SEO or search engine optimization affects the visibility of a website or a web page in search engine results pages.

The goal of a Search Engine Optimization consultant is to understand beforehand what makes a site more or less referenced. Of course, the criteria for rankings evolve very quickly and it is sometimes difficult to stay ahead when the competition is also on the lookout for the slightest change. The spiders who search the web forever more detailed information about the websites are more and more numerous and their requirements are more and more advanced.

A good SEO is therefore based on this understanding. Then comes the work strategy for improving the site as such, to match these very specific criteria. The idea is to update your site on several levels.

On Great Northern Marketing Digital Agency, we give you free dozens of practical tips like:

Better understand Google’s algorithms!
How to choose keywords for your company’s website?
The tips and tricks to know about the Yoast SEO module!

Having a better position is gaining more customers!

Indeed, if the ranking is at the top of the search results pages,
So, your pages receive more traffic from search engines,
And all these visitors are more likely to become customers of your company.
In Digital Marketing, optimizing a website involves adapting its content and code to acquire new customers.

Increasing the number of backlinks (or inbound links) is another tactic going into the ranking of your pages.

Discover Our Articles On How to optimize your SEO

Why and How to Get Backlinks for Free?

Search Engine Optimization, SEO

In any SEO strategy, the acquisition of backlinks is an essential method. However, getting backlinks is a complex practice because, in order for it to be successful, every backlink must be relevant and judged as a quality backlink. Sometimes it is better to look after each one and get less because the quantity is not always the priority.

As a business owner, you want a well-ranked website in Google’s search pages.

It is natural.

After all, having a well-ranked site is an effective way to conquer new customers.

I describe it in the following:

For your SEO, it is important to choose a good content management system (CMS). WordPress is recognized as performing in search engine optimization (SEO). It’s a good start. Then, even if there is no magic wand to improve the ranking of your site. You must both publish high-quality content and collect powerful backlinks.

Regarding your content quality, I have often discussed the importance of the quality of your content.

Today, I’m going to focus on how to get free backlinks, in addition to what I wrote about the ‘off Page’ SEO.

After defining what is a backlink, I will describe:

Why is it so important?
On which types of websites, you get links that point to the website of your business website?
How to get free backlinks?

Here’s all you need to know about backlinks

What is a backlink?

According to Wikipedia, a Backlink (also called an inbound link or incoming link) is a link from a website that points to your site.

Backlinks are crucial.

For search engines, this gives the popularity of your website.

Google views these links as positive ‘votes’ for your website.

It’s logic.

When the owner adds an external link in one of these web contents, it means that he finds the content in relation with the interesting and relevant link for his readers.

Specifically, interesting and relevant to the point of seeing his own readers of his website to read the content on the other site.

So, if a user appreciates your content to the point of referring to it on his own site, it is because he considers that what you have written is perfect.

Thus, getting backlinks amounts to accumulating votes in a popularity contest or limit of duration.

Having more backlinks that point to your company’s website, therefore, means more credibility and, therefore, a higher ranking in relevant searches.

However, unlike a democracy, not all backlinks are considered equal in the eyes of search engine robots.

Indeed, Google, Bing, Yahoo .. give more weight to backlinks from websites that are themselves popular.

Let’s take an example.

A Backlink from Wikipedia.com or the forbes.com has a stronger weight for the credibility of your site than a backlink from your best friend’s blog.

In addition, search engines also use backlinks to understand the purpose of your website and therefore the type of your business.

Google assumes that when a link is pointing from one site to another, there is bound to be a relationship between the content of the two pages.

That’s why, in order for your backlinks to boost your SEO (instead of hurting you!), They must come from sites related to your business.

My advice: As an entrepreneur, try to get backlinks from known websites related to your industry.

Target Anchor Text

The text of the link is called ‘anchor text’.

Ideally, it is recommended that any anchor text should include the keywords of the target page. So, Google understands the relationship between these words and your website.

It is, therefore, preferable to have an anchor text placed in a sentence.

Like ‘best pizza in the city’ or choose your favorite domain to double the power of your backlinks,
Than obscene like ‘see more’ or ‘find out here’.
This is why it is also recommended to always specify an anchor text than to directly paste the URL.

On which sites to get free backlinks?

Link building is the process of getting backlinks to your site.

To start your link building, make a list of websites that are potentially relevant.

To do this, search in Google for websites in your industry that appear at the top of page results.

At the risk of repeating myself, keep in mind, that if you develop solutions for health professionals, there is no point in getting a backlink from an e-commerce clothing site even if it is your cousin e-com store.

Google’s highly ranked sites that have strong authority.

Stay in your industry. Although, as I have already mentioned, getting a link from the site of one of your competitors is not a good idea.

Focus your energy on identifying quality sites that have a significant impact on your Google rankings.

The ultimate: Finding a way to get a free backlink from a university or government website. Indeed, search engines tend to trust more sites that end with:

.gov – governments,
.edu – universities,
or .org – non-profit organizations.

Google loves sites with recent content. That’s why it’s important to try adding new incoming links on a regular basis.

How to get free backlinks?

Once you have listed the relevant websites, it’s time to contact the people responsible for those sites, often called webmasters.

I have identified 3 different types of links to focus on.

Here they are in order, in my opinion, of their importance.

1. Natural Backlinks

As their name indicates, these links are obtained naturally and with little effort on your part.

In other words, a natural backlink is obtained without soliciting the website that chooses itself to connect to your website.

Natural inbound links have the strongest impact on promoting your site and therefore on growth opportunities for your business.

This usually happens because you have written high-quality content that others feel worth sharing with their users.

To improve your chances of getting natural backlinks:

Publish high-quality content by taking into account user intentions
And facilitate their sharing.
Try to think of the professional, interesting and reliable information you can write for your readers.

Then post it on your site and share it on social networks.

Make sure your website has easy-to-find share buttons.

The trick is to make it easy for others to share the content they like.

The more useful your content is, the more chances you have that other sites want to add a link so their users can read it too.

2. Earned Backlinks

Earned Backlinks come from sites that you contact directly to ask them to include links.

These links can come from popular blogs or other well-ranked websites in your industry.

There are 3 main ways to get earned links. All that is required is to speak directly with the webmaster of the site either by phone or by email.

Promote your existing content

Identify who exactly would like to read the content of your website. Then look for other websites and/or blogs that target the same audience.

Identify the webmaster of these websites and send them the link of your most relevant content.

Tell them why you think their readers will find your content interesting and ask them if they would be willing to link their content to yours.

Guest Blogging

The ‘guest blogging’ is for a site owner to invite ‘experts’ to contribute on his blog or site.

And nothing prevents you to encourage site owners to invite you as well.

For this, send an email to the webmaster of the target site.

Suggest that you write an article on their website. Make him understand that you appreciate his site!

A tip, write a short e-mail as much as possible, but specify:

Your area of expertise,
A sample of your writing,
Some topics that might interest his readers.

The webmaster will probably be happy to welcome you to his blog. Obviously, make sure that he agrees that your article includes a link to your own website.

If this approach interests you, discover all the other benefits of guest articles.

Reviews

Another option is to invite bloggers to test your products or services. Always relying on your product offer:

an hour of gym class if you are the owner of a fitness center,
a sample of perfume if you work in a beauty shop,
a free haircut in your hair salon.

in Exchange, they will surely write a precise review of your company with a link to your site.

Finally, another great way to attract the attention of a blogger is to offer its readers a discount coupon to use for your products or services.

3 Backlinks that you create

You can also quickly and easily create links to your website without having to ask permission from a person.

these links that I call “self-created” have less influence on your ranking, however, they stimulate your site.

Here are 3 ways to create this type of backlinks

Get involved in forums and blogs

You can insert a multitude of links:

On forums,
By commenting on blog posts,
And finally by registering in online directories.

Always make sure to select sites that are relevant to your industry.

Warning: Some of these links may be considered ‘spam’ unless your comments are relevant and the links point to content on your relevant site.

This is necessary for these links to promote your website and bring you, new visitors. For example :

Comment on articles published in LinkedIn groups and share a link to a page on your website related to the topic covered in this group,
Create a table on Pinterest and share your articles on a Pinterest board whose power to generate backlinks is well established.

One tip: Restrict yourself to your area of expertise. Thus, these links will bring you quality traffic while increasing your credibility.

Register in the directories

You can also create backlinks by adding your website to online directories like yellow pages, yelp, Google My Business and more.

This type of backlink is especially useful if you are a business with a physical address that greets your customers.

Create internal links

Internal links connect the different pages of your site.

This is what Digital Marketing experts call internal silo.

These are not strictly backlinks.

But as they help your readers and Google navigate through your company’s website, I found it useful to talk about it here.

This way, your readers stay on your site longer.

And so, this can potentially help to move up your ranking on the search pages.

For example, you can include a link:

From an article in your blog to the corresponding product page on your online store,
Or from your ‘About’ page to the ‘Team’ or ‘Contact Us’ page,
Or from the page describing a product or service to your FAQ page.
Include internal links to:

Encourage visitors to stay on your website,
Read additional information,
And finally, buy one of your products, contact you or subscribe to your newsletter.

Bonus! Find out who is linked to your website!

It’s an endless job.

But you probably want to know if your efforts are paying off.

To see the backlinks that your site has won for free, log in to your Google Search Console (ex-webmaster tools) and regularly check the ‘Link to your site’ section.

It’s as simple as that!

In this way, you monitor the results of your work and redirect your efforts accordingly.

Note: The Google Search Console is not really exhaustive about backlinks. The best way is to follow the trend.

There are many other tools to track your backlinks but if you’re new, the Google Search Console is more than enough.

In summary on how to get free backlinks

Working on backlinks is probably the best way to find new growth opportunities for your company’s website.

link building requires being methodical and rigorous.

But as it is surely one of the most important factors of Google’s algorithms, the result is quickly felt.

My last tip: Do things in the right order. Before you tackle getting Backlinks, make sure that your ‘on Page’ SEO is optimized.

Did you know that backlinks are really important for effective SEO? Do you invest a little of your time to get free backlinks?

August 6, 2018/0 Comments/by Mohammed Mestar

7 steps to increase your domain authority

Search Engine Optimization, SEO

What is your domain authority?

The Domain Authority (DA) is an indicator that grades the quality of your company’s website. Specifically, the domain authority measures the quality of your SEO. As a result, the higher your domain authority is, the more visitors you attract to your website and, in the first place, conquer more new customers.

This is how we describe it:

Domain authority is developed by Moz. Other companies like SEMrush also have similar metrics. No link with Google. This is a modeling essay from Google’s algorithm that assigns a rating to any website. Since this rating is essentially based on the number and backlinks, working on it can not hurt your SEO.

So I’m going to define domain authority and then give you 7 practical tips to increase it. And most importantly, I hope to make you want to further follow your domain authority (DA). It’s a solid metric for how your website’s SEO is changing over time.

What is the domain authority (DA) of a website?

The Domain Authority (DA) of a website is a score between 0 and 100 that tries to predict how a website ranks on search engines.

The closer your score is to 100, the better.

This DA note is based on a metric scale. In other words, the higher your score, the less difficult it is to progress.

On the other hand, the DA is a metric totally disconnected from the ranking metrics established by Google.

In fact, Moz is trying to simulate Google’s ranking algorithm based on known criteria.

But as Google’s algorithm is secret, with over 200 factors and constantly evolving, Moz was unable to have a precise estimate.

However, this approximation is good enough for SEO experts to use it and track the organic SEO progress of a website.

Moz works similar to Google, it retrieves data from the Web, put them in its index and calculates the domain authority.

But as it is not the same power of calculation as Google, Moz can do it only once a month.

Therefore, when you make changes to your company website, your DA does not change immediately.

Recommendations: Your DA rating is primarily used to evaluate your SEO progress and compare yourself with your competitors.

How is the domain authority calculated?

Moz indicates that the domain authority is calculated with a number of criteria which include:

The number of inbound links (Backlinks) pointing to your website,
The quality and relevance of these incoming links,
The quality of the content published on your website,
The popularity of your domain on social networks,
The quality of SEO (Organic SEO) of your website.

Where can I find out about the DA of my business website?

To find out your domain authority score, go to Moz’s Link Explorer tool, enter your domain name and check the results.

Note: Open Site Explorer (OSE) index tool is no longer updated. Moz returns today on Link Explorer which has the same functions.
Basically, it’s a reinstatement for Open Site Explorer which was Moz’s tool for link discovery, competitive analysis, and link building.

What is the authority of a page?

The page authority (PA) is similar to the domain authority (DA). It is an indicator of the ability of a page to rank.

Instead of taking the entire domain into account, the page authority notes the performance of a particular page.

A website with many pages with strong authority also has a high domain authority (DA).
The page authority is based on three factors, namely:

Age and trust
Value received from links
Page last update and relevance

Age and trust

The pages that have been on the Internet for years with good results have already earned their right to position themselves well on the results pages. New pages, as well as new domains, must first prove their qualities before they can position themselves for competitive keywords. Give your page time and take good care of it: write good content and get quality backlinks.

Value received from links

Each link has authority, external links as well as internals bring some authority to the landing page and thus influence the authority of this page.

last page update

Search engines prefer pages that are frequently updated. Regularly review the contents of your most important pages and whenever possible, update them. Do not forget the relevance. It takes more than a high page authority for a page to rank well. Relevance for specific keywords is also crucial. The relevance is gained with the content of the page, which must include these keywords and internal links, as well as backlinks (or external links).

Why do you need to improve your domain authority (DA)?

In fact, any action taken to increase the authority of your domain will also improve your rankings on the search engines.

Now that you have mastered the notion of ‘domain authority’ and know how it is calculated, let’s look at how to improve your domain authority.

7 tips to improve your domain authority

As you will see, the same approach to improve your DA is the same for the 3 elements of SEO as I will describe.

1. Work on your ‘off page’ SEO

In fact, backlinks are the most important priority factor in Moz’s algorithm.

That’s by the way, what appears right to the right of your domain authority note on the Link Explorer screen.

Moz talks about profile links which are the set of links that point to your site.

What is a strong link profile?

According to Moz, a good link profile has the following characteristics:

Inbound links from websites with strong authority,
Inbound links from websites dealing with the same subject,
And incoming links from many different websites,
No bad links.

How to improve your link profile?

In fact, improving your link profile is based on the ‘off Page” SEO techniques, one of the 3 subdomains of SEO.

So it’s all about getting quality backlinks by promoting your content.

To enhance your link profile and, among other things, improve your domain authority, you take 2 actions:

Eliminate bad links,
Get quality links.

Remove bad links

This process involves using a tool like Moz Explorer or SEMrush to find the toxic links.

Then contact the managers of the websites and ask them to remove the link or add the attribute ‘nofollow’ to undervalue the power of the link.

For site managers that do not respond, use the tool to disavow links in your Google Search Console in order to remove the negative impact of these links.

Get good links from other relevant websites

It is probably the most difficult task of SEO.

Any Digital Marketing expert will tell you that getting quality backlinks is a subject in its own right.

To give you an overview, there are mainly 2 ways to get good inbound links:

Publish quality content,
Ensure their promotion.

Publish quality content on your website

Posting quality content is the best way to get ‘natural’ backlinks.

The principle is as follows: if a user reads one of your articles and appreciates it, he will refer to it in his own content.

As a result, the first step is to publish content that your readers will like.

That is relevant, useful and easy content.

In practice, you must be very patient.

Indeed, it takes time to gain the trust of your readers so that some Internet users in your industry want to quote your content in theirs.

Promote your articles

The second way to get good backlinks is to contact other websites to let them know you exist.

In this way, you increase your chances of getting links pointing to your professional website.

2. Optimize your site’s ‘On page’ SEO

To improve your domain authority, you must also optimize the SEO of your pages.

‘On page’ SEO is about optimizing your page and its content.

Among the major points to optimize, here are the main ones:

Optimize your title and the meta description,
Cut out your content with subtitles,
Optimize the URLs structure,
Compress the weight and optimize your images for SEO,
Use keywords naturally in your content without stuffing,
Add internal links to your content,
Work on formatting your content for easy readability.

Note: Of course, your content must be updated regularly to prevent it from becoming obsolete.

3. Work on your technical SEO

Technical SEO is the third part of the process.

This concerns your website, that is, the container of your content.

In general, these rather technical actions are to be done only once.

On the other hand, if one of the aspects of the technical SEO is not correct, it has a strong impact on your domain authority and therefore on your rankings in the search result pages.

Among the 16 critical parameters of Technical SEO, the main ones are:

Setup your website on Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools,
Submit your XML sitemap to Google,
Test your robots.txt file on the Google Search Console to make sure Google and other search engines can crawl your website without problems,
Secure your website with an SSL certificate (https),
Add structured data to help search engines better understand your content …

4. Have a mobile-friendly website

Not having a compatible website for small screens of a smartphone has a negative impact on your domain authority.

In addition, having a mobile-compatible website is no longer an option. It is mandatory.

Here are some reasons:

48% of searches in North America are done on mobile (source Google Research),
Many Internet users start their search on mobile and pursue it on a computer,
Mobile Compatibility is a Google Ranking factor
Google deploys its Mobile First Index that takes into account the content of your website on Mobile to rank your pages.

Recommendations: to avoid having 2 sites to manage (one for a computer, another for mobile), opt for a responsive design that adapts naturally and automatically to the size of the devise screen of your users.

Note: You can also make your pages compatible with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).

My tip: To make sure your website is mobile-friendly, use Google’s free mobile tool.

The report in this tool provides all the recommendations for making your website mobile-friendly.

5. Optimize the loading time of your pages

One of the known factors of Google’s rankings is the page speed.

A website that loads slowly is penalized.

Speeding up your pages improves:

Not only your ranking in Google’s result pages and your domain authority,
But also the user experience which translates into more conversion: sales, prospects, registrations …
Solving the page speed problems of your website is not always easy.

Nevertheless, to save time on the technical aspects without using your developer, here are the actions to take to optimize the website of your company:

Delete unnecessary extensions,
Use the latest versions of your CMS (WordPress or other) and your extensions,
Ask your website hosting for a report on your server’s performance. If necessary, pay yourself a more powerful server.
Use a caching plugin, like W3 Total Cache,
Compress your images with an extension, like tiny jpg or png
Use YouTube or Vimeo to host your videos instead of running your own server …

6. Increase your social shares

Although officially, Google has repeatedly stated that social shares are not part of its Google algorithm, it seems that there is a correlation between pages well ranked on Google and the social commitments of these pages.

It’s normal. Popular pages in Google also tend to receive more Likes, shares, tweets …

To increase your domain authority, here are some actions to take:

Work on your profiles on LinkedIn and try to increase your connections,
Be active on social networks to promote your content to collect more Likes, tweets, + 1 on Google + …

Not to mention, add the social sharing buttons on all your pages to facilitate sharing for your visitors …

7. Have patience

Increasing your domain authority does not happen overnight.

It takes time for Moz bots to evaluate your website once the above changes are made. You must be patient.

In any case, working consistently on improving your rankings in Google also has a positive effect on your domain authority score. And vice versa!

Conclusion on how to improve your domain authority

To conclude, do not be too obsessed with your domain authority (DA).

For me, it’s just a number that measures the strength of your area compared to your competitors.

In addition, a low DA does not mean that your website is not ranked well on Google.

On the other hand, a strong authority means that you are on the right path without any guarantee of obtaining a better ranking on Google.

Whatever it is, please check regularly your Google Search Console and have a complete check-up on your website.

Nothing like Google to help you progress on Google! Now, what are you going to do with these techniques to get your domain authority (DA)?

August 5, 2018/0 Comments/by Mohammed Mestar

Effective content strategy

Content writing, Search Engine Optimization

The 5 pillars of an effective content strategy

What is a content strategy?

They say that Content is King and Content quality is Queen…You say nothing new under the Sun.

It is nevertheless your best ally for any web marketing plan! To get there, nothing is easier. Just put in place an effective content strategy, otherwise called brand content for the most hype of us. Yes, but what exactly is it? It’s about creating content that’s right for your target audience, highlighting your strengths, products, and services.

These content broadcast on the web are imperative in terms of SEO! You can position yourself on certain keywords or improve your long tail. The whole thing is to gain positions in SEO. It is also the best way to control your brand since it is you who speak by carefully choosing your elements. By distributing it in the right places you will be able to develop your image, boost your fame, demonstrate your expertise and gain legitimacy.

A little fuzzy? Do not panic, I suggest you follow a simple methodology with 5 essential pillars to create an effective content strategy!

Pillar 01: Challenges and positioning, the basics of your content strategy

Determine specific goals

This is the first key step in your content strategy! You cannot (should not) neglect it! To ask the right questions in advance is to know why you write. Identifying the right goals is the best way to initiate a good strategy! (By the way, it is also valid for any type of strategy).

I propose a list of objectives, which is obviously not exhaustive:

Develop your reputation
prospect;
loyalty;
Create services for your customers;
Increase sales ;
legitimize your positioning;
Improve your traffic from search engines;
Etc.

You can define one or more goals, and then prioritize them with a primary goal and secondary ones. The key issue of your strategy is to convert and sell!

Know who you are

Writing and talking about yourself provoke sometimes anxiety. We’ve often been told that we have nothing to say or say…! We all have something to tell!

Companies, brands, people, each entity has an experience, a history, assets. You just have to find the art and how to tell it well. And to talk about oneself, one must know oneself well. The idea is to define who we are, it’s positioning, what differentiates us from our competitors, which is our strength, our values, our mission.

To finish this step, it is obviously necessary to have a global vision of all the offers, products, and services that we sell.

Define your targets

The challenge of an effective brand content strategy is to know who is talking so that our content is read. The more you know about your audience, the more relevant you will be, the more you will interest your targets and the more your content will be read. Who do we target (general public, BtoB, …), what are their needs, their purchasing process, …? To go further and be closer to expectations, do not hesitate to think about your personas! (imaginary characters representing each of your targets).

Unique, tailor-made content and adapted to your targets can strengthen your brand image and add value to your business. It is also the best way to interest your customers and your prospects since you will stick close to their expectations.

Pillar 02: A precise editorial line as a guideline

Create an editorial line

Editorial line, an expression that can be scary! Still, if you followed the previous steps it should be a child’s play. To put these few lines is to define a course, a guideline for your content taking into account your objectives, who you are and your targets.

The idea is that in one or two sentences, you recall the previous points: your positioning, the main mission of your product/ service/brand. It’s kinda your signature, brand content version!

This editorial line must always be present in mind because it will allow you to remain consistent during your various speaking engagements and differentiate yourself from your competitors. Then, you just have to pull the string by defining your tone, your style, the image you want to convey: a pedagogical or playful tone? Humor or rather institutional?

Define and segment topics

You must choose the key messages you want to share. This may be transparency, quality, a wide range, innovation, benefits, etc.

You now have to list all the topics that allow passing these messages. Gather them into categories to see if the package is well articulated and meets your original goals. Grouping your content is organizing information and facilitating its understanding with your target audience.

To help you create this segmentation of content and find complementary ideas, there are several solutions:

Conduct a keyword audit! Thanks to this semantic analysis carried out on your site and those of your competitors, you will be able to refine your topics;
Think imperatively about the structure of the site to make this content strategy a true ally of SEO;
Do monitoring on social networks: look at what is said, how, etc. ;
Use this site which allows you to properly map your content and find unique topics to treat.
After these 3 sources of ideas, the hard part will be to segment your content so that it is easily understandable for your targets!

Pillar 03: Quality, varied and optimized content

Vary the types of content

Today there is a lot of possibilities to create content! Editorial, visual, video, you find what is best for your target. A small list of non-exhaustive ideas once again:

Articles, interviews;
White paper, webinar, ebook, polls;
Photos, charts, graphics, visual gifs;
Customer cases;
Contests Etc.

Above all, vary the formats so as not to bore your audience! But keep in mind your editorial line to stay consistent. You will also have to create a graphic chart for your visuals in order to be quickly recognized and remain consistent in your different speeches. If you do not master publishing software, do not panic! There are now practical online tools to realize your visuals. For this article, I realized, for example, the visuals with Canva.

Vary the types of contents, it is also adapting to the ways of consuming information today! The practices have evolved significantly, so we must create brand content that adapts to different contexts of the web ecosystem! Keep in mind that the smartphone is the first screen in our way of consuming the web today.

Optimize content

Writing for the web is also to ensure your content is well optimized. Whether your texts, your visuals, your videos, on your blog as on Youtube, Facebook or Pinterest, … Each type of content, streaming media requires optimization. However, be careful about finding the right balance between the quality of your content and optimization.

The idea is to work on your keyword strategy to position your site on the desired queries, it is using the right keywords on networks to allow as many people as possible to discover content in line with their interests. You must rely on the keyword audit previously performed. This is the best way for you to meet the needs of Internet users!

Pillar 04: A web ecosystem to make a soundboard

Broadcast your content

The more your content is shared, the better will be your reputation and your visibility. Yes, but where? Your main tool must belong to you, so I would say that your website and/or blog is the cornerstone of your device!

Then you will push your content on different social media, you determine in advance which network to publish first according to your objectives, your targets and your content!

Facebook ;
Twitter;
Linkedin;
Youtube ;
Instagram;
Pinterest;
Etc.

Warning! Each chosen social channel requires a different speaking tone. The same content can obviously be shared on several networks, but you must adapt it to each one, to each target. (a public tone for Facebook, a professional angle for Twitter and Linkedin, …). You will also need to adapt to the most relevant broadcast days and schedules that vary by network.

Challenging, in parallel or practical, do not hesitate to amplify the diffusion! Here are some ideas to go after:

Buying space ;
Blog guests;
Relations with influencers
Press releases ;
Etc.

Plan!

At this stage, you now know what to say, how to say it and where!

You still have to plan to gain peace of mind in your daily life. The principle is to speak regularly to stay in the minds of your customers, your prospects. But you should not fall too in speaking too regularly at the risk of boring your targets or even to address all your topics too quickly and lose your momentum.

Create an editorial schedule where you will spread your words by varying your topics. All you have to do is animate your presence. However, anticipation and planning do not mean a lack of responsiveness! Keep in mind that you must be present on your various media to moderate and respond if necessary, as well as when it’s relevant, react to the news!

Pillar 05: KPIs to track your performance

Measure your actions

Test and learn, I’m sure you know this expression! This is one of the foundations of the digital worldwide web. Seen as this one evolves quickly, just like its users, which was true yesterday, it is not anymore today. So, test! But most importantly, measure every time!

From the objectives that you have defined, choose relevant KPIs of the order of quantity (Number of views, shares, …) or qualitative (traffic sources, typology of the fans, …). Besides, do not forget to carry out a marking plan for your website, to allow you to place in the right places the markers which will then go back to your analytical tool.

By analyzing the successes or failures of your strategy, you will adapt to the needs of your audience to offer them a better user experience closer to their needs/desires. You will be aware of the content that works best on your site, those on Facebook, what time it is better to publish, etc … A good way to refine your content strategy!

An effective content strategy in 5 points

With these 5 pillars, you should now be able to create quality content, designed for your target audience and optimized for search engines. And what better than a video to explain how this content methodology is important?

A strategy of contents thought in advance and adapted to the different channels is your best online marketing ally in the service of commitment and performance!

July 20, 2018/0 Comments/by Mohammed Mestar

How to properly manage your local SEO

Local SEO, Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization

To have a good local SEO unfortunately it is not enough to want it. Indeed it can be extremely difficult to position yourself on competitive keywords, especially at the scale of a country or a big city. But with an effective local SEO strategy, you can claim to appear on the first page of Google for a user search corresponding to the area of expertise of your company.

Being known by Google

To be well seen by Google, it is essential to create a business listing via Google My Business. In this form, you can display the name of your company as well as a description, its opening hours, the address and phone number and a link to your website. You can also share photos that will appear during Google searches. This card can also receive customer reviews.

Note: This step is crucial, create this form does not exempt you from making you known elsewhere, especially on local and regional directories (Yellow Pages, Yelp, Tripadvisor, etc …). pay attention to ensure that your information is consistent across platforms and update it regularly.

Encourage your customers to give their reviews

Stand out with consumer reviews

73% of consumers trust a local business if they have read positive reviews about it. What’s more, Google takes into account the rating of companies and favors those that are well-rated and whose reviews are numerous and positive to position them among the first results of research. More reviews will be numerous and praised on different platforms and the more you will shine in the eyes of your customers, but also Google.

What to do in case of a negative review?

Do not panic and feel free to answer, being courteous and professional, of course. Make a short and sincere response, provide useful information to resolve this dissatisfaction and if necessary invite the customer to contact you.

Responding, and even more, to suggest a solution will show that you are truly interested in your customers and will thus bring a more positive note to negative comments.

Promote local links

Work your network of ‘partners’

By providing your financial, material or human support to associations, local sports clubs or events in your geographical area, you can in exchange ask to show a link of your company via their website or on their social networks. Remember also to show on your site other companies ‘partners’ who, in exchange, publish a link to your site.

Let’s not forget that, external links pointing to your site can boost its ranking in Google search results in a remarkable way.

Think about local press

The local press, both in print and online, promote local events and often mentions their support. To talk about you, you can also contact them directly when you have a piece of strong news. If the news seems relevant, they will not hesitate to write content, give the link to your site and sometimes even to share on social networks.

Many tips exist to gain visibility on the Internet, locally or nationally or even internationally. In addition to the tips given above, you will, of course, think about SEO optimization of your site, to create accounts on social networks and to keep a blog. If You do not know how to do it or have no time for it, Don’t hesitate to call on a specialist to set up an SEO policy adapted to your company, it is the best solution to boost your Local SEO.

July 16, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar

Landing page optimization tips

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

9 tips to optimize your landing pages

Implementing a digital marketing strategy is a significant investment for your business. Despite the variety of channels you use, research has shown that 98% of visitors will not complete a transaction on your site. But, it is possible to remedy this problem.

A landing page by target

In a web-marketing strategy, looking for ways to gain traffic is a priority, converting this traffic to real prospects is even more important. Landing pages are made for this: it is the marketing tool that will convert this visitor traffic into customers and prospects. Having a home page landing page is a common mistake.

A homepage is a general, informative page where the visitor is likely to browse or search for more information. A landing page is a page with a persuasive action on the web on a specific target and relative to a specific offer. The landing page aims to convince this target to perform a specific action: registration, contact form, etc …

The content of your landing page must be coherent with your action of acquisition. For example, if your landing page is the landing page at an AdWords ad, the visitor must find on your landing page arguments that support and demonstrate the title you had on your AdWords ad.

The design of a landing page should not be taken lightly. You must take into account many parameters to convert a maximum of visitors into prospects. With a neat and professional landing, know that you can increase your conversion rate (CR) by up to 300%. The strategies you will need to put in place are based on digital marketing techniques. Here are the essentials to optimize your landing pages.

Identify the purpose of the landing page

This step is fundamental because it guides your strategy. To determine the reasons for your landing page, first, identify the type of conversion you want to achieve. Is it to encourage users to buy your product? Is your jump page a tool to increase your e-reputation? Once you have clarified the final goal of your landing page, you will now be able to define your target audience and adapt the content according to the ‘personas’ frame of reference.

Optimize your call-to-action

Your landing page should have a call to action. Think of a goal, a single message, an action. Your basic message and call to action MUST be visible above the waterline. The call to action can be repeated throughout the page.

Are you an e-commerce site? Are you considering launching a new product? There are surefire ways to increase the conversion rate of your landing page with Call-to-Action (CTA). Highlight your offers for visitors to pass the act of purchase. In this case, you can opt for expressions such as ‘limited offers’, ‘flash sale’, ‘add to cart’ … to inform users that this is a one-time offer. To better choose the strategy, take the time to observe the behaviors of your targets. For example, it is possible to vary the location of CTAs.

If the purpose of your landing page is filling a form, you will need to minimize the number of mandatory fields to be completed by visitors. If you need a lot of data, try running A / B tests with varying amounts of input fields to know the acceptable dropout rate for the additional information captured. Note that a ‘social share’ button in a choice form, greatly increases the conversion rate.

Take care of the design of your web page

The landing page should reflect your company’s image. Make sure that the design is consistent with the Visual identity of your brand. You should also standardize the formatting of your landing page and of your site. This tip is very important so that your potential customers do not get lost. Also be careful about the choice of typography. It is best to put a simple forward, but nice font to see. In order to increase your conversions by up to 86%, it is also possible to insert video or pictures on your landing page.

Choose a catchy title

Studies have shown that 80% of Internet users interested in the title of articles, only 2 users out of 10 decide to stay longer than 5 minutes on a page. Choosing a catchy and relevant title is, therefore, essential to attract your potential readers to continue visiting the site. There are no general rules to create a captivating title. Strategies have however been proven on the web and helped to increase the CRO. The use of adverbs such as ‘how’ and ‘why’ is most often affected, because it allows responding to your readers.

Opt for a responsive design

Do you want to reach more prospects? The responsive design must be integrated into your digital marketing strategy. You must create a landing page that is suitable for all media. With the evolution of technology, mobiles and tablets are everywhere. In Canada, they are more used to connect to the internet, because more than half of users are opting for these terminals. To ensure the success of the responsive design, you must make your web page more ergonomic regardless of the tool used. The choice of the display format is essential to achieve this goal. It is also important that your web designer uses programs to allow users to quickly access the landing page.

Share consumer reviews

A satisfied customer can greatly increase your brand reputation to the general public. Prospects who do not yet know your products and/or services will be attracted to your brand by relying on the testimonials of your customers. There is nothing better than offering a way for consumers who have already tested your products and/or services to share their reviews on your landing page. With this information, you will easily optimize your landing page. Don’t be tempted to create false testimonials. By inducing Internet users to make a mistake, you will hurt your reputation.

Make the visit to your landing page more attractive

Your landing page captures the attention of visitors? This is already great news, but there is still work to be done. Internet users need to spend as much time as possible. You must, therefore, multiply your efforts to surprise your visitors. Do you know that videos always attract users’ attention? It is possible to gain a conversion rate of more than 75% through a video. For hosting this multimedia file, you can, for example, use Youtube or Vimeo. The ‘chat’ is also an interesting solution to encourage interaction with potential customers.

Track your conversion rate

It’s always a good idea to have concrete data to know where your landing page conversion rate is. Is your strategy effective? What are the points to improve? With Google Analytics, you’ll have reliable statistics on the number of monthly conversions and the conversion rate. This tool can also count the exact number of sales, downloads … With these data, you will be able to react in time.

There is no strict rule to follow to increase your conversion rate. These tips will help you make your landing page as effective as possible. Take the time to study each point and improve your strategy.

July 13, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar

Keywords & SEO attracting as many customers to your site

Search Engine Optimization

Keywords & SEO

Attracting As Many Customers To Your Site

The process of choosing the right keywords for SEO is essential. Your texts are constructed of words that should respond to your client’s search query. The science of information is structured around these words. And it’s also important to use them properly to optimize your SEO on Google.

Attention, when I say ‘keyword’, I’m not talking about what is indicated in your meta tag keywords and is no longer taken into account since the early 2000s. I want to talk about your main content, the one which is legible on your page. This is what will definitely marry your keywords & SEO.

Search engines browse and index your content by focusing on your keywords. They do not try to store, in a single database, the entire tens of billions of pages that make up today the web. Millions of smaller, industry-specific databases allow Google to find the information you want almost instantly.

Of course, if you want your page to be well-positioned in the search results when looking for ‘luxury house to rent’, it would be wise to make sure that ‘luxury house for rent’ appears at the beginning of your document. To be more specific, it must be ensured that your keyword is sufficiently highlighted and that it is understood by the engine.

Your target keywords and SEO, centers of your web communication

As an internet user, our keywords determine our communication with the engine. They indicate our intention and Google gives us its results according to the queries we are looking for. The word order, accents, punctuation, and context allow the Google search engine to refine the results and classify them.

Google measures the importance of a keyword by using it on your page. It can then evaluate its relevance to a query. To optimize your SEO, make sure that the expression on which you want to position yourself is included in these 4 elements:

Title of your page: <title> tag, visible at the top of your browser and linked in Google results
Title of your content: title <h1> appearing by default at the beginning of your text
The first paragraph, or catching the reading of the rest of your page
URL of your page: URL of your document (www.your-site.com/your keyword.html)

The more a searched keyword is specific, the fewer competing results will be displayed by the engine. This will make you look more easily in the first page results.

The word ‘house’ will bring many more results than ‘luxury house for rent’. Certainly, ‘house’ is much more sought after. But if you speak specifically of ‘luxury house for rent’ on this page, it is much more interesting to say it immediately and avoid an immense competition. And finally, is it not more coherent?

For the reader and your SEO, do not abuse your keywords

Since the birth of the web, the abuse of keywords to manipulate the results of the engines is present. This includes excessive keyword embedding in your titles, text, URLs, images, and links. Unfortunately, or fortunately, this tactic is only a carrier in the short term and will do more harm than good SEO to your site.

In the beginning, Google looked at the density of your keywords, without taking care of their context of use. Today, with the artificial intelligence of RankBrain, he understands your texts much better, but not as a true reader.

The best practice is to integrate your keywords strategically and naturally. If you want to optimize your SEO on the expression ‘ Calgary Zoo’, talk about its context: its location, the different types of animals, the species, family programs. If you simply quote your keyword ‘Best Zoo in Alberta’ on a page dealing with personal branding, your efforts to position yourself on the ‘Best Zoo in Alberta’ will be in vain.

The goal is not to be visible at the top of all keywords. On the other hand, think of optimizing your relevance on the topics sought by the readers that you want to attract on your page.

Where to place your keywords to optimize your SEO?

The use of your keywords is still part of Google’s algorithm. Effective techniques will help you create consistent, well-optimized pages for top engines. Here are different places to use your keywords to maximize your SEO:

Title tag: Try to use it as early as possible in your page title.
Title <h1>: Use your keyword or a very close phrase in your content title. Generally, I resume a summary of my title tag. This is consistent for the user and is not perceived as repetitive.
Content: Repeat your key phrase 2 or 3 times in the content of your page. Remember to repeat it in your first paragraph. If your content is long enough, do not hesitate to use synonyms.
Pictures: Take your word back into the file name of your first image and indicate it in its ALT tag. This tag (attribute) is the text displayed when the image does not appear and it is read orally to describe the image to the visually impaired. It’s also what Google understands about your image.
URL: This is the address of your page on the internet. Typically, we find your keyword in the name of your file (www.your-site / keyword.html).
Tag description: This one is no longer taken into account by Google for your SEO. But it encourages the click as it attracts the attention of the user and enhances your credibility compared to the research carried out. If the user understands your expression, he/she will be more likely to click and thus get into the results.

Conclusion

In general, avoid using your exact keyword in the anchor links that lead to other pages. This would dilute your SEO on Google. The engine will not know which page to display when one looks for a referenced word on a page and that it makes a link towards another page starting from the same keyword.

Do you want help to optimize the SEO of your website? Ask for a diagnosis and a quote without commitment.

July 12, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar

Why create SEO content?

Content writing, Digital Marketing, Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization

SEO content is essential for a good SEO of your website. What is SEO content and why should it be produced?
SEO content is a very important factor for your website. Good SEO content will make your site visible in the search engine results, including those of Google. It will allow you to increase the organic traffic of your site and boost your visibility.

Definition of SEO content

SEO content is content optimized for search engines. All the texts and visuals of your website can be optimized SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is known or called (SEO). SEO is defined as the art of optimizing the positioning of a web page, the objective being is to appear in the first page positions of search engine results and especially on Google.

Why create SEO content?

Why create SEO content and why for Google in particular? With these few figures on the market share of Google in the search on the web, you will find the first answer. This will help you understand better why it is important to create SEO optimized content for your website:

In Canada, 90.8% market share for Google (Bing 5.61% and Yahoo 2.48%),
In North America, 88.66% market share for Google (Bing 6.77% and Yahoo 3.62%),

Source: gs.statcounter.com for the month of June 2018

These numbers alone illustrate why you need to meet Google’s content requirements. To get good visibility on Google, SEO content is king.

SEO optimized text content

To make your website visible on the search engines and especially on Google, it must contain optimized SEO content.

Optimized SEO content must be:

Original, interesting and quality,
Adapted to the web and the requirements of Google,
Concise and quickly understandable,
Interactive.

To this short list are added the Google’s quality guidelines:

Design content by thinking first of your visitors rather than the search engines,
Do not mislead your visitors,
Avoid using SEO techniques that are contrary to Google’s guidelines to help you rank,
Make your site unique, attractive and stand out from your competition.

SEO optimized visual content

Depending on your field of activity, visual content may be as important as text content. Since 2001 (corresponding to the birth of Google Image), the search for images is constantly increasing on Google. By using quality images related to your business activity, you can acquire quality traffic to your website. This is the case for example for communication agencies, e-commerce sites, portfolios of artists such as photographers and graphic artists, image banks, etc.

To optimize your images for SEO, it is essential to:

Use ‘ALT’ tags with targeted keywords to describe your image,
Take care of their size and weight to optimize loading time,
Enter the title of the image.

To learn more about SEO optimization of images:

And do not forget that Google Images has evolved. The advantage of this update allows a more quality image search.

How to value your SEO content?

Creating optimized SEO content will be beneficial for your visibility, provided you meet certain criteria on the web page that will host your content. A web page containing SEO content must include:

Title

It should contain the title of your web page and its content that will be displayed in Google’s results. It must, of course, contain the targeted main keyword.

Title tag

The title tag or H1 tag is the ‘editorial title’ of your content, it is visible on your page and must contain the keyword you are targeting.

A Meta Description

It informs Internet users of the content of the web page in the form of a short description. It is visible in the results of the search engines and must attract the user’s curiosity and encourage them to click on the link of your web page.

How to promote your SEO content?

When SEO content is added to other actions, you put the odds on your side to optimize the SEO and positioning of your web page. The SME, does it speak to you? Need a little reminder?

When you combine SEO, SEA, and SMO, the three complement each other and allow a good SEO of your website on Google.

The three main levers for promoting your content:

SEO, natural optimization,
SEA paid optimization,
SMO, optimization on social networks.

Indeed, a unique and quality SEO content must be relayed on social networks. Promoting quality SEO content is the best way to naturally get backlinks to increase awareness and visibility of your web page.

Who to call for SEO content?

To produce SEO content, you have several options:

Write content from A to Z alone by following the instructions of Google,
Write a first draft that will then be optimized for a web search agency,
Use an SEO agency or web editor.

In short,

Writing SEO content with high added value is essential to improve your positioning on Google. If despite all your efforts and following these tips the positioning of your website is not up to your expectations, do not hesitate to use the services of a web agency to conduct an audit of your website. This audit will allow you to identify and correct the weaknesses of your site to improve its performance.

July 12, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar

Why continue to use cookies and other personal data registration systems

Content writing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

How can cookies help you design an effective website?

Since the entry into force of the GDPR (General data protection regulation) on May 25, the corporate world, and more particularly the BtoC, seems to be experiencing a real data psychosis. This new European regulation worries many companies, who do not know what process to put in place to protect the personal data of their customers on the Web. Suddenly, for fear of possible retaliation, some might have a false good idea to remove the use of cookies and other systems for recording personal data on their website (such as Pixel Facebook and contact forms).

However, the GDPR does not mean the end of the personal data. On the contrary, the aim of this new regulation is not to prohibit their registration but rather to protect them, in particular by allowing the person concerned to manage them more easily. In fact, the motto for companies that collect personal data is that they must be able to justify the source of the data they hold and confirm that they have received the consent of the data subject to process the data. Attention, also, that it is always necessary to let this person the possibility of asking that his data be erased.

But for the rest, the data and their recording techniques remain essential for companies, who should not be afraid to use them. Their benefits are numerous, both from the point of view of the customer’s browsing experience and digital marketing. Why? Because the resulting statistics allow you to optimize your web presence. But an effective website can bring more customers and therefore more money. That’s why, at Mestar Digital Marketing Agency, we think as a little reminder of the many benefits of cookies, Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, and contact forms is much needed.

What are cookies and other data recording techniques?

Cookies, Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics … All these techniques for recording personal data may have different reasons for being. Now let’s look at each one.

Cookies:

Cookies are mainly used to improve the browsing experience of the user (and god knows how important it is!). These files are deposited by your website on the computer of the user who consults. Cookies consist only of text and contain all the personal information that the user has encoded on your website: his name, surname, username, address, age, identifier, etc. They are therefore completely harmless and can in no way access the contents of the computer to obtain information that the user has not provided.

Allow you to memorize certain information such as username, password, and user preferences, in order to avoid the person returning to your website from having to encode them again.
They also memorize for a certain period of time a product that you have placed in your virtual basket but that you do not buy. That way, if you finally decide to crack, you can find it easily without having to do a new search.

Facebook Pixel:

The Pixel Facebook is a small piece of code placed on your website. It is triggered when an action that you have previously marked as important is performed (for example, a purchase).

The goal is to develop highly qualified audiences for your Facebook ads, by analyzing the behavior of your customers on your website. Let’s take an example: if you indicate that your important action is a purchase on your site and that you then launch an advertising campaign on Facebook, the Facebook Pixel will let you know which people your advertising must touch (for example, those who came on your site but have not made a purchase) and those that should not be (such as those that have just made a purchase, and therefore have less chance to start again).
It allows for satisfying both the user who is not automatically retargeted after a purchase and your business, which can target much more easily the right people.

Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is a tool that allows you to collect a set of anonymous statistics on the traffic of your website (audience, origin, pages viewed …). The goal is to help you better understand your traffic and behavior and then improve the performance of your website. Thus, Google Analytics allows you, for example:

Measure the effectiveness of an AdWords campaign or the effectiveness of your SEO, to optimize them.
Determine the most effective channels, social networks, AdWords ads, Google searches …, to further target them and thus increase your chances of achieving your goals.
Monitor the conversion rate you get, that is to say, to verify that the goals you have set for yourself are being achieved and to improve what should be if they are not.
Check that the bounce rate (ie the number of sessions where the user has viewed a single page, without interacting with its content) is not too high.
Determine if your content strategy is effective. For example, if you want to check the success of an article you can see how many people viewed it, how long they spent on the page, and so on. This way, you can better understand the topics that most interest your audience and write more about them, to their delight.

You see it with this non-exhaustive list, the benefits of Google Analytics are really numerous. This tool is very valuable for companies that want to make sure that their website is efficient and that it earns them money. It also allows them to offer a much better web-based customer experience and therefore to get the satisfaction of their customers.

The case of contact forms:

You do not need to delete contact forms from your website. When you think about it, even if you only indicate an email address to which the customer can reach you, you would still be a database because you would have to answer it and use your personal email address. As a result, the GDPR would apply anyway.

It is, therefore, more interesting to keep contact forms, the benefits of which are numerous. Thanks to them :

You limit the risk of being relegated to unwanted email (spam)
You increase your chances of being contacted in an ‘impulsive’ way: Internet users who have direct access to a means of contact are more likely to fill out your form. If they had to go to their personal mailbox, transcribe your email address, think about the information they have to provide … They have a much better chance to get discouraged and give up.
You automate your email processing: all your emails have the same structure and allow you to obtain qualified and targeted information.

Conclusion:

Of course, being compliant with the GDPR is important. Companies that process personal data (which is the case for almost all companies since a simple email address is a personal data) must imperatively learn about the new rules established by Europe. But do not panic, though! GDPR does not mean the death of data, either. You can always register them, as long as you can justify their provenance, you have the consent of the person concerned and you respect his right to be forgotten.

So rather than delete all the ways to save data via your website (cookies, Facebook Pixel, contact form, Google Analytics …), just make sure they comply with the new rules. Thanks to them, you will be able to improve your performances on the Web, those of your site, your social networks, your contacts, but also improve the browsing experience of your customers.

Cookies and analytics are the foundation of an effective website and help you deliver quality content and customer experience. Because this is the challenge of the Web: to combine a website that brings you money, which fulfills the objectives that you have set, but also offers a good browsing experience and is interesting for your customers and your prospects. Without these tools, the Web would lose its interest, while, thanks to them, it gains in efficiency.

July 5, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar

GDPR impact on SEO

Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization

What will be the impact of the GDPR on SEO?

The GDPR is on everyone’s lips right now. Indeed the new legislation comes into force on May 25, 2018. But what is the GDPR, why does it come into force and will it have an impact on the SEO?

What is GDPR?

The GDPR is the General Regulation on the Protection of Data (or GDPR for General data protection regulation), a text of the law (Law No. 2016/679) adopted in 2016 by the European Union. This text will enter into force on 25 May 2018 and will serve as a European reference for the protection of citizen’s personal data. The text of the law brings new and much more binding obligations on the treatment and the circulation of these data on which the companies rely on to offer their services and products.

Why GDPR?

The entry into force of the GDPR reinforces the main principles issued by the Data Protection Act, in force since 1978, to increase the rights of citizens and give them more control over their data according to the CNIL. But the text of the law also aims to replace a directive of 1995 and thus become the new reference text on personal data in the European Union. The explosion of digital technology and the new uses that this entails made it indispensable to adjust a directive that was more than twenty years old.

The GDPR is part of a desire to harmonize the European legal panorama with regard to the protection of personal data, thus, one and the same law applies to all Member States.

When does the GDPR come into effect?

The entry into force of the GDPR took place in two stages. The text was first adopted by parliament on April 14, 2016, and promulgated on April 27 in the official journal. However, it has been decided to postpone its application for two years, it will take place in a little over a month, on May 25th, 2018. These two years have allowed both national legislation and businesses collecting and processing personal data to prepare for the entry into force of the law. After May 25, sanctions will be imposed on any processing of personal data in violation of the GDPR. Companies that commit breaches of the rules enacted by the GDPR incur up to 20 million euros or 4% of the annual turnover of fine.

What’s changing on websites?

It will be necessary to provide the users with a clear and precise information which data will be collected and for what purpose in order to obtain or not its consent. In addition to giving the user the right to act on his data, the company must keep a record of consent in order to defend itself in case of complaint and the control of the CNIL that would result.

What impact will the GDPR have on natural referencing?

In fact, not much since the ranking criteria of a website does not depend on how the data are collected or a number of subscribers to a newsletter.

And no search engine has yet indicated that the compliance of a site with the GDPR would become a ranking criterion. That said, this is not a reason for not complying on the one hand, and maybe in the future, this criterion will be taken into account on the other hand. You never know with the search engines.

The impact of the GDPR on SEO will be more subtle especially on the side of the UX and analytic data collections.

Another reason to put SEO and UX in relation?

Yes, again a reason to put SEO and UX in relation. As we know the use and ease of access to information of a site participates in its good ranking in the search engines. And the consent request that will have to be offered to users from May 25th will probably be presented on most sites in the manner of a request for acceptance of cookies. It will then be necessary to bring the consent request in the most user-friendly, and the least heavy in bytes so as not to impact the site loading speed.

An ill-thought-out, invasive pop-up window that puts the user experience at risk could scare your visitors away. And the flight of visitors inevitably leads to a loss of positions in the rankings of search engines. And it’s the same idea for a device that would require a lot of resources, which slow down the loading of your pages and which would, therefore, risk seeing your visitors leave as quickly as they arrived.

Analysis tools and data collection

In a newsletter addressed to its users, Google announces that the necessary measures are taken for the deployment of the GDPR. The newsletter informs us that precise data retention parameters will be put in place and will make it possible ‘to determine the storage duration of the data relating to the users […] As of May 25, 2018, these data will be kept according to the defined parameters. Google Analytics will automatically delete those that exceed the chosen retention period. Google encourages you to review these data retention settings and change them if necessary.

The newsletter also informs us that ‘Google Analytics and Analytics 360 will continue to offer different rules and features related to the collection, use, and retention of your data, to help you secure them. For example, you’ll have features for customizable cookie settings, privacy settings, data sharing settings, deletion of data when you disable an account, and IP anonymization. They may be useful when you assess the impact of the GDPR on the specific situation of your business and the integration of Analytics. ‘

In conclusion, it will be necessary to be vigilant on the way to collect the data of the visitors of your website.

July 3, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar

4 Criteria to evaluate your SEO

Local SEO, Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization

4 CRITERIA TO EVALUATE YOUR SEO

SEO is relatively unclear for may marketing professionals and an abstract marketing and customer acquisition lever. Indeed, it contains a part of ‘chance’ related to the goodwill of Google and other search engines to put forward your website or not. Fortunately, there are criteria that can show if you are going in the right direction in your SEO strategy. Discover 4 criteria to evaluate your SEO with Great Northern Marketing Calgary Local SEO. Read more

July 3, 2018/by Mohammed Mestar