Digital Marketing, Branding, & Web Design eBooks [Oh My]

The JSL Marketing team not only loves getting our clients above their competition online, but we also love educating the entire internet with our free eBooks on SEO, Branding, Web Design, Social Media, and more!

We’re working at creating more every month, along with Case Studies of successful clients, White Papers to answer questions, Infographics for a little extra visual explanation, and even Videos (since that is where online marketing is headed).

Check out our eBooks below, download them for free, and get on our mailing list for more tips and tricks while you’re at it!

1. The Web Design Journey eBook

A business cannot be truly successful today without a website, and a website cannot be truly successful without UX/UI design, expert SEO, valuable content, adequate white space, thought-out colors, branding, positioning, and alignment, as well as mobile-friendly formatting.

Sound like a lot?

It is – and that’s just the tip of the proverbial online iceberg. Which is why we put it all into one convenient, beautiful (and free) eBook.

2. How to Gain Followers on Social Media

There seem to be as many strategies to gain followers on social media as there are actual followers on social media. Everyone has their own idea of what works, what doesn’t, and even how or when you should post, or not post. Seems a little bit confusing, doesn’t it? Isn’t this age of the world wide web supposed to be easier, with more information at our disposal than ever?

We at JSL Marketing & Web Design certainly think so! But with so much information floating about on the internet, it can actually make it harder to find the right answers, rather than easier.

That’s why we decided to create an eBook that gives you all the information you need, and nothing you don’t – so you can gain followers on Social Media and get in front of your ideal audience!

How to gain followers on social media ebook cover

3. Branding That Tells Your Company’s Story

The way in which you present your business to the world matters, because it’s a reflection of your values, personality, and so much more. Plus, as you grow and expand your business, that presentation is what people will remember most about you – and if you do it right, it’ll be easy for potential customers and brand loyalists alike to pick your business out from the crowd.

That’s called brand recognition, of course, and it’s what Nike, McDonald’s, Amazon, and countless other companies have done so well. But it all starts with developing a solid brand for your business that truly tells your story.

4. The Ultimate SEO eBook

This isn’t just an SEO eBook, this is the JSL Marketing and Web Design Ultimate SEO eBook. And, being one of the top SEO and Digital Marketing companies, you can trust that we know a thing or two about the industry, what works, and what to expect.

We want to share our experience and expertise with each and every veteran business owner, Digital Marketing newbie, and curious reader to boot. So, come along with us on this journey through SEO basics, costs, relevance, and more!

 The ultimate seo ebook

5. Web Design That Converts

In today’s technology-driven age, it’s more important than ever before for your business to have a solid online presence. And while there are many ways to establish an online presence – social media platforms, forums, etc. – developing a website that truly reflects your brand is arguably the most important thing you can do.

Are you putting your best foot forward?

Hungry for more?

Visit our blog for weekly articles on current developments and trade secrets or our FAQ page to learn the basics quickly.

Or, of course, you could contact JSL Marketing & Web Design to answer all of your questions or start your content journey today!

SEO Criteria – Over 200 Ranking Factors [Part 2]

We promised, and we always follow through on our promises! So, here is the shiny, new second-half of the JSL SEO Ranking Factors blog.

Remember we talked last time about:

  1. Page Speed
  2. Mobile Optimized
  3. Domain Authority
  4. Title Tags
  5. H1 Tags
  6. Content Length & Depth
  7. Duplicate Content
  8. Canonical Tag
  9. Secure Website
  10. RankBrain

But we also talked about how there are over 200 (probable) SEO ranking factors that the Big G uses in order to view, judge, and rank you?

Of course, having over 200 ranking factors jumbled around in your head won’t help your website, business, or mental health. So we broke it down into the top 20 (that’s 1/10th of the total ranking factors, for you non-math individuals) to make it a bit easier to break off and chew.

After all, if you follow the Google-rules in these 20 areas, your site will definitely see jumps in rankings. Because it isn’t #198 that’s tanking your website rankings, it’s most likely one (or more) of these top 20 SEO factors.

For this next installment, here are the main factors we will be zeroing in on:

  1. Business Information
  2. Image Optimization
  3. Fresh Content
  4. Outbound Links
  5. Inbound Links
  6. Anchor Text
  7. Internal Links
  8. URL
  9. Sitemap
  10. Domain History

Ready to learn SEO in nice, actionable, and understandable chunks? Let’s dive in!

And, of course as always, if something seems a little too much, a little too confusing or a little too time consuming, JSL is here to help every day, any time, for any reason. Reach out to us and see how easy we can make your ranking climb become (or, at least, we’ll make it look easy)!

1. Business Information

This is important because Google wants to see that you are consistent and, therefore, reliable. If you have your business information (name, address, phone) posted on your page (which you should) then you have to make sure it is consistent across all online platforms, sites, and lists.

For example, make sure your Google My Business profile is accurate and matches your website, just like your Yelp, Facebook Business Page, LinkedIn, BBB, etc.

Especially focusing on your NAP (name, address, phone) is important; not just for search engines, but also for the practical reason of making sure your customers can reach you or find you.

2. Image Optimization

Google cannot see your images, it instead reads them, and this means you have to have ‘Alt text’ for each of your images.

Alt-text is kind of like a caption, but it is only viewable ‘behind’ the picture, or ‘within’ it. This way Google can see it, understand it, and pull it for relevant image searches.

Additionally, alt text can be a great place for keywords, as it all is indexed, or read, by Google and can help boost your rankings. If you have a picture of one of your products on your home page, don’t just name it ‘IMG6782’, instead, set the alt text to be descriptive with keywords.

3. Fresh Content

Ah, fresh content, the bane of many small businesses. Fresh content means that Google wants to see that you didn’t just make a website because you ‘had to’ and then forgot about it, or let it just sit there.

Remember, everything in Google’s algorithm (SEO ranking factors) is meant to find which websites are ‘good’, and ‘good’ means updated and frequently fixed, shined, and used.

What is the best way to show both Google and your actual customers that your website is updated often and that you keep up with it? A blog. Yes, you will actually have to write new, original, thoughtful, and helpful content monthly at the very least (weekly if you can hack it) to inform your customers and impress Google.

Write about relevant items, news, services, products, etc. And make each post ‘optimized’ around a keyword or subject. Additionally, don’t write something that is just a block of text; write something that is helpful but also easy to read – like this beautiful blog, with a list format, lots of white space, and interest.

And for length? At least 600 words, and that’s still pretty sparse. JSL aims to thoroughly explain a topic, which means our blogs can be anywhere from 900 words to 3,000, which is basically a small eBook.

4. Outbound Links

Many people don’t understand the importance of outbound links, but we’ll break it down for you in a quick, simple way.

Multiple studies have shown that if you have a single outbound link per page (a link that goes to a different website) then you will be ranked higher than a page with no outbound links.

Why?

Because having a link to a different website, if its quality, is a sign that you are truly trying to inform your customers. If you only link to yourself, then you aren’t giving your customers the possibility to find better expertise elsewhere.

Now don’t go linking to your biggest competitor, but instead, if you are talking about your Mexican food restaurant, link to a well-known food blog, a recipe, or a Mexican history page (where relevant).

Just make sure your outbound link is going to an authoritative (trusted) and relevant site. No Wikipedia or spammy blogs.

5. Inbound Links

The opposite of an outbound link is an inbound link – and no, these aren’t the links you have on your website that connect one of your pages to another (that’s point #7). An inbound link is when another website links to you because you have great content.

To continue the previous example, if you are still a Mexican restaurant, and a well-known food blogger links to you, that is an inbound link – and a good one!

Just like you want to link to authoritative and relevant sites, so do others. And just like having your page link to them looks good, having them link to you looks very good.

6. Anchor Text

When a page links to you, they do so with some kind of text. Meaning if I am going to link to the JSL Marketing Page on Web Design, I’m going to do what I just did and label it so the potential clicker knows where that link will bring them.

That is called anchor text and you want it to be descriptive and hopefully include keywords or your branded name.

Having someone link to you saying ‘here’ is much less helpful from an SEO perspective than having them link to you saying ‘best Mexican restaurant in town’.

7. Internal Links

Ah, finally, the easiest of the links.

Internal links are the links you place within your own webpage that bring the user to a different of your own webpages.

Like when we talk about ‘contact us’ we obviously link to our own contact page.

Now, don’t go crazy and link everywhere to everything so no one can click on any word without being whisked away, but make sure to have relevant links that make sense and would enhance the user experience, connecting pages to others that they would likely go to next.

As an easy example, this ‘SEO Ranking Factors: Part Two’ blog will link multiple times to the ‘SEO Ranking Factors: Part One’ blog, because that’s just logical and a reader of this blog will most likely want to see the first half as well. However, linking to our holiday ‘thank you’ blog doesn’t really make sense, so I won’t do it.

8. URL

Your URLs can actually help your SEO too – but be careful, as Google doesn’t seem to like ‘exact matches’ but instead ‘similar URLs’.

This simply means that having your website URL be: JSL.Marketing/website-design is better than having it be JSL.Marketing/best-website-design-in-Dallas-TX for the keyword ‘best website design in Dallas TX’.

Sound counterintuitive? Think of it like this, Google wants your URL to be descriptive without being spammy, hence, similar but not exact matches to your keywords.

9. Sitemap

This is something you should have your developer do, as it’s simple, but technical.

Submit a sitemap to Google so it knows what you have, your structure, and something about your purpose. Want to learn how to submit a sitemap to Google? Then check out that link to Yoast’s website where they break it down for you.

(And yes, the above is the perfect example of how to use an outbound link to a non-competitor to give more value to your reader as well as how to use anchor text.)

10. Domain History

This one is a little like a credit score, as you cannot raise this specific section unless you have history.

Google likes to see that your website isn’t brand new, after all, which seems more trustworthy, a company that has been around for 6 years and has paid for their domain name for another 4, or a company that has a 3 month old website and only has it bought for another 3 months?

After all, what company only expects to be in business for 6 months? A scam, that’s what.

Google takes this idea and runs with it, so they will probably trust a 5-year old website more than a 2, and a 2 more than a brand new one.

Of course, every website started somewhere and that means that all websites were young at one point in their past. The best thing you can do is to buy your domain for a longer period of time to show Google you plan on sticking around.

Some studies have shown that 2-3 years is the magic number, though others say 5. We recommend buying your domain for at least one year, and then renewing it for more as you grow and are able.

Remember, Google is always watching (shudder).

Does All of This Sound Like a Lot? It Is! But JSL Loves SEO & Is Here to Help!

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design and get your SEO right (without having to do any of the above on your own) by letting us handle it for you!

Search Engine Optimization – Over 200 Ranking Factors? [Part 1]

Surely, you’ve all heard it, the 200+ SEO ranking factor number that floats around in blogs, videos, and ‘how-to’ eBooks. And while we’re not disputing that Google’s algorithm is highly sophisticated (and complicated), we also think it’s important to let you know that not all 200+ of their SEO ranking factors are heavily weighted.

This means that some factors are very important…and some are just something to be aware of. For example, keywords in high-level areas of your page (title tags, H1s) are much more important in ranking you for that keyword than, say, keyword density in H2s and H3s.

But if there are so many factors, what should you be focusing on? And how can you wade through all the weak SEO ranking factors and focus on the heavy ones?

We’ve gotten these questions from clients before, which is why we are offering a two-part blog series on important ranking factors and what you can do on and off your page to help boost your SEO efforts!

Part One:

  1. Page Speed
  2. Mobile Optimized
  3. Domain Authority
  4. Title Tags
  5. H1 Tags
  6. Content Length & Depth
  7. Duplicate Content
  8. Canonical Tag
  9. Secure Website
  10. RankBrain

Part Two:

  1. Business Information
  2. Image Optimization
  3. Fresh Content
  4. Outbound Links
  5. Inbound Links
  6. Anchor Text
  7. Internal Links
  8. URL
  9. Sitemap
  10. Domain History

1. Page Speed

You know that page speed is important, especially with the connections most online consumers make between quality, security, and speed.

Ultimately, a slow website looks like a bad website, if your customers even wait for it to load (which they probably won’t).

Use Page Speed Insights to see how you stack up:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

2. Domain Authority

Domain authority describes the relevance for a specific subject area or industry, so, if you talk about tacos on your page, have a wealth of knowledge about tacos, and have trusted websites that also specialize in tacos linking to you, your DA will probably be higher.

Moz has a good tool to learn about your domain authority, but their best features require a subscription.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority

3. Title Tags

Title tags tell users what your page will be about even before they get on it, as title tags can be seen from the search engine results page (SERPs). This means your title tag has to be relevant to the page, include keywords, have your branded name if possible, and stay within the length limits (under 60 characters).

We recommend using a style similar to:

20 SEO Ranking Factors That REALLY Matter | JSL Marketing

4. H1 Tags

H1 tags, or header 1 tags, are similar to the topmost title of an outline, so it is important that they are present and relevant to your page, content, and keywords.

Instead of having your homepage merely be labeled ‘Home’ as its H1, try having a service mentioned as well. For example, the JSL homepage’s H1 is:

Digital Marketing & Web Design That Converts

See how that is much better than ‘Home?’ After all, everyone knows it’s the home page, but instead we talk about what the page will cover, have keywords within the H1, and add interest.

5. Content Length & Depth

Content length is always up for debate, but the numbers don’t lie! Often, the pages that come up first on the SERPs are pages with more content length and depth. So, if you search for ‘SEO ranking factors’ you will find a list of 200 before you find a list with only 6.

Consider using the Content Analyzer or Writing Helper on SEMRush as they are great tools to help you see what the competition’s length is for certain keywords, as well as what direction you should go (casual, technical, etc.).

A little research goes a long way, but at the very least, home pages should have no less than 400 words (and 700-1,000 is best).

6. Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is a big red flag for Google, as it essentially looks like plagiarism or that you simply copied and pasted the same content onto multiple pages on your website. Even though Google wants to see in-depth content on each page, that doesn’t mean you can cheat and just write one page of great content and then use the same words on each page.

This is one of the reasons why content marketing is so important, and why having a good writer is valuable. Even if you are targeting similar words on different pages, you need to make sure the content is unique and helpful on both.

7. Canonical Tag

Sometimes you don’t have duplicate content, but the search engines still think you do if you don’t have a 301 redirect or canonical tag. This will tell Google that your page is the originator of the content, and that other variations of your URL are still the same page and the same site.

Otherwise, search engines might consider www.jsl.marketing and https://jsl.marketing/ as different websites – and then nail you with a ton of ‘duplicate content.’

8. Secure Website

Speaking of the above example (www.jsl.marketing vs. https://jsl.marketing/) make sure your website is secure (with that https) as otherwise users and search engines won’t trust you.

Check out what Google Search Console has to say about secure websites and how to switch yours over easily and quickly:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en

9. RankBrain

RankBrain was a major update that helped Google’s algorithm learn what people mean when they type in a query that could mean multiple things. This is a huge step for machine learning, but also makes your website’s content all the more important.

One of the biggest areas that shifted due to RankBrain is the ‘one keyword per page’ idea. Instead, use keywords that are semantically related on the same page, like:

Web Design Dallas, SEO & Web Design, UI/UX Design in Dallas, Dallas Website Development, and Web Development Dallas.

If these are all targeted on the same page – guess what, Google can probably figure out that your page is on web design and SEO in the Dallas area, not property development and design services in Dallas.

10. Mobile-Friendly Website

This one is huge, really huge, because of the aptly named Google update – Mobilegeddon. As it sounds, it was all about making sure your website is optimized for mobile users, and if it isn’t, well – you probably took a huge dive a couple of years back.

And guess what – Google wants you to succeed in this area, which is why they made their very own ‘mobile-friendly test’ which can tell you how your website stacks up, why, and what you can do to improve it.

Stay Tuned for the Second Half of our SEO Ranking Factors Blog – Coming Soon!

And in the meantime, if narrowing down the 200+ SEO ranking factors to 20 still seems like a lot to handle, don’t worry! JSL Marketing & Web Design is here to help.

Our SEO team has brought our clients and ourselves to the top of the pile time and time again! Contact us today to learn more about SEO, our services, and our company.

6 Common SEO Mistakes [& Solutions]

As your top, trusted SEO and Digital Marketing company, we thought it made sense to help you know both what to do, and what not to do. And that’s why we brainstormed the 6 most common SEO mistakes that new digital marketers make.

Of course, we’re here to help take care of all your SEO and digital marketing needs, but if you decide to go it alone – we still want to help! So read on, learn up, get started – and if you ever get stuck, you can always ask our knowledgeable team.

Content Issues

Too thin of content? Content that isn’t clear or written well, grammatical errors, dry voice, or even a lack of depth and comprehensive information? All of that can make Google, and other search engines, down-rank your page due to ‘bad content’.

Make sure you’re writing content that will actually help your readers because Google can tell! Its algorithms and ability to ‘read’ are so sophisticated, you can’t get away with spammy or bad content anymore – nor should you! Place the effort and time into your content, just like you do with your design because it really is worth it!

Black Hat Practices

Let’s just get this out in the open right away near the beginning of this list – don’t do black hat tactics. You will be caught, and you will be dropped. Plus, why cheat the system when the system is meant to make things better for your clients and search engine users? This means cheating the system (search engine algorithms) really just cheats your clients and web users.

If you’re using black hat tactics, it means you don’t think you can keep up with the competition with your true services or products. So, instead of using these shady tactics which will eventually get caught and hurt your brand and trustworthiness, improve your services and invest in your company.

Overloaded [& Slow] Website

Slow websites make your users distrust you, your security, and your quality. So, make sure your website is compressed and you fix any speed issues as they come up. This can be done in many ways actually, in fact, check out these tips to make your site lightning fast!

Confusing Layout

User experience and understanding how your user views and uses your website (even with heat map tracking or where you want their eyes to be drawn) is important! After all, if you can’t find what you need on a site, are you going to search for it, or simply leave and find it on another site?

Learn about user experience and how to integrate it into your design with this helpful article.

Bad Backlink/Few Backlinks

Backlinks are like letters of recommendation for your website – and search engines care about those letters hugely! Having few backlinks, or even many backlinks but from untrusted or low authority websites, will hurt your SEO.

Gaining quality backlinks is time consuming but so worth it. Develop a backlink plan and learn more here.

Ignoring Local SEO

For most companies, you have a local presence which you cannot ignore! From being on local lists to targeting localized keywords (like best SEO company in Dallas, instead of just ‘best SEO company’), optimizing for local SEO can be even more helpful (and move a little quicker) than national SEO keywords.

Make sure you add local SEO into your overall digital marketing plan and watch your rankings rise in your own city as well as the ones surrounding you!

Contact JSL

Of course, there are over 200 ranking factors that go into just Google’s algorithm, and it’s constantly changing! So, if the above 6, plus having another 194 more, seem a little overwhelming, then contact JSL Marketing & Web Design to handle all your SEO needs! From local SEO to national, we are here to help!

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design today to learn more about our SEO Packages, custom packages, pricing, and strategies.

Keyword Research Fully Explained (From Start to Finish)

Keyword research isn’t as scary as it sounds – in fact, we like to explain it with a stock market analogy: you research the stocks (keywords), buy them (implement them on your site), and monitor the market (monitor your rankings). That makes it sound quite easy, right?

The phrase ‘keyword research’ gives many the same feelings as ‘dissertation’ but it really can be summed up in just three simple steps, three steps that JSL Marketing & Web Design would love to share with you.

Of course, everything takes practice, and our keyword researchers and SEO gurus have thousands of hours of practice – but that doesn’t mean you can’t understand the process too!

Let’s dissect keyword research together, and hopefully, make it a little less intimidating.

Step One: Understanding Keyword Research

Before you can begin creating your SEO strategy, it’s important to be absolutely sure that the proper keyword research has been done. But what is keyword research exactly?

In short, keyword research involves determining what words or phrases are being searched by your target audience – or, put more plainly – what are your customers typing into Google currently?

Let’s say you sell tacos (yay for you!), what words would your taco-searching customers be typing into their preferred search engine in order to find your restaurant? Maybe they’re searching for phrases like ‘best tacos in ___’ or ‘Mexican restaurants near me’.

If you are in the area, then you want to be sure that your business pops up at the top of the search results for searches/phrases (keywords) like these. Otherwise, you’ll never be found.

After you know the words/phrases (keywords) your customers are already searching for, you are ready to begin using SEO to climb your business to the tippy-top of those searches. By being in the top three results, you can beat out your competition and bring more traffic to your website.

Step Two: Prep & Strategy

This step involves discovering what those frequently-searched words are from above. After all, what if only 3 people are searching ‘best tacos in ___’ a month? That will hardly help your business when the average price of a taco is just a couple dollars. The keywords you want to target should not only be relevant to your industry, but also have high search volume, meaning lots of people are searching for it.

Let’s say ‘best tacos in ___’ gets 15 searches a month, but ‘best tacos near me’ gets 1,500. Which one should you be targeting on your site? Obviously the second, right?

Knowing some of these key analytics can guide you in the correct direction – which means you have to have an analytics tool. We recommend SEMrush, but there are many options out there (in fact, a simple ‘keyword research tool’ search on Google will give you many great tools of differing price points).

Step Three: Implementation & Content Calendars

Now by this step you know what keywords are, you know how to research them to find the one that works best for you and will give you the best return on your investment, but what do you do with them?

You use them, of course!

First, we usually create an editorial calendar, or a content calendar, where we show our clients exactly what we will be posting on their behalf, and when. Everything we post for them will include direct keywords or what’s called ‘semantically related keywords’ which are similar enough that Google can recognize and helps both the SEO and the readability of the content.

Next, we begin to work on their content, making sure that the keywords that have been selected and researched show up in their H1, H2, H3s, Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, copy, etc. Of course, this could get weird if you just keep writing ‘tacos, tacos, tacos’ over and over, which is why we usually recommend 4-5 keywords targeted per page.

This means one H2 can read ‘The Best Taco’s in ___’ and the next can read ‘Desperately Searching for ‘Tacos Near Me’? Search No More!’ and so on.

And after you implement your keywords – all you have to do it wait, monitor, tweak, and repeat. SEO is a constant process, and though it’s time-consuming, it isn’t overly difficult to learn.

See, Keyword Research Isn’t So Bad! Not Convinced? Want Someone to Do It for You? JSL Marketing & Web Design Is Here!

If you don’t have the time to discover and learn a research tool, find your keywords, make a calendar, implement your words on your site, and monitor your rankings – you’re not alone! JSL Marketing works with many clients who understand the basics of keyword research and SEO but just don’t have the time to do all the work or practice enough to become efficient.

I mean, you have a business to run, right? We think that’s work enough.

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design today to learn more about our SEO Packages, custom packages, pricing, and strategies.

8 Tools to Beat Your Online Arch Enemy Through Competition Research

Everyone has a theme – online rivals, enemies, competition. One of the first questions we often ask our clients is ‘who are some of your biggest competitors’ and you know what – people never say ‘oh, no one’ or ‘we don’t know, we try to focus on ourselves’. No, they all spit off three or four competitors that they want to beat, or that they want to model their digital marketing plans on.

Knowing your competition is a good thing because it means you have somewhere to start, but what do you do once you know your rival? How do you catch up and pass them?

With these 8 competition research tools.

Buzzsumo

Not only is Buzzsumo an adorable word that makes me think of both bumblebees and sumo wrestlers, but it is a great tool for content creation, finding trending topics by industry, and spying on the competition.

This tool can look at the engagement a particular piece of content is getting on the big social platforms, as well as shares across platforms and all over the web.

SEMRush

We promise, we don’t work for SEMRush and gain nothing for namedropping them. We just mention them in almost all of our tool posts because they are so helpful, easy to use, and detailed.

Additionally, SEMRush has many different tools within its platform, such as content creation or checking tools, keyword researching tools, technical SEO helps, linking strategy information, and – competitor analysis.

You can use this analysis to discover your biggest competitors, see their rankings, backlinks, even the words they are ranking for and probably targeting. Then, you can go to their page, look at how they are using their H1/H2/H3 tags and one-up them. You can go through their meta descriptions too, you sly dog.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs Site Explorer lets you see your competitions organic traffic and keywords in a convenient chart. So, if numbers aren’t your first love, this tool is for you. The visual way it lays out the data makes digital espionage easy.

Plus, you might just find some high-volume keywords that your competition is getting traffic from that you never even thought to use.

Similarweb

Similarweb helps both SEO and content endeavors, as you can actually look at your competition’s content, their traffic, as well as where that traffic is coming from and where they are sending it (to which end page).

But for the content-interested agent, you can spy on your competitor’s topics and see what their traffic is searching for, and what they ultimately visit.

MozBar

This is actually a browser extension from Moz that gives you an immediate view of how authoritative a site is by Google’s standards. That means that Mozbar tells you the domain authority of any site you see in the SERPs, and domain authority (based on backlinks) is a large SEO factor.

So, essentially Mozbar tells you how trusted (and rankable) your competition is. Also, you can compare yourself to the competition based on domain authority and see how long they’ve been gaining backlinks (and begin creating your own strategy – learn more about backlink building here).

Owletter

Instead of merely looking at page factors like content, keywords, or even backlinks, Owletter helps you spy on your competition’s email marketing. It mainly can be used to show you when (and with what frequency) your competition is sending out their emails.

This, in turn, can help you know when to send your own emails. Back in the olden days, we would use a ‘fake email’ to sign up for all of our competition’s email lists and spy that way – but this is a much less time-consuming option. Plus, it is all laid out in an easy-to-understand visually organized format.

Feedly

Just like you can use Owletter to check up on competitor’s email game without checking your junk email account daily, Feedly lets you check up on content and blogs without looking at your arch enemy’s blog daily and giving them traffic.

Feedly collects and shows you content that has been published by your competitors, so you can know what topics are being posted about, as well as trends in content strategies and posting schedules.

iSpionage

Now that you know content, keywords, emails, and even blogs of your competitors – only one major area is left: paid ads.

If you want to really dig into your competition, then knowing their paid ad spend (not just organic traffic) is imperative. iSpionage analyzes PPC (or pay-per-click) ads by telling you the number of ads, as well as the keywords they are targeting within those ads.

You can also see your competition’s competition and see who they are trying to beat out with their ad. From all this PPC data, you can even extrapolate what their budget is for their ad spend and top it (or see how their campaign goes to decide if you want to make a similar investment).

Pretty Neat, Right? Want Help Defeating Your Foe? Let JSL Marketing Be Your Superhero!

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design today to have us deep dive into your competition and create an individualized digital marketing plan on how to beat them. We can’t wait to work with you.

The Easy Link-Building Guide (for People Who Don’t Understand Link-Building)

Link-building is not ‘dead’ like some experts predicted, it’s just evolved due to algorithm changes and updates. In reality, link-building is more important now than ever – as your authority and trustworthiness depend on it.

There are many great link-building guides out there, but most are written for the near-expert or at least SEO-savvy individuals who want to update their strategies. Unfortunately, most of the link-building questions we get aren’t form experts, but from our clients – like, how the heck do you get a quality link in the first place? What makes a link good or bad? And what strategies no longer work (or can even hurt you instead of help you)?

Let’s look at 4 successful (and simple) link-building techniques that anyone can do.

1. Good Things Come to Those Who Ask

Sometimes, link-building is as simple as asking, because other companies online want links too. For example, if you are an auto body shop, you can talk about rental cars in the area and link to one – then you can simply ask that rental company if they would like to link to you in a relevant and helpful way.

Relevant and helpful means the anchor text to your link makes sense – i.e. ‘Need a rental car during your repairs? Visit us and then head to one of the local and trusted auto repair shops near us.’

Simply asking for (or exchanging) links with relevant and trusted companies or websites is a great way to gain backlinks as well as start in on tip #2…

2. Build Connections & Relationships with Others

Building relationships with other companies through connections, conversations, and yes, asking about linking in relevant and helpful ways is a great way to become known in your area and gain even more links.

Think of it in a non-business way – if you ask a friend to do you a favor, they’ll probably say yes, but if you ask a stranger, your likelihood of getting a positive answer declines dramatically.

Not only is building relationships good for business, it’s good for links too! So talk to others, remember names, reply to emails, and more – because even mere name-recognition can help boost your likelihood of gaining links from others within your industry or in adjacent industries.

3. Testimonials Are Win-Wins (So Are Blogs)

Making a testimonial for another and linking to your site (with permission) gives them a great review, you a backlink, and everyone leaves happy. Additionally, testimonials are easy to create and can be made for as many companies as you have professional experience with – so the list can continue to grow with little work from you.

Some backlink strategies are time-consuming and labor-intensive – but not this one, that’s why it’s a part of our easy guide.

Blogs are similar – because you can link to others, creating connections, while simultaneously creating new and educational content that others can easily use and link to as well. Creating a blog with great content can make it easy for your community to find resources that they actually want and will, therefore, link to, which means you’ll gain even more backlinks (and maybe relationships).

This is why creating educational and research blogs are more valuable and useful than sales pitches or even promotional ones.

4. Use Directories (The Good Ones)

Listing your company on relevant directories is the perfect final tip on how to gain relevant and useful backlinks. The only word of warning and caution we will say here is it is always good practice to check the authority of the directory. Make sure you are being associated with good small business directories, not the shady ones.

The directory being paid or free doesn’t actually mean it’s good or bad, so make sure you do a little research before you go through the steps of being listed.

Don’t know how to check page authority? Use a tool like this that checks their backlink profile and tells you if they are ‘toxic’ or not – or consult a professional who can help you determine where to get links from (or do it for you and acquire backlinks all on their own).

Do You Need Someone to Take Over Your Link-Building Strategy? JSL Marketing & Web Design Is Happy to Help!

If the above still seems difficult, or if it’s simply too time-consuming for you and your booming business, we’re happy to help with your rankings, authority, backlinks, and more!

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design today to talk about packages, custom plans, link-building strategies and more – we love making businesses work, and we can’t wait to work with you.

What the Rise in Voice Search Means for Your SEO Strategy (OK Google, Hey Siri)

Voice search might have only really started in 2011 with Apple’s Siri, but it’s boomed since then with Alexa, Google, Cortana, and more. Due to its popularity and the frequency in which online and mobile users search verbally (almost 50% of searches), SEO companies are changing their strategies to better incorporate voice queries.

Here are the top 4 ways you should refresh your SEO strategy to better reach voice search queries.

Changes in Keyword Research for Voice Search Queries

Did you know that 20% of voice search queries are made up of the same 25 words? Of course, most of these are question words – what, where, when, who, why – because these are easy questions to both give and get answers to.

In your keyword research, you might usually be skipping question words or question phrases, however, if you want to nab those voice queries, you’ll need to incorporate at least a few question phrases and words into your targeted keywords.

If you’re looking for a good way to find these question words and phrases, then consider a tool like Answer the Public, which is a free visual keyword research tool, or the paid version of Semrush which provides both keyword research as well as reverse research where you can see what pages are ranking for which phrases.

Changes in Content Depth & Layout

Voice search isn’t just about content depth, but it sure helps – as you need to have comprehensive content that fully answers your searchers’ questions in order to rank. Of course, having in depth content is a good idea on every page, whether you are trying to target voice search queries or not, but it’s especially helpful when trying to answer questions.

Consider two pages, one has deep, inclusive content that answers a voice search query and sits right around 2,000 words, the other answers the question as well, but only just and has only 600 words. Which one will the search engines use for their answer?

I bet most of you are banking on the first option, and you’d be right!

But there’s another reason Google would choose the first option beyond just the content depth and length, and it’s the perfect segue into our 3rd strategy tip:

The #1 Spot is the Only Spot

If you aren’t number one, then you most likely won’t be chosen, as most voice search answers only give one answer – the first one.

This means you should be focusing your voice search keywords and optimization efforts on pages you rank #1 for. Much like snippets, you won’t get featured if you’re not ranking well, however with voice search, it goes a step further. Instead of having to be on the first page, you have to be in the top spot.

This connects with our previous tip perfectly, as deep and comprehensive content will help you rank higher as well.

So really, for your voice search SEO, you need to be practicing good general SEO habits first.

Mobile-Friendly = Voice Search Friendly

Our final tip is to make your site mobile-friendly.

This is something you need for good SEO in general, but especially for voice search, because almost all voice searches are done through either mobile devices or home devices. Which means you’ll get very little traction if your voice search answers aren’t compatible.

Usually, when we use voice search, it’s for hands-free searching (like when we are driving), which means we are most likely using our phones to do the searching, not a laptop, desktop, or even tablet.

Having a fully mobile-friendly site means you are at least in the running for that voice query answer, but it also means you will rank better, which means it’s always a good strategy.

Is Your Website Ready for the Voice Search Revolution?

AT JSL Marketing & Web Design, we not only perform in-depth keyword research, but we also create great content, rank high, and always make mobile-friendly and optimized pages.

What we mean by all of this is that we follow our own advice and perform well in ‘traditional searches’ as well as voice searches, snippets, and more.

If your website or rankings could use a boost, reach out to us for a free consultation and SEO audit today. Want to learn more? Check out our resources or blog.

A History of Google’s Major Algorithm Updates (2000-Now)

Did you know that every year Google actually has thousands of updates? Thousands! That’s many every single day. And in recent years, those numbers have been steadily rising still. But what are all of these updates for? Surely they aren’t all major fixes and revisions?

No, they aren’t.

Actually, Google has only had a few ‘big’ or major algorithm updates throughout its history, with the vast majority of them being small tweaks, fixes for previous updates that pulled too far in a certain direction, or minor search changes.

But these little algorithm tweaks aren’t what we will be talking about today. Instead, we’re going to focus on the major algorithm updates – the ones the internet has named – and see how they affected search results and rankings.

Who knows, maybe we’ll even get an idea for what the future holds for the next update which is inevitably coming from the search engine giant.

2000-2005 | The Google Dance Begins

Google Toolbar [2000]

This was essentially when SEO began, in its most rudimentary form, as Google launched its Toolbar PageRank (TBPR) with their browser.

Google Search Bar Screenshot

Boston [2003]

This was the first ‘named’ update, and it was meant to start off their monthly updates, of course, with an average of 9 a day now, the ‘monthly algorithm update’ idea didn’t last long.

Fritz [2003]

Just a couple months after the first ‘monthly’ update, the idea died with Fritz as Google decided to move towards small, daily changes instead of letting their browser suffer for 30 days before fixing any issues if a previous update went awry or overcompensated.

Florida [2003]

This update penalized ‘black hat’ SEO tactics like keyword stuffing and had many poor-quality ‘early 2000s’ sites crashing through the rankings.

Brandy [2004]

This change marked the beginning of semantically related keywords and Google’s attempt to learn synonyms. It will still take a number of years to clean up the process to make it resemble the AI they have now, but this update showed that Google was planning on being king and taking its algorithm to the next level.

NoFollow [2005]

This wasn’t necessarily an update as much as a cleaning party, as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all implemented ‘nofollow’ at the same time, helping clean up unwanted links – like placing an unsolicited link in a blog comment.

Bourbon [2005]

This most likely focused on duplicate content and WWW vs non-WWW URLs. Duplicate content is still a factor today, showing the length and depth of the reach of many of these seemingly historical updates.

Personalized Search [2005]

This used your own search history to adjust your future search results. Google was smart here and made the initial impact small and almost unnoticeable, but it is still the ancestor of all their personalization and search history applications now.

Jagger [2005]

Jagger was meant to help with low-quality, bad links (again) but this time focused on link farms and paid links instead of just spammy blog comments linking back to a page. Technically, Jagger was three updates rolled out over three months.

Big Daddy [2005]

This was the final large update of 2005, but it wasn’t so much about searches as it was about infrastructure. It took a few months to fully roll out, ending in 2006, and focused mainly on how different URLs were handled as well as some redirects (301 and 302).

2006-2013 | Building Upwards

Universal Search [2007]

This update added in News, Video, Images, Local, and other sections on the main SERPs page, leaving in the dust the old ’10 sites page’ and adding in a lot more media and options. Some lived this update, some hated it, but it drastically changed how the page looked, and further proved that SEO has to evolve.

Google Suggest [2008]

This update added the drop-down box of suggestions as you type into their own search bar, and helped Google understand what people were looking for, as well as giving searchers insight into what had been searched in the past.

Real-Time Search [2009]

This was the jump-start that social media and streaming needed, as real-time included live and updated Twitter feeds, Google News, and others quickly indexed and pushed content onto some SERPs.

Caffeine [2010]

Caffeine was all about speed, increasing Google’s speed while making sure their indexing stayed strong. Google reported that this update made for ‘a 50% fresher index’. There was a preview of this update in August of 2009, but it was not fully live until the middle of 2010.

Instant Previews [2010]

We all remember this, even if we didn’t know the name. This updated included the little magnifying glass that allowed you to see a landing page on the SERP before clicking on it. Many SEO hopefuls thought it could help with bounce rates.

Negative Reviews [2010]

There is justice online with this 2010 update, as some sites were actually ranking due to their negative reviews. This goes against everything Google wants to be, so they adjusted their algorithm just to stop this shady tactic (and poor e-commerce business model) from taking off.

Panda, Panda 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, Flux (#8), etc [2011]

This update affected over 10% of search results, a huge number when some of the other ‘significant’ updates only affected half as many results. But ultimately, Panda had its heart in the right place as it was trying to penalize thin, poor content, too many ads, and other low-quality indicators.

Panda had many reincarnations, but most were only small tweaks after the original bomb was dropped. Notably, Panda 2.4 was world-wide, whereas the previous ones were focused around English-speaking countries.

Freshness Update [2011]

Google said that this algorithm update would affect almost 35% of search queries, an unprecedented number that had many agencies scrambling. But in reality, it was meant to affect time-sensitive results and put emphasis on recent and fresh content.

Penguin [2012]

Penguin looked to further devalue spammy sites that used black hat tactics like keyword stuffing or ‘over-optimizing’ as they liked to call their practices. Though Google called it the webspam update, Penguin was cuter and stuck.

Payday Loan Update [2013]

This update was meant to do just as it says – slam spammy sites like payday loans down and make them more difficult to stay near the top of SERPs.

Hummingbird [2013]

Yet another cute name, the Hummingbird update was all about semantic search results (giving way to semantically related keywords and the current algorithm and Ai used today) and was a core algorithm update that also affected Knowledge Graphs.

2014-Now | Modern Day Google

Payday Loan Update #2 & #2 [2014]

These updates were similar to the first in 2013, except that #2 seemed to target certain sites, while #3 targeted certain searches.

Pigeon [2014]

This was a local algorithm update that was supposed to better tie together Google’s core algorithm with its local one. One of the ways it altered and learned from certain search results and queries was from the web search signal, or SEL. This update actually caused a lot of waves, as it changed the SERPs considerable for local businesses.

SSL Update [2014]

This update gives preference to secure sites, or HTTPS sites, instead of their less-secure counterparts. Though Google said it would only give a slight ranking boost to secure sites, it was still confirmation of yet another ranking factor.

Mobilegeddon [2015]

2015 was a year for the books as Google rolled out its mobile update. This update changed rankings for mobile-friendly sites when on a mobile device, or, in other words, it preferred mobile-friendly sites when you were searching from your phone. Makes sense, but still, this pre-announced update scared a lot of website owners, lighting a fire under many to make their sites mobile-responsive.

RankBrain [2015]

This is when Google’s machine learning really came into play and they announced that their AI had been a part of their algorithm for months. Learn more about RankBrain here.

Mobile-Friendly 2 [2016]

Like Mobilegeddon, but less panic.

Featured Snippet Drop [2017]

As many of you already know, featured snippets have been popping up all over your search results for just under a couple of years now. These snippets are short ‘answers’ to a query that actually appear on your SERP before you ever have to decide on what to click. About a month after the snippet update dropped, Google re-updated this by lengthening the snippet allowance. Then, six months later, dropped the snippet character length down to 150-160 again.

Site Diversity Update [2019]

This update simply gave a slight boost to websites that have 3-5 pages on the first page of a SERP, meaning, if they have lots of in-depth content that is ranking for a certain query, they might get a boost. However, this boost proved to be very slight.

So far, 2019 has been quiet from Google, compared to previous years, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still having up to 10 updates a day, it just means they are small or gradual, rather than large, rolling drops or spikes.

We hope you enjoyed this little history lesson, and remember, for every update we touched on – there are hundreds more we didn’t! That’s what makes SEO so fun and challenging – there are always more ranking factors to learn and wrangle.

If it’s time for your company to look into SEO, Web Design, Digital Marketing or other online services, contact JSL Marketing & Web Design today to learn more, or check out our other blog articles and information.

11 (Free) SEO Tools for Your SERP’s Climb [2019 Edition]

It seems there are always more tools and sites popping up for SEO, ranking checks, ideal length, backlinks, keywords, and more – and that’s a good thing! But it can make it exceedingly difficult to decide which tool is the best for you, which are even good, and which ones you should straight up avoid.

Here are the 11 (free) tools that JSL Marketing & Web Design recommend if you are looking for a place to start and how to climb those SERPs (search engine ranking pages).

From SEMRush to Google Search Console, Yoast to Screaming Frog, read on to learn more about our top 11 tools for SEO and better rankings!

Woorank’s SEO & Site Analysis

Woorank not only has an adorable name, but it is also a great analyzer for your website’s current SEO.

 

This tool not only gives you an SEO score, but then tells you in easy, actionable steps what you can do to better that score.

This means it can tell you how your title tags and meta descriptions are doing, and even show you a preview of what will show up on the SERP (for all you visual builders out there).

CanIRank

CanIRank is one of the first SEO software to use AI instead of only data to give recommendations. Additionally, CanIRank gives simple ‘DIY’ instructions – though, you can also outsource and have an SEO consultant fix your website’s issues with a couple of clicks (and a fee).

 

CanIRank is unique because it lets you know the likelihood that you’ll rank for a certain keyword, or, it lets you know how competitive a certain keyword is. The AI they use can even give you suggestions about other, better keywords you can try to target instead.

SEMRush

SEMRush lets you know what pages you are already ranking for, as well as content strategy help, link profiles, errors, warnings, and more. They offer a free SEO audit which can give you a good idea of where to start as well.

 

SEMRush gives a deeper look than some of the other tools mentioned and can be as helpful as you want it to be (or as helpful as you understand).

Its detail is both a plus & a minus as it can be more difficult for ‘new’ SEO hopefuls to understand. And, of course, there is a paid version where you get the full gambit of their tools and features.

(Our team at JSL Marketing & Web Design swears by SEMRush and uses it daily)

Ubersuggest

Good old Neil Patel – a cornerstone of online work, traffic boosts, and SEO, so of course we would mention Ubersuggest, his tool that gives you a domain overview.

 

This tool is easier to understand and essentially gives you keyword ideas based on the one you insert, it also gives you domain metrics like total traffic, ad cost, organic searches, backlink data, and even content ideas.

Though this tool isn’t as in-depth as SEMRush, it can be a better starting point for new users.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a great tool because, well, it comes straight from Google, the king of search engines. So, if you are looking to get no-nonsense data straight from the horse’s mouth, then Google Search Console is a great place to start.

 

This tool can give you keyword or site performance information, index issues, your sitemap status, mobile-friendliness, and more.

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog has an interesting name, yes, but it is also one of the leading website crawlers for technical SEO audits.

 

Of course, as with almost everything on this list, there is a paid version which gets you even more features, but even the free version has a lot to offer, including:

  • Broken link finder
  • Errors & redirect check
  • Analyzer for page titles & metadata
  • Technical SEO Audit
  • Duplicate page finder
  • XML sitemap generator
  • And can crawl up to 500 pages for free

Additionally, Screaming Frog is used by some big names, like Apple, Google, Disney, and Amazon, so it’s natural to trust that this tool is a good one.

Yoast WordPress Plugin

Yoast is a plugin for WordPress (meaning this won’t help you if your website isn’t built in WordPress). But if your site does use this platform, then we recommend adding in this plugin for easy edits and SEO help right on the backend of your own site.

Check out this helpful video about using Yoast from our friends at Ahrefs.

Check My Links

Check My Links is actually a Chrome extension, but it does exactly what it says – it checks your links.

 

Now, you could go through clicking each link on each page to make sure they aren’t broken, but we assume you have better things to do, so instead, use Check My Links to get all the information in a fraction of the time.

It’s easy to use, simple to understand, and an all-around nice tool for the specific help it gives.

Counting Characters (Google SERP Tool)

 

Again, the name says it all, as this is a Google tool that helps you, well, count characters.

But it isn’t just about how many characters you have; it’s about how long they are, or the pixel length.

Think of it like this – three l’s (lll) take up a lot less space than three w’s (www) and that’s pixel length. This tool helps you not only stay within the ‘character limit’ but within the pixel limit, which is the more important of the two, in most cases.

Google PageSpeed Insights

This actually falls under the whole Google Analytics umbrella, but PageSpeed Insights is just as important as their other tools, though less popular for lists like this one.

PageSpeed can be a silent killer of your webpage, because people simply won’t wait for it to load. Most people expect a webpage to load in just a couple seconds or less, and if it doesn’t, they’ll assume it is broken, a bad site, or the company isn’t reputable and take their business elsewhere.

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to make sure the above sad story doesn’t happen to you or your business.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

One final Google tool for you with one final question – is your site mobile-friendly? You had better hope it is, as Google’s algorithm expects it to be, or else it’ll drop you hard and quick.

 

This tool couldn’t be easier, as all you have to do is paste or type in your URL and click ‘test URL’ to see how mobile-friendly that site is. Easy, right?

That’s what Google is known for.

Want Someone Else to Take the Guess Work Out of Your SEO Strategy? Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design & Relax!

We love all of the above SEO tools, but we don’t just use the free versions – so, if you would rather not spend all your money on the premium packages and features for each of the above, then contact JSL Marketing & Web Design and let us do your SEO for you.

We can’t wait to hear from you, learn about your unique company, goals, and ‘why’. Contact us today!