The Content Connection

02 Sep 2014

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist Posted in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION With No Comments Permalink

Locator SEO for Local Brick and Mortar Businesses

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist On September 2, 2014 With No Comments

If you own a local brick and mortar business and noticed a drop in your Google search rankings since late July, it isn’t a coincidence. Google tweaked its algorithm and came up with the Pigeon update (as named by Search Engine Land). This update is designed to give searchers more relevant results for their location; i.e. to help them find the closest hardware store, or Mexican restaurant, or whatever they’re looking for.

The good news is you can take some steps to get your rankings back up there and reach out to your all-important local audience.

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Locator SEO for Local Brick and Mortar Businesses February 25th, 2015Filament SEO Specialist

19 Aug 2014

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist Posted in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION With No Comments Permalink

How to Optimize PDF Files for Great Search Results

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist On August 19, 2014 With No Comments

Did you know that PDFs can be ranked for search results? In fact, they can rank very well and may do better than the actual website. The same search engine spiders that crawl the website will also index the PDF to categorize it and use it as a search result where applicable. But to get your PDF to rank highly, you need to optimize it.

The page itself will be index based on the date found on it; i.e. the keywords. In this way, just as with a web page, keywords are very important. You want to make sure that you give thought to your keywords in everything you publish on the web, even PDFs.

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How to Optimize PDF Files for Great Search Results February 25th, 2015Filament SEO Specialist

07 Aug 2014

Sticky Post By Filament Content Specialist Posted in CONTENT MARKETING With 5 Comments Permalink

6 Guidelines for Curating the Best Content

Sticky Post By Filament Content Specialist On August 7, 2014 With 5 Comments

If you have a small staff (or a staff of one), it can be overwhelming to create a constant stream of content that informs and engages your audience. For this reason alone, content curation can help save your sanity. It’s so important that we’re embarking on a three-part series all about content curation.

To review, content curation is showing your audience what’s worth reading. It involves sourcing content, vetting it for quality and presenting the best content to your audience by providing context and explaining why it’s important. This can be a tall order considering the vast amount of content available online and off.

To help you get started, here are six guidelines to follow as you curate content, whether it’s for your business blog, or your email and social media campaings.

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6 Guidelines for Curating the Best Content February 25th, 2015Filament Content Specialist

05 Aug 2014

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist Posted in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION With No Comments Permalink

How to Optimize Images for Great Search Results

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist On August 5, 2014 With No Comments

Are you missing out on an incredible way to optimize your website and rise in the search results? If you’re not optimizing your images and creating descriptive, keyword rich alt image tags; then you are. This is one area that tends to be ignored by websites and it should be a priority; not only for search engine optimization (SEO) reasons but for the visually impaired also.

 

Let’s quickly touch on the visually impaired. Have you considered how the value of an image on a website can be completely lost on people with vision problems? But the technology that helps them use the internet and read content will also read your alt attribute/image tags to them and at least let them know that an image exists, what the image is and that helps them tie together the importance of the image. Not only are you making your website more user-friendly to the people with vision concerns, you’re also showing that you care and are accommodating. For that reason alone you should be using image tags. 

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How to Optimize Images for Great Search Results February 25th, 2015Filament SEO Specialist

30 Jul 2014

Sticky Post By Filament Email Marketing Specialist Posted in EMAIL MARKETING With 3 Comments Permalink

Get to the Point, Part 1: Subject Lines & Preheaders

Sticky Post By Filament Email Marketing Specialist On July 30, 2014 With 3 Comments

Is your open rate underwhelming? Perhaps this is because the pendulum between teaser text and clear and informative messaging might be swinging toward the latter. In this two-part series, we’ll explore what this means using an excellent recent post from Campaign Monitor on the subject: Where to position key messages in your email marketing campaign to get them noticed and remembered. Using the guidelines here, we’ll rework some examples of recent email marketing content, beginning with subject lines and preheaders. Oh, what fun we’ll have! Read more

Get to the Point, Part 1: Subject Lines & Preheaders February 25th, 2015Filament Email Marketing Specialist

23 Jul 2014

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist Posted in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION With No Comments Permalink

How to Write a Great Meta Description

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist On July 23, 2014 With No Comments

Hopefully you see the wisdom in crafting your own meta descriptions for each page of your website (or hiring someone like Filament to write them for you). The default to writing your own meta descriptions – the little paragraph that explains the page when you do a Google search – is to let the search engine “write” it. Typically the search engine will pull some content from that page and use it, whether it’s good or bad. We’ve said it before so there’s no need to go into great detail, just know that it is very important to have control over this content. It’s the first impression for organic searchers.

Before you begin writing your meta descriptions, do a search for your top keywords or your competition. Read more

How to Write a Great Meta Description February 25th, 2015Filament SEO Specialist

16 Jul 2014

Sticky Post By Filament Email Marketing Specialist Posted in EMAIL MARKETING With 1 Comment Permalink

Awww!-tomated: Un-Boring Your Automated Emails

Sticky Post By Filament Email Marketing Specialist On July 16, 2014 With 1 Comment

You make an appointment for regular car maintenance and receive a confirmation email. Or, you order something online and get an order number, summary and status. From receipt acknowledgements (“Thanks for applying. We’ll get back to you. Or not.”) to account alerts (“Hey, are you in Turkey? Because that’s where your last credit card transaction took place, soooo … ”), automated emails for these transactions are a common form of customer communication for many businesses. While they usually inform customers of transactional milestones, they also contribute to customers’ overall impression and experience of your business and brand. Auto-generated emails are handy, often easy to personalize and create a paper trail for both you and your customers. However, they’re also often overlooked opportunities for consumer engagement.

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Awww!-tomated: Un-Boring Your Automated Emails February 25th, 2015Filament Email Marketing Specialist

11 Jul 2014

Sticky Post By Filament Content Specialist Posted in CONTENT MARKETING With No Comments Permalink

When to Promote Blog Posts On Social Media

Sticky Post By Filament Content Specialist On July 11, 2014 With No Comments

So you’ve written a relevant and informative blog post with the right keywords for your audience and you want to make sure as many eyes see it as possible. What’s next? You need to promote it. Yes, that’s right. We’re not living in the field of dreams here. Just because you write it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will come walking out of a stand of corn to read your brilliant blog post.

Maybe you’ve been promoting your posts already using social media and your email newsletter.  Excellent work! If you’re not seeing the engagement and traffic that you’d like, perhaps you need to take a look at the timing of your promotion on social media. When it comes to social media, when you post is as important as what you post and where you post it. Here are a few social media tools that  you can use to help you figure out when your fans and followers are online so that you might reach them at the right time. Read more

When to Promote Blog Posts On Social Media February 25th, 2015Filament Content Specialist

09 Jul 2014

Sticky Post By Filament Content Specialist Posted in CONTENT MARKETING With No Comments Permalink

Tick-Tock: The Right Timing for Blog Posts

Sticky Post By Filament Content Specialist On July 9, 2014 With No Comments

Several weeks back we shared our insights on the right content for several social media networks. As promised, we’ve returned to the topic of timing and blogging.

When you’re planning your content strategy for your business blog, several questions no doubt arise in your mind: How often should I post? What’s the best time of day to post? What day of the week?  The answers to these questions will help you create an effective strategy for your business blog. Read more

Tick-Tock: The Right Timing for Blog Posts February 25th, 2015Filament Content Specialist

07 Jul 2014

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist Posted in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION With No Comments Permalink

To Write or Not to Write Your Meta Descriptions

Sticky Post By Filament SEO Specialist On July 7, 2014 With No Comments

Meta descriptions can be a hot-button topic among Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals because they don’t have an effect on your search rankings. Even so, they are extremely important. At Filament, we strongly recommend that everyone create a unique, well-crafted meta description for each and every webpage on their site.

Let’s take a step back and define meta descriptions. When you put keywords into a search query you get a response page (SERP = search engine results page) with several website options, their title tag is across the top line, the next line is the URL and below that is a brief description of the website, which is also known as the meta description.

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To Write or Not to Write Your Meta Descriptions February 25th, 2015Filament SEO Specialist