How to Get Online Reviews the Right Way

Is it okay to ask for online reviews?

Most business owners are also facing this challenge. Either they have no idea how to get reviews the right way or are afraid that people will be reluctant in replying back. So, to answer the question: it’s just a matter of knowing what is allowed and what is not. If it’s a third-party review site, you have to be familiar with its terms and conditions. For example:

Yelp: discourages businesses from soliciting customer reviews as it will taint the site’s integrity

Google: encourages reviews for business

In this case, if you’re focusing on Google, then ask your customers to leave feedback on Google—but, still be careful when doing so. For Yelp, you can have a link to your Yelp page (don’t just say “leave us a review on “) It might seem a bit weird to ask for reviews, but it is harder for your business to compete if you don't have any reviews at all. You won’t get reviews until you ask for them.

But how?

You can do this by asking your satisfied customers for a review without pissing them off. For sure, if your customers had a great experience with your business, they'll be willing to share it online.

10 Ways to Ask for Online Business Reviews

1. Add a link on your website to the review page or review site you choose. You can say something like “Your feedback is important to us” or “Write us a review!”

2. Add the link of a review site at the bottom of your email newsletter. There's a huge chance that customers who have signed up for your newsletter have a good relationship with your business.

3. Add the link of the review site in the signature line of your outgoing email.

4. At the bottom of your cash register receipts or online transaction receipts, tell customers where they can leave their feedback.

5. Create a page on your website with links to review sites. Encourage people to visit these pages by saying, “Check out what people are saying about us! Don't forget to leave your feedback.”

6. Email your newsletter subscribers about a specific topic. For example, you can ask them to take a simple poll about your newest offerings.

7. Use the Facebook reviews tab for business pages. Make this tab appear on your homepage newsfeed to make it more visible and encourage reviews. Also, make it more engaging by asking them to share their favorite products.

8. Write a blog post about positive reviews. Let your customers know that you value their feedback. Be sure to share this blog post across your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

9. Craft a useful customer survey. It can be a short “slider” survey that appears as customers browse your site, or a longer, traditional survey. Try using these platforms:

Qualaroo: where you can conduct a brief poll or ask simple questions

Survey Monkey: where you can do full-length surveys and ask any type of question

10. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool. If you receive an email, a tweet on your Twitter page, or a good comment on your Facebook post, then save it. Ask permission if you can publish it in your website’s testimonial or review page. This surely encourages more customers to share their feedback as well.

Customer reviews are an important asset to your business. If you believe that your business deserves good publicity, then you won’t have to fear inviting customers to share their feedback. Keep this important tip in mind: Don’t simply ask for good reviews—ask for honest reviews instead.

7 Secrets of Professional SEO Article Writers (Part 2)

By Maurice Ondoy

As promised, more tips for your articles to be SEO ready.

Tip Number 4. Try to make the content “long enough”. Of course, fresh content that is approximately composed of 100 words is better as compared to plagiarized copy or no web content at all. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing yet tend to offer preference to posts, articles and journals that are “long enough.” Attempt to compose for no less than 300 words, yet in the event that you can get to 500 words or beyond that, take the challenge. There has been a considerable number of research that demonstrate that internet searchers tend to support substance which are “in-depth” of no less than 2,000 words. Many blog websites today tend to use this strategy and the results are positive.

Tip Number 5. Try to edit your work. The main contrast of regular people from the expert SEO articles is the very eye of proofreading. Software programs such as and Microsoft Word, Google Docs as well as OpenOffice make it simple — the green and red squiggleys give the greater part of it away. Having an eye for tastefully satisfying organizing is likewise significant. Avoid super long passages and sentences that continue for miles.

Tip Number 6. Web Content Writing: Optimizing Optimization. In the event that you utilize WordPress as your platform for blogging, there are loads of free online PR instruments (as modules) you can make use of. Some of the popular tools to be utilized are Shareaholic as well as Yoast, alongside a few others.

Tip Number 7. Turn yourself into your own online PR agency. After you finished composing and publishing your fresh content, you must remember that you are still halfway of the process. The last stride of all web content written work is acting as if you are your own online PR organization — link to your substance everywhere. Take time to comment on different blogs related to your business and create a link back to your webpage. Digg, StumbleUpon as well as Reddit are some of the best sites you can submit your contents into. Web content written work as well as social media management go as an inseparable unit, and when you hit the "publish" button on your fresh content, you are expected to tweet your heart out.

7 Secrets of Professional SEO Article Writers

By Maurice Ondoy

As a writer and a beginner to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you have to comprehend that there is no magic approach to rank your site in Google, Bing or Yahoo’s primary page. These search engines are represented by complex algorithms and it requires a considerable measure of push to “persuade” them that your blog page or website merits one of the top spots. By and by, there are sure guidelines you can take after to optimize your website and give the bots the essential signals. Here are the top 7 tips for professional SEO article writers.

Tip Number 1. Keyword Research on, please. In case you’re going to post content on your site at any rate, you should take an ideal opportunity to ensure that search engines such as Google pays “appreciates” your effort. Discover different people’s way of searching phrases as well as keywords, and create a spreadsheet. Monitor how frequently you use the keywords in your web content, and utilize the right devices to track where you rank for the keywords you are targeting.

Tip Number 2. Let the keywords work. It’s insufficient to simply utilize the keywords in approximately 2- 3% of the web copy. In the title of the web content/article, you have to put the essential keyword and likewise in the first and last sentence. The keywords stand out to the search engine crawlers and in the readers’ eyes by doing this. Keep in mind that the people who are utilizing search engines are looking up specific phrases since they need to know more about the particular product or service before purchasing it, so it bodes well to give them what they’re searching for. The results? You’ll get more clicks — it’s one of the subtle strategies for expert SEO article authors.

Tip Number 3. Write article content that people will care about. No one is more knowledgeable of your business than you, so what sort of expert tips and advice do you have that you can share to your audience? If none, you can still talk about news that’s related to your business. If all else fails, take a gander at your SEO keyword list and see what sort of link bait, in-depth posts or lists you can work those keywords into. Try not to be reluctant to meeting a few number of experts, either. In the event that you cite them and highlight their proficiency in your posts, they are likely to share your written output through their social channels. By opening up these sorts of networking channels you can influence bigger systems and build the size of your own.

Want to learn more tips? Check out the next article.

Tips for Filling your Social Media Calendar

2017 is fast approaching, and because a New Year means a new beginning, our Social Media Calendar gets its own . The approaching year is a new opportunity to get things rightfully done so we get to make the most of our content marketing strategy. So, in this article, we will going to give you tips for filling your Social Media Calendar.

7 Ideas that you can utilize for your Social Media/Content Calendar in 2017

Video– Make it your business to either start or expand your video marketing footprint this year. Video is the future of content marketing. Several studies have shown more than 50% of the companies have been using the said medium — – a figure that is expected to increase as more and more realize the potentials. Nielsen asserts 64% of marketers assume, that in the future, video will going to lead their

strategies. It’s obvious to see why.

Utilize and expand your social media – Social media do great things for content marketing, Not only does it notify you very well about what your target audience is eager about, it is also an ideal driveway for reach and promotion.

Look back at 2014 – Go back to what worked well with your audience the last year. Look at customer comments and site analytics to see what trended the previous year.

Ask the horse’s mouth – Directly ask your target audience what they do like or what do they prefer to see, by means of a poll, quiz, contest or survey. Bribe them as need arises!

Repurposing your best content – Take pieces of content that are popular and repurpose them for different social media platforms. For instance, slice up a good post into social media posts, Tweets, videos, and even memes.

Curate great content – Another awesome method for providing your audience a good value proposition while boosting your own authority and content at the same time is by curating content you find on the Web.

Try something new – Don’t be afraid to experiment! Out there, there are contents that you have yet to try that your audience might find informative but don’t compromise being interesting. This could possibly include podcasts, image directories like Instagram and Pinterest, or more. If there are tips that you believe that I have not included but you think will be good for your business, feel free to include those and let the tips do the work.

13 Tips to Improve Search Engine Rankings

By Maurice Ondoy

Search engines are looking for the right combination of qualifications in order to give them first page rankings and we’re here to show to how to achieve that.

Tip 1.

What’s most important is that you write your posts specifically for the audience that you are targeting. While doing this it’s important to be mindful that you don’t compromise what the search engine algorithms need in order to find your content. What’s the point of having great SEO rankings if the content that you are writing doesn’t convert, right?

Tip 2.

Previously, keyword density had been a major factor that dictated whether your content would be able to reach the first page of search engines. Now, search engines such as Google, Bing  or Yahoo favor a specific density that differ from each other. Yes, it is significant to utilize keywords that are relevant to what your content is all about, however, keep in mind that you have to use those keywords naturally. Putting excessive keywords into sentences or paragraphs where they do not really belong is no good. It harms content entirely actually. Thus, in order for you to perfectly use this strategy, use the keywords and forget about the detailed predefined ratio.

Tip 3.

Utilize grammatical variations, synonyms as well as related keywords. Search engines such as Google use LSI or Latex Semantic Indexing to match the intentions of the individual doing the search from its search results. Using these three will give your content more relevance without using excess keywords. Moreover, this is also a very effective strategy to target different search queries.

Tip 4.

Write content that is top-quality, in-depth as well as long. Usually, results that are on the first ranking page of Google contain 2,000 words on average. Also, articles that get shared frequently are ones that are in-depth , so, write content that will provide real insight. Do not write longer content for the sake of just writing a long post, because it won’t help. Write longer because you have have expertise in the given subject and are able to go in depth while still keeping things concise.

Tip 5.

Utilize Long Tail strategy. Ranking “fat” and “big” keywords in search engines requires huge effort. Thus, long tail phrases have smaller search volumes and will also result in higher quality traffic to your website because the visitors are more motivated.

Tip 6.

Answer your prospects questions. Prospects will type questions into search engines if they want to know more about your products and services. Providing answers to all of their possible questions ahead of time will give your content more credibility, and in return, generate more visits to your site. Providing your prospects with better answers will help you win the competition, meaning they will buy from you. Also, answering questions is one great way of taking advantage of the long tail.

Tip 7.

Make sure that your content get noticed and they’re shared. Traffic and links are what you get when your content gets shared, and the more traffic you get, the more popular and relevant it will seem to search engines such as Google. Make an effort to get your content noticed — – via relevant blogs, forums, newsletters, influencers and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn among others.

Tip 8.

Set up your Google + profile, add your authorship markup, form your content ownership, build AuthorRank, be active. Following these steps will help boost the authority of the content that you produce — – regardless of where they get posted.

Tip 9.

Do not forget title tags and snippets. In categorizing individual web pages, Google looks at the title tag. Furthermore, in the SERPs, “snippet” (Meta description) and title tag combination is what your prospects will be going to see. Including keywords and making natural tag and snippet combinations will motivate your prospects to click. CTR, or Click-through Rate, is definitely a ranking factor and the more clicks that you get from the SERPs, the better the outcome.

Tip 10.

Never engage in Keyword Stuffing. Use keywords where they might appear natural. As mentioned above, keyword stuffing does more damage than help when it comes to helping you rank up on Google. Make your content appear natural as much as possible.

Tip 11.

Link text over optimization is a no-no. This used to be an effective technique in improving rankings, but Google has become aware of these “link schemes” and they will penalize you if you do this. Keep it natural with naked URLs, long tail phrases and branded URLs.

Tip 12.

Keep in mind the ALT text in your images. Today, images seem to play a bigger role in helping your content or website in general rank up on search engines. A great idea is to use original but relevant images, and include keywords in its ALT text. Use the copy from the title tag as your image’s ALT text. For Google to be able to “read” it, keep it snappy and short. Furthermore, including a keyword that is relevant to the image is also a good idea.

Tip 13.

For inspiration purposes, utilize Google Suggest and ubersuggest.com to find and combine additional keywords, and Google trends to see changes in the search behavior as well as its seasonal spikes.

10 Social Media SEO Tips for Small Businesses

SEO Part 2 of 2

SEO

6. Make content shareable

When you create content that people like to share, you are building more inbound links. This content is not just your blog posts. It can also be Facebook status updates, tweets, photos, videos, infographics and everything in between. The more people are engaging with your content, the more authority you are going to create within your social platforms. Quality content brings more shares as well as more links, as a result, increasing your SEO value.

7. Optimize images

Add compelling images to your article. These images surely sell your content, making people read and share your content as well. Just ensure that your images are relevant and it shouldn’t have copyright issues. Some of the best websites where you can get beautiful images include Pixabay, Google Advanced Image Search, and Shutterstock. For optimal results, do not forget to include keywords in the image alt URL, tags, as well as in anchor text to make it easier for search engines.

8. Build Google Author Rank

Google allows the content author to associate his or her content with their Google+ profiles. This ensures that their Google+ profiles and account are linked in search engine results, which is vital for establishing credibility for your content. Not only does it drive recognition, it also builds trust with your audience.

9. Improve engagement in Twitter and Facebook

 Use hashtags to be able to increase engagement level

 Engage with your fans as well as followers

 Respond to comments, questions and compliments regularly

 Keep your content fresh and interesting

 Avoid bombarding your social page with advertisements

10. Create Google+ Local listing

Most consumers do search for local businesses online. It would be your loss if people cannot find you online, so it is very much of a need that you optimize your list in Google+ Local. You just have to make sure to keep all your information as well as the details about your business updated, such as your address, contact number, email, working hours, etc.

Bottom line

When we are going to discuss contents that are SEO-friendly, we mean these are the contents that can be effortlessly grasped via search engines. The more they can grasp about your page, the greater chances of accomplishing better rankings in their indexed lists. Now, the question is, are you interested in boosting your social media SEO?