Simply Social Media

Google Analytics excels at providing you with excellent information about who’s coming to your site, what they’re reading, and whether there were any downloads or purchases.

But one of the big problems is that it tells you these facts in total or aggregate. That creates a ton of gaps in your data.

Staying on top of these problem areas is the only way to get accurate, trustworthy data.

Here are 5 Google Analytics loopholes you probably don’t know about. You can use them to close those gaps ASAP.

In SEO, it’s often the little things that matter. After you’ve learned the basics, you can’t stop. You need to push yourself and learn more and more. You might not learn anything that will revolutionize how you look at SEO, but I guarantee that you will learn how to become a better SEO.

One of my favorites? Using advanced search operators. Why are these so important? In one word: Google.

Every SEO should know Google like the back of their hand. It’s by far the most important search engine to focus on, and it’s how many of your future customers will find you.

I’ve met a lot of SEOs who could recite Google’s last 10 algorithm updates, but they can’t actually use Google all that well. Imagine that!

By using search operators, you can slash the time you spend on Google and get better results. And the best part: It’s not difficult at all. Even if you’re not doing a lot of SEO, you owe it to yourself to learn these so you can use them in your day-to-day work....

If you’re attempting to make your website findable on search engines, the keywords you use are critical to your success. Let’s say you are a dentist in Los Angeles practicing general dentistry, Invisalign teeth straightening, and dental implants.

For those three services, the amount of keywords that searchers use to find you are many. Because of that, you have to carefully think through what’s good to use and what is not. Say a consumer has a cavity and he believes it may take a crown to cover the tooth. Knowing that, what would the consumer type in the search engines to find a dentist for this? Before you look at the list of possible keywords, first think of one or two keywords you would type in. Then compare to the list below and you’ll see how many possibilities there are....

On-page SEO is all about how well your website responds to Google ranking factors. And by your website, we mean exclusively your website – everything from your URL and your metadata, to your content, keywords and images.

What's beautiful about good on-page SEO is that's what's good for users tend to also be really good for search engines.

Before reading on, know that these aren’t magical tricks that will catapult your site to the first search positions. They’re good practices that will, in time, help your website rank high for a particular keyword, if the website is, indeed, relevant....

To get you started with conversion optimization, here’s a giant list of 101 valuable, actionable tips on conversion rate optimization, divvied up into five sections: color psychology (what colors convert best), copywriting tips (what words and writing techniques help you sell better), sales funnel & landing page streamlining (making the conversion from visitor to dollars in the bank simpler), split-testing (seeing what works), and a few miscellaneous general tips.

These tips go beyond the general “have a professional design” — these are actionable, specific steps you can take to improve your website conversions today. I highly recommend that you bookmark this page and refer back to it constantly...

The SEO landscape has shifted over time. Google’s Panda & Penguin updates made SEO professionals change their tactics and are going towards quality. Buying links, participating in link exchange programs and generating backlinks from spammy content farms are not a strategy anymore.

SEO still is a process where not only marketing, but also technical knowledge is needed. For example:

- organizing website’s structure and navigation

- preparing a sitemap

- preparing SEO friendly url’s

- optimizing web pages’ titles and describing images

- regulating instructions for web robots in robots.txt

- backlinks management.

These elements could sound obvious, but also could be a difficult part of optimization. As SEO has changed and it has become more content centric, still the technical aspects are important as a necessary foundation....

This is partly because Google’s algorithm isn’t playing any games these days, and partly because there are so many businesses working on their local SEO at the same time you are. If these people are your competition it’s going to be more and more difficult to rank as time goes by.

Despite all of this, there are still businesses out there that aren’t embracing the essential nature of local SEO. Some are trying to keep things on a purely social playing field by purchasing ads on Facebook and focusing their marketing efforts exclusively in these areas. Others are (seemingly) deliberately ignoring the opportunity presented by the local listing pages offered by the major search engines – Google, Bing, and Yahoo each offer pages that businesses can claim in order to increase their local exposure. And if the search engine has a result to deliver that was created with their webmaster tools, don’t you think it’s more likely than someone other content to appear when someone searches for a term relevant to your business?...