Category: Blogs

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More Politicians Are Embracing the Web

Nancy McCord
Nancy McCord – Point of View for Today.

Donald Trump, love him or hate him, he has masterfully used social media to his benefit and forever changed the way politicians relate to the electorate.

But, not only are politicians moving to Twitter and Facebook as they seek votes, but some are even embracing Google AdWords to try to drive traffic to their election websites.

Glitzy websites with donate now buttons or click here to sign up for our email updates are standard fare for judges, congressmen, senators, and of course our presidential candidates. Never before have we seen a politician use Twitter to his ultimate benefit as Trump has. Rapid firing off tweets that carry his special brand of candor, make it clear that no ghost writer is writing Trump’s tweets. They are “All The Donald”.

Not every politician wants the high profile and electorate exchange that Trump has embraced, and not every politician has the sass and bad boy demeanor that Trump has embodied online, but for The Donald, it is certainly working.

For others in the political landscape using Google AdWords allows for strong, very targeted exposure that increases the chance that voters will see the message that they want to share and not the message of PACs or of that of other candidates. That’s especially important when negative campaigning is being used.

We are currently running one AdWords program for a Circuit Judge in a Midwest state and expect to see more politicians move onto the Web and into Google AdWords in the months to come.

Find out more about our AdWords credentials and services today.

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Got to Save Money? What Can You Chop?

If your business is pulling back where can you realistically chop in your marketing plan and not get hurt?

Chop Away

Social Media – if you are paying to update Facebook,

Bright Idea Tips to Help Marketing Budgets When Times Are Tough
Bright Idea Tips to Help Marketing Budgets When Times Are Tough

Twitter and Google+ you could easily take a break to save money.

Blogging – try not to kill all your writing as the SEO juice you get from well-written blog posts helps you in the long run, but maybe consider moving from three days a week to two or from two days a week to one. Try to still keep the momentum up but maybe lower the word count or frequency.

Chop Not!

Google AdWords – don’t touch it unless you absolutely have to. AdWords is hands down the best way to generate new leads and start cash pumping back into your business.

e-newsletters – they build loyalty and repeat business. Newsletters are especially important to businesses that have annual renewals for service plans like pest control firms and HVAC firms. If you chop this, your name is not kept infront of your customers and come time to renew, they may not see the value of renewing; which will hurt your sales even further.

Need some practical sense to make the most of the budget you do have or to get AdWords to work harder for you? We’re the firm to call and chat with first especially if you are looking for honest advice you can trust with no sales pressure.

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No Comments on Your Blog What Will Google Do?

If your blog does not have comments, will you take a hit from Google in regards to organic search placement? I’ve done a little bit of research on this topic and feel that instead of worrying about comments or lack of comments, it is more important to consider your blog post bounce rate.

People are busy. Even I don’t routinely comment on blogs I read, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t find reading them to be of no value.  Actually I spend 30 minutes every day reading industry blogs and news.

Google Partner Badge
McCord Web Services is one of the few Google Partners in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area.

What I feel  Google is considering more important than the number of comments is engagement and stickiness. If your blog has no comments, but people are there longer than 5 seconds and dig deeper into your content and your bounce rate is under 70% for a blog post, you most likely are not in trouble with Google.

The types of blogs that get punished for poor performance are those that are either built for advertising links, are scraping content from other resources, or have one and two line blog posts.

If you are taking time to write a thoughtful blog on a topic that matches your main authority – even without blog comments your website  will still be consider meaningful to Google. Just take a look at the search results to know this is true as Google is showing even comment-less blog posts in their index.

What Google can monitor more closely than the number of comments back on your own site is click through and bounce rate – right from the Google.com page.

So if you don’t have comments on your blog, not to worry. Some of the biggest sites in the industry (like Copyblogger) have actually turned off commenting.

If you need to get blogging and have content worth reading, I invite you to check out our blog writing services and pricing.

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Will Blog Post Titles as Questions Place Organically?

Wow, blogging is still practical for SEO!
Wow, blogging is still practical for SEO!

Want to crack the top ten sites in your industry? Get blogging and craft your blog posts as questions. It can’t be just any question, but as you decide what you will write about for the month, think about what prospects may use to do searches with to find your services.

If we took my industry as an example, here might be a few good post titles to get you thinking about how to make post title questions:

Will blog post titles as questions place organically?

Will the Google AdWords Change to Quality Score Impact You?

What Are You Doing to Wean Yourself Off Pay Per Click?

What Should You Watch in Google Analytics?

What to Do When You Only Place Organically for Your Business Name – Part Two

Some of these topics I have actually written about and when they are shared on Google+, at least for my business, they are appearing in the search results tagged with my Google+ page. If you follow me or my business on Google+ these same blog posts may appear in your search results next to an image of me.

Blogging is still a very popular way to garner inbound links naturally, but business owners have lately decided that blogging is not valuable for their needs. If you ask any SEO or visibility experts such as myself, we feel that blogging is still highly valuable as part of an overall marketing strategy.

Need to get blogging without the headaches? We can help. Check out pricing and blog writing samples.