What is Search Intent?

Search intent, or user intent, is the motivation behind every search query entered into a search engine. What drives someone to type those particular words? Are they seeking information, trying to make a purchase, or looking for a specific website? Understanding search intent is crucial for SEO because it influences how well your content performs in search rankings and how visitors interact with your site.

Google’s algorithms have evolved to prioritize websites that best match not only the keywords but also the intent behind the queries. This focus on search intent means Google aims to list content that aligns most closely with what the searcher is actually seeking.

For example, if a user searches “how to install a ceiling fan,” they are likely looking for a detailed guide or instructional video, indicating informational intent. Knowing this, your content should provide comprehensive, step-by-step installation instructions to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why is Search Intent Important for SEO?

Google’s top priority is to provide users with the most relevant and helpful results for their searches. By understanding and aligning with search intent, you can create content that not only ranks higher but also truly satisfies your visitors.

Imagine Google as a matchmaker between users and the information they’re seeking. If your content matches the user’s intent, Google is more likely to show it at the top of the search results. This means more visibility for you and a better experience for your audience.

For instance, when someone searches for “best SEO tools 2023,” they’re probably looking to compare options before making a decision. If your content offers detailed comparisons and honest reviews, you’re directly addressing their needs.

For more insights into how search intent can impact your keyword rankings, check out this detailed article.

The Types of Search Intent For SEO

Search intent can be categorized into four buckets: informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial investigation. Here’s a breakdown of each type and how they differ from one another:

1. Informational Intent

Informational intent is when searchers are primarily looking to learn or gather information without any immediate intention of making a purchase.

For example, if someone searches for “how to tie a tie,” they are seeking knowledge. Your content for these queries should be informative and clearly answer the questions posed.

2. Navigational Intent

Navigational intent means the user is trying to reach a specific website or webpage. A typical query might be “Twitter login” or “Spotify app download.” Here, the searcher knows their destination and uses the search engine as a shortcut. Your goal should be to facilitate their navigation by ensuring that your site is optimally structured to lead them to their intended target quickly.

3. Transactional Intent

Transactional intent is when the searcher’s goal is to perform some type of transaction, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. Searches like “best buy iphone 14” or “buy ceiling fans” clearly indicate this intent. To cater to these users, your content should include strong calls to action and a streamlined purchasing process that makes it easy to transition from interest to action.

4. Commercial Intent

Commercial intent is for searchers who are on the brink of making a purchase but are still comparing options or looking for the best deal. This intent is seen in queries such as “best SEO tools 2023” or “Samsung vs. iPhone reviews.” These users are looking for detailed comparisons and reviews to help them make informed purchasing decisions.

Identifying Search Intent

How can you tell what users really want from their search queries? Start with these strategies:

1. SERP Analysis:

Look at the current top results for a keyword. What do they suggest about user expectations? If the top results are how-to guides, it’s likely that users are looking for informational content. On the other hand, if the results are product pages or reviews, the intent might be a transactional or commercial investigation. Analyzing the SERPs can give you a clear idea of what type of content Google believes best serves the user intent for that keyword.

2. Keyword Modifiers:

Pay attention to words that modify searches, such as “how to,” “buy,” or “review.” These types of queries can indicate the intent behind the search. For example, a query like “how to bake a cake” suggests informational intent, while “buy iPhone 12” indicates transactional intent. Here are some common modifiers to look out for:

• how to – informational
• best – commercial
• buy – transactional
• reviews – commercial
• cheap – transactional
• top – commercial investigation
• guide – informational
• benefits of – informational
• vs – commercial investigation
• near me – transactional

3. Analytics:

Dive into your site analytics. Which articles perform best, and what does this tell you about your visitors’ intentions? By examining which pages have the most engagement and conversions, you can infer the search intent behind the keywords driving traffic to those pages. This data can guide you in optimizing existing content and creating new content that aligns with user intent.

How To Optimize Content for Search Intent

When creating or optimizing content, it’s important to align with the search intent of your audience. This will ensure that your pages effectively meet their needs. There are many techniques you can use to optimize content depending on the intent of the page. Let’s dive into some strategies for optimizing content to match different types of search intent.

Optimizing for Informational Intent

When optimizing for informational intent, focus on providing clear, authoritative answers to users’ questions. Popular content formats for meeting this intent include:

• Blogs and Articles: These should thoroughly cover topics relevant to your audience’s queries.
• Guides and Tutorials: In-depth and step-by-step formats work best for those seeking comprehensive information on a subject.
• Videos: Ideal for users who prefer visual and auditory learning. Make sure they are well-captioned and structured to address specific questions throughout the video.

Use natural language keywords and questions as headers to improve SEO and ensure your content directly addresses users’ needs.

Optimizing for Navigational Intent

Users with navigational intent know where they want to go; they just need help getting there. Ensure your brand and product names are prominently featured across your site, particularly in:

• Page Titles and Meta Descriptions: Make them clear and accurate to improve visibility in search results.
• Header Tags: Including branded keywords in H1 or H2 tags can help with page ranking for navigational searches.

Make sure your internal linking is robust enough to guide users effortlessly through your site.

Optimizing for Transactional Intent

For transactional intent, your goal is to facilitate a smooth and straightforward path to conversion. Here are some key strategies:

• Clear Calls to Action (CTAs): Ensure your CTAs are prominent and compelling, guiding users to make a purchase or sign up.
• Streamlined Checkout Processes: Simplify the steps required to complete a transaction to reduce cart abandonment.
• Trust Signals: Include customer reviews, security badges, and guarantees to build trust and encourage conversions.

Optimizing for Commercial Investigation

When users are in the commercial investigation phase, they are comparing options before making a purchase decision. Your content should help them make an informed choice by including:

• Comparative Content: Create side-by-side comparisons of your products versus competitors.
• Detailed Product Reviews: Offer in-depth reviews and analyses of your products.
• User Testimonials: Showcase positive experiences from satisfied customers to build credibility and trust.

Examples of Successful Search Intent SEO

Let’s dive into a real-world example to illustrate how understanding search intent can significantly impact SEO and user experience. One of my clients is a factory automation wholesale distributor who sells industrial automation parts. Their main audience consists of experts in the field who are potentially looking for replacement parts or repairs for their automation systems.

Identifying Transactional Intent

After analyzing the keywords my client was ranking for, I discovered that many of them had transactional intent. It appeared that in this industry, users often search for specific product names or numbers, indicating that they’re ready to purchase a particular product immediately.

With this discovery, we decided to look at different methods to streamline and enhance the current checkout process.

Original Setup: Request a Quote

Originally, the checkout process on my client’s website required users to ‘Request a Quote’ for every product. Users had to get in contact with my client via a ‘Request a Quote’ button and form, or they could call or email. There was no way for users to go through the checkout process themselves and purchase a product directly through the website without talking to a representative. This extra step could deter users who were ready to buy on the spot.

Streamlined Checkout Process

To better align with the identified transactional intent, we introduced a new checkout method that allows users to add products to a cart and checkout on their own. We still maintained the ‘Request a formal quote’ option and ensured the ‘Contact Us’ link was prominently displayed in the main header for users who had questions.

SEO and Search Intent Benefits

By streamlining the checkout process, we effectively catered to the transactional intent of our audience. This change is expected to have several positive outcomes:

• Improved User Experience: By reducing friction in the purchasing process, we enhance the user experience, making it easier for customers to complete their purchases.
• Increased Conversions: A smoother checkout process can lead to higher conversion rates, as users are less likely to abandon their purchase due to a cumbersome process.
• Higher Search Rankings: Search engines prioritize sites that provide a seamless user experience. By aligning our content and checkout process with the transactional user intent, we improve our chances of ranking higher in search results.
• Engaged Audience: Providing a clear path to purchase helps meet the immediate needs of users, increasing satisfaction and the likelihood of repeat visits.

By understanding and optimizing for transactional intent, we ensured that our content and user experience were perfectly aligned with what our audience was looking for, ultimately driving more traffic and conversions.

Challenges in Understanding and Applying Search Intent

Understanding and applying search intent can be challenging for marketers. Here are some common hurdles and how to overcome them:

Ambiguous Queries

One of the biggest challenges is dealing with ambiguous queries. These are search terms that are not clearly defined and can have multiple meanings. For example, a query like “apple” could refer to the fruit, the tech company, or even a music band.

Solution: To handle ambiguous queries, perform a thorough SERP analysis to see what type of content is ranking. This can give you insight into what most users are looking for. Additionally, consider creating content that addresses multiple interpretations, or use modifiers to clarify the intent in your keywords, like “Apple fruit nutrition” vs. “Apple iPhone features.”

Overlapping Intents

Sometimes, a single query can have overlapping intents. For instance, a search for “best DSLR camera” might have both informational intent (looking for reviews) and transactional intent (ready to purchase).

Solution: Create comprehensive content that serves multiple intents. For the example above, a blog post that includes detailed reviews, comparison charts, and direct purchase links can cater to both informational and transactional intents. Structured content with clear sections can help users quickly find what they are looking for.

Changing User Behavior

User behavior and search patterns can change over time, making it difficult to maintain alignment with search intent. What worked well a year ago might not be effective today.

Solution: Regularly review your analytics and perform periodic keyword research to stay updated on current trends and user behavior. Adapt your content strategy based on these insights to ensure you are meeting the evolving needs of your audience.

Limited Data

For niche markets or new websites, there might be limited data available to accurately determine search intent. This can make it difficult to create content that aligns well with user needs.

Solution: In such cases, leverage competitor analysis to gather insights on what’s working well in your industry. Look at the content and keywords your competitors are using and how they address user intent. Also, consider using surveys or feedback forms to ask your audience about their needs and preferences directly.

Balancing SEO and User Experience

Sometimes, optimizing for search engines can conflict with creating a seamless user experience. For example, stuffing a page with keywords might improve rankings but could make the content less readable.

Solution: Focus on creating high-quality, user-centric content that naturally incorporates relevant keywords. Use clear headings, bullet points, and concise paragraphs to improve readability. Remember that search engines are increasingly prioritizing user experience in their ranking algorithms.

By recognizing these challenges and implementing best practices to address them, you can better understand and apply search intent to enhance your SEO strategy and provide a better user experience.

To Wrap Up

Understanding and incorporating search intent into your SEO strategies is crucial for achieving better search rankings and enhancing user satisfaction. By aligning your content with what users are truly looking for, you can create a more engaging and effective online presence.

Take the time to audit your existing content and evaluate how well it meets the various types of search intent. Use the insights gained from analyzing user behavior and search patterns to guide your future content planning. By doing so, you’ll be better equipped to create content that not only attracts more visitors but also converts them into satisfied customers.

Remember, the key to successful SEO is to meet your audience where they are and provide them with the information they need. Start applying these principles today, and watch as your website’s performance and user engagement improve.

If you need help strengthening your SEO strategy and optimizing for search intent, check out our SEO services or contact us for expert assistance.

What Is Search Intent In SEO? is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

We all know you can’t have a business without products or services to sell, tools and systems to keep things running smoothly, and profit to keep the lights on. But, at the end of the day, it’s people who breathe life into a business, and successful companies understand the importance of putting customers at the center of everything. Take Amazon, for example. No one would deny that Amazon is an extremely successful company, and according to their About page, customer obsession is one of their four guiding principles.  

This customer-first mindset is often referred to as customer-centricity. In today’s fast-paced, technology-obsessed world, it can be the key to building a business people like, trust, remember, and keep coming back to. So, let’s explore what customer-centricity is, why it’s essential, and how to use it to create effective digital marketing strategies. 

What is Customer-Centricity? 

Customer-centricity is the philosophy and practice of prioritizing the customer in all aspects of business operations. It involves deeply understanding customer needs, preferences, and expectations, then aligning your products, services, and processes to meet those needs effectively. Essentially, it means putting the customer at the heart of everything your business does. 

This customer-first approach means focusing on creating positive customer experiences and allowing the goal of enhancing that experience to guide every decision and action within the company. It means going beyond a surface-level understanding to truly empathize with customers and provide comprehensive, personalized solutions to address their needs. 

Building a customer-centric company culture is about recognizing that customers are the lifeblood of a business and orienting all strategies, processes, and actions toward delivering value and satisfaction to them. It’s a fundamental aspect of success in business environments where customer expectations evolve rapidly. Creating satisfaction, loyalty, and brand advocacy requires prioritizing the customer in all decisions related to delivering products, services, and experiences. This commitment is the core of a customer-centric business model.

With so many options available to consumers, providing exceptional customer experiences can help your business stand out against competitors. By prioritizing genuine understanding and providing value at every customer touchpoint, you can begin to strengthen connections and drive business growth. 

Benefits of a Customer-Centric Approach

Business success cannot be measured solely by the quality of products or services offered, or the amount of money the business generates. Companies that truly thrive in the competitive business landscape have to recognize the importance of putting their customers first. A customer-centric business strategy can drive substantial growth, increase revenue, and improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. 

Customer-centricity is about building a relationship with the customer based on trust, empathy, and mutual value. By embracing this approach, businesses can cultivate an environment where customers feel seen, heard, and understood, leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Satisfied customers are not only 6 times more likely to make repeat purchases, but they can also become brand advocates, spreading positive sentiments in reviews, on social media, or with friends and family.

In today’s interconnected world, where people rely heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations and online reviews, loyal customers who advocate for your brand become invaluable assets. Their endorsements can influence purchasing decisions and attract new customers to your business. 

Balancing Technology and Human Connection

Technology is unavoidable—from smartphones to computers to AI, we’re surrounded by technological advancements in every aspect of our lives. It’s a powerful tool that helps us deliver exceptional customer experiences more efficiently. From sophisticated CRMs to AI-driven chatbots, technological innovations continue to evolve and change how businesses interact with customers. By leveraging automation and data analytics, companies can streamline processes, anticipate customer needs, and provide tailored solutions more effectively than ever before. 

However, it’s important to view technology as a means to enhance and augment the overall customer experience rather than as a replacement for human interaction. By prioritizing empathy, active listening, and personalized engagement, businesses can create genuine connections with their customers. Even at an enterprise level, carefully analyzing customer data and feedback can allow businesses to anticipate their customers’ needs and preferences. The key lies in leveraging technology to help you better understand your customers, using those insights to drive business decisions, and streamlining internal processes to consistently and efficiently deliver exceptional experiences. 

Leveraging Customer-Centricity to Drive Innovation and Overcome Challenges

Beyond improving the customer experience and encouraging brand loyalty, customer-centric thinking can help you overcome business challenges, inspire innovative solutions, and gain a competitive edge. By placing customers at the heart of the decision-making process, businesses can tailor their offerings, messaging, and strategies to resonate more deeply with their target audience, driving engagement, loyalty, and, ultimately, revenue.

One of the most compelling aspects of customer-centricity for business leaders is the ability to fuel innovation and encourage a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement. By deeply understanding customer needs and preferences, businesses can identify opportunities for growth. Whether it’s developing new products, enhancing existing offerings, or refining the customer experience, a customer-centric approach ensures that every decision is guided by a relentless commitment to providing value to the customer.

At the heart of customer-centricity lies a commitment to understanding and empathizing with customers on a fundamental level. This means going beyond surface-level demographics and transactional data to truly grasp the motivations, aspirations, and challenges that drive customer behavior. While these principles can easily be associated with smaller businesses where employees work directly with customers on a daily basis, the reality is that they are equally relevant to large corporations. No matter the size of your business, if you can successfully put your customers first, the potential for business growth is limitless. 

Creating Customer-Centric Strategies in a Digital World

While customer-centricity is a foundational aspect of your business culture with applications ranging from product development to customer service, it’s important to note that this people-first way of thinking should also extend to your digital presence.

By combining intuition, common sense, and customer data to inform strategies, businesses can adapt their marketing efforts to resonate with their target audience. It’s crucial to avoid negative experiences by focusing on providing positive interactions and steering clear of tactics that may annoy or frustrate customers, even if they yield short-term gains. 

Delivering exceptional experiences across all touchpoints is paramount. Improving usability, investing in marketing that adds value to customers’ lives, and prioritizing quality customer support are vital components of this strategy. By focusing on providing real value and aiming to delight customers at every stage of the sales funnel, businesses can create promoters of their brand, not just paying customers. 

Getting to Know Your Audience

To develop a customer-centric digital marketing strategy, start by getting to know your customers. Conduct market research to dig deep into your target audience’s preferences, behaviors, and challenges using surveys, interviews, or data analysis. Understanding these insights will serve as the basis for your marketing messaging and campaign initiatives by allowing you to pinpoint areas where your company can provide meaningful solutions. 

A digital marketing strategy that truly puts customers first communicates with them in a way that makes them feel understood when, where, and how they will be most receptive to it. This means understanding what platforms your customers are likely to engage with and making sure that you’re showing up consistently and effectively, whether it’s on social media, email, search engines, or anywhere else in the digital world, ensuring that your messaging resonates at every touchpoint. 

The Marketing Funnel

Effectively creating a customer-centric marketing strategy requires an understanding of the complete marketing funnel. The marketing funnel represents each step of the customer journey, from before they’re even aware of your brand to purchasing and becoming a loyal brand fanatic. By understanding each stage, you can meet customers where they are, providing the information they’re looking for at the exact right moment.

Take a customer in the awareness phase, for example; they’re just discovering your brand but don’t know much about your products or services. At this stage, you’ll have better luck capturing their attention through informational blogs, a partnership with their favorite influencer, or engaging social media ads than you would with email campaigns they need to be subscribed to. Then, as they learn more about your brand, they move through awareness to the consideration phase, and personalized email sequences can help nurture their growing interest. As a customer navigates each step of the marketing funnel, the information they’ll be interested in will change, as will the places they go to find that information. 

In a customer-centric environment, consider your marketing strategy like a guide, helping customers find the right path. By deeply understanding your audience and how they interact at each step, you can create a strategy that leads customers from awareness to decision and purchase with confidence that they are making the right choice to fit their needs. 

10 Steps to Building a Customer-Centric Digital Marketing Strategy

Adopting a customer-centric approach in today’s digitally driven world can help businesses stand out in the sea of advertisements, information, and choices consumers face every day. By applying these principles, companies can improve their digital marketing efforts, fostering stronger customer connections and driving sustainable growth. Below are 10 steps you can take to build an effective and customer-focused digital marketing strategy:

Understand Your Audience 

Listen to what your customers have to say, carefully study customer reviews and customer service interactions, and conduct thorough research to truly understand your audience’s desires, preferences, and behaviors. 

Define Clear Goals

Set goals for each marketing platform that align with overall business objectives. Make sure those goals are specific, measurable, and achievable so you can clearly measure the success of your marketing initiatives.

Map the Customer Journey

Identify each touchpoint and stage of the customer journey, from awareness to brand loyalty, and tailor your marketing efforts to meet customers where they are at every step along the way. Whether it’s captivating attention during the awareness phase or nurturing loyalty post-purchase, understanding and empathizing with your audience throughout the customer journey helps to build strong relationships, increase engagement, and boost conversion rates.

Create Compelling Content

Make sure that each piece of content you’re sending out into the world is high-quality, relevant, and engaging. Content should align with your brand and speak directly to the needs and interests of your audience. From informative blog posts to engaging videos or interactive guides, providing valuable content helps build trust, establish authority, and encourage ongoing engagement.

Optimize for Search Engines

Implement SEO best practices to ensure that when a user searches for information about your brand, product, or service, your content shows up at the top of the search engine results. By optimizing your website for search, you can increase visibility and make your content more accessible to potential customers actively looking for relevant information or solutions.

Utilize Social Media

By effectively leveraging social media channels, businesses can expand their reach, interact with customers in real-time, and build brand awareness. From partnering with influencers and sharing informative posts to running targeted ad campaigns, social media offers a unique opportunity to humanize your brand, cultivate community, and drive engagement.

Embrace Omnichannel Marketing

Embracing a holistic marketing approach ensures a seamless and consistent experience for customers across all channels and devices. By optimizing for search engines, leveraging paid ads, engaging on social media platforms, and communicating directly with customers through email, you can meet customers wherever they are in their journey. 

Personalize Communications

Personalization can be an effective way to show customers that your business is invested in providing them with a positive experience on an individual level. Personalized email campaigns, targeted advertising, dynamic website content, and tailored product recommendations create meaningful connections with customers, enhancing their overall experience and helping connect them with the products or services they’re looking for.

Leverage Data Analytics

Data analytics tools provide valuable information about both customer behavior and marketing performance, including key metrics such as website traffic, engagement, conversion rates, and more. By keeping a close eye on these metrics, you can make informed decisions and identify opportunities to optimize your marketing strategy, leading to enhanced campaign efficiency and improved customer experience. 

Constantly Iterate & Improve

Regularly reviewing and refining your digital marketing strategy is essential to staying relevant and driving business growth. By analyzing performance metrics, gathering customer feedback, and monitoring industry trends, you can identify opportunities for optimization across marketing channels. Whether you’re making adjustments to campaign targeting, refining your messaging, or experimenting with new platforms, continuous innovation and improvement ensure the long-term success of your digital marketing efforts.

Implementing a customer-centric digital marketing strategy comes with its fair share of challenges, but if done effectively, it can lead to a seamless and positive customer experience from the moment they see your ad for the first time all the way through to the final purchase. By employing a holistic approach and considering the entire customer experience, business leaders can identify areas for improvement and deliver exceptional experiences that lead to long-term customer relationships. 

Conclusion

In the ever-evolving world of marketing, one thing remains consistent: business is about people. Whether you’re running a mom-and-pop shop or steering a corporate enterprise, success hinges on understanding and treasuring your customers. By putting customers at the center of operations and decision-making processes, you can better understand their challenges, needs, and preferences. This understanding leads to innovation, improved products and services, and marketing strategies that build real connections.

If you’ve ever come across a company and thought, “Wow, they really get me,” that’s customer-centricity at work. By focusing on understanding customers, delivering value in every interaction, and cultivating proactive customer-centric leadership, businesses can position themselves for sustainable long-term growth.

What is Customer-Centricity & How Can You Use It? is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

What Are The Best Online Reputation Management Tools? 

The best online reputation management tools are:

• Detailed SEO
• YCS
• Filmot
• ChatGPT
• Yelp Improvement Calculator
• Google’s Spam Report
• Google Alerts

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management (ORM) is the process of monitoring and improving a business or individual’s online presence. The goal of reputation management is to fill the search engine results page (SERP) with positive content to give potential clients a great first impression. Reputation management also aims to help clients address and respond to negative feedback to improve business practices and resolve client issues. 

Check out our Ultimate Guide to Online Reputation Management to learn more.

Top 7 Tools For Online Reputation Management

Whether you’re an individual or part of a large corporation, managing your online reputation is no small feat. Luckily, there are some great tools online that can help you monitor and optimize your online presence more effectively. We’ve compiled a list of our top 7 online reputation management tools below. Oh—and they’re all free!

1. Detailed SEO

Detailed SEO is an reputation management extension that allows you to get a quick overview of several SEO elements on a page, including… 

When working on a business’ online reputation, it’s important to have all existing owned content optimized. This not only helps that content rank higher for your target keywords, but it also ensures that the user experience, content, and branding of the site are high-quality.

Using the Detailed SEO tool, you can look into ways to improve your website, such as updating the metadata, checking that all images have alt text, ensuring that the site is indexed, checking for broken links, and so much more. It will also help identify any bugs as well as areas for optimization, such as including your target keywords in the meta description.

2. YCS

Youtube Comment Search provides you with a quick way to search through hundreds of YouTube video comments. 

Social media management can be tedious, and while there are analytics already integrated into each social platform, they don’t help when it comes to non-tagged mentions. This becomes even harder when a video increases in popularity, leading to hundreds or even thousands of comments to sift through.

With this helpful YouTube plugin, you can easily search for mentions of your brand in the video’s comments and transcript. Not only will this aid in finding any negative mentions of your brand that need to be addressed, but it can also help you identify whether a vaguely titled video actually mentions your brand at all. 

3. Filmot

The Filmot tool allows you to search through both auto-generated and manual transcripts across hundreds of YouTube videos.

How do you find actual videos about your brand if it’s not directly mentioned in the title? YouTube search features are pretty good, but you can’t guarantee that every single mention of your brand will come up from an organic search.

This is why the Filmot startup was created. With this tool, you can search both YouTube titles and YouTube transcripts to find those sneaky mentions that you may have never seen otherwise. The tool searches through multiple languages and offers numerous filtering abilities to get as detailed as you’d like in your search. 

4. ChatGPT

OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool has many uses, from content creation to debugging complex lines of code. 

We have only scratched the surface of AI chatbots’ potential, but there are already plenty of great uses specific to ORM and SEO. The free version of ChatGPT can play a major role in streamlining business strategies, especially for small businesses or even one-man startups.

Use this tool to bounce business ideas off of or ask for advice on how to properly and professionally respond to negative customer feedback. Need alt text for a large number of photos? Ask ChatGPT to write it for you; it can analyze images. 

The tool is also helpful for coming up with engaging social media captions or ideas for social media posts in general. There are endless possibilities, so our biggest tip is to just play around, try asking the same question in different ways, and see where a tool like ChatGPT can take you! 

5. Yelp Improvement Calculator 

Go Fish Digital’s Yelp Improvement Calculator is a tool for identifying the number of new positive reviews needed to improve one’s overall star rating on Yelp. 

Yelp is arguably one of the trickiest review platforms to manage. From the ominous review filter to the no-soliciting rule, many businesses feel lost when they see low ratings for their Yelp page. Something we are often asked is, “How many positive reviews is it going to take to get an x star rating?” 

While it can be difficult to give a precise estimate, this tool can get you pretty close! Simply input the current number of reviews of each star rating,  your desired overall rating, and hit “Calculate.” 

Once you have a general idea of how many new 5-star reviews you’ll need, you can plan a more detailed marketing strategy and set milestones toward your review goal. The Yelp Calculator can also help you better understand how much weight each star rating holds in regard to the overall star rating. 

6. Google’s Spam Report 

Google’s Spam Report allows you to submit 1 or more URLs to report any spammy content you may come across.

When conducting an audit of your online reputation, it’s important to look at negative content ranking within the first three pages. Occasionally, spammy content such as random one-page sites, link farming sites, or low-quality news sites can rank for your target keywords, harming your overall reputation.

Using Google’s spam report tool, you can collect these URLs and report them as spam. After entering the URL and reasoning for reporting, you may get an additional set of questions (as pictured above) to help Google understand what exactly is spammy about the page. You can also put optional notes before submitting the form to include any other relevant information, such as the keyword that this page is ranking for. In combination with Google’s March 2024 algorithm update, you should be seeing less and less spammy content over time. 

7. Google’s Alerts

Google’s Alerts allows you to put in any keyword or keyphrase you’d like to track, then sends you periodic updates on any recent news, articles, or other activity related to that keyword in the SERPs.

Not everyone has the time to Google themselves or their business on a daily basis, especially if you own multiple businesses or have a wide range of target keywords you want to keep track of. Even if you do manually search, you may still miss an alert or get to it late.

That’s where Google’s Alerts come in. Using quotations, you can set up alerts for any and all keywords relevant to your business. This can include your business’s name, CEO, a specific product name, or really anything at all. Once set, Google will send you periodic alerts every time that keyword is mentioned in a new piece of content. This is especially helpful for any businesses that get mentioned in a lot of third-party news or blog content. You can also customize the alerts to get them the moment something is posted or have them aggregated into a once-a-week list of all mentions. You can even use it to keep track of your competitors as well!

Other Helpful Reputation Management Tools

Although these reputation management tools are not free, they can be very helpful for automated research, data analysis, and management.

• Keyhole – Monitor online mentions and chatter about your brand. Keyhole allows tracking for numerous social media sites, blogs, and more. Keyhole also applies an auto-generated sentiment to each mention, so you don’t have to manually review everything.
• Ahrefs – Conduct SEO research for keywords, link building, site audits, and more. Ahrefs also offers educational resources for those wanting to dive into the world of SEO. This tool is also helpful for looking at the backlinks that currently exist for your owned content to ensure that they are quality and not lost. 
• ReviewPush – ReviewPush is a cloud-based tool that helps businesses monitor and manage their online reviews across various platforms. It provides features for review collection, analysis, management, and promotion, aiming to optimize customer feedback and enhance online reputation.

Effectively managing your online reputation takes a lot of time and effort, but in today’s digital age, it’s a crucial and worthwhile investment. Using these online reputation management tools can give you a closer look at your overall reputation and help you be prepared if your business receives any negative press. 

At Go Fish Digital, we’ve developed custom tools to help automate SERP results tracking, reviews management, and more. We’ve also got a team of experts who know how to handle everything from proactive ORM to crisis management. If you’re interested in getting to know more about our online reputation management services, contact us today! 

The Best 7 Online Reputation Management Tools for 2024 is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

What is AI?

AI, or artificial intelligence, is transforming the landscape of content creation and social media marketing with tools like ChatGPT leading the charge. These tools have changed the game, making it possible to not just come up with content ideas, but to also create entire posts that capture a company’s unique style. With the arrival of ChatGPT4o and custom versions of GPT, AI’s role has expanded. Now, it can develop a company’s voice, and handle much of the content creation process, showing off its ability to adapt and be creative. 

The Benefits of Creating GPTS for Social Media 

Utilizing ChatGPT 4 to generate GPTs is reshaping content creation, elevating both efficiency and creativity to new heights. This cutting-edge tool is a game-changer that ensures a seamless blend of clarity and consistency in a brand’s voice. 

ChatGPT 4 boosts copywriting productivity by streamlining the creation process, enabling content to be developed more swiftly and effectively. It’s also helpful for coming up with new ideas, checking grammar, and keeping content fresh and interesting. This tool doesn’t just help your brand sound better; thanks to its creativity and flexibility, it changes the way stories are told online.

How to create custom GPTs for Social Media

Creating custom GPTs with ChatGPT 4 involves a few steps that ensure your AI model is tailored to meet your specific content creation needs and the voice of the company. Here’s a guide to help you get started:

Preparation

Begin with a detailed instructions document. Outline what the GPT should achieve, its goals, and its intended applications. This could range from generating blog posts to crafting social media content. 

When preparing the GPT, you need to feed it as much information as possible. You are going to tell it what company it is working for, what its role in the company is, and what it is trying to accomplish. It is also beneficial to include information about the company and its mission statement. This helps the GPT build an identity and differentiates it from a standard ChatGPT conversation. 

When giving ChatGPT background information, it is best to break everything down into clear and concise bullet points. For example: 

• “You are a Social Media Manager at Go Fish Digital.” 
• “Go Fish Digital is a Digital Marketing Agency that takes a data-first approach to drive their marketing strategies.” 
• “You will be developing organic social media content for their Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.” 

Instructions

Define the characteristics of your posts in the instructions section of your GPT. Specify the length, tone of voice, and whether to include elements like emojis. These details will guide the AI to produce content that aligns with your brand’s voice and content strategy. 

When providing instructions to ChatGPT, you should make your wording clear and easy to follow. Here are some examples of instructions and wording you can provide (specific wording depends on the GPT you would like to build): 

• “Keep posts in a ____ tone of voice.”
• “If there is a lot of information given to you, use it to your advantage and make an extremely detailed LinkedIn post.”
• “There is no restriction to the length and detail of a LinkedIn post for you to create.” 
• “For Twitter, keep the posts under 280 characters, and keep posts in a _____ tone of voice.”

Detailing

For more nuanced control over the content, elaborate these instructions in a comprehensive document. This could include examples of desired writing styles, target audience insights, and thematic preferences. The details are going to fine-tune the output that you are going to receive. The more details you put in your instructions, the better the copy is going to sound. If you can add a couple more adjectives to those writing styles, it will help make the output sound more in line with your company. 

Here are some examples of writing styles that I have used when developing GPTs:

• “Professional” 
• “Write in a professional tone of voice for a ____ company who sells their products to ____.”
• “Conversational”
• “Playful” 

Integration

Upload your detailed document into the AI’s knowledge base. This step is crucial as it enables ChatGPT 4 to assimilate this information, ensuring the content it generates resonates with your brand’s identity and content goals. 

You can upload this information into the knowledge base in a couple of ways. You can upload the document directly, either as a Word Document or PDF. Alternatively, you can write or copy and paste your instructions directly into ChatGPT.

Application

Utilize the custom GPT to draft a content calendar for the month or to create individual posts. The GPT can be used by either directly writing information down or uploading a spreadsheet with post ideas. The AI can generate a skeleton of your content strategy, providing a structure that you can refine and finalize.

When asking the GPT to create posts, you can approach this in a few ways. 

• Asking the GPT through the chat feature. You can ask the GPT to generate you a post about a specific topic, and because it is fine-tuned to your liking, the post should meet your needs. You can then become more specific with ChatGPT to edit the output into something ready to post. 
• Alternatively, you can also create a large amount of content in Excel or Google Sheets. You would then download this information as a CSV file and upload it into your custom GPT. This method will cause your GPT to feed you a large amount of outputs at the same time. 

Here is an example of what that setup would look like: 

Lessons Learned

When working with AI and ChatGPT for creating content, it’s important to stay patient and expect some initial trial and error. This process is a learning curve for both the AI and the user, especially as you refine your GPT to get it just right. Keep in mind that it’s unlikely to be perfect on the first go. 

Even when you’ve tailored the GPT to suit your needs closely, it’s crucial to review its output and tweak it as needed. Typically, a well-adjusted GPT generates content that’s about 80-90% there, with the final touches needing a human’s input. This approach ensures the content not only aligns with your vision but also maintains a quality that resonates with your audience.

The Role of AI and Machine Learning in Social Media Marketing is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Mobile-first indexing is a practice adopted by search engines like Google to primarily use the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking in search results. 

In the past, Google primarily indexed and ranked websites based on the desktop version. However, as mobile usage surpassed desktop usage, Google shifted its focus to prioritize mobile content. With mobile-first indexing, Google’s bots crawl and index the mobile version of a website first. 

Site owners should be aware of the potential impact mobile-first indexing has on a website and the best practices to ensure a website meets the best standards for a mobile experience.

A Short History of Mobile-First Indexing

Google has implemented a sequence of updates since November 2016 to enhance search results’ relevance by focusing on mobile user experiences. Check the Google Search Console Blog to keep up with further developments in mobile indexing. 

• November 2016: Google first announced mobile-first indexing, signaling a significant shift in how the search engine would prioritize mobile content for indexing and ranking.
• March 2018: Google commenced the gradual rollout of mobile-first indexing, marking the beginning of prioritizing mobile versions of websites over desktop versions for indexing and ranking.
• July 2019: Google made mobile-first indexing the default approach for new websites, emphasizing the importance of mobile-friendly design and content presentation from the outset.
• September 2020: Google announced the full implementation of mobile-first indexing across all websites, underscoring the critical importance of optimizing websites for mobile devices to maintain visibility and competitiveness in search results.

Does Mobile-First Indexing Affect My Rankings?

Yes, mobile-first indexing can affect the ranking of a website. Google states that “Google predominantly uses the mobile version of a site’s content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking. “ 

Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites because of the increasing number of users accessing the internet via mobile devices. So, having a mobile-friendly website is crucial for maintaining or improving search engine rankings, especially considering Google’s mobile-first indexing approach. 

If a website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, it may experience lower rankings, decreased visibility, and potentially reduced traffic from search engines.

Best Practices For Mobile-First Indexing 

Here are some best practices for mobile-first indexing to enhance user experience and search engine visibility.

Ensure Your Content is Mobile-Friendly and Responsive 

For a seamless experience across mobile and desktop platforms, it’s essential to ensure a responsive design that caters to both users and search engines. Key aspects of responsive mobile design include adaptability to various screen sizes, orientations, and devices.

Furthermore, mobile versions of pages should include:

• Consistent on-page information between mobile and desktop versions.
• Clearly defined HTML headers (H1, H2, etc.).
• Structured data for meta information.

Check if You Are Blocking Mobile Resources

For Google to index content from a website, it must request to crawl a website. According to Google, “A page is indexed by Google if it has been visited by the Google crawler (“Googlebot”), analyzed for content and meaning, and stored in the Google index. “  

A Robots.txt File instructs search engines, guiding crawlers like GoogleBot when they navigate your site. It allows you to advise GoogleBot against crawling specific pages or resources.

However, issues can arise if you use a robots.txt file or a meta tag to block crucial mobile resources.

For example, the code below in a robots.txt file would block mobile resources from search engines. 

Another mistake is adding meta tags on a page preventing Google from crawling your webpage. 

If you intend to use meta tags to prevent Google from crawling a page, make sure that tags like “nofollow” and “noindex” are applied consistently across both mobile and desktop versions of the page.

Optimize Images and Other Media for Mobile & Desktop

Images come in vastly different sizes, therefore, image SEO can be troublesome, especially on mobile devices. Ensuring that images are appropriately sized and compressed can significantly improve page load times and overall user experience on mobile devices. 

• Use High-Quality Images: High-quality images enhance the visual appeal of your website and convey professionalism to your audience.
• Don’t Use Unsupported Image Formats: Avoid using image formats that may not be compatible with all browsers or devices to ensure a consistent viewing experience for all users.
• Don’t Use URLs that change as the Page Loads: Stable URLs prevent disruption in loading images and maintain a smooth browsing experience for users as they navigate your site.
• Ensure that the Alt Text is consistent across Mobile and Desktop: Consistent alt text ensures that users, regardless of their device, receive accurate descriptions of images, aiding accessibility and search engine optimization.
• Use Similar titles, captions, and file names across Mobile and Desktop: Consistency in titles, captions, and filenames facilitates seamless navigation and helps users easily identify and understand the content across different devices.

4 Free Mobile-First Indexing Auditing Tools

Here are several cost-effective methods you can use to audit web pages and determine whether they adhere to best practices for mobile-first indexing.

Google Search Console

The most efficient method to determine whether your content is being crawled by Google SmartPhone is by utilizing the Google Search Console Inspection Tool to open a URL.

To determine if Google is crawling your website with Google Smartphone, do the following: 

• Open Google Search Console and Add a URL in the Top Search Bar

• Click on the Dropdown Arrow To the Right of “Page is Indexed.”

• Scroll down to the section that says “Crawl” to view “Crawled as”

Rich Results Test

Google’s Rich Results serves as a valuable tool as it provides insights into how Google interacts with your content. More importantly, it can be used to see how Google views the content of competitors. 

To gain insights into how Google perceives your mobile content using the Rich Results Test, Add a URL in the “Enter a URL to test field. 

Once the test is run, you can explore different aspects of the Rich Results test, including:

• A screenshot of how Google views the Mobile content
• Detected Structured Data 
• Whether indexing is allowed
• Options to view the Desktop Version of a Rich Results Test

Main Rich Results Test Page

Additional Information about Crawling and Indexing

Options for Smartphone and Desktop

Chrome Developer Tools

At first glance, Chrome Developer Tools can appear too technical or overwhelming, but it’s one of the most useful tools for seeing how your website looks on different mobile devices. Chrome Developer Tools is a comprehensive suite of web development and debugging tools that also offer valuable assistance in identifying issues specific to mobile devices.

For example, one of the audits you can run in Google Developer Console is how your page looks on different mobile devices. In the drop-down menu in the top left it includes devices like iPhones, Surface Pros, and a range of other devices to choose from.

PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights is a powerful tool for not only auditing page speed but also auditing the overall page experience for users. It evaluates both mobile and desktop versions of websites, offering insights into various aspects affecting performance, such as server response times, render-blocking resources, image optimization, and browser caching. 

For example, we ran a mobile PageSpeed test for the Best Buy Computer and Tablets page. Once run, Google provides four different scores to access the performance and experience of mobile and desktop sites. 

Based on the audit, there is room for improvement to improve the page performance of the Computers and Tablets page ranging from javascript issues, render-blocking resources, and not properly sizing images. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, mobile-first indexing represents a significant shift in how search engines prioritize website content, with Google leading the charge by focusing primarily on mobile versions for indexing and ranking. As the dominance of mobile usage continues to rise, understanding and adhering to mobile-first best practices become imperative for website owners. 

By implementing strategies like responsive design, optimizing images and media, and ensuring consistent metadata, site owners can enhance both user experience and search engine visibility. 

Leveraging free and authoritative tools such as Google Search Console, Rich Results Test, Chrome Developer Tools, and PageSpeed Insights can provide invaluable insights into website performance and optimization. Keeping pace with these advancements and best practices is crucial to maintaining competitiveness and visibility in today’s digital landscape.

A Guide To Mobile-First Indexing is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

In a world where online presence is crucial, leveraging social media is not merely an option but a necessity for businesses aiming to remain relevant and connect with their target audience. It is best to not only post consistently on your platforms but also to share a variety of content. By posting diverse content, your company can build its brand identity, address different objectives, diversify the audience, and extend user engagement. 

We recommend focusing on four types of content. If you can vary your content among these 4 categories, your brand will remain dynamic, interesting, and relevant in the eyes of your followers. The four types of content are: 

1. Educational Content
2. Inspirational Content
3. Conversion-focused Content
4. Entertaining Content

Below, we’ll dive into each content type to share with you exactly what this type of content looks like and share an example of each from our own social media profiles. 

Educational Content

Educational content on social media goes beyond merely promoting a  brand; it teaches, informs, and adds value to the audience. This specialized content spreads information and delivers a brand’s tailored expertise to its audience. Thought leadership is a great example of educational content. Thought leadership involves establishing oneself or a brand as an authority and innovator in a particular industry. 

Examples of educational content on social media:

• How-to or step-by-step guides
• Tools and resources
• Sharing a process 
• Thought leadership

Crafting compelling educational content relies on a strong understanding of your organization’s identity and specific industry. Defining clear objectives for your posts helps organize your topics and ensures a focused and effective message. 

It is crucial to stay up-to-date with current industry trends and incorporate timely information into your social media posts to remain relevant and engaging. Proactively link content to relevant events, discussions, and industry trends. This keeps your brand at the forefront and establishes credibility. Paying attention to the feedback you receive is crucial. Use this input to refine and tailor your educational content for future posts.

Every week, we share a clip from our 60-second SEO series by Chris Long, our VP of Marketing at Go Fish Digital. These concise yet informative clips provide a comprehensive rundown of tips, tricks, and real-world examples. Regularly sharing these insights allows our followers to consistently access valuable information. As a reliable educational source, our followers can confidently count on us. Some may even follow us for these clips primarily.

Inspirational Content

Inspirational content aims to encourage your audience in a way that they feel inspired and that they can achieve their goals. It establishes a distinct voice for your brand and fosters meaningful connections with your audience.

Examples of inspirational content on social media:

• Success stories and milestones
• Employee spotlights and achievements
• Quotes and motivational messages aligned with brand values

Techniques for evoking emotions and building a positive brand image:

• Storytelling: Share authentic and compelling stories about your brand, employees, or customers. Personal narratives can create strong emotional connections. 
• Engagement and Interaction: Respond promptly to comments, messages, and mentions. Engaging in conversations shows that your brand is approachable and values its audience. You may also run polls, create quizzes, and ask open-ended questions to encourage participation and communication.
• Empathy and Social Issues: Show empathy by acknowledging challenges or social issues your audience faces. Position your brand as a supportive ally if it aligns with your brand’s values.

Every month, we showcase our Digital PR team’s outstanding coverage for clients in our ‘Catch of the Month’ post. These posts resonate with our audience, driving engagement and shining a spotlight to promote the impactful work of our digital PR team. 

Every month, we feature individuals from our team in our ‘Employee Spotlight Series.’ These spotlights offer a glimpse into the diverse talents and achievements of our dedicated staff. It’s a celebration of the unique skills, passion, and contributions each team member brings to the table.

Entertaining Content

Social media is a fast-paced environment that revolves around capturing and retaining the user’s attention. Curating tailored content to entertain your audience is the most effective way to maintain their interest. From eye-catching visuals to witty memes and interactive videos, make sure you explore diverse content types that will capture their attention and foster a meaningful connection.

Examples of entertaining content on social media:

• Memes and humor related to the industry
• Behind-the-scenes bloopers or funny anecdotes
• Interactive content such as quizzes and polls
• Reels on social media

Incorporate humor into your content when appropriate if it fits your brand’s tone & voice. Humorous content tends to be shareable and can create a positive association with your brand. Be mindful of cultural sensitivities and ensure that humor aligns with your brand’s tone. Overall, it is crucial to make sure that you are balancing entertaining content with brand messages and values.

This post showcases some behind-the-scenes of our team holiday event. By sharing these glimpses of our team outside of work, we aim to give a first-hand look at how we come together after hours.

Conversion-focused Content

While the previous social media content focused on building a brand identity and fostering connections with your audience, conversion content serves a different purpose. It involves strategically persuading your audience to take specific actions that align with your business goals. The beauty of conversion-focused content lies in integrating your brand voice while directly promoting your company.

Conversion content is your opportunity to guide your audience towards desired actions—whether it’s encouraging them to shop during a sale, follow your social media pages, or share their experiences through a Google review. As you plan your social content calendar, look ahead to upcoming promotions, sales, or events. These events will allow you to create timely, relevant content that drives conversions and will ultimately contribute to the overall success of your business.

Examples:

• Limited-time offers and promotions
• Product/service highlights with clear calls to action
• Customer testimonials and reviews

Conversion-focused content encourages your audience to take specific actions, such as signing up, making a purchase, following your page, or reading an article. Incorporating calls to action in your posts is an effective strategy for guiding your audience toward the desired action. Don’t hesitate to communicate what you want your audience to do.

In Go Fish Digital’s case, while we may not have tangible products, we aim to promote and sell our services. This example post is encouraging users to tune into our LinkedIn Live and learn more about industry insights. Companies should showcase their services or products in a way that aligns with their brand identity.

Conclusion

On social media platforms where attention spans and trends are fleeting and impermanent, it’s crucial to serve your audience a diverse range of content. Educational, inspirational, entertaining, and conversion-focused content are excellent ways to engage with your audience in distinct ways.

These types of content help establish your brand voice and the image you are trying to convey. When scheduling your content throughout the month, shake up the types of content you post to ensure a balanced and engaging mix.

Overall, a dynamic and diverse approach to content is not just nice to have; it’s necessary for any brand looking to thrive in the crowded digital space. Experimenting with these different types of content is the key to reaching a broader audience.

4 Essential Types of Social Media Content for Companies is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

This blog is your go-to strategy to get the most out of LinkedIn’s follower credits. 

How do Invitation Credits Work? 

Admins of the page have the ability to send out invites for connections to follow the LinkedIn page. Before you start, it’s important to review the list of page admins to ensure that the list looks accurate and that all users have the appropriate access level. 

Usually, members of the social or marketing team will be the ones with access to the LinkedIn page, but we still recommend looking outside of just your marketing team to leadership, sales, product, HR, Customer Success and anyone with a strong LinkedIn network. From this list, we recommend that each month you pick two people to grant admin access to. Provide them with instructions (you can copy ours below) and let them know that they will each have 125 invites to send out for the month. LinkedIn offers a total of 250 credits to work with each month. 

Keep track of who you provide access to each month, and rotate out Admin privileges regularly. 

How are Invitation Credits Used and Earned?

• Every invitation sent out uses one credit.
• If the invitation is accepted, the credit that was used is earned back into the account’s total balance.
• If the invitation is rejected, the credit is not returned into the account’s balance.

How to Invite Connections to Your Page

Below are step-by-step instructions on how to invite your connections. You can send this to your Admins.

Our recommendation is that you do this on desktop view. You’re able to send out invites on the LinkedIn mobile app, but you won’t be able to see the “Location” filter.

1. Check that you are currently logged into your company’s page as an Admin. 
2. Go into the “Invite Connections to Follow” folder and click on “Invite Connections.”
3. If you are working with multiple admins (we suggest two), recommend they each send out half (or the correct percentage) of the remaining credits.
4. You can then manually search up connections by their name, check the box next to them, and then click on the blue INVITE button. 
5. You can also use the filters provided by Linkedin to sort connections by location, current company, school, and/or industry. This can be helpful to filter out your audience and you can filter based on your current ad campaigns. 
6. If you see “invited” next to a person’s name, they are already following your page or an invite has been sent to them. There’s no way to tell if they accepted or declined the invite, but you can check your page followers in the analytics dropdown.

Who to Invite to Your Page 

Since you have a limited number of invite credits each month, you want to make sure you’re sending them out to people who will actually be interested in your business. Firstly, make sure that you invite people that you know are active on LinkedIn, you wouldn’t want your invite to never be seen. It’s also much more effective to invite people who have heard of your company’s name and if they have invited you to join their page as well. Here are some more examples of who you should send invites to:

• People who you’ve had a memorable conversation with in the past 
• Potential candidates throughout the interview process
• Clients that you are currently doing business with
• Past clients 
• Prospects after a discovery call or during the proposal process
• Your top referral partners 

Use Your Credits

Remember at the start of every month, your account receives 250 credits. It doesn’t stack onto the remaining credits from the previous month, which means it’s important to use them all up! We recommend that you start sending out invites as soon as you receive new credits for the month, but if you are in a position where you have some left on the last day, it’s important to send them out. Every credit used is a chance to gain a new follower, which helps your account grow! Because you get credits back every time an invitation is accepted, we recommend you check your balance every week in case there are new ones to use. 

Conclusion

We hope this article helped you learn how to use the tools provided by LinkedIn to grow your account and your company’s presence on social media more effectively. We also hope the strategies laid out will help simplify the process and make it less stressful for your employees. Inviting the right people will help your page grow much quicker. Good luck with growing your LinkedIn page and use your credits wisely!

LinkedIn Follower Credit Strategy: How to Grow Your LinkedIn Page Effectively is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Transcription:

Hi, I’m Chris Long with Go Fish Digital, and welcome to another episode of “60 Second SEO”.

Today, we’re going to talk about Load More buttons and their implications on SEO.

Here I’m on the LA Times website, their business section. If I scroll all the way down to the bottom here, I can see that users are presented with the Load More button. So users will generally click this to load more content.

However, the implication here is this that Google actually won’t be able to crawl through this individual button. If I right click and click Inspect, I can see that it’s just formatted as a button. Right here, there is no actual page link presented, it is just a button element. That means Google can’t crawl through and see the content beneath it.

So here I’m going to click it. A user will be able to click this. But here, if I search for “Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers”, I go to the Rich Results test that really gives us an idea of how Google is rendering a page and then run that headline through. Google isn’t able to find any content related to that.

So if you’re using a Load More button, this is something that you’ll want to be aware of, is that users will be able to see the next set of content, but crawlers like Google won’t. And if you want to set that up, you need to actually have a site structure that is more conducive toward either infinite scroll or ensuring that actual href URLs appear in your Load More button. Users will be able to see the next set of content. Search engines like Google will not be able to.

The SEO Impact Of Load More Buttons is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

At Go Fish, we build links by producing creative content campaigns –– data-rich, newsworthy content that tells a compelling story and that journalists will want to link back to. Many refer to this approach as digital PR.

Digital PR campaigns can come in the form of data studies, surveys, rankings, contests, illustrations, and quizzes, among a slew of other formats. 

These types of link building campaigns have never been more competitive across industries, and the real estate + home sector is no exception. In this blog, we’ll focus specifically on link building in the home and real estate niche, providing link builders with a quick guide to producing successful digital PR campaigns in this space. 

The Best Data Sources & Formats for Home & Real Estate Content

The Fastest-Selling Home Styles in Every State, The Most Gentrified Cities Around the U.S., The Dream Kitchen Survey, and the Game of Thrones House Sorting Quiz are all strong examples of digital PR campaign ideas, from past and present, within the home and real estate space. But how can link builders come up with these ideas? 

Sometimes the ideas spark from a timely or trending event in the news (like a recession or Barbiecore). Sometimes we have a lightbulb moment. But more often than not, ideas spark from a data source –– one that’s either existing or created. Let’s take a look at some of the best sources for both types of data within the home and real estate industries.

Existing Data Sources

Real Estate Marketplaces: Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Apartments.com

Zillow’s research hub has a whole host of housing, time-series data by specific geographies (state, city, zip) from median home values and rent prices to median days on the market and inventory data. Zillow also has several APIs for users who want to dive deeper into real estate metrics like home value forecasts, Zestimates, and neighborhood data.

Government Agencies: U.S. Census, Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) 

The Census is a real estate link builder’s dream with data tables you can filter for various home and housing metrics, from property taxes and homeowner characteristics to migration patterns and homeownership rates (diced down by every demographic you can think of). Again, most of the datasets can be analyzed both nationally and locally (by state, county, MSA, and more) –– a huge plus for local media outreach when promoting a digital PR campaign.

Trade Associations: National Association of Realtors (NAR), National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)

Trade associations like the NAR store current real estate market insights on both a residential and commercial level. Housing affordability indices, commercial real estate transactions, and gentrification insights, among hundreds of other indicators, are at the link builder’s disposal on the NAR’s research and statistics page. 

Created Data Sources

Web Scraping: From sites like Airbnb, Google Trends, Yelp, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Zillow, and Redfin

As link builders, we can’t sleep on scraping websites for new data that will help us tell a story. Analyzing TikTok views, pulling search data from Google Trends, or scraping Airbnb listings are all methods for creating a new dataset that will help with:

• Gauging popularity

• Detecting trends

• Uncovering new information

Past campaign performance data shows that 78% of campaigns that use created or scraped data earn organic media coverage, and the average DA of these campaigns’ referring domains is 59 –– considerably higher than average.

AI Tools: ChatGPT, DALL·E 2, Midjourney

It’s no secret that AI is changing the game for content marketing, and digital PR campaigns are no exception. Content marketers can build links within the home and real estate spaces using AI-driven content generation tools like Midjourney or DALL·E 2. These tools produce unique artwork, illustrations, or designs based on specific prompts. 

This format is quite a departure from the data journalism approach mentioned above, but can be just as effective given the right topic! Here are a few AI image campaigns in the home space that we’ve got major crushes on:

Here’s what Barbie’s dreamhouse would look like in every state: Sara Aspier used Midjourney to build a Barbie dreamhouse for each state, based on the state’s most common architectural style. 

AI imagines a typical home in every state: All Star Home tested Midjourney to generate an “idealistic” home in all 50 states and the 30 largest U.S. cities. 

Surveys

Some of the best created datasets continue to be proprietary survey insights. Using automated survey platforms, link builders within the home and real estate industries can launch anonymous polls about homebuying and homeowning topics for the purpose of yielding newsworthy statistics.

For example, we launched the “Zillow Obsession Survey” for a client within the contracting space, inspired by a viral, SNL skit about Zillow browsing. The survey produced head-turning insights such as “53% of respondents have looked up the value of their boss’s house on Zillow” and “49% of respondents would rather browse Zillow than have sex” which helped the campaign earn coverage from top outlets like House Beautiful, Business Insider, and HuffPost. 

Home + Real Estate Digital PR Campaign Examples

Now that you’re familiar with some of the best sources and formats for digital PR campaigns in home and real estate content, let’s look at some real-life campaign examples. 

The Most & Least Expensive Architectural Styles Around the U.S.

Many studies have been conducted about the most popular home architectural styles based on Google search data or quotes from industry experts. There are countless listicles on the subject in the search results, but to build quality links from top-tier news outlets, we need to provide unique value for the journalists we’re pitching to.

In this case that meant providing them with new and unique data that they don’t already have access to or don’t have time to pull themselves.

In “The Most Profitable Architectural Styles Around the U.S.” campaign, we used a web scraping tool to find the average home price and number of days on the market for different architectural styles (from Colonials to ranches) across thousands of Zillow home listings in 50 U.S. cities. The study told a compelling story about how certain architectural styles are more valuable than others depending on where you live. 

With fresh data, a sound methodology, and a strong local angle, this campaign was able to earn coverage from top business journals and local news outlets around the country. 

Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness in Cities Around the U.S.

For digital PR campaigns to build links organically, we often need to piggyback off of the news cycle or go where the reporters already are. In this case, that meant producing a campaign that could be tied back to unaffordable housing during a time when mortgage rates were through the roof, housing inventory looked dire, and rent prices continued to rise.

In the “Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness Around the U.S.” campaign, we used data from the Census and HUD to compare home vacancy rates to homelessness across America’s largest cities, highlighting the ongoing challenge to find affordable housing for both renters and buyers alike. 

A newsworthy angle, local insights, and a combination of authoritative data sources helped this campaign earn coverage from top real estate, local, and national news reporters.

Surveying Americans on Their Home Organization

In order to earn a high number of high-quality links, we also need to make sure our content is relevant to a wide audience of readers. “The Home Organization Survey” campaign is a shining example of wide relevance. We surveyed U.S. homeowners about their home organization systems, their biggest sources of clutter, and the messiest rooms in their COVID-era homes. 

Relaying unique insights around a highly relatable topic with broad appeal helped this campaign earn dozens of backlinks from top-tier home and lifestyle sites.

Wrap-Up

Let’s face it –– link building is hard in this day and age. More and more sites are vying for coverage across top media outlets. The competition is fierce, but hopefully, these strategies can help you produce campaigns that will stand out amidst the clamor of the digital PR world. 

Need help earning links? Get in touch with our team at Go Fish Digital to learn more about our approach to digital PR.

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital PR Campaigns in Home & Real Estate is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

My name is Jenna, and I’ve spent the last 402 days, 6 hours, 36 minutes, 13 seconds (and counting) as a copywriter, which makes me sort of qualified to teach you about copywriting — or at the very least explain how a senior copywriter spends her day. 

Go Fish Digital is based in Raleigh, NC, but I work remotely from Pennsylvania. Remote work allows me to work from anywhere — like Rome, Punta Cana, or the Alps of Switzerland, but I typically work from the setup in my dining room (boring, I know). 

Before I tell you about my work day, I wanted to give you a little background on how I landed this gig in the first place, especially for those of you considering this career in the future.

In 2017, I graduated from Susquehanna University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing and Publishing and Editing, and upon graduating, I took a job in graphic design. I worked in this field for about four years before switching to copywriting. I found an entry-level copywriting position at Go Fish, applied, and fast forward a few Google Meet calls later…and the rest is history. 

TL;DR: I went to college for writing. 

Now that you know a little bit more about how I got here, let’s get into the swing of things.

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A Copywriter’s 8 to 4

8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

• Brew coffee (priorities, am I right?)
• Log onto laptop
• Wrap up tasks from the day before
• Review article outlines
• Resolve any outstanding edits on client work
• Perform internal blog edits

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m

• Create outlines for authoritative content
• Perform keyword research
• Jump on a client call
• Work on PR or authoritative blogs

12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.: 

• Stretch my legs and go for a walk
• Eat lunch
• Enjoy the second cup of coffee of the day
• Continue current tasks or start a fresh one

2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.: 

• Log hours for each assignment
• Find a good place to wrap up current work
• Rearrange tasks in my project management software
• Create a list of priorities to work on the following day

Your Burning Copywriting Questions Answered

Whether you’ve just graduated from college and are looking to get your foot into the door with an internship in marketing or you want to go full send into a new career path, getting answers from a copywriter’s perspective can help you determine whether or not this job would be right for you.

What Type of Copywriting Projects Do You Work On?

In my current role as a Senior Copywriter, I tackle a variety of copywriting projects, including (but not limited to):

• Authoritative Content, i.e., “From the rolling hills of Ireland to the terraced farms of Peru, potatoes are grown all over the world.”
• Product Copy, i.e., “Potatoes have thin, brown skin and soft, luscious white flesh when fully cooked.”
• Contests, i.e., “Show us your most creative potato portrait for a chance to win a lifetime supply of our finest potatoes.”
• Website Content, i.e., “Click here to visit our potato hub.” 
• Digital PR Blogs, i.e., “Find out which state has the highest search interest for purple potatoes.”

And that’s just scraping the barrel. The truth is every day is slightly different, but if it requires words and a bit of creativity — I’m your go-to gal. 

On other days, I might edit a blog that’s about to be posted, shoot a question to a coworker on Google Chat, and maybe even take a peek at our company’s anything-but-work Slack Channel.

How Does AI Affect Your Job?

AI can be intimidating, but I don’t think it will put copywriters out of business anytime soon (we all know financial analysts will be the first to go). But in all seriousness, AI is a tool that I’m learning how to use to my advantage. By giving Chat GPT-specific prompts, proofing for plagiarism, and using innovative plugins, copywriters like me can use AI to refine their work. While some copywriters may feel Chat GPT could replace them in the future, mastering this tool can offer a competitive edge (and I should know; Chat GPT helped me to craft this last sentence).

Is Copywriting an Isolating Job?

Yes and no. Most aspects of copywriting (the part where you sit down and write) require you to be independently motivated to accomplish your assignments. There are definitely large chunks of my day (especially when I don’t have any meetings on the schedule) where it’s just me, my laptop, and the crazy squirrel that keeps trying to break in through my back door, but other days I have a bit more social interaction.

Most collaboration between my colleagues and I occurs during editing, where we discuss any changes needed. Go Fish Digital also emphasizes cultivating a positive work environment and has quarterly events, some of which are virtual, which allows me to attend. I’ve also flown into Raleigh to meet my team members in person, which has helped to bridge the remote divide. 

On other days, I may jump on a client call which gives me a chance to cultivate a working relationship with a client and get more comfortable speaking to them (shoutout to all my fellow introverts). 

When connecting with my coworkers, we tend to catch up via group chats, virtual meetings, or Slack whenever I need help on an assignment or want to talk through any big-picture changes or processes.

What Is it Like to Work at an Agency?

As an agency, Go Fish caters to clients in many different fields. Since my first day at Go Fish, I have written on topics ranging from air travel to welding to engagement rings and everything in between. I collaborate with talented team members to get link-building blogs published on sites like Delish, Forbes, and CNBC — with some campaigns securing dozens upon dozens of backlinks. 

As part of an agency, we seamlessly integrate into our client’s teams, aiding them in backlink acquisition, domain authority enhancement, content publication, website overhauls, and much more. While our core responsibilities remain consistent, the nuances shift with each new client and their unique objectives. It’s imperative to understand and emulate their brand voice, adhere to their style guidelines, and truly become an integral part of their team.

Is Copywriting a Fulfilling Career Path?

One of the reasons I love my job is that I get paid to write. For some, that’d be a nightmare, but for me, it means I can spread my creative wings, learn about new subjects, and create quality content for those late-night Googlers. 

I nerd out when I see an article I wrote rank in the top SERPs for a particular keyword or when a blog I helped craft gets a backlink from a popular website. I also love getting a behind-the-scenes view of campaign initiatives from conception to publication, expanding my marketing knowledge. 

Personally, I find copywriting to be fulfilling, and I think it’s a field where I’ve truly found my niche.

A Day in the Life of a Copywriter at a Data-First Digital Agency is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.