A sitemap is as it sounds: a map of your website. It both helps with the general navigation and appearance of your website, but also with your SEO rankings. While you do not technically need to have a sitemap for a website, they certainly make your site more user-friendly and easier for search engine bots to find and index. Here’s what you need to know about the functionality of sitemaps for the user experience and for SEO.

In Regards To The User Experience

Sitemaps help with the theme, navigation, and organization of your website. This instantly makes your site look more put together and easily understandable and accessible than a site without a sitemap would be.

Navigation.

Since sitemaps are literally a map of your site, they have links to everything on it, which makes navigation easier. People do not have the patience to figure out a site that is not clear and well-organized. Utilizing a sitemap will help users both instantly understand what your site is about and how to navigate it.

Organization.

They also help with organization, by having everything on your site neatly filed away. This both assists with the theme and navigation of your site as mentioned above and with whenever you need to add or rearrange your site. It’s easier to add sections or content to a site where you can already see what is on it and how it is laid out.

If you want a user-friendly site, you’ll want to utilize a sitemap. You don’t want all of the hard work put into making a website to go unnoticed through having a site people won’t stay on. Having a clear, easily navigated, organized website will encourage people to stay on it and click around, making sure all the work and information put into it will be seen.

In Regards To SEO

A sitemap lists every page on your site so that search engine bots can find all the information you have available on your website and learn how they relate, so they can make better sense of your content for search engine optimization. This is to say that these search engine bots are figuring out the relevancy of your site to the searches people make, and whether you are on the first page of results or further back. Ergo, this affects your visibility.

Finding And Indexing.

Search engine bots will still find and index your site without a sitemap, but that doesn’t mean they will see everything you want them to. This means that they may not recognize all the content you have to offer, and your search engine ranking can call. A sitemap will help with this.

Sitemaps have a list of all pages on your site so search engine bots will be able to find and index all of them. They also include metadata, which is context about every page, which tells the search engine bots how the pages on your website are organized, how they relate to each other, their update history, and more.

This is why they’re so important to ensure that search engine bots can recognize all the content you have, rather than potentially missing something, and so that they can mark how they relate.

SEO is about more than just keywords. The optimization of a site is in every part of it, from the way it is designed to the content on it to your potential sitemap. Having a sitemap for your site helps with SEO because it tells search engine bots everything they need to know about your site, which is what helps them figure out where your site falls in search results. Thus, having a sitemap boosts the visibility of your website by raising its rank in search results.

Can You Get Away Without Using A Sitemap?

If you have a small website that is comprehensively linked without much in the way of media, you could get away without using a sitemap. But you probably still should, for the sake of the user experience and to help your SEO rankings.

If you have a large or new website, you’ll most certainly need a sitemap. This is because with large websites, it’s much easier for search engine bots to miss information than in smaller ones. It’s also harder to navigate a large site without one, leading to frustrated users. If you have a new site, it probably won’t be linked to on other sites, which will make it harder for search engine bots to find. Uploading a sitemap will make it more visible and easier to index.

Need Help Staying On Top Of Sitemaps?

With Google coming out with a fifth version of their XML sitemaps soon, it’s important to be educated on the values of sitemaps and how they can help your business. Here at Performance Driven Marketing, we know the importance of a good user experience and SEO for increasing your visibility. If you would like to learn more about how our experts can help you, please contact us at Performance Driven Marketing today!

How important are customer reviews to a business? Nine out of ten customers claim they read online reviews prior to working with a business. With at least 88% of consumers trusting online reviews as much as a referral or personal recommendation, it is an essential component of your online marketing strategy.

Online reviews have an impact on your sales. However, obtaining reviews has always seemed to be a challenge for businesses. How do you know your most satisfied customers will leave reviews? What should you do in the event you receive a negative review?

Getting Started with Online Reviews

Understanding how reviews work is the place to start. Business owners need to take some time to familiarize themselves with Google My Business and other social platforms where customers leave reviews. Depending upon your industry, you may find yourself dealing with reviews on websites like:

Yelp
Facebook
Yellowpages
TripAdvisor
Manta
Amazon
Citysearch
Foursquare

Local Businesses and Online Reviews

Multiple studies show that 53% of customers will visit a business within 48 hours of performing a local search. In addition, 33% of customers surveyed by ReviewTrackers say they will not eat in a restaurant with less than 4 stars or multiple negative reviews.

Bad reviews will hurt your business and can drop your website ranking. In fact, one single negative review can drop sales by 5-8% or more!

Google My Business

Each month, Google averages about 158.3 million visitors. With such high exposure, it pays to spend some time optimizing your profile. It is free to claim your Google My Business profile and it does give your business a stronger local presence. Once you have verified your business listing, your website will start to appear in the search engine results and people can start leaving reviews.

Google My Business does provide an option for businesses to post updates and share information directly with the customers. If you do not have a website, or you feel your website is not that impressive, your Google My Business page will become one of the best free resources you have available to keep focused on attracting customers.

Asking for Customer Reviews

It is important to ask your customers for reviews. We utilize services that make it easier for customers to submit a review. We can customize a personalized email and SMS text message tool that will go directly to the customer, making it easier for them to leave a review.

Never be afraid to ask customers directly for a review. If they are in your store and having a great interaction, ask them to leave a review. Most customers are happy to leave a positive review when they have a good interaction with the business in person.

Handling a Negative Review

What happens when you have a negative review? The most important thing we can stress is to avoid attacking the reviewer. Before you even respond to the review, you need to make sure you know all the facts. One thing you can do is make sure you read the review, take the information into consideration and respond positively.

When you respond, the upset customer may update their review or might even remove it entirely. Potential customers will be able to see the response and notice that the business does care about customer satisfaction and is seeking to always improve.

Add Reviews to Your Website

Customers love testimonials as it gives them peace of mind. People want to know what type of experiences people have been experiencing with the business. Use a variety of clients to provide feedback in multiple industries and continue improving the conversion rates for your business.

Online reviews are vital to each industry. Failing to prioritize online reviews can be detrimental to your business. Reputation is everything in the modern Internet-driven world. Successful reviews may not happen immediately, but with the right tools and engagement strategy, you will be able to see a boost in your online reputation and website traffic!

Are you a small business owner impacted by coronavirus (COVID-19)? In Utah, small businesses make up 90% of all employers and represent just under half of the state’s total workforce, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. As many businesses are closed, or running at partial capacity, many business owners are looking for new ways to try and keep their businesses alive in a time of crisis. Fortunately, the Internet can help local businesses find way to stay connected with customers and continue turning a profit. Here are some tips that will help your business thrive right now, but also be prepared for any future crisis like COVID-19 that have forever changed how small businesses are run.

Creating short-term and long-term plans

Never stop marketing your business. Even if you run a dental practice that is currently closed to everything except dental emergencies, you need to continue online marketing. Internet traffic for many local businesses offering in-person services (dentistry, carpet cleaning, massage therapy, restaurants) are all seeing declines in traffic right now as many people are concerned about exposure risk, and businesses are following Utah state-issued guidelines.

The importance of online marketing comes down to this, when you STOP marketing your business, you will lose business. Pausing your marketing service will place your business in a situation when you are reactive in June, July and August. When businesses can start opening again, where will your website be as they search for local service? In time, markets will start to recover and many of our friends and neighbors will be back to work and back in their stores. Making marketing decisions based on fear will doom your business.

We recommend creating a business reality plan for 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. Our expert marketing team is here to help you understand your market, and what you need to do in order to get through this crisis. We want to stress to you that there ARE options. While you can look at your past strategies that have worked, we can help you identify other tactics that you have not implemented before. In fact, we recommend local businesses owners should consider marketing MORE during this time.

How can you market with a cash flow shortage?

This is not the time to give up. What can you do if you are trying to stay alive, and have limited funds for marketing? Here’s a marketing game-plan to help you get started:

- Focus on your website. Is this the time to redesign or enhance your website? YES! When traffic is slower to your site, it’s a great time for a website revamp. In a month or two, you can set up a new marketing campaign as the economy reopens to announce your new website and how it makes your customer’s lives easier.
- Google my business. Your best friend online is always going to be Google. Whether you like it or not, Google organic search drives more than 50 percent of all website traffic. Don’t fight against Google recommendations, embrace them and your website will improve.
- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. All your basic social media accounts NEED engagement. Social media provides one of the easiest and simple ways to get in front of your customers. Local business owners can control the messages that are sent to the customers. We have found great success with social media as it not only gets a clear message to the customer, it’s a great way to improve customer relationships. Over 80% of small business revenue comes from existing customers. If you aren’t getting in front of those customers with social media, you could lose them.
- YouTube. Explainer videos are a great way to educate your customers. For example, let’s say you own a plumbing business and you want to connect with your customers. A great way to do this is to film yourself working on a basic repair job. You can offer some troubleshooting tips to the customers on how they can make some repairs on their own. While you think you might be losing business, you won’t. 90% of online shoppers say they will use videos to help them make purchasing decisions. Basic explainer videos give you an opportunity to showcase your skillset to your customers and show people why YOU are the local experts in your industry.

PDM Pro Tip: “Explainer videos less than 15 seconds long are shared 37% more often.”

Print media. As local business owners are struggling to make ends meet, a number of print media resources are cutting print advertising costs. Ask your account representative about a print marketing campaign that will help you get directly to the doorstep of your target audience.

Know your traffic and clean up your website

If you want to create a comprehensive approach to online marketing, take a look at your analytics data. The referral data can show you if there are other sources you need to update and if there are other places you need to spend time working on in order to remain connected to your customers.

While we know not everyone is an online marketing expert, there are things you can do to clean up your website. Take some time to review every page on your website and ask yourself the following questions:

Is the content relevant to the page?
Are the images and content outdated?
Do we have a clear message on our website?
Is the website easy to navigate?
Are we driving customers to the right call-to-action areas?

Small business crisis marketing gameplan

Keeping your business connected is vital to business success. Follow our pro tips to make sure your business has a strategy for the next three months:

Let your customers know you are open for business
1. If you are still open, tell your customers! Inform people daily on social media how your business is responding to COVID (or whatever new crisis our country may be dealing with). If you aren’t telling people your business is open, your customers may assume your business is closed. Have a clear message on your website homepage and update those social media accounts! If your business has closed, inform customers what they can do in the meantime and when they can expect to hear back from you if they do try and contact your business.
Update your website with a pop-up banner
1. As previously mentioned, you need to update your website. Your website is your 24/7 sales team. Include a pop-up or banner message that clearly informs your customers how your business is responding to the crisis.
Update Google my business
1. If you do not have a website, focus on your Google my business listing. Your business listing is a valuable way to connect to your customers. Update your hours and you can post on there about staffing issues and why it may take longer to respond to messages during this time.
Blog
1. During times of uncertainty, people need to know that something is “the same”. A blog post is a great way to let people know that. Keeping your website updated with new and fresh content keeps your website in good graces with Google, in addition to giving you something new you can share with customers on your social media accounts.
SMS messages
1. Do you have a strong customer base that has signed up for a text message service? Text message marketing is a great way to provide an update on business hours and availability.
Social media
1. We already talked about social media, but we want to remind you of the importance of updating your social profiles. The entire world is facing COVID-19 and many people are stuck at home….and bored. People are spending more time on social media, giving your business ample opportunity to get in front of your customers and leads.

PDM Pro Tip: Use community-based groups to inform local customers that your business is open.

Nextdoor and other local community groups
1. Share relevant information with other local websites. Contact your city offices and ask them if they will provide an update about your business on their website and social media accounts. Join Nextdoor to connect with your local customers and share relevant information.

Handling customer contact during COVID-19

If your business is currently interacting with customers in the office, it’s a great time to make sure you are showing HOW your business is responding to COVID-19. Wearing facemasks in the workplace, practicing diligent hand-washing and cleanliness is essential. Bring our your brand message with some promotional materials you can hand out, like hand sanitizer! Showing people how you respond to COVID-19 is bringing them peace of mind as they know the risk of infection occurring from interaction with your business is low thanks to your adherence to OSHA and CDC requirements.

Community giveaways and local support

A great way to share good news with your local audience is by offering a community-related giveaway. There are some great benefits to working with your local city office and finding out how your business can help support current needs. It can be something as simple as donating facemasks, gloves, hand sanitizer, hand soap, etc. Local offices are working with businesses to give them adequate support during this time, which brings about some great exposure in the community. Here are a few suggestions on what your business can do to show support:

Donate supplies like hand sanitizer to key workers
Donate or sponsor a food giveaway for families in need or to nursing homes and local shelters

PDM Pro Tip: Customers want to know businesses care about them and the community. Do what you can to provide service to strengthen your relationship with the local community.

Strengthen your business reputation

Look for some ways to build your business reputation. Podcasts, digital conferences, and speaking opportunities in your niche market provide you with the ability to truly establish your business as the one “in the know” about your industry. Virtual conferences are a great way to showcase your skillset to your target audience.

Local podcasts are always seeking business owners to interview and discuss various topics. Find a good podcast and reach out to them. Establish yourself as an expert by offering your opinion and return as a guest time and time again to generate more buzz!

How about hosting a digital event? No matter what industry you are in, you can host a digital event. Restaurants can offer a free cooking class and teach people how to make sushi, or some other fun dish! Contractors can show some pro tips on how to correctly finish sheet rocking your business. No matter what industry, you can take your top customer questions and needs and create a date and time to show them to answer with a digital event.

If you have a particular skillset that you would normally charge money for, offer online training courses and charge a small fee. You’d be surprised to see how many people will sign up for a course if you are the expert teaching them valuable information.

PDM Pro Tip: A good email list and a clean marketing message will help deliver the correct information to your core audience and will encourage them to share it with others.

Deep breaths….online traffic will return

We don’t have all the answers, but we know online traffic will return. People are searching online, even if your business is currently closed. When things calm down and people begin returning to their workplaces, searches will increase. In the meantime, we recommend staying on top of Google Trends and finding ways to offer answers to questions. Find a way to make trending searches relatable to your industry.

Don’t Ignore Your Website

Ignoring your website can have devastating consequences. Google continues to release updates to their search engine algorithm, which could take a website from page 1 to page 3 in a day. You need to make sure your website makes a solid first impression as it is often the first experience most people will have with your business.

What to Consider for a Website Re-do

As you start scouring other websites for ideas on what you’d like to incorporate into your website redesign, we recommend understanding the importance of color, layout, functionality, and user experience. While a great looking site might impress you, it is important to consider the back-end of your website and the work that must be done to help Google and other search engines actually FIND your website and start ranking it. At Performance Driven Marketing, we provide local search engine optimization services for customers all over Utah, Idaho, California, and surrounding areas. Our team will help you bring your vision of a new website to life, or we can create a vision for you. Here are some of the important elements that must go into refreshing your website:

Website Design

The overall design of the website is vital as it needs to have a design that reflects your company image. To be noticed online, the design needs to be relevant and useful while also being unique. To help your website stand out, we use the following techniques:

Implementing geometric shapes and lines
Creative styling and fonts
Multi-tone gradient imagery
Mobile responsiveness
Custom logo creation and home page design

User Experience

While the look and feel of the website needs to be impressive, the overall user experience is vital to keeping a person from clicking off your website. The viewer needs to be able to find their way around your site effectively for them to find what they are looking for. Web users do not have patience and they will jump off a site quickly if they cannot find the information they need right away.

We find that web users like to be told what to do. Well structured menus and organized information helps them to properly navigate the website, making it easier on the user to find what they want. We recommend a clear call to action on a page, and always have your contact information visible for customers that choose to call or email you.
Avoid extra buttons and unnecessary information that can overwhelm your potential customers. Keep a single call to action on a page and stick with a prominent search bar function at the top of each webpage and a link to the sitemap at the bottom. Clean, easy, simple websites are those that often gain the most visitors.

Content

Content is essential for your website to rank properly. Google has been working hard to remove spam websites from the search engine. Websites that clearly copy content from another site risks being banned from the search engines entirely. Content needs to be clear and immediately available for the potential customers to understand answers to their questions. With the right information at their fingertips, customers will start turning to your company as the authority figure and the source of information in the industry. Engaging, useful, and professional content is the best way to accomplish this goal.

How do you create quality content?

You need to start by defining your audience and asking common questions that pertain to them. Fill out each question with an insightful answer, similar to a face-to-face conversation. As you answer these questions, focus on your ability to solve your client’s problems. Quality content will be able to build trust with your industry and can help to spread your brand’s name across the Internet.

Bridging the Gap with SEO

The term SEO tends to cause skepticism to some people as they assume you don’t need to do much for a website once it’s live. However, without the right optimization of the website, your online presence can struggle to be seen. We want your website to meet its true online potential without costing you an arm and a leg. Modern SEO goes much further than adding keywords, ALT tags, and mobile-friendliness. Let Performance Driven Marketing help your website thrive with our proven techniques.

In the digital era of fast-paced Internet and impatient web user, you cannot afford to have an outdated, slow, poorly designed website. If you are planning a website redesign, or you want to see what you can do to improve your website’s visibility, call our Ogden SEO Company today.

Officially, as of September 26^th, Google Hummingbird changed the landscape of the SEO realm. Since its unofficial release about a month previous to Google’s 15^th anniversary, it has affected more than 90 percent of internet searches. And, while Google Panda and Penguin were minor changes to Google’s algorithm, Google Hummingbird is a complete overhaul of the algorithm, replaced with something altogether new.

Google Past and Present

Before Google Hummingbird, the search algorithms mainly relied on key terms to give the searchers what they were looking for. However, with the new and improved algorithm, Google is focusing less on the actual words being used in the search phrase and more on what they mean. In this way, Google has moved from a focus on individual keywords to semantics.
These changes became necessary when voice searches on mobile devices started to become popular. People are now using longer, more conversational search phrases to find new restaurants in their area, for instance. Google is accommodating for that with an algorithm that identifies the core meaning of the search phrase and pulls up relevant information accordingly.

What Do These Changes Mean for SEO?

Naturally, the next step is to see how these changes force internet marketing companies to adapt their strategies. Here are some basic tips that should help you survive in the world of Google Hummingbird:

Focus on words and the synonyms of those words that are relevant to your customers
Make your content match questions that customers frequently ask
Allow your writing to include conversational search phrases
Add relevant combinations of items in your content that are often searched together
Remember that high-quality, relevant content is what Google is ultimately looking for

Now, more than ever, content is king. Fire up those thinking caps and make sure that your website has beautifully relevant and well-written content that will appeal both to Google and to Google users. Having a mobile website will also facilitate an easier move from Google’s graveyard to Google Hummingbird.
Whether you’re interested in having content written, having your website optimized for search engine optimization, or getting a mobile website, Performance Driven Marketing has the experts to help you! Call us today at (801)-698-4129!

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