Category: Tips

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Global SEO Tips Part Two

ELooking at Global SEO
Looking at Global SEO

Continued from Monday…

  1. Make sure to use the correct meta tag for language in the header like this – <metaname=”language” content=”spanish”>
  1. Make sure to localize the content of each site. For example in the UK organization is spelled organisation. It is best to have a country native read the content and help to make edits based on how people really speak in that country – even English for the UK and Australia.
  1. This was an interesting tip I found: “Local hosting: If you have ccTLD or set the geo targeting in Google webmaster tools, local hosting does not have much of an incremental impact in most countries as a geo signal. However, it still helps hugely in some countries especially China.” http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2334892/international-seo-tips-what-are-the-game-changing-factors Google goes on to say: “We do, however, recommend making sure that your website is hosted in a way that will give your users fast access to it (which is often done by choosing hosting near your users).”
  1. “HrefLang” XML sitemap: Many websites have problem with a different country page ranking in a country. It may be caused by the fact that your International website is using ccTLD and cannot set the geo targeting or the local site not having enough links from local websites. “HrefLang” XML sitemap was created to help those website owners. Basically, it maps the URL of the page ranking with the URL of the page you want to rank instead. It even works across domains. Once you match the pages one to one for each of the country/language combinations, and indexed by Google, you will quickly see the right pages replace the old ones in each market.” For more great info on this topic visit this wonderful resource page http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2334892/international-seo-tips-what-are-the-game-changing-factors
  1. Metadata – language and country code: You should place “content-language” meta tag indicating the language and country in the <head> section of webpages. It tells engines the target audience by language and country of the created page. The code looks like this: <meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en-us”> You change “en-us” for other language and country such as “en-uk” for U.K. English and “de-at” for Austrian German. While Google doesn’t weigh this signal as heavily as geo targeting, it still helps with other search engines. You can read more on this topic here: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2334892/international-seo-tips-what-are-the-game-changing-factors
  1. Work on getting some local links for each new country specific website. If you don’t have any, Google will most likely not show the domain in the search engine results. Start first by linking the US parent website to all new global sites. Then see if you can get local business partners and chambers of commerce to link to the new local site regionally.  Setting up LinkedIn and social profiles for the staff at the new location may be helpful as those links will point back to the newly created region specific website, but look for additional links as well.
  1. Blogging for these small regional websites may be very important for slow link building growth which would be good for Google.
  1. Make sure to set up Google and Bing Local pages for these new websites. Again the links from these social and map properties help Google to understand that these are like new branch offices for you.

Need help with your strategy to get more visibility on the Web? Check out our services at www.McCordWeb.com today!

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Tips to Opening a New Business

Nancy McCord
Nancy McCord – has moved, feel her pain!

I have to say after what I have been through in the last three months in closing my Maryland LLC and reorganizing into a Virginia LLLC, that there is really room for a business concierge service to help business owners navigate the process.

It is hard to know exactly what to do and incredibly stressful to navigation the Federal, local and State hurdles to be properly and legally set up. I would have paid for a service to help me or hold my hand through the process. But as there does not appear to be a great resource, I will share some of the information that I have discovered.

Set Up Your Entity
1. Use MyCorporation.com for your setup, but make sure you make the decision from your own research on what is best for your needs. My Corporation has made it very easy for me to get my State LLC and even got my new Federal EIN.

2. They do not get the state payroll tax or state unemployment numbers for you. (I wish they did.)

3. Plan on this taking about a week or less.

Get a Local Business License
Okay, here’s where is starts to get time consuming but let me demystify this for you. One you need a business license to operate even if you have a home office. Typically you need to go to that office first and get papers, they you will go to the local zoning office and then pay there for them to review the zoning on your office location. Make sure you take all your business entity papers with you when you go.

So two stops and typically one payment. Take a check book with you. I was able to get my business license the same day and got the final zoning approval in about 10 days.

You need all this done before you even go to the bank to set up a checking account.

Save a morning to get these steps done.

Get a Local Business Checking Account
You’ll need just about every paper you can think of. It is best to make copies in advance so very important organization papers are not jumbled up or lost by your bank photocopying your records.

Make sure you take your business license. You won’t need your zoning permit. Also take your organization papers and personal identification.

Plan on being at the bank for about one to two hours. You should be able to leave with a new business checking and savings account as well as online access to your money.

Understand that some banks, I did run into this, will hold deposits for 10 days for new accounts so make sure you have access to money during this period. I recommend putting a portion into your new account or paying to take cashier or certified checks for deposit as these will only be put on hold for three days.

After your account is about 30 days old your bank will not hold your money so long. Now for me my money I deposit one day is available the next, but my first deposit was help 10 full days really putting me into a jam.

Call or Get Online and Set up State Withholding and Unemployment Accounts
If you will have employees you need to take care of business before hiring as there is sometimes a delay. Most states allow you to apply for a payroll tax withholding account online. Some will give you a number right away online and others will regular mail it to your address on file. Plan on about a one week delay.

For unemployment, you may get a number right away and in other cases may have to wait several weeks to get one. Virginia where I am does not even give you a number until you reach a threshold.

Plan ahead before you hire to have this in place. Even before you hire though if you have numbers you’ll have to file a zero dollar return. Make sure you know the dates your tax reports are due to prevent a penalty.

Check Insurance Requirements
You may find out that you need special insurance if you hire employees. I have to have Workers Compensation Insurance. It costs me under $300 a year for coverage, but took over two weeks to get it for my business. I had to call several agents to check price. Insureon is a great place to check out. Through them I am using The Hartford for my insurance.

That’s all the super important stuff that you need to know and do to open a business. I found this all out by trial and error and hours on the phone. Hopefully this blog post will help you to save some time and at least know what needs to be done to lower your stress level.

 

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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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Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – Social Media Nightmare, Where Should I Be?

Confused about how to effectively promote your business on the Web?
Confused about how to effectively promote your business on the Web?

You hate Facebook, but your customers are there. You just don’t get Twitter, isn’t that for teenagers? Too busy for LinkedIn? All these social media sites may seem like too much trouble for some business owners to get involved with, but did you know your competition is there and so are your future customers!

How do you demystify where you personally should spend your time and on what social media sites? It is easy, look at your demographics in Google Analytics.

If your customer/reader base is 18 to 29 to 30 years old or so, you’d better be on Twitter.

If your customer/reader base is 30 to 60 years old or so, you’d better be on Facebook.

If you are selling business to business, regardless of age, you’d better be on LinkedIn.

How do you find your own Google Analytics stats?

  1. Go to “Audience” in the left side navigation, then go to “Demographics” and then select “Age”.
  2. There you’ll be able to see your visitors from the last 30 days organized by age groups.
  3. Make sure that you check average session duration, pages per session, and bounce rate.
  4. Based on what you see for your own traffic then make a decision on where you should selectively be on social media.

Don’t feel that just because you may not be on social media that your business does not need to be there. Social media use is an excellent way to start building a community of readers loyal to your message.

Not sure where to start? At McCord Web Services, we make it easy for you. Check out our writing rates for social media with service options for frequency. You are sure to find something that fits your budget.