and Overall Brand Marketing Narrative appeared first on Alan Morgan Group.

As a digital marketing agency, we think it’s crucial to have a marketing strategy that is consistent across all platforms, whether on social media, in the press, or online. But what exactly does that look like, and where should you start?

PR, or public relations, focuses on managing the spread of information (and the perceptions of that information) from organizations to the general public. Similarly, SEO focuses on managing the online presence of an organization’s website, pushing the site higher in search engines like Google for relevant search terms. We think both of these are equally important for your company: PR is how people can learn about your company and form a good first impression, while being easier to find in potential customers’ research can affirm that first impression and, possibly, get you a new customer.

A disjointed PR effort can effectively destroy your SEO strategy. Let’s say all of your public relations efforts focus on your company’s new CEO, but you have no other content on your site about that CEO and never link back to your own site (instead linking to the CEO’s old company, perhaps). In this case, the relative SEO benefit versus potential is very low. Users will have no way of confirming that it is in fact your company where the CEO now works.

On the other hand, if every PR article is deeply integrated with the story you want to tell, and clearly leads back to pages, URLs, and aspects of the site that you want to highlight, then there is the potential for a smooth customer journey. For example, when your PR efforts guide people to your new CEO’s bio on your site and other relevant pages, potential customers will develop trust and brand affinity faster, and start the customer journey in a smooth manner. That smooth customer journey can send positive trust signals to the search engines and help build the overall trust of your domain.

Now, we’re not saying that you won’t be successful without PR (we know PR can be expensive). SEO with no PR can still succeed if properly managed. However, when SEO is integrated with PR, the possibilities for growth can increase in a markedly positive manner. A classic case study for success here is NerdWallet. Their PR strategy has always been joined at the hip with their SEO strategy, and the SEO lift has been meaningful over time. From the beginning, NerdWallet worked closely with a PR firm that helped them get content on high-domain-authority sites and get links back from those sites. This boosted NerdWallet’s perceived authority and ultimately helped them gain the credentials they needed to become an expert in the industry. Even if you can’t afford top dollar when it comes to PR, look for ways to get your content on the sites of well-known leaders in your industry. The links back from those sites can provide an excellent boost for your SEO strategy.

If you are already investing the dollars in PR, you want to get the maximum ROI–no great article written in a great publication comes for free. If you integrate each PR article within the goals and strategy of your SEO team, you create another chance for returns on the PR investment. Ensure that any publication links back to relevant pages on your site, using anchor text that speaks to your key services or mentions your organization or brand by name. Finally, ensure that your SEO team is aware of posts you know are coming in advance and when they are published so they can weave those additional looks into the holistic SEO and marketing strategy. Check out our other posts for more information on why anchor text and hyperlinks are such an important part of any SEO strategy, or get in touch with our team today.

The post How PR Can Help Growth for an Integrated SEO Strategy appeared first on Alan Morgan Group.

About E-A-T

What are expertise, authoritativeness, and trust? They are three key components in Google’s Page Quality rating that determine whether a page has a beneficial purpose, and all three play into each other. Google uses Page Quality ratings as a part of their proprietary algorithm that determines which results are first when you query a term on Google. Many members of the SEO world collectively refer to these principles as E-A-T.

When determining Page Quality (or PQ), Google takes into account the page’s purpose, its E-A-T, the quality and amount of the content, and the information/reputation about the website or person responsible for the content. While the exact weighting of these factors is not something that Google shares publicly, the directional guidance they offer is still very helpful.

But how does Google determine E-A-T? The creator of a webpage should have relevant expertise in the topic the page is about, which helps lead to authority in that niche, and ultimately leads to building trust. For example, would you trust a medical research paper written by a student in the communication field? Probably not, because the student is likely not an expert in that field, nor do they have the authority that credentials like an MD would provide. On the other hand, if you are reading a parenting blog where the writer has 3 children of their own, you will be more likely to trust their experience and authority.

There are instances (like our medical research paper example) in which having formal training or experience in a field can boost the E-A-T of the page. However, Google also says that “If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an ‘expert’ on the topic, we will value this ‘everyday expertise.’”

But Why Does E-A-T Matter for Me?

Expertise, authoritativeness, and trust are important because Google and other search engines are focused on creating a great user experience, since without it, their business models are doomed to failure. If these search engines were to rely only on factors like page rank, keywords, and other factors, they would leave gaps that could be gamed by external actors. But, factors like expertise, authoritativeness, and trust are much harder to game, and users usually receive a better experience as a result of these factors having a greater impact on a page’s quality ranking.

This is why we always tell our clients to get as much high-quality content as possible on their websites. What does high-quality content look like? Google looks for factual accuracy and expert consensus, as well as comprehensive and clear content that is in an amount appropriate for the topic of the page. If you’re a little worried, don’t be! As long as you have the expertise in your brand and field as well as great content that allows your website’s pages to easily achieve their purposes, you’re doing great.

E-A-T and Your Digital Strategy

At a high level, if your content has all three, then you have little cause for concern. On the other hand, if you lack all three (or even feel you could be doing better in one) you should begin to allocate resources now to building them. As with many aspects of SEO, this takes time, so get prepared to work towards it over the long haul.

To start, find someone who can review your site to determine how you fare on these sorts of factors. Pretty much anyone can do this with little (if any) formal training and a little help from Google’s Search Quality Guidelines. If every article is written by an expert in that field, the links correctly call this out, internal linking follows suit, and your content is current, you are likely positioning your site for success. If there is a weak point in any of these areas, you need to put resources against it now. The more you wait, the farther behind you may become given competition is likely investing in these areas, and Google and other search engines will reward that effort.

The post Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust, and Why They Matter in Digital Marketing appeared first on Alan Morgan Group.

However, in a bid to get a better ranking on Google, businesses often over optimize their content by over saturating it with keywords. As a result, the content ends up being focused on over using keywords for ranking purposes as opposed to providing internet users with credible and useful information. Over the years, Google has caught on to this practice, and as a result, they have made some changes to their algorithm to ensure that when you search for a keyword on their engine, you do not just get keyword saturated content but something informative and useful to you. Below are some of the changes Google has recently implemented on their search engine, and how an SEO company can assist you with the new SEO content optimization regulations to get a good ranking.

Understand Latent Semantic Index (LSI)

Earlier on, Google ranked keyword stuffed content at the top of its indexes irrespective of how irrelevant the information was to an internet user. However, today, keyword stuffing your content will get you penalized by Google. As a result, Google introduced the Latent Semantic Indexing system to ensure that their algorithm doesn’t rank keyword stuffed content at the top of its search results.
Latent Semantic Indexing is a system that links one keyword to another relevant keyword by analyzing various keyword patterns that can get used together. For instance, if you search on Google ‘how to bake a chocolate cake?’ The algorithm recognizes the words ‘bake’ and ‘cake’ as keywords. Another person looking for the same information will search for ‘chocolate cake recipes’ while another will search ‘chocolate cake icing ingredients.’ Icing, recipes, and ingredients are keywords that are related to content on the baking of a chocolate cake, and thus they are considered as LSI keywords.

LSI keywords enable content to have a flow as well as provide additional keywords related to the main keyword of your content. Therefore, you do not have to over optimize your content with just one or a few keywords to get rankings as it will get you penalized. However, researching and placing relevant and useful LSI keywords can be a daunting task. As a result, most businesses prefer to employ the services of an SEO company to conduct research and to implement them into content seamlessly.

Pay Attention to Keyword Density

Keyword density refers to the percentage of your content that comprises of a particular keyword. The percentage gets calculated by dividing the number of keywords used by the total number of words in the content, and then multiplying the result by a hundred. To detect over-optimized content on their engine, Google utilizes keyword density to identify and punish keyword over stuffing. A high keyword density automatically gets classified as keyword spam and as such; the content doesn’t get selected for ranking in the search results. This is meant to prevent websites from over packing their material with numerous keywords to get listed, rather than provide useful content to their customers.

Keywords are still critical for rankings. However, keyword, including LSI keywords, should be used sparingly. According to our tests, the keyword density should always be below 5% with exact keywords under 2%. Additionally, to ensure that the density is sufficient enough to get detected by the LSI system for ranking, it is advisable to keep the density including LSIs at 2-4% max. With respect to this, to get favorably ranked, it is advisable to work with a professional SEO company. They have the expertise, tools, and experience to navigate Google’s algorithm so that you don’t get penalized for over optimization, and you still get good rankings.

The post Is Your Content Over Optimized? appeared first on Alan Morgan Group.

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To address the first point of are the free platforms as good as an actual custom website? This really depends on what you need your website to accomplish. If you want an actual piece of online real estate for a business then nothing can beat an actual website regardless of what platform is it built on. Major companies understand this and that is why they are not trading in their websites to get a free Weebly blog on their site. If all you want is a blog and you don’t care about all the bells and whistles then the free options are probably perfect for you, outside of the following point.

The second question, what happens if something changes, is a much scarier prospect. The recent example of Google de-indexing all Wix sites is a perfect example of what can go wrong when you don’t own your digital footprint. Overnight thousands of businesses disappeared from the Google search results, which will impact their bottom lines in the millions of dollars.   We have been telling our clients this for years but this
is a perfect real life example of the theoretical risk coming to fruition.

If you currently have your business presence on a free platform take a look at the various options available such as WordPress that give you complete control and ownership. If you need help we would advise you to contact the Alan Morgan Group to get a no obligation
quote on a new website.

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We truly live in an amazing time. Now all it takes is a good idea, a little drive and a break and bam… you have a business. In the excitement of building a company out of their basement, their garage, their man-cave, entrepreneurs are often blinded to those who would take advantage of their enthusiasm.

If I only had a website!

So what is the entrepreneur to do. He starts to put together his first attempt at a Word Press site but after hours of frustration he turns for help.

ACT NOW AND WE’LL BUILD YOU A SITE FOR LESS THAN $8,000!!!

Hmmm, the entrepreneur says to himself. I guess that’s just how much it costs. But wait there’s more…

HURRY TO LOCK IN THAT $8,000 PRICE TAG AND YOUR WEBSITE RENTAL (of $400/month) WILL BE WAIVED FOR THE FIRST 30 DAYS!!!!!!!*with a 36 month agreement, notification must be given 42 weeks out to cancel, cancelation rates apply

Ohhh, I have to rent it? I guess I must have to rent it.

And there it is…he’s trapped.

Whenever you are shopping for a website here are a few questions to ask:

1. Will I own the site?
2. Who pays for domain hosting?
3. Are there any additional fees associated with the build

Website developers are extremely talented people; and extremely talented people deserve to be compensated for their time/experience/knowledge/etc. The total price tag for the deal mentioned above was as follows:

$8,000 – initial build

+ $14,000 – monthly fees (thanks for that free first month!)

$22,000

Now, there are plenty of sites that are worth $22,000, some that are two, three, five times that in value. Buying a website is an investment in your company, not an expense. You should expect to see a return on that investment. Ask your developer this one simple question: “How will this site help me drive revenue?”

A web developer is a partner and should be as dedicated to growing your company are you are.

If it feels like you are negotiating to buy a used car, you’re probably talking to a used car salesman.

The post Searching for a Web Development Company: What to Ask, What to Know, What to Watch Out For appeared first on Alan Morgan Group.

Although no one can fully trust the numbers that Google releases, they are a reasonable estimate of the search volume of different terms. To see the search volume for various terms you can do a simple search for the Google Keyword Planner and then login with your gmail login information. Now you can start looking at different terms and the way that different people search for your services. Now that you have an idea of the search volume you need to look at the second part of the equation, Lifetime Customer Value. For this you need to know on average what every new customer or client is worth to you. Now is the time for a little estimation.

Take the total search volume and multiply that by the percentage you can get to your website. For reference, 42% of searchers select the #1 organic listing and 8% go past the first page. Now you have to multiply that number by the percentage you think will convert to customers. If you are in a service industry it is usually best to break this into two parts. First, estimate what percentage will convert to a call or visit and second factor in what percentage of those will convert to customers. You can play with the numbers but this is a good rule of thumb to get a conservative idea of what your return will look like from an SEO company. This also lets you factor in different prices to see what your return will be from different investment levels. Just keep in mind that like everything else in life you get what you pay for so getting SEO services that do not work will not provide a positive return.

We try to be very conservative in our numbers to ensure every possibility for a higher ROI so we usually estimate lower for the volume of customers you will get to your site and then low again for conversions. Because over 90% of searches never make it to page 2, SEO has become a game of digital real estate. Just like monopoly, there are only so many blocks and people are going to land on one of them. If you have several of the spaces on page 1 for your business then you are in a position to get the most possible traffic. Our methods of getting multiple first page rankings help us to deliver the highest possible value to our clients and as a general rule, they see a vastly higher return than we estimated. If you would like to know more please visit our website, AlanMorganGroup.com, and fill out our discovery form or give us a call at (866) 805-3494.

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First off, there are more pople than ever using the search engines on their mobile devices. And all these people looking for information and products on their smart phones and tablets want a website that caters to them. So when they land on a website that is not mobile optimized and they cannot read the text they are going to hit the back button and go somewhere else. This is bad for the business with the website that just lost a customer but also bad for the search engines because it means they did not give the user what they were looking for. Naturally, this was going to get added into their algorithm so that they would be able to deliver a better result for their users.

The real problem with the scare tactics of the marketing media is that everyone was worried the wrong thing. Everyone that is involved in digital marketing knows that conversions are a massive part of the equation for success.   If you are losing visitors because your site is not mobile optimized there should have been a reaction long before Google decided to change its algorithm. This is nothing more than a reflection of the true problem with the current state of online marketing, Vanity, and the lack of understanding by so many businesses that are hiring companies to get them to page 1 instead of hiring them to help get more sales. People are clearly more worried about getting to #1 in Google than increasing their revenue. These are not mutually exclusive, obviously a higher ranking will result in greater traffic and should result in greater sales. The problem is that people are only focused on the metric that is easy to see.

Please do not think that we are saying not to worry about your current SEO strategy or to discount search rankings. We are just saying that there is more to marketing that ranking. The next time you take a look at your sites metrics take a minute to figure out what your conversion rates are. If you need help with this or a couple of simple tricks you can do to help with tracking feel free to call the Alan Morgan Group at (866) 805-3494 and one of our partners will be happy to walk you through your options.

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