When it comes to building a successful startup in Atlanta, local SEO is one of the most powerful ways to increase exposure and accelerate growth. A study from Google shows that 50% of mobile searches resulted in users visiting that business in person. In a metropolis like Atlanta, this local mobile search data should be a clear call-to-action for blooming startups.
If your startup’s marketing plan doesn’t include local SEO, then it’s mostly likely missing out on a large chunk of traffic. For this reason, we put together a few tips to help Atlanta startups leverage SEO and better thrive in local search.
From a search standpoint, simply serving customers in Atlanta typically isn’t enough. You should start by presenting your startup as a business in the local community. To best achieve this, you’ll need a local address and phone number, both of which present on your website (ideally sitewide, such as in the footer.) These are the vital pieces of data that Google uses to rank legitimate businesses in the local search listings.
In addition to claiming and verifying a Google My Business listing (which serves as your startup’s hub for local SEO,) you should claim listings on various local directories. These listings will help to boost your business’s credibility and authority, which in turn can help increase local search visibility.
Checkout Local SEO Guide’s post on The Best Online Local Business Directories for SEO of an actionable list of places you should claim your business. You can also seek out potential listings specific to Atlanta, such as chamber of commerce sites, local affiliations and membership networks, or newspapers (finding writing opportunities for local publishers can be huge win.)
It may seem difficult to include “Atlanta” in your site’s content without forcing it or butchering page copy. But really, mentioning “Atlanta” a few times on your site’s homepage will suffice.
Try dedicating small section of content of your site to its location, perhaps a general “About” or “Where We’re Based” section. Startups can get creative with this by including an “Atlanta Roots” section, or something similar to establish geographic relevancy. This, combined having a local address and phone number, will help actualize your local SEO strategy.
Some startups invest in building multiple domains in order to define their business and target markets. For multi-location and franchise SEO, sometimes this strategy can be very effective.
As an example, a startup can develop unique websites by investing in different domain names each locality. Further, each location can have a separate listing in Google. This can help define your startups location, not only in Atlanta, but other major markets in which it serves.
Content marketing can provide a host of benefits for startups, with improved SEO being on of them. In fact, few SEO tactics are more effective than generating great content marketing that resonates with your target audience (especially if that’s a local Atlanta audience.)
Unlike the SEO-driven content strategies for many businesses, your startup’s content strategy doesn’t have center on keywords. Instead, embrace a contents strategy that’s more socially-driven and speaks wave about your startup and all the great things it provides. You can also leverage paid social advertising (i.e. Facebook Promoted Posts or Promoted Tweets) to expand the visibility of your content. In turn, greater traffic, social signals and credibility will help enhance your local SEO efforts.
At Captivate Search Marketing, our approach to SEO entails far more than optimizing websites and generating link popularity. We help our Atlanta SEO clients move the needle by leveraging various aspects digital marketing.
From social media and content marketing strategies to conversion rate optimization (CRO), we embrace SEO using a multi-faceted approach that produces tangible results.
To shed light on some of these areas, below are a few primary components that go into a typical SEO program with Captivate Search Marketing.
SEO site audits are part of the discovery phase when our team delves into a website to evaluate certain criteria that influence SEO performance. Some of things we look at when auditing a site include:
By evaluating elements such as these, we can pinpoint various weaknesses and opportunities that will shape an actionable SEO strategy.
The next phase in actualizing a company’s Atlanta SEO strategy is taking advantage of the opportunities revealed from the site audit. In addition to addressing the site elements listed above, we also look for way to:
Each site comes with varying degrees of optimization, so each Atlanta SEO strategy is unique. Our job is to tailor the most effective plan with respect to each client’s current position, their goals, and overall budget. In short, we craft custom SEO programs for our clients.
Unlike some Atlanta SEO companies that focus on generating more traffic, here at Captivate Search Marketing, we help our clients generate quality conversions (i.e. leads, sales, signups, etc.) This is where CRO comes into play.
We work with our clients to define specific website conversions goals in which they wish to achieve. This form of optimization makes strategic use of call-to-actions (CTAs), copywriting, and web design graphics. The objective is invoke users to take specific action after they land on the website.
There are often different conversion goals for different traffic sources. For instance, the CRO strategy may be completely different for organic search traffic (stemming from SEO) compared to paid search traffic (from AdWords PPC ads). In essence, we seek to provide our Atlanta SEO clients with ROI-driven services that help them realize sustainable growth.
Content has been on the forefront of SEO since its inception. However, the evolution of content’s role in SEO goes beyond optimizing web pages for keyword relevancy. Today, SEO thrives on developing content marketing strategies that focus on providing value to users.
For instance, blogging has become a best practice for most companies engaged in SEO. But to take this practice one step further, strategize and prioritize the development of pure-value content that resonates with a target market segment.
In doing so, infuse SEO by tailoring the content around long-tail keywords that answer specific answers. For criminal defense lawyer, an example would be a video or article that address the question “can I beat a DUI charge in Atlanta?”
An article or video on such topic will be both informative and solution-oriented, offering value to a very focus market segment. If the content picks-up traction in social media, not only can attract potential leads (i.e. DUI cases), but it can also earn links and social signals, pouring more and more SEO value back to the site.
Social media acts as a glue that holds together content marketing and SEO strategies. It also helps to bring in more traffic and higher levels of engagement, two Google ranking factors that often get overlooked by some SEO companies.
While your Atlanta SEO strategy may or may not include the use of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat, etc., leveraging some of the these social platforms can provide a solid means to market your business and voice your content. At Captivate, we not only help clients optimize their social media presence with specific SEO techniques, but we also help actualize social media strategies that invoke greater interaction, build more followers, and increase the value of content marketing.
For more information about our Atlanta SEO company and how we can help your business grow in the search, contact us today for a free consultation.
Whether your healthcare organization is a world-renown hospital or a local medical clinic, establishing a well-optimized web presence provides the foundation for any healthcare digital marketing program.
But what exactly defines an “optimized web presence?”
Below we delve into the most important elements that contribute to a cohesive web presence. While there is some overlap in each of these areas, each component is crucial for healthcare digital marketing in Atlanta and building a thriving organization.
Staying competitive in today’s digital marketing environment requires more than just a website. Now, healthcare practices must ensure that their website is responsive, or mobile-friendly, on all types of smartphones, tablets, etc.
Taking this one step further in the healthcare sector is the advent of mobile apps. Investing in mobile apps enables patients (or prospective patients) to better engage and connect with your practice. Custom-designed and purposeful mobile apps, combined with a mobile-friendly site, is what ultimately contributes to a responsive web presence as a whole.
Integrating social media into a practice’s healthcare digital marketing plan is major element to brand building and cultivating an audience. There are many layers to social media, both in terms of the social platforms and marketing strategies.
In addition to maintaining an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, and other related social platforms, healthcare practices can also value from social media advertising. These opportunities expose organizations and brands to new audiences, helping to grow the volume of followers, promote marketable content, and inbound prospective patients to the site.
Parallel to social media in terms of new patient acquisition, search engine marketing is powerful force in healthcare digital marketing. Search engine marketing, or SEM, can focus on one or both means of attaining better visibility in Google:
While PPC advertising provides immediate exposure, organic SEO is a long-term investment that can pay incredible dividends for healthcare digital marketing. Often the best approach for healthcare practices is combination of both. A wealth of data and intelligence can be earned from PPC advertising, which can then be directly applied to SEO.
Creating a content strategy is the fuel that keeps a practice’s SEO and social media efforts burning strong. Some of the most prestigious hospitals, like Mayo Clinic, offer great examples of successful content strategies. While Mayo Clinic is a top-tier example, the Patient Care and Health Information section on its website is a model for an educational-driven content strategy.
Another more locally-focused example of a solid content strategy is the Emery King’s Medical Video Library of the Detroit Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading hospitals for cardiology and vascular care.
The video library offers a rich format to engage with users, helping to increase SEO and inbound marketing value. Additionally, the videos can be shared on social media, further expanding the hospital’s ability to reach prospective patients and drive new traffic to the site.
These are a just some of the primary pillars to keep top of mind when developing a digital marketing program for an Atlanta healthcare practice. While the strategies and investments will depend on the size, budget, and overall nature of the practice, many organizations can increase their patient acquisition potential by investing in these key areas of digital marketing.
If you’re not first in the SERPs, it’s bad, right? But search engines are so intuitive, does it matter anymore? Search result snippets (text shown the URL) are achieving higher click-throughs than the results featured above them due to visuals and bright symbols.
You can add rich snippets to your search results through Schema markup, the preferred markup method by Google, Bing, and other search engines. Go to schema.org to see the vocabulary you need to markup your page properly. Note that rich media is no guarantee, but it might make your link more attractive. If your content is still poor or irrelevant, it will be judged as such.
Content has always been a factor in SEO, though today quality is what you want instead of quantity. We’re not sure what Google perceives as quality, but highly informative content still dominates.
Readability and relevance are obvious points. Cater to your audience, though, and you should be fine. This is true in terms of language, vocabulary and content length. User experience is also important – if your blog is difficult to navigate or aesthetically poor, nobody will stick around for long. Bounce rate also determines your ranking, so think about your design. But be original; create original content, invest in real-world experiences, and diversify your strategy (add video, for example).
Be personable. Write as humanly as possible, while keeping your brand identity and tone. Use words like “you,” “we” and “us.” Your audience should know you’re on their side. Ask questions – but not one that requires a yes or no answer.
Offering stats, information, and tips using the word “here” is a good idea. Numbers and facts get great engagement. Use quotes, but make sure they’re good. Put hashtags at the end of your tweet, but no more than four. Know your twitter keywords and use them. Use the headline of the article you’re sharing. Don’t forget to attribute!
